Michael Langlois - Bad Radio
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- Название:Bad Radio
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Bad Radio: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация
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I held that sense of purpose close and slept.
25
My sense of well-being didn’t last long. I had formless, churning dreams of clenched hunger and wet fetid smells in darkness, and always the sense of endless movement in all directions.
There was also watchfulness. A singular intense scrutiny that seemed to come from everywhere at once prickled at the back of my neck, a savage bite just a second away. I was moving, eeling my way through the unseen thickness of the terrain with sleek muscular purpose, searching for I don’t know what.
The hunt was forever, I knew, but I also felt in my guts that it could end any second, and I couldn’t pull my fevered attention away from the possibility, not even to rest. Rage and hunger and maddening frustration drove me unceasingly, one eternal second of pushing and searching stretched out to infinity.
Then there was a change, a break that suddenly split my undifferentiated existence into a before and after. I could sense something. My body juddered and my nerves silvered and electrified. My teeth and jaws ached to sink through it. It was here, close.
Above and around me, a more ancient and patient hunger took notice as well. The endless churning sea of life tangling around me was insignificant, despite its vast expanse, a collection of parasites on the leviathan of our God who filled the sky in all directions. The sense of anticipation cut deep, as unrelenting as the hunger and fear.
There would be food. And soon.
“Hey.” Anne’s voice pulled me awake. My body was rigid, and I was nauseous and disoriented. “You okay?”
“Yeah, just a dream.” My eyes were gritty and my hands were sore where I had been clenching them. I sucked in air and flexed my fingers, feeling like I had just been pulled out from under some suffocating mass.
“Did you see someone in that town like I did?”
“No, it was something else, but connected, I think.”
She sat up and watched me with concern. The light from the window behind her ran fire around the edge of her hair and shadowed her features. “Tell me about it.”
I pressed my palms against my eyes, making sparks. “It was alien. No real sights or sounds, just touch and emotion. I don’t think I shared a lot of senses with whatever it was, so maybe I was just getting the things I could understand. It was all frantic hunger, like panicked starvation, and movement inside some mass of other things that were desperate in the same way.
“I was aware of this endless mass of them, but at the same time, I knew what any particular one felt, because they were all identical. It was like being an entire universe of crawling things, but also being each one individually, too. And permeating it all was some kind of other consciousness, something even more alien. It was everywhere. If you can imagine the whole universe being alive and grasping, hungry, and packed completely full of other hungry things.”
“I really can’t. And you were part of it?”
“Not really. I could tell I was just touching the fringes of it.” I shivered. “That was enough.” She put her hand on mine in sympathy. It helped.
We took turns using the shower and changing clothes. By the time we were dressed, packed, and downstairs, it was already well past noon. The house smelled like food, leading us by the nose to the kitchen.
Dominic was once again putting plates on the table. “Last meal. Afterwards I have some presents for you. But first, eat.” He had taken a couple of steaks and cut them into thin strips, then pan fried them with onions and red wine. Stuffed into massive toasted rolls, they became heaven on Earth.
“So, Dom. Where are you headed to once you leave here?” I found that I was actually interested.
“I have a ranch out west. It’s remote, comfortable, and has no connection to me as far as anyone knows. It was for my retirement from the business, assuming that none of my enemies retired me first. I never really thought I’d use it. Peter will never find me there.”
“Out west?”
He smiled at me. “What you don’t know, you can’t tell. I figure you’ll last about five minutes in that town before you’re shitting worms and talking your head off. Best we don’t read each other’s diaries, if you get my meaning.”
“Fair enough. You want to know if we win?”
“You’re not going to win.”
“So why help? Why come find me at your office and give me that speech about being your best shot?”
“Shit happens. You could get lucky. You won’t, but hey, it doesn’t cost me anything either way.”
I laughed and tossed my linen napkin onto my empty plate. “That’s the spirit, never give up. So, you mentioned that you had something for us?”
He led us out of the kitchen and into the garage. The lights on his black Land Rover flashed as Dom thumbed the remote in his pocket.
“It’s not registered to me, so feel free to do whatever you want in it. The back has all of the weapons I had left, and some camping gear that I bought and never used. There’s also something special for the lady.”
He opened the cargo door and pulled a long nylon sleeve from under a black tarp. The zipper sang as he unzipped it, revealing a gleaming black shotgun. He handed it to Anne.
“I had some of these made to sell to the gangbangers. It’s a.410 shotgun, sawed off short, with a fifty round drum. It fires standard three-inch shells, and being a.410, the recoil is so light even a child can handle it. Which was the whole point, since a lot of the gangs are full of thirteen-year-old kids.”
Anne stared at him. “That’s awful!”
“Yeah, and they didn’t sell for shit, either. The little bastards wanted a big macho gun, not a little.410. Never mind that inside ten yards, this thing will explode a guy like an overripe cantaloupe. No, they all wanted SPAS-12 assault shotguns and Desert Eagles and Glocks, like they were in some kind of fucking action movie. Or AK-47s. You have no idea how many requests I got for gold-plated AK’s. Jesus Christ, people are stupid. Anyway, it shoots three rounds a second if you hold the trigger down, and will mulch a room full of people before you can say boo. It’s loaded with alternating shot and slugs, just for the hell of it. Should come in handy.”
She slipped it back in the case and zipped it up. “Thanks, I guess.”
“Any.45 ammo in here?” I asked.
“Couple of boxes, hollow point and jacketed both.”
“Good.” I had been able to check my Browning during our trips, I just needed the rounds to put in it.
“Directions to the town are already in the GPS from my last trip. Good luck.” He held out his hand and I shook it. Anne hesitated, but ended up shaking his hand as well.
Ten minutes later we were on the road, completely unprepared for what was to come.
Part Two
Emergence
“The great sea has set me in motion set me adrift,
Moving me as the weed moves in a river
the arch of sky and mightiness of storms
have moved the spirit within me till I am carried away
trembling with joy.”
— Uvavnuk, Netsilik Inuit shaman26
I liked Dominic’s Rover. It had a steady workman-like competence underneath all the leather and wood trim, like a draft horse spruced up for the county fair. It wasn’t as reassuring as my old farm pickup, but maybe that was just because old people like me prefer the familiar.
I dialed Henry’s cell. Now that we finally knew where Piotr was, I figured that somebody outside this vehicle should know, too. The sere landscape flickered past my window as the phone rang. Eventually there was a click, and Henry’s deep tones urged me to leave a message.
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