"Laymon, Richard - The Traveling Vampire Show" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laymon Richard)

flopping for a while on the old, white-painted platform. We'd be in
our swimsuits, out of breath, dripping and cold from the river. Soon,
the sun would warm us. But we wouldn't get up. You felt like you
never wanted to get up, it was so nice out there. The raft was rocking
softly. You could hear the quiet lapping of the water against it, and
the buzz of distant motorboats and all the usual bird sounds. You
could feel the soft heat of the sun on one side, the hard slick painted
boards on the other. And you had your best friends lying down beside
you. Especially Slim in one of her bikinis, her skin golden and
dripping.

Too bad we weren't on the diving raft at the Cove. Too bad we were
stranded, instead, on the scratchy tarpaper roof of the
BEER-SNACKS--SOUVENIRS shack. Not surrounded by chilly water but by
the wasteland of Janks Field. Not waves lapping peacefully at the
platform, but the damn dog growling and barking and every so often
hurling itself at the shack.

This just wasn't the same.

Not quite. The raft was paradise and this was the pits.

And even if the dog should magically vanish, I knew Slim would start
bleeding all over the place the minute we hit the ground.

She'd already lost a fair amount of blood. She would lose a lot more
on the way home. What if she lost too much?

I turned my head. Blinking sweat out of my eyes, I looked at Slim.
Her eyes were shut. Her face was cushioned on her crossed arms. It
was speckled with tiny drops of sweat, and dribbles were running here
and there. Her short hair, the color of bronze, was wet and coiled and
clinging to her temple and forehead. She was marked from temple to jaw
by three thin red stratches.

I found myself wanting to kiss those scratches.

And maybe also kiss the tiny soft curls of down above the left corner
of her mouth.

While I was thinking about it, she opened her eyes. She blinked a few
times, then raised her eyebrows. "Time to go?" she asked.

"Hasn't been an hour!" Rusty protested from the other side of Slim.
"I've been thinking," I said.

"Hurt yourself?" Rusty asked. Apparently, the rest period had
improved his mood--if not his wit.

"I don't know about walking home from here," I said