"Chad Oliver - The Winds of Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Oliver Chad)

moonlight filtered into the cavern, touching it with ghostly silver.
He checked his watch. Two o'clock.
There. A sound: a muffled click, like a metal latch.
It was inside the cave with him.
He held his breath, his aches and pains forgotten. His eyes searched the cave, seeking—
Another sound. A rasping scratch, like a fingernail on a blackboard. From behind him, where the
cavern wall glinted a little with a metallic sheen.
An animal?
His eyes tried to pierce the gloom. He could almost see in the half-light, but details were fuzzy. He
was filled with a nameless, irrational dread. All at once there was no civilization, no science, no
knowledge. There was only himself, alone, and a primeval darkness choked with horror.
He rolled over as quietly as he could. He got up on all fours and crawled toward the cave entrance.
He put one hand outside, grasping for a hold on the damp rock.
Then he heard it.
It was something opening.
He looked back.
 Someone—something—was walking out of a hole in the cavern behind him. It was tall—it had to
bend over to keep from hitting the roof of the cave. It had a cadaverous face, pasty white. It had eyes—
It saw him. It came after him.
Wes Chase couldn't think; his mind was paralyzed. But his muscles could act, and did. He threw
himself out the cave opening, scrambled down the rock shelter. He listened for the stream, swollen with
rain, and ran for it.
He found the stream, almost black in the silver blue of the moonlight. He spotted the trail, a deeper
darkness in the rocks. He plunged down it as fast as he could go. He slipped, almost fell, caught himself
on some tough strands of brush.
Slow down, he thought. You'll kill yourself.
He looked back over his shoulder. He saw only a pale lunar world. He heard nothing but falling water
and long, long silences. He turned his attention to the trail again, picking his way as carefully as he could.
Get down in the trees, at least. Hide.
A shiver trembled over him uncontrollably. He had seen that face, there was no question about that.
He hadn't been dreaming, and he wasn't crazy. He didn't bother pinching himself; he was sore enough
without that.
He kept moving as fast as he dared. He had to cross the stream, and it was high and turbulent. The
icy water soaked him up to his hips. His tennis shoes squished on the rocks.
Get hold of yourself, boy.
He picked up a sharp rock and kept it in his hand. What had that thing been? He wasn't superstitious,
at least ordinarily, and he had seen enough corpses to be assured that they didn't do much strolling
around. Okay. The thing looked like a man, so it must be a man. But what was it—he still couldn't think
of it as he—doing there? Another fisherman? Surely he would have seen him, or heard him. A hermit?
Ridiculous—he couldn't survive long in this country, not without a house and wood for a fire.
Wes began to get mad. He had left a basket full of golden trout up there, to say nothing of his rod and
his hat. But he wasn't about to turn around and go back. The man had been big, perhaps a lunatic of
some kind. Get some help, maybe, and then go up there in the daylight and see what was going on …
He heard a noise to his right. The stream? Some animal?
He increased his pace, holding the rock tightly in his hand. It was faster going down than coming up.
He should reach the timber line in a minute or two. Should he keep going, try for the car? He was
warming up now, feeling a little better, but it would be cold when he stopped, and more than three hours
until sunrise. He decided on the car.
He settled into a steady, loose-jointed walk, almost a trot. His feet squished and slipped, but he kept
his balance. Time was healing the shock a little now.