"Lumley, Brian - Necroscope - The Lost Years Volume 2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

Then, forcing himself to relax a little in his chair, he lay back and half-closed his eyes. And sipping alternately of whisky and coffee, he unfolded his tale for lanson's inspection...
It had been one of those nights.
Ask any policeman anywhere in the world, hell be able to tell you about that one night when right out of nowhere everything decided to happen all at once. Just such a night then, when Constable Gavin Strachan got caught up in the occurrences at the Kincraig wildlife park.
But in the Highlands? And the night not even a Friday or Saturday, when you might expect a bit of trouble from the lads at the various socials and community dancehalls, with a couple of drinks too many in them and their bright young eyes full of the other fellows' girlfriends?
In fact it was a Wednesday, wintry even for the middle of May, the sort of night when anyone with tuppence worth of sense would be home toasting his feet in front of a warm fire. Anyone but a policemen on duty, that is. And over the past three-month Strachan hadn't covered anything worse than a bad traffic accident on an icy road. So he certainly hadn't been on the lookout for anything big going down midweek on a night as wild as this.
So maybe it was the full moon...but whatever, he hadn't stopped moving from the moment he woke up the day-shift man at the tiny Police Post in Kingussie and relieved him of his duties. That had been about 6:00 p.m., and of course there'd been nothing for the day-shift
constable to pass on; the Daily Occurrence Book showed a blank page. Like yesterday, and the day before that and the nights in between, too.
Ah, but this had been one of those nights.
Strachan had no sooner got settled in, made some coffee, opened a book to the first page of a science fiction thriller, when the phone rang -- a break-in at the museum at Newtonmore. A three-mile drive along the Spey road, an hour spent examining a broken window and recording statements, and three miles back again. But before he could enter the details in the book, another call-out to the Aviemore Holiday Centre, where a guest was drunk and wrecking the hotel bar!
Ten miles each way this time, and Strachan righteously annoyed and fully prepared to arrest the man -- except he was sleeping it off when he arrived, and the manager of the hotel wouldn't put him to the trouble. Besides, he was sure he could recoup his damages in the morning. Er, but in the event there should be any problem...well, maybe the constable would like to make a note of the breakages now, while he was here? -- And that had taken another hour. But at least Strachan was given a wee dram on the house, just the one, to warm him up a bit
Which should have been ample for one 'quiet' night in the vale of the Badenoch. But no, the phone was ringing when Strachan got back to Kingussie: a traffic accident at a bad bend on the Coylumbridge road. Damn it to hell, but he'd only been a mile or two from the site up at Aviemore! If he'd known, he could have gone out onto the road and waited for it to happen! Except that was a bit of Irish, and he was a Scot and a policeman's lot is not a happy one.
But it wasn't all that bad. Two cars had glanced off each other. One of the drivers, a young woman, had scraped her knees and shaken herself up a bit when she'd run off the road and hit a tree. Strachan had dabbed her pretty knees with an antiseptic swab (no, not bad at all!) and as always when there was an accident, he'd taken along a brandy flask. So he'd given the drivers a tot each, and one for himself, then let the male driver of the other car go off while he and the young lady sat in his police vehicle and waited for the tow-truck. She was a pretty wee thing; far better than sitting there with some grumbly old codger.
By the time he'd set off again to drive back to Kingussie it had been something after eleven-twenty, and a cold mist coming up off the Spey to shroud a full moon hanging low over the valley. Which was when it happened...
Level with the wildlife park, suddenly there was someone on the road! A man with a torch (thank God, else the constable might easily have hit him), wreathed in mist desperately waving Strachan down. It was old Andrew Bishop, the owner of the site and keeper of the
Brian Lumley
Necroscope: The Lost Years -- Vol. II
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park. His eyes were wild and fearful as Strachan pulled off the road and drew to a halt on the verge.
And as he got out of the police car, Bishop was on him in a frenzy. 'Is it Gavin Strachan?' he panted, as he glanced back over his shoulder at the misted park outbuildings and wire-mesh enclosures. 'Gavin, lad! Thank goodness ye're up and aboot!'
'EhPWhafsup?'
'Up? My God, up? I'll tell ye what's up. Somethin's in wi' the animals!'
Strachan caught at Andrew's arms, tried to hold him still. Where are the boys?' (Old Bishop's sons).
'No back frae the dance in Dalwhinnie. And Liz is locked in the bedroom, at the hoose.'
'Locked in? Yere wife?'
'Ah locked her in mahsel'! Have ye no a weapon, Gavin?'
'A weapon? Now Andrew, what would Ah be doing wi' a weapon?'
Bishop was fairly dancing in his anxiety. 'Ah have a shotgun in the hoose,' he cried, 'but Ah'm out o' shells. Oh, hell! Oh, damnation!'
Now Strachan held him tighter still. 'Andrew, now come to yere senses, man! What on earth's wrong wi' ye? Somethin's in wi' the animals, ye said.'
'Aye, Ah did,' the other wrenched himself loose. 'And more than one somethin', Ah fancy! Man deer are oot and runnin' wild frae whatever it's that tore its way in tae the pens!'
'Come on,' Strachan said, making for the track to the outbuildings, barns and pens. 'Let's see what we've got here.' But old man Bishop at once dragged on his arm.
'What? And will ye go in there wi'oot a gun?'
Which stopped Strachan in his tracks. The quaver in Bishop's voice, where the constable never before heard a tremor in all his life. The fact that he'd locked his wife safely away in a bedroom -- but safe from what? And in that same moment, Gavin Strachan knew there was something terrible here...
Then, distracting him, even unnerving him, there came the furious, frenzied squawking of terrified chickens.
'Mah hens!' Bishop gasped. They're in wi' mah poor chickens!'
'Let me get mah licht,' Strachan quietly growled, taking a heavy-duty torch from the back of the car.
'And yere truncheon,' Bishop whined. 'But by God -- a gun would be a sight better...!' Already the mad fluttering, squawking and screeching was dying down.
They were on the track, approaching the outbuildings, when a different sound brought them to a halt. But there are sounds and there are sounds. This one was a cry: eerie, ululant, electrifying -- and unmistakable.
'Dog,' Strachan breathed, hurrying forward again. 'Out in the woods back o' the house. A big yin, probably, returned tae the wild.' Even as he spoke the howl was answered, from closer at hand. And when the sound had died away, Strachan added, 'Or dogs. There's been some sheep worrying south o' here.'
'Ye say?' Old Bishop seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. 'Dogs? Ye think?'
'Why, what else?' Strachan moved forward again. *Yere animals must o' smelled 'em.'
'Smelled 'em, heared 'em, seen 'em, probably,' the old man seemed steadier now. 'God, they've been howlin' this last half-hour! Put the wind up me and Liz, Ah can tell ye! We saw one o' they frae the upstairs window. But Gavin,' again he clutched at the constable's arm,'...ye can damn mah eyes for liars if they didnae see him stand up on his hind legs! And big...man, he was one big yin!'
There came a rustling from the nearest enclosure -- and a moment later a squawk. 'Mah hens!' Old Bishop aimed his torch, sprang forward, skidded to a halt in swirling ground mist where a hole had been torn in the high wire-mesh boundary. And Strachan saw that the wire was of a heavy gauge. Then:
'Dogs,' Strachan whispered again, his own beam flickering this way and that, but nervously now. 'Big yins, aye.'
Old Andrew turned to him and his mouth was slack. 'God -- they chewed through this wire like it was cheese!'
And again it was the old man's voice that did it to Strachan, got through to him like nothing else could have. And yet again he asked himself, just exactly what had Bishop seen that caused him to lock up his wife and run dancing down the road? An old stoic like Andrew Bishop? Why, there wasn't a more down-to-earth man in all the Highlands! And so far (Strachan suspected) Old Bishop had been entirely too reticent, like he hadn't wanted to destroy his salt-of-the-earth image.
Strachan checked himself; he was now as nervous as the old man. It wasn't good enough. Two of us,' he said. 'Which should be more than enough for a couple of rogue dogs. And anyway, the birds are quiet now. In we go.' He climbed in through the large hole in the wire, with old man Bishop right behind him.
The enclosure was a big one, free range, with hen-houses on both sides and a boardwalk up the centre. But as the beams of their torches sliced deeper into the swirling mist they saw that the houses had been wrecked, wrenched apart And the carcasses of dead birds were everywhere. Old Bishop picked one up in a trembling hand; not a mark on it. It was as if the creature had died of fright. But others were bloody, and some were without heads.
Various alternatives passed uselessly through Strachan's mind.