"Donald Malcom - The Iron Rain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Malcom Donald)

As I moved, the girl's body fell back and draped itself over the stubby
gearshift. I looked at her face. It was covered with blood, gore and glass.
Overcome with a painful retching, I averted my head quickly.

But I had to look again: she might still be alive, although I doubted it.
Clamping my mouth tightly shut, I took a handkerchief and tried to clean
some of the mess away. It was enough to convince me she was dead.

I sat for a minute, becoming increasingly aware of a large bump on my
forehead. I was lucky; nothing was broken. I crawled out of the car, none
too steadily, and had to scramble out of the path of an oncoming truck
that peppered my face with particles of glass as it raced past me. I'd
instinctively closed my eyes, which saved them, but the rest of my face felt
as if it had been exposed to a sandstorm.

I opened my eyes again and gazed around. I glanced over at the van; it
was leaning against a storefront and there was no movement from inside.
One or two pedestrians sprinted down the street, and plenty of cars picked
their way down the road. The sky was a lurid yellow mixed with black, and
some of the buildings were in flames. I huddled against the car again as I
heard the already-familiar roar of an approaching meteorite. It rent the
sky about two hundred feet overhead and incandescent fragments
pattered onto the streets, like rain.

I was alone in a dying city, a dead woman for a companion. And no one
was going to help me but myself. My instincts warned me to get away as
quickly as possible. But there was the woman: still a human being, if dead.
Before long, there would be packs of dogs and cats roaming the streets,
searching for food. I didn't want that to happen to her.

A gray Alsatian, as large as a wolf, came loping along from the direction
of the city and paused as it neared the car. That decided me. The animals
wouldn't be hungry: yet. The dog circled me warily, snarling as it ran
away. A light wind had risen, wafting the smoke along the street in
whirling eddies, fanning the loudly crackling flames, and stirring up dust
from the collapsed building, now in its death throes.

I could do one of two things with the girl. I could get some gasoline and
set the car alight. Or I could drag her body into a shop and try and give
her some protection against predatory animals. I didn't relish the thought
of burning the body, so I decided on the second plan. There wouldn't be
any trouble in getting in somewhere. There was unlikely to be a whole
pane of glass in the area.

I didn't want to have to move the body too far. My stomach hadn't
stopped churning and I knew that if I were sick again, I would never finish
the task. I walked along the street and found a butcher's shop, about
twenty yards away from the scene of the wreck.