"James Patrick Kelly - Monsters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

ever come to having a bad thought in a church.

After he finished the pickle, he slid forward onto the kneeler to say a Hail
Mary. The monster snuffed the prayer by ramming a fist up Henry's windpipe.
He rocked back onto the pew, choking. People turned to stare; Henry put a
hand to his mouth and pretended to cough into it. It took a moment before he
could breathe again. He sat very still, closed his eyes and tried not to
panic. Our Father, he thought, Who art in ... His head snapped back as veins
of fire pulsed across his lids; it felt as if someone were squashing his eyes
into his skull. He couldn't speak, couldn't even think to Him. Henry had
never needed God's help more. Why couldn't he ask for it? Nothing else had
changed: Up at the altar, votive candles still flickered like angels and the
tabernacle glittered with the gold of heaven. But Henry could not pray. He
covered his face with his hands.

"Hey, you. Bum."

Henry turned and blinked at a pale twitchy man in a rain-spattered blue jacket
stitched with the name Phil.

"This is a church, scumbag." Phil's voice swelled with outrage, snapping
through the gloom like a sermon. "Not some flop where you can sleep off a
drunk. You understand? And look at all this garbage. Go on, get out of
here!"

Henry crumbled the sandwich box and the wax paper into a ball. The last place
he wanted something to happen was in God's house. He sensed the creature
plugging into the man's anger, feeding off it into a frenzy. If Phil tried to
hurt him, it would hurt him back. Oh God. He had to get away before it was
too late. As he gathered in the milk carton, Phil decided he wasn't hurrying
fast enough.

"Now, bum! Or I'm calling the cops." He grabbed at Henry to haul him out of
the pew.

He tried to twist away but Phil's hand closed on his shoulder. Henry moaned
with dread and pleasure as he yielded to the madness. The spark surged down
his arm; muscles spasmed in an explosion of awful strength. He snapped his
attacker back as easily as a wet shirt. Phil hit the wall of the church with
a sharp crack. He sagged to the floor, face slack, eyes like eggs.

Someone screamed. The shock of monstrous pleasure had left Henry momentarily
limp; now he shuddered and flung himself out of the pew past the body. The
touch had never been this good before, this vicious. He sprinted through the
baptistry out the side door into the rain. He ran five blocks before he
realized no one was paying attention to him. Everyone was hunkered down
against the weather.

He slowed to a walk. His cheeks were hot; he was in no hurry to get out of
the rain. The monster was spent and he was back in control. He hadn't felt