JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 403 из 425There was somethingI could almost smell… and perhaps I did smell it, bitter and low. Lunacy may have its own wild-vetch aroma. It’s not the kind of thing I would ever care to research. In the front hall I stopped, looking down at a heap of paperback books, Elmore Leonards and Ed Mcbains, lying on the floor. As if they had been raked off the shelf by a passing hand. A flailing hand, maybe. I could also see my tracks there, both coming and going. They had already begun to dry. They should have been the only ones; I had been carrying Ki when we came in. They should have been, but they weren’t.
The others were smaller, but not so small that I mistook them for a child’s. I ran down the hall to the north bedroom crying her name, and I might as well have been crying Mattie or Jo or Sara. Coming out of my mouth, Kyra’s name sounded like the name of a corpse. The duvet had been thrown back onto the floor. Except for the black stuffed dog, lying where it had in my dream, the bed was empty. And Ki was gone.
I reached for Ki with the part of my mind that had for the last few weeks known what she was wearing, what room of the trailer she was in, and what she was doing there. There was nothing, of course—that link was also dissolved. I called for Jo—I think I did—but Jo was gone, too. I was on my own. God help me. God help us both. I could feel panic trying to descend and fought it off. I had to keep my mind clear. If I couldn’t think, any chance Ki might still have would be lost. I walked rapidly back down the hall to the foyer, trying not to hear the sick voice in the back of my head, the one saying that Ki was lost already, dead already. I knew no such thing, couldn’t know it now that the connection between us was broken. I looked down at the heap of books, then up at the door. The new tracks had come in this way and gone out this way, too. Lightning stroked the sky and thunder cracked. The wind was rising again. I went to the door, reached for the knob, then paused.
Something was caught in the crack between the door and the jamb, something as fine and floaty as a strand of spider’s silk.
A single white hair. I looked at it with a sick lack of surprise. I should have known, of course, and if not for the strain I’d been under and the successive shocks of this terrible day, I would have known. It was all on the tape John had played for me that morning. . a time that already seemed part of another man’s life. For one thing, there was the time-check marking the point where John had hung up on her. Nine-jorty A.
The others were smaller, but not so small that I mistook them for a child’s. I ran down the hall to the north bedroom crying her name, and I might as well have been crying Mattie or Jo or Sara. Coming out of my mouth, Kyra’s name sounded like the name of a corpse. The duvet had been thrown back onto the floor. Except for the black stuffed dog, lying where it had in my dream, the bed was empty. And Ki was gone.
I reached for Ki with the part of my mind that had for the last few weeks known what she was wearing, what room of the trailer she was in, and what she was doing there. There was nothing, of course—that link was also dissolved. I called for Jo—I think I did—but Jo was gone, too. I was on my own. God help me. God help us both. I could feel panic trying to descend and fought it off. I had to keep my mind clear. If I couldn’t think, any chance Ki might still have would be lost. I walked rapidly back down the hall to the foyer, trying not to hear the sick voice in the back of my head, the one saying that Ki was lost already, dead already. I knew no such thing, couldn’t know it now that the connection between us was broken. I looked down at the heap of books, then up at the door. The new tracks had come in this way and gone out this way, too. Lightning stroked the sky and thunder cracked. The wind was rising again. I went to the door, reached for the knob, then paused.
Something was caught in the crack between the door and the jamb, something as fine and floaty as a strand of spider’s silk.
A single white hair. I looked at it with a sick lack of surprise. I should have known, of course, and if not for the strain I’d been under and the successive shocks of this terrible day, I would have known. It was all on the tape John had played for me that morning. . a time that already seemed part of another man’s life. For one thing, there was the time-check marking the point where John had hung up on her. Nine-jorty A.