Читать книгу Behind the Moon - Madison Smartt Bell - Страница 17

Seeming somehow to know her way, despite the utter darkness, she moved a little distance along the passage, then turned back. It wasn’t so completely dark after all because there was the light of the phone screen, behind her now; its bluish-white, unnatural luminescence spreading from the cupped hand of the girl where she lay. Then the light went out. But the battery would not have died yet. The screen had shut down to conserve the battery.

She thought of turning the phone on again, and yes, a thumb must have pressed a button, for the light reappeared, and now she could see how the body lay where it had fallen, half on its back and half on its side, knees drawn up, the pale face turned sideways, eyes closed now. On the rock where the head rested there was a darkness flowing, more beyond the fan of Julie’s dark hair. Yes, surely this was Julie’s body, but she was not inside that body now.

Would the blood smell attract the bear? But the bear was an illusion, it was painted on the wall, and then there was something else painted there, or not, something she saw now or had seen, a swirl of bright specks in spirals, like a cyclone or the image of a broad-bladed, fleshy leaf that bulged and rippled in the rising wind.

The light of the screen shut down again; she turned away from it and continued along the passage, careful not to brush the wall on either side. She seemed to know where the walls were, although she couldn’t see them. The freshness and sense of movement in the air was receding behind her. Ahead of her the black atmosphere felt increasingly heavy and close, but it was important that she continue to move deeper into the cave.