"Castro, Adam Troy - Locusts" - читать интересную книгу автора (Castro Adam Troy)

leave me alone.

As if any of us would ever be alone again, in the world ruled by Locusts. 2.

Our fellow survivors didn't emerge from underneath the tarpaulin until just
before dawn, when the thumpthumpthump petered away to a dead silence, and Sharon
went to open the doors that let daylight, of a kind, shine down into the
basement where the last of the neighborhood's survivors spent their nights
huddled in darkness. Even then they emerged only one or two at a time, starting
with the once-arrogant, now haggard and freshly widowed Peter. He'd been an
arrogant, buttoned-down, criminal lawyer, back when there was still such a thing
as law, of either the legal or natural variety. He'd been a good one, too, with
a reputation for bullying judges and getting away with it. But he'd seen
something; early in the Plague, something which shattered him, rendered all his
strength a lie, and left him speaking only in stutters and walking only with
tiny, hesitant, beaten steps. He'd lost his children the same night Jane and I
lost ours; he'd just lost Claudette, who'd managed to hold on to her strength
until the very end; and what was left of him just wasn't very much. When Sharon
hopped up and put her arms around him, to whisper her usual little inadequate
words of comfort, Peter didn't hear her. Peter didn't hear anything.

Nancy came out right behind him: hard, polished, elegant, sharp-as-a-razor's
edge Nancy, who as usual didn't look upset at all, who instead looked rather
pleased, as she always did when she emerged unscathed and thus superior to those
who'd died. Even splattered with Claudette's blood, she remained in tight
control, the only one of us who hadn't aged lifetimes in the past few weeks, the
only one who in this awful new world actually seemed to thrive . . . a fact not
a major surprise to those of us who'd had to endure living on the same block as
her. Among other things, she'd been the kind of neighbor who liked making lists
and complaining to the cops. She fixed her bright violet eyes on mine. "I think
it's time we had a little talk," she said.

As always, there was a little added edge to the word "I." She gave it three
syllables, which was appropriate, considering how frequently she used it to
begin sentences.

"I'm not in the mood," I said.

"That's too bad. We should have had this out long ago."

There was no long ago, in this situation; the Locusts had only been around for
three weeks. But Nancy was right. There'd always been a big hate brewing between
us, for as long as we'd known each other; all the years she'd harassed us from
her perch just down the block, I'd known it would finally come down to a
confrontation. I'd just hoped it wouldn't come now, with the blood of another
friend still drying on my shirt. "What do you want?"

"I want you to realize who just got Claudette killed."

Bob Something, who'd been a painting contractor working at the Johnsons' just