"Charles De Lint - Jack, The Giant-Killer" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Lint Charles)

twelve, judging from his size, though she knew that could
be deceptive in the dark. He ran under a pool of shadows
thrown by the trees near the river, came out of them again,
disappeared into another splash of darkness. And then the
sound was all around her. She stood stunned at its
volume.
It was the roar of an engine, she realized. No. Make that
engines. Her gaze was drawn back to the far end of the
park where the boy had first appeared and she picked out
the source of the deep-throated roaring.
One by one the Harleys came into view until there were
nine of the big chopped-down machines moving down the
concrete walkway that followed the river. Jacky gasped
when they left the concrete. Their tires ripped up the wet
sod. They were coming towards her, the thunder of their
engines unbelievably loud, their riders black featureless
shapes.
She stumbled backwards, looking for a place to hide,
and came up short against a cedar hedge. Her heart
drummed a sharp tattoo in her chest. Then she saw that
they werenтАЩt after her. It was the boy. SheтАЩd forgotten the
boyтАж
He was running across the grass now, the nine bikes
following in a fanned-out half-circle, engines growling.
Jacky vacillated between fear for the boy and her own
panic. She shot a glance at the window of the house
behind her and saw the hidden watcher clearly for a
moment. A tall man, standing there in the safety of his
house, watchingтАж
She turned back, saw the boy stumble, the bikers
closing in. They were frightening shapes in the dim light,
not quite defined. Growling beasts with shadow riders.
They circled around the fallen boy, a grotesque
merry-go-rounding blur with whining engine coughs in
place of a calliopeтАЩs music, until something snapped in
Jacky.
тАЬNo!тАЭ she cried.
If the bikers could hear her above the roar of their
machines, they gave no notice. Jacky ran towards them,
slipping drunkenly on the grass, wondering why there
werenтАЩt lights going on all up and down the block behind
her, why there was only one man watching from his
window, a silent shape in his dark house.
Around and around the bikers rode their machines,
tightening the circumference of their circle, until they
finally brought their machines to skidding halts. Sod spat
from their rear wheels as all nine Harleys turned to face the
boy. The riders fed gas to their machines so that they
lunged forward like impatient dogs, hungry for the kill,
held back only by the leather-gloved grips on the brake