"Laura Resnick - Enter the Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Laura)

years before I had even the slightest idea what a lover was. But I would
listen respectfully to the old man, just as I listened respectfully to my
mother when she told me to ignore his strange stories and warnings.
I had no fear of the jungle by day. I hunted and fished to help provide
for our table, and when my work was done, I played with the other boys like a
wild animal. The ruins of an ancient Mayan city lay buried in the forest, its
crumbling walls covered by vines, its tumbled temple shaded by palm trees and
swamp cypresses. We scrambled across the damp, mysterious stones, heedless of
tales of ghosts, demons, and the vengeful spirits of the unbaptized dead. The
British and American archaeologists who scour Central America for such ruins
did not yet know of this place, nor did anyone from our village ever consider
telling them. The dead should be left in peace, my grandfather said, and the
jungle should be allowed to devour her prey.
Yes, the jungle by day was a place of infinite wonders and pleasures.
Emerald green and scarlet red birds flew overhead as we capered and crawled
through the jungle's fragrant undergrowth. Sapote trees were abundant, with
their salmon-pink fruit which makes such a sweet snack, though I preferred the
yellow, jelly-like flesh found inside the leathery seed pods of the scarcer
guaya tree. Orange, lime, avocado, mango, and papaya tumbled out of the green
canopy over our heads, nourishing us as we chased lizards, swam naked in the
streams, hid from adults amidst the tough trunks of the banana trees, and
explored the ruined city of the ancient ones. In all the world, there was no
better place than the jungle by day.
But at night, the jungle changed and became a place of unseen dangers
and oft-told horrors. Shrill screeches and strange cries came from its depths.
The friendly paths we had made by day disappeared at night as mist, shadow,
and darkness obscured everything and trees reached out to embrace the unwary
walker in their deadly grasp. In those days, so long ago, a small child was
still carried away every so often by a night-hunting puma, and even the
beautiful ocelot and tiny margay appeared ferocious after nightfall. The tasty
iguana seemed like a dragon in the dark, and even the little white bats became
the vampires of my nightmares as they flapped and flashed into the opaque
belly of the night. The evil yellow jaw-tommygoff came out from beneath its
rocks and low bushes to hunt in the dark, swinging and jumping from trees or
slithering along the ground, legless and silent. More than eight feet long, it
was aggressive and would usually strike more than once. I used to believe that
such a creature must have killed my father, but my mother told me that its
poison kills a man much more quickly than my father died.
No earthly creature, however, was as terrifying as the spirit creatures
which rose through the mist after the sun had set. They conquered the manless
jungle by night and made it their own, and I knew that it was their voices I
heard shrieking and growling on the heavy tropical air as I lay in my cot and
prayed to the Virgin and all the gods.
There was, of course, the Greasy Man, who haunted the forsaken ruined
city near our village. Closer to home, there was the Ashi de Pompi who hid in
abandoned hovels of burned out dwellings. If children were too noisy, these
monsters stirred at night and punished them with horrible vengeance.
A far more dreadful beast, however, was the Sisimito, a huge, hairy
creature which kidnapped small children in the hope of learning how to talk.
The Sisimito loved fire but did not know how to make it, so he left piles of