"Robert McCammon - The Collected Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCammon Robert R)

order. I pushed the paper aside and went to the fridge for the hamburger meat.
When the door opened, a windblown spray of rain swept in and stung like buckshot. "Howdy, folks!" Dennis
Wells peeled off his gray rainslicker and hung it on the rack next to the door. Over his Smokey the Bear trooper hat
was a protective plastic covering, beaded with raindrops. He took off his hat, exposing the thinning blond hair on
his pale scalp, as he approached the counter and sat on his usual stool, right next to the cash-register. "Cup of black
coffee and a rare--" Cheryl was already sliding the coffee in front of him, and the burger sizzled on the griddle. "Ya'll
are on the ball tonight!" Dennis said; he said the same thing when he came in, which was almost every night. Funny
the kind of habits you fall into, without realizing it.
"Kinda wild out there, ain't it?" I asked as I flipped the burger over.
"Lordy, yes! Wind just about flipped my car over three, four miles down the interstate. Thought I was gonna be
eatin' a little pavement tonight." Dennis was a husky young man in his early thirties, with thick blond brows over
deep-set, light brown eyes. He had a wife and three kids, and he was fast to flash a wallet-full of their pictures.
"Don't reckon I'll be chasin' any speeders tonight, but there'll probably be a load of accidents. Cheryl, you sure look
pretty this evenin'."
"Still the same old me." Cheryl never wore a speck of makeup, though one day she'd come to work with glitter
on her cheeks. She had a place a few miles away, and I guessed she was farming that funny weed up there. "Any
trucks moving?"
"Seen a few, but not many. Truckers ain't fools. Gonna get worse before it gets better, the radio says." He sipped
at his coffee and grimaced. "Lordy, that's strong enough to jump out of the cup and dance a jig, darlin'!"
I fixed the burger the way Dennis liked it, put it on a platter with some fries and served it. "Bobby, how's the
wife treatin' you?" he asked.
"No complaints."
"Good to hear. I'll tell you, a fine woman is worth her weight in gold. Hey, Cheryl! How'd you like a handsome
young man for a husband?"
Cheryl smiled, knowing what was coming. "The man I'm looking for hasn't been made yet."
"Yeah, but you ain't met Cecil yet, either! He asks me about you every time I see him, and I keep tellin' him I'm
doin' every thing I can to get you two together." Cecil was Dennis' brother-in-law and owned a Chevy dealership in
Bay Minette. Dennis had been ribbing Cheryl about going on a date with Cecil for the past four months. "You'd like
him," Dennis promised. "He's got a lot of my qualities."
"Well, that's different. In that case, I'm certain I don't want to meet him."
Dennis winced. "Oh, you're a cruel woman! That's what smokin' banana peels does to youтАФturns you mean.
Anybody readin' this rag?" He reached over for the newspaper.
"Waitin' here just for you," I said. Thunder rumbled, closer to the diner. The lights flickered briefly once... then
again before they returned to normal. Cheryl busied herself by fixing a fresh pot of coffee, and I watched the rain
whipping against the windows. When the lightning flashed, I could see the trees swaying so hard they looked about
to snap.
Dennis read and ate his hamburger. "Boy," he said after a few minutes, "the world's in some shape, huh? Those
A-rab pig-stickers are itchin' for war. Mobile metro boys had a little gunplay last night. Good for them." He paused
and frowned, then tapped the paper with one thick finger. "This I can't figure."
"What's that?"
"Thing in Florida couple of nights ago. Six people killed at the Pines Haven Motor Inn, near Daytona Beach.
Motel was set off in the woods. Only a couple of cinderblock houses in the area, and nobody heard any gunshots.
Says here one old man saw what he thought was a bright white star falling over the motel, and that was it. Funny,
huh?"
"A UFO," Cheryl offered. Maybe he saw a UFO."
"Yeah, and I'm a little green man from Mars," Dennis scoffed. "I'm serious. This is weird. The motel was so blown
full of holes it looked like a war had been going on. Everybody was deadтАФeven a dog and a canary that belonged to
the manager. The cars out in front of the rooms were blasted to pieces. The sound of one of them explodin' was what
woke up the people in those houses, I reckon." He skimmed the story again. "Two bodies were out in the parkin' lot,
one was holed up in a bathroom, one had crawled under a bed, and two had dragged every piece of furniture in the