Wild Cards. Джордж Р. Р. Мартин

or because his vehicle was the most secluded from the street that the old man had crawled into the plastic-lined bed of his truck.

      TT thought he was just some homeless dude at first sight, but then the old man rolled over and those three gaping wounds were still bleeding on his face from where the tiger man had clawed him. The old man looked different, though. His arms and legs weren’t so heavily muscled. In fact, his coveralls hung off him like they were a couple of sizes too big. He’d actually fucking shrunk since his fight up on the crane.

      Somebody yelled at him to have a good weekend and to try and stay out of the papers and TT threw up a hand, waving in response. The old man looked out at him from his hiding space, held up a finger in front of his lips asking TT to keep quiet.

      This was a fucked-up situation.

      TT walked over to the driver’s-side door of the pickup and stepped up on the footrail where he could lean in and open the toolbox behind the cab. He looked around, but nobody was close.

      “What’s up, dziadek?” he asked.

      The old man gave him a ghastly grin. TT could see some of his teeth through his torn open cheek.

      “I have no wnuki that I know of,” he said. “But I have been called grandfather before. Recently, in fact. Or, rather, ten years from now.”

      Oh yeah, this was making more fucking sense all the time.

      “I’m going to get you to the ER, old man. And you should try not to talk. It makes you bleed more and it ain’t too fucking pretty, neither.”

      “No,” said the old man. “No hospitals. No police. No authorities. I will heal in time, Hardhat.”