"Michael Marshall Smith - The Man Who Drew Cats" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Michael Marshall)

“We did him a picture,” Tom said quietly.
“Yeah,” I said, and nodded. Like I said, I know what catharsis means and I thought I understood what he was
saying. But I really didn’t want to look at it much longer. “Let’s go have a beer, yeah?”
The storm in Tom wasn’t past, I could tell, and he still seemed to thrum with crackling emotions looking for an
earth, but I thought the clouds might be breaking and I was glad.
And so we walked slowly over to Jack’s and had a few beers and watched some pool being played. Tom seemed
pretty tired, but still alert, and I relaxed a little. Come eleven most of the guys started going on their way and I was
surprised to see Tom get another beer. Pete, Ned and I stayed on, and Jack of course, though we knew our loving
wives would have something to say about that. It just didn’t seem time to go. Outside it had gotten pretty dark,
though the moon was keeping the square in a kind of twilight and the lights in the bar threw a pool of warmth out of
the front window.
Then, about twelve o’clock, it happened, and I don’t suppose any of us will ever see the same world we grew up in
again. I’ve told this whole thing like it was just me who was there, but we all were, and we remember it together.
Because suddenly there was a wailing sound outside, a thin cutting cry, getting closer. Tom immediately snapped
to his feet and stared out the window like he’d been waiting for it. As we looked out across the square we saw little
Billy come running and we could see the blood on his face from there. Some of us go to get up but Tom snarled at us
to stay there and so I guess we just stayed there, sitting back down like we’d been pushed. He strode out the door
and into the square and the boy saw him and ran to him and Tom folded him in his cloak and held him close and warm.
But he didn’t come back in. he just stood there, and he was waiting for something.
Now there’s a lot of crap talked about silences. I read novels when I’ve the time and you read things like ‘Time
stood still’ and so on and you just think bullshit it did. So I’ll just say I don’t think anyone in the world breathed in
that next minute. There was no wind, no movement. The stillness and silence were there like you could touch them,
but more than that: they were like that’s all there was and all there ever had been.
We felt the slow red throb of violence from right across the square before we could even see the man. Then Sam
came staggering into the square waving a bottle like a flag and cursing his head off. At first he couldn’t see Tom and
the boy because they were the opposite side of the fountain, and he ground to a wavering halt, but then he started
shouting, rough jags of sound that seemed to strike against the silence and die instead of breaking it, and he started
charging across the square and if ever there was a man with murder in his thoughts then it was Sam McNeill. He was
like a man possessed, a man who’d given his soul the evening off. I wanted to shout to Tom to get the hell out of the
way, to come inside, but the words wouldn’t come out of my throat and we all just stood there, knuckles whitening as
we clutched the bar and stared, our mouths open like we’d made a pact never to use them again. And Tom just stood
there, watching Sam come towards him, getting closer, almost as far as the spot where Tom usually painted. And it felt
like we were looking out of the window at a picture of something that happened long ago in another place and time and
the closer Sam got the more I began to feel very very afraid for him.
It was at that moment that Sam stopped dead in his tracks, skidding forward like in some kid’s cartoon, his shout
dying off in his ragged throat. He was staring at the ground in front of him, his eyes wide and his mouth a stupid
circle. And then he began to scream.
It was a high shrill noise like a woman and coming out of that bull of a man it sent fear racking down my spine. He
started making thrashing movements like he was trying to move backwards but he just stayed where he was. His
movements became unmistakable at about the same time his screams turned from terror to agony. He was trying to get
his leg away from something.
Suddenly he seemed to fall forward on one knee, his other leg stuck out behind him and he raised his head and
shrieked at the dark skies and we saw his face then and I’m not going to forget that face so long as I live. It was a face
from before there were any words, the face behind our oldest fears and earliest nightmares, the face we’re terrified of
seeing on ourselves one night when we’re alone in the dark and It finally comes out from under the bed to get us.
Then Sam fell on his face, his leg buckled up and still he thrashed and screamed and clawed at the ground with his
hands, blood running from his broken fingernails as he twitched and struggled. Maybe the light was playing tricks,
and my eyes were sparkling anyway on account of being too paralysed with fear to even blink, but as he thrashed less
and less it became harder and harder to see him at all, and as the breeze whipped up stronger his screams began to
sound a lot like the wind. But still he writhed and moaned and then suddenly there was the most godawful crunching