Читать книгу Blink and You Die - Lauren Child - Страница 24

… the guy lying on the side of the road looked up at the old man and saw the fear in his face.

‘Am I … alive?’

The old man nodded. ‘It would seem so.’

‘You … OK …?’ stammered the guy. ‘You … look … like you’re … gonna … faint.’

The old man was shrugging off his jacket. He pulled a penknife from his pocket and he began cutting at the sleeve of his own shirt, tearing it right off and wrapping it around the bleeding guy’s leg.

‘My name, should you be wondering, is Lenny Rivers.’ He was working quickly but methodically, binding the wound tight, trying to stop all that blood leaking onto the road.

‘Pleased to … meet … you … Len …’

‘So what hit you friend, a truck?’ The poor guy was a real mess, the worst thing Lenny had ever seen, except for that time when he’d found a hunter who’d been attacked by a bear. That fella hadn’t made it. ‘Was it one of those haulage trucks smashed into you?’ he asked.

The guy smiled faintly. ‘The fun … the funny thing … is … I … don’t re-mem-ber.’

‘Musta been going at a fair old lick,’ Lenny tutted. ‘Either didn’t see you or just decided to leave you for dead.’

‘I guess,’ said the injured guy, his eyes closing slowly.

‘Hang in there,’ said Lenny, more to himself than to the half-dead fellow lying there on the ground. He’d do what he could, but this poor soul’s ticket was punched, Lenny Rivers was sure of that.

‘So what do they call you?’ Lenny asked.

One thing Lenny Rivers knew for a certainty was, he’d want to hear his name spoken aloud one final time if he was about to float heavenwards. But the wounded man was already slipping away, his focus gone. ‘Hey there son, don’t leave me, tell me what you go by.’ Lenny gently tapped the injured man’s bloodstained cheek. ‘Stick with me pal, you must have a name, right?’

The guy’s eyelids flickered and opened one last time. He was staring beyond Lenny as if his eyes saw some other figure standing behind him. ‘Loveday,’ he said. ‘It was Morgan … Loveday.’