"Whitley Strieber - The Wolfen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Strieber Whitley)

Copyright ┬й 1978 by Whitley Strieber.

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ISBN 0-553-20268-5

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For Anne


Since all is well, keep it so:
Wake not the sleeping wolf.
тАФShakespeare
Henry IV, Part 2




Chapter 1
^┬╗

In Brooklyn they take abandoned cars to the Fountain Avenue Automobile Pound
adjacent to the Fountain Avenue Dump. The pound and the dump occupy land shown on
maps as тАЬSpring Creek Park (Proposed).тАЭ There is no spring, no creek, and no park.
Normally the pound is silent, its peace disturbed only by an occasional fight among the
packs of wild dogs that roam there, or perhaps the cries of the sea gulls that hover over
the stinking, smoldering dump nearby.
The members of the Police Auto Squad who visit the pound to mark derelicts for the
crusher do not consider the place dangerous. Once in a while the foot-long rats will get
aggressive and become the victims of target practice. The scruffy little wild dogs will also
attack every so often, but they can usually be dealt with by a shot into the ground.
Auto-pound duty consists of marking big white XтАЩs on the worst of the derelicts and
taking Polaroids of them to prove that they were beyond salvage in case any owners turn
up.
 It isnтАЩt the kind of job that the men associate with danger, much less getting killed, so
Hugo DiFalco and Dennis Houlihan would have laughed in your face if you told them they
had only three minutes to live when they heard the first sound behind them.
тАЬWhat was that?тАЭ Houlihan asked. He was bored and wouldnтАЩt have minded getting a
couple of shots off at a rat.
тАЬA noise.тАЭ