"Brian Lumley - Necroscope 10 - Lost Years 02 - Resurgence" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

- no longer feral yellow!
The face emerging from the darkness wasn't human. It was triangular. Ears pointing forward, pointing at the man; bottom jaw
yawning open; great yellow headlight eyes... turning luminous red. As red as blood!
'Eh?!' said the man; simply that It scarcely qualified as a question, and wasn't even close to a scream - no more than a squeak or a
whimper - as a hand, a paw, something, reached out of the tunnel, arched for a moment like a great grey furry spider over his leg,
and drove home inches deep through track-suit trousers and flesh to scrape the bone of his thigh.
TJien he screamed, dropped the knife, tried to hang on to the girl where she had finally managed to sit up... and where she sat
there smiling at him! But there are smiles and there are smiles.
And her eyes were as yellow as the Thing's had been just a moment ago, rapt on him, watching him being dragged
into the tunnel; and her ears seemed to reach tremblingly forward, like the Thing's ears, eager for his panting, bubbling screams
and the terrible rrrip! of his clothing and flesh, as talons sharp as razors opened him up the middle like a steaming, screaming joint of meat
After that, amid all the slobbering, snarling and panting it was as much as the girl could do to cram herself in a corner and so avoid the hot red
splashes.
Knowing the Thing the way she did, she knew how dangerous it would be to try to take her share.
Well, not for a little while, at least...


PART ONE:
THESLEEPINGANDTHEUNDEAD
INSPECTORIANSONINVESTIGATES




It was ten in the morning, but at this time of year, in this place, it might just as easily be four in the evening. Underaheavy blanket of lowering snow clouds and in
the shadow of the hills the time made little or no difference: everything looked grey... except that which now lay exposed, with the snow shovelled back from it,
under the canopy ofa scenes-of-crime canvas rigged up by the local police. That - what was left of it - was not grey but red. Very red. And torn...
'Animal,' said old AngusMcGowan, giving a curt, knowing nod. 'A creature did it, an' a big yin at that!'
 'Aye, that's whatwe thought,' Inspector lanson returned the old man's nod. 'A beast for sure. That's why we called you in, Angus. But now the big question:
what sort ofa beast? Andhowa beast... I mean, up here in the snow and all?'
'Eh?' AngusMcGowan looked at the Police Inspector curiously, even scathingly. 'Up here in the snow and a'? Why... where else, mn' a?
lanson shrugged, and shivered, but not entirely from the cold. 'Where else?' Hefrowned as he pondered his old friend and rival's meaning, then shrugged again.
'Just about anywhere else, I should think! The African veldt, maybe? The Australian outback? India? But Scotland? What, and Auld Windy, Edinburgh herself,
little more than seven or eight miles away?No lions or tigers or bears up here, Angus - not unless they escaped froma zoo! Which is the other reason I called you in
on it, as well you know.'
Angus glanced at him through rheumy, watering eyes. The cold -and, just as the Inspector himself had felt it, maybe something other than the cold - had seeped
through to the old vefs bones. But then, the sight of bloody, violent, unnatural death will havea similar effect on most men.
Necroscope:TheLostYean-Vol.II
27
Brian Lumley
26

Inspector lanson was tall, well over six feet, and thin as a pole. But for all that he was getting on a bit in years, George lanson remained spry and
alert, mentally and physically active. Homicide was his job (he might often be heard complaining, in his dry, emotionless brogue,
'Man, how I hate mah work! If s sheer murrrderl'), and this was his beat, his area of responsibility: a roughly kite-shaped region falling
between Edinburgh and Glasgow east to west, Stirling and Dumfries north to south. Outside that kite a man could get himself killed
however he might or might not choose, and his body never have to suffer the cold, calculating gaze of George lanson. But inside
it...
'Africa? India?" Angus echoed the gangling Inspector, then squinted at the tossed and tangled corpse before shaking his head
in denial. 'No, no, George. She was no big cat, this yin. Nor a dog... but like a dog, aye!'