Читать книгу Distortion Offensive - James Axler - Страница 7

The elderly man was solidly built, with a wispy gray beard that sprouted from his chin like the gnarled roots of a potato plant. He stood watching the waves from his hiding place in an alleyway overlooking the beachfront as the setting sun painted the Pacific Ocean in hues of red and pink and orange.

As the waves lapped against the shore, the old man pulled the glass bottle from one of the voluminous pockets of his waterproof coat. Streaks of grime and patches of sweat marred its once-pristine appearance, evidence of his long trek from his prior home in the Canadian wilds. He was there under instruction; his master had sent him to recruit, as he had sent the other graduates from Tenth City.

The sounds of crashing waves in the distance, the old man methodically broke the seal and unscrewed the cap of the bottle of home-brewed gin, then lifted the vessel to his lips. His nose wrinkled as he caught a smell of the clear brew. The fiery stench caught in the back of his nose and throat, not so much a smell as a feeling, a heat.

Closing his eyes, the old man tipped the bottle and felt the cool liquid splash past his teeth, wash against his tongue and the sides of his mouth. After a brief moment, he pulled the bottle away and spit the mouthful of gin out across the stone slabs of the sidewalk. The liquid fizzled there for a moment before running away along the incline of the alleyway and disappearing into the rudimentary opening of the local drainage system, a froth of saliva floating on its clear surface.

The elderly man stuck out his tongue, his eyes still screwed tight as he breathed out through the savage taste that now lined the inside of his mouth and stung at his lips. The raw taste of gin made him cough, and for a few moments he hacked and spluttered. Then his eyes opened and he pulled the capless bottle close once again, drawing it high until he held it over his own head. He looked up, seeing the dwindling sunlight dance across the surface of the bottle, feeling the weight of the liquid as it sloshed inside the clear glass. Then, closing his eyes once more, the old man deliberately tipped the bottle so that its contents poured over his upturned face, washing through his dirt-clotted hair and drenching his old clothes until his coat was sodden with gin.

Reeking of alcohol, the old man stepped out into the street, swaying left and right as though on the deck of a ship in a ferocious storm, and he began to heckle the nearest person, a pretty young woman rushing to the church hall with a sturdy bag over her shoulder, hoping to collect some of the newly arrived rations she had heard about. Frightened, the woman leaped back from the old man as he tottered from the alleyway and shouted nonsensically at her. Her heels clattered on the paving stones as she rushed away, but the old man had already dismissed her, moving on toward the beachfront and the next of his victims.

Prison had always been a breeding ground for recruitment, he knew. He only needed to get himself locked in a cell for utopia to begin. The utopia his master had promised for every man, woman and child on the planet Earth. The utopia he had already embraced.