"Shaun Hutson - Shadows" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hutson Shaun)

New York
She had never seen eyes like his before.
She shuddered slightly as the piercing orbs bore into her like lasers. As if
they were staring at her soul, searching for something elusive.
His eyes sparkled like chips of sapphire, the whites surrounding them
unblemished but for the tiniest red veins which dared to intrude from his eye
corners.
His gaze was unbroken even by the movement of his eyelids and, as he extended
a hand to guide her backwards, she felt as if she were drowning in those eyes.
As she lay on the couch she finally closed her own eyes, aware now only of his
presence beside her.
The room was dark.
There was little sound.
An occasional cough, muted and self-conscious. And there was his breathing. It
became more laboured as he stood over her and he spoke something softly to
her.
Without opening her eyes, she raised her hands and began unbuttoning her
dress, exposing her stomach. As she touched the flesh of her abdomen she
winced and sucked in a painful breath. She almost screamed aloud as she felt
his hands touch her flesh. His fingers stroked and probed the area around her
navel, pausing every so often over one particular place.
Lucy West lay perfectly still, aware only of the hands which roamed her lower
body with swift urgent movements but conscious of the three large intestinal
growths which nestled like bloated parasites within her.
The first doctor had suspected ulcers. Nothing more. Tests had shown them to
be steadily growing abscesses but a second opinion had revealed what she
herself had always suspected.
The growths were tumours. Malignant and deadly. She had been told that they
were too far advanced for surgery to make any difference. At the most she
might gain a six month reprieve. But of that there was no guarantee.
She felt the hands on her stomach, moving gently.
This man was her last hope.
Jonathan Mathias looked down at the woman on the couch, his brow furrowed. She
was, he guessed, forty-five тАФ five years older than himself but the ravages of
pain and her disease had carved lines into her face which had no right to be
there. She looked twice her age.
Mathias wore a dark shirt, the sleeves Of which were rolled up displaying
thick, hairy forearms. As he continued to play his fingers over the woman's
abdomen, the muscles of his arms began to bulge, as if he were holding some
great weight. His eyes rolled upward slightly so that she was only in the
periphery of his vision. He began to breathe more deeply, less regularly. A
bead of perspiration popped onto his forehead and trickled slowly past his
left eye.
He sucked in a long breath and held it, raising his hands over the woman.
For what seemed like an eternity, neither moved nor made a sound.
Mathias' eyes twisted in the sockets, then he suddenly plunged his hands down,
as if to drive them through Lucy West's body.
He grunted loudly, his palms pressed flat to her stomach. His fingers were
splayed, quivering wildly. Then, with infinite slowness, he raised his hands
an inch or two.