"Jeff VanderMeer - A Heart For Lucretia" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vandermeer Jeff)

Gerard, fatigue creeping into his bones, could not find the strength to
argue. He fell asleep against Flesh Dog's side, sand on his lips and
the
wind in his hair.

During the night, he woke in a cold sweat, convinced his sister had
been
leaning over him the moment before, her hair back in the pony-tail she
had
lovingly braided at age nine: giggling and warning him to stay away
from
the city, the city which lay at the edge of his vision: a dark and
ominous
block of shadow.
As he drifted back to sleep, Gerard imagined he felt his sister's pulse
weaken, back in her creche bed.

In the morning, Gerard and Flesh Dog found that the city was nearly
eclipsed by the cusp of the ocean, its waves a blinding green. Flesh
Dog
 wished to bathe, but Gerard said no. The waves echoed his sister's
voice
in their constant rush and withdrawal: hurry, hurry...

Flesh Dog scouted ahead as Gerard entered the city. The walls had been
breached in a dozen places and overhead zynagill hovered, waiting for
carrion. The smell as Gerard passed under the shadow of walls made him
bite back nausea. A subtle smell of plastic and leather and unwashed
drains.
The interior was littered with corpses: a valley of corpses. Flesh Dog,
whimpering, retreated to stand by Gerard. Gerard stared at the
spectacle
before him.
Dead people had been stacked in rectangular pits until they spilled
over
the edges. Nothing stirred. No flies tended the dead. No zynagill
touched
them. Plague, Gerard thought, putting a hand over his mouth and nose.
But the bright, festival clothes, the perfection of flesh without hint
of
boil or scab, mocked his intuition.
Gerard stepped forward, Flesh Dog shadowing him. The clothing upon the
dead remained limp, lacking even the secret life of the wind. Eyes
stared
glassily and the jaws beneath were stiff, locked against giving up
their
mystery. Gerard would rather they sprang up in parody of human form
than
lie there, staring...A chill entered Gerard's bones. Watching.
Bloodless.