"Blaylock, James P - The War Of The Worlds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blaylock James P)

"Maneuvers?"

"Yeah, lights, too. Take a look."

She sat up and slipped on her bedroom slippers, joining him at the window. "That's weird," she said. "It looks like something from a UFO movie."

The idea spooked him, and he realized that he had been thinking the same thing. Whatever was happening was unearthly.

"God," Lisa muttered, "look at that."

Ed stared out the window in disbelief, his mouth open: a vast moving shadow slowly ascended from the forest floor. At first he thought it was an optical illusion, but the thing continued to rise from the trees, a black, circular patch of darkness that hung now in the air, hovering just above the tree line. White lights revolved within it. It seemed to Ed that he could see the stars shining straight through the sphere, a translucent black sun encircled by a white aura.

"It's a flying fucking saucer," Lisa whispered.

He couldn't argue with her. It looked like the Death Star, blotting out the sky.

The rest of the neighborhood was waking up. There were voices from down the block; a door slammed. Lisa pulled on her clothes and turned toward the stairs. "Let's get moving!" she said, her voice full of sudden anxiety.

Her frightened tone was infectious, and Ed realized that he was holding his breath. He felt vulnerable and exposed standing there in his boxer shorts, and as he stepped across the bedroom to grab his jeans from where he had tossed them last night, a siren started up somewhere down the block, shutting off within seconds, followed by the sound of someone talking through a loudspeaker or bullhorn. Ed caught the gist of it. "Shit!" he said out loud. "They're evacuating us!"

He heard Mr. Bord, his neighbor, shouting across the street, and an answering shout from Bord's wife. Lights were coming on all over the neighborhood, and he heard a car engine starting up. He went after a fresh pair of socks, then headed for the bathroom, the word "evacuation" going around in his head. Brush your teeth, he thought, who knows when you'll get another chance.Е He pulled out his little travel kit from under the sink and sorted through it: razor, toothbrush, mini deodorant. Where would everyone go? Some kind of shelter probably, a school or church somewhere. To hell with that; he and Lisa would find a hotel. He wasn't spending the night on a cot in a school auditorium.

"Bring down my purse! The big one!" Lisa shouted up at him. He found it on the floor at the top of the stairs. What the hell else? He checked his wallet, which lay on the nightstand. Eighty bucks and two credit cards. That would do the trick. They could easily find food and shelter, even if they had to drive down south, maybe over to the coast toward Halfmoon Bay or Davenport. He pictured the freeways heading out of the Bay area, clogged with people fleeing the saucers, and it dawned on him that they might possibly never be back.

"You coming down?" Lisa had turned on all the lights in the house.

"Yeah!" he shouted. "I'm just grabbing a couple of things!" He hauled his tweed coat out of the closet. Extra socks and underwear wouldn't be a bad idea, either. And his bowling shirt! There was no way he was leaving that behind.

"They're saying something!" Lisa shouted up at him, and he went to the window over the street and opened the casement.

"Do not panic!" a voice ordered, horribly magnified by whatever device the man was speaking through. It was coming from a fire truck, apparently, creeping up the street, its light revolving. Ed was distracted by the sight of Mr. Bord coming out through his front door carrying a cardboard box, a heavy box, from the way he was stooped over.

"Е the neighborhood cleared in twenty minutes," the truck was saying. Twenty minutesЧthey had some time yet! He walked to the opposite window again and looked into the hills. The inverted saucer still hovered there, a jet-black orb emitting a white corona, and he was reminded at once of his bowling ball, out in the garage along with the rest of his stuff, with the rest of his life, it seemed to him now.

He caught sight of the several books on the nightstand shelfЧhis bedside books, the marked-up copies he read and reread over the years, all of them keepers. He dumped the books and clothes onto his spread-out tweed coat along with his travel kit, then pulled the plug on his bedside lamp and laid that in among the rest, making a bundle of it. The lamp was an antique, with a mica shade shaped like a wizard's cap and a solid copper post on a globular base that looked like an enormous pearl. Like the books, it was irreplaceable. He thought suddenly about his train set, his comics and record albums and God-knew-what-all out in the garage. His little bundle of stuff looked pitiful to him, and he saw that in some indefinable sense this small parcel was a living history: the life of Edward Kelly illustrated by a lamp, some books, an old tweed coat and a bowling shirt.

He headed downstairs, holding the bundle inconspicuously behind Lisa's king-size purse. She met him in the living room, where she had already been rifling through the big drawer full of photos, loading them into a box. The parakeet cage sat by the front door, cleaned and replenished with food and water. Ed handed Lisa the purse and headed straight for the door.

"What's that stuff?" she asked. "Your lamp?Е"

"Yeah," he said. "Travel kit." But he was already out the door, fumbling in his pocket for the car keys. He opened the back door of their Ford Escort, put his stuff on the seat, and then sprinted up the side of the house. The gate was nearly blocked by yesterday's empty boxes, and he picked a few up, pitching them back down the path, then kicked the rest aside in order to swing the gate open. He strode to the garage door, pulled it open, and flipped on the light, but instead of going in after more of his things now, he turned and sprinted back down toward the car, picking up two of the empty boxes in mid-stride. Virtually all of his neighbors were carting crap out of their houses. The air was full of the yap and howl of dogs barking and people hollering to each other. He could still make out the shrieking and humming from the woods, a counterpoint to the noises of earthly terror up and down the block.

He dumped the books into the bottom of one of the empty boxes, then packed the lamp in carefully, shoving the clothing in around it to protect the shade.

Lisa came up behind him, carrying a box of her own. "What are you doing?" she asked skeptically.

"What everyone else is doing," he said. "Loading the car. One box for me and one for you, share and share alike." He smile genially, taking the box from her and putting it on the seat, next to his own, realizing that he hadn't chosen his words very well. This was no time to start implying things.

She lingered for a moment, as if there was something she wanted to discuss, but instead she grabbed the other empty box from him and headed toward the house. After three steps she stopped again and turned around. "We've got a lot of stuff to take," she said raising her eyebrows at him.