JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 407 из 425On the day I’d first seen Rogette I’d only been able to catch glimpses of Warrington’s lodge, but now the forest had been torn open like an old garment—this area would be years recovering. The lodge’s rear half had been pretty well demolished by a pair of huge trees that seemed to have fallen together.
They had crossed like a knife and fork on a diner’s plate and lay on the ruins in a shaggy X. Ki’s voice, rising over the storm only because it was shrill with terror: “Go away! I don’t want you, white nana! Go away!” It was horrible to hear the terror in her voice, but wonderful to hear her voice at all. About forty feet from where Rogette’s shout had frozen me in place, one more tree lay across the path. Rogette herself stood on the far side of it, holding a hand out to Ki. The hand was dripping blood, but I hardly noticed. It was Kyra I noticed. The dock running between The Street and The Sunset Bar was a long one—seventy feet at least, perhaps a hundred. Long enough so that on a pretty summer evening you could stroll it hand-in-hand with your date or your lover and make a memory. The storm hadn’t torn it away—not yet—but the wind had twisted it like a ribbon. I remember newsreel footage at some childhood Saturday matinee, film of a suspension bridge dancing in a hurricane, and that was what the dock between Warring-ton’s and The Sunset Bar looked like. It jounced up and down in the surging water, groaning in all its slatted joints like a wooden accordion. There had been a rail—presumably to guide those who’d made a heavy night of it safely back to shore—but it was gone now. Kyra was halfway out along this swaying, dipping length of wood. I could see at least three rectangles of blackness between the shore and where she stood, places where boards had snapped off. From beneath the dock came the disturbed clung-clung-clung of the empty steel drums that were holding it up.
Several of these drums had come unanchored and were floating away. Ki had her arms stretched out for balance like a tightrope walker in the circus. The black Harley-Davidson tee-shirt flapped around her knees and sunburned shoulders.
“Come back!” Rogette cried. Her lank hair flew around her head; the shiny black raincoat she was wearing rippled. She was holding both hands out now, one bloody and one not. I had an idea Ki might have bitten her.
“No, white nana!” Ki shook her head in wild negation and I wanted to tell her don’t do that, Ki-bird, don’t shake your head like that, very bad idea. She tottered, one arm pointed up at the sky and one down at the water so she looked for a moment like an airplane in a steep bank.
They had crossed like a knife and fork on a diner’s plate and lay on the ruins in a shaggy X. Ki’s voice, rising over the storm only because it was shrill with terror: “Go away! I don’t want you, white nana! Go away!” It was horrible to hear the terror in her voice, but wonderful to hear her voice at all. About forty feet from where Rogette’s shout had frozen me in place, one more tree lay across the path. Rogette herself stood on the far side of it, holding a hand out to Ki. The hand was dripping blood, but I hardly noticed. It was Kyra I noticed. The dock running between The Street and The Sunset Bar was a long one—seventy feet at least, perhaps a hundred. Long enough so that on a pretty summer evening you could stroll it hand-in-hand with your date or your lover and make a memory. The storm hadn’t torn it away—not yet—but the wind had twisted it like a ribbon. I remember newsreel footage at some childhood Saturday matinee, film of a suspension bridge dancing in a hurricane, and that was what the dock between Warring-ton’s and The Sunset Bar looked like. It jounced up and down in the surging water, groaning in all its slatted joints like a wooden accordion. There had been a rail—presumably to guide those who’d made a heavy night of it safely back to shore—but it was gone now. Kyra was halfway out along this swaying, dipping length of wood. I could see at least three rectangles of blackness between the shore and where she stood, places where boards had snapped off. From beneath the dock came the disturbed clung-clung-clung of the empty steel drums that were holding it up.
Several of these drums had come unanchored and were floating away. Ki had her arms stretched out for balance like a tightrope walker in the circus. The black Harley-Davidson tee-shirt flapped around her knees and sunburned shoulders.
“Come back!” Rogette cried. Her lank hair flew around her head; the shiny black raincoat she was wearing rippled. She was holding both hands out now, one bloody and one not. I had an idea Ki might have bitten her.
“No, white nana!” Ki shook her head in wild negation and I wanted to tell her don’t do that, Ki-bird, don’t shake your head like that, very bad idea. She tottered, one arm pointed up at the sky and one down at the water so she looked for a moment like an airplane in a steep bank.