"Michael Nethercott - The Beastly Red Lurker" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nethercott Michael)

MICHAEL NETHERCOTT

THE BEASTLY RED LURKER

A Gothic Excess

IT WAS SOME THREE YEARS ago that I first became acquainted with Heywood Mudcatt
of Tattermore. We were both attending a dinner party at the home of D----- and
fell into conversation concerning heat boils (a subject of which I possess some
knowledge accounted for by my years in the Gobi). For half an hour we amused
ourselves with an exchange of boil-lore, then the dinner bell sounded and we
took our places at the table.

The meal, as I remember, was a splendid spread, radiating outward from the
central main dish of wild duck. With much passion, all members of the party
embarked upon the consumption of that drool-inspiring banquet. All, that is,
save Mudcatt, who merely folded his arms and smiled. His plate sat unfulfilled,
brightly naked and vaguely disturbing.

Our hosts seemed unconcerned with Mudcatt's abstinence. I leaned over to D-----
and whispered, "Doesn't the man eat?"

"What? Oh, Mudcatt," D----- shrugged. "No, as a matter of fact he doesn't. Not
in public, at any rate. Some gastronomic malady, I believe. He is a queer
rotter."

Unaware of our whisperings, Mudcatt continued to just sit there and smile and
eat nothing.

Over the next two years, I crossed paths with Mudcatt on several occasions,
usually at dinner parties. Through these random encounters, I grew to actually
like the fellow. His wit was of an excellent degree and his knowledge was not
limited to boils. Indeed, he could discourse on a sparkling array of subjects --
ice cubes, masking tapes, pygmy architecture, nasal hygiene -- the man was an
encyclopedia with limbs.

And yet...and yet....

When the dinner bell pealed and the assemblage sat down to eat, I would look
over at that empty disk of porcelain and at Mudcatt's folded arms and unslumping
smile, and I would feel my entire being tingle with something unexplainable,
something uneasy, something like...was it dread?

Still, I enjoyed the maws company and when, last winter, I received a written
invitation to visit Mudcatt at his estate, I accepted. What struck me as
singular about the invitation was that it was for dinner. Dinner! Would I then
get to see a fork lifted to that virgin smile? Would there be food upon that
fork and, if so, of what nature would it be? How, for the Love of God, did