"James van Pelt - Parallel Highways" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pelt James Van)

broken, and he was always drowning.


***


"You were saying?" said Jack, trying to sound as if nothing had happened, as if no time passed, but
Debbie didn't answer. For the longest time she kept her face to the window, so that all Jack could see
was the back of her head. He turned inland and the junction to Palatine, and soon the lanes multiplied,
and they were in city traffic again.

"Our driving record sucks," she said finally. "They should pull our driver's licenses." She started laughing,
and it built on itself, an insane-sounding layering of laughter until Jack couldn't tell if she were laughing
anymore or shrieking. It scared him. After minutes of this, she quieted down, although every once in a
while, she'd chuckle, and Jack was afraid she'd start again.

She said, "You know what I'm thankful for?" She paused a half beat. "That we don't have to pay car
insurance anymore. It's just a relief." The chuckle came out of the back of her throat, and she wiped tears
from the bottom of her eyes.
Jack drove for twenty hours straight, 1,600 miles before switching. Mostly they passed through baking
desert, their air conditioner battling vainly against the heat pouring in; the glare off windshields stabbing his
eyes, but every once in a while, buildings would loom up on either side, warehouses, factories, strip
malls, and he could read the signs: AAMCO, QUIZNOS, BIG O, WINCHELLS, AMERICAN
FURNITURE WAREHOUSE, WAL-MART. Sometimes he couldn't read the signs; they weren't any
language he recognized. But never an exit, just junctions. Highway leading to highway; concrete bridges
twining over, under and around each other, filled with cars streaming end to end.

Their drivers studied the road with the peculiar dead look of the long-distance traveler. In some cases the
passengers slept. In some, they read books. Jack saw kids and old folks and dogs, all closed in, all
isolated in their eighty-mile-per-hour fish bowls. And in some cars, he saw monsters.

Debbie covered almost nine-hundred miles before giving Jack a turn, and he went for 1,300 more. They
switched a dozen times, often saying nothing for hundreds of miles; often times both awake, watching the
road unreel before them.

A low set of hills shrugged up on the horizon, and soon they wound through dry, grass-covered slopes.
For miles, rows of giant windmills lined the hills, their huge, high-tech blades spinning in a wind they
couldn't feel in the car. Then they passed the last windmill and other highways joined theirs, adding a lane
or two each time. Jack was driving when they rounded a curve and a great city sprawled in the vast
valley below. Through the haze, as far as he could see, rooftops and roads, and the traffic drew them in.

Something touched his hand on the emergency brake. He looked down. Debbie's hand rested against his,
and he took it, pressing his fingers between hers. They drove into the city, hand in hand.

Debbie scrutinized the buildings as Jack eased from one lane to another, always on the lookout for
potential trouble. His back ached; his eyes burned with weariness.

"It's L.A. again," she whispered. "We're on the 10."

"They all look the same," Jack said, but he noticed the palms growing beyond the retaining wall and the