"Robert F. Young - Darkspace" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

DARKSPACE by Robert F Young

Mr. Young is semi-retired, in the sense that
he still writes. He is a native of Silver Creek,
which is a small, dead town in western New
York State. His house, he tells us, is just
across the street from Lake Erie, so logically,
fishing should be his principal hobby; but
unfortunately he doesn't like to fish, so he
spends the time he would normally be fishing
in writing instead. He's published going-on 200
short stories, 95% of them SF or fantasy, and
recently had a novelтАФStarfinderтАФpublished by
Pocket Books. He is a veteran of World War II.

art: Jim Odbert

I live in a cave.
I have no name. Most of the time I am asleep.
I am always wearing the same clothesтАФa red-plaid shirt, tan trousers, black boots.
The rattling of stones on the steep hill that leads up to the cave's mouth has awakened me. This has
happened many times before. I am lying on my back on the cave's floor. I roll over onto my stomach, get
up on my hands and knees and creep to the cave's mouth. Oddly, for as many times as I have had the
experience, I never know who my visitor is until I see her. She is a girl. No, she is not really a girl, she is
a woman, but I think of her as a girl. We stare at each other in the gray light, and she is as surprised to
see me as I am to see her. Then she screams and runs down the hill.
I run after her.
The hill is the steep slope of a small valley. Woods cover the valley floor. When the girl plunges into
them, I plunge into them after her. She is still screaming.
The woods are maple mostly, but some of the trees are locusts, and there are occasional hickories. I
did not know the names of the trees in the beginning, but one by one they have crept into my mind.
I run after the girl, but I do not catch her. I never do. At length we come to a narrow stream, and she
splashes across it and disappears. I try to cross the stream too, but it is a barrier of some kind, and I
cannot get even one foot into it. At this point I feel weak, and I am barely able to make it back to the
cave. I collapse onto the floor and fall back to sleep.
Basically, the experience never varies.

This time when the girl awakens me and we come face to face at the cave's mouth, I try to grab her.
My hand brushes her shoulder before she draws back. She has an attractive face. Her eyes are light blue,
her cheekbones high. Her cheeks are thin, and her mouth is bow-shaped. She has yellow hair whose
ends curl inward along her cheeks and neck. She is wearing a thigh-length light-blue garment. She always
wears such garments. Sometimes they are light-green instead of light-blue, sometimes light-yellow. Their
material is so thin that I can see her body through them. But I am never interested in her body. I chase
her but for one reason: to kill her.
After she draws back from my touch she screams and runs down the hill. Again I run after her. I am
very close behind her, and I can smell her. The smell is of perfume and body sweat. But it does not make
me want her. Want her how? I ask myself. I do not know. I know only that I want to kill her.
She enters the woods. Her hair streams behind her. I try to grab it, and my fingertips brush its ends.
But I cannot get close enough to seize it. Through the woods. The woods are dead. There is no life in
them, except for that of the girl and myself. Why should there be life? I ask myself. What kind of life do I