"Stephen Woodworth - Her" - читать интересную книгу автора (Woodworth Stephen)

HER
By Stephen Woodworth

SHE WAS ESPECIALLY anxious that day. I could feel her eyes blinking and roiling
in the back of my head, sticky corneas scraping against the inside fabric of my
long-haired wig. Sweat dampened her upper lip as her jaws strained against the duct
tape I had used to seal her mouth.

She knew where we were. She knew my thoughts, just as I knew her fear.

“Extraordinary,” Dr. Vickers murmured, the circular lenses of his glasses
shining and opaque as silver dollars. “May I see the....?” He made a euphemistic
gesture with his hand.

I looked away and said nothing. Taking that as a yes, he stood and moved
from behind his large mahogany desk to where I sat. Without waiting for me to assist
him, he ran his long, spindly fingers through the hair at my temples, seeking the
bobby pins which fastened the false locks to the thatch of real hair that ran across
the top of my head. He peeled off the hairpiece as if it were a surgical dressing, and I
shut my eyes in sympathy as the sudden light blinded her.

Dr. Vickers drew a sharp breath. “Extraordinary!” Leaning close, he touched
her cheek with one manicured finger, and I fought to keep her still as the sealed
scream ballooned in her mouth. Though my back was to him, I could see him
through her eyes — a peering, prodding, white-coated gnome.

He pulled a penlight from his coat pocket, and flashed it in both of her eyes.
Then I felt his fingernail pick at the tape at one comer of her mouth. I grabbed his
wrist. “Don’t.”

He shook free of my grasp. “Mr. Harris, if I’m going to help you, you’ll have
to trust my judgment.”

I swallowed. “Can you get rid of it?”

His lips parted, then closed again before he answered, and I should have
known right then that he’d be no more help than the others. “Your...anomaly is, to
my knowledge, utterly unique. However, I think with sufficient study —”

“Now. I want it gone.” I tensed as I felt her writhe inside our skull. “I have
money.”

He regarded me with the restrained impatience of a schoolmaster. “Mr. Harris,
if we attempt such a radical operation without proper analysis, it would almost
certainly kill you.”
 I carefully replaced my hairpiece and pressed it down. “If that’s what it
takes,” I said. I rose and strode out of his office.

I didn’t see Elle that night. We were supposed to have dinner together at Pizza
Hut, but I called and told her I didn’t feel good. It wasn’t really a lie.