Weird Tales #360. Рэй Брэдбери

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СКАЧАТЬ of our knees, then said, “Henry, you say our skins will be made to crawl. But is there any special reason for that—or shouldn’t I ask?”

      “You shouldn’t ask.” He shook his head.

      “But I’m asking, anyway.” It was just natural curiosity on my part, I suppose. And whatever, I wanted Henry’s take on it; because we all see things, experience things, differently.

      “Piccadilly Circus as was is lying crushed at the roots of Bgg’ha’s house. That great junction, once standing so close to the heart of a city, is now in the dark basement of the twisted tower, that vast heap of wreckage where he or it lords it over his minions—and over his human captive, his ‘cattle.’”

      “His cattle … ” I mused, because that thought or simile was still reasonably new to me. At least I’d never heard it expressed that way before coming across Henry.

      “As I may have told you before,” the old man said, “that’s all they are: food for Bgg’ha’s table, fodder for his stable.”

      We were moving faster now, under an arched ceiling that was aglow, seemingly alive with luminous, swirling shoggoth exhaust. And the closer we drew to Henry’s goal or target, the more voluble he was becoming.

      “Do you know why I’m here?” he suddenly burst out. “I think you do—or rather, you think you do!”

      Nodding, I said: “But haven’t we already decided that? It’s revenge, isn’t it? For your wife?”

      “For my whole family!” he corrected me. And the catch, that half-sob was back in his voice. “My poor wife, yes, of course—but also for my girls, my daughters! And my eldest, Janet—my God, how brave! I would never have suspected it of her, but she was braver than me. Inspiring, is how I’ve come to think of it; that my Janet was able to escape like that, and somehow managed to crawl back home again. But she did, she came home to me, and then … then she died! Not yet twenty years old, and gone like that.

      “She died of horror, and of loathing—because of what had been done to her—but never of shame, for she’d fought it all the way. And it’s mainly because … because of what Janet told had happened to her that I’ve kept coming here. It’s why I’m here now: for Janet, yes, but also for her younger sister, Dawn, and for their mother; and for all the other females who’ve been taken and who are still there, maybe alive even now … in that twisted tower!”

      “Still alive?” I repeated him. “You mean, maybe they’re not just fodder, after all?” At which I could have bitten through my tongue as it dawned on me that it was probably very cruel of me to keep questioning him like this. But too late for that now.

      Sobbing openly and making no attempt to hide it, Henry replied: “Janet was taken two months ago. They took her in broad daylight—or what we used to call daylight—on her way back home from an SSR meeting. She’d been a member since the time her mother was taken. A boyfriend of hers from the old days saw it happen. It was those freakish flapping-rag things, those so-called Hounds. I was always telling her to stick to the shadows whenever she ventured out, but on this occasion I had forgotten to warn her against angles. They had taken her on a street corner, just ninety degrees of curb that cost her her freedom, and, as I’d believed at the time, her life, too. But no, Janet’s captors were working for that thing in the twisted tower, something I hadn’t known until she escaped and got home three weeks ago.

      “That was when I found out about what goes on in that hellish place. Since then I’ve risked my own life five times making this trip in and out; always hoping I might see Janet’s mother, or her younger sister Dawn, and that I might be able to rescue them somehow … but at the same time making certain deliveries and planning for the future … in fact planning for right now, if you really want to know. But my wife … and Dawn, that poor kid, just seventeen years old: they’re somewhere in that nightmarish tower, I feel certain. But alive and suffering still, or dead and … and eaten! Who knows?” There he paused and made an attempt to get himself under control.

      Feeling the need to have the old man continue, however—no matter how painful that had to be for him—I said, “Henry, before Janet escaped, did she ever see her mother, or her younger sister Dawn, there in the twisted tower?”

      He shook his head. “Not once. Other girls—plenty of them—but never her Ma. And where Dawn’s concerned, that’s totally understandable. She was taken just three days after Janet found her way home in time to … time to die! In other words, she had been out of that place before Dawn was taken in.” He paused for a moment or two before continuing.

      “Now I know it must sound like I’ve been pretty careless of my girls, but that’s not so. And maybe it’s best if they really are dead, because of what Janet … because of what she told me was happening to those … those other female captives.”

      And as he broke down more yet, as gently as I could I asked him, “Well then, Henry, what did Janet tell you? What was happening in there, to the other female captives?”

      Sobbing and stumbling along through the water—sobbing so loudly I thought he might sob his heart out—still he managed to reply: “Oh, that’s something I see in my blackest nightmare, Julian, and I see it every night! But first let me tell you how Dawn was taken …

      “I left her at home while I went looking for a place to bury Janet. No big problem there … a hole in the ground, with plenty of bricks and rubble to fill it in. Then I went rummaging for food in the ruins of a corner store I’d found; canned fruits and meat and such. But when I got back home with my haul—‘home,’ hah!—a concrete cellar in a one-time museum; a wing of the old Victoria and Albert, it might have been. But anyway, when I got back, Dawn was gone and the place had been completely wrecked; what few goods we’d had—sticks of furniture and such—were broken up, strewn everywhere, and the place was damp and stank of … oh I don’t know, rotting fish, weeds, and stagnant water. The evil stench of the Deep Ones, yes, and they, too, are the loyal servitors of Bgg’ha, as I believe they are of all the octopus-heads … ”

      And there Henry fell silent again, leaving only the echoes of his tortured voice, and the sloshing of our legs through the water. But I couldn’t let it rest at that. There were things he had told me for which I would like explanations.

      “You said your wife was taken that first night, as all hell stampeded through the city and there was no defense against the turmoil, the horror. But that was a long time ago, Henry—even years! Weren’t these monsters slaughtering everyone and destroying everything in their path at that time? How could you possibly imagine your wife could still be alive in Bgg’ha’s twisted tower? Especially after what Janet told you about it?”

      At which the old man seemed to freeze in his tracks, jerked to a standstill, and in the next moment turned on me, snarling: “How do you know what Janet did or didn’t tell me, eh? And how much do you know about that damned twisted tower? Tell me that, Julian Chalmers!”

      Oh, I was glad in that moment that I had returned his suitcase to Henry, and that he was carrying it with both hands. He still had that gun on him, and if he could have reached for it without jeopardizing the safety of the case and its contents, I felt sure he would have done so. And who knows what he might have done then? But he couldn’t and didn’t, and I said:

      “Henry, I don’t mean to hurt you, but the creatures in the tower … they eat people, don’t they? Haven’t you already said so? And it’s been a very long time for your wife. Now, don’t be offended, but in the light of your daughters’s ages, not to mention your own obvious years, it’s my understanding that your wife isn’t СКАЧАТЬ