"Edward L. Ferman - Best From F&SF, 23rd Edition" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ferman Edward L)

I charged after him. My legs felt rubbery but I caught him at the street He didn't struggle. He just
stood there, his eyes vacant, trembling. I saw people sticking their heads out of doors and Johnny
Peacock coming toward me. My car was right there. I pushed Detweiler into it and drove away. He sat
hunched in the seat, his hands hanging limply, staring into space. He was trembling uncontrollably and his
teeth chattered.
I drove, not paying any attention to where I was going, almost as deeply in shock as he was. I finally
started looking at the street signs. I was on Mullholland. I kept going west for a long time, crossed the
San Diego Freeway, into the Santa Monica Mountains. The pavement ends a couple of miles past the
freeway, and there's ten or fifteen miles of dirt road before the pavement picks up again nearly to
Topanga. The road isn't traveled much, there are no houses on it, and people don't like to get their cars
dusty. I was about in the middle of the unpaved section when Detweiler seemed to calm down. I pulled
over to the side of the road and cut the engine. The San Fernando Valley was spread like a carpet of
lights below us. The ocean was on the other side of the mountains.
I sat and watched Detweiler. The trembling had stopped. He was asleep or unconscious. I reached
over and touched his arm. He stirred and clutched at my hand. I looked at his sleeping face and didn't
have the heart to pull my hand away.
The sun was poking over the mountains when he woke up. He roused and was momentarily unaware
of where he was; then memory flooded back. He turned to me. The pain and hysteria were gone from his
eyes. They were oddly peaceful.
"Did you hear him?" he said softly. "Did you hear him die?"
"Are you feeling better?"
"Yes. It's all over."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
His eyes dropped and he was silent for a moment "I want to tell you. But I don't know how without
you thinking I'm a monster."
I didn't say anything.
 "He . . . was my brother. We were twins. Siamese twins. All those people died so I could stay alive."
There was no emotion in his voice. He was detached, talking about someone else. "He kept me alive. I'll
die without him." His eyes met mine again. "He was insane, I think. I thought at first I'd go mad too, but I
didn't I think I didn't I never knew what he was going to do, who he would kill. I didn't want to know.
He was very clever. He always made it look like an accident or suicide when he could. I didn't interfere.
I didn't want to die. We had to have blood. He always did it so there was lots of blood, so no one would
miss what he took." His eyes were going empty again.
"Why did you need the blood?"
"We were never suspected before."
"Why did you need the blood?" I repeated.
"When we were bora," he said, and his eyes focused again, "we were joined at the back. But I grew
and he didn't. He stayed little bitty, like a baby riding around on my back. People didn't like me ... us,
they were afraid. My father and mother too. The old witch-woman I told you about, she birthed us. She
seemed always to be hanging around. When I was eight, my parents died in a fire. I think the
witch-woman did it. After that I lived with her. She was demented, but she knew medicine and healing.
When we were fifteen she decided to separate us. I don't know why. I think she wanted him without me.
I'm sure she thought he was an imp from hell. I almost died. Fm not sure what was wrong. Apart, we
weren't whole. I wasn't whole. He had something I didn't have, something we'd been sharing. She
would've let me die, but he knew and got blood for me. Hers." He sat staring at me blankly, his mind
living the past
"Why didn't you go to a hospital or something?" I asked, feeling enormous pity for the wretched boy.
He smiled faintly. "I didn't know much about anything then. Too many people were already dead. If
I'd gone to a hospital, they'd have wanted to know how I'd stayed alive so far. Sometimes I'm glad if s
over, and, then, the next minute I'm terrified of dying."