"David Langford - Different Kinds of Darkness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Langford David)

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Different Kinds of Darkness
by David Langford
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Copyright (c)2000 by David Langford
First published in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 2000

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Science Fiction
Hugo Award Nominee

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It was always dark outside the windows. Parents and teachers sometimes
said vaguely that this was all because of Deep Green terrorists, but Jonathan
thought there was more to the story. The other members of the Shudder Club
agreed.
The dark beyond the window-glass at home, at school and on the school
bus was the second kind of darkness. You could often see a little bit in the
first kind, the ordinary kind, and of course you could slice through it with a
torch. The second sort of darkness was utter black, and not even the brightest
electric torch showed a visible beam or lit anything up. Whenever Jonathan
watched his friends walk out through the school door ahead of him, it was as
though they stepped into a solid black wall. But when he followed them and
felt blindly along the handrail to where the homeward bus would be waiting,
there was nothing around him but empty air. Black air.
Sometimes you found these super-dark places indoors. Right now Jonathan
was edging his way down a black corridor, one of the school's no-go areas.
Officially he was supposed to be outside, mucking around for a break period in
the high-walled playground where (oddly enough) it wasn't dark at all and you
could see the sky overhead. Of course, outdoors was no place for the dread
secret initiations of the Shudder Club.
Jonathan stepped out on the far side of the corridor's inky-dark
section, and quietly opened the door of the little storeroom they'd found two
terms ago. Inside, the air was warm, dusty and stale. A bare light-bulb hung
from the ceiling. The others were already there, sitting on boxes of paper and
stacks of battered textbooks.
'You're late,' chorused Gary, Julie and Khalid. The new candidate
Heather just pushed back long blonde hair and smiled, a slightly strained
smile.
'Someone has to be last,' said Jonathan. The words had become part of