Danny Yates Must Die. Stephen Walker

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СКАЧАТЬ creature with only one word in its vocabulary?’

      ‘Yes,’ he tried to make dwindling conviction sound like growing conviction.

      ‘And that word is …?’

      ‘We don’t need to go into that.’

      ‘Yes we do, Daniel.’

      He shuffled slightly in his bed, turning red, finally saying the words, ‘Tamba-lulu.’

      ‘Tamba-lulu. And what does that mean, Daniel?’

      ‘No one knows.’

      ‘Do you think Boggy Bill knows?’ she asked cynically.

      ‘No one knows.’

      ‘And that’s a cunning planner of revenges, is it?’

      ‘Don’t mistake a lack of formal education for stupidity.’

      ‘Are we talking him or you?’ Shaking the bag, she emptied a handful of nuts into her palm then swallowed them. ‘Do you reckon Boggy Bill’s cross-eyed? He sounds the type of monster who would be.’

      ‘He’s no laughing matter for some of us, Lucy.’

      ‘So why would he choose you as his prime target?’

      ‘Because of my brother.’

      ‘And how would he know who your brother is?’

      ‘He’d know.’ He glanced round meaningfully, as though the thing was about to leap out from behind a closed screen or appear in the doorway, cunningly disguised as a nurse come to administer his bed bath. His blood froze solid at the realization that he’d been lying there for God knew how long, and at any time. Bill could have walked right in and torn his head off, giving its blood curdling cry of, ‘Tamba-lulu?’ which could be frightening, if uttered while your head was being bashed against a wall.

      ‘Danny, you’ve been here all this time. If he was coming for you, he’d have done it by now. I refuse to believe he’s blessed with patience, even if he did exist, which he doesn’t.’

      ‘He exists alright. Brian assured me.’

      ‘And if your brother said the world was hollow and inhabited by a secret sect of Aztec rabbits?’

      ‘He did.’

      ‘He did?’

      ‘Yeah.’

      ‘When?’

      ‘In a letter yester … I mean the day before my “accident”. He felt someone should know the truth, in case the rabbits came for him with their obsidian blades.’

      ‘And you believed him?’

      ‘Not necessarily,’ he conceded grudgingly. ‘Brian may have a tendency to fantasize. But I like to keep an open mind. And let’s face it, if anyone’d know the world was hollow, he would. Brian’s been everywhere.’

      ‘Everywhere except the planet Earth.’ Flick. Click.

      Danny scanned the walls for a calendar. There wasn’t one. A clock on the far wall told him it was 2:30 in the afternoon but not which afternoon. ‘How long have I been here? I was in the–’

      ‘Six months.’ She consumed half the peanuts in one go.

      ‘Six months?’ he said in disbelief.

      ‘Pretty cool, huh?’ Munch munch munch. ‘I never knew anyone who’d been in a coma before – least, not for six months.’ Swallow. ‘Course, my flatmate before you – Keith – he was dead. But who could tell? But you, Danny, you’ve gone for it big time. Me, I’m proud of you. I may not look it but I am.’

      ‘Six months?’

      ‘Everyone at Poly wants to meet you, especially Annette Helstrang from Occult Pathology. She wants to dissect you; after you die, of course. Remember Annette Helstrang?’

      He didn’t; and didn’t want to.

      ‘You met her once. She frightened you. She dissected Keith, put him in this hu-u-u-u-u-u-u-u--u-uge pickling jar.’ Lucy did a full stretch One That Got Away gesture. ‘Then she put him on display in her living room. She did a great job. You should see him, Dan. He never looked better.’

      ‘And for six months you’ve sat here, waiting for me to recover? Lucy, I don’t know what to say.’ Visions of Blackfriars Bob frisked, waggy tailed, in his head. And it had taken something like this for Lucy’s true feelings to show through? Her lies and insults, the practical jokes that only she found funny, her over pushiness, her casual fraud and theft, they didn’t mean a thing, not really, not when it mattered. And maybe the two of them could have a future as flatmates, one that didn’t involve her always trying to trample all over him whenever she was in a bad mood.

      He took her non-peanut-flicking hand, squeezing it tight. ‘Thanks, Luce. I won’t forget this.’

      She snatched her hand away. ‘Yeah; like I’ve nothing better to do than sit around waiting for you. I told you when you first moved in with me; don’t expect me to run round after you just coz I’m a woman; no washing for you, no ironing, no cooking. Coma watching was out too. Don’t believe me? Check the contract.’

      ‘But, then …?’

      ‘I only just found out you were missing. The hospital got in touch. You’d been plain “Anonymous” till two hours ago. I suppose that’s nothing new for you. You started muttering my name and address. They figured you probably weren’t, “That cow Lucy Smith,” so they called me. Anyhow, I thought I’d better come round and see you.’ She flicked another nut.

      He frowned at her. ‘You didn’t notice I was missing for six months?’

      She shrugged. ‘Osmo said something about it a few times but, I dunno, I suppose I wasn’t listening. Maybe there was something more interesting on TV; Home and Away or something.’

      Danny was beginning to recall something. ‘There was a girl at the shop …’

      ‘With spotty hair?’

      ‘Tangerine,’ he corrected.

      ‘Huh?’

      ‘Tangerine; tangerine dreadlocks, big thick ones with lemon polka dots.’

      ‘Whatever.’ Flick. Click. ‘She’s dead.’

      ‘What!?!’

      ‘You killed her, Danny. The building fell right on her, squashed her like a polka dot lemon. It was only coz she’d thrown herself over you that you survived.’

      Danny stared, numb, at the ceiling. In his mind’s eye it gave way; just a crack at first, a tiny thing spreading, like black lightning, from one wall to the other. Then it was a torrent of falling masonry, chunk by heartless chunk beating the life from the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen – as though hurled СКАЧАТЬ