"Brian Lumley - A Coven Of Vampires" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

rails which always warn one that a train is approaching a station or depot. Funny-Mouth had turned
his monstrous, nightmare face towards me. He leaned across the aisle, closing the distance between
us. I mentally screamed, physically incapable of the act, and strained with every fibre of my
being to break from the trance which I suddenly knew beyond any doubting was not a dream and never
had been . . .
The train ground to a shuddering halt with a wheeze of steam and a squeal of brakes. Outside in
the night the station-master was yelling instructions to a porter on the unseen platform. As the
train stopped Funny-Mouth was jerked momentarily back, away from me, and before he could bring his
face close to mine again Moustache was speaking to him.
There's no time, Master - this is our stop. . .' Funny-Mouth hovered over me a moment longer,
seemingly undecided, then he pulled away. The others filed past him out into the corridor while he
stood, tall and eerie, just within the doorway. Then he lifted his right hand and snapped his
fingers.
I could move. I blinked my eyes rapidly and shook myself, sitting up straight, feeling the pain of
the cramp between my shoulder-blades.
'I say . . .' I began.
'Quiet' ordered that echoing voice from unknown spaces - and of course, his painted, false mouth
never moved. I was right; I had been hypnotized, not dreaming at all. That false mouth - Walker in
Darkness - Monarch of Night - Lord of Hell - the Liturgy to Summanus . . .
I opened my mouth in amazement and horror, but before I could utter more than one word -
'Summanus'- something happened.
His waist-coal slid to one side near the bottom and a long, white, tapering tentacle with a blood-
red tip slid into view. That tip hovered, snake-like, for a moment over my petrified face - and
then struck. As if someone had taken a razor to it, my face opened up and the blood began to gush.
I fell to my knees in shock, too terrified even to yell out, automatically reaching for my
handkerchief; and when next I coweringly looked up, Funny-Mouth had gone.
Instead of seeing him - It -I found myself staring, from where I kneeled dabbing uselessly at my
face, into the slack features of the sleeping Jock.
Sleeping?


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I began to scream. Even as the train started to pull out of the station I was screaming. When no
one answered my cries, I managed to pull the communication-cord. Then, until they came to find out
what was wrong, 1 went right on screaming. Not because of my face - because of Jock . . .
A jagged, bloody, two-inch hole led clean through his jacket and shirt and into his left side -
the side which had been closest to . . . to that thing-and there was not a drop of blood in his
whole, limp body. He simply lay there - half on, half off the seat - victim of 'a bleddy heathen
ceremony' -substituted for the bread-cakes simply because the train had chosen an inopportune
moment to lurch - a sacrifice to Summanus . . .

BACK ROW

I'll tell it exactly the way it happened.
They were showing a love story at the Odeon, a classic from years dead and all but forgotten. The
first time I'd seen this picture had been with my wife - would you believe, thirty years ago? The
picture had outlasted her, if not our love. Maybe that's why I wanted to see it again.
I picked a rainy Wednesday afternoon. No kids hooting and gibbering in the back rows, maybe a pair