Wrong Things by Poppy Z. Brite & Caitlín R. Kiernan

Author:Poppy Z. Brite & Caitlín R. Kiernan [Brite, Poppy Z. & Kiernan, Caitlín R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Novela, Fantástico, Terror
Publisher: ePubLibre
Published: 2001-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

In this dream there is still thunder, no rain from the ocher sky but the crack and rumble of thunder so loud that the air shimmers and could splinter like ice. The tall red grass almost as high as his waist, rippling gently in the wind, and Frank wishes that Willa wouldn’t get so close to the fleshy, white trees. She thinks they might have fruit, peaches and she’s never eaten a white peach before, she said. Giants fighting in the sky and Willa picking up windfall fruit from the rocky ground beneath the trees; Frank looks over his shoulder, back towards the fissure in the basement wall, back the way they came, but it’s vanished.

I should be sacred, he thinks. No, I should be scared.

And now Willa is coming back towards him through the crimson waves of grass, her skirt for a linen basket to hold all the pale fruit she’s gathered. She’s smiling and he tries to remember the last time he saw her smile, really smile, not just a smirk or a sneer. She smiles and steps through the murmuring grass that seems to part to let her pass, her bare arms and legs safe from the blades grown sharp as straight razors.

“They are peaches,” she beams.

But the fruit is the color of school-room chalk, its skin smooth and slick and glistening with tiny, pinhead beads of nectar seeping out through minute pores. “Take one,” she says, but his stomach lurches and rolls at the thought, loathe to even touch one of the things and then she sighs and dumps them all into the grass at his feet.

“I used to know a story about peaches,” Willa says. “It was a Japanese story, I think. Or maybe it was Chinese.”

“I’m pretty sure those aren’t peaches,” Frank says, and he takes a step backwards, away from the pile of sweating, albino fruit.

“I heard the pits are poisonous,” she says. “Arsenic, or maybe it’s cyanide.”

A brilliant flash of chartreuse lightning then and the sky sizzles and smells like charred meat. Willa bends and retrieves a piece of the fruit, takes a bite before he can stop her; the sound of her teeth sinking through its skin, tearing through the colorless pulp inside, is louder than the thunder, and milky juice rolls down her chin and stains her Curious George T-shirt. Something wriggles from between her lips, falls to the grass, and when Willa opens her jaws wide to take another bite Frank can see that her mouth is filled with wriggling things.

“They have to be careful you don’t swallow your tongue,” she says, mumbling around the white peach. “If you swallow your tongue you’ll choke to death.”

Frank snatches the fruit away from her, grabs it quick before she puts any more of it in her belly, and she frowns and wipes the juice staining her hands off onto her skirt. The half-eaten thing feels warm and he tosses it away.

“Jesus, that was fucking silly, Frank. The harm’s already done, you know that.

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