"Robert F. Young - The Leaf" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

together and rested the barrel of the .22 in the niche between them, then sat quietly for a long time.
Presently the sixth squirrel left the security of the trees and made a few quick jumps into the small
clearing. Then it stopped and stood poised, a statuette except for its alive bright eyes. It was a perfect
target, but he was in no hurry. He was enjoying himself immensely.
After about half a minute the squirrel moved again—several yards closer, almost in an exact line with
the dark little eye of the .22. It sat up on its haunches then, its tall an arched question mark behind it. It
put its tiny forepaws together and sat there not moving, almost as though it were praying. (That was the
part he remembered most vividly.)
He'd hardly needed to move the .22 at all. The slightest shift had aligned the sights with the imaginary
mark between the little eyes. He had squeezed the trigger nonchalantly, and the part of the head just
above the eyes had come right off and the small red body had completed a perfect somersault before
dropping into the dead leaves of the clearing.
After that he hadn't bothered with the trees. It was so much more fun in the clearing, waiting for them
to come right up to you and pose. Of course it wasn't such good practice, but it was fine
entertainment—an ideal way to spend a lazy afternoon in fall when the wood was all cut for winter, the
crops in, the barn roof repaired and Pa off to town where he couldn’t be finding annoying little things for
you to do.
He had got eleven of them altogether, he hadn't missed one, and he had felt pretty proud taking them
home to show to Ma before feeding them to the dogs.

HE SHIFTED his cramped legs and peered down through the interstices of the foliage at the gray
shape of the hunter. Some of his initial terror had left him when he'd finally realized that they couldn't see
through leaves any more than he could; that They, as well as he, needed an open target in order to make
a kill.
So he was relatively safe in the tree—for a while, at least. Perhaps he could find safety in trees for the
rest of his life. Trees might be the answer.
He felt a little better. A portion of the fear that had followed the meteor shower was still with him,
however. The fear that had detonated in his mind the morning after the shower when Pa had come
running to the barn, shouting: "The cities! All the cities have been blowed up! They ain't no more cities in
the whole world. Radio just said so ‘fore it went dead. We're bein' invaded!"
Invaded? Invaded by whom? He hadn't been able to grasp it at first. At first he'd thought Russia, and
then he'd thought, no, it couldn't be Russia. Pa had said all the cities. All the cities in the whole wide
world.
And then he'd begun to see the people on the road. The terrified people, the walking, running,
stumbling people heading for the hills—the hills and the forests, the hiding places that ships couldn't see,
that bombs didn't find.
But that hunters could: Hunters hunting with incredible silver guns, skimming along the roads to the
hills and the forests, in fantastic vehicles, alighting by roadsides and lumbering across fields to timber
stands; routing out the people from elms and oaks and maples and locusts and even sumac, flushing them
out like rabbits and shooting them down in cold blood with blinding shards of bullets.
He had run when he'd seen the first vehicle. He'd run wildly for the woods. He'd forgotten Pa and
Ma. He'd even forgotten his gun. He'd been scared. Crazy-scared.
What did They want to kill people for? What was wrong with people?
He shivered on the limb, in the chill morning wind that had sprung up after the first frost of the season:
Martians, he'd bet. Martians landing on Earth and wanting everything for Themselves, afraid to let people
live for fear they'd get some. Greedy Martians, trying to hog the whole world!
The gray shape below him moved slightly and his terror broke out afresh. The hunter appeared to be
reclining against the trunk of a nearby tree, its gleaming weapon resting on its huge tentacular legs.
Waiting. For an irrational moment he considered climbing down and approaching it, getting down on his
knees and begging it for mercy.