"Laura Resnick - Ever Since Eden" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Laura)

all the way back. Damn, damn, damn. I stand in the shadowy corner, breathing
deeply and trying to calm down.
A kid approaches. He looks thirteen or fourteen. He peers at each snake
avidly, clearly fascinated by them. He obviously doesn't see me. I feel
soothed by the presence of another person. In another minute I'll be able to
face the walk back to the entrance, past all those cages.
The kid reaches into his daypack and pulls out a cloth sack and a
hammer. Before I realize what's happening, the little bastard smashes open one
of the glass cages and reaches inside. He's pulling a black mamba out of the
cage by the time I start screaming. The shrill sound of my terror startles
him, and he looks over his shoulder at me, wide-eyed with surprise. The second
mamba strikes him.
The boy screams and lets go of the snake in his hand as he reels back
against the opposite wall, sobbing and clutching his arm. The black mamba is a
very aggressive snake, I recall as I watch both reptiles spill out onto the
floor and wriggle in agitation. The venom is deadly, the bite painful and
quite often fatal.
I crouch in my corner, screaming. The serpent beguiled me to come here.
The dreams called me forth, and now I am trapped with the devil.
The boy flails at the mambas. Why doesn't the idiot just run away? One




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of them strikes him again. He falls, screaming. Why doesn't someone come?
Can't anyone hear us?
With the boy blocking their path and with me on their other side, the
mambas feel threatened. They rise up, watching, warning, awaiting their
opportunity.
I try the door again, pushing with all my might. There must be a lever
for emergency access or something. As I turn, I feel sharp daggers in my calf.
I look down just in time to see the creature flex away from me. The poison
seeps into my system. I am still screaming as I hit the floor and feel another
agonizing bite, this time on my arm. I flail, hit back, fight against yet
another strike.
"Don't move! Hold still!" someone cries.
I see lights and shadows, then nothing. The screaming has stopped, but
someone is sobbing in agony. I think it's me.
"Don't move!"
The dream is always the same.
"Jesus Christ! Get a medic down here! Call an ambulance! Oh, dear Jesus
God!"
I can hear my desperate heart, smell my own mortality, taste my own
death.
"Oh, God, God! Someone _help_ her!"
My destiny has come for me.

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