"Gregory Maguire-Lost" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maguire Gregory)

crumpled fenders and popped hoods. She had been the first out in the rain,
the
first to start poking through dark rafts of pine needles. Mr. Useful Cell
Phone
was next, having emerged from some vehicle behind her. He carried a
ridiculous
out-blown umbrella, and when he got off the phone with the 911 operator he
hooked the umbrella handle around a good-size tree limb and tried to yank it
away.
"They said don't touch the passengers," he yelled through the rain.
Afraid her voice would betray her panic, she didn't even like to answer, but
to
reassure him she managed to say, "I know that much." The smell of pine
boughs,
sap on her hands, water on her face. What was she scared of finding in that
dark
vehicle? But the prime virtue of weather is immediacy, and the wind tore away
the spicy Christmas scent. In its place, a vegetable stink of cheap spilled
gasoline. "We may have to get them out, do you smell that?" she shouted, and
redoubled her efforts. They could use help; where were the other commuters?
Just
sitting in their cars, listening to hear themselves mentioned on the WGBH
traffic report?
"Cars don't blow up like in the movies," he said, motioning her to take a
position farther along the tree trunk. "Put your back against it and push;
I'll
pull. One. Two. Three." Thanks mostly to gravity they managed to dislodge the
thing a foot or so, enough to reveal the windshield. It was still holding,
though crazed into opacity with the impact. The driver, a fiftyish sack of a
woman, was slanted against a net bag of volleyballs in the passenger seat.
She
didn't look lucky. The car had slammed up against the concrete barrier so
tightly that both doors on the driver's side were blocked.
"Isn't there someone else?" said Winnie. "Didn't you say?"
"You know, I think that is gasoline. Maybe we better stand off."
Winnie made her way along the passenger side of the car, through branches
double-jointed with rubbery muscle. The rear door was locked and the front
door
was locked. She peered through pine needles, around sports equipment. "There's
a
booster seat in the back," she yelled. "Break the window, can you?"
The umbrella handle wasn't strong enough. Winnie had nothing useful in her
purse
or her overnight bag. The cold rain made gluey boils on the windows. It was
impossible to see in. "No car could catch on fire in a storm like this," she
said. "Is that smoke, or just burned rubber from the brake pads?" But then
another driver appeared, carrying a crowbar. "Smash the window," she told him.
"Hurry," said Cell Phone Man. "Do they automatically send fire engines, do
you
think?"