The Dead House - Kurtagich Dawn (лучшие книги читать онлайн бесплатно без регистрации TXT) 📗

“This is the only way!” Naida yells again. “I’ll do anything to get my friend back, do you understand? Anything!”

Her voice rings around the room and then distills into a low hum before dissipating into nothingness.

Scott frowns. “What happened to you?” He rubs his eyes and then goes to kneel before Naida. His voice is low. “Naddie, please. You can’t kill something. You can’t. However this works, you can’t take something’s life away—it would change you. Please, babe. There has to be another way.”

There is a small silence before Kaitlyn shifts. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” she says softly. “Or any creature. I just want my sister back.”

“It has to be a sacrifice,” Naida says. “A trade.”

“Okay, fine. We’ll all give something.” Scott pulls out a necklace from behind his T-shirt, removes it, and kisses it. “Here.”

“Your Saint Peter…” Naida whispers. Scott puts it in her fingers. “But your grandmother gave it to you before she died.”

He shrugs. “Sacrifice.”

Naida’s face crumples as she looks down at it in her hand.

“I don’t have anything on me,” Brett says.

Scott looks up at him and there is a hint of a smile on his face. “Hair. That perfect blond hair. Cut some of it off.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, it’s perfect,” Scott says. “Something beautiful that you care way too much about.”

Brett folds his arms and stares at the wall. Scott rolls his eyes and looks at the others. “Well?”

By the time everyone has finished, Brett is missing some hair from the left side of his head, Naida’s necklace is gone from around her neck, Kaitlyn’s anklet is gone from her ankle, and all the items, including Scott’s Saint Peter, are held carefully in Ari’s round bowler hat.

Naida glances at the rooster. “Now what the hell am I supposed to do with it? I can’t exactly sneak it back into my cousin’s garden.”

“Roast it later,” Brett says, grinning.

Scott snorts. “I’m not eating that thing. We can take it back later. I’ll go with you, Naids, okay?”

She nods at him, seems relieved. “Okay.”

[END OF CLIP]

Diary of Kaitlyn Johnson

Tuesday, 25 January 2005, early morning

Basement

There was time to turn back, Dee. There was so much time.

Naida knelt before a bowl surrounded by seven black candles, whose wax dribbled onto the concrete like some kind of awful premonition. To her left sat the caged rooster, and to her right, a thick book with ancient, curling pages. In her hand she held the knife—the knife that she had planned to cut the bird’s neck with. Scott and Brett sat on either side of her, protectors. Ari sat beside me—my rock.

John refused to come.

I suppose I understand.

There was so much time to turn back. But none of us did. Nobody stopped Naida as she began the ritual, setting the items—and Ari’s hat—aflame.

The house crashed down on top of us, as if it had known we were coming. It was more broken than I remember, more rotten, more alive. A brutal, enraged storm was brewing inside, and low clouds hung over the ceiling, threatening rain.

“Blimey,” said Scott, stumbling backwards. “It’s real.”

His voice echoed through the house and came back at us with more force.

Brett looked too stunned to move. “It stinks,” he managed.

Ari just peered around, his beautiful mouth open in surprise.

“This is your mind?” he said.

I felt humiliation wash over me.

This was my mind.

“Split up,” Naida said.

“Find the door,” Naida said.

“We’ll go in pairs,” Naida said.

God, Dee. I can’t do this—

I need them to tell me what’s happening. I can’t keep waiting like this.

Brett went upstairs, and Scott followed a moment later to find the attic. Ari went to find the basement. Naida and I stood alone once they had gone, her staring at the reality around her, and me taking her reaction in.

“You weren’t kidding, were you?” she said at last, and the clouds that churned above us seemed to roar with laughter.

“Let’s get this over with,” I muttered, heading down the ground-level corridor.

Dee, we looked. The house was just playing with us. The corridor elongated, bent, and twisted until we were walking in circles. We passed an empty picture frame on the left wall, broken down the middle, and later, the same frame was on the right wall. Then it was under our feet and we were walking along the walls themselves.

The clouds broke open with a roar, and rain spat down on and around us, hot, then cold, then sticky, then slimy.

We trudged through it all, and only ended up back where we started.

“I suppose this is the part where the walls start raining blood?” Naida said drily.

I walked over to the wall and placed my hand upon it. Where I touched, the wall was dry. The floor beneath our feet grew soft, like wet earth, and we began to sink into the wood.

THE HOUSE IS MINE.

I gasped, and stared at Naida. “Did you hear it?”

Her lips tightened, and I thought I saw a flash of anger in her eyes. Maybe she was about to say something. Maybe I was about to say something. Maybe I was going to make a suggestion. Maybe I was going to suggest we leave, quit, give up.

That’s when I saw the dead girl, up on the banister behind Naida—she was pointing at us with her mouth wide open, her teeth cracked and jagged. She was all silent screams. And where she pointed, behind me, I felt the House shift. I saw Naida react to whatever was behind me… I saw her mouth open in horror… I saw the snake reflected in her eyes. I turned. Out of the sinking wooden floor reared a giant snake—the green viper—mouth open, ready to strike down on me. I couldn’t move, I was stuck in the quickwood of the floor. But then I felt movement. Naida, running, right at the snake, directly in the path of its yawning mouth. Naida, running to put herself in front of me. Directly in the path of those brilliant white teeth.

Naida Camera Footage

Tuesday, 25 January 2005, 12:25 AM

Basement

The camera clicks on at the same moment that Kaitlyn reaches forward with her right hand across the bowl that is now charred and smoking, her terrible cry—“Naida!”—ringing through the room. The others jolt into awareness and look around with foggy expressions.

Naida sits with her mouth frozen open, her eyes huge in her face. Her eyes rotate towards Kaitlyn, and her expression is one of grief and horror.

“Kaitie,” she whispers, before her expression hardens and she reaches for the knife beside Ari’s bowler hat, grips her tongue between her left fingers, and with a violent, sickening motion, saws off her tongue.

She flings it across the room, where it lands with a soft slap, and then she falls to the floor, twitching.

Chaos erupts.

Scott is the first to reach her, pulling her into his arms. “Call an ambulance!” Spurts of blood jump from her mouth, and she gurgles.

Ari stares at her, seemingly unable to move. Brett grabs his own hair and yells, “Shit! Shit! Shit!” It is John, standing guard by the door, who runs up the stairs.

“What should I do?” Scott yells. “What the fuck should I do?”

Ari blinks, shuts his mouth, and hurries over to them.