"Barker, Clive - The Great and Secret Show v1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barker Clive)

"Momma?"
"I knew it would come. I'm ready."
"You can't fight him with that," she said. "He's not even human. Is he?"
Momma's eyes went to the door.
"Tell me, Momma."
"I don't know what he is," she said. "I've tried to think...all these years. Maybe the Devil. Maybe not." She looked back at Jo-Beth. "I've been afraid for so long," she said. "And now he's here and it all seems so simple."
"Then explain it," Jo-Beth said. "Because I don't understand. Who is he? What has he done to Tommy-Ray?"
"He told the truth," Momma said. "After a fashion. He is your father. Or rather one of them."
"How many do I need?"
"He made a whore of me. He drove me half mad with desires I didn't want. The man who slept with me is your father; but this—" she pointed the knife in the direction of the door, from the far side of which came the sound of tapping "—this is what really made you."
"I hear you," the Jaff murmured. "Loud and clear."
"Keep away," Momma said, moving towards the door. Jo-Beth tried to shoo her back but she ignored the instruction. And with reason. It wasn't the door she wanted to stand beside but her daughter. She seized Jo-Beth's arm and dragged her close, putting the knife to her throat.
"I'll kill her," she said to the thing on the landing. "So help me as there's a God in Heaven I mean it. Try and come in here and your daughter's dead." Her grip on Jo-Beth was as strong as Tommy-Ray's. Minutes ago he'd called her a lunatic. Either her present performance was a bluff of Oscar-winning skill or else he'd been right. Either way, Jo-Beth was forfeit.
The Jaff was tapping on the door again.
"Daughter?" he said.
"Answer him," Momma told her.
"Daughter?"
"...Yes..."
"Do you fear for your life? Honestly now. Tell me honestly. Because I love you and I want no harm to come to you "
"She fears," Momma said.
"Let her answer," the Jaff said.
Jo-Beth had no hesitation in replying. "Yes," she said. "Yes. She's got a knife and—"
"You would be a fool," the Jaff said to Momma, "to kill the only thing that made your life worth living. But you might, mightn't you?"
"I won't let you have her," Momma said.
There was a silence from the other side of the door. Then the Jaff said:
"Fine by me..." He laughed softly. "There's always tomorrow."
He rattled the door one last time, as though to be certain that he was indeed locked out. Then the laughter and the rattling ceased, to be replaced by a low, guttural sound that might have been the groan of something being born into pain, knowing with its first breath there was no escape from its condition. The distress in the sound was at least as chilling as the seductions and threats that had gone before. Then it began to fade.
"It's leaving," Jo-Beth said. Momma still held the blade at her neck. "It's leaving, Momma. Let me go."
The fifth stair from the bottom of the flight creaked twice, confirming Jo-Beth's belief that their tormentors were indeed exiting the house. But it was another thirty seconds before Momma relaxed her hold on Jo-Beth's arm, and another minute still before she let her daughter go entirely.
"It's gone from the house," she said. "But stay here a while."
"What about Tommy?" Jo-Beth said. "We have to go and find him."
Momma shook her head. "I was bound to lose him," she said. "No use now."
"We've got to try," Jo-Beth said.
She opened the door. Across the landing, leaning against the banister, was what could only be Tommy-Ray's handiwork. When they were children he'd made dolls for Jo-Beth by the dozen, makeshift toys that nevertheless bore the imprint of his disposition. Always, they had smiles. Now he had created a new doll; a father for the family, made from food. A head of hamburger, with thumb-press eyes; legs and arms of vegetables; a torso of a milk carton, the contents of which spilled out between its legs, pooling around the chili pepper and garlic bulbs placed there. Jo-Beth stared at its crudity: the meat-face stared back at her. No smile this time. No mouth even. Just two holes in the hamburger. At its groin the milk of manhood spread, and stained the carpet. Momma was right. They'd lost Tommy-Ray.
"You knew that bastard was coming back," she said.
"I guessed it would come, given time. Not for me. It didn't come for me. I was just a convenient womb, like all of us—"
"The League of Virgins," Jo-Beth said.
"Where did you hear that?"
"Oh, Momma...people have been talking since I was a kid..."
"I was so ashamed," Momma said. She put her hand to her face; the other, still holding the knife, hung at her side. "So very ashamed. I wanted to kill myself. But the Pastor kept me from it. Said I had to live. For the Lord. And for you and Tommy-Ray."
"You must have been very strong," Jo-Beth said, turning away from the doll to face her. "I love you, Momma. I know I said I was afraid but I know you wouldn't have hurt me."
Momma looked up at her, the tears running steadily from her eyes and dripping from her jaw.
Without thinking she said:
"I would have killed you stone dead."

III

"My enemy is still here," said the Jaff.
Tommy-Ray had led him along a path unknown to any but the children of the Grove, which took them round the back of the Hill to a giddy vantage point. It was too rocky for a trysting place and too unstable to be built upon, but it gave those who troubled to climb so high an unsurpassed view over Laureltree and Windbluff.
There they stood, Tommy-Ray and his father, taking in the sights. There were no stars overhead; and barely any lights burning in the houses below. Clouds dulled the sky; sleep, the town. Untroubled by witnesses, father and son stood and talked.