[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.'Never better,' she told him, but her voice was too loud and too raw in the dark and silent factory.***Emmeline awoke with a jolt, her heart pounding.She lay for a few moments in the darkness, wondering what had woken her.The house seemed silent, and her sleep, as far as she could recall, had been dreamless.Presently she closed her eyes again, though now she did not feel the slightest bit tired.Her mind kept turning over that morning's events, particularly the awful and upsetting conversation she had had with her father.What was it that strange man, the Doctor, had said? He had told her her father was being controlled.But what precisely did that mean? Was her father being blackmailed or threatened in some way? Or was it something more than that?She thought of how her father had seemed when she had spoken to him.It had been like speaking to a completely different man, like an impostor wearing her father's body.It was not simply his manner that was different: it was the way he moved, the expression in his eyes.Everything.But what could change a man's character so comprehensively? Was her father being forced to consume some kind of.chemical compound or narcotic mixture? Something that altered his mind, reduced him to little more than a slave, a puppet?Such a notion did not bear thinking about.Indeed, the very idea of it made her sick to her stomach.She pushed aside her bedclothes and swung her legs to the floor, deciding to go down to the kitchen and make herself some hot milk.Mama, she knew, would have woken a servant for that, but Emmeline was thoughtful enough to allow them what little sleep they managed to get.Besides, she wished to be alone to think, to plan her best possible course of action.Despite the Doctor's warning, she had no intention of abandoning her father to whatever devils were plaguing him.She pulled a dressing gown over her long nightdress, stepped into a pair of slippers, and crossed the room to the door.Outside in the corridor she paused once again to listen, but aside from the sonorous ticking of the clock in the hall downstairs she could hear nothing.She crossed the landing, her feet sinking into the thick, heavily patterned carpet, and listened at the door of the master bedroom where once again her mother was sleeping alone.She half expected to hear stifled weeping penetrating the stout oak, or the sound of her mother moving about restlessly inside, but all was silence.Satisfied that her mother was sleeping soundly, Emmeline went downstairs, walking on the outside of the stair-rods to prevent the stairs from creaking.Though it was dark, she noticed immediately that the parlour door was ajar.This was unusual, as Mama always insisted that all the doors be closed at night to keep the heat in.Quietly, Emmeline crossed the hallway, passing the grandfather clock, the stand full of canes, the pictures crammed together on the wall around the elaborately framed mirror, and paused outside the parlour.She raised a hand to the door.'Mama,' she called softly.'Mama, are you in here?'There was no reply.Emmeline gave the door a little push and it swung open.She licked her lips, then stepped smartly into the room, which was in darkness.She stood for a moment, trying to identify the shapes that were lamps and chairs and ornaments, side tables, vases and pot plants.On the far side of the room, close to the windows now covered with their long, thick velvet drapes, was a high-backed armchair, which Emmeline, screwing up her eyes, was almost certain contained a dark and bulky mass that may or may not have been a figure.'Mama,' Emmeline said again, her voice wavering a little,'is that you?'The mass in the armchair did not respond, nor even stir.Perhaps it was simply a stack of cushions, or her own eyes playing tricks on her, conjuring shapes from the night that were not really there.Tightening her lips, Emmeline took a slow, measured step forward, then another and another.A chill breeze slipped like a breath across her cheeks, making her shiver inside.She had the impression that the darkness was drawing her in, engulfing her, wishing her to become a part of it.Her eyes were adjusting now, the various darknesses dividing into subtle gradations, acquiring sharper lines of definition.There was certainly a figure sitting in the chair.If she concentrated hard, Emmeline could see its outline - the dark bulb of its head, its shoulders and arms, the mass of its torso, the curve of its lap, the bend of its legs.'Who's there?' she demanded sharply.Again the figure did not respond.Emmeline hesitated, then crossed to the mantelpiece, groping for the box of lucifers that she knew to be there.She found them and extracted one with fumbling hands.Above the mantelpiece was a large mirror, on each side of which was a gas lamp.Emmeline struck the match, and, forcing her hand to remain steady, lit the lamp that was closest to her.A soft orange glow suffused the room.Emmeline turned - and a shock so great it stopped the scream in her throat slammed into her.It was her mother sitting in the armchair, after all.Or rather, not sitting, but slumped.The reason for this was not because she was sleeping but because she was dead.Emmeline could tell that from her ghastly pallor and glaring eyes, the look of awful terror frozen on to her face.And there was something else too, something that Emmeline's spinning, horror-filled mind could make no sense of.In her mother's throat were several ragged puncture wounds, out of which was dribbling not blood but a viscous green slime.Emmeline backed away on legs so rickety it seemed they would snap like dry sticks at any moment.Still unable to scream, she was making breathy, high-pitched mewling sounds.She dropped the box of lucifers, which struck the hearth and burst open, scattering its contents.The long velvet drapes covering the window billowed as though buffeted by a strong wind.Then a figure stepped from behind them.It was her father, his hands reaching out as though to draw her into an embrace.Only it was not her father at all, for his eyes were burning with a hideous orange light.Emmeline looked at his hands, and saw that on his palms were a number of suckers, like small puckered mouths, from which protruded long thorn-like spikes.From the tips of the spikes green slime was oozing, the same green slime that was leaking from the holes in her dead mother's throat.Awkwardly, moving like a child learning how to walk, Emmeline turned and blundered from the room.She wanted to scream, not only in terror of her life, and in horror at what she had seen, but also to rouse the servants, procure help.However, shock still clamped the sound down inside her somewhere, refusing to let it out.With hands that no longer seemed part of her, she grabbed the door as she exited the room, slammed it behind her, then raced along the corridor towards the front door.She had no plan, no strategy: she just wanted to get away, get out of the house.Behind her, she heard her father give a hideous hissing gurgle that did not sound even remotely human.Then he ripped the parlour door open and came tearing down the corridor after her.***'Cyborg,' said the Doctor.'I beg your pardon?' replied litefoot.'That was what attacked us.A cyborg [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]