《The Truants 》作者：- Leigh Brackett【EPUB】

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Leigh Brackett THE TRUANTS Chapter I Prelude to Nightmare The farmhouse was tall and white. For eighty-three years it had stood in the green countrysidewhere the shaggy Pennsylvania hills slope down to the meadows of Ohio. It was a wise house anda kindly one. It knew all there was to know of the wheeling seasons birth am death humanpassion human sorrow. But now something had come into the night that it did not know. From the starry sky it came asound and presence not of the Earth. The house listened and was afraid .. . PRELUDE to nightmare. Hugh Sherwin was to remember very clearly in the days that followedevery second of those last calm precious minutes before his familiar world began to fall abouthim. He sat in the old farmhouse living room smoking and drowsily considering the pages of a dairyequipment catalogue. From outside in the warm May night came a chorus of squeals yelps andamiable growlings where Janie played some complicated game with the dogs. He remembered that the air was soft sweet with the smell of the rain that had fallen thatafternoon. He remembered the chirping of the crickets. He remembered thinking that summer wason its way at last. Lucy Sherwin looked up from her sewing. quotI swearquot she said quotthat childgrows an inch every day. I cant keep her dresses down to save me.quot Sherwin grinned. quotWaitanother five years. Then you can really start worrying about her clothes.quot His pipe had gone out. He lit it again. Janie whooped with laughter out on the lawn. The dogsbarked. Lucy went on with her sewing. Sherwin turned the pages of the catalogue. After a timehe realized without really thinking of it that the sounds from outside had stopped. Thechild the dogs the shrilling crickets all were silent. And it seemed to Sherwin in thestillness that he heard a vast strange