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dd779b1
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By doing one wrong thing, I thought I could make everything right.
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Scott B. Smith |
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7dd36f2
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I didn't feel evil. I felt nervous, scared, nothing more.
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Scott B. Smith |
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aec6a18
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Stacy wasn't certain; she'd never bothered to pay attention to details like that, and was always regretting it, the half knowing, which felt worse than not knowing at all, the constant sense that she had things partly right, but not right enough to make a difference.
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Scott B. Smith |
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8ca0120
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That was what they were so clearly doing here: they were waiting. And not in any suspense, either, not in any anxiety as to the outcome of their vigil. They were waiting with no apparent emotion at all, as one might sit over the course of an evening, watching a candle methodically burn itself into darkness, never less than certain of the outcome, confident that the only thing standing between now and the end of waiting was time itself.
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Scott B. Smith |
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ed56dc5
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It waits till we're weak before it reveals its strength.
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Scott B. Smith |
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69bfbb7
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Maybe there isn't a way," he said. "Maybe all we can do is wait and hope and endure for as long as we're able. The food will run out. Our bodies will fail. And the vine will do whatever it's going to do."
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Scott B. Smith |
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b99935b
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poor Yorick of infinite jest.
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Scott B. Smith |
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2e3c241
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He was shier than she would've guessed; even that evening, standing so near, the rain spattering against the taut fabric only inches above their heads, he hadn't dared to kiss her good night. This was still to come, another week or so in the future, and it was nice that way; it gave weight to the other things, the smaller gestures, his arm hooking hers as they stepped out from beneath the brightly lighted marquee onto the rain-slick streets..
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Scott B. Smith |
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0acc267
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all the lies people utter around death in order to comfort themselves, to bury their grief with the body, but here, suddenly, they were true. Die, Eric said in his head. Do it now, just die. And all the while--yes, implacably, inexorably--the Greek's breathing continued its ragged course.
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Scott B. Smith |
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4ffbe69
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Trying to remember things." It was what people did, Amy had decided, as they waited for death; they lay there struggling to remember the details of their lives, all the events that had seemed so impossible to forget while they were being suffered through, the things tasted and smelled and heard, the thoughts that had felt like revelations, and now Jeff was doing this, too. He'd given up. They weren't going to survive this place; they were g..
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Scott B. Smith |
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386882e
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liar's smile
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Scott B. Smith |
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1b5824c
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he'd believed that he was smarter and more disciplined than the others, and that these traits alone might save them. He was a fool, though; he could see that now. He'd been a fool to cut off Pablo's legs. All he'd managed to do was prolong the Greek's suffering. And he'd been a fool--worse than a fool, so much worse--to sit there pouting while, fifteen feet away from him, Amy had choked to death. Even if, through some miracle, he managed to..
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Scott B. Smith |
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36b0518
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Stacy waited till she was certain he'd fallen asleep, then slipped free of his grasp, edging backward, leaving his hand lying open on the tent's floor, palm up, slightly cupped, like a beggar's. She imagined dropping a coin into it, late at night on some dark city street; she pictured herself hurrying off, never to see him again.
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Scott B. Smith |
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d5e1984
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Recalls The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the better work of Jim Thompson (The Grifters; After Dark, My Sweet) and Thomas Berger's tales of small-town souls who succumb to murderous mayhem.
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Scott B. Smith |