"Simon Hawke - Wizard 7 - The Wizard of Camelot" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawke Simon)

It was at that moment that I reached the turning point. Complete and total
burnout. I went numb. I had absolutely nothing left. My memory won't serve as
to
what, exactly, happened at that point. I seem to recall taking off my helmet
and
dropping it to the floor. I may have given my assault rifle to one of the
others, I simply don't remember; but I know that I no longer had it several
hours later; when I was on the train to Loughborough. I recall only one thing
clearly, and that was a driving urge to get back to my family and be with
them.
I felt an urgency mere words cannot convey I simply wanted to get back and
hold
my wife and daughters in my arms and never let them go.

Hie train broke down a short way out from Loughborough and I got out with the
rest of the passengers and walked the remainder of the way. I do not recall
how
long it took. It seemed like hours, plodding along the tracks, and it was
raining. Not a hard, driving rain, but a steady drizzle, yet by the time I
reached our home, I was soaked through to the skin and shivering. Jenny heard
the front door open and came running out to greet me. Our daughters were
asleep,
and she had been in bed with them, yet she was all bundled up, as were they,
tucked beneath the blankets in their warmest clothes. They'd been burning
wood
for heat. It was all we could afford, and Jenny had run out. There was no
money
for getting any more. They had already burned some of the furniture and I,
simple fool that I was, had left behind what little money I had left in
London.

Jenny saw the look on my face and tried to tell me that it didn't matter. She
was glad to have me home, and wouldn't the girls be happy when they woke up
to
see their daddy had returned, but all I could see as I looked down at their
sleeping forms, huddled close together, were the bullet-riddled corpses of
Barbara and Irene. It was as if an ice-cold fist had grabbed my guts and
started
squeezing. I left the bedroom and went out to get my axe.

Jenny grew alarmed when she saw what I intended. Chopping wood without a
permit
was a criminal offense. She tried to stop me, but I ignored her protests and
went out, determined that come what may, my girls would never share the fate
of
poor James Whitby's daughters.

Not far from where we lived was a protected natural preserve, all that
remained