"Jerry Davis - Halloween Ants (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davis Jerry)

carts or he was going to ram them. Their expressions became
alarmed, and they moved to one side but left their carts where
they were. Brad rammed their carts with his, making a loud crash
and sending the carts and the groceries tumbling. The women hissed
and snarled at him as he scrambled past. He leaped over a chain
and past a register, but slipped and landed hard on the worn
linoleum. As he got to his feet, he saw people running toward him.
The manager, the other checkers, the women with the carts. The big
guy. They were coming for him, all with grim faces and a dead-eyed
look, and Brad turned and sprinted for the door, banging into it
and shoving it open. He was out before they could reach him, and
his feet pounded the pavement across the parking lot. The cats, he
saw, were no longer fighting. One was dead and being fed upon by
the other.
Just before he rounded the corner he looked back, seeing a
few of them standing in the parking lot staring back at him, but
none were pursuing. As he passed the gas station and headed down
the street where he lived, his running slowed to a jog and then he
abruptly stopped. He bent forward, hands on trembling knees, and
fought to catch his breath.
As he stood there panting, his thoughts became clear. The
whole town seemed to be going nuts, but how could that be? How
could the town be going crazy? He thought about it, trying to
reason it through. First the dream, and then the insane thoughts.
Then everyone seemed crazy to him – predatory – as if they were
sharing his sudden cravings for human flesh. Brad decided that at
some point his mind had snapped. The emotional strain of losing
his wife to that bastard, that self-important, smug, swaggering
jerk … his brain couldn't deal with it, his subconscious rebelling
against his conscious mind, because his conscious refused to allow
himself to commit murder no matter how justified he felt.
Brad straightened and resumed walking up the street, feeling
the insanity, seeing through it like a filter. No one had actually
chased him at the store. They may have been staring at him, but it
was probably because he was acting so crazy. It's me, he thought.
It's all me. It's in my head. I probably scared the shit out of
that poor guy and his wife. He was firing at me in self-defense.
Even now, looking around the sunny neighborhood around him,
things looked strange. He felt like he was viewing the world
through glasses that were the wrong prescription – angles were
distorted, and people's faces – their expressions – he perceived
them wrong. A mother and her children washing their car peered at
him through beady, hostile eyes. The little girl, staring at him,
licked her lips. An old man with his small white dog on a leash
smiled as Brad passed, and the smile was full of menace. This
isn't real, Brad told himself. It can't be. But his knowing this
didn't change what he saw. Knowing he was sick didn't cure him.
Brad picked up his pace. He had to get to a phone and call
the police, have himself put away. He wanted them to put him in a
place where he could get well again. I can get better, he told