"McCammon Robert R. - They Thirst" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCammon Robert R)

mockery of a human voice. His eyelashes were heavy with snow. "Papa!" His small,
tired voice cracked. But then Mama struggled to her feet, pulling him up again
even though he tried to fight her and break free of her grip. She shook him
violently, ice tracks lacing her face like white embroidery, and shouted, "He's
dead! Don't you understand that? We've got to run, Andre, and we've got to keep
on running!" And as she said that, the boy knew she was insane. Papa was badly
hurt, yes, because she had shot him, but Papa wasn't dead. Oh, no. He was back
there. Waiting.
And then lights broke the curtain of darkness. Smoke ripped from a chimney. They
glimpsed a snow-weighted roof. They raced toward those lights, stumbling,
half-frozen. The woman muttered to herself, laughing hysterically and urging the
boy on. He fought the fingers of cold that clutched at his throat. Lie down, the
wind whispered across the back of his head. Stop right here and sleep. This
woman has done a bad thing to your papa, and she may hurt you, too. Lie down
right here for a little while and be warm, and in the morning your papa will
come for you. Yes. Sleep, little one, and forget.
A weather-beaten sign creaked wildly back and forth above a heavy door. He saw
the whitened traces of words: THE GOOD SHEPHERD INN. Mama hammered madly at the
door, shaking the boy at the same time to keep him awake. "Let us in, please let
us in!" she shouted, pounding with a numbed fist. The boy stumbled and fell
against her, his head lolling to the side.
When the door burst open, long-armed shadows reached for them. The boy's knees
buckled, and he heard Mama moan as the cold-like the touch of a forbidden,
loving stranger-gently kissed him to sleep.
18 19
1
Friday, October 25I
THE CAULDRON
20 21
A star-specked night, black as the highway asphalt that bubbled like a cauldron
brew beneath the midday sun, now lay thickly over the long dry stretch of Texas
285 between Fort Stockton and Pecos. The darkness, as still and dense as the eye
of a hurricane, was caught between the murderous heat of dusk and dawn. In all
directions the land, stubbled with thornbrush and pipe-organ cactus, was
frying-pan flat. Abandoned hulks of old cars, gnawed down to the bare metal by
the sun and occasional dust storms, afforded shelter for the coiled rattlesnakes
that could still smell the sun's terrible track across the earth.
It was near one of these hulks-rusted and vandalized, windshield long shattered,
engine carried away by some hopeful tinkerer-that a jackrabbit sniffed the
ground for water. Smelling distant, buried coolness, the jackrabbit began to dig
with its forepaws; in another instant it stopped, nose twitching toward the
underside of that car. It tensed, smelling snake. From the darkness came a dozen
tiny rattlings, and the rabbit leapt backward. Nothing followed. The rabbit's
instincts told it that a nest had been dug under there, and the noise of the
young would bring back the hunting mother. Sniffing the ground for the snake's
trail, the jackrabbit moved away from the car and ran nearer to the highway,
crunching grit beneath its paws. It was halfway across the road, moving toward
its own nest and young in the distance, when a sudden vibration in the earth
froze it. Long ears twitching for a sound, the rabbit turned its head toward the
south.