"Michael Marshall Smith - The Dark Land" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Michael Marshall)

filthy floor. I could feel the orange of the walls seeping in through my ears and mouth and kept missing whole
seconds as if I was blacking out and coming to like a stroboscope. As I banged into the door and grabbed the handle
to hold myself up I heard the blond man say,
“He may not go through. If he does, we wait.”
But it didn’t mean anything to me. None of it did.
Stepping clumsily over more piles of rubbish I headed for the front door. The chime of the doorbell had pushed the
air hard and I could see it coming towards me in waves. Ducking, I slipped on the mat and almost fell into the living
room on hands and knees. But it was getting dark in there, I could see, really dark, and I could hear the plants talking.
I couldn’t catch the words, but they were there, beneath the night sounds and a soft rustling which sounded a
hundred yards away. The living room must have grown, I thought groggily, picking myself up and turning myself to
the front door as the bell clanged again. It should be about four paces across the hall from the living room door to the
front door but I thought it was only going to take one and then it took twenty, past all the panelling and over the huge
folds in the mat. And then I had my hand on the doorknob and then the door was open and I stepped out of the
house.
“Oh hello Michael. I thought someone must be in, because all the lights were on.”
“Wuh?” I said, blinking in the remnants of sunlight, breathless with the feeling of my mind soaring up towards
normality like a runaway lift. Then “Sorry?”
“I hope I didn’t disturb you?” the woman standing in front of me said, and I now recognised her to be Mrs.
Steinburg, the woman who brings us our catfood in bulk.
“No, no, that’s fine. Fine,” I said, looking covertly behind me into the hall, which was solid and unpanelled and
four paces wide and led to the living room which was light and about ten yards deep. Good. Think about that later.
Deal with the cat woman.
“I’ve brought your delivery,” she said. “Look, are you all right?”
“Yes. I’m fine,” I replied, smiling broadly. “I … er …” I … er … what? “I … er … just nodded off for a moment, in
the kitchen. I still feel a bit, you know …”
“Of course.” Mrs. Steinburg smiled. I followed her up the drive and heaved the box of catfood out of the back of
her van, looking carefully back at the house. There was nothing to see. I thanked her and then carried the box back
down the drive as she drove off.
I walked back into the house and shut the front door behind me. I felt absolutely fine. I walked into the kitchen.
Normal. It didn’t even occur to me to wonder if the two men would still be there. They weren’t. I must just have fallen
asleep making tea, and then struggled over to the front door to open it while still half asleep. I could remember asking
myself if it was a dream and thinking it wasn’t but that just showed how wrong you could be, didn’t it? It had been
unusually vivid, and it was odd how I’d been suddenly awake and all right again as soon as I stepped out of the front
door. Odd, and a bit disconcerting. But here I was in the kitchen again and everything was normal, clean and tidy,
spick and span, with all the rubbish in the bin and the pans in the right places and the milk in the fridge and a smashed
mug on the floor.
Suddenly I didn’t feel quite so good. It was my mug, and it was smashed, on the floor, at the bottom of the fridge.
Now how had that happened? Maybe I’d fallen asleep holding it (fallen asleep standing up with a mug in my hand?
Now how likely was that?), maybe I’d knocked it over waking up and incorporated the sound into my dream (better,
better, but where exactly was I supposed to have fallen asleep? Just leaning against the counter, or actually stretched
out on it with the kettle as a pillow?) Then I noticed the fridge door.
There was a little dent in it, with a couple of flecks of paint missing. At about head height.
That wasn’t good. That wasn’t good at all. In fact it felt as if someone had just punched a hole in my chest and
poured icy water into it. But everything else was all right, wasn’t it? I cleared up the mug and switched the kettle on
and while it was boiling wandered into the hall and the living room. Everything was fine, tidy, normal. Super. Back
into the kitchen. The same. Great. Apart from a little dent in the fridge door at about head height.
I made my cup of tea, though not in my mug of course, and drank it standing looking out of the kitchen window at
the drive, feeling unsettled and nervous, and unsure of what to do with either of those emotions. Even if it had been a
dream, it was odd, particularly the way it had fought so hard against melting away. Maybe I was much more tired than
I realised. Or maybe I was ill. But I felt fine, physically at least.