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

muddy. It had not dried out over the centuries. You got a sense of
timelessness in here, even to the extent of being unsure whether it was day or
night, kept glancing about you, expecting to see . . . you didn't know what
you expected to see and that was what made it a thousand times worse.
Childhood bogey fears came flooding back; if they were reality then this was
their spawning ground.

Victor Amery stopped because Fred Ewart had stopped to light his foul-smelling
pipe, the flare of the match almost dazzling in the gloom. By its light you
saw his wizened features, the crop of blackheads which might have been taken
for a dark stubble of beard except that his drooping moustache was iron grey.
Pale blue eyes, alert, watching about him. Four-score years had not dulled his
brain, only stooped the shoulders beneath the navy blue knee-length mac which
he always wore, summer or winter.

The next man down was looking to Ewart too; he'd been around longer than most
of them. Ewart glanced one way, met Amery's gaze.

'We'll no' find him.' We're wasting our time but I've come along just for the
walk. 'They never find anybody in here. Remember Vallum? 1932. He killed his
wife and her lover, ran in here, left a trail of blood where he'd slashed his
wrists. A trail a child could follow but there was nothing at the end of it.
It just petered out. Nothing. They won't find the German.'

Victor Amery shivered. Damn Ewart and his tales of yesteryear. That was one of
the reasons why Victor had almost stopped going to the Dun Cow. Night after
night, it got on your nerves, stories you remembered when you put the light
out. Always Droy Wood figured in them. Maybe he made them up. Yes, that was
it, the silly old bugger took a delight in scaring folks. He was the source of
the legends, told 'em over and over again till people believed them and passed
them on. The wood was just like any other wood.

All lies. Fred Ewart's goddamned lies. But you never fully convinced yourself
of that.

A shout went up further down the line. They'd found the parachute. The terrier
was yapping and the Alsatian was barking fiercely. Now the animals had a
scent; the hunt was on.

Eager as the searchers were, somehow old Ewart dictated the pace as though he
was in charge of the whole operation; a slow gait, his ash stick prodding the
ground in front of him, forewarning him of soft squelchy patches. Flies
swarmed, buzzing black clouds in search of human prey.

Victor Amery came upon the old house suddenly, paused in amazement,
experienced a sense of revulsion. Once it had been a fine mansion set on firm
ground in the middle of a wide clearing. Stately gables had crumbled, there
were holes in the roof where slates had fallen and smashed. The glass had long
gone from the windows and they frowned down like eyeless sockets, the broken
doorway twisted into a snarl of malevolence. Go away, you have no business