"David L. Robbins - Endworld 22 - Green Bay Run" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robbins David L)

How refreshing the slowly flowing water felt on his fingers!

He laughed and leaned down to splash his face and neck, savoring the
relief, feeling the liquid trickle under his tattered blue T-shirt and down
his chest. The stream was four feet wide from bank to bank and half again
as deep. Pebbles and loose gravel were on the bottom.

What if there were fish?

He lowered his mouth to the stream and sipped, knowing he might
become sick if he drank too fast. Oblivious to all else, he swallowed and
stared at his reflection on the surface. His unkempt black hair stuck out at
all angles. The water distorted his hooked nose, giving him a birdlike
aspect enhanced by his scarecrow frame. He looked down at himself, at his
ragged jeans, estimating he had lost 20 pounds on the journey.

At that moment, when he was totally distracted, the patter of rushing
feet arose behind him.

He tried to grab his rifle and straighten, but his pervasive fatigue
hampered his reflexes. His left hand wrapped around the Winchester
barrel, and then a heavy form crashed into his right hip and drove him
forward.

Into the stream.

Water enveloped him, and under any other circumstances he would
have welcomed the sensation, but now he was fighting for his life against a
pack of feral foes who wanted his flesh to fill their stomachs. Sharp teeth
tore into his right side. If he hadn't been underwater, he would have
screamed. Instead, he flung his legs and right arm down, checking his
descent, and surged erect, gasping for air when he broke the surface.

On his right a wolf snapped furiously at him while striving to secure a
foothold.

He lifted the rifle, both hands on the barrel, intending to club the beast
in the head, when a second wolf materialized on the west bank and
crouched to spring. His arms whipped the Winchester in a downward arc
and the stock caught the animal on the head, smashing into the wolf
above the right eye and flinging the beast against the bank.

The second wolf scrambled to right itself, but its rear legs kept slipping
on the side of the stream.
 He took several strides to the south, backing away from both wolves,
then darted to the west bank and clambered from the water. An
adrenaline rush had supplanted his fatigue with a burst of energy, and he
took advantage of his newfound vigor, shoving to his feet and fleeing to the
northwest before either wolf could climb out. They would be on his trail in
seconds, but he had a greater worry.