"Shaun Hutson - Hybrid" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hutson Shaun)

Hybrid
Copyright © Shaun Hutson 2002
LIVING DEATH
The fly was caught in the web. He watched it writhe helplessly, tangling
itself even more surely in the sticky strands that ensnared it.
The web had been spun across one of the windows of his office and it was the
frantic buzzing and struggling of the fly that had first alerted him to its
plight.
Now he sat back in his chair and watched.
And waited.
The spider emerged slowly from its hiding place. A bloated, corpulent specimen
that barely seemed able to haul itself along the gossamer snare towards its
victim.
But it came with lethal intent.
He watched as it stretched out one leg and placed it on the struggling fly.
Then, with surprising speed, it hugged its swollen body to the insect, drew it
close and injected venom from its fangs. Clung on tightly as its victim was
immobilised.
As living death took over.
Finally it began to weave a silken cocoon around the fly before hauling itself
back to its hiding place.
It would feed later. On the still-living fly.
Christopher Ward watched for a moment longer then looked back at his desk.
The screen of his computer was blank. It had been for the last two hours. He
hadn't managed one single, solitary word since he'd wandered out of the house
at ten that morning.
The cup of coffee he'd drunk at eleven hadn't sparked any thoughts. Neither
had wandering backwards and forwards in the office.
It was like that some days. Most days.
He stared at the screen. He placed his fingers on the keys and he waited.
And nothing happened. No outpouring of creativity. No flood of story-telling
genius.
Just a blank screen. And a blank mind.
It wasn't writer's block. He knew how that felt. This was something new. More
painful.
This was living death.
He glanced at the" fly still suspended in the web. It twitched helplessly
every now and then. He wondered if it was aware of its impending doom. He
doubted it. Man was alone in being able to contemplate his own end. The only
species able to appreciate the finality and inevitability of death.
Christopher Ward was caught in a web of his own.
LIVING IN THE PAST
Ward was in his early forties. Some people told him he looked younger. That on
a good day he could pass for thirty-eight or thirty-nine.
But good days had been in short supply for the last two or three months.
Most mornings when he looked in the bathroom mirror the face that looked back
at him was tired and pale. There were dark rings beneath his blue-grey eyes.
Hair that had once reached his shoulders had recently been cut to just above
his collar. And now there was a little too much grey in those once-lustrous
locks.