JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 70 из 425I’d go inside, flip on the kitchen overheads, grab a flashlight, and go back for the car. If I didn’t, some drunk guy with a cottage at the far south end of the lane would come in too fast, rear-end my Chevy, and sue me for a billion dollars. The house had been aired out and didn’t smell a bit musty; instead of still, stale air, there was a faint and pleasing aroma of pine. I reached for the light inside the door, and then, somewhere in the blackness of the house, a child began to sob. My hand froze where it was and my flesh went cold. I didn’t panic, exactly, but all rational thought left my mind. It was weeping, a child’s weeping, but I hadn’t a clue as to where it was coming from. Then it began to fade. Not to grow softer but to fade, as if someone had picked that kid up and was carrying it away down some long corridor… not that any such corridor existed in Sara Laughs.
Even the one running through the middle of the house, connecting the central section to the two wings, isn’t really long. Fading… faded… almost gone. I stood in the dark with my cold skin crawling and my hand on the lightswitch. Part of me wanted to boogie, to just go flying out of there as fast as my little legs could carry me, running like the gingerbread man. Another part, however—the rational part—was already reasserting itself. I flicked the switch, the part that wanted to run saying forget it, it won’t work, it’s the dream, stupid, it’s your dream coming true. But it did work. The foyer light came on in a shadow-dispelling rush, revealing Jo’s lumpy little pottery collection to the left and the bookcase to the right, stuff I hadn’t looked at in four years or more, but still here and still the same. On a middle shelf of the bookcase I could see the three early Elmore Leonard novelswag, The Big Bounce, and Mr. Majestyk—that I had put aside against a spell of rainy weather; you have to be ready for rain when you’re at camp.
Without a good book, even two days of rain in the woods can be enough to drive you bonkers. There was a final whisper of weeping, then silence.
In it, I could hear ticking from the kitchen. The clock by the stove, one of Jo’s rare lapses into bad taste, is Felix the Cat with big eyes that shift from side to side as his pendulum tail flicks back and forth.
I think it’s been in every cheap horror movie ever made. “Who’s here?” I called. I took a step toward the kitchen, just a dim space floating beyond the foyer, then stopped. In the dark the house was a cavern. The sound of the weeping could have come from anywhere. Including my own imagination.
Even the one running through the middle of the house, connecting the central section to the two wings, isn’t really long. Fading… faded… almost gone. I stood in the dark with my cold skin crawling and my hand on the lightswitch. Part of me wanted to boogie, to just go flying out of there as fast as my little legs could carry me, running like the gingerbread man. Another part, however—the rational part—was already reasserting itself. I flicked the switch, the part that wanted to run saying forget it, it won’t work, it’s the dream, stupid, it’s your dream coming true. But it did work. The foyer light came on in a shadow-dispelling rush, revealing Jo’s lumpy little pottery collection to the left and the bookcase to the right, stuff I hadn’t looked at in four years or more, but still here and still the same. On a middle shelf of the bookcase I could see the three early Elmore Leonard novelswag, The Big Bounce, and Mr. Majestyk—that I had put aside against a spell of rainy weather; you have to be ready for rain when you’re at camp.
Without a good book, even two days of rain in the woods can be enough to drive you bonkers. There was a final whisper of weeping, then silence.
In it, I could hear ticking from the kitchen. The clock by the stove, one of Jo’s rare lapses into bad taste, is Felix the Cat with big eyes that shift from side to side as his pendulum tail flicks back and forth.
I think it’s been in every cheap horror movie ever made. “Who’s here?” I called. I took a step toward the kitchen, just a dim space floating beyond the foyer, then stopped. In the dark the house was a cavern. The sound of the weeping could have come from anywhere. Including my own imagination.