"Tim Lebbon - The Origin Of Truth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lebbon Tim)

road."

Lucy-Anne did not answer. She was still trying to hug Gemma, protect her, hide
her away from whatever had gone wrong with the world today. If only it were so
easy.
·····

That afternoon there was a government announcement over the radio. The Prime
Minister gave "grave news" about the southern suburbs of London—they were
gone—but he assured people that everything was being done that could be done
to find a solution to this crisis. Doug wondered just how far away the bastard
actually was. The Arctic Circle, perhaps?

Gemma laughed childishly and said: "Tibia, fibula, tarsus, metatarsals,
phalanges."

Early that evening they saw the first signs for Edinburgh. The radio had said
no more.




·····


Uncle Peter was more than eccentric, he was plain insane … and he wanted
people to recognize his insanity. His whole estate was floodlit against the
night, revealing all of what he had done. Some of it, Doug thought, should
have stayed well hidden.
As they cruised along his long, winding driveway, the first signs of this
madness presented themselves. Every tree bordering the road had had its lower
branches lopped off, the wounds daubed with black tar to seal them, the dead
timber disposed of out of sight. Nailed to the naked trunks were animal
corpses, a species for each tree: a squirrel on a sycamore, a sparrow on an
elm, a deer on an oak. It was as if Uncle Peter were a game hunter, but he had
run out of room for trophies inside his house.

And the house … this was fairly unusual as well.

"Holy shit," Doug muttered under his breath as they rounded the final bend in
the drive. It was a huge old monolith, stonework sills crumbling with age,
windows distorted out of shape by the deadly subsidence plaguing the property
and promising to drag it, eventually, back into the stony ground. From plinth
to eaves the house looked quite normal, if dishevelled.

Above that, the gargoyles took over.

They were all huge, fashioned from plastic and fibreglass instead of stone,
and more gruesome because of that. Garish colors and unsettling designs
shouted across at them as they coasted to a halt. Bloody teeth, split throats,