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We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford, a heart-wrenching spin on the zombie mythos publishing with Gallery Books on July 15th. 我们很高兴分享来自 Leigh Radford 的《一只黄眼》的节选，这是对僵尸传说的令人心碎的改编，将于 7 月 15 日由 Gallery Books 出版

How far would you go to save your marriage? For British scientist Kesta Shelley, there is no limit. 为了拯救你的婚姻，你会走多远？对于英国科学家 Kesta Shelley 来说，没有极限。

Having always preferred the company of microbes, Kesta has spent her life looking down the barrel of a microscope rather than cultivating personal relationships. But that changed when Kesta met Tim—her cheerleader, her best friend, her absolute everything. So, when he was one of the last people in London to be infected with a perplexing virus that left the city ravaged, Kesta went into triage mode. Kesta 一直更喜欢微生物的陪伴，她一生都对着显微镜而不是培养人际关系。但当 Kesta 遇到 Tim 时——他是她的啦啦队长，她的最好朋友，她的绝对全部。所以，当他是伦敦最后被感染上一种神秘病毒的人之一，这种病毒让城市遭受破坏时，Kesta 进入了紧急处理模式。

Though the government has rounded up and disposed of all the infected, Kesta is able to keep her husband (un)alive—and hidden—with resources from the hospital where she works. She spends her days reviewing biopsy slides and her evenings caring for him, but he’s clearly declining. The sedatives aren’t working like they used to, and his violent outbursts are becoming more frequent. As Kesta races against the clock, her colleagues start noticing changes in her behavior and appearance. She is withering away, self-medicating with alcohol, and has stopped attending her mandated ZARG (Zombie Apocalypse Recovery Group) meetings. Her care for Tim has spiraled into absolute obsession. 尽管政府已经抓捕并处理了所有感染者，凯斯塔却能用她在医院工作的资源，让丈夫（活）着——而且藏起来。她白天审查活检切片，晚上照顾他，但他显然在恶化。镇静剂不再像以前那样起作用了，他的暴力爆发也变得更加频繁。当凯斯塔与时间赛跑时，她的同事们开始注意到她行为和外表的变化。她日渐憔悴，用酒精自制药，并且停止参加强制性的 ZARG（丧尸末日恢复小组）会议。她对蒂姆的照顾已经演变成一种绝对痴迷。

There are whispers of a top-secret lab working on a cure, and Kesta clings to the possibility of being recruited like a lifeline. But can she save her husband before he is discovered? Or worse… will they trigger another outbreak? 有传言说有一个秘密实验室正在研究治愈方法，凯斯塔紧紧抓住被招募的希望，就像抓住救命稻草。但她能在被发现之前救活她的丈夫吗？或者更糟……他们会引发另一次爆发吗？

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London lay prone, a cadaver dredged from a riverbed, under a sheet of cloud, resigned and exposed. It was no longer the city Kesta had grown up in. This city was terminal, its life draining away through mile after mile of ancient drains, out into the Thames Estuary and the North Sea. As she walked toward the Barbican, past its deserted tube station, heading east, she could slice through the lane dividers all the way down Aldersgate Street without a single car to bother her. The red Z signs spray painted onto doors and windows of buildings where the virus had struck demarcated her journey. Government posters clung to their walls shredded and defaced. Huge billboards lit up the roundabout warning people to stay indoors. Leaflets and cards, printed and handwritten, clogged up the gutters along the pavements. Churches offering sanctuary. Instructions from the army on self-defense. Homemade posters for those who were missing, their expectant faces now dirtied by other people’s footprints, staring up at Kesta from the ground, still hoping to be found. Evangelical fliers proclaiming the end of times and all the answers you needed at the end of a hotline for £6.99 a minute. The streets were littered with relics of the crisis that lay where they had fallen, in the doorways of shuttered shops and cafes where once the homeless might have slept. Kesta passed by an old pub, still boarded up, a single light on in the back somewhere, shining for no one. There were no homeless people living in London now. They had been amongst the first to die. 伦敦俯卧着，像从河床打捞出的尸体，在一片云层下，麻木而暴露。这已不是 Kesta 成长的城市。这座城市已濒临终结，它的生命正通过一英里又一英里的古老排水管，流失到泰晤士河口和北海。当她走向巴比肯，经过空无一人的地铁车站，向东走去时，她可以毫无阻碍地穿过车道分隔线，一路直达奥尔德斯盖特街，没有一辆车打扰她。那些病毒袭击过的建筑物的门和窗户上喷绘的红色 Z 标志，标示着她的旅程。政府海报贴在墙上，被撕碎和涂鸦。巨大的广告牌照亮了环岛，警告人们待在家中。传单和卡片，印刷的和手写的，堵塞了人行道旁的沟渠。提供庇护的教堂。军队的自卫指南。为失踪者制作的自制海报，他们期待的脸庞如今被他人的脚印玷污，从地面上仰望着 Kesta，仍然希望被找到。福音传单宣告着末日，以及你需要的一切答案，只需拨打热线电话，每分钟 6.99 英镑。 街道上散落着危机的遗物，它们掉落在曾经可能有无家可归者睡觉的关门店铺和咖啡馆的门廊里。凯斯塔经过一家老酒吧，它仍然被木板封着，后门某个地方亮着一盏灯，却无人照耀。如今伦敦再没有无家可归者居住了。他们是最早死去的人之一。

Coming home to no one was the hardest part of all. Before turning the key in the lock, there was a split second of hope, that he’d still be there as she remembered him. The flat was so lonely without his endless chatter, always delivered in his outdoor, college bar baritone. Indoor voice, for God’s sake she used to say to him, the neighbors will hear you. Tim would give her that smile, her only weakness, and carry on as loudly as before. She had the indoor voice. And without him it was barely a whisper. What she wouldn’t give to be embarrassed by the sheer volume of him now. 回到家却空无一人，这是最艰难的部分。在转动钥匙进入锁孔之前，有一瞬间的希望，他仍然在那里，就像她记忆中的样子。没有他的无尽喋喋不休，公寓显得如此孤独，他总是用户外、大学酒吧那种低沉的声音说话。她曾对他说，上帝啊，要小声点，邻居会听见的。蒂姆会给她那个微笑，那是他唯一的弱点，然后像以前一样大声继续。她有室内音量。没有他，声音几乎微不可闻。她多么希望现在能被他那巨大的音量弄尴尬。

The blinds in the living room remained closed, had been for five months. Light would attract them, they were told at first, so everyone had drawn their curtains and waited obediently for it to be over. She had grown accustomed to shutting out the world because performing for it like a monkey—at work, at therapy, as people tried to engage her at the supermarket or the park—it exhausted her. 客厅的窗帘一直紧闭着，已经这样过了五个月。起初他们告诉她光会吸引它们，所以每个人都乖乖地拉上了窗帘，等待着这一切结束。她已经习惯了隔绝世界，因为像猴子一样为它表演——在工作时，在治疗时，当人们在超市或公园试图与她搭话时——这让她筋疲力尽。

She went to the fridge and removed a bottle of white wine from the night before, along with a cardboard box from the middle shelf. Aside from a pint of milk and a bag of ground coffee, the fridge was as deserted as the flat. Kesta did not cook, that had been Tim’s pleasure. She struggled to eat at home now. 她走到冰箱前，拿出了前一天的一瓶白葡萄酒，还有从中间架子上拿下的一个纸板箱。除了半品脱牛奶和一袋咖啡粉，冰箱和公寓一样空荡荡的。凯斯塔不做饭，那是蒂姆的乐趣。现在她在家吃饭也很困难。

Anyway, the fridge was mostly occupied by blood bags. O+. Kesta’s own. And a regiment of tiny glass vials where the eggs should have been. She poured herself a glass of wine and lifted a circular lemon sponge from the cardboard box, depositing it on a dinner plate and rummaged in the kitchen’s junk draw for something she wasn’t sure she still had. But there they were, the little pink candles, stuffed at the very back, in between a torch, a plug adaptor and some crayons, and she was relieved to see they had only been lit once before. Kesta slid the nicest tea tray she owned, which had belonged to Tim’s mother—art-deco, solid silver handles—out from underneath the drinks trolley in the living room. She arranged her sorry celebration across it. 无论如何，冰箱里大部分都被血袋占满了。O+型的，是凯斯塔自己的。还有一排装着本该是鸡蛋的小玻璃管。她给自己倒了一杯红酒，从纸箱里拿起一块圆形柠檬海绵，放在餐盘上，然后在厨房的杂物抽屉里翻找着什么，虽然她不确定自己是否还有。但它们就在那里，小小的粉色蜡烛，被塞在最里面，在一只手电筒、一个插头适配器和一些蜡笔之间，看到它们之前只点过一次，她松了一口气。凯斯塔从客厅饮料推车下拿出她最漂亮的茶盘——这是蒂姆妈妈的，装饰艺术风格，实心银把手——她把它滑了出来，把可怜的庆祝活动安排在上面。

Kesta laid the tray to rest on the table in the hallway and began the arduous process of opening the four black deadlocks on the spare bedroom door. 凯斯塔把茶盘放在走廊的桌子上，开始费力地打开备用卧室门上的四个黑色死锁。

The room was in total darkness save for the primary colors of the vitals monitor casting an eerie rainbow across the bed like a nursery light. Sporadic bleeps and whirs from the machine reassured Kesta that some life remained. She recorded these readings in the notebook she kept on the nightstand, heart rate, oxygen levels, body temperature. All abnormal but at least unchanged. Kesta returned to the hallway for the tray, sliding it across the nightstand. 房间里一片漆黑，只有生命体征监护仪的主要颜色在床上投下诡异的彩虹，像婴儿床上的灯光。机器发出断断续续的哔哔声和嗡嗡声，让凯斯塔确信还有生命迹象。她在床头柜上的笔记本上记录下这些读数：心率、血氧水平、体温。所有指标都异常，但至少没有变化。凯斯塔回到走廊取托盘，把它滑过床头柜。

One yellow eye watched her. It saw but didn’t see and it never, ever blinked. A graying arm upheaved into the restraints before falling with a defeated puff. Violence had fought its way out of that body and now it was a scene of great suffering. It was unnaturally positioned, a marionette with its strings cut. A spider’s web of ruptured vessels, scaly skin stretched taut and livid. Every inch of it was screaming. But there was no pain, no sound, no progress in the patient that Kesta could determine. 一只黄色的眼睛注视着她。它看见了却没看见，而且永远也不会眨眼。一条灰白的胳膊冲向束缚装置，然后无力地垂落下去。暴力从那具身体里挣扎出来，现在这里是一个充满巨大痛苦的场景。它的姿势很不自然，像被剪断线的木偶。破裂的血管像蜘蛛网一样蔓延，鳞片状的皮肤紧绷而发紫。它的每一寸都在呐喊。但凯斯塔无法确定病人身上没有痛苦、没有声音、没有进展。

She lit the candles on the cake, and she showed the cake to Tim. 她在蛋糕上点燃了蜡烛，然后把蛋糕展示给 Tim。

“Happy Birthday, darling.” “生日快乐，亲爱的。”