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

"I had humans once, too, later on," Blackie said bitterly. "They fed me and they
patted me -- and then they cut my balls off!"

Bangers hissed involuntarily, and many of the People blew their trails out to
several times their normal size.

"It could happen to you, too, young one!" Blackie said. "Don't you think it
couldn't! You think you're safe with your humans because they feed you and give
you a warm place to sleep, but you never know when they're going to turn on you
and torture[6] you. You'll never know why they do it, either, but sooner or
later, they will. They all will. None of them are any different!"

"They wait until you're sick," a burly tom named Hobbes said. "They wait until
you're feeling really bad, and then they take you to the Pain Place, to the
Torture Place, and they hurt you more --"

Another tom shuddered. "It's true! The humans there stick things up your ass!
And they stab you, with things that hurt! And they drain your blood out of you!"

"They cut you!" a queen named Jasmine said, her voice thrilling with horror.
"They cut you open! My humans took me there, to the Pain Place, with all its bad
smells and its sick smells and the sounds of the People screaming in agony while
dogs sit around and watch them, and they left me there, locked in a
Box-You-Can't-Get-Out-Of, and I went to sleep, and when I woke up, my belly had
been slashed open! I could feel the cut, deeper than a cut from any fight. It
hurt for a long time, even when my humans came and got me and took me back to
the lair again. It hurt for a long time!"

They were crouched close together now, almost touching their heads in a circle.

"They kill People there, too," Blackie said. "The humans kill them. And not just
the humans who live in-the Pain Place. Your precious humans. The very same ones
who live with you and give you Food. They kill you, themselves!"

There were a few wails of protest, and the People pressed closer together,
shuddering.

"I have seen it," Blackie continued inexorably. "When they cut my balls off, in
the Pain Place, before they took me back to the lair and I ran away, they
brought my lair-mate in, an old queen named Stuff who had lived with the humans
before I joined them. Our humans brought her in, and they held her down while
she fought to get away, both of them held her down, and then another human
stabbed her with a Pain Stick, and she struggled for a while, and then she died!
I could smell that she was dead! They'd killed her! Our humans! They held her
down and killed her -- and they patted her while they were doing it!"

Someone moaned with dread, and then fell silent.

"And that's what will happen to all of you! Every one of you! If a dog or a Fast
Dead Thing or some other kind of monster or demon doesn't get you, then, at the