"Mcauley, Paul J - Inheritance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

there was no sign of Gerald Beaumont. He was about to turn back when he
glimpsed movement amongst the trees ahead, the trees around the ruins of
the manor house. He froze, his blood knocking heavily in every corner of
his body: but it was only the Beaumonts' dog. It came towards him
uncertainly, its tail low.
"Good boy," Tolley said. "Where's your owner, huh?"
The dog whined, then started towards the trees; when it saw that Tolley
wasn't following, it danced back, barking. Tolley called again.
"Beaumont!"
Night. Silence. Tolley's breath plumed in the air.
And then he heard, faint and far off, a harsh squealing, metal on metal.
Every hair on the back of his neck rose as a kind of tide of coldness
swept across his skin. He turned and saw, against the advancing light of
dawn, a black figure on top of the embankment. It was still for a moment,
then seemed to swoop down the steep slope, moving as swiftly as a gliding
bird. Already, Tolley's line of retreat was cut off; he turned and began
to run, the dog following for a moment before breaking back towards the
trees.
Tolley ran on, breathing hard and hardly daring to look back, nothing in
his head but the thudding of his pulse and the blind imperative to flee,
flee before the thing was upon him. He blundered through the church gate,
gravel scattering under his flying feet. The door, the door. . . .
It gave. Tolley stumbled through and leaned against it. A great wind got
up around the church, howling and howling, rattling the panes of stained
glass. Tolley fumbled inside his coat for a book of matches and, by the
light of one, found the door's iron bolt and pushed it home just as
something crashed into the door on the other side. The wind was even
louder now: the hardboard that had patched the broken window flew in with
a clatter, and a thick stench of burning began to fill the dark space of
the church. The match stung Tolley's fingers. He dropped it and instantly
lit another. To be alone in the dark was intolerable.
Whatever was on the other side of the door began to turn the handle back
and forth. Tolley retreated, and something struck the back of his knees
before toppling to the stone flags. Tolley struck another match. A bench.
A pile of little books that had been stacked on one end spilled at his
feet. Prayer books. He picked one up, and its limp red cover fanned like
the wings of a dead bird. Dead, dead and buried. He understood that it was
his only hope.
First, he had to have light.
He lifted one of the thick candles from the altar and used several matches
to get it alight, then stuck it to the rim of the pulpit with its own wax
drippings. All the while the wind howled and keened, and the hammering at
the door never let up, underscored by scratchings like fingernails on the
stained glass of the broken window. Tolley saw with horror one glass
fragment and then another fall, brief twinkling meteors. He scrabbled
through the thin pages of the prayer book until he came to the Service for
the Burial of the Dead, and began.
The wind did not die as he read the psalm, but the banging of the door
became staccato, and no more fragments of glass fell. When he reached the
middle of the lesson, the banging ceased. Tolley read on, a weight seeming