The Waste Lands (Stephen King) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

Stephen King
The Waste Lands

THE ROSE

IT BEGAN TO OPEN before his eyes. It disclosed a dark scarlet furnace, petal upon secret petal, each blazing with its own secret fury. Jake had never seen anything so beautiful, so intensely and utterly alive. Now, as he stretched one grime-streaked hand out toward this wonder, the voices began to sing his own name… and a dreadful, deadly fear began to steal in toward the center of his heart. It was as cold as black ice and as heavy as stone.

There was something wrong here. He could feel it pulsing in discord, like a deep and ugly scratch across some formerly priceless work of art… Then the heart of the rose opened before him, exposing a bright yellow dazzle of light… It was a sun: a vast forge blazing at the center of this rose growing in the alien grass.

The fear returned, only now it had become outright terror. It’s right, he thought incoherently, everything here is right, but it could go wrong…