"Gustav Hasvord. The Short-Timers " - читать интересную книгу автора

"Yeah."
"Crazy Earl says, "Can I be Gabby Hayes?"
"The Rock can be a rock," says Donlon, the radioman.
Alice says, "I'll be Ann-Margret."
"Animal Mother can be a rabid buffalo," says Stutten, honcho of the
third fire team.
The walls are assaulted by werewolf laughter.
"Who'll be the Indians?"
The little enemy folks audition for the part-machine-gun bullets rip
across a wall to starboard.
Lieutenant Shortround calls up his squad leaders with a hand signal-he
holds up his right hand and twirls it. Three squad leaders, including Crazy
Earl, double-time to him. He talks to them, points at the wall. The squad
leaders double-time back to their squads to confer with their fire team
leaders.
Lieutenant Shortround blows a whistle and then we're all running like
big-assed birds. We don't want to to this. We are all afraid. But if you
stayed behind you would be alone. Your friends are going; you go too. You're
not a person anymore. You don't have to be who you are anymore. You're part
of an attack, one green object in a line of green objects, running toward a
breach in the Citadel wall, running through hard noise and bursting metal,
running, running, running...you don't look back.
We double-time, werewolves with guns, panting. We run as though
impatient to sink into the darkness that is opening up to swallow us.
Something snaps and we're past the point of no return. We're going through
the broken wall. We're running fast and we aren't going to stop. Nothing can
stop us.
The air is being torn.
The deck shifts beneath your feet. The asphalt sucks at your feet like
sand on the beach.
Green tracer bullets dissect the sky.
Bullets hit the street. The impact of the bullets is the sound of a
covey of quail taking flight. And sparks. You feel the shock of bullets
punching through bricks. Splinters of stone sting your face.
People tell you what to do.
Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving. If you stop moving, if you
hesitate, your heart will stop beating. Your legs are machines winding you
up like a mechanical toy. If your legs stop moving, your taut spring will
run down and you will fall over, a lump without motion.
You feel like you could run around the world. Now the asphalt is a
trampoline and you are fast and graceful, a green jungle cat.
Sounds. Cardboard being torn. Head-on collisions. Trains derailing.
Walls falling into the sea.
Metal hornets swarm overhead.
Pictures: The dark eyes of guns; the cold eyes of guns. Pictures blink
and blur, a wall, tiny men, shattered blocks of stone.
Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving...
Your feet take you up...up...over the rubble of the
wall...up...up...you're loving it...climbing, you're not human, you're an
animal, you feel like a god...you scream: "DIE! DIE! DIE, YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!