JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 239 из 425When I could see her again, I could also see whatshe was holding. She hadn’t been bent over to get her breath. Smiling, she strode to the edge of the embankment with her left arm curled against her midriff, cradling the rocks she had picked up from the edge of the path. She selected a chunk roughly the size of a golfball, drew her hand back to her ear, and threw it at me.
Hard. It whizzed by my left temple and splashed into the water behind me. “Hey!” I shouted, more startled than afraid. Even after everything that had preceded it, I couldn’t believe this was happening. “What’s wrong with you, Rogette?” Devore asked chidingly. “You never used to throw like a girl. Get him!” The second rock passed two inches over my head. The third was a potential tooth-smasher. I batted it away with an angry, fearful shout, not noticing until later that it had bruised my palm. At the moment I was only aware of her hateful, smiling face—the face of a woman who has plunked down two dollars in a carny shooting-pitch and means to win the big stuffed teddybear even if she has to blast away all night.
And she threw fast. The rocks hailed down around me, some splashing into the ruddy water to my left or right, creating little geysers. I began to backpedal, afraid to turn and swim for it, afraid that she would throw a really big one the minute I did. Still, I had to get out of her range.
Devore, meanwhile, was laughing a wheezy old man’s laugh, his wretched face crunched in on itself like the face of a malicious apple-doll. One of her rocks struck me a hard, painful blow on the collarbone and bounced high into the air. I cried out, and she did, too: “Hai!” like a karate fighter who’s gotten in a good kick. So much for orderly retreat.
I turned, swam for deeper water, and the bitch brained me. The first two rocks she threw after I began to swim seemed to be range-finders. There was a pause when I had time to think I’m doing it, I’m getting beyond her area of… and then something hit the back of my head. I felt it and heard it the same way—it went CLONI(! like something you’d read in a Batman comic. The surface of the lake went from bright orange to bright red to dark scarlet. Faintly I could hear Devore yelling approval and Whitmore squealing her strange laugh. I took in another mouthful of iron-tasting water and was so dazed I had to remind myself to spit it out, not swallow it. My feet now felt too heavy for swimming, and my goddam sneakers weighed a ton. I put them down to stand up and couldn’t find the bottom—I had gotten beyond my depth. I looked in toward the shore.
Hard. It whizzed by my left temple and splashed into the water behind me. “Hey!” I shouted, more startled than afraid. Even after everything that had preceded it, I couldn’t believe this was happening. “What’s wrong with you, Rogette?” Devore asked chidingly. “You never used to throw like a girl. Get him!” The second rock passed two inches over my head. The third was a potential tooth-smasher. I batted it away with an angry, fearful shout, not noticing until later that it had bruised my palm. At the moment I was only aware of her hateful, smiling face—the face of a woman who has plunked down two dollars in a carny shooting-pitch and means to win the big stuffed teddybear even if she has to blast away all night.
And she threw fast. The rocks hailed down around me, some splashing into the ruddy water to my left or right, creating little geysers. I began to backpedal, afraid to turn and swim for it, afraid that she would throw a really big one the minute I did. Still, I had to get out of her range.
Devore, meanwhile, was laughing a wheezy old man’s laugh, his wretched face crunched in on itself like the face of a malicious apple-doll. One of her rocks struck me a hard, painful blow on the collarbone and bounced high into the air. I cried out, and she did, too: “Hai!” like a karate fighter who’s gotten in a good kick. So much for orderly retreat.
I turned, swam for deeper water, and the bitch brained me. The first two rocks she threw after I began to swim seemed to be range-finders. There was a pause when I had time to think I’m doing it, I’m getting beyond her area of… and then something hit the back of my head. I felt it and heard it the same way—it went CLONI(! like something you’d read in a Batman comic. The surface of the lake went from bright orange to bright red to dark scarlet. Faintly I could hear Devore yelling approval and Whitmore squealing her strange laugh. I took in another mouthful of iron-tasting water and was so dazed I had to remind myself to spit it out, not swallow it. My feet now felt too heavy for swimming, and my goddam sneakers weighed a ton. I put them down to stand up and couldn’t find the bottom—I had gotten beyond my depth. I looked in toward the shore.