"Andre Norton - Here Abide Monsters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

ake she would go by herself. And he somehow could not let that happen and b
e able to look at himself in the mirror when shaving tomorrow.
It was only a half-mile, perhaps a little more. They could run it in minute
s, even if it were rough. The sooner they got through the better. He wonder
ed what this Linda would say if she knew his thoughts. She'd probably decid
e he'd been smoking pot. Only when you heard about the Cut-Off all your lif
e-well, you had a different point of view.
He had borrowed a lot of Ham's books, bought some of his own, knew all the th
ings that did happen now and then that nobody seemed able to explain. Maybe F
ort and those other writers who hunted out such stories had the right of it.
The scientists, the brains who might have solved, or at least tried to solve,
such puzzles, refused even to look at evidence before their eyes because it
did not fit in with rational "facts." There could be facts that were neither
rational nor logical at all.
There was the turn-off ahead. And there certainly had been changes since th
e last time he was here. Looked as if someone had run a bulldozer in to bre
ak trail. Nick gave a sigh of relief at the raw opening. There was a health
y difference between wriggling down an almost closed and ill-reputed trail
and this open, scraped side road, which now looked as good as the one leadi
ng to his own cabin. He flagged the jeep as he came to a stop.
"This is it," he called. Something in him still shrank a little from enterin
g that way, but he refused to admit it. Only he continued to feel that odd u
neasiness, which had come to him earlier as he had seen Rufus watch somethin
g invisible that Nick had been convinced against his will was there.
"Take it slow," he cautioned, also against his will. He wanted to take that r
oad at the best speed they could make. "I don't know how good the surface is.
"
"Yes." The dark glasses masked her face. She surely did not need them here i
n the shade of the trees, but she had not let them slide off as she had at t
he store. The Peke was on the seat, his forepaws resting on the dashboard, l
ooking ahead with some of Rufus' intensity. He did not bark, but there was a
n eagerness in every line of his small, silky body, as if he wanted to urge
them on.
Nick gunned his motor, swung into the Cut-Off, his Speed well down. The jee
p snorted along behind him at hardly better than a walking pace. The road c
rew had run the scraper along, but the rain had cut gullies across, here an
d there, and those had not been refilled.
The lane was all rawly new, bushes and even saplings gouged and cut out an
d flung back to wither and die on either side. It looked ugly-wrong, Nick
decided. He supposed it had to be done to open up the road, but it was que
er the road crew had not cleaned up more. Maybe the guys who had worked he
re knew about the sinister history of the Cut-Off and had not wanted to st
ay around any longer than they had to.
That broken stuff walled them in as if it were intended to keep them in the
middle of the road, allow them no chance to reach the woods. Nick felt mor
e and more trapped. Uneasiness was rising in him so that he had to exert ev
en more control. This was plain stupid! He must keep a grip on his imaginat
ion. Just watch the road for those ruts and lumps so he would not hit somet
hing-do that and keep going. They would be there in no time at all.
It was still, not a leaf moved. But the trees arched over well enough to keep