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We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Girl in the Creek by Wendy N. Wagner, a pulse-pounding story about the horrors growing all around us, publishing with Nightfire on July 15th. 我们很高兴分享 Wendy N. Wagner 的《溪谷中的女孩》节选，这是一个关于我们周围不断滋生的恐怖故事，将于 7 月 15 日由 Nightfire 出版。

Erin’s brother Bryan has been missing for five years. 艾琳的哥哥布莱恩已经失踪五年了。

It was as if he simply walked into the forests of the Pacific Northwest and vanished. Determined to uncover the truth, Erin heads to the foothills of Mt. Hood where Bryan was last seen alive. He isn’t the first hiker to go missing in this area, and their cases go unsolved. 就好像他只是走进太平洋西北地区的森林然后就消失了。为了揭开真相，艾琳前往霍德山麓，那里是布莱恩最后被看到的地方。这不是该地区第一个失踪的徒步旅行者，而且他们的案件都未解决。

When she discovers the corpse of a local woman in a creek, Erin unknowingly puts herself in the crosshairs of very powerful forces—from this world and beyond—hell-bent on keeping their secrets buried. 当她在一条溪流中发现一具当地女性的尸体时，艾琳无意中将自己置于非常强大的力量的瞄准线上——来自这个世界和另一个世界——他们决心将他们的秘密埋藏起来。

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The body lay at the very limit of daylight, the last clear place on the stones before the wood framing in the ancient adit began to peel away from the walls and pile up in moldy heaps. 尸体躺在白昼的极限处，是石头上最后一处清晰的地方，就在那古老的巷道开始剥落墙壁，堆积成发霉的土堆之前。

The coyote studied the cold, pale thing even though the air here was very bad, the rusty water in the bottom of the tunnel giving off sour vapors that burned her nose and would have irritated her lungs if her lungs were still a normal coyote’s. The coyote had not been normal in a very long time, though. She stood in ankle-deep water and took in the details of the trouble someone had brought into the Strangeness’s territory. 郊狼研究着那冰冷、苍白的东西，尽管这里的空气非常糟糕，隧道底部的锈水散发着刺鼻的气味，会灼伤它的鼻子，如果它的肺还像普通郊狼一样正常的话，这些气味会刺激它的肺。但郊狼已经很久不正常了。它站在及踝深的水中，审视着某人给怪异之地带来的麻烦的细节。

The body’s head—it was a human head, the coyote knew— rested sideways in the iron-sick water, the chin pointing beyond the limit of its shoulder as the figure lay on its belly. Eyelids still curved over the full spheres of eyes. Whoever this was, they had not been lying here long. Even deep within the earth, eyeballs quickly caught the attention of anything hungry. 尸体的头——郊狼知道，这是一个人的头——侧躺在铁锈般的水中，下巴指向肩膀的极限之外，因为身体是平躺着。眼睑仍然覆盖在眼球上。这个人，他们在这里躺的时间并不长。即使在地下深处，饥饿的任何生物都会很快注意到眼球。

Compelled by the threads of the Strangeness twitching beneath her skin, the coyote trotted closer to the body. Risked a sniff at the backside, the traces of blood here and down the legs. More blood at the head, as well, hidden within the long dark hair. The human’s fingers brushed against the plume of the coyote’s tail like the points of some kind of mushroom springing up from the forest floor. Something secured the hands behind the corpse’s back, a strong artificial scent on the stuff. The coyote had smelled it on many human things in the woods, a bitter substance both flat and flexible. Once, long ago, the coyote had curiously bitten into some and found its gray surface tough but its underside tacky. The stickiness had clung to the coyote’s lips for most of a day, no matter how she had licked at it. 被皮肤下怪异之丝牵引，郊狼向尸体挪近。它凑近嗅了嗅后背，这里和腿上都有血迹。头部也有更多血迹，隐藏在深色长发中。人类的手指拂过郊狼尾巴的羽毛，如同某种从森林地面冒出的蘑菇尖端。什么东西将双手绑在尸体背后，那东西上有一股强烈的化学气味。郊狼在树林里闻过许多人类的东西上都有这种气味，是一种又平又柔的苦涩物质。很久以前，郊狼好奇地咬过一些，发现它的灰色表面坚韧，但下面却粘糊糊的。粘性物质粘在郊狼嘴唇上大半天，无论它怎么舔都舔不掉。

Now she sniffed at the body’s mouth, which still smelled faintly of food and, yes, breath. Barely a breath. The body would give up soon. The coyote felt sure of it, and her own mouth moistened at the thought. 现在它嗅了嗅尸体嘴部，还残留着食物的淡淡气味，是的，还有呼吸。几乎没什么呼吸了。尸体很快就会放弃。郊狼对此确信无疑，想到这里，它自己的嘴巴也湿润了。

The Strangeness sent a surge of discouragement, a mother snapping at her pup’s nose when it nuzzled for milk at an unwanted time. The coyote felt her limbs tighten, the corners of her mouth pull backward. Colors flitted behind her eyes, colors she knew without seeing, shades skewing outside the canine blue-yellow scale and into a sunset spectrum. A ribbon of saliva dripped from the coyote’s lips. 怪异感涌上一股沮丧，就像母狗在它不合时宜地蹭奶时，狠狠咬住它的鼻子。郊狼感到四肢紧绷，嘴角向后扯动。色彩在她眼前飞舞，那些她无需看见就能辨认的色彩，偏离开犬类的蓝黄色谱，滑入日落般的色带。郊狼的嘴唇滴下一道唾液。

Outside, the Strangeness urged, goading the coyote with a sense of light and clean air. A burst of energy in her limbs. The coyote took hold of the body’s filthy ankle and pulled hard. Her jaws were strong, but the Strangeness lent her more strength, toughening her neck, bracing her legs. This had happened a few times in the past, and she knew she would sleep for many hours after this, afterward awakening very hungry and sore in every muscle. 外面的怪异怂恿着，用轻盈和清新空气的感觉驱使着郊狼。四肢爆发出一股力量。郊狼抓住身体脏污的脚踝，用力拉扯。它的下颚很强壮，但怪异赋予它更多力量，使它的脖颈变得坚韧，让它的双腿稳固。过去发生过几次这样的事情，她知道这次之后会睡上好几个小时，醒来后浑身酸痛，而且非常饥饿。

Rocks shifted and splashed beneath the body and the coyote’s paws. The bad smell of the water grew stronger, but the coyote kept pulling. The Strangeness tickled inside her mouth, keeping her grip on the leg even as the flesh shredded beneath her teeth. She could already smell the Strangeness entering the human body through the abrasions in the ankle. The smell comforted her. Better Strange than human, after all. 石头在水下移动，溅起水花。水里的臭味越来越浓，但郊狼仍在拖拽。那股怪异感在她嘴里搔痒，即使牙齿下肉皮正在撕裂，她仍死死抓住那双腿。她已经能闻到怪异感正通过脚踝的擦伤进入人体。那股气味让她感到安慰。毕竟，怪异感总比人类好。

Outside the adit, the land plunged into a narrow creek funneling water down the steep flanks of the mountain. A recent, unusually warm rain had raised the water level, and dampness continued to settle out of the trees and bushes. Any minute the rain would begin again, harder this time. 洞口外，土地陡然跌入一条狭窄的溪流，溪水顺着山势陡峭的斜坡倾泻而下。一场最近异常温暖的雨水已经抬高了水位，潮湿的气息仍在树木和灌木丛中弥漫。随时都可能再次下雨，而且这次会更猛烈。

Another mind tugged at the Strangeness’s awareness, directing it away from the coyote, and for a moment the coyote was very nearly herself again, almost ordinary. Almost. She was still changed enough that her goal remained in the forefront of her mind even when the breath stopped coming from the dying human’s body. The coyote whined to herself, knowing the Strangeness could not bond with a dead animal. 又有另一个意识拉扯着怪异的存在，将它从郊狼身上引开，片刻间，郊狼几乎变回了原来的自己，近乎普通。近乎。她仍然改变得足够多，以至于即使垂死之人的呼吸停止了，她的目标依然清晰地浮现在脑海。郊狼自怨自艾地呜咽着，知道怪异的存在无法与死去的动物建立联系。

But further thoughts on the matter lay far beyond the coyote’s understanding of the world. Her mind circled back to the prompt the Strangeness had given her and fixed on that duty. 但关于此事的更深层思考，远远超出了郊狼对世界的理解。她的思绪回到了怪异之物给她的提示，并聚焦于那项职责。

The coyote gave one last fierce tug and the now-dead body slid over a hummock of sword ferns, gravity urging it toward the creek. It hung up for a second on a thorny salmonberry, and the coyote had to nudge it along. 郊狼最后猛地一拽，已经死去的身体滑过一片剑叶蕨的土丘，重力将它推向小溪。它挂在了一根多刺的鲑果上，停顿了一秒，郊狼不得不推着它继续前进。

When the body splashed into the creek, the coyote broke into a steady run, eager to leave the bad smells of the adit and find a place to shelter out of the rain. But even a mile away and resting inside a hollow log, part of her watched the body in the creek, slowly floating higher and higher in the rising water. Any unease she retained melted at the sense of the Strange emanating from the dead thing. 当尸体溅入小溪时，郊狼开始飞快奔跑，急于离开巷道难闻的气味，寻找一个能避雨的藏身之处。但即使在一英里外，在一根空心原木里休息时，它的一部分意识仍在注视着溪流中的尸体，随着水位上升，尸体缓缓向更高处漂浮。它心中残留的任何不安，都在来自这死物的奇异感中消融。

The coyote put her tail over her nose and let the Strangeness comfort her with its gentle thrum beneath her skin. Deep within the log, the ancient rotting wood hummed along, a sound that carried through the soil and into the trees, one soft hum stretching for miles in every direction. The coyote listened to her fellow Strange throughout the forest, frogs and trees and all kinds of beings, even the male who had fathered the pups growing in her belly. His mind ran in soft blue circuits much like her own, flickering at the edge of their territory. 郊狼把尾巴搭在鼻子上，让这奇异感以其皮肤下的轻柔震动来安慰它。在原木深处，古老的腐朽木材发出嗡嗡声，这声音穿过土壤，传入树林，形成了一片绵延数英里、四面八方都能听到的柔和嗡鸣。郊狼倾听着森林中所有的奇异感，青蛙、树木和各种生灵，甚至在她腹中成长的幼崽的父亲。他的思维如同她自己的思维一样，在蓝色柔软的电路中运行，在它们的领地边缘闪烁。

Suddenly, a sharp pain ripped through his blue humming. An image of two humans floated across the network of plants and creatures, the humans barking with laughter as the biggest of the pair picked up the coyote by his neck. Something sharp pierced the male’s side again and again as he shrieked in pain. 突然，一阵剧痛穿透了他的蓝色嗡鸣。一幅人类图像在植物和生物的网络中漂浮，其中两个人类发出大笑，其中最大的一人抓起郊狼的脖子。有什么尖锐的东西一次次刺穿雄性的侧面，他发出痛苦的尖叫声。

Within her log, the female coyote whimpered, and the pain spread from her to the fern growing nearby. To the pair of vine maples sheltering her den. Onward and outward, the unpleasant sensation rippled throughout the Strangeness, and then the male coyote’s voice went quiet completely. 在她的日志中，那只雌性郊狼呜咽着，疼痛从她身上蔓延到附近的长蕨。蔓延到庇护她巢穴的藤枫树丛。那令人不适的感觉继续在怪异之地扩散，接着，那只雄性郊狼的声音彻底安静了。

The human body began to float away from the creek’s bank and drift downstream. 人的身体开始从溪岸边漂起，顺流而下。