"Nancy Kress - Evolution" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

exhaustion.
"I couldn't find him, Betty. I looked everywhere."
"Thank you," I say, and he nods. Accepting my thanks. This was
something he did for me, not for Sean. Not for himself, as Sean's stepfather.
I push down my sudden anger and say, "You better get some sleep."
"Right." He goes down the narrow hallway into our bedroom. In three
minutes he's snoring.
I let the car coast in neutral down the driveway. Our bedroom faces
the street. The curtains don't stir.
The West River Road is deserted, except for a few eighteen-wheelers. I
cross the river at the interstate and start back along the east side. Three
miles along, in the middle of farmland, the smell of burned flesh rolls in the
window.
Cows, close to the pasture fence. I stop the car and get out. Fifteen
or sixteen Holsteins. By straining over the fence, I can see the bullet holes
in their heads. Somebody herded them togther, shot them one by one, and
started a half-hearted fire among the bodies with neatly cut firewood. The
fire had gone out; it didn't look as if it was supposed to burn long. Just
long enough to attract attention that hadn't come yet.
I'd never heard that cows could get human diseases. Why had they been
shot?
I get back in my car and drove the rest of the way to Emerton Memorial.
This side of town is deathly quiet. Grass grows unmowed in yard after
yard. One large, expensive house has old newspapers piled on the porch steps,
ten or twelve of them. There are no kids waiting for school buses, no cars
pulling out of driveways on the way to work. The hospital parking lot has
huge empty stretches between cars. At the last minute I drive on through the
lot, parking instead across the street in somebody's empty driveway, under a
clump of trees.
Nobody sits at the information desk. The gift shop is locked. Nobody
speaks to me as I study the directory on the lobby wall, even though two
figures in gowns and masks hurry past. CHIEF OF MEDICINE, DR. RANDOLF SATLER.
Third floor, east wing. The elevator is deserted.
It stop at the second floor. When the doors open a man stands there, a
middle-aged farmer in overalls and work boots, his eyes red and swollen like
he's been crying. There are tinted windows across from the elevators and I
can see the back of him reflected in the glass. Coming and going. From
somewhere I hear a voice calling, "Nurse, oh nourse, oh God..." A guerney
sits in hallway, the body on it covered by a sheet up to the neck. The man
in overalls looks at me and raises both hands to ward off the elevator, like
it's some kind of demon. He steps backward. The doors close.
I grip the railing on the elevator wall.
The third floor looks empty. Bright arrows lead along the hallways:
yellow for PATHOLOGY and LAB SERVICES, green for RESPIRATORY THERAPY, red for
SUPPORT SERVICES. I follow the yellow arrow.
It dead-ends at an empty alcove with chairs, magazines thrown on the
floor. And three locked doors off a short corridor that's little more than an
alcove.
I pick the farthest door and pound on it. No words, just regular blows
of my fist. After a minute, I start on the second one. A voice calls, "Who's