Terror in the Sun

Начало книги

If the mission of the story-teller is to evoke a mood, then here is fiction doubly fulfilled — awakening emotions both of horror and tenderness. A push from fate... an evil chance... a stumble among quicksands... these, we are reminded, can overwhelm a man; or they, can bring out such steel as lived in Cobb and Lonnie.

The author, who in 1949 was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe award in mystery fiction, at the age of thirty-one has published nearly three hundred short stories and novelettes. And yet, speaking of moods, he finds the time daily to indulge his own. They call for (1) taking naps or (2) playing the clarinet.

Cobb and Lonnie found the body in a palmetto thicket. As they came upon it, an obscene vulture reared its head, its beak dripping.

“Buzzards!” Lon said. Cobb tried to keep the pale, thin boy back, but Lon darted forward and flailed a pine-knot as the awkward bird wheeled up, wings creaking and slapping in the muggy silence. With a guttural cry of rage, Lon flung up his arm. The pine-knot slapped the bird’s head sharply and it toppled heavily almost at the feet of the panting boy.

Читать дальше →