"George A. Stewart - Earth Abides" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart George A)

He had a certain sense of surprise. As often, when he had been by himself
for a while, he was not exactly sure what day it might be. Wednesday, he
thought. But it might be Tuesday or Thursday. Yet he was certain that it
was somewhere in the middle of the week, not a Sunday. On a Sunday, or even
for a whole weekend, the Johnsons might possibly shut up the store and go
somewhere on a trip of their own. They were easygoing and did not believe
too strongly in letting business interfere with pleasure. Yet they were
really dependent to a large extent upon the sales which the store made
during the fishing season; they could hardly afford to go away very long.
And if they had gone on a vacation, they would have locked the door. Still
you never could tell about these mountain people. The incident might even
be worth a paragraph in his thesis. In any case, his tank was nearly empty.
The pump was unlocked, and so he helped himself to ten gallons of gas and
with difficulty scrawled a check which he left on the counter along with a
note: "Found you all away. Took 10 gal. Ish."

As he drove down the road, he had suddenly a slight sense of uneasiness-the
Johnsons gone on a weekday, the door unlocked, no fishermen, a car going by
in the night, and (most of all) those men who had run away when they had
seen another man lying sick in his bunk in a lonely mountain cabin. Yet the
day was bright, and his hand was not paining him much; moreover, he seemed
to be cured of that other strange infection, if it was something else and
not the snake-bite. He felt almost back to normal again. Now the road wound
down restfully between open groves of pine trees along a little rushing
stream. By the time he came to Black Creek Power-house, he felt normal in
his mind again also.

At the power-house everything looked as usual. He heard the whir of the big
generators, and saw the streams of foaming water still bursting out from
beneath. A light was burning on the bridge. He thought to himself, "I
suppose nobody bothers ever to turn that out. They have so much electricity
that they don't need to economize."

He considered going across the bridge to the power-house, just to see
somebody and allay the strange fears which he had begun to feel. But the
sight and sound of everything running normally were reassuring, signs that
after all the power-house was working as usual, even though he saw no
people. There was nothing remarkable about not seeing people. The process
was so nearly automatic that only a few men were employed there, and they
kept indoors mostly.

Just as he was leaving the power-house behind, a large collie ran out from
behind one of the buildings. From the other side of the creek, it barked
loudly and violently at Ish. It ran back and forth excitedly.

"Fool dog!" he thought. "What's it so excited about? Is it trying to tell
me not to steal the power-house?" People certainly tended to overestimate
the intelligence of dogs!