"Night Warriors - 01 - Night Warriors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Masterton Graham)

Outside the door, the vacuum-cleaner suddenly whined to a stop. There was silence, even the television had been turned off, and both girls listened in case Susan's grandmother had heard Daffy taking the name of the Lord in vain. Susan's grandmother prayed in front of the television every Sunday morning with Dr Howard C Estep, and Dr Howard C Estep sternly disapproved of anyone taking the name of the Lord in vain.

Susan whispered, 'I saw a body, a dead body.'

'You're kidding!'

'No, I am not kidding. It was a girl, she was drowned or something. The police were there, and the ambulance, and everything.'

'Oh, my God,' said Daffy, shocked and sympathetic but still desperate to hear all the details. 'You must have been absolutely paralysed! I mean, what was she like? I never saw a dead body before.'

'Daffy,' said Susan, in an uncontrolled voice, 'she had eels in her stomach, where her stomach was supposed to be, and they were eating her.'

Daffy stared in shock. 'Eels! You're kidding? Oh my God, that's absolutely disgusting! What did you do? Were you sick?'

Susan couldn't even speak. She kept thinking about those eels twisting and wriggling and sliding underneath the dead girl's ribcage; and then the policeman dancing in agony with the eel whipping out of his face. She clasped her hands over her eyes and forced herself to cry, her chest heaving, her throat clenched tight, trying to wrench out of herself all of the fright and all of the horror, trying to exorcise all of the nightmares that she knew would come crowding in on her, come nightfall.

She had dreamed for months of her mother's distorted face. She knew that she would dream about the dead girl on the beach for ever and ever.

Daffy put her arms around her and held her close, shushing her, rocking her gently backwards and forwards as if she were a small child. In the hallway, the vacuum-cleaner started up again, and began to harvest the dust next to the living-room door. Daffy was younger than Susan by four months and two days exactly, but she was much more mature. She was a tall, skinny, brown-skinned girl, with masses and masses of curly brunette hair, and one of those pouting provocative mouths that every senior in high school had wanted to kiss. She had wanted to write to Hugh Hefner and offer herself as Playmate of the month, but her mother, although she was broad minded, had said no. Her mother had brought up Daffy on her own. Her father had gone to work on the oil pipeline in Alaska and never quite managed to come back, and so Daffy's mother was generally not in favour of male exploitation of women. She had brought up Daffy to be pretty and suspicious and worldly wise, not to take rides from strangers, and to take the pill.

Susan stopped crying as suddenly as she had begun, and sat in Daffy's arms looking around the room.

'Are you okay now?' Daffy asked her.

'I guess. I wasn't really crying. It was just thinking about it. That poor girl, you know, all gnawed away by eels. And one of the eels bit a cop, too, right in the face.'

'What were they, some kind of man-eating eel? What do they call them, moray eels? There was one in that movie. You know that movie with Nick Nolte? Anyway it bit some guy's head off. Don't you think that Jerry looks like Nick Nolte, if he had a moustache, I mean?'

Susan stood up, and mechanically took off her tee-shirt and her running-shorts, so that she was naked except for her socks. She dropped her shirt and shorts on to the floor, next to yesterday's skirt, a copy of Rolling Stone which she had been cutting up for pictures of Bruce Springsteen, her badminton racquet, her hairdryer and the sleeve of her new Eurythmics album.

'Are you sure you're okay?' Daffy asked her, worried.

Susan nodded. Her eyes were still reddened and watery. 'I just want to go take a shower; then we'll go over to your place.'

Daffy waited while Susan went to the bathroom. She paced up and down the bedroom for a while, nudging with her sneakers at discarded clothes and dismembered magazines. Then she went to the window and looked out into the yard, a small paved area with sunbeds and a stone fountain that didn't work, or only rarely. It was a hot clear day, and lizards were poised in the shadows of the undergrowth.

From here, it was possible to see a small part of the street outside, and Daffy's attention was caught by a young man in a black sports jacket and white tennis slacks sitting on the wall outside Susan's grandparents' house, smoking a cigarette. He looked as if he were waiting for somebody, because every now and then he lifted his wrist and Daffy could see a spark of reflected light from the face of his watch. His eyes were masked with impenetrably dark sunglasses.

She watched him for almost five minutes. Cars passed him by on both sides of the street, but nobody stopped for him, and it occurred to Daffy that he wasn't watching out for any particular car, either. He remained where he was, never turning his head, smoking and occasionally checking the time.

She turned away from the window and suddenly realised that Susan had stayed in the shower for an awfully long time. She walked through to the hallway, where Susan's grandmother was now burnishing her collection of brass figurines of Mexican dancers, and down the end to the bathroom.

'Is Susan going to your barbecue?' her grandmother asked, busily flapping her duster.

'She said she would,' Daffy replied. She hesitated by the bathroom door, and then knocked. 'Susan? Are you okay?'

'She's taking a shower,' said her grandmother, testily. 'Of course, I've only just cleaned up the bathroom. Now what am I going to get, soap all over the tiles and hair in the wastepipe. Not to mention the wet towels all over the floor. She really has to be the messiest girl ever.'

'Susan?' Daffy repeated.