"Richard Matheson - Hell House" - читать интересную книгу автора (Matheson Richard)

Barrett sighed.
"I know I don't understand much of what you're doing, but there are always things I can do
to help. Pack and unload your equipment, for instance. Help you set up your experiments. Type the
rest of your manuscript; you said you wanted to have it ready by the first of the year. And I want
to be with you when you prove your theory."
Barrett nodded. "Let me think about it."
"I won't be in your way," she promised. "And I know there are any number of things I can
do to help."
He nodded again, trying to think. It was obvious she didn't want to stay behind. He could


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appreciate that. Except for his three weeks in London in 1962, they'd never been separated since
their marriage. Would it really hurt that much to take her? Certainly, she'd experienced enough
psychic phenomena by now to be accustomed to it.
Still, that house was such an unknown factor. It hadn't been called Hell House without
reason. There was a power there strong enough to physically and/or mentally demolish eight people,
three of whom had been scientists like himself.
Even believing that he knew exactly what that power was, dare he expose Edith to it?




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DECEMBER 20, 1970

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10:39 P.M.


Florence Tanner crossed the yard which separated her small house from the church and
walked along the alley to the street. She stood on the sidewalk and gazed at her church. It was
only a converted store, but it had been everything to her these past six years. She looked at the
sign in the painted window: TEMPLE OF SPIRITUAL HARMONY. She smiled. It was indeed. Those six
years had been the most spiritually harmonious of her life.
She walked to the door, unlocked it, and went inside. The warmth felt good. Shivering, she
turned on the wall lamp in the vestibule. Her eye was caught by the bulletin board:

Sunday Services--11:00 am., 8:00 p.m.
Healing and Prophecy--Tuesdays, 7:45 p.m.
Lectures and Spirit Greetings--Wednesdays, 7:45 p.m.
Messages and Revelations--Thursdays, 7:45 p.m.
Holy Communion--1st Sunday of Month