"David Gerrold - [SS] The Strange Disappearance of David Gerrold" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gerrold David)

flinched and whimpered a few times, but he didnтАЩt resistтАФI pressed gauze and tape
over the worst, and pressed a few Band-Aids over the rest. But even with the water
and the attention and all my fumbling attempts at comfort, I was still certain he
needed to see a doctor. Or maybe the police. His back had been peppered with
buckshot, down his right side, his right ass-cheek, and his upper thigh.

Only now did it occur to me to wonder what he was. Not whoтАФwhat? The
who in this equation was the who he was running from.

Okay, look. IтАЩd heard the stories about the green people of the northern
forests. Who hasnтАЩt? But I never gave them any credibility. As far as I was
concerned, the green people were just another convenient new mythology made up
to fill the gap when Sasquatch and the Loch Ness monster and alien crop circles
were all revealed as hoaxes. Apparently, the whole thing started when some treasure
hunter, searching for D. B. CooperтАЩs fabulous lost loot, came back instead with
blurry cell phone pictures of something that could have been a green man, but just as
easily could have been a moss-covered tree stump in a gray rainstorm. Not the most
convincing evidence. Thanks a lot, Motorola. How come none of these specimens
of cryptozoology ever show up in front of someone who has an eight megapixel
Nikon?

And then I had this quick flash of what was going to happen when IтАФa
so-called famous science fiction writerтАФshowed up with a real live green person? It
was bad enough when I dared to suggest that my son was a Martian. What was this
going to do to my reputation? Well, at least, maybe theyтАЩd finally forget the
goddamn tribbles. Screw it. This green boy was real and he was hurt and whatever
else might be so in the universe, right now, this minute, his pain was intolerable to
me.

I wrapped him in the blanket again; this time he didnтАЩt seem as frightened
when I laid him down in the bin under the bed. I tossed the backpack in with him,
down by his feet; there was more than enough room. Then I closed the lid. I thought
for a moment, then dumped a bunch of stuff on top of both beds and the floor of
the camper shell; dirty laundry, empty soft drink cups, a discarded box of half-eaten
KFC, my freshly peeled-off socks from last night. I made it look as if IтАЩd slept in
there, unwashed, for a weekтАФwhich wasnтАЩt too far from the truth, although I still
had four days to go.

Easing the pickup back onto the road, I rolled north again, still cruising at a
comfortably low speed, like a lost tourist enjoying the scenery anyway. The highway,
such as it was, began winding upward through a series of switchbacks; the wire
fences fell behind, and there were tall trees on either side of the road now, but some
darker sense told me that I still hadnтАЩt left the domain of danger for myself and my
passengerтАФprobably it was the fact that I hadnтАЩt seen any turnoffs in miles. There
was only one way in or out of this tract of land.

As I drove, both my stomach and my thoughts were in uproar; and yet, at the
same time, I had a clarity of vision that startled meтАФas if I were the writer of my
own life, staring down at the screen, my fingers poised above the keyboard,
considering what actions my protagonist would choose. In that moment, I think I