"David,.Peter.-.Howling.Mad" - читать интересную книгу автора (David Peter)

Byron hadn't moved out there for the job possibilities. He'd gone there because
he wanted to get the hell out of New York, out of the United States.
He'd been there for about two weeks the night that he worked a double shift to
make some additional money. The rent was due on the furnished sublet he was
living in. (He still couldn't believe the rent. For what he was paying in
McKeeville, he would not have been able to get so much as a closet back in New
York.)
Now bone tired, but happily exhausted, Byron left the cheerful confines of the
all-night diner and started home.
It was a few minutes after midnight, the air crisp and clean and tingling his
nostrils. If he'd been in New York he would have been terrified at the very
suggestion of walking around this late at night in a deserted area of the city.
But the terrors of New York had been left far behind, were already a bad dream
fading away.
Now there was only clean air, clean thoughts, a new life for him. As he turned
the corner and started down a side street, he realized the thing he had come to
value most was the quiet. In New York there was always somethingЧambulances,
police cars, children screamingЧsomething disruptive. Here, though, a man could
hear himself think. He could revel in the utter, blissful silence.
Then Byron heard something.
He wasn't certain what it was at first. It sounded like a car engine running
softly, a kind of dull, steady, grinding noise. But there were no cars on the
street, not parked and not moving. Just him, and a sound.
He stopped and turned, but just as he stopped the sound stopped as well.
There was plenty of light around him, both from street lamps and from the full
moon that smiled down at him. A cloud wafted across it, obscuring it
momentarily, but then it was visible again.
It was cold, a brisk Canadian March night, and yet for some reason Byron
suddenly felt warm. Underneath his blue goosedown jacket he was starting to
sweat profusely, his checked shirt sticking to his chest. He scratched for a
moment at his week-old beard and tried to make out what the source of the noise
was.
Nothing. And now the noise had stopped, and he was beginning to feel a little
foolish standing there in the cold for no apparent reason.
So he started to walk again. His old New York instincts were kicking in,
however, and he picked up the pace a bit.
Thirty seconds later he heard it again.
This time there was no mistake. It was much louder, and it was much closer, and
it sounded much, much nastier. And he heard something else: the soft clicking of
long nails on the pavement. That meant he was being followed either by an
animal, or by somebody who never, ever cut his toenails.
Part of him wanted to look back and see exactly what was pursuing him, and the
other part didn't want to know. It just wanted to wake up, (in the vain hope he
was sleeping), just wanted to get the hell away. Click your heels together three
times, he told himself in giddy desperation. He was walking faster now, and
whatever was following him was walking faster as well. And the growling was
louder.
All right, he thought. It's a dog. And if I keep my back to it, it could just
leap on me and rip my throat out. He forced back panic at this particular
realization. But if I stop, turn, face it in a nonthreatening but firm mannerЕ