JК
Desperation :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 26 из 422Ellen looking at him, one eye wide and frantic, the othernearly lost in a puffy com-plication of blue-black flesh.
Screaming. Somewhere. A woman. From below them. Maybe—He tried to get on his feet but his knees wouldn’t lock.
He fell forward off the bed he was sitting on (except it wasn’t a bed, it was a cot) and landed on his hands and knees. A fresh bolt of pain passed through his head, and for a moment he thought his skull would split open like an eggshell. Then he was looking down at his hands through clotted clumps of hair. Both hands were streaked with blood, the left considerably redder than the right. As he looked at them, sudden memory (Kirsten oh Jesus Ellie catch her)
burst in his head like a poison firework and he screamed himself, screamed down at his bloodstained hands, screamed as what he had been trying to burrow away from dropped into his mind like a stone into a pond. Kirsten had fallen down the stairs—No. Pushed.
The crazy bastard who had brought them here had pushed his seven-year-old daughter down the stairs. Ellie had reached for her and the crazy bastard had punched his wife in the eye and knocked her down. But Ellie had fallen on the stairs and Kirsten had plunged down them, her eyes wide open, full of shocked surprise, Ralph didn’t think she’d known what was happening, and if he could hold onto anything he would hold onto that, that it had all happened too fast for her to have any real idea, and then she had hit, she had cartwheeled, feet flying first upward and then backward, and there had been this sound, this awful sound like a branch breaking under a weight of ice, and suddenly everything about her had changed, he had seen the change even before she came to a stop at the foot of the stairs, as if that were no little girl down there but a stuffed dummy, headpiece full of straw.
Don’t think it, don ‘t think it, don’t you dare think it. Except he had to. The way she had landed… the way she had lain at the foot of the stairs with her head on one side…
Fresh blood was pattering down on his left hand, he saw. Apparently something was wrong with that side of his head. What had happened. Had the cop hit him, too, maybe with the butt of the monster sidearm he had been wearing. Maybe, but that part was mostly gone. He could remember the gruesome somersault she had done, and the way she had slid down the rest of the stairs, and how she had come to rest with her head cocked that way, and that was all. Christ, wasn’t it enough.
“Ralph.” Ellie was tugging at him and panting harshly “Ralph, get up! Please get up!”
“Dad! Daddy, come on!” That was David, from farther away.
Screaming. Somewhere. A woman. From below them. Maybe—He tried to get on his feet but his knees wouldn’t lock.
He fell forward off the bed he was sitting on (except it wasn’t a bed, it was a cot) and landed on his hands and knees. A fresh bolt of pain passed through his head, and for a moment he thought his skull would split open like an eggshell. Then he was looking down at his hands through clotted clumps of hair. Both hands were streaked with blood, the left considerably redder than the right. As he looked at them, sudden memory (Kirsten oh Jesus Ellie catch her)
burst in his head like a poison firework and he screamed himself, screamed down at his bloodstained hands, screamed as what he had been trying to burrow away from dropped into his mind like a stone into a pond. Kirsten had fallen down the stairs—No. Pushed.
The crazy bastard who had brought them here had pushed his seven-year-old daughter down the stairs. Ellie had reached for her and the crazy bastard had punched his wife in the eye and knocked her down. But Ellie had fallen on the stairs and Kirsten had plunged down them, her eyes wide open, full of shocked surprise, Ralph didn’t think she’d known what was happening, and if he could hold onto anything he would hold onto that, that it had all happened too fast for her to have any real idea, and then she had hit, she had cartwheeled, feet flying first upward and then backward, and there had been this sound, this awful sound like a branch breaking under a weight of ice, and suddenly everything about her had changed, he had seen the change even before she came to a stop at the foot of the stairs, as if that were no little girl down there but a stuffed dummy, headpiece full of straw.
Don’t think it, don ‘t think it, don’t you dare think it. Except he had to. The way she had landed… the way she had lain at the foot of the stairs with her head on one side…
Fresh blood was pattering down on his left hand, he saw. Apparently something was wrong with that side of his head. What had happened. Had the cop hit him, too, maybe with the butt of the monster sidearm he had been wearing. Maybe, but that part was mostly gone. He could remember the gruesome somersault she had done, and the way she had slid down the rest of the stairs, and how she had come to rest with her head cocked that way, and that was all. Christ, wasn’t it enough.
“Ralph.” Ellie was tugging at him and panting harshly “Ralph, get up! Please get up!”
“Dad! Daddy, come on!” That was David, from farther away.