Читать книгу Kawanga - Jack Halliday - Страница 10

CHAPTER SIX

Only one more inch.

Maybe an inch and a half. He reached down, past his guts, for the rest of his life’s allotment of adrenaline and strained in one last attempt to cast his fingers toward the rim above him. The unfinished metal tore his skin as he clamped one, then the other hand over the edge of the tube into which he’d been dumped. He was human garbage to them. Time and exposure would finish what fists and feet had left undone.

Tom looked at his watch. The cracked crystal magnified: 7:30 p.m. Night had just fallen when he’d grabbed the cab to the office. He’d only been a few minutes on the bridge; he hadn’t eaten supper. How long had he been unconscious? How far away were they by now?

He was up, out of the garbage chute now, slapping the dust from his trouser legs. One small, naked light bulb lit the hallway. It was cold and still and quiet, the opposite of his heartbeat.

He lunged up the metal stairs, grabbed the rail and swung himself onto the landing. The heavy door clanged shut behind him as he stood outside in the alley. He slumped back against the cold, red brick, strands of his hair catching on the rough mortar. He hugged himself, trying to deaden the sickening, dull ache in his ribs. The city was oblivious to either his pain or his plight. Tires screeched on wet asphalt.