"Smith, L J - Forbidden Game 1 - The Hunter e-txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Lisa J)

Julian's smile deepened. Tom looked back and forth between them. Understanding slowly dawned on his face.
"No . . ." he whispered.
"Every game has a prize," the boy repeated. "Winner take all."
"No!" Tom said and launched himself across the
room.
Tom lunged at the boy in black-and drew up short. His eyes were fixed on something at his feet. Jenny couldn't understand it-it was as if he saw something terrifying there on the carpet. He turned to get away from it and stopped. It was behind him, too. Slowly he backed up against the wall.
Jenny was staring at him in dismay. It was like watching one of the mimes out at Venice Beach. A very good mime-Jenny could tell that the things Tom was facing were small, that they were trying to climb up his legs, and that he was terribly afraid of them. But there was nothing on the carpet.
"Tom," she said in a thin voice and took a step.
"Don't come near me! They'll get you, too!"
It was awful. Tom, who was never afraid of anything, was cornered by empty air. His lips were drawn back from his teeth, his chest was heaving.
"What is it?" Summer whimpered.
The others were all staring in silence.
5
Jenny whirled on the boy in black, who was leaning against the parlor wall and watching in amusement.
"What are you doing to him?"
"In the Game you have to face your nightmares. This is just a free sample of Tom's. No reason for the rest of you to be in on it."
Jenny faced Tom, drawing a deep breath. She took a step toward him.
"Stay back!" Tom said, sharp and frightened.
"Doesn't look like he's conquered it yet," Julian remarked.
Jenny stepped right into the midst of what Tom was staring at. She felt nothing but air around her bare ankles. She saw nothing. But Tom did-he yanked her to him, to the wall, falling down with her to his knees. He kicked out.
"Tom, don't! There's nothing there! Tom, look at me!"
His green-flecked eyes were wild. "Keep away from her. Keep back!" He was scuffing with his outstretched foot at the empty floor beside Jenny, trying to push something away. His mouth was quivering with disgust.
"Tom," she sobbed, shaking him. He didn't even glance at her. She buried her face in his shoulder, holding him with all her strength. Trying to will him sane again.
And then-her arms collapsed in on themselves. It was like one of those magician's tricks where the beautiful girl is hidden beneath a sheet-and then the sheet caves in and falls to the floor. Tom was there-Tom wasn't there. Like that. Jenny's embracing arms were empty.
She screamed.
And looked helplessly, wildly down at her hands, at her lap. At the floor. Tom couldn't be gone.
He was.
She looked behind her and saw that the others were, too.
Jenny's eyes darted to the dim hallway. It was empty. The curtains over the window were flat and still. But Dee was gone, and Audrey was gone, and Zach and Michael and Summer were all gone from the parlor. All five of them, without a sound. The way things vanish in dreams.
Please let it be a dream, Jenny thought. I've had enough, now. Please, I'm sorry; let it be a dream.
She was clutching the carpet so tensely that her fingernails were bending back. It hurt, and the pain didn't wake her up. Nothing changed. Her friends were still gone.
The boy in black was still there.
"Where did they go? What did you do with them?" she said. She was so dazed that it came out as a sort of insane calm.
Julian smiled whimsically. "They're upstairs, scattered around the house, waiting to face their nightmares. Waiting for you. You'll find them as you go through the Game."
"As I go?" Jenny said stupidly. "Look, you don't understand. I don't know what's-"
"You're the main player here, you know," he interrupted, gently chiding. "The door back to your world is at the top of the house, and it's open. If you can get to it, you can go. Bring your friends and they can leave, too."
Jenny's mind was still stuck on one thing. "Where's Tom? I want-"
"Your-Tom-is at the top." He pronounced the name as if it were something not mentioned in polite society. "I'll be giving him my special attention. You'll see him when you get there-if you get there."
"Look, please. I don't want to play any game." Jenny was still speaking as if this was all a mistake that would be cleared up somehow, as long as she stayed rational. As long as she avoided his eyes. "I don't know what you're thinking, but-"
He interrupted again. "And if you don't get there, then I win. And you stay here, with me."
"What do you mean-with you?" Jenny said sharply, jerked out of her courtesy.
He smiled. "I mean that you stay in this place, in my world. With me-as mine."
Jenny stared at him-and then she was on her feet, her composure shattering. "You're out of your mind!" she said. She would have lunged at him, herself, if she'd ever had any practice at violence.
"Careful, Jenny."
She stopped, frightened by what she sensed in him. Looking into his eyes, she saw something so alien, so terrifying, that she couldn't move. It was then, at last, that she believed what was happening. Full realization of what this boy had done, of everything that had happened tonight, crashed in on her. The young man standing before her, looking almost human, could do magic.
"Oh, God," she whispered.
All her violence had drained away, replaced by a fear older and deeper than anything she'd ever experienced. An old, old recognition. Something inside her knew him from a time when girls took skin bags to the river to get water, a time when panthers walked in the darkness outside mud huts. From a time before electric lights, before candles, when darkness was fended off with stone lamps. When darkness was the greatest danger of all.
Jenny looked at the boy standing beside her with his hair shining like moonlight. If Darkness had taken on a face and a voice, if the powers of night had gathered themselves together and formed themselves into a human being, they would have made something like this.
"Who are you?" whispered Jenny.
"Don't you know yet?"