"Mark Morris - The Other One" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morris Mark)

He looked at the finger for a long time before touching it, and wondered
whether they would be able to pick it up on their cameras. If so, they
would find some way to use it against him, even though it was obvious that
he could not possibly be blamed for what had happened. At last, after
sitting motionless for perhaps three minutes, he picked up the finger and
the envelope and went into the kitchen. The finger was cold in his hand,
the linoleum equally cold on his bare feet.
It took some pulling to get the ring off but eventually he managed it. He
found the beaker which they'd hidden in the empty bread bin and filled it
with water. He popped the ring into his mouth like a pill and gulped water
until he'd swallowed it. He placed the finger into the metal throat of the
waste disposal unit and turned it on.
There was a reddish-brown tinge to the white blur of the blades and that
was all. Next he rolled the envelope into a tight tube and fed that in
too. He left the waste disposal unit on longer than was necessary, but
even so, when the blades stopped spinning he saw minute clots of matter
clinging to some of them. He spent ten minutes picking off the bits of
matter, rolling them between his fingers like bogies, and dropping them
into the exact centre of the metal throat.
Eventually he was satisfied that he had done all he could. He turned the
machine on again briefly to clear the little balls of paper and flesh, and
then he walked back into the bedsitting room and lay down on his bed.
At last he felt able to walk back down the corridor to the door to see if
his food had arrived. When he opened the door, the first thing he saw were
his clothes, folded neatly on the landing. His food, however, still hadn't
arrived, which didn't actually bother him as much as it ought to because
he was no longer hungry. The sounds drifting up the stairwell sounded
unnervingly similar to the ones (of rending metal) that he'd heard on the
phone.
He carried his clothes back inside and dressed slowly in the bedsitting
room. As he still had no food, he decided to look out of the window. It
was a dreary day, rods of grey rain falling almost vertically. From his
high vantage point the landscape seemed composed of slabs of polished
black onyx.
A spark of colour caught his eye. The little girl, pushing a doll's pram
between the silent buildings, was wearing a yellow sou'wester with a coat
to match. He watched her, craning his neck until she was gone. He was
suddenly hungry again.
He pursued someone through the city. His prey wore a dark cloak and a top
hat and carried a cane. It resembled a shadow more than a person, forever
threatening to merge with the glowing fog and disappear. He was hampered
in his pursuit by street vendors and party goers bedecked with streamers
who tried to lure him into their drunken clique with offers of whisky and
rum. Something with glowing red eyes whispered to him from an alleyway.
Somewhere far away a jazz band was playing.
No matter how quickly he ran, his prey matched him step for step, always
maintaining a reasonable lead. The fog shifted and curled seductively,
like the sad and silent ghosts of sensuous women.
He found himself beside a canal, warehouses looming blackly over the
water. Small waves lapped at the bank, trying to reach his feet. The sound