"Robert F. Young - Little Dog Gone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

Little Dog Gone
The ground beneath his back was frost-cold. During the night the coldness had climbed into his
arms and shoulders and condensed in his chest, and now he was a part of the ground itself, an almost
indistinguishable part that must soon break free or forever be lost.
Through will alone he drove the last of the garish nightmares away, turned on his side and opened his
eyes. It had been a binge to beat all binges. It had begun in a little bar off Teletheatre Square in Old New
York City, and it had blasted off into space and taken root among the stars. Now, after strutting and
fretting its hour upon the stage, it had come to an end.
Dawn had emerged from her gray dwelling in the east and was lighting pink candles to illumine the big
back yard of the world. It was a world that Nicholas Hayes could not remember. He knew, though, that
he had seen it before, seen it from the distorted deeps of drunkenness ... through the mists of no-pain and
non-remembrance ... from the false heights of Never Come Tomorrow ... seen it, and forgotten it.
He was lying in a field. Rows of dead stalks alternated with parallel swaths of frost-wilted weeds. On
either side were similar fields, and in the distance, woods. Beyond the woods, hills showed.
He could see his breath. He could see something else, tooтАУa small animal of some kind. It was
crouching in the weeds a dozen yards away, and it was watching him.
He wondered whether it was inside or outside his head. Painfully, he propped himself up on one
elbow, picked up a loose clod of earth and heaved it in the animal's direction. The animal promptly
disappeared.
He patted his pockets in the vain hope of finding a bottle. Raising his eyes, he saw the animal again. It
had reappeared in the same spot, and had resumed watching him. "Go 'way!" he shouted hoarsely, and
closed his eyes. When he re-opened them, the animal was still there.
It looked as though it might be a dog of some sort, but he could not be sure. Perhaps it was real after
all. Working himself into a sitting position, Hayes went through his pockets. They contained his billfold,
which was empty, his Teletheatre Guild membership card, which was void, his passport, a large handful
of change and a concentrated chocolate bar. Unwrapping the bar, he broke it in two and tossed one half
to the animal. Again the animal vanished; but this time, thanks to the growing light, he saw it reappear
some fifty yards beyond its original position. As he sat there, staring, it vanished once more,
rematerialized in the very same spot it had occupied before, and gobbled down the chocolate.
Hayes rubbed his eyes. Still the animal would not go away. Moreover, it was looking at him as
though it momentarily expected him to toss it another piece of chocolate. He held out the remaining half
of the bar. "If you want it, you'll have to come and get it," he said.
The dogтАУfor a dog of some kind it seemed to beтАУflattened out on its belly and inched its way
forward. Dawn had lighted the last of her pink candles, and now her son, the day, was coming out to
play. In the brighter light Hayes saw that the dog was about the size of a miniature poodle. Its hair was
quite thick, though not in the least curly, and was the color of the rising morning mist. Its slightly oversize
paws suggested that it had not completely grown out of puppyhood, and the sad, eager-to-be-loved look
in its slightly slanted golden eyes more or less substantiated the suggestion. The rather long but blunt
muzzle lent a comical pug-nose effect, and the tatterdemalion ears hung down on either side of the head
like a pair of frayed bar-rags. By far the most remarkable feature about the animal was its tailтАУon the
bushy side, terminating in a white tuft. But instead of wagging, it rotated, first clockwise and then
counterclockwise, somewhat in the manner of a spring winding itself up and letting itself mn down. A
star-shaped white mark blazed in the middle of the animal's forehead.
Obviously the dog had not been eating very well of late, or perhaps, like any puppy, it was eternally
hungry. It made short work of the second piece of chocolate, and gazed eagerly up into Hayes' eyes as
though expecting a third. Tentatively, Hayes tweaked one of the rag-like ears. "Well, anyway, at least
you're real," he said.
But if the dog was real, why had it disappeared?
Hayes let the question ride for the moment. Too many other questions had priority over it. For one
example, where was he? For another, what was he doing here?