"Greg Egan - Scatter My Ashes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Egan Greg)

Scatter My AshesScatter My Ashes by Greg Egan тАЬNeighbourhood WatchтАЭ |
тАЬScatter My AshesтАЭ | тАЬMind VampiresтАЭ Horror Stories Back to home page |
Site Map | Framed Site Map Every night, at exactly a quarter past three,
something dreadful happens on the street outside our bedroom window. We peek
through the curtains, yawning and shivering in the life-draining chill, and
then we clamber back beneath the blankets without exchanging a word, to hug
each other tightly and hope for sound sleep before it's time to rise. Usually
what we witness verges on the mundane. Drunken young men fighting, swaying
about with outstretched knives, cursing incoherently. Robbery, bashings,
rape. We wince to see such violence, but we can hardly be shocked or
surprised any more, and we're never tempted to intervene: it's always far too
cold, for a start! A single warm exhalation can coat the window pane with
mist, transforming the most stomach-wrenching assault into a safely cryptic
ballet for abstract blobs of light. On some nights, though, when the shadows
in the room are subtly wrong, when the familiar street looks like an
abandoned film set, or a painting of itself perversely come to life, we are
confronted by truly disturbing sights, oppressive apparitions which almost
make us doubt we're awake, or, if awake, sane. I can't catalogue these
visions, for most, mercifully, are blurred by morning, leaving only a vague
uneasiness and a reluctance to be alone even in the brightest sunshine. One
image, though, has never faded. In the middle of the road was a giant human
skull. How big was it? Big enough for a child, perhaps six or seven years
old, to stand trapped between the jaws, bracing them apart with outstretched
arms and legs, trembling with the effort but somehow, miraculously, keeping
the massive teeth from closing in. As we watched I felt, strange as it may
sound, inspired, uplifted, filled with hope by the sight of that tiny figure
holding out against the blind, brutal creature of evil. Wouldn't we all like
to think of innocence as a tangible force to be reckoned with? Despite all
evidence to the contrary. Then the four huge, blunt teeth against which the
child was straining began to reform, tapering to needle-fine points. A drop
of blood fell from the back of each upraised hand. I cried out something,
angry and horrified. But I didn't move. A gash appeared in the back of the
child's neck. Not a wound: a mouth, the child's new and special mouth,
violently writhing, stretched open ever wider by four sharp, slender fangs
growing in perfect mimicry of the larger fangs impaling the child's palms and
feet. The new mouth began to scream, at first a clumsy, choking sound, made
without a tongue, but then a torn, bloody scrap of flesh appeared in place,
the tongue of the old mouth uprooted and inverted, and the cries gave full
voice to an intensity of suffering and fear that threatened to melt the glass
of the window, sear away the walls of the room, and drag us into a pit of
darkness where one final scream would echo forever. When it was over, we
climbed into bed and snuggled up together. I dreamt that I found a jigsaw
puzzle, hidden in a dark, lost corner of the house. The pieces were in a
plain cardboard box, unaccompanied by any illustration of what the assembled
puzzle portrayed. Wendy laughed and told me not to waste my time, but I sat
frowning over it for an hour every evening, until after many weeks only a
handful of pieces remained unplaced. Somehow, even then, I didn't know what
the picture was, but as I lazily filled in the very last gap, I felt a sudden
overpowering conviction that whatever the jigsaw showed, I did not want to
see it. I woke a little before dawn. I kissed Wendy very softly, I gently