"York-UnmarkedCrossing" - читать интересную книгу автора (York Steven J)

and on the other side, the grade crossing. I am running, but I am out of shape.
I haven't run more than twenty steps in years, and the little hill looms large
before me. The locomotive cries out in warning. I can hear the bell ringing now.

The woman is confused by the noise. She looks around, but the dome light
prevents her from seeing much in the darkness. She looks back at the paper just
as the train rounds the bend, its headlight lighting up the highway behind the
car. If she would only look up, she would see it coming, but she is looking at
the map.

My legs pump weakly as I top the hill, lungs burning, eyes closed, I stumble and
nearly fall, but I know the crossing is just ahead.

The locomotive sounds its horn, so close and loud now that it is painful. I grab
my left ear and run on.

The woman looks up, sees the locomotive bearing down on her. She tries to start
the car, but she has left the lights on. Her battery is weak, and the starter
only clicks, like the click of the locomotive's wheels as it bears down on her.

I run down the hill as fast as I can.

I stumble and nearly fall.

I feel the sound of the approaching train as much as I hear it.

I open my eyes and the crossing is just ahead.

There is no car. Only a dog.

It is a small collie of some kind. It sniffs at something between the rails,
oblivious to the train about to run it over, even as the behemoth sounds its
final warning.

Stupid creature. It must be deaf as a stump.

I put my last reserves into a final burst of speed.

I trip on the gravel ballast next to the track, and turn it into a dive. I catch
the dog around the middle, my shoulder striking the far rail painfully as I
roll. I think the dog yelps as I hit it, but I cannot hear.

We roll down the bank, and splash into a shallow ditch.

The train rumbles past, without having even slowed.

I kneel in the mud, my injured shoulder hunched like Quasimodo as I listen to
the train's wheels ringing across the joints in the rail like huge bells.

The dog licks my face.