"Kate Wilhelm - Dark Door" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

felt as if the air was compacted, pressing against his head. He and Loesser
went up the wide, curving staircase to the second floor, where he began to
outline the plans for a women's lounge.

Suddenly he heard Elinor scream, a piercing shriek of terror, cut off by a
gunshot. He turned and raced through the upstairs hallway to the rear stairs,
John Loesser ran toward the stairs they had just ascended. Before Carson
reached the first floor there was another gunshot that sounded even louder
than the first. He tore out to the porch, pounded to the far end of it, and
saw Elinor crumpled on the floor.

One of her sandals was gone, he thought distantly. How could that have
happened? He touched her face. One eye was open, as blue as the dress twisted
about her thighs. The other side of her face was gone. He touched her cheek,
whispering her name. He started to gather her up, to lift her, carry her
inside, straighten out her dress From a long way away he heard a mank
anguished wail. Angered by the noise, he jerked up, snapped around, and saw
his son Gary leveling the rifle at him. He was still moving when the gun
fired, and fired again. He was flung backward by the momentum, stopped briefly
by the porch rail. Then he toppled over it to fall to the thick underbrush
below.

He came awake slowly and did not know where he was, why he was sleeping in the
shrubbery. He tried to rise and fell back to the ground. Someone sobbed; he
listened to hear if the other person would say something. An insect cho'us
crescendoed. He tried to roll to one side and prop himself up, but found that
one of his arms had turned to lead. There was no pain. Something was wrong
with his vision; he wiped his eyes with the hand that worked. Sticky. Suddenly
he really looked at his hand and saw blood; memory returned, and pain swamped
him. He heard the distant sob again and knew this time that he was making the
noise. Elinor! Gary! He began to work at pulling himself up, rising first to
his knees. Then, fighting dizziness and nausea, he got to his feet. He
staggered, fell, and rested before starting again.

Falling, crawling, staggering, pulling himself along with his good hand
grasping the brambles and scrub trees, he hauled himself to the building, then
up the stairs to the porch, where he collapsed again. After many minutes he
started to inch his way to Elinor. The entire end of the porch was awash in
blood. Elinor was not there.
A wave of pain took his breath away; he pitched forward and lay still. When he
could open his eyes again, he saw her footprints, one shod, one bare. She must
have gone for help, he thought clearly, and in his mind the vision of her
destroyed face and head swelled, dwindled, and swelled again like a pulse. He
forced himself to his feet.

For the next hour he followed the bloody footprints, sometimes on his knees,
sometimes staggering on his feet. At the bottom of the curved stairs there was
a bigger pool of blood, more prints. He picked up a wallet. Loesser must have
dropped it, he thought distantly, the way Elinor lost her sandal. He put the
wallet in his pocket and pulled himself up the stairs, resting more and more