"Charles L. Grant - An Image in Twisted Silver" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Charles L)

An Image in Twisted Silver
Charles L. Grant
The annual World Fantasy Convention, which moves about from
state to state, occasionally from country to country, issues
each year a program book of consciously artistic value, with
stories, essays, and artwork by leading lights. Charles L.
Grant's tale is taken from the 1986 program book, the year he
was guest of honor, illustrated by that year's artist GoH Jeff
Potter.
Charles is one of our best-selling horror novelists and an
advocate of "quiet horror," as exemplified in his series of
Shadows anthologies. He's himself a master of the short form,
as every reader of horror well knows. He's also active in the
small presses, having contributed to Whispers, Fantasy Macabre,
Fantasy Tales, Fantasy Book, Weirdbook, Shayol, Midnight Sun,
and others. Author of over one hundred short tales, there are
many, like "An Image in Twisted Silver," that have not yet been
collected.

Robert locked the bathroom door when Joann began screaming. He
leaned against it and closed his eyes, felt the sweat on his
brow, felt the damp cold under his arms, and felt the heel of
his left foot tap rhythmically on the floor. In time to his
wife's voice. Faster, now slower, now faster again when she
realized what he'd done and threw something against the wall.
His words were garbled, if words they were at all, and he
stopped trying to give them meaning -- the sound of her was
enough, the anger and the hatred and the overwhelming despair
that had begun in her pale eyes when he told her he was going
to quit the firm, that traveled in a rippling crescent from one
cheek to the other, that settled around her mouth as her tongue
licked her lips, as the lips began to tremble while the tears
began to well, as her teeth clacked together as if she were
freezing.
The sound of it beginning as a growl in her throat, pitching
higher as she backed away from the kitchen table, higher still
when she pointed at the stack of envelopes on the counter and
demanded to know how the hell she was expected to pay all those
bills if he no longer had a job. And why the hell hadn't he
talked with her first, leaving the house that morning filled
with the power of the righteous, the strength of ideals, the
foolishness of the young who thought they'd live forever --
because the goddamned bills were over there, stacked on the
counter and waiting for the goddamned checks that would never
be written because he had principles but no goddamned sense and
she was sick of listening to his goddamned sermons about living
with himself, about sleeping, about what had to be done before
the world was made right.
He'd said nothing.
She was still screaming.