Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen The page is snow-soaked, but mostly intact. My hands are shaking from the cold—but it's also more that that. I'm quivering because this is BIG. This can tell us WHY Evie stole the Slicer! I spot Bardle and Quint standing beneath the old Buffalo Wing joint. "Hey, knowledgeable buddies!" I shout as I race toward them. "Look! The missing page from the library book!" Bardle's long fingers take the page. I watch his eyes scan it. Bardle's pupils don't go back and forth when he reads—they just keep going, disappearing at one side of the eye, reappearing on the other. Like they move in a circle. It's super unnerving, no lie... What he says, though, and what I see—it's even more unnerving...

这一页被雪浸透了，但基本完好无损。 我的手冻得发抖——但更重要的是。 我在颤抖，因为这是件大事。 这可以告诉我们为什么艾薇偷了切片机！我看见巴德尔和昆特站在老布法罗之翼酒吧下面。 “嘿，知识渊博的朋友们！”我一边喊一边冲向他们。 “看!图书馆那本书上缺失的那一页！”巴德尔长长的手指拿起那一页。 我看着他的眼睛扫了一眼。巴德尔的瞳孔在阅读时不会前后移动——它们只是不停地移动，在眼睛的一边消失，在另一边重新出现。 就像它们在做圆周运动一样。 这太让人紧张了，真的…… 不过，他说的和我看到的——更让人不安……

STEP TWO, CAPTURE AN UNDEAD HUMAN BEING. THE HUMAN MIND IS A COMPLEX THING. SO GAS REQUIRES A FRESHLY ZOMBIES BODY TO ENTER THE SIMPLIFIED BRAIN. WORKINGS OF THE UNDEAD. MAKE A ZOMBIE THE PERFECT VESSEL. STEP THREE, PLACE THE ARTIFACT IN the zombies human's hands to OPEN a PORTAL, ALLOWING GO to ENTER THE ZOMBIES BODY. GOD WILL THEN TAKE CONTROL OF THAT PERSON'S BODY. FOR

第二步，抓一个不死人。 人类的思维是一个复杂的东西。 所以气体需要一个新鲜的僵尸身体才能进入简化的大脑。 亡灵的杰作。让僵尸成为完美的容器。 第三步，将神器放在僵尸人类的手中，打开一个传送门，允许GO进入僵尸的身体。 上帝就会控制那个人的身体。 为

Those words repeat in my head: FRESHLY ZOMBIFIED BODY. I heard Dirk cry out. And I don't see him. Suddenly there's this tight, burning, screaming feeling in my chest. I want to puke, right there in the snow. But I don't. Instead, I'm turning, leaving, even as I hear my friends calling after me. Evie trapped us in her house and tried to zombify us. But we outsmarted her. Our geekiness defeated her geekiness. Only she wasn't done. She needed a new zombie. She came back, head-on, into Wakefield Town Square. I thought we defeated her. But now I'm afraid I'm wrong... I'm marching across the Town Square. My head is snapping from side to side, quick looks, scanning, searching. Monster friends are rising, checking each other for injuries. No serious wounds. I come to the tree house. I'm grabbing the ladder. Climbing.

那些话在我脑海里反复出现：刚被僵尸化的身体。 我听见德克在叫。我没看见他。 突然间，我的胸口有一种紧绷、燃烧、尖叫的感觉。 我想吐，就吐在雪地里。 但我没有。相反，我转身离开，即使我听到我的朋友在我身后叫我。 艾薇把我们困在她的房子里，想把我们变成僵尸。 但我们比她聪明。我们的怪咖打败了她的怪咖。 只是她还没说完。她需要一个新的僵尸。 她回来了，正对着韦克菲尔德镇广场。 我以为我们打败了她。 但现在恐怕我错了…… 我正在穿过城市广场。 我的头从一边转到另一边，快速地看，扫描，搜索。 怪物朋友正在崛起，互相检查对方是否受伤。 没有严重的伤口。我来到树屋。 我要抓住梯子。攀爬。

Heart slamming. Palms sweaty. Pulling myself over the side. I find him... "Dirk?" He doesn't respond. "Hey, buddy," I say softly. "You OK?" After a long moment, he shrugs. "Nah. I'm not." My heart stops slamming, because the fear of not knowing is over. Now it's just coldness. It's cold on my insides, spreading outward. "I messed up," Dirk says. "I got sloppy."

心摔。手心出汗。 把自己拉到一边。 我找到他……“德克?”他没有回应。 “嘿，伙计，”我轻声说。 “你还好吗?”过了好一会儿，他耸了耸肩。 “不。我不是。”我的心停止了跳动，因为对未知的恐惧结束了。 现在只有寒冷。我的内心很冷，向外蔓延。 “我搞砸了，”德克说。“我太粗心了。”

I slowly step forward. I see it. The wound is on his forearm. Just a tiny drop of blood. But it's a zombie bite, just the same. Dirk is calm. "Nothing to do, bro. I know you want to save the day—but you can't. Then you'll feel lousy—like you failed. Here's a Dirk secret: If you don't try, you can't fail. My old man taught me that." I just want to sit here for one more minute That. Ok? Then I'm going to leave. Just walk, walk and walk until KNOCK IT OFF.

我慢慢地向前走。我看到了。 伤口在他的前臂上。 只是一滴血。 但这是僵尸咬伤，还是一样。 德克很冷静。“没什么可做的，兄弟。 我知道你想挽回局面，但你做不到。 然后你会感觉很糟糕，就像你失败了一样。 这里有一个德克的秘密：如果你不尝试，你就不会失败。 这是我老爸教我的。” 我只想在这里多坐一分钟那。 好吗?然后我要走了。 只是走，走，走，直到停止。

I get right in his face—closer than anyone has probably ever gotten in Dirk's face before. Or if they did, they left with their face looking a bit mangled. "Buddy," I say. "I would love to belt out a big, over-the-top, movie-type speech right now all about how much I love you and all the reasons I won't let you get zombified. But there's no time. Right now—there's only time for fixing you." CLANK CLANK CLANK... Our pulley conveyor. I see Bardle step from the lift basket, followed by June and Quint. They see Dirk, they see my face—and they know. "We must act quickly," Bardle says. His voice is barely a whisper. Dirk doesn't resist. Moments later, he's stretched out on our poker table... I expect it to be like a scene from one of those TV shows with doctors running around emergency rooms. You know the ones, where they spend like half their time saving lives and the other half making out in hospital closets? Those shows were

我就在他面前，比以前任何人都更接近德克的脸。 或者，如果他们真的离开了，他们的脸看起来有点受伤。 “伙计，”我说。“我现在很想大声说一段夸张的、电影式的演讲，告诉你我有多爱你，以及我不会让你变成僵尸的所有原因。 但是没有时间了。现在，只有时间来治好你。” 叮当叮当叮当…我们的滑轮输送机。 我看见巴德尔从升降篮里走出来，后面跟着琼和昆特。 他们看到德克，看到我的脸，他们知道。 “我们必须迅速采取行动，”巴德尔说。 他的声音简直像耳语。 德克没有反抗。片刻之后，他躺在我们的牌桌上…… 我希望这就像电视节目里医生在急诊室里跑来跑去的场景一样。 你知道那些人吧，他们一半时间用来救人另一半时间在医院的壁橱里亲热？ 这些节目是