Читать книгу The Straw Men 3-Book Thriller Collection: The Straw Men, The Lonely Dead, Blood of Angels - Michael Marshall - Страница 31

‘You have to give me something more than water,’ Sarah had said.

Her voice sounded weak, even to herself. She had repeated this sentence many times. It had become the first thing she said every time the lid was removed.

‘Don’t you like the water?’

‘I like the water. Thank you for the water. But I need something more. You have to give me something more than water.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I need food. Something to eat.’ She coughed. She seemed to be coughing a lot now, and when she did it made her feel nauseous.

‘We eat too much these days,’ the man said. ‘Far too much. It’s killed for us and grown by the ton and then delivered to our door and we sit like pigs at the trough. We’re not even hunters any more. Just scavengers. Hyenas with coupons who pick through the shrink-wrapped leavings of people we’ve never even met.’

‘If you say so. But I have to eat.’

‘I have to eat I have to eat I have to eat,’ the man chanted. He seemed to like the sound the words made, and continued repeating the sentences for some minutes.

Then he was silent for a while, before observing: ‘Once we would go for days without food. We were lean.’

‘Right, the Great Depression. Dust Bowl years, blah.’

The man laughed. ‘That was yesterday and of no interest to us. I meant before the invasion.’

‘The invasion?’ Sarah asked – thinking: Okay, here we get to it. Little green men. The Russians. The Jews. Whatever. She coughed violently again, and for a moment everything went white in front of her eyes, and when he answered his voice sounded as if it was coming from a long way off or as if he was using one of those things like Cher did when she sang ‘Believe’.

‘Yes, invasion. What else would you call it?’ he asked.

She swallowed, screwed her eyes shut and then opened them again. ‘I wouldn’t call it anything. I’m too hungry.’

‘You can’t have any food.’

Something in the man’s voice made her suddenly very afraid. He didn’t sound like he meant she just couldn’t have any today. He sounded like he meant she couldn’t have any, period. In a surprisingly short time she had adapted to her current circumstances, aided by an increasing sense of dislocation. But the threat of nothing to eat, ever, was enough to momentarily jog her completely back to reality.

‘Look,’ she said, voice unsteady now, ‘you must want something from me. There must be some reason you are doing this. Please just get on with what you want and either kill me or give me some food. I have to have something to eat.’

‘Open your mouth.’

She did so eagerly, saliva immediately flooding into her mouth. For a moment nothing happened, and then a hand appeared. It wasn’t holding anything that looked like food, but only a small piece of white paper. The hand pressed it to her tongue briefly, and then withdrew. Sarah started to cry.

The man said nothing for a while, and then tutted. ‘No change,’ he said. ‘Stubborn little genome.’ The piece of white paper fluttered down into the hole to lie beside her. ‘You haven’t really learned anything, have you?’

She sniffed. ‘You haven’t told me anything.’

‘I’m beginning to wonder about you,’ he said. ‘I thought you were different. That you might change. I came for you personally. I had plans for us. But now I’m wondering if you’ll do after all.’

‘Oh yes? Why’s that?’

‘You’re lazy and spoiled and not coming on very well.’

‘Yeah? Well you’re a wacko.’

‘And you’re a silly little bitch.’

‘Fuck you,’ she said. ‘You’re a fucking nutcase and I’m going to escape and smash your head in.’

She kept her mouth shut as he poured the water.

He hadn’t come back for a long time.