Барьер медленно отжал ее назад, она уткнулась в первую машину и остановилась.
The driver had gotten out of the first car and was walking around his car to reach the second car. I saw his head tilt up and it was clear he saw me. He waved his arms at me and shouted, but I was too far away to make out what he said.
The truck and my car, lying crushed beneath it, still were alone on the west-bound lanes. It was curious, I told myself, that no one else had come along.
Первый шофер выбрался наружу и двинулся в обход своей машины ко второму автомобилю.
На нашей стороне шоссе все еще было пусто, если не считать моей машины и подмявшего ее грузовика. Странно, почему больше никто не едет на запад, мелькнуло у меня.
There was a house atop the hill and for some reason I didn't recognize it. It had to be a house of someone that I knew, for I'd lived all my life in Millville except for a year at college and I knew everyone.
"На холме стоял дом, почему-то к его не узнал. Не мог же я не знать хозяев, ведь я всю жизнь прожил в Милвилле, только на год уезжал в колледж, и все милвиллцы мне хорошо знакомы. Непонятно почему, на минуту у меня в голове все перепуталось. Я ничего вокруг не узнавал и стоял в растерянности, пытаясь понять, куда же меня занесло.
The east was brightening and in another thirty minutes the sun would be poking up. In the west a great angry cloud bank loomed, and at its base I could see the rapier flickering of the lightning that was riding with the storm.
I stood and stared down at the village and it all came clear to me exactly where I was. The house up on the hill was Bill Donovan's. Bill was the village garbage man.
Восток все светлел, еще полчаса — и взойдет солнце.
Я стоял и смотрел вниз, на наш городишко, и наконец понял где я: на холме живет Билл Доневен, мусорщик.
I followed along the barrier, heading for the house and for a moment I wondered just where the house might be in relation to the barrier. More than likely, I told myself, it stood just inside of it.