"Guy N. Smith - Accursed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Guy N)

the decision is yours. Now I'll bid you goodnight, Reverend. Sleep well.'
Mason watched the other walk away, a kind of glide on those short legs until the darkness swallowed
him up.



Mason began unrolling his blankets on the soft sandy ground, found himself glancing again into the
shadows. He shivered. These desert nights were cold; the wilderness burned you by day and froze you
by night. But tonight seemed exceptionally cold. Maybe he should keep the fire going; a stirring of
primitive man's instincts, flames to keep the wild beasts at bay. Something scuttled across the cave,
hidden by the darkness, and he started. A rat probably, these excavations were crawling with them. But
they were harmless, not like scorpions and snakes. He shuddered, tried to throw off an indeterminable
creeping fear. There was nothing here that his own faith would not protect him from. Yea, though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death....



His bedroll ready, he dropped to his knees, tried to shut everything else out of his mind while he prayed.
It wasn't easy. That rat was running to and fro again, scavenging for scraps of food; a sudden gust of cold
desert wind whipped up the sand, drove it at him as though some venomous being out there was echoing
Suma's warning in its own inexplicable way. You're a thief, Reverend, a grave robber!



When he opened his eyes again the embers had died down to a dull glow allowing the shadows to move
in on him, black shapes that were alive and seemed to touch him with icy fingers. There was a shotgun
and some ammunition in the truck; he thought about going and fetching it but that would only have been
pandering to his own childish fears. Like the time when his parents had first demanded that he slept in a
room of his own. The sheer terror of those first few nights, he would never forget them. Voices that
whispered as he trembled beneath the bedclothes, fingers stroking the blankets and when he jumped,
prodding him, taunting him. Infantile fears that eventually evaporated. Until now. He pulled the blankets
right up over his head.



Listening. That rat had gone away, probably tired of its constant search for food, returning to its hole to
sleep. Mason wished he could sleep. Suddenly he wasn't tired anymore. Perhaps he should go and fetch
a torch and try to read. But that meant going out there into the night....



Voices! Like those in his infant years, an indecipherable whispering as though demons hid in the
shadows and were mocking him; closing his eyes tightly, trembling violently.



Something made him open his eyes, an awareness of light like when his mother used to check on him on
her way up to bed. He saw it through the blankets, a penetrating golden radiance, its brightness making
him squint. Fear, groping for a logical explanation. The dying embers had blazed up. He had to be sure.
Breathlessly, almost afraid to look, he eased himself up and peered out of his bedroll.