"Mickey Zucker Reichert - Shadow Storm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reichert Mickey Zucker)

though none of the tales were true to Stacy's memories. Late at night,
Mary Draybin would slip down to the telephone and shout threats at or
cajole someone who could only be Sterner.

Now, Stacy lay limp in her mother's arms, hearing but not
understanding, seeking a compromise that would stop the battering and
also allow her to please all of the people she loved.

Mary Draybin dumped her daughter onto the bed and gave her a
playful swat on the behind, too much like punishment to soothe. "Why
don't you get cleaned up, Stacy Draybin? Dinner'll be ready in a few." She
whisked from the room as if nothing had happened.
 Stacy Sterner, Stacy corrected to herself, clinging to the last vestige of
her identity. If she let go, she would disappear. To admit the evils that her
mother claimed against her father, she would first have to deny everything
her mind and memory knew as fact and to believe that "bad blood" ran
through her veins. If she lost her name, she would sacrifice all of her
existence until that moment; and she would become nobody.

Stacy slid down the side of her bed, groping beneath it for the comic
book secreted beneath the frame. She had seen it in her father's house,
had stared at the colorful pages mesmerized, though she could not read
them. And he had let her bring it back to this house. "Home," her mother
called it and yet it seemed less hospitable than the series of dwindling
apartments her father had had to take as he struggled to keep up with the
debts Mary had dumped on him as well as the child support she
demanded in larger amounts, never satisfied. Stacy had hidden the comic
book, afraid of the reaction of her stepfather who saw sacrilege in any but
Bible stories.

Now, at six, Stacy had studied the words and questioned enough to
differentiate the sound effects: zoo-kowt, kapok, slada-slada-slada,
ba-took. And she knew the hero well. Shadow Storm was his name, a
massive figure in a red bodysuit that hugged his muscles like skin. The
double S's of his crest could come loose from his chest and form lightning
bolts or shields or assault rifles as he needed. A red mask hid every feature
but his huge, brown eyes; and no one, not even the faithful readers, knew
his true identity. But Stacy Sterner did. And when she spoke it, as now, he
came to her:

"Sean Sterner, big as can be

As Shadow Storm, please come to me."

Light flashed, blinding in the small bedroom. Then the figure from the
comic book appeared before her, large as life. He stood in the same
dignified pose as on the cover, legs slightly apart, cape flapping though
there was no wind, arms folded across his muscled chest. "Come here," he
said.