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Donna Alward [Jewell Cove 01] The House on Blackberry Hill (e
Blackbriar William Sleator
Diario. Una novela Chuck Palahniuk
Asfixia Chuck Palahniuk
Becky Wicks [HotFlush 01] Before He Was Famous (epub)
Argerich Martha. Dziecko i czar Olivier Bellamy
Blau Marthe W jego dloniach
Becca Jameson [Emergence 02] Bound to be Tamed [Samhain] (ep
doktor piotr 5
[heft] Perry Rhodan 2191 Alles fuer die Ewigkeit

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.Then: sound.Outside the front door, keys jiggle in the lock.Then someone drops them.Someone giggles, and someone says, "Shit." The keys are back in the lock now.More jingling.More fumbling.The door flies open, nearly rocked off its hinges.The shadows of two shapes circle each other, reaching, then withdrawing, then reaching again.They have a mad gravity, crashing together.The two bodies slam into each other, a supernova; they pivot, pirouette, hips into a side table, mail knocked on the floor, a piece of framed art sent there soon after.Glass shatters.A palm slams against the wall, searches blindly for a light switch.Click."Fuck," Miriam says, "that's bright.""Shut up," Ashley says, and pins Miriam against the arm of a pale microfiber sofa, his hands on her hips, holding her fast.He presses his face against hers.Lips meet lips, teeth on teeth, tongue on –Ashley sits in a wheelchair, and he's an old man whose hairless scalp is a checkerboard of liver spots and other marks.His frail hands rest, steepled in his lap atop a blanket the color of Pepto-Bismol, and– tongue, and she bites his lower lip and he bites back.She raises her knee and wraps her leg around his bony denim-clad hip and pulls him tight, and then flips him around so he's the one against the couch's arm.She takes off her shirt in one fell swoop.His hands grip her sides tight, hard, painfully –an oxygen tank sits on the floor next to him, the tube snaking up under the pink blanket and back out, up to his nose.He's small like a crumpled cup, like a slowly composting sack of bones ill-contained by a powder blue bathrobe, but his eyes, his eyes are still young, flashing like wicked mirrors.Those eyes look left, look right, suspicious, or looking to see who is suspicious of him, and– and the balled-up shirt disappears over her shoulder.Again they kiss.Clothes peel away, leaving a trail of fabric from the living room into the bedroom.Before too long, it's all skin on skin, and as they topple onto the bed, she gasps –he spies two orderlies chatting and chuckling in the corner, telling some bullshit story to break the monotony of their jobs, to help them forget about how many times they have to shower and scrub and shampoo to wash away that pissy-pants old-people smell.But nobody's watching.The ancient and antediluvian inhabitants of the old folks' home orbit the room in various stages of languor; a woman with orange-dyed hair fiddles with a pair of crochet hooks without any yarn between them.A skinny octogenarian drools.A pot-bellied man lifts his shirt and scratches under his waistband, empty eyes half-following an old Spongebob cartoon on the TV– and the bed isn't long for this world; they tumble to the floor.She bites his ear.He pinches her nipple.She digs nails into his back.His hands are on her throat, and she feels the blood ballooning in her head, a dull roaring pulse that grows with each beat, and she closes her eyes and shoves her thumb in his mouth…and all the while Ashley sits, his body still, his eyes moving.He pulls the blanket up to his chest, and as he does so, it reveals his legs.A plastic flip-flop dangles from his right foot, but he has no left foot.The left leg dead-ends in a stump past the faded plaid pajama bottoms.It has no prosthesis.Ashley stares down at it, wistful, sad, scowling.Her foot touches his, and it sends an electric, awful thrill through her body.She feels equal parts ecstatic and disgusted, like she's one of those people who gets hot under the collar at car accidents, but she doesn't care.She's lost to it.Dizziness enrobes her.His hands tighten around her throat.He laughs.She moans.Her leg kicks out.Toes cramp.Her foot lifts up the bed skirt, and she sees a glimpse of something – a metal suitcase, a combination lock, a black lacquered handle – but then her vision is filled with Ashley, her ears lost to the sound of the pulsing blood-beat.Miriam pulls Ashley's hands off her throat, and she flips him over onto his back.His head cracks into the leg of a nearby table, but neither of them care.She chokes him now.He cranes his head and bites the flesh just south of her clavicle.Miriam feels alive, more alive than she's felt in a long time, nauseated and giddy and wet like a storm-thrown wave, and she wraps her hips around his and she feels him inside of her –and the lids of his eyes close, and when they open, the clarity is gone.What remains is just a muddy haze.He pulls the oxygen tube from his nose and lets it flop over the side of his wheelchair.His eyelids flutter.His chest heaves once, then twice.A rattling wheeze squeaks from his throat, like a tire's air pushed through a pinhole in the dark rubber.The wheeze turns wet; the fluid in his lungs builds, and he starts to struggle for air, a fish on the dock, his lips working but finding nothing.He's drowning in his own body, and finally one of the orderlies – a reedy black dude with a silver nose ring – sees and rushes over, shaking the old man gently.He picks up the tube and looks at it like he doesn't understand what he's seeing, and the orderly asks, "Mister Gaynes? Ashley?" He gets it now.He sees what's happening."Oh, hell.You in there, old man?" Ashley's in there for one last second.But then he's gone.The orderly says something else, but it's all fading to black, because dead is dead is dead, a wheezing whimper.Miriam cries out, not a whimper but a bang, riding the intense mixture of emotions inside her to a throttling orgasm.It surprises her.INTERLUDEThe DreamA red snow shovel hits dead in the center of her back.It slams her to the floor.Her chin hits hard tile; her teeth bite through her tongue.She tastes a mouthful of blood.The shovel comes down again, this time against the back of the head.Her nose breaks.Blood squirts.Everything is ringing, distorted, a high-pitched whine.She looks up through teary eyes.Louis sits on a toilet in a stall.His pants are up.The rickety walls can barely accommodate his broad shoulders, big body.Both of his eyes are gone, replaced with Xs formed out of electrical tape.He clucks his tongue."You're a real man-eater," he says and whistles."Del Amico.Me.That old bastard out of Richmond.Harry Osler up in Pennsylvania.Bren Edwards.Tim Streznewski.See a penny, pick it up.Am I right? Oh, and let's not forget that little boy out there on the highway.So many dead boys.The names go on and on, all the way back to… what? Eight years ago.Ben Hodges."Miriam spits out blood."Women, too.And I don't kill them.I don't kill anybody."Louis laughs."You keep telling yourself that, little lady.Whatever helps yousleep at night.Remember, just because you're not pulling the trigger doesn't mean you aren't a killer.""It's fate," Miriam says, red drool swinging from her lower lip."It's not me.It's how fate is.What fate wants–""Fate gets," Louis says."I know.You say that a lot.""My mother used to say–""It is what it is.I know that old chestnut, too.""Fuck you.You're not real.""Not yet.But just shy of a month, I will be.I'll be another skeleton in your closet, another ghost in your head.Dangling and swinging and moaning and groaning.""I can't save you.""Apparently not.""Go to hell."He winks."Meet you there [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]