"William Mark Simmons - Undead 1 - One Foot in the Grave" - читать интересную книгу автора (Simmons William Mark)

"You are a dead man."




Chapter One
Such men as come Proud, open-eyed
and laughing to the tomb.
тАФWilliam Butler Yeats

"Doo-do-n'dooтАФdoo-n'doo-dooтАФ"
"тАФRun-runтАФ"
I cracked an eyelid and peered blearily at the offending clock-radio. Snippets of thought began to
daisy-chain into coherent memory.
Eight twenty-two.
Sundown.
Time to rise and shine.
 The music became more insistent: Sedaka, Elton John; duet. I moaned, lifting a sleep-numbed arm as
they chorused: " . . . Bad blood! Talkin' 'bout bad blood. . . ."
My hand closed on the clock's plastic case, ignoring the off and snooze buttons.
Neil Sedaka belted: "Bad!"
"Ba-ad!" echoed Elton John.
"Blood!" wailed Neil.
Elton never got the chance to follow through as the clock-radio arced across the bedroom to a
termination point against the far wall. Whatever course the disease might be taking, it had yet to affect my
reflexes. I groaned out of bed, shrugged into my robe, and began the evening rounds and rituals.
The house was a split-level arrangement with the downstairs rec room serving as my present sleeping
quarters. After opening the heavy curtains to the pale remnants of fading sunlight, I started up the stairs
for the kitchen.
Halfway up, I did postal calisthenics, retrieving a spill of mail beneath the brass-flapped slot in the
front door. Out of a dozen pieces only three were properly addressed to Mr. Christopher L. Csejthe.
One was from the insurance company, and the name was probably the only detail they'd managed to get
right in the past year. The rest employed a variety of creative misspellings including one designated for
"ocupant" on a dot-matrixed label. So much for computerized spell-checking.
I resisted the urge to lay the envelopes out on the dining room table like a tarot readingтАФI see a tall,
dark bill collector in your futureтАФtossed the junk mail aside, and carried the rest into the kitchen.
Turned on the radio and began filling the teakettle with tap water.
The graveyard shift makes it easy to disconnect. You sleep while the rest of the world works, plays,
lives. Then you rise and go forth while everyone else is in bed, dead to the world. The nightly newscast
was my daily ritual for reconnecting. Plus, keeping tabs on the competition is de rigueur, when you work
in radio.
I set the kettle on the stove to boil, thumbed through the envelopes that obviously contained bills and
then, believing you start with the bad news first, opened the one from the insurance company. I expected
an argument over last month's billing for lab tests and blood work. Instead, there were two checks inside,
both made payable to me: one for twenty-five thousand dollars, the other for ten thousand.
It had taken almost a full year, but they had finally gotten around to rewarding me for killing my wife
and daughter.
The tiled bathroom walls amplified the rattlesnake clatter of the shower, smothering the best efforts of
the radio just outside the bathroom door. Muffled music gave way to mumbled talk. By the time I
reached for my towel, the newscast was five minutes along.