Chapter 8

chapter eight We all agree: we've seen our friends turned to zombies, we've seen giant monsters devour those

我们都同意：我们看到我们的朋友变成僵尸，我们看到巨大的怪物吞噬他们

zombies, we've seen Quint without pants—but today was the strangest day of our lives. A few blocks from Joe's, Quint stops. He pulls the bestiary from his bag and sets it on the hood of a banged-up Wakefield police cruiser. He pulls a pen from his pocket and begins writing. "Whatcha doing, buddy?" I ask. "I'm adding our first entry to the new bestiary. The Wormungulous." "But we don't have its essence. You know, proof, like Thrull said." Quint smiles slyly. "Yes, we do. Hand me the Louisville Slicer." I unsheathe the blade. Quint holds it up, turning and examining it in the moonlight. Finally, he seems satisfied. Gripping the blade in one hand and holding the bestiary with the other, Quint wipes the edge of the bat on the page. We all inch closer. A gob of almost-dried Wormungulous blood and gunk rubs off. Quint writes for a few moments, then looks up proudly. "One down, two hundred and thirty-one to go..."

僵尸，我们见过昆特没穿裤子——但今天是我们生命中最奇怪的一天。 在离乔家几个街区的地方，昆特停了下来。 他从包里掏出这本书，把它放在一辆破旧的韦克菲尔德警车的引擎盖上。 他从口袋里掏出一支笔，开始写起来。 “你在干什么，伙计？”我问。 “我要把我们的第一个条目添加到新的动物词典中。 Wormungulous。”“但我们没有它的精髓。 你知道，证据，就像瑟鲁说的。” 昆特狡猾地笑了。“是的，我们有。 把路易斯维尔切片机递给我。” 我拔出刀刃。昆特把它举起来，在月光下转过身来仔细检查。 最后，他似乎很满意。 昆特一手握着剑刃，一手拿着魔书，在书页上擦了擦蝙蝠的边缘。 我们都在慢慢靠近。一口几乎干了的虫血和黏糊糊的东西擦了下来。 昆特写了一会儿，然后骄傲地抬起头来。 “干掉了一个，还差二百三十一个……”

THE WORMUNGULOUS DATA quint's best approximations. Length go feet. WAIT 30—35 tons, speed forty miles per hour on surface. Subterranean speed. Currently unknown. Spiky tentacles. ESSENCE MUNGULA BLOOD Armored skull. Jagged teeth indicate carnivorous diet. QUINT NOTES. Underground movement can be perceived from surface via waves of rolling broken ground KNOWN HABITATS. Circle ONE Mall PRINCIPAL ATTACK. Skull assaults, WEAKNESSES, Edged weapons, TEMPERAMENT, Ferocious, Nearing our tree house, I smile. We're home. Feels good to be home after the weirdest day ever. And what a home it is. See, I was an orphan before the Monster Apocalypse. My foster family, the Robinsons, were real jerks. But they built their kid—my foster brother—a ridic tree house. The Robinsons hightailed it as soon as the Monster Apocalypse hit—I have no idea where they are now. But that's fine: Quint and I moved into the tree

蠕虫数据类型的最佳近似。 长度走脚。等待30-35吨，水面速度每小时40英里。 地下速度。目前未知。 的触角。本质蒙古拉血装甲头骨。 锯齿状的牙齿表明它们是食肉动物。 五胞胎笔记。地下的运动可以通过地面上起伏不平的地面波来感知。 第一圈，主攻。 骷髅攻击，弱点，锋利的武器，性情，凶猛，靠近我们的树屋，我笑了。 我们回家。经历了最诡异的一天回到家感觉真好。 多么美好的家啊。怪物天启之前我就是个孤儿。 我的寄养家庭，罗宾逊一家，是真正的混蛋。 但是他们给他们的孩子——我的养兄弟——建了一个滑稽的树屋。 怪物天启一来，罗宾逊一家就逃之夭夭了，我不知道他们现在在哪。 但没关系：昆特和我搬到了树上

house and spent a lot of time tricking it out. It is serious. Quint places the bestiary in our reinforced snack lockbox. It's where we keep all our most valuable possessions: Twinkies, burp-contest scorecard (no one ever beats June), my spare nunchucks—all the good stuff. Quint locks it, and my friends head to bed. But I don't doze off. I worry. I spent a lifetime—well, like thirteen years; actually less, 'cause for a while I was a baby and

房子，花了很多时间来设计。 这很严重。昆特把野兽之书放在我们加固的零食锁盒里。 这里存放着我们所有最有价值的东西：夹馅面包、打嗝比赛记分卡（没人能打败琼）、我的备用双节棍——所有的好东西。 昆特锁了门，我的朋友们都去睡觉了。 但是我不打瞌睡。我担心。 我花了一生——嗯，大概十三年吧；其实更少，因为有段时间我还是个婴儿

then a toddler and y'know—but I've spent a LONG time wanting buddies. A family. And now that I've got it—I'm scared to total extreme death of losing that family. With everything quiet, I replay the day's events in my head. One image haunts me. Not Joe's Pizza. Not the image of Wormungulous. It's the Wormungulous slamming into my friends. It's that feeling in my stomach when I thought they were gone for good. It won't go away. I can't shake it. After two hours of kicking and turning and tossing (is there anything worse than trying to go to sleep and not being able to?), I finally give up. I climb out of bed, squinting in the darkness, and shuffle out to the deck.

然后是一个蹒跚学步的孩子，你知道，但我花了很长时间想要朋友。 一个家庭。现在我得到了它，我害怕失去这个家庭的极端死亡。 一切都很安静，我在脑海里重复着这一天发生的事情。 有一幅画面一直困扰着我。不是Joe's Pizza。 不是蛔虫的形象。 是虫怪撞到我的朋友们了。 当我以为他们永远离开的时候，我的胃里有一种感觉。 它不会消失。我无法摆脱它。 经过两个小时的辗转反侧（还有什么比想睡觉却睡不着更糟糕的吗？），我终于放弃了。 我爬下床，在黑暗中眯着眼睛，拖着脚走到甲板上。

Hey, buddy, keep me company Rover scampers over and wiggles into the pulley basket. I flip the hydraulic lift switch, and his huge hide is hoisted up onto the deck. I fix us some cocktails—I like Pibb Xtra mixed with Dr Pepper, and Rover is a fan of Orange Crush and grass, topped with acorns. I pour some into his monster food bowl, which is actually a hollowed-out Dozer skull. Rover slurps from the eyeball socket.

嘿，伙计，陪着我罗孚跑过来，扭动着进入滑轮篮子。 我拨动液压升降机的开关，它巨大的身躯被吊到了甲板上。 我给我们调了一些鸡尾酒——我喜欢加了胡椒博士的Pibb Xtra鸡尾酒，而罗孚喜欢加了橡子的橙汁和青草。 我倒了一些到他的怪物食物碗里，那实际上是一个挖空的多泽头骨。 罗孚从眼窝里咕咕叫。