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Carpe Demon Adventures of a Dem Julie Kenner
Brian Lumley [Titus Crow 05] In the Moons of Borea (epub) id
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Cottam F.G Klatwa Magdaleny

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.And I then stopped, forgetting my purpose, tracing my hand along the engraved lines of his name.You’re supposed to hold your breath when going past a cemetery, or, as the superstition goes, you’ll breathe in the spirit of the dead.You’re also supposed to stick your thumbs into your fists to protect your parents.I did neither and ran through the cemetery almost every day—if only that was enough to explain why I was so haunted, and why my parents were … the way they were.I missed Bill—every second of every day.I had little recollection of my life before things started to go so wrong in my family.Burt and Isabelle had had an affair when Burt was still married to someone else and Bill was just a baby.When Burt left Bill’s mother and married my mom, Bill’s mother committed suicide.And I was born in the middle of all of this, a soap opera that my big brother had tried to shield me from.Through all of this, in spite of how I came into this world, he was my biggest, my only, ally.Most of my family memories were of the heated arguments between Burt and my brother.Bill getting into fights, Bill selling drugs, Bill getting kicked out of eight different private schools—Bill, the Shame of the Sheppard family.The last argument was on the night that Bill was brought home in a police cruiser when my parents were having a dinner party, and there were too many witnesses to the shame.Burt shipped my brother off to Callister to live with his uncle Victor, who was his birth mother’s brother, and a police officer.A few months later, Victor called Burt—Bill had run away.But Bill still came to visit me, secretly.He’d climb into my room in the middle of the night on my birthday, on Christmas, whenever he felt like it, just to check up on me and make sure that I was doing whatever he thought I should be doing—going to school, not doing drugs … according to my brother, what was good for the goose wasn’t good enough for the gander.Then when I was thirteen, a police officer came to our front door.Bill’s body had been found in an empty apartment in Callister, the needle still hanging off his arm.There was an autopsy—Bill had died of a drug overdose.Heroin, I had overheard.I was awakened from my daze by a loud bang from the thunder roaring above the overhanging trees of the cemetery.I pressed my hand hard against the cold stone and took one last glance at the gravesite before being satisfied and speeding off, returning to my purpose.I quickly rounded the chestnut tree and by the time I reached the clearing into the projects, the sky was pitch-black and the thunder was now belching steadily.Unlike the previous few days, the clearing was completely desolate.My shoulders sunk when I saw he wasn’t there waiting for me at the picnic table, even though, logically, I knew that he wouldn’t be there and that I shouldn’t be looking for him.I reluctantly kept running until I heard the bark of the dog named Meatball.I slowed down to an almost walking pace and looked back.He was there in his gray sweater, leaning against the fence at the farthest point of where the cemetery and projects met, about two hundred feet from the entrance to the cemetery that I had just ran through.Following his leashed dog’s warning, he brought his eyes to me.But he wasn’t alone this time.There was another man at his side—a man with a shaved head and too many tattoos.While the boy in the gray sweater was pulling on the leash, struggling to keep Meatball from running off to greet—attack—me, the other man looked confusedly at his friend and his suddenly misbehaving dog, and eventually followed his friend’s quick glimpses to me.He glanced from me to his friend twice more, his confusion seemed to have turned to anger.The boy in the gray sweater turned his body away from me, toward the tattooed man.In that instant, I decided that today was not a good day to chat with my obsession.Pretending to have slowed down for a stretch, I extended my arms, bending them over my head, very quickly grabbing each elbow.And then I picked up my running pace again.I followed the pathway through the field that surrounded the projects, and, as it slowly veered to the right, I finally felt it was safe enough for me to look back.At a far distance, I could still see him standing there with the other man.They seemed deep in conversation, possibly arguing.Another runner came through the clearing of the cemetery, and I saw Meatball feverishly tugging on his leash once again.I made my way down the hill and out of sight, and I smiled to myself, glad that I wasn’t the only one that Meatball liked so much.I was coming close to completing the first third of my run when lightning split the sky a few yards ahead of me, thunder exploded, and the rain suddenly started to pour.I took my headphones off and put them in my pocket—I was already attached to my new toy and didn’t want it to get wet—and I kept soldiering on.The drops of rain quickly turned into buckets of water, and I was getting soaked.Lightning came to light up the black sky.The grounds were soaked.Either I gave in to the weather or I was going to get zapped.I turned around and retraced my steps back through the projects.The rain didn’t bother me, but the lighting was making me very nervous.I ran faster, looking forward to the shelter of the trees in the cemetery and their momentary refuge.I ran back up the small hill into the fields of the projects, seeing through the gravel-sized drops that the boy in the gray sweater and the other scary man had left.I finally made it through the entrance back into the cemetery.Just as I thought, the lofty trees managed to keep most of the rain out.I slowed my pace a bit to catch my breath and shake off a bit of water.My sneakers were submerged canoes.With the sun out of sight, the cemetery was dark.I could barely make out the contours of the winding pathway.I squeezed some of the water out of the bottom of my T-shirt and sloshed forward.I had run this route so many times—I knew every curve, every bump in the road.I picked up a jogging pace, came around to the big chestnut tree … and heard a bone-chilling cry, as if an animal were being tortured.I was used to Bob’s voice here, not this.I stopped immediately, wondering if my horror-movie-infected brain was playing tricks on me.Then there was another cry, even more ear piercing this time.Too afraid to move, and beating myself up for having stupidly decided to run through a dark cemetery alone, I stood there like one of the tombstones.I could hear muffled voices, and then more cries of pain.Not knowing where the sounds were coming from or what was making that sound, I didn’t know whether to run away or stay put or even which direction was a safe way.My body decided for me, and I started to move quietly on the uneven footpath.Something, instinct or impulsivity, was leading me toward the quickest way home.I made it to the massive tree—a familiar mark.I didn’t have much further to go before I was on the street again.I took a few more steps … and heard a scream again, but this time it was much closer—I had picked the wrong direction [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]