Where the Rock Splits the Sky by Philip Webb

Author:Philip Webb
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2014-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

This trance has no feeling. Pieces of my mind mist over — just a mere stump of reason keeps me moving. I know we will surely die if we succumb to sleep. We will lie down insensible in the wet mud and wither from thirst or exposure. This prospect is a firebrand in my head, but I feel neither fear nor sorrow. It is the Zone come to take lives, as it does every day, without passion or remorse.

Kelly is still on her feet, mumbling nonsense, weaving into the scrub like a drunk. I call to her, but she hears nothing.

The Visitor who brought us here lies corpselike, his empty sleeve unpinned and trailing in a puddle. I scarcely remember a thing about him.

Luis is too heavy to hold. I let him go as gently as I can, grasping for the answer to a question that now eludes me. The answer is … horse. The question is … how to escape. There will be currents, even in this sluggish veil — gradients perhaps, where a person may remain at least alert enough to move.

I drag Luis by the belt over to Cisco. My horse gives whinnies of distress as though smarting at nightmares. Blinkers of darkness draw around my eyes, leaving only a tunnel of light. But once I reach Cisco’s flanks gleaming in the rain, I feel a little stronger, and he, too, launches himself upright. It is as though we give succor through touch, one to the other. It takes all my strength just to hoist Luis up and across the saddle. I stand there for what could be hours for all I know, gathering up my wits and losing them again.

God only knows how long it takes me to mount Cisco and corral the other horses. I use rope, fumbling with it like a child, pulling the creatures into a gaggle around me. I have to call out my purpose over and over in a mantra to keep focused, and several times I look at the hopeless loops in my hands and wonder what I’m doing. I dare not dismount — the dumb breathing of the animals is all that lies between the sleep and me.

I try to maintain my perimeter, staring down a closing tunnel of blindness. The sleep comes in waves, sweeping down from the mountains, I think, like the ghost of a glacier. At last I find Kelly, more by luck than judgment. She is swaying with her arms outstretched, oaths spilling from her lips, drowning slowly — just anger sustaining her now.

I cannot afford to tussle, so I rope her with a lariat, take the strain onto the pommel of my saddle so the line pulls tight around her shoulders, and draw her stumbling from the slopes. Riding through rough country, with Luis on board, leading the other horses, not to mention Kelly, demands all my concentration. Instinct takes me back toward the highway, and for a brief spell my head clears. I

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