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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] Ballard could see no more than four or five yards across the grass from where he stood. But he knew intuitively that he had chosen the right road; that Mironenko had scaled this wall and was waiting for him somewhere 194 close by. Behind him, the fog kept its counsel. Either their pursuers had lost him, or their way, or both. He hoisted himself up on to the wall, avoiding the spikes by a whisper, and dropped down on the opposite side. The street had seemed pin-drop quiet, but it clearly wasn't, for it was quieter still inside the park. The fog was chillier here, and pressed more insistently upon him as he advanced across the wet grass. The wall behind him - his only point of anchorage in this wasteland - became a ghost of itself, then faded entirely. Committed now, he walked on a few more steps, not certain that he was even taking a straight route. Suddenly the fog curtain was drawn aside and he saw a figure waiting he was not alone. Had Mironenko given up the race and come back to escort him? He spoke the man's name, knowing that in doing so he made his position apparent to any and all, but equally certain that whoever stalked him already knew precisely where he stood. 'Speak,' he said. There was no reply out of the fog. Then; movement. The fog curled upon itself and Ballard glimpsed a form dividing the veils. Mironenko! He called after the man again, taking several steps through the murk in pursuit and suddenly something was stepping out to meet him. He saw the phantom for a moment only; long enough to glimpse incandescent eyes 195 and teeth grown so vast they wrenched the mouth into a permanent grimace. Of those facts - eyes and teeth - he was certain. Of the other bizarrities - the bristling flesh, the monstrous limbs - he was less sure. Maybe his mind, exhausted with so much noise and pain, was finally losing its grip on the real world; inventing terrors to frighten him back into ignorance. 'Damn you,' he said, defying both the thunder that was coming to blind him again and the phantoms he would be blinded to. Almost as if to test his defiance, that of the Russian backing into the fog. This time he didn't walk in pursuit, he ran, and his speed was rewarded. The figure reappeared ahead of him, and Ballard stretched to snatch at the man's jacket. His fingers found purchase, and all at once Mironenko was reeling round, a growl in his throat, and Ballard was staring into a face that almost made him cry out. His mouth was a raw wound, the teeth vast, the eyes slits of molten gold; the lumps at his neck had swelled and spread, so that the Russian's head was no longer raised above his body but part of one undivided energy, head becoming torso without an axis intervening. 'Ballard,' the beast smiled. Its voice clung to coherence only with the greatest difficulty, but Ballard heard the remnants of Mironenko 196 there. The more he scanned the simmering flesh, the more appalled he became. 'Don't be afraid,' Mironenko said. 'What disease is this?' 'The only disease I ever suffered was forgetfulness, and I'm cured of that -' He grimaced as he spoke, as if each word was shaped in contradiction to the instincts 'I'm not your brother,' Ballard said. The noise was bad, but the face of Mironenko was worse. Revolted, he turned his back on it, but the Russian only followed him. 'Don't you taste freedom, Ballard? And life. Just a breath away.' Ballard walked on, the blood beginning to creep from his nostrils. He let it come. 'It only hurts for a while,' Mironenko said. 'Then the pain goes . . .' Ballard kept his head down, eyes to the earth. Mironenko, seeing that he was making little impression, dropped behind. They won't take you back!' he said. 'You've seen too much.' The roar of helicopters did not entirely blot these words out. Ballard knew there was truth in them. His step faltered, and through the cacophony he heard Mironenko murmur: 'Look...' 197 Ahead, the fog had thinned somewhat, and the park wall was visible through rags of mist. Behind him, Mironenko's voice had descended to a snarl. 'Look at what you are.' saw the thing that had been Mironenko in all its glory, and at the sight the rotors grew to screaming pitch. He clamped his hands to his face. As he did so a shot rang out; then another; then a volley of shots. He fell to the ground, as much in weakness as in self-defence, and uncovered his eyes to see several human figures moving in the fog. Though he had forgotten their pursuers, they had not forgotten him. They had traced him to the park, and stepped into the midst of this lunacy, and now men and half-men and things not men were lost in the fog, and there was bloody confusion on every side. He saw a gunman firing at a shadow, only to have an ally appear from the fog with a bullet in his belly; saw a thing appear on four legs and flit from sight again on two; saw another run by carrying a human head by the hair, and laughing from its snouted face. The turmoil spilled towards him. Fearing for his life, he stood up and staggered back towards the wall. The cries and shots and snarls went on; he expected either bullet or beast to find him with every step. But he reached the wall alive, and attempted to scale it. His co-ordination had deserted him, however. He had no 198 choice but to follow the wall along its length until he from behind, and was pressing a needle into him. 'Sleep,' the voice said. And with the words came oblivion. At first he couldn't remember the man's name. His mind [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |