Читать книгу Cause Of Fear - Robert Ross - Страница 7

Linda Leigh suddenly knows what it feels like to be burned alive.

She awakes to flames. Her room is already consumed, the acrid stink of burning rubber and synthetic fabrics assaulting her more savagely than even the blazing heat. Linda screams for her life, but knows no one will hear her. The fire’s roar is like that of a living creature, an angry beast intent on death, louder than any cry for help she could try to make.

Only her bed remains untouched by the flames. She pulls her sheets up around her as if they could protect her from the encroaching cataclysm. She watches in horror as her bureau collapses into white-hot embers, her television set melts like butter, her curtains catch fire and explode.

Linda screams again. Only this time her scream feels artificial, as if she weren’t really screaming at all. She stares out into the flames that dance in seemingly sadistic glee, teasing her with their plumage of orange and gold.

There’s something out there, she thinks. Something in the flames.

Even in her terror, she tries to see what it is.

The shape is dark and shifting, but it is there. Is it a person—the person who set this fire?

Linda pulls back further behind her sheets as the fire begins to lick her bedposts. She struggles to see. What is out there?

Something large. Something enormous. Something dark, lurking behind the flames.

Come, it says.

Linda gasps. It’s speaking to her, but not with words. With thoughts. Whatever it is, it is communicating with her through her mind.

Come join me, it calls.

“Who—who are you?”

The heat is stronger now, bearing in on her. The fire seems emboldened, invigorated, by the exchange of words. It surges forward, and Linda shrieks.

Feel the warmth of the flames.

“Help me!” Linda screams.

Feel the warmth, the inviting heat…

“Who are you?” she shouts again.

Come join me, Linda.

Linda begins to cry.

Join me in the flames.

“No,” she whimpers.

It is only painful for a moment, and then there is bliss. Such bliss…

“No,” Linda says again.

The fire roars in anger now, furious at her refusal. Malevolent sparks hop onto her blankets like little imps, determined to take her. She swats at them, trying to put them out, as if such action mattered when her room was already a living hell.

She feels the presence in the flames more strongly now. It looms in toward her, a giant shape—not human. No, not human at all. Some kind of creature. Enormous—with arms, or tentacles, or wings—spreading out as if to claim her. It is so close now she can hear its breathing. A shadow passes over her bed.

You cannot fight me, it tells her. Go ahead. Touch the beauty of my flames. See how they dance? Aren’t they exquisite?

Her sheets have caught fire now. The conflagration is upon her.

Linda screams.

Join me, the thing in the flames says again.

And just before the fire devours her, Linda sees its face: huge and overpowering, awesome and terrible, with burning eyes and a forked tongue.

Linda screams again.