"Night Warriors - 02 - Death Dream" - читать интересную книгу автора (Masterton Graham)

With grim persistence, John and Jennifer spent the whole of the following morning clearing out the bedroom and bundling up everything into plastic trash bags - sheets, clothes, shoes, drapes, broken pictures, everything. Together they rolled up the mattress, tied it with webbing straps, and carried it into the yard. It stunk even more strongly than it had yesterday evening - a kind of thick, sweet, skunky odor, with a rusty-metallic undertone. As soon as they had propped it up next to the garage door, ready to be driven to the city dump, Jennifer stepped back well away from it and took a deep breath of fresh air.
'Really hums, doesn't it?' John remarked, his nose wrinkled.
Jennifer said, 'It's disgusting. I wonder what on earth it was?'
'Well, you heard the good Sergeant Clay. He didn't think it was any kind of creature known to man.'
'He was high,' said Jennifer. They both were.'
'You think so?' asked John, mildly surprised.
There's no other explanation, is there? The way that other one was sniffing like that. They were both as high as kites.'
'I don't know. They didn't seem like they were high to me. I thought they were very rational.'
'WhatТs rational about saying that something nonhuman has destroyed your bedroom? That's not rational at all.'
John made a face. 'Well, no, I guess it isn't. But on the other hand, what happened wasn't very rational, either, was it? Whoever or whatever it was, how did it manage to break into the house completely unnoticed, tear the whole bedroom to pieces, and get away without anybody seeing him? Or it?'
'He could have slipped out when we ran upstairs to see what was going on.'
'But how? All the door were locked.'
There was a key in the back door,' Jennifer reminded him.
'Of course there was. But I checked the back door myself last night and it was still locked, from the inside.'
'Maybe one of the cops locked it,' Jennifer suggested.
'You mean he found it unlocked and didn't tell Sergeant Clay? That's hardly likely.'
Jennifer folded her arms tightly. 'If you really want to know the truth, I don't care how he got away,' she declared. "That's up to the police to find out. He was probably an expert locksmith.'
'It wouldn't make any difference if he was Harry Houdini, he couldn't have relocked a two-inch-thick mahogany door from the outside, now could he?'
'So what exactly are you suggesting?' Jennifer demanded. 'The supernatural? The Amityville Horror?'
John smiled and shook his head. 'Let's just get this stuff cleared up, shall we?'
They dragged the last of the trash bags out into the yard. It was a crisp but sunny day; a purple martin fluttered onto one of their bay trees and bounced up and down on a branch, watching them inquisitively, John wiped his hands on his jeans, then said. 'How about a glass of wine?'
They sat on the brick wall in the sunshine with tall tulip-shaped glasses of chilled Chablis. Although the yard was completely secluded, they could hear the bustle of Philadelphia all around them: the rushing of traffic up and down Front Street, the scratching of jets taking off from Philadelphia International Airport, the thrumming of feet on the sidewalks of Market Street, the distant racketing of air-hammers and pile drivers around Center City.
Jennifer said, "The only thing that really frightens me is that he might come back.'
John sipped wine and set his glass down. СI've thought about that. I've asked a security company to come over tomorrow and install a proper alarm system. They may recommend that we put bars on the windows, too.'
'What about tonight?'
'I've thought about that, too. Jack Pelling goes on vacation this afternoon; he said that we could borrow his house for as long as we want.'
'Well, that's sweet of him.'
T wasn't planning on staying here tonight anyway,' said John. 'I mean, quite apart from the fact that I don't relish another sleepless night on that couch, it'll do us all good to get away for a couple of days. Did you see Lenny this morning? He looked like he hadn't slept in a week.'
'Did he have nightmares?' asked Jennifer.
John shook his head. 'I don't know. But he didn't say a word when I took him to school this morning. He just sat in the car and stared out the window.'
'Oh, poor Lenny. We'll have to make sure that he goes to bed early tonight.'
John said, Tomorrow afternoon we can go to Strawbridge and Clothier and choose ourselves a new bed. Then maybe we'll go to Gimbel's and pick some new wallpaper.'
'It's clothes I need, not wallpaper,' Jennifer protested. 'I don't even have any underwear.'
'You mean, underneath that dress, you're completely naked?'
'Yes, as a matter of fact.'
John put his hand on her knee and edged it a little way up under the skirt. 'Why didn't you tell me that before, you brazen temptress?'
She firmly pushed his hand away, then kissed him on the nose. 'Because we don't have a bed, that's why.'
'What's wrong with the couch? What's wrong with the rug? When we were first going out together, we did it in the office stockroom, for God's sake.'
She kissed him again, quickly, flirtatiously. He leaned over to kiss her in return, but at that moment the front doorbell rang.
'Rescued from ravishment in the nick of time,' she said with a smile, and went to answer it. John grunted in amusement, and leaned back against the wall, finishing off his wine.
Two or three minutes went by without Jennifer reappearing, and eventually John went to see what was going on. Standing in the front hall was Mrs. Scuyler, Lenny's teacher from school; and there, too, was Lenny, pale and quiet, and looking more like his dead mother than ever.
'John, darling,' said Jennifer. 'Mrs. Scuyler's brought Lenny home. It seems he hasn't been feeling too good.'
John put his arm around Lenny's shoulders. 'Hey, champ, what's wrong? Have you been sick or anything?'
'He wouldn't tell me,' said Mrs. Scuyler. She was a fussy, motherly woman with wild gingery hair that refused to behave itself. This morning she was wearing a vivid green tent-dress that made her look even more gingery than usual. 'But Mr. Dreyfus said he was very quiet in gym practice, and when I took him for math he started to cry, didn't you, Lenny? So I brought him home.'
СThat's very nice of you, Mrs. Scuyler,Т said John. 'I don't know whether Lenny told you, but we had a break-in here at the house yesterday. I guess it must have upset him. It certainly upset us.'
'Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that,' said Mrs. Scuyler. 'Was anything taken?'
'Nothing at all, but they did some pretty disgusting damage.'
Mrs. Scuyler clucked two or three times in disapproval. "They're savages, these days, some of these young people. Just like savages out of the jungle. Do you know what they ought to do? They ought to send them there, instead of trying to keep them at Juvenile Hall.'
СI'm sorry, Mrs. Scuyler, they ought to send them where?'