"Smith, L J - Forbidden Game 2 - The Chase" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Lisa J)

Joey had joined the group and was flushed to his yellow hair roots with the humiliation of having a teenage sister bawling on the sidewalk. But Cam's tight look eased slightly.
"You mean all that stuff kids are saying about you guys looking for a cardboard house is true?"
"Are they saying that? Good." It's working, Jenny thought. The junior grapevine. There was something
heartening in these kids' expressions. They weren't closed off like adults, but open, interested, speculative. "Listen," she said. "We're still looking for that house, and now we're looking for something else. A girl who was friends with P.C. Serrani." For the hundredth time that day she described the Crying Girl.
The kids listened.
"We really, really want to talk to her," Jenny said.
Then she explained why. Why they needed the girl and why they needed the house. She explained, more or less, about Julian. A watered-down version, but the truth.
When she finished, she let out a long breath-and saw something like determination coalescing in the steady young gazes. They'd weighed her claims, and they were willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Even Joey, who'd been running away from her for the last two weeks, looked halfway convinced.
"We'll look for the girl tomorrow," he said briefly. "We'll talk to kids who've got, like, brothers or sisters in junior high. Because they might know her."
"Exactly!" Jenny said, pleased. She spared him the humiliation of being kissed by his sister in public. "Just be careful. If you see the paper house, do not touch it."
The last traces of doubt were wiped from the young faces, and there were grim nods. Her urgency had gotten through. She felt as if she'd recruited a team of small private detectives.
"Thanks," she said, and, feeling it was time for a judicious retreat, she gestured Audrey toward the next house.
"One more game," somebody behind her said, and somebody else said, "But who's going to be It?"
"Cam, unless he can guess who puts the eye in," Kiah's sweet voice fluted. On the doorstep Jenny glanced toward the street.
Cam was turned around, undergoing some elaborate ritual for picking the next It. "I draw a snake upon your back," Kiah chanted, tracing a wiggly shape. "Who will put in the eye?"
Somebody lunged forward and poked Cam between the shoulder blades. "Courtney!" Cam shouted.
"Wrong! You're the monster again!"
The door opened to Audrey's knocking. "Yes?"
Jenny tried to tear her attention from the game. Something about it... and about that snake thing ... were all children's games that gruesome? And their stories? The better to eat you with, my dear....
Maybe kids know something adults don't know, Jenny thought, chilled, as a lady asked them into the house.
When they came out, the sky was periwinkle blue and losing its color to the east. The light was fading. The street was empty.
Good, Jenny thought, glad that Joey was on his way home-maybe even home by now.
"Want to finish this block?" Audrey said, surprising her.
"I-sure. Why not?"
They worked their way down one side of the street and up the other. Jenny could feel herself getting more and more perfunctory at each house. The sky was now midnight blue and the light had gone. She
didn't know why, but she was starting to feel anxious.
"Let's stop here," she said when there were still three more houses to go. "I think we should be getting back now."
The midnight blue slowly turned to black. The streetlights seemed far apart, and Jenny was reminded suddenly of the little islands of light in Zach's nightmare. A nightmare where a hunter had chased them through endless darkness.
"Hey, wait up!" Audrey protested.
Jenny grabbed her arm. "No, you hurry up. Come on, Audrey, we have to get back to the car."
"What do you mean? What's wrong with you?
"I don't know. We just have to get back!" A primitive warning was going off in Jenny's brain. A warning from the time when girls took skin bags to get water, she thought wildly, remembering something she'd sensed with Julian. A time when panthers walked in the darkness outside mud huts. When darkness was the greatest danger of all.
"Jenny, this is just so totally unlike you! If there was anything to be scared about, I'd be scared of it," Audrey said, resisting as Jenny dragged her along. "You're the one who always used to go off into the bad parts of town-"
"Yes, and look where it got me!" Jenny said. Her heart was pounding, her breath coming fast. "Come on!"
"-and I hate to tell you, but I can't run in these shoes. They've been killing me for hours now."
The flickering streetlight showed Audrey's tight Italian pumps. "Oh, Audrey, why didn't you say something?" Jenny said in dismay. Something made her jerk her head around, looking behind her. Something rustled in the oleanders.
Where everyone else only sees a wind in the grass, or a shadow . ..
"Audrey, take your shoes off. Now!"
"I can't run barefoot-"
"Audrey, there is something behind us. We have to get out of here, fast. Now, come on!" She was pulling Audrey again almost before Audrey had gotten the pumps off. Walking as fast as she could without running. If you run, they chase you, she thought wildly. But she wanted to run.
Because there was something back there. She could hear the tiny sounds. It was tracking them, behind the hedge of overgrown bushes on her right. She could feel it watching them.
Maybe it's Cam or one of the other kids, she thought, but she knew it wasn't. Whatever it was, she knew in her heart that it wanted to hurt them.
It was moving quickly, lightly, keeping pace with them, maybe twenty feet back. "Audrey, hurry___"
Instead, Audrey stopped dead. Jenny could just make out her look of fear as she stood, listening.
"Oh, God, there is something!"
The rustling was closer.
We should have run for a house, Jenny realized. Her one thought had been to get to the car. But now they had passed the last houses before the school grounds, and Audrey's car was too far ahead. They weren't going to make it.
"Come on!" Don't run don't run don't run, the hammering inside Jenny said. But her feet, clammy in their summery mesh loafers, wanted to pound down the sidewalk.
It was gaining on them.
It can't be a person-a person would show above those hedges, Jenny thought, casting a look behind her. Suddenly Jenny's brain showed her a terrible picture: little Nori scurrying along spiderlike behind the bushes, her face contorted in a grimace.