"Dan Simmons - A Winter Haunting" - читать интересную книгу автора (Simmons Dan)

fallen victim to Dutch elm disease decades ago, and the trees planted since seemed smaller, stunted,
irregular, and ignoble in comparison. Some of the fine old homes along Broad still stood back behind
their wide lawns, the houses dark and silent against the night wind, but like an old war veteran at a
reunion, Dale was more aware of the missing houses than of the few survivors.

He turned right onto Depot Street and drove the few blocks to his childhood home across the street from
where Old Central School had stood.

His home of seven years was recognizable, but just barely. The huge old elm that had stood outside his
and LawrenceтАЩs bedroom was gone, of course, and the new owners had long ago paved the short
driveway and added a modern garage that did not go well with the American-square design of the house.
The front porch was missing its railings and swing. The old white clapboard had been replaced with vinyl
siding. Jack-oтАЩ-lanterns and a bulging straw man in bib overalls had been set out on the porch in
celebration of the holiday, but the candles had burned out hours earlier, leaving the jack-oтАЩ-lanternsтАЩ
triangular eyes as black and empty as skull sockets; the rising breeze had scattered the straw manтАЩs guts
to the wind.

Old Central, of course, was gone. Dale had few clear memories of the summer of 1960, but he vividly
remembered the building burning, embers flying orange against a stormy sky. Now the once-grand
square city block was filled with a few ratty-looking ranch housesтАФdark and incongruous amidst the
older, taller homes on each side of the squareтАФand all signs of the former school building and its huge
playground had long since been eradicated.

The tall sentinel elms around the school block were gone, of course, and no trees had been planted in
their place. The tiny houses on the squareтАФall built after 1960тАФlooked exposed and vulnerable under
the black sky.

There were more gaps in the rows of homes facing the former schoolyard. The Somerset place next to
DaleтАЩs old home was just gone, not even its foundation remaining. Across the street from the SomersetsтАЩ,
Mrs. MoonтАЩs tidy white home had been bulldozed into a gravel lot. His friend KevinтАЩs family homeтАФa
ranch house that had seemed modern and out of place in 1960тАФwas still there on its slight rise of
ground, but even in the dark Dale could see that it was unpainted and in need of repair. Both of the grand
Victorian homes north of KevinтАЩs house were gone, replaced by a short dead-end street with a few new
homesтАФvery cheapтАФcrowded where the woods had once started.

Dale continued slowly east past Second Avenue, stopping where Depot Street ended at First. Mike
OтАЩRourkeтАЩs home still stood. The tiny gray-shingled house looked just as it had in 1960, except for the
rear addition that obviously had taken the place of the outhouse. The old chickenhouse where the Bike
Patrol had met was gone, but the large vegetable garden remained. Out front, staring sadly across First
Avenue at the harvested fields, the Virgin Mary still held out her hands, palms outward, watching from
the half-buried bathtub shrine in the front yard.

Dale had seen no trick-or-treaters. All of the homes he had passed had been dark except for the
occasional porch light. Elm Haven had few streetlights in 1960 and now seemed to have none at all. He
had noticed two small bonfires burning in yards along Broad, and now he saw the remains of another
fireтАФuntended, burned down to orange embers, sparks flying in the strong windтАФin the OтАЩRourke side
yard. He did not recall bonfires being lighted for Halloween when he was a boy here.

Dale turned left past the small high school and left Elm Haven behind, turning west on Jubilee College
Road at the water tower and accelerating north on County 6, hurrying the last three miles separating him