Kitabı oku: «Mutilated. Crypt of the Seven Angels», sayfa 3
Nightmares
Before bedtime, Claire did not turn off the table lamp. It was the first time since the childhood period, when she was frightened to sleep without light. But she could not do anything with it. The appearance of the limbs sliced with sparkling knife pursued it. It was worth only to close the eyes, and she saw torn skin, crippled flesh, as if the hands of the unfortunate missed through the meat grinder. She was not stuck at the sight of this spectacle, but fear settled in the soul. After all, this can happen with each person. And it is better to die immediately than to know what it happened to you.
Claire did not figure out the details of the accident. From her and so enough impressions. Now, the memories of the bloody mix of meat and bones do not climb into the head, she decided to think about something pleasant. For example, how romantic would be to take one of the copper candelabers, which she bought in an antique shop, to light all the candles in it and put on the table near the bed. Of course, it is dangerous to sleep with candles. But the romantic fantasy about the candlelight was pleasant. She remembered that once she slept like that. Candles were exactly seven. Lucky number! And they all burned ghostly and brightly. The wind from the canal penetrated the window, waved flame and transparent curtains from Muslen. Everything was so beautiful! But when was it all? Claire frowned, rushing recall, and could not. There was still someone who concerned her when she slept and brought roses. He carried them in her hands without gloves, and his blood remained on the spikes.
Returning home today, Claire turned on the TV and began to look at the middle of a terrible film about the sacrificed victims and a computer game with embittered ghost. The film was called «Fear dot com» and was in the program as a mystical thriller with quite harmless annotations, but nothing more brutally Claire could not imagine. Initially, she was intrigued, but closer to the end the interest turned into a nightmare. Claire even regretted that she didn’t turn on the TV in time. It is strange to imagine how people are not afraid to invent such frightening plots. The sadism of the maniac and the revenge of the embittered ghost of a mutilated sacrifice was made the same terrible impression.
Sadistic shots from the film, like a black web spray in consciousness, refusing to disappear. Maybe they impressed her not enough? If you treat the impression caused by the history, from the point of view of a psychologist, we can conclude that it somehow intertwined with the past of Claire. Probably, in her life, there was also something that she feels an imaging victim. For example, this afternoon, it was impossible to interpret how to revenge – a hooligan who pushed her, suffered himself. Just avenged him not she. Someone else drew him with a knife. Or maybe it really was just an accident, and not an attack? Although it looks like the last.
Claire was sure that after the film and the events of the past day, she would dream about mutual bodies of victims, silent, as in hell in their ghost world, but the kingdom of dreams met her something completely different. In a dream, the luxury doors of the museum were revealed before her, and she climbed up the front marble staircase. How beautiful was this staircase with gilded railings! The steps ran high, as if in the most subsequent paradise. It was possible to expect to hear the singing of birds in the paradise bunks, but the house around was gloomy, although luxurious. Claire has already been before in this house. She remembered. So now she returned to it. In a dream!
The staircase leading up, no way ended. It seems that it is, however, the staircase in heaven. Is it limited to the roof of an old house or leads directly to the night stars? Claire did not see, but felt that the house was in Venice. The sounds of fluid water came to her, similar to singing. This is the song of the mermaids! Only mermaids are downstairs, in water. She rises to the very top of the old building. To the magnificent suite of room, where she will look for him.
For whom? Claire frowned. She could not remember. And the pale nightgown with the golden threads, similar to the outfit of Shakespeare’s Juliet, was drowned around her legs. What an unusual outfit! In life, she did not wear anything like that. But it was a dream. Claire reached the suite of the empty rooms and moved forward. In the span of the ladder, which remained behind, stood the statue of the very deity, which she had already seen in the museum. Only this time the statue moved. The tentacles crawled out of a mask and a long raincoat. They stretched to Claire, but could not get her, because she had already reached the gallery of the mirror halls. For some reason, they do not dare to rush there.
In the dark end of the gallery, she was waiting for something. Freshness of water that came from the canal, mixed with breathing heat and fire. Claire felt the smell of hot metal and burned flesh, and… yes, she could not confuse this smell with anything. Blood!
There were of luxury galleries around her, and at the end of them, it was like a torture chamber. Incredible, but the heat intensified. Claire did not see the fireplace, but she felt its proximity. Or it was a brazier. She stopped, noticing someone ahead. Some strong creation in the mask bent over the corpse of a woman. There was a knife in his hand, and he applied cuts.
Claire did not feel horror. In the end, it was just a dream. But the creature, tortured the victim, suddenly sniffed to the air and raised his head. Even in the slots masks it was visible that his face was maimed. Claire could not shout. She waited. And it was stupid. After all, he could rush to her with a knife. This creature always needs a new victim. A crippled arm kept the head of a dead woman’s head. The knife cut off not only the jewel with her neck, but also the skin from the body. The cuts bloomed as greedy mouths on a female corpse.
The creature, only noticing Claire, managed to break away from the victim. Only this time there was neither threatening whisper, no sharp movements of the predator. It only uttered only one word:
«Cordelia!»
Claire woke up with this name on the lips. It came to her that the suite of the gloomy halls was still revealed before her, but now in her own house, they reflected by many mirrors. Someone attracted her from this gallery with his mutilated hand.
Cordelia, repeated Claire. Whether the woman was so called, which he tied and killed. Claire remembered a beautiful corpse profile, a sparkled antique brush dress and a lily skin of the deceased, covered with purple knife trails. His knife. The knife in the hand of that creature for some reason seemed even more frightening than a whole set of surgical items that use maniacs in horror films for torture of victims.
Claire brought her hand to the forehead. Curly strands of hair merged from sweat. Head burned. It seems that she became too nervous in order to watch horror films in the evenings. So it is better to leave this genre for more bold people.
Claire did not remember when she was last so afraid. And in her lonely house there is no one to console her. Of course, you can take a phone and dial someone from your relatives or the closest friends, but whether they will not be surprised that she calls them at such a time then so that they encouraged her by their voice.
Now was too late or too early? Claire squinting on a luminous clock clock. Soon four in the morning. She can sleep until dawn, but she was afraid to see another similar dream.
Dreams like parasites. They invade reality, capture consciousness, drive crazy. Claire heavily leaning back on the pillows and felt a cold necklace on her neck. Now it also seemed to her parasite. It is strange that it did not heat up at all from the heat of her body. Pearls always remained cold. And it is even more strange that she did not decide to remove it. The necklace is as part of her body. Almost an integral. Sometimes it even seemed that this is the main part, and the body itself does not matter under it.
Claire looked into the mirror on the wall. Pearl thread looked at a thin neck so beautiful that it would be a pity to part with it. Claire remembered a nostalgic comparison – the pearls are a treasure left from the deceased oyster, the testimony of its death.
Who told her about it?
Claire frowned. Someone spoke. But who? And when? The memory eluded, as if she was whining with drugs.
Who among her friends could have given such words? She figured out them without herself. Pearl! Death! Pearls – evidence of death!
Where did she hear it?
An attempt to remember was too painful. In memory, as if some kind of door slammed. It was almost physically hurt from the fact that consciousness tries to overcome some irresistible barrier.
Claire thought that in vain she did not drink and did not smoke.
Now she terribly wanted to sleep, but the prospect of seeing a new nightmare prevented her to close her eyes. The eyelids were poured, the head was split, but Claire decided to distract herself with something. She took an album and a pencil. It was better to make an outline of coal, but the pencil was the first thing that was near of her hand.
Claire wanted to draw something beautiful, but the pencil began to slide it himself. Fuzzy lines merged into one ugly tangle. Maybe it came out due to the fact that the fingers swept or from the fact that the eyelids were sticking out of the desire to sleep. It was preparing that the pencil moves by itself. It was not her painted an disfigured face on a sheet of paper, it felt like itself. The same face that she dreamed. Which she saw in the crowd before any accidents happened to people.
Claire dropped a pencil. The drawing lay on her knees, ugly and shocking. The side effect of her creativity! She looked at it discouraged and almost horrified. Probably, Viktor Frankenstein looked so at his hands when he created a monster. Everything came out so unexpectedly. If it were another dream. A drawing for some reason frightened her very much.
A minute Claire was sitting motionless, feeling his knees, like a disgusting insect, and then crumpled it quickly and threw under the bed. Sometimes it is better not to remember something. So now she rushed to forget the drawn face, but it did not come out of memory.
Demon in the mirror
Early in the morning Claire fell asleep. She dreamed wonderful dream. After waking up, she still could not believe that all this did not happen in reality. The feeling was as if she had just steam in the clouds. That’s what it means to fly!
Probably dreams this is the flight of consciousness somewhere in the uncharted worlds. The feeling of the miracle remains. But Clair was still sure that she would see something more terrible if she would fall asleep. It comes out, she was mistaken.
In a dream, there was someone who was inexpressible to her. Beautiful, sophisticated, blond and blue-eyed. She wanted to remember his face to draw, but the features escaped from memory, as if them were not at all. Does all perfectly be illusing?
Only the case was not at all perfection of who she dreamed. Just next to him, she felt some striking spiritual warmth. In a dream it was so nice and joyfully, as if the friend whom she knew and loved once a long time ago.
They danced. Rather, walled. Or did they still make love? Claire frowned. She could not remember exactly. But the impression remains divine. It is like to visit the angel or the Olympic Deity at night.
In the beginning, in a dream, she danced with him exactly, looked in his face. He tried to cover his eyes a little bit, because they shone like a flame candle. And Claire looked at his eyelashes, his cheekbones, neck, a lace around the throat, the golden sewing of coat… how beautiful he dressed. She wonder if there is a cuff with his sleeves. As soon as she wanted to see how he asked:
«Do not look down!»
And yet she looked to see his burned hands. Digid and poorly existing, because the fingers seemed to be trying to snatch with hot tongs.
Crumpled hands under exquisite sleeves. An unpleasant and even shocking combination. Claire thoughtfully tapping her fingers on the wrist watch bracelet. The time as if returned to reversal somewhere. Claire noted that the tiny hands on the dial froze. Probably the battery ran out. Claire removed a bracelet from the hand. She did not want to wear a stopped clock on his wrist, as if it was bad sign.
She has little time. It’s time to work. It’s time to draw. And there are no absurd sketches or face from sleep, but those illustrations that she ordered.
But instead of focusing, she still remembered the sleep. Dance. Embrace. What sweetness was a feeling of intimacy. But burned hands…
Claire got up and looked out of the window to the street. Along the highway, cars were used at the bottom. Already evening. Bright headlights resembled asterisks. With the memories of those accidents that occurred at her eyes recently, Claire was unwittingly wondered how the highway could be empty. Cars swept past and have not shot down anyone. No corpses with cut-out turtles are not lying on the asphalt. Perhaps everything ended. And she will never again see confused victims, random incidents and a disfigured person who flashed in the crowd to them. If only she did not invent it.
Today she just got up too late. Although, maybe her beautiful sleep and cost the good half of the day to fall into bed. Pleasant thoughts stirred with terrible, as if pink and black paints merged in her mind. Beauty and something ugly in bizarre mesaliance. Clare grinned, presenting how her work could go if she uses in it to fully all the novelty of her fantasies.
The mirror in the bathroom was inexpensive: without frame and jewelry. But Claire loved to look into it. Even with a scarce lighting of one light bulb without lampshar under the ceiling, it was surprisingly clearly reflected. Great glass, though not Venetian.
In the abstract furnishings of the bathroom, the beauty of Claire was especially brightly distinguished. The accurate cheekbones, ash eyebrows, delightful emerald eyes – it was difficult to imagine something more divine. But the Claire got used to her appearance and did not find anything unique in it. Up to that moment. Now she began to watch it, as if the eyes of someone else and the fact that she saw, she had a reverent delight. Hypnotizing beauty The face of an angel with gold curls looked at her from the mirror. It was not impossible to comprehend such beauty nor to see it. And at the same time it was scary to watch. And suddenly all this will disappear. Suddenly beauty is just an illusion?
«You can’t even imagine what treasure you have,» someone’s hoarse whisper from silence suddenly whispered. It burned her. Burned and ears, and consciousness. Although Claire already knew that it did not make sense to turn around the shoulder. There is just no one. But in front of her, the mirror reflected the darkness as if someone was attached in it. Someone mutilated and dangerous. The creature from dreams. It scared her very much and at the same time something strangely excited. Claire imagined how it is to have a beauty, and then lose it.
Together with the question came a desire to find out about it. However, Claire did not even look at the razors folded in a bucket along with toothbrushes. Of course, the blades of the razors were sharp, but they did not excite her. It is completely different that the knife always lying in her pocket. Claire got it and pressed the button, releasing the blade. Almost the same knife like his. She did not know the name of that creature, so only one name whispered out loud:
«Mutilated!»
What to be so? She raised the blade to face. What if she brings with it on the cheek? What then will remain from her beauty? Will she be then like him?
The darkness in the mirror as if she was in a certain bizarre labyrinth. Probably, it was a game of a darkness mixed with poor lighting in the bathroom, but Claire seemed that the images in the mirror were moving along the same luxurious gallery in which she was in the dream. Only its reflection remained in place, golden on the background of the darkness. It attracted demons like light. Such a bright light that it exuded, walked the inhabitants of the kingdom of darkness to life, made them excited and aggressive. And someone waited for her there at the end of the tunnel. Someone who she wanted to see and was afraid of.
The blade in her hand shook. She could not put herself a wound. Could not mutilate herselff. It was attractively and scary. But she lacked courage. But in some one mad moment it seemed to her that she would not only be able to do it. But a strange hoarse voice interrupted her thoughts.
«Cordelia!»
Again the name from the sleep. Claire carefully looked into the depths of the mirror, and the knife fell from her hands. For a moment it seemed to her that she sees a terrible wound face next to her own reflection. How strongly the cuts on it emphasized the contrast with her own skin.
«It is necessary to value what you have,» as if it reported without words. «And then look at me! I didn’t value myself at all. Because of such as you, by the way…»
Claire shuddered. Is it really her dream again. Only now it was a dream in reality. She never smoked in life, did not drink alcohol and did not take drugs, so where then such hallucinations.
She pumped into the sink in front of the mirror so as not to fall down. The fallen knife lay on the tiled floor and as if waiting. Claire lacked the strength to raise it and again encounter doubts.
One moment she looked into the sink to calm down. The remnants of water at the bottom in the semidarkness seemed mixed with blood. But Claire did not shed a drop. She did not have enough courage to cut herself. Nevertheless, she opened the faucet so that clean filtered water washed off something brown and thick from the edge of the sink.
When Claire raised her eyes on the mirror, there was no other reflection in it. Only her own frightened face was in the background of a dense mirror gloom. Here you go. She was just imagined. She reluctantly surprised, the most realistic can be simple hallucination. The same tangible and real as the blade knife on the skin.
Bloodstained rose
The face on the numerous TV screens in the electronics store showcase attracted the attention of Claire. She saw it before. And this face, and this blockbuster. The actor was familiar to her for many films, only she did not remember his name. These American superstars divorced so much that everyone would not remember, and generous to the praise of the press everything puts forward new names and creates regular idols, as if already existingis not enough. Claire never fond of stars that were so willingly encouraged with languishing from loneliness or idleness people. She herself was a star for everyone who saw her. She did not need to be filmed into a movie or bribe journalists to become interesting to people. After all, she had her appearance, which shone as a star without the help of a pawn articles and without a drop of makeup. But such advantages did not let everyone boast.
A strongly applied actor smiled with dozens of screens, depicting some kind of supernatural creature. It was impossible to say about him that he was handsome as often called him in magazines and newspapers. Claire would rather call him pleasant in appearance than beautiful. Previously, she liked to look at him, but now she shuddered. The feeling was like it just broke not only the showcase, but also the screen of one of the working TVs and was touched against bare wires.
How strange! The creature from the screen as if stood near and was one of the raised passers-by, and not another standard product of Hollywood. It seemed even more unusual that one of his appearance hurt her.
Prior to that, she had something similar to her only at the sight of living people. But how such feelings could provoke just a picture on the screen, maybe even live and charming?
Claire could not understand herself. What exactly did she feel when looking at the screens? What is wrong with this person? What does he look at her that the dead man out of the grave?
Evening street suddenly seemed gloomy and unattractive. Feet refused to go on. Consciousness muttered. Nearby, there was not even a single bench to sit down.
For the first time in a long time, Claire descended into the subway, and as if it turned out to be in some cosmic world of studied walls and floors, escalators and rails. People moving along the schedule of trains, like stupid somnambula. In the subway everything seemed technical and abstract, as in some microcosmos. Hollowing on the escalator, Claire was so fascinated by looking at the bright advertising posters on the walls, which did not immediately pay attention to someone standing ahead. He had very beautiful blond hair on the shoulders. Wheat strands were scattered by fan on a standing collar. They attached his appearance something aristocratic. Somewhere she has already seen him. Claire felt such a sharp desire to see his face that it seemed to charge everything around magnetism. And the man suddenly turned on her, as if hearing the call.
Yes, she has already seen him. But not so close, not so distinct. From amazement, Claire almost released the handrail of the escalator. The heart pounded in a mad rhythm.
This face! The face of a young man from the crowd, which appeared every time some accidents occurred with people. How he was still beautiful. Claire did not remember to see something more beautiful and correct in her life than these features. That would draw it. She wanted to catch up with him and delay or at least call, but she understood that he was unlikely to stop. From him she had some terrifying unavailability, as from ice block. And still, she wanted to watch and look at him, not taking off. Although something in it scarecrow and very much. Claire could not explain it.
She just knew that she would go after him, even if they were not on the way. Only he did not go down, although he stood far ahead of her. But at the very end of the way, he suddenly disappeared. Claire managed to notice him on the escalator, rising up. A beautiful face flashed directly opposite her of the handrails. Claire turned to trace an escalator lifting view. Will his face become ugly, as for the first time she watched him. But the moving steps were carried out forward so quickly that nothing had not to see.
It’s time to go from the escalator. What if now to transfer to another and go upstairs after an amazingly beautiful stranger. Will she catch him up? What if not? Then she will have to buy a new pass to go back to the subway. Claire reluctantly moved down in the waiting room.
The crowd of people in trains was not thick. In the evening, the metro is silent by passengers, but not today. With luminous posts of information, Clair noted a couple of sloppy dressed young people. The guy in black leather and with long blond hair with something like her beautiful stranger, but only remotely. He had a coarse face, and three-day bristles pierced on the cheeks. The girl who kept his hand was a thin brunette with clearly defined cheekbones and in the same cheap clothes as her friend. A couple carefully looked at the pointers, as if they did not know where exactly they were to go. Where did this feeling of the burning solar strike, as if Claire crushed the fingers into the included socket and received a blow to the current.
How unpleasant! This has already happened to her before completely unfamiliar people. Other people. Not these. Those people who were already dead or are crippled.
Claire was hardly sinking on the bench in the very edge of the platform. She loved to sit right into the first car driven by train, so the place was just suitable for her. Scarce lighting dropped glare on rails, marble wall cladding and boarding bench. Claire did not immediately notice a bright scarlet spot on the seat right near herself. An unexpected sweet fragrance hit the nostrils, a little mixed with metal smells, reigning here.
A rose in the subway. How strange! Someone threw it right on the bench. Of course, it was merciful than to throw it to someone under the feet. Its extreme petals just started to fade. Rose’s sourced sweet aroma is particularly pleasant in the plunge of the subway and as if someone was waiting. Maybe someone just forgot her here. Maybe to take it will be theft, and yet Clair involuntarily took it. The rose lay here as a gift.
For some reason it seemed Claire that it would be a crime this gift not to accept. She carefully took the stem with her fingers and began to consider bright red petals. The bud just began to bloom, and was already doomed to die. And all just because the rose was left too long in a hot room without water. Claire fell sorry for the torn plant, as if it was a living being.
She did not even notice how the next train came up and moved away, although she was sitting just at the edge of the platform. Claire raised her head just when the train was already driving away. The windows of the cars flashed at high speeds of the cars reflected her frightened face. Maybe this is just a shooting game attached it to such a frightened and discouraged expression. As if something was happening.
Claire felt pain in the fingers. This is all rose. Its spikes turned out to be unexpectedly sharp. Probably, Claire made a mistake that she raised it. Now she looked at her own bloody fingers and thought where to take a scarf to wipe them. In the pockets of her jacket was nothing left. And her handbag she did not take with her today. Claire with an easy misunderstanding looked at her own fingers in the blood, then again looked at her reflection in the flashed windows. It suddenly strangely transformed. Someone else looked at her from the window. From all windows. Initially, it seemed to her that this very beautiful young man she saw at the escalator. He could well have time to sit in this train. There is nothing surprising in this. But he could not sit in all the cars in a row and look at her from each window. No, this is just some kind of light game. Some strong optical deception. Nobody looked at her from each window, it was only the reflection, layered one to another. Probably, it was they who created it in front of her a terrible creature. Someone crippled and frightening viciously grinned to her from reflective glass, and Claire dropped a rose.
She was frightened. Although she saw this face before, but was afraid again, as for the first time. Goosebumps fled on the skin. The hand was still sick. Blood smeared on her fingers. Neglecting etiquette, Claire wiped her hand right about jeans pocket. Only turning around, she noticed that on the bench also remained a bloody palm imprint, but it was not her. The fingers seemed stretched and bony, as if strange.
Someone’s cries rang out after the train had already disappeared into the tunnel. Claire moved to where they shouted. There are several people who were late for the train and the duty officer who tried, as he could, to relieve panic. He distilled off the frightened people from the edge of the platform, but Claire still managed to look through his shoulder on the rails. Initially, she did not even really understand what she saw, but the spectacle was extremely unpleasant. Some kind of dirty rags on the rails and brown lodges… no, these were parts of the body. Many scattered parts. Have you ever been alone? Claire did not immediately notice a white-eyed head with a barred skull. A sticky brown messenger flowed along the long luminous hair. Only on the hairstyle, Claire managed to learn that Blonde, whom she saw five minutes ago in the subway with some girl. Obviously, the girl was here on the rails. Claire noted graceful chopped hands, obviously female parts of the body, the same dirty and brown, as some kind of rags with a garbage. Here is the death in the subway tunnel. How these guys were only lit together to fall under the train. Maybe someone pushed them. Or they played at the edge of the platform when the train approached. And maybe they were just so passionate about each other, which did not notice anything. On the moment it seemed to her that dead chops were still moving. That someone mutilated still reflects in the wall and laughs.
Optical illusion! Claire turned away. Probably she looked very bad, because the duty officer asked if he was worth calling her a doctor. Claire shook her head negatively. She knew that she looks too pale and frightened, and somehow devastated.
«Did you know these people, Miss?» asked the duty duty, nodding on the rails.
«Not!» Claire did not even turn around, because she did not want to see all this again. Her sole slightly slid about the tiled floor of the subway, leaving a light red mark. Claire noted the rose petal adherent to the boot sole. It was all that she came on a flower.
The crushed rose was still lying at the bench. And its appearance was even more miserable than those bodies on the subway rails. She do not know why Claire raised it.
She had to be thrown into the garbage tank, but instead, Claire hid her under the jacket and took her. She went home on foot.
