Kitabı oku: «Alice in Zombieland / Алиса в Стране зомби», sayfa 5

Yazı tipi:

Alice's mind raced, her own thoughts slipping into unsettling places.They're going to eat me, she thought, her chest tightening. The terror clung to her ribs like a shadow – hot, cold, and very real. She tried to take a deep breath, but it caught in her throat. The clearing around her swam, and the figures – those rotting, swaying things – loomed too close, too silently. They've been waiting for me. She shook her head violently. “No, this is nonsense!” she muttered, forcing her voice into the emptiness like it could hold the fear back.

Alice's breath caught as the last figure, towering and skeletal, fixed her with its hollow eyes. Its gnarled hand reached out, fingers twitching like they remembered how to grasp. All five of them shuffled closer, circling her slowly, as she stumbled backward, nearly tripping over a root. The zombies surged forward – not fast, but with the dreadful inevitability of a tide. Their movements were slow, limbs dragging with decay, their hollow eyes vacant of thought or feeling.

Alice fled, her heart pounding as she darted through the trees. The forest seemed alive, the shadows twisting and reaching like claws. Branches snagged her hair and tore at her dress, their creaks and groans sounding like mocking laughter. The ground beneath her felt unsteady, as if it might give way at any moment. The air grew colder with every step, carrying whispers she couldn't quite make out but that sent shivers down her spine. She didn't stop until she reached a large, gnarled tree and collapsed behind it, curling up with her arms around her knees. She buried her face in her legs, trembling as tears pricked her eyes. She wanted to look behind the tree and see if they followed – wanted it so badly it felt like a pressure in her chest – but her limbs stayed locked in place. Even though she knew they couldn't be that fast, the idea of seeing one lurching just feet away was more than she could bear. Instead, she buried her face deeper into her knees, squeezing her eyes shut and whispering nonsense under her breath like a charm against fear.

A deep, rasping snore startled her, the sound coming from somewhere nearby. Alice froze, her breath hitching as dread pooled in her chest. Her limbs felt heavy, uncooperative. She wanted to look – needed to – but fear clutched at her too tightly. The snore came again, louder, and she forced herself to move. Her limbs shook, her breath hitched, and every inch she leaned felt like wading through ice. Still, she crawled forward just enough to peek around the edge of the tree.

Leaning against the other side of it was a figure, slumped and barely moving. It was a man – or at least, it might have been – draped in a tattered red robe. His face was sunken, the skin mottled and grey, and his bony hands rested limply on his knees. For a moment, Alice thought he might be dead, but then his chest rose and fell in slow, shallow breaths.

“What – what is that?” Alice whispered, her voice trembling.

“That,” came a lilting voice above her, “is the Red King.”

Alice's head snapped upward, and there, perched on a low branch, was a cat. Or at least, something that resembled one. Its striped body faded in and out of the shadows, and its grin was far too wide, its teeth glinting in the dim light. “He's dreaming now,” said the Cat: “and what do you think he's dreaming about?”

Alice frowned. “Nobody can guess that.”

“Why, about you!” the Cat purred, its grin widening as it perched higher in the tree. “And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you'd be?”

“Where I am now, of course,” Alice said firmly.

“Not you!” the Cat retorted with a chuckle. “You'd be nowhere. Why, you're only a sort of thing in his dream!”

Alice's mouth fell open. “That's absurd! I'm very real.”

“Are you?” the Cat mused, its tail swaying lazily. “If that King was to wake – ” it glanced at the Red King and grinned wider, “you'd go out – fizzle, pop – just like a candle snuffed by a rude wind.”

“I shouldn't!” Alice exclaimed indignantly, her voice rising. “Besides, if I'm only a sort of thing in his dream, what are you, I should like to know?”

“Ditto,” said the Cat with a flick of its tail. “Me? Why, I'm the cat who's always grinning, or perhaps the grin that's always catting. Does it matter? If the King wakes, we all fade – puff, swish, gone with the smoke.”

“He looks…” Alice hesitated, glancing at the King again. “He looks awful.”

“He's been here a long time,” the Cat said, its tone suddenly softer, almost wistful. “Too long, perhaps.”

Alice opened her mouth to ask another question, but her gaze got caught by something glinting faintly beneath the Red King's bony hand. It was a tarnished metal cap, the kind that might have once belonged to a pocket watch, still faintly hinged to a rusted fragment. At first, it seemed like any discarded piece of debris, but as she leaned closer, she noticed faint engravings etched deep into its surface, their curves catching the dim light filtering through the trees.

“What's this?” she murmured, hesitating as she pried it from the Red King's skeletal grip. His rotting fingers, blackened and brittle, crumbled slightly at her touch, releasing the object with an almost reluctant sigh. A sickly-sweet stench wafted up, making her stomach churn, but her curiosity pressed her forward.

The Cheshire Cat's grin flickered slightly, and its tail swayed with what might have been unease. “Oh, best leave it alone, Alice,” it said lightly. “Some words are better left unread. They tend to stick.”

Ignoring the Cat, Alice squinted at the markings, the grooves catching the faint light filtering through the forest canopy. Slowly, she read the words aloud: