"Simon R. Green - Nightside 1 - Drinking Midnight Wine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Simon R)

streets and the houses and the sights were all the same as they had ever been, but it was like
seeing them afresh, as though he was recognising them again after many years away. This was the
same route he'd taken the night before, plodding home through the pouring rain, but now he felt
like a stranger in his own town. There was a charge, a tension, on the air, something he could
feel but could not put a name to. Home didn't feel like home any more. It occurred to him that
this was the kind of perfect summer day you usually only saw in films; all bright and sharp and
Technicolor dazzle, with every detail spot on. The birds were all singing in tune, there was
hardly any traffic on the road (unheard-of for a Saturday morning), and the air... had a charge to
it, a feeling of anticipation. Toby was surprised to find that there was actually a spring in his
step as he headed for the town centre.
And yet he couldn't shake off the feeling that something was wrong... out of place. Some of the
houses he was passing didn't seem quite as he remembered them. There were too many windows, or too
few. Front doors were the wrong colour or even the wrong shape. Gabled roofs he would have sworn
were solar-panelled the day before. Gardens were full of tall flowers, swaying in the gentle
breeze, and trees were bright with blossom, when he was almost sure... He shrugged a few times,
and increased his pace. Amazing what one good night of rain could do.
He made his way down to the St Margaret's Street car park, and that was where he got his first
shock. Instead of the usual polite sign informing visitors to the town that cars could be left for
a maximum of two hours during the day (Get your ticket from the machine, have you Paid &
Displayed?), one wall was now covered with a large handwritten warning, painted in what looked
very like fresh blood, saying, Get it out of here by sundown or you'll never see it again! Repeat
offenders will be defenestrated!
Toby stopped at the top of the slope leading down into the car park and studied the new sign for
some time, before looking around to see if anyone else had noticed it. Everyone else was bustling
back and forth on their own business, paying the sign no attention at all. Toby stood considering
for a moment, making sure that defenestration meant what he thought it did, and then frowned. His
first thought was to dismiss it as graffiti, vandalism... and not very funny at that. But somehow,
he didn't think so. There was something horribly official about the wording and the penmanship.
Good thing he didn't own a car.
He started down the slope, threading his way through the tightly packed vehicles, and that was
when he got his second shock. There were cars all around him, filling the car park from wall to
wall, and every damn one of them looked as weird as hell. He passed what he was pretty sure was a
Model-T Ford; bright shining black and perfect, as though it had just rolled off the production
line. A replica, obviously, but... as Toby slowed his pace and looked around him with growing
confusion, it seemed to him that he was surrounded by makes of car from every period there ever
was.
A great monster of a 1930s Bentley, in racing green and red, stood next to a powder-blue Hillman
Minx Superior from the fifties. A blatantly purple Delorean stood next to a silver-grey Aston
Martin DB 5 that looked like it had come straight from the set of a James Bond film. And then...
It was long and sleek and gleaming, shining silver like a mediaeval church chalice, streamlined to
within an inch of its life, and impressively low slung; but if it was a car, then where the hell
were its wheels? Just looking at it, Toby knew it could go from 0 to 60 while you were still
turning the ignition key. The car of the future, just like in all the comics he'd read as a boy.
Toby walked slowly through the car park, his head swivelling back and forth, his arms tucked in
close at his sides, so he wouldn't accidentally touch anything. He had a horrid suspicion that if
he did, the car might pop like a soap bubble, and he didn't think he could cope with that. Toby
was beginning to feel very strange. He kept trying to tell himself there must be a convention of


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