"Bailey-TheMall" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bailey Dale)

"-- the only way," said the night manager. Grinning, he released Ellis's arms
and stepped back. "In there, I won't disturb you. Nothing will. Just open it up,
and I'll go away."

And then Ellis had the book open in his hands. Its pages seemed to whip by of
their own accord, settling at last on the dark map at its center. Black coils
rose up to embrace him, encircled his wrists like manacles, and flooded the mall
with darkness. Ellis concentrated on the night manager's vulpine grin, but
finally it disappeared, occluded by the encroaching blackness. He stood alone in
his grandfather's pasture, beneath a spangled canopy of stars.

Ellis reclined on the hillside. His fingers twined in long grass, plucked a
single blade, and brought it to his lips. Above him, the stars wheeled by. For a
long moment, he fought to remember: a gaunt figure that moved with predatory
grace; a vast enclosed space, where escalators and walkways converged at
impossible angles; Katie and the children, somehow lost. But it was too much,
too much for him to hold. He had fallen into the night sky, with only the grassy
pasture beneath him, and it was all too distant.

A breeze washed across his flesh, bearing the pleasant scent of cow-manure,
baked dry beneath a summer sun. That scent and something else, something sweet
and not altogether pleasant. What was it?

The stars grew distant as Ellis concentrated, filtering out the heavy odor of
manure to focus on the scent which lay beneath. Finally he had it: the midway
smell of cotton candy. And with that scent it all came crashing back. A series
of images exploded through his mind: the city, upright against the dark sky; the
vast rest stop spread out across the valley; the night manager's fury-twisted
features as he said, "Your family is quite content, I assure you."

This? He was to give up everything for this, a boyhood night on his
grandfather's farm ?

The pasture came apart around him, black rags blowing to the edge of his vision
and disappearing. He stood in the mall, the night manager before him.

"What is t his place ?" Ellis asked. His voice was the barest panic-stricken
croak.

"Don't you know?" said the night manager. "Haven't you the least idea? And
you've done so much to create it, you with your designs for fancy malls and fine
new shopping centers. It's good work if you can get it, isn't it, Ellis?"

"No," said Ellis. "This isn't mine. I've done nothing to create this."

"But you have!" The night manager threw back his head, threw out his arms as if
to encompass everything. When he spoke again, his voice was filled with an
almost religious wonder. "Feel it, Ellis," he whispered, "feel it."