"The Sympathy Society" - читать интересную книгу автора (Masterton Graham)

‘What did you see?’ asked Martin.

Tybalt shook his head. ‘I don't want to put any ideas in your head. Besides, if I tell you, you won't want to be killed at all.’

‘I want to die,’ said Martin. ‘I want you to cut off my head, and kill me. I need to know what Sarah went through. I need to know exactly what she felt like.’

‘There you are,, said Tybalt, with unexpected gentleness. ‘That's why we call ourselves The Sympathy Society.’


The following morning was chilly and overcast, and inside the house it was so gloomy that they had to switch the lights on. They gathered for breakfast in the kitchen, although Martin couldn't manage anything more than a cup of coffee. Sylvia sat at the head of the table, her hair all pinned up. She looked even paler than usual, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Around her neck hung a small silver crucifix.

At half past eight, Tybalt came in through the garden door. He was wearing a long black overcoat with the collar turned up. ‘Well,’ he said, chafing his hands together. ‘Everything's ready, Sylvia, if you are.’

Sylvia set down her teacup. She looked around the table, at each of them, although she didn't smile. ‘I don't like goodbyes,’ she said. ‘Anyway, we're all going to meet again, aren't we?’

Theresa reached across the table and took hold of her hand. There were tears in her eyes. ‘I envy you,’ she said. ‘You don't know how much I envy you.’

Tybalt said, ‘None of you have to come out and watch. This is Sylvia's moment, after all. But if you want to be with her, I'm sure she'll appreciate it.’

Sylvia stood up. She was wearing a plain green linen dress, and she was barefoot. Tybalt went back out into the garden and she followed him, leaving the door ajar.

Theresa said, ‘I'm not going. I can't.’ Terence didn't say anything, but made no move to get up from the table. Sticky went through to the hallway and came back with his brown tweed overcoat and his checkered scarf. ‘I'm going. Poor girl deserves somebody there. Terrible thing, to die on your own.’

‘Don't,’ said Theresa. Sticky laid an apologetic hand on her shoulder. ‘Sorry ... didn't mean it like that.’

Martin didn't know whether he wanted to witness Sylvia's death or not; but Sticky said, ‘Come on, old boy. You never know. When you see this, you might change your mind.’

They went out into the garden. The grass was wet underfoot and dew was clinging to the branches of the apple-trees. Martin was shivering, and it wasn't because of the cold. In the far corner of the garden stood a dilapidated shed with broken windows, and just in front of it, Sylvia was already kneeling on the ground. Tybalt was standing over her, taping electrodes to her temples with silver fireproof tape. A little distance away stood an old metal table with a PC standing on it, and a collection of equipment for recording Sylvia's heart-rate and brain activity.

Martin and Sticky stopped and stood at a respectful distance, close to one of the trees. A robin perched on the fence close by, beadily watching them. Sylvia looked so plain and pale she reminded Martin of St Joan, about to be burned at the stake. But her expression was completely calm, and her eyes were lifted toward the sky, as if she were quite prepared for what was going to happen to her. As if she were quietly looking forward to it.

It took nearly ten minutes for Tybalt to fix the last electrode, and Martin was beginning to lose his nerve. ‘I think I'll go back inside,’ he told Sticky. But Sticky took hold of his hand, and gripped it tight, and wouldn't let it go. ‘You're best staying,’ he said.

Tybalt went across to the metal table and switched on his PC and his recording equipment. Then he went to the shed and came back with a large blue petrol-can. He told Sylvia to cover her face with her hands, and then he unscrewed the lid and poured the contents all over the top of her head. Sylvia shuddered, and let out a muffled, high-pitched ah! It wasn't petrol. It was a thick, greenish gel, which dripped slowly down her neck and over her shoulders. Martin could smell it, even from twenty feet away. It was paint-stripper, and it must have been searing the exposed skin on Sylvia's hands and neck already.

Tybalt's expression was grim, and he worked as quickly as he could. He picked up a large paintbrush and smeared the gel all down Sylvia's dress, back and front, and over her legs. She was trembling in agony already, but she kept her hands pressed over her face, and the only sound she made was a thin, repetitive ‘eeeshh - eeeshh - eeeshh-’ But the pain that she was suffering was nothing to the pain she would be suffering next.

Without any hesitation, Tybalt took a cigarette lighter out of his pocket, and snapped it into flame.

‘Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?’ he asked her, in a voice so quiet that Martin could scarcely hear him.

With her hands still clamped over her face, Sylvia nodded. Tybalt lit the top of her piled-up hair, and instantly her head burst into flame. Martin jolted with shock, but Sticky kept gripping his hand. He had never seen anybody burn before, and it was so horrific that he couldn't believe what he was looking at. Sylvia's hair caught fire in a whirl of tiny sparks, and then her ears shriveled and curled over like blackened bacon-rinds. She kept her hands over her face even though the tips of her fingers were alight. But then the fumes from the paint-stripper exploded with the softest whoomph and she was completely buried in flames.

Martin couldn't understand how she could bear the pain without moving. The flames were so fierce that he could hardly see her, only her blackening elbows and her scarlet-charred feet. But then she threw open her hands and screamed the most terrible scream that he had ever heard in his life. It wasn't just a scream of agony, it was a scream of total despair.

Sylvia tried to stagger on to her feet. Martin instinctively tried to move forward to help her, but Sticky held him back. ‘It's what she wants, man! It's what she came here for!’

Sylvia toppled sideways on to the grass, with flames literally pouring out of her face. She opened and closed her mouth two or three times, but her lungs were too burned for her to scream again. The flames ate through her dress and turned the flesh on her thighs into charcoal. She quivered, as her nerve-endings were burned, but eventually she stopped quivering and it was clear that she was dead. Thick smoke rose into the gray morning sky, and the smell of roasted meat brought a surge of bile into Martin's throat.

Tybalt switched off his equipment and approached them gravely. ‘I think she understood what her husband went through. I hope so.’ ‘Did you record anything?’asked Martin.