It's Beginning to Hurt: Stories (28 page)

“That’s the last one?” she asked.

He stared back at her a moment.

Then he nodded, and she drove on.

Nobody spoke after that. Caitlin felt the silence bearing down on her. What made it worse was that there was nowhere to look that gave any relief. Craig, Luke, the guide, the other passengers, the trees outside hung with their cocoons: everything seemed to add its own oppressive weight to the moment.

At the intersection they turned right and crossed over to the far side of the ridge. The valley below them was much larger than the one they had crossed on the way from the farm, and it was built up. Houses began halfway down the slope opposite, scattered thinly at first, but growing more dense toward the bottom, their lights hanging pale against the gray-green hillside. Caitlin glanced at Craig, then flinched away. She told herself that the hospital was down there, that these people helping them had also come from down there somewhere. But it was impossible not to think of the cocoons. She closed her eyes, but even then she could see them: pale shapes in the darkness behind her own eyelids, with the shadows of the caterpillars crawling around inside them.