"Whitley Strieber - The Night Church" - читать интересную книгу автора (Strieber Whitley)

PRAY FOR HER.
PRAY FOR HER UNBORN BABY.
PRAY FOR ALL OF US.
It is all ugliness and evil. It has no name. She thinks of it as the snake. It comes in the night, in her dreams.
It tells her in its sneering way some-thing she cannot bear to hear. YOU WANT TO KISS ME. It comes
closer, ever closer. It whispers lewdly. WE CAN DO IT, WE MUST DO IT. OUR LOVE IS THE
FUTURE, THE HOPE OF THE WORLD ...

"THE NIGHT CHURCH is. . . death by blow-torch, the whiff of bubonic plague, a sinister Lourdes,
demons shucking off their human skins. Strieber has tied everything together so well that we
happily accept even his most extravagant inventions, and anybody who has read The Hunger
knows that he is indeed an extravagant inventor."
тАФPeter Straub, author of Ghost Story
 Prologue


AUGUST 1963

IT WAS A WET NIGHT in Queens. Kew Gardens was quiet, the only sounds along Beverly Road the
slow-dripping rain, the occasional hiss of tires on the slick asphalt, or the hurrying splash of feet on the
sidewalk.
A man came swiftly along, huddling in his raincoat, his eyes hooded by a hat. When he stopped and raised
his head to read a street sign his face was revealed to be as pale and creased as a worn-out mask. The
wrinkles framed a tight mouth and green eyes, ironic and cold. He consulted an address book, then walked
up to the front door of a particu-lar house. It had been carefully selected; the tenants had moved here only
a few weeks ago from another state. Their little boy had not yet begun attending Holy Spirit Parochial
School, had not yet registered.
The Cochrans were a demographic oddity of very special interest to certain people, for the Cochrans had
no relatives but one another, and the Cochrans had just come here. They were utterly alone.
The old man did not ring their bell; he did not even pause on the porch. Instead he glanced over his
shoulder, then slipped around the side of the house and disappeared at once Into the shadows there.
He moved quickly; his activities here were carefully planned. They were dangerous. Occasionally people
such as these had guns; occasionally they called the police.
They never understood. Always, there was resistance.
Franklin Titus began to work on the basement door.
Inside the house nine thirty came and went. Letty Coch-ran sent little Jerry to bed. She and George
settled back to watch the second half of the Garry Moore show.
"Mom?"
Frank Fontaine was starting to sing, "Maytime"; Letty had just closed her eyes. She sighed. "Why aren't
you in bed, dear?"
"There's someone in the house."
George lit a cigarette, did not stir. Letty got up and went to their boy. She was concerned. Jerry was not
a fearful child. He was spunky. Seeing him standing before her, wide-eyed, full of his innocent fright, she
felt great sympathy and love for him.
"Just us, dear."
"It's a man. He was coming up from the basement, but when I saw him he stepped back into the pantry."
This was not baseless fear. Jerry was terrified. "Come on, Jer, let's go see if we can shoo him out."
Jerry followed her into the hall, tugging at her arm. "No, Mom, don't go in there. He was a real person. I
wasn't dreaming."
"Jerry, honey, are you all right?"