The Book of M. Peng Shepherd
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Название: The Book of M
Автор: Peng Shepherd
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Эзотерика
isbn: 9780008225629
isbn:
There was more movement, a nervous shuffling. Ory looked and saw no dark shape there under the trembling leaves. He raised the gun and ran.
HE CROSSED UNDER THE I-495 IN LATE EVENING. WOULD MAX have made it as far east as McLean in one day? Perhaps, but no farther. Ory had scoured the ground for signs of her as he went—a dropped supply he might recognize from their stash, a tear of familiar clothing, even a footprint—but had found nothing. Nothing from anyone at all, even. There was a shoe that had been in the gutter so long it was fossilized in mud. A ways after, there had been a bone, but it was old. So old he did not have to look away as he passed it.
In the night, Ory heard something inhumanly heavy cross the interstate, walking over the top of the overpass instead of below. He huddled closer to the dank concrete wall as it passed. Even with the moon, it was so pitch-black, he could not have seen if there was a shadow or not. He didn’t try to look. He held the wall and prayed the sound above would move on.
IN THE MORNING, HE CLIMBED ONTO THE OVERPASS TO SEE what might have been there. But there were only wildflowers and a single car tire.
THE MORNING AFTER THE BOSTON EMERGENCY BROADCAST, I opened my eyes to the worst hangover I’ve ever had. Dim flashes of the night before returned. Marion, my best friend from high school who’d become almost as close to Imanuel as she and I were to each other, calling for calm. Jay “Rhino” White, someone’s plus one—although we never quite figured out whose—declaring himself captain of an investigative scouting team he’d just created. Paul saying, “Fuck this, I’m getting the champagne,” and going to get it. All of it. “If this is the last day on earth, we can’t waste a drop.” Do you remember that? I had to agree with him.
It all became a blur after the eighth glass. At some point during the night, I’d managed to get myself to our guest suite, pull the blankets and pillows off our bed, bring them back downstairs into the ballroom, and pick us out a spot on the east edge, in the corner where the wood wall met the glass one. I woke up with my face buried in your tuxedoed shoulder, which smelled of Bollinger, candle smoke, and cinnamon, somehow. The light through the trees was so clear it was blinding. Sharp, piercing beams cut through the branches and seared white shapes into the dark grass.
The news was still on the TV in the corner, the volume lowered so that only the people clustered beneath it could hear, to allow the rest of us to sleep. I tried to blink the world back into focus. Capitol Hill was on the screen, and then the Golden Gate Bridge replaced it, some kind of ticker running below.
“Ory.” I nudged your arm. “Wake up.”
You sat up slowly, but by the time you were fully upright, you looked alert. “What happened? Where else?” you asked. We both turned back to the TV.
“You’re awake,” Rhino said when he saw us sitting. I noticed Paul, Imanuel, and Marion already standing awkwardly next to him, as if ordered to be there. “Volunteer?” he asked hopefully.
That was how we became the first scouting party for the Elk Cliffs Resort survivors.
“They’re for the occasional bear or wolf that wanders too close to the grounds,” the resort maître d’, Gabe, said as he unlocked the STAFF ONLY closet. He brought out two shotguns and one hunting rifle. “Not even occasional, very rare. Very rare,” he corrected himself on instinct, still thinking of us as luxury guests. Maybe we all still did as well.
“How many bullets do we have?” Rhino asked.
“Enough for an exploratory trip down the mountain,” Gabe replied.
“Enough for hunting when we run out of food?”
“That’s getting a little ahead of ourselves,” Ory said.
Rhino shrugged. “Is it, though?”
“What will the rest of us use?” I interrupted. There were six of us—you, Rhino, Paul, Imanuel, Marion, and me—and only three guns.
“Well, I can actually shoot,” Marion said. The others all looked at her. “I grew up on a ranch in Texas. A little cattle ranch. What?”
“Okay, one for Marion, one for me,” Rhino said. “Imanuel?”
“Give it to Ory,” Imanuel offered politely.
“Give it to Max,” Paul overrode him. You rubbed the back of your head, cheeks reddening.
It was not the right time to smile. Paul and I tried not to, without much success.
“This isn’t soccer,” you protested weakly.
“Exactly,” Paul said. “It’s worse. Definitely give it to Max.”
“What is the matter with you?” Imanuel whispered sharply to Paul. Paul finally choked, and the giggles escaped him in a strangled gasp. You had been the only kid in their high school to ever score a goal for the opposite team—twice, I finally explained to the rest of them as Paul collapsed into a fit of laughter.
We climbed down the mountain in silence, walking just next to the paved road that led up to the picturesque resort from Elk Cliffs Road. You, Paul, and Imanuel carried huge backpacks instead of weapons. “Odricks Corner,” Rhino said to us as we marched. “That’s the first neighborhood we’ll hit.” The trees opened up ahead.
I braced for the eerie, deserted silence of Boston we’d seen on the news after all the shooting stopped, but Odricks Corner was chaos. Cars blaring at each other, women herding families back and forth across streets, people biking with mountains of belongings strapped to their backs. Men defending laden shopping carts in parking lots with their lives.
“Food,” Marion said when she spotted a grocery store. It all dawned on us then. How much food did we have at Elk Cliffs Resort? Imanuel had booked caterers for the ceremony and reception, but how long would those leftovers last? How much was in their deep freezers for regular guests? How long would deep freezers last if the power went out? Would the power go out?
Rhino stayed outside with the guns, asking passersby for information. The rest of us went inside the shop and pulled everything we could find off the shelves. You, Paul, and Imanuel tried to look large and intimidating as Marion and I snatched whatever was left. Single shoppers approached, eyed the five of us, then slunk away for other aisles.
“Grab the rice,” Marion hissed at me as we wheeled ourselves into the never-ending line to pay. I grabbed as many as I could. In a strange way, it reminded me almost of something she and I might have done in university with our friends, while too drunk: run to the campus food store just before it closed and play various games—who could fit inside the plastic shopping cart seat like a kid again, who could swipe an entire shelf into the basket at once without dropping a single item, who could finish their list first and race to the checkout line before the other teams. But no one was laughing this time.
“Please—I have children,” a woman behind us said. We turned around. Her cart was a third as full as ours, with food half as useful. The shelves were almost bare by then. “I СКАЧАТЬ