"Terry Dowling - Clownette" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dowling Terry)

have kept away!
But it was panic. What passed for it in my drugged, terrified state. I went reeling, fell at the wall, with
arms raised to stop myself.

But it wasn't there.



┬╖┬╖┬╖┬╖┬╖


Now everything is different, of course. Not just because it's the view I've never hadтАФlooking out from
the wall. It's because there are so many of us trapped in here, crowding behind, all in our turn, so needy,
so frantic to look out again. It's knowing that the next too-curious guest will force me back into that
darkness, that all the Clownette's guests checked outтАФjust as I had, some tricked-up version of
meтАФand that out there in the world a brand-new Bob Jackson was probably farewelling a brand-new
Gordon and whatever other bits of itself this dark place has managed to squeeze through.

I'm beyond the revulsion and panic, the rage and disbelief. It adjusts your mind. Now there's just the
numbness and despair, the agony of waiting. Feeling them crowding in behind, touching, snatching,
muttering.

At least now I know what the sensation was whenever I first opened the door to 516тАФall that's left of a
scream from a place where screams can no longer be heard.

Housemaid or guest, housemaid or guestтАФthat's all that matters now, knowing that the day will come
when Macklin's has a full house again and the scream is mine.


The End

┬й 2004 by Terry Dowling and SCIFI.COM