Читать книгу Rebirth - Dmitry Nazarov - Страница 6

– God, these mongrels have gone completely insane! – I could hear it as if through a thick layer of absorbent cotton. – I can’t believe you did that to a girl! She had scars for life, and she was still young.

– Your mongrels are no match for her! – The first voice was contradicted by the second, and they both sounded like older women. – I’m telling you, some big beastie from the tough ones escaped and does such a dirty thing. Where do you see a mongrel slashing a man’s chest like that? Where did the claws come from?

– Maybe so, but the result is the same: she was a pretty girl, and now she won’t undress in front of a man. Anyone would run away if he took one look.

– She’s alive, and that’s a good thing. There was blood all over the ambulance and the corridor!

– Drink! – I could scarcely squeak in my sore throat.

– You’re awake, child! – A cool plastic tube was pressed to my lips, and I pulled sharply into myself the much desired water, but immediately I choked and coughing up. At the first spasm in my lungs, the whole upper part of my body erupted in a savage pain, and I suddenly remembered everything and sat up on the bed, crying out.

– Where are you going? – They pressed on my shoulders. – «You can’t do that, you’ll rupture the stitches in your skin! It’s been twenty-four hours since they stitched you up, girl.

As soon as the coughing and with it the raging pain subsided, I could hardly peel my heavy eyelids apart. I was sitting on a narrow hospital bed, and opposite lay two grannies in pale green robes, similar at first glance as twins.

– How are you, my poor soul? – Asked the first old lady.

– How did you have such a bad luck? – echoed her second.

– How bad is it? – I wheezed question after question as I gently touched the thick, pillow-like bandage that covered everything from my right shoulder to my lower ribs.

– Don’t think about that now, kiddo,» Granny One shook her head. – People without arms and legs live happily ever after.

– Very optimistic,» I muttered. – Is it really a nightmare?

– You’ll be all right if it doesn’t,» said the other, as if she really meant what she said. – You’ll be all right, you’ll live your life as it was. The more so, you have friends, they’re worried about you, they call, they are on duty.

– What? What friends?

Has Olezhka come to his senses and suddenly turned into a normal person and a man?

– How should I know which ones? Your friends, you sort it out, – shrugged one of the interlocutors. – They’re big guys, and their faces are frowning, kind of gangster-like, with tattoos on their arms, but who can tell if they’re young nowadays, maybe that’s… cool.

– How long have they been here? – I asked, increasingly perplexed.

– They showed up about two hours after they brought you in. They described everything: so and so, they didn’t bring the girl who had been bitten, did they? We did, we said. They said we had to see her. We said we weren’t supposed to. They said we would have to wait. They’ve been waiting for 24 hours.

– Where do they wait?

– In the emergency room, where else? It’s a good thing you woke up, by the way. At least tell me your name, or they brought you in as unidentified.

So none of my neighbors didn’t even bother to come down and identify me when they took me away? Although, given the realities of today, thank you for calling the cops and an ambulance. Others wouldn’t have bothered to do that either, and the janitors would have found my torn, cold corpse in the morning.

– I have to pee. – Indeed, I wanted to go to that interesting place sharply and urgently.

– Here’s the duck,“ they rattled on the bedside table with a cumbersome object, „lie down, I’ll help you. You mustn’t walk yet.

– No!» I flatly refused, and got up slowly. – I’m not so bad that I have to…

My head was a little fuzzy at first, but then it was back to normal, and in spite of the slight weakness in my knees and the ache in my chest, I felt fine.

– Stubborn! Where are you going? – The old ladies took me under both elbows and helped me gently and without unnecessary movements to pull on a hospital gown, and then escorted me to the bathroom, scolding me at every step for levity.

As I was washing my hands, I heard my attendants again, but now they were joined by the coarse sound of a low male voice, which for some reason sent unpleasant shivers down my spine.

As I pressed against the door, I looked out through the gap and saw a really big, shaven-haired guy standing with his back to me, leaning toward the petite old ladies, as if he could hear them better. His posture seemed more threatening than attentive to me, though.

– Are you awake yet? – he murmured. – When can we take her home?

What «home»? Since when do I live next door to someone so frightening? I do not remember even among the distant neighbors, not to mention the closest, this «closet with mezzanine».

– Well, you go to the doctor on duty and ask. She will examine and say whether you can take away, – willingly explained granny. – I wouldn’t advise it, though. The girl is still weak. And in general, maybe she does not want to. And then again, after discharge, the rabies shots…

The nurse was still talking, and the brat has already abruptly turned around, and I barely restrained myself from darting away from the door when I caught a glimpse of his face. There really weren’t many people I’d seen more frightening than him.

– Who’s going to ask her,» he muttered to himself and strode down the hall.

I exhaled, suddenly realizing that I must have gotten caught up in a much lousier story than just an attack by a deranged mongrel. My temples throbbed and I felt like someone was pushing me in the back as I quickly crossed the bathroom and opened the window. I needed to escape-that was what I was absolutely aware of at that moment, and I would think about the rest later. Nothing felt more important than getting out of here immediately and not crossing paths with that creepy guy and the others in any way.

– Well, at least I’m lucky in some ways,» I muttered when I saw that it was the first floor.

There was a semi-basement floor in the building, though, and the window was about two meters above the ground, so I fell and lay in the fetal position after the jump until the wave of pain from the concussion ebbed away. Slowly I got up and waddled away as fast as I could move my medical and rabid beastly body. Perhaps I should have stayed away from the lit streets, following my own newly derived safety formula, but the main avenue was the shortest route to my house that I had hastily constructed in my head. I didn’t have the mental or physical strength to make a loop and create a more hidden but longer route. I didn’t give a damn about the way I looked, so I rushed across the street as soon as the light turned green.

– Hey, girl! – A woman’s voice called out to me from behind, and I glanced over my shoulder with a brief, wary look. – Where are you going like that? The hospital’s on the other side!

I muttered something very impolite in response, and waddled onward, sweating and feeling the chills rising. Autumn, early though it was, was not a good time to be wandering the streets in a thin hospital gown over my bare body.

– Crazy, I’m serious,» the woman, unseen in the darkness of the cabin, continued to insist. – Let me at least give you a ride.

– No money! – without any twists and turns, I informed this Samaritan woman of goodwill.

– Otherwise it is not obvious that you do not take anything but tests! – She snorted back, and I gave up.

– Masha!» she introduced herself as I sighed with a sigh of relief as I lowered my butt onto the warm leather seat of her car.

– Rory,» I mumbled back, and gave her the address… well, almost exactly. No big deal. Paranoia is everything.

– What kind of name is that?

– Whatever my mom and dad gave me,» I snapped back, realizing that I probably should have been nicer to someone willing to help unselfishly. Or maybe I should have just called myself Sveta or Ira, and then there wouldn’t have been any more leading questions.

It was only about seven minutes from the hospital to my house, so I had no trouble with Masha squinting at me curiously the whole way, and she was able to restrain the obvious urge to start asking me questions. As soon as she pulled over at the right intersection, I got out of the car and mumbled a crumpled word of thanks, cringing from the pain almost everywhere and the coldness of the street pounding through my bones.

– Hey… Rory, right? – A girl I didn’t even get a good look at called out to me.

– What for? – I got wary.

– You never know… If your boyfriend does something bad again and has nowhere to go… Anyway, take it.

She thought my roommate did this to me? What difference does it make? She helped me out, that’s all. Mumbled «Thank you,» just to get away faster, shoved the embossed rectangle in the pocket of the official coat and rushed towards home. I broke into the unlocked door a little later and heard Bars’s cheerful «meow,» and settled down on the floor in the hallway, and only then allowed myself to relax. With trembling hands fumbled for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in a vase on a pedestal, inhaled, wiped my tears, and ran my fingers wet with them on the curving back of a demanding cat rubbing against me. I was home now. What to do next, I think right after I have coped with nervous chills and tears.