"Barry Longyear - Dark Corners" - читать интересную книгу автора (Longyear Barry)

and asked, “Is Ben the guy Ralph came in with?”

Before she could answer there was a crash from the kitchen, then a long mournful howl which was
immediately followed by Ralph bellowing out, “To hell with the damned beef burger! Out there is live
meat! He was staring at me like I was some kind of thing.Live meat! ”

“He’s right,” came Waldo’s voice. “That guy, Lyle! He’s not one of us! He’s meat!”

His hand still on Allyson’s shoulder, he looked at the back of her head and whispered, “What — what
should I do?”

She turned her head to the right, looked down at Lyle’s fingers grasping her shoulder, and then bit them.
“Ow!” He pulled back his arm, looked at his hand, and sucked on the side of his fingers where Allyson
had bitten him. The skin wasn’t broken, but it hurt like the dickens. “What in the—”

She turned and looked at him with blood red eyes. She then smiled displaying gleaming white fangs that
seemed to grow before his eyes. He bolted and ran screaming into the night.

“Allyson?”

She faced the kitchen door, removed her false fangs and faced Dr. Raeder. “You people were too slow.
He ran before anyone could shout ‘April fool.’”

Janos Raeder dropped his Waldo mask and makeup on one of the chairs and said between gasps of
laughter, “You mean he still doesn’t know? Hey, everybody, Lyle still doesn’t know. He’s probably
calling the police right now.”

Ben and his two smoking companions came in from the front. “Hey, what gives? Lyle or someone was
supposed to come and get me to sit on Ralph, right? I just saw Lyle going ninety plus across Alameda.
He’s lucky he wasn’t killed.”

The laughter died down as Ben’s comment sobered them a bit. Allyson cocked her head to one side and
said, “It’s my fault. I got a little deep into the part and bit his hand.”

“Youbit his hand?” demanded Dr. Raeder.

“Just a little nip. I didn’t draw blood or anything with these rubber teeth.”

They all stood in silence for a moment, then one of them made a rude sound by letting the air out of his
pneumatic muscles. They all broke down and laughed as they howled and began removing their makeup.
It was the best psych department April fool’s prank ever.




Out of breath, Lyle leaned his back against the alley wall and gulped air. After only a few seconds, he
looked around the corner and saw that the street was empty. “Oh, god,” he gasped. “Oh, god.”

There was a tightness in his chest and shoulders, and he pushed away from the wall to shake it out. As he
crossed his arms in front of him, he could hear the seam on the back of his shirt split. He looked down