Chapter 15

ETHAN HAD TOLD PALOMAR LABORATORIES to analyze¹ his blood for traces of illicit² chemicals, in case he’d been drugged without his knowledge. During the events at Reynerd’s apartment house, he had almost seemed to be in an altered state of consciousness.
Now, leaving the steamy bathroom, he felt no less disoriented than when, after being gut³ shot, he had found himself behind the wheel of the Expedition once more, unharmed.
Whatever had happened—or had only seemed to happen—at the mirror, he no longer entirely⁴ trusted his senses. As a consequence, he proceeded with greater caution than before, assuming that yet again things might not be as they appeared to be.
He passed through rooms he’d already searched and then into new territory, arriving at last in the kitchen. Shattered glass sparkled on the breakfast table and littered the floor.
Also on the floor lay the silver picture frame missing from the desk in the study. The photo of Hannah had been stripped out of it.
Whoever had taken the picture had been in too great a hurry to release the four fasteners on the back of the frame, and had instead smashed the glass.
[109] The rear door of the apartment stood open.
Beyond lay a wide hall that served the back of both penthouse units. At the nearer end, an exit sign marked a stairwell. Toward the farther end was a freight elevator big enough to carry refrigerators and large pieces of furniture.
If someone had taken the freight route down, he had already completed his descent. No sound issued from the elevator machinery⁶.
Ethan hurried to the stairs. Opened the fire door. Paused on the threshold, listening.
Groan⁷ or moan, or melancholy⁸ sigh, or clank of chains: Even a ghost ought to make a sound, but only a cold hollow silence rose out of the stairwell.
He went down quickly, ten flights to the ground floor, then another two flights to the garage. He encountered neither a flesh-and-blood resident nor a spirit.
The scent⁵ of sickness and fever sweats, first detected in the elevator, didn’t linger here. Instead, he smelled a faint soapy odor, as if someone fresh from a bath had passed this way. And a trace of spicy⁹ aftershave.
Pushing open the steel fire door, stepping into the garage, he heard an engine, smelled exhaust fumes¹⁰. Of the forty parking stalls, many were empty at this hour on a work day.
Toward the front of the garage, a car backed out of a stall. Ethan recognized Dunny’s midnight-blue Mercedes sedan.
Triggered by remote control, the garage gate was already rising with a steely clack and clatter¹¹.
Pistol still in hand, Ethan ran toward the car as it pulled away from him. The gate rose slowly, and the Mercedes had to stop for it. Through the rear window, he could see the silhouette¹² of a man behind the steering¹³ wheel, but not clearly enough to make an identification.
Drawing near to the Mercedes, he swung wide of it. He intended to go directly to the driver’s door.
[110] The car shot forward while the barrier continued to rise, before it was fully¹⁴ out of the way. The roof of the Mercedes came within a fraction of an inch of leaving a generous paint sample on the bottom rail of the ascending¹⁵ gate, and raced up the steep exit ramp¹⁶ to the street.
The driver thumbed CLOSE on his remote even as he passed under the gate, which was clattering¹⁷ down again when Ethan reached it. Already the Mercedes had turned out of sight into the street above.
He stood there for a moment, peering through the gate into the gray storm light.
Rainwater streamed down the driveway ramp. Foaming¹⁸, it vanished through the slots of a drain in the pavement immediately outside the garage.
On that concrete incline, a small lizard¹⁹, back broken by a car tire, but still alive, struggled gamely against the sluicing²⁰ water. So persistently²¹ did it twitch²² upward inch by inch that it seemed to believe all its needs could be satisfied and all its injuries healed by some power at the summit.
Not wanting to see the little creature inevitably²³ defeated and washed down to die upon the drain grate, Ethan turned away from the sight of it.
He returned the pistol to his shoulder holster.
He studied his hands. They were trembling.
On the back stairs once more, climbing to the fifth floor, he encountered the lingering soapy smell, the trace of aftershave. This time, he also detected another odor less clean than the first two, elusive²⁴ but disturbing.
Whatever else he might be, Dunny Whistler was surely a living man, not an animated²⁵ corpse²⁶. Why would one of the walking dead come home to shower, shave, and dress in clean clothes? Absurd.
In the apartment kitchen, Ethan used a DustBuster to vacuum up the fragments of picture-frame glass.
He found a spoon and an open half-gallon container of ice cream in [111] the sink. Apparently²⁷, those who were recently resurrected enjoyed chocolate caramel swirl²⁸.
He put the ice cream in the freezer and returned the empty picture frame to the study.
In the master bedroom, he stopped short of the bathroom doorway²⁹. He had intended to check the mirror once more, to see if it was still misted and if, in the glass, anything moved that shouldn’t be there.
Actively³⁰ seeking that phantom³¹ suddenly seemed to be a bad idea. Instead, he left the apartment, turning off the lights and locking the door behind him.
In the main elevator, as Ethan descended³², he thought, For the same reason that the proverbial wolf put on a sheep’s skin to move undetected among the lambs.
That was why one of the walking dead would shower, shave, and put on a good suit.
As the elevator conveyed Ethan to the ground floor, he knew how Alice must have felt in free fall down the rabbit hole.

1 analyze   

vt.分析，解析 (=analyse)

参考例句：

• We should analyze the cause and effect of this event.我们应该分析这场事变的因果。
• The teacher tried to analyze the cause of our failure.老师设法分析我们失败的原因。

2 illicit   

adj.非法的，禁止的，不正当的

参考例句：

• He had an illicit association with Jane.他和简曾有过不正当关系。
• Seizures of illicit drugs have increased by 30% this year.今年违禁药品的扣押增长了30%。

3 gut   

n.[pl.]胆量；内脏；adj.本能的；vt.取出内脏

参考例句：

• It is not always necessary to gut the fish prior to freezing.冷冻鱼之前并不总是需要先把内脏掏空。
• My immediate gut feeling was to refuse.我本能的直接反应是拒绝。

4 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

5 scent   

n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉

参考例句：

• The air was filled with the scent of lilac.空气中弥漫着丁香花的芬芳。
• The flowers give off a heady scent at night.这些花晚上散发出醉人的芳香。

6 machinery   

n.(总称)机械，机器；机构

参考例句：

• Has the machinery been put up ready for the broadcast?广播器材安装完毕了吗？
• Machinery ought to be well maintained all the time.机器应该随时注意维护。

7 groan   

vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音

参考例句：

• The wounded man uttered a groan.那个受伤的人发出呻吟。
• The people groan under the burden of taxes.人民在重税下痛苦呻吟。

8 melancholy   

n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的

参考例句：

• All at once he fell into a state of profound melancholy.他立即陷入无尽的忧思之中。
• He felt melancholy after he failed the exam.这次考试没通过，他感到很郁闷。

9 spicy   

adj.加香料的；辛辣的，有风味的

参考例句：

• The soup tasted mildly spicy.汤尝起来略有点辣。
• Very spicy food doesn't suit her stomach.太辣的东西她吃了胃不舒服。

10 fumes   

n.(强烈而刺激的)气味，气体

参考例句：

• The health of our children is being endangered by exhaust fumes. 我们孩子们的健康正受到排放出的废气的损害。
• Exhaust fumes are bad for your health. 废气对健康有害。

11 clatter   

v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声

参考例句：

• The dishes and bowls slid together with a clatter.碟子碗碰得丁丁当当的。
• Don't clatter your knives and forks.别把刀叉碰得咔哒响。

12 silhouette   

n.黑色半身侧面影，影子，轮廓；v.描绘成侧面影，照出影子来，仅仅显出轮廓

参考例句：

• I could see its black silhouette against the evening sky.我能看到夜幕下它黑色的轮廓。
• I could see the silhouette of the woman in the pickup.我可以见到小卡车的女人黑色半身侧面影。

13 steering   

n.操舵装置

参考例句：

• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration. 他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。
• Steering according to the wind, he also framed his words more amicably. 他真会看风使舵，口吻也马上变得温和了。

14 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

15 ascending   

adj.上升的，向上的

参考例句：

• Now draw or trace ten dinosaurs in ascending order of size.现在按照体型由小到大的顺序画出或是临摹出10只恐龙。

16 ramp   

n.暴怒，斜坡，坡道；vi.作恐吓姿势，暴怒，加速；vt.加速

参考例句：

• That driver drove the car up the ramp.那司机将车开上了斜坡。
• The factory don't have that capacity to ramp up.这家工厂没有能力加速生产。

17 clattering   

发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式）

参考例句：

• Typewriters keep clattering away. 打字机在不停地嗒嗒作响。
• The typewriter was clattering away. 打字机啪嗒啪嗒地响着。

18 foaming   

adj.布满泡沫的；发泡

参考例句：

• He looked like a madman, foaming at the mouth. 他口吐白沫，看上去像个疯子。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He is foaming at the mouth about the committee's decision. 他正为委员会的决定大发其火。 来自《简明英汉词典》

19 lizard   

n.蜥蜴，壁虎

参考例句：

• A chameleon is a kind of lizard.变色龙是一种蜥蜴。
• The lizard darted out its tongue at the insect.蜥蜴伸出舌头去吃小昆虫。

20 sluicing   

v.冲洗( sluice的现在分词 )；（指水）喷涌而出；漂净；给…安装水闸

参考例句：

• The ship's crew was sluicing down the deck. 船员们正在冲洗甲板。
• An attendant was sluicing out the changing rooms. 一位服务员正在冲洗更衣室。 来自《简明英汉词典》

21 persistently   

ad.坚持地；固执地

参考例句：

• He persistently asserted his right to a share in the heritage. 他始终声称他有分享那笔遗产的权利。
• She persistently asserted her opinions. 她果断地说出了自己的意见。

22 twitch   

v.急拉，抽动，痉挛，抽搐；n.扯，阵痛，痉挛

参考例句：

• The smell made my dog's nose twitch.那股气味使我的狗的鼻子抽动着。
• I felt a twitch at my sleeve.我觉得有人扯了一下我的袖子。

23 inevitably   

adv.不可避免地；必然发生地

参考例句：

• In the way you go on,you are inevitably coming apart.照你们这样下去，毫无疑问是会散伙的。
• Technological changes will inevitably lead to unemployment.技术变革必然会导致失业。

24 elusive   

adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的

参考例句：

• Try to catch the elusive charm of the original in translation.翻译时设法把握住原文中难以捉摸的风韵。
• Interpol have searched all the corners of the earth for the elusive hijackers.国际刑警组织已在世界各地搜查在逃的飞机劫持者。

25 animated   

adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的

参考例句：

• His observations gave rise to an animated and lively discussion.他的言论引起了一场气氛热烈而活跃的讨论。
• We had an animated discussion over current events last evening.昨天晚上我们热烈地讨论时事。

26 corpse   

n.尸体，死尸

参考例句：

• What she saw was just an unfeeling corpse.她见到的只是一具全无感觉的尸体。
• The corpse was preserved from decay by embalming.尸体用香料涂抹以防腐烂。

27 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

28 swirl   

v.(使)打漩，(使)涡卷；n.漩涡，螺旋形

参考例句：

• The car raced roughly along in a swirl of pink dust.汽车在一股粉红色尘土的漩涡中颠簸着快速前进。
• You could lie up there,watching the flakes swirl past.你可以躺在那儿，看着雪花飘飘。

29 doorway   

n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径

参考例句：

• They huddled in the shop doorway to shelter from the rain.他们挤在商店门口躲雨。
• Mary suddenly appeared in the doorway.玛丽突然出现在门口。

30 actively   

adv.积极地，勤奋地

参考例句：

• During this period all the students were actively participating.在这节课中所有的学生都积极参加。
• We are actively intervening to settle a quarrel.我们正在积极调解争执。

31 phantom   

n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的

参考例句：

• I found myself staring at her as if she were a phantom.我发现自己瞪大眼睛看着她，好像她是一个幽灵。
• He is only a phantom of a king.他只是有名无实的国王。

32 descended   

a.为...后裔的，出身于...的

参考例句：

• A mood of melancholy descended on us. 一种悲伤的情绪袭上我们的心头。
• The path descended the hill in a series of zigzags. 小路呈连续的之字形顺着山坡蜿蜒而下。