"Lewis Padgett - A Gnome There Was (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Padgett Lewis)

sizzling profanity. "Come outa there!"
Crockett cast one glance back, saw a gorilla-like shadow lurching after him,
and instantly decided that his stratagem had been discovered. The owners of
the Ajax mine had sent a strong-arm man to murder himтАФor, at least, to beat
him to a senseless pulp. Terror lent wings to Crockett's flying feet. He
rushed on, frantically searching for a side tunnel in which he might lose
himself. The bellowing from behind re-echoed against the walls. Abruptly
Crockett caught a significant sentence clearly.
"тАФbefore that dynamite goes off!"
It was at that exact moment that the dynamite went off.
Crockett, however, did not know it. He discovered, quite
briefly, that he was flying. Then he was halted, with painful suddenness, by
the roof. After that he knew nothing at all, till he recovered to find a head
regarding him steadfastly.
It was not a comforting sort of headтАФnot one at which you would instinctively
clutch for companionship. It was, in fact, a singularly odd, if not actually
revolting, head. Crockett was too much engrossed with staring at it to realize
that he was actually seeing in the dark.
How long had he been unconscious? For some obscure reason Crockett felt that
it had been quite a while. The explosion hadтАФwhat?
Buried him here behind a fallen roof of rock? Crockett would have felt little
better had he known that he was in a used-up shaft, valueless now, which had
been abandoned long since. The miners, blasting to open a new shaft, had
realized that the old one would be collapsed, but that didn't matter.
Except to Tim Crockett.
He blinked, and when he reopened his eyes, the head had vanished. This was a
relief. Crockett immediately decided the unpleasant thing had been a delusion.
Indeed, it was difficult to remember what it had looked like. There was only a
vague impression of a turnip-shaped outline, large, luminous eyes, and an
incredibly broad slit of a mouth.
Crockett sat up, groaning. Where was this curious silvery radiance coming
from? It was like daylight on a foggy afternoon, coming from nowhere in
particular, and throwing no shadows. "Radium," thought Crockett, who knew very
little of mineralogy.
He was in a shaft that stretched ahead into dimness till it made a sharp turn
perhaps fifty feet away. Behind him the roof had fallen. Instantly Crockett
began to experience difficulty in breathing. He flung himself upon the rubbly
mound, tossing rocks frantically here and there, gasping and making hoarse,
inarticulate noises.
He became aware, presently, of his hands. His movements slowed till he
remained perfectly motionless, in a half-crouching posture, glaring at the
large, knobbly, and surprising objects that grew from his wrists. Could he,
during his period of unconsciousness, have acquired mittens? Even as the
thought came to him, Crockett realized that no mittens ever knitted resembled
in the slightest degree what he had a right to believe to be his hands. They
twitched slightly.
Possibly they were caked with mudтАФno. It wasn't that. His hands hadтАФaltered.
They were huge, gnarled, brown objects, like knotted oak roots. Sparse black
hairs sprouted on their backs. The nails were definitely in need of a
manicureтАФpreferably with a chisel.