"Lester Del Rey - Pursuit" - читать интересную книгу автора (Del Rey Lester)

He had to keep off the main streets.
Footsteps sounded behind him.
He moved faster, and the footsteps also speeded up. He slowed, and they kept on. Then they were nearly
behind him, just as he reached the alley and jerked back into it, grabbing for a broken bottle he had spotted.
тАЬWill!тАЭ It was a gasping wheeze. тАЬWill! For God's sake, it's only me. I know everything - your amnesia.
But let me explain!тАЭ
It stopped him. He held the bottle carefully, as the fat figure of an old man stepped softly around the
corner, fear written on every aged wrinkle. It was the man he'd stumbled into when he dashed out of his
apartment.
But the fear there matched his own so completely that he dropped the bottle. The other man stood
trembling, gasping for breath. Then he gathered himself together, though his pudgy hands still clenched
tightly, showing white knuckles.
тАЬWill,тАЭ he repeated. тАЬYou must believe me. I know about you. I want to help you - if there's any help for
you, God forgive us both. And God have mercy on Earth. It's worse than you can believe - and different.
It'sтАжтАЭ
Horror washed over the old man's face. He stood, fighting within himself. Hawkes felt his own back hairs
lift, and he drew back. For a second, the fat man seemed to waver before him, as if his body was only a
projection. 'Then it quieted.
тАЬIt - it almost had me for a second.тАЭ
He turned back to Hawkes, trying to control the quivering muscles in his face. But his victory was still
incomplete when he suddenly leaped up.
тАЬGet back, Will. Oh, God, O God!тАЭ
He leaped outwards, his fat old legs pumping savagely. Then the air seemed to quiver.
Where he had been, there was only a dark cloud of smoke, spreading outwards in a rough equivalent of
his shape. A spurt of steam leaped upwards savagely, and the smoke seemed darker. It began to drift on the
air, touched a building, and left a spot of smudginess, before it drifted on, getting thinner with each gust of
wind. It was as if every atom of his body had suddenly disassociated itself from every other atom.
 Hawkes found his fingernails cutting his palms, and there was blood flowing from his bitten tongue. He
heard a hacking moan in his throat. He struggled against something that seemed to be holding him down,
and then leaped at least ten feet, to land running.
The alley was twisted and narrow. He shot down it and around a corner. An ice-house stood there, and he
barely avoided the loading trucks. He was back near the apartment building where he'd found the girl, and he
doubled to a door that showed. It seemed to be locked, but somehow, he got through it. He seemed to melt
through the door, though he wasn't sure whether his lunge smashed it or whether his fingers had found the
latch in time.
He ducked around loose-hanging electric wires, under twisted pipes, and across a pile of coal around a
hot-water heater. He twisted and turned, to come into complete darkness, and halt short, listening.
The fear was going - and there were again no sounds of pursuit. But he couldn't be sure. He'd heard no
sounds when the fat man had leaped out, but they had been there.
Silently and thickly, he cursed. To find a man who seemed to be his friend, and who knew about him -
and then to have them kill that man with such horrible efficiency before he could learn what it was all about!
He gagged in the darkness, almost fainting again.
Then, slowly, it was too much. For the moment, he could run no more, and nothing seemed to matter. He
understood his sudden bravado no better than the unnatural cowardice that had been riding his shoulders, but
he shrugged, and moved forward.
The dark passage led out to steps, that carried him up to the sidewalk, in front of the building. Ellen
Iba├▒ez - or Bennett - was less than five feet from him, and her eyes were fixed firmly on his face.
 IV