Read Online The Marbury Lens by Andrew Smith - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Andrew Smith
Tags: Fiction, General, Suspense, Historical, People & Places, Action & Adventure, Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic, England, Social Issues, Survival Stories, Survival, Europe, Friendship, London (England), Emotional Problems, Kidnapping, Military & Wars, Law & Crime, Horror stories
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out for my run, while I fumbled around with putting on clothes so I could get out of the hotel and begin to explore the city, as I shook out the shorts I’d tossed on the floor the night before to see if my cell phone was still alive, Henry Hewitt’s glasses fell right out onto the folds of the sheets I’d slept in.
I took them up into my hands and sat on the edge of the bed. They were so old and frail, made from such a thin gauge of braided gold wire that had serpentine patterns of black etched into the surface. And the lenses themselves felt so heavy in my hand, like they were polished discs of stone crystal. One of them was chipped on its edge, and unevenly tinted a kind of purple that faded, clear and milky in some spots, and dark as gemstones in others.
T HE A METHYST H OUR .
Quit it, Jack.
I unfolded the glasses and held them up at arm’s length so I could see through them by the light from the window.
And then I heard the rolling sound again, but this time it was louder.
But when I looked through the lenses, something happened that was difficult to understand: I saw a bug—a big one—crawling downward, shiny, wet, black. I lowered the glasses. The rolling noise stopped.
So I thought that the glasses, held at a distance, acted as some sort of telescope. I wanted to find the magnified bug that must have been crawling on my windowpane.
But I’d left the window open.
Still, I thought, there must be a bug there. On the wall, the drapes, maybe.
I got up and went over to the window. I searched everywhere, shook out the drapes, but there was no bug. There had to have been one, I thought, because it was so huge. It couldn’t have just disappeared.
It was there; I saw it.
I sat down again.
I held the glasses up.
I put them on.
You haven’t gotten away from anything, Jack.
I don’t even remember bringing my hands down from my face. Why would I remember it? I wasn’t there anymore.
There was this bug.
The sky domed overhead like a vacant cathedral ceiling, white and hot.
I stood near a wall, watching the bug crawl out of a red-black hole the size of a soft rotten plum, breathing in the thick humid stench, sweet rot, fascinated by the hideous thing. If I grabbed it, the bug would have been bigger than both of my hands together. I’d never seen anything like it, not even in nightmares. I listened to it as it chewed a counterclockwise circle around the meaty rim of the crater it came from, making soft wet clicks. Then two more of the bugs crawled out from the same wet black hole. One of them dropped down next to my foot. I heard it thud onto the ground; and I took a step back.
That’s when I realized the bugs were eating the meat from inside the eye socket on a human head.
Nothing more of the body was there; just the head. And it was nailed to the wall in front of me, held there as though in conversation, just at my eye level, by a thick wooden stake that had been driven into the masonry through the other eyeball.
“Fuck!” I backed up another step, felt vomit rising from my gut.
I tripped on something solid and soft, and fell back, catching myself in the dirt with my open hands. But I couldn’t look away from that thing on the gray wall in front of me. One of the bugs, with its lacquer black, chitinous shell yawning open, began chewing up into a nostril. It made an electric buzzing with lime-colored wings. Blood angled, sprouting treelike outward from the neck where the body had been hewn free, forming pointed and glistening branches in the little creases on the shadowless wall.
Something moved across my hand.
One of those bugs.
I looked down, flailed. What the hell was I wearing? These weren’t my clothes.
I recognized it.
The head on the wall was Henry Hewitt’s.
I sat in gray-white dirt. The rest of Henry’s body was next to me, my left hand, open, propping me upright, braced on his unmoving and hardened chest.
His hands had been hacked off, too. The sleeves of his coat were
I took them up into my hands and sat on the edge of the bed. They were so old and frail, made from such a thin gauge of braided gold wire that had serpentine patterns of black etched into the surface. And the lenses themselves felt so heavy in my hand, like they were polished discs of stone crystal. One of them was chipped on its edge, and unevenly tinted a kind of purple that faded, clear and milky in some spots, and dark as gemstones in others.
T HE A METHYST H OUR .
Quit it, Jack.
I unfolded the glasses and held them up at arm’s length so I could see through them by the light from the window.
And then I heard the rolling sound again, but this time it was louder.
But when I looked through the lenses, something happened that was difficult to understand: I saw a bug—a big one—crawling downward, shiny, wet, black. I lowered the glasses. The rolling noise stopped.
So I thought that the glasses, held at a distance, acted as some sort of telescope. I wanted to find the magnified bug that must have been crawling on my windowpane.
But I’d left the window open.
Still, I thought, there must be a bug there. On the wall, the drapes, maybe.
I got up and went over to the window. I searched everywhere, shook out the drapes, but there was no bug. There had to have been one, I thought, because it was so huge. It couldn’t have just disappeared.
It was there; I saw it.
I sat down again.
I held the glasses up.
I put them on.
You haven’t gotten away from anything, Jack.
I don’t even remember bringing my hands down from my face. Why would I remember it? I wasn’t there anymore.
There was this bug.
The sky domed overhead like a vacant cathedral ceiling, white and hot.
I stood near a wall, watching the bug crawl out of a red-black hole the size of a soft rotten plum, breathing in the thick humid stench, sweet rot, fascinated by the hideous thing. If I grabbed it, the bug would have been bigger than both of my hands together. I’d never seen anything like it, not even in nightmares. I listened to it as it chewed a counterclockwise circle around the meaty rim of the crater it came from, making soft wet clicks. Then two more of the bugs crawled out from the same wet black hole. One of them dropped down next to my foot. I heard it thud onto the ground; and I took a step back.
That’s when I realized the bugs were eating the meat from inside the eye socket on a human head.
Nothing more of the body was there; just the head. And it was nailed to the wall in front of me, held there as though in conversation, just at my eye level, by a thick wooden stake that had been driven into the masonry through the other eyeball.
“Fuck!” I backed up another step, felt vomit rising from my gut.
I tripped on something solid and soft, and fell back, catching myself in the dirt with my open hands. But I couldn’t look away from that thing on the gray wall in front of me. One of the bugs, with its lacquer black, chitinous shell yawning open, began chewing up into a nostril. It made an electric buzzing with lime-colored wings. Blood angled, sprouting treelike outward from the neck where the body had been hewn free, forming pointed and glistening branches in the little creases on the shadowless wall.
Something moved across my hand.
One of those bugs.
I looked down, flailed. What the hell was I wearing? These weren’t my clothes.
I recognized it.
The head on the wall was Henry Hewitt’s.
I sat in gray-white dirt. The rest of Henry’s body was next to me, my left hand, open, propping me upright, braced on his unmoving and hardened chest.
His hands had been hacked off, too. The sleeves of his coat were
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