"Dozois Gardner - A Cat Horror Story" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dozois Gardner)

kill you even when they're asleep!"

"Nothing can kill you while it's asleep," Jefferson said.

Pooter bristled, then licked his foot in a slow and insulting way that might
have been provocation for a fight on another evening. "Yes? Well, I have seen
this. There was one of the People, her name was Lady Jane, and she went near one
of the Fast Dead Things at night, while it was sleeping. And she crawled inside
the top of the Thing, because the night was cold, and it was warm deep up inside
the Thing. And in the morning as I was watching a human came and made the Fast
Dead Thing swallow it, and then the Thing woke up." He shuddered. "It growled,
and then it roared, and then Lady Jane screamed, and I smelled the hot smell of
her blood. The human got out, and made the Thing open up its smaller mouth in
the front, and then he lifted Lady Jane out. And she was dead. Dead, and cut
into pieces! Her head was cut nearly all the way off, hanging by some fur!"

"Dead!" some of the People moaned. "Dead!"

A scarred old fetal tom named Blackie, who had one ear tom nearly to rags, said,
"You don't need Dead Things to kill you, young ones!" He lashed his tail and
made the clicking and smacking noise that signified deep contempt among the
People. "Humans will do the job readily enough! Yes, your precious humans, the
things you all live with, willingly! When I was a kitten, some humans put me in
a sack[4], and threw me in the river. Ai, the horror of it!" He shivered and
shook himself convulsively. "It was dark and hot and smothering, and I couldn't
breathe, and then I was falling, twisting and tumbling and falling, and there
was no air to breathe! My claws were sharp in those days, People, lucky for me,
and I ripped my way out. But then I was in the water! In the water! I was under
the water, with it all around me -- over my head! I had to swim, swim for my
life, and I nearly died before my head broke the surface and I could take a
breath, and then I had to swim for a long time before my feet found the ground
again, and all the while the water was pulling at me, sucking at me, trying to
pull me down to death!"

A low growl went around the circle of the People. Their eyes gleamed.

"My human goes in the water every day," a young queen named Spooky said. "On
purpose. She lets it go all over her! She doesn't try to escape at all!
Sometimes she sits under the water, with only her head outside it!"

The People moaned in horror. "At, they are strange creatures," Jefferson
muttered. "Strange!"

"But those were Rogues, those humans who tried to kill you," a young tom named
Bangers said, somewhat uneasily, as though seeking reassurance. "We've all been
chased and kicked by Rogues now and again, or had stones or Hard Clattering
Things thrown at us. That doesn't mean that our humans would hurt us. My humans
wouldn't hurt me. They like me! They feed me and pat[5] me whenever I want them
to!"