"Aaron Wolfe - Invasion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Aaron)

end up in private, locked rooms in silent hospitals, staring at walls and
refusing to speakтАж

"At least we can follow this trail until it turns away from the house," I
said.

He gave me his hand, and we bent our heads against the wind, keeping
a close watch on the odd prints as we climbed the slope. The holes were
repeated in exactly the same pattern until we were halfway up the hill to
the house. At the mid-point of the slope, the prints stopped in a much
trampled circle of snow. Toby found the place where they struck off once
again toward another arm of the pine forest.

"It stood here," Toby said. "It stood right here and watched our house
for a long time."

Indeed, the animal, whatever it might be, seemed to have come out of
the woods solely to stare at the farmhouse and, once its curiosity was
satisfied, had gone away again. But I didn't like to think that was the case.
There was some indefinable alien quality about those printsтАФwhich were
so unlike anything I had ever before encounteredтАФthat made me at first
uneasy and eventually somewhat frightened. That fear, as irrational as it
might have been, only increased when I contemplated the thing standing
here on this windblown slope, watching the farmhouse where Connie had
spent the entire afternoon alone.

But that was ridiculous.

Wasn't it?

Yes.

What was there to fear?

It was only an animal.

I was being childish.
 "Maybe it was a bear," Toby said.

"No. A bear's paws wouldn't leave a trail like this."

"I can't wait to go looking for it on snowshoes."

Well, that's for another day," I said. "Come on."

He wanted to look at the prints some more.

I kept hold of his hand and started toward the house again, setting a
faster pace than we'd been keeping. "Remember that hot chocolate!" But I
wasn't thinking about hot chocolate at all.