Shiki Novel Translations 2.10.7

[sinnesspiel]

7

First thing on the morning of the seventh, there was a call from the McDougall household. That morning when they tried to awaken their third son, Danny, he was dead, they said. That put Jimmy in a somber mood. The McDougall household's Randy had just died. During the over-night vigil, the funeral, while the household was rushing about, the young man suffered quietly in illness and died with nobody tending to him.

When the reception desk opened, the contractor's Harriet Durham entered. He could tell by looking at her face. It was that. Calamity was steadily falling upon the contractors. That afternoon a young man living in Salem's Lot called Mike Ryerson was brought in. This was another outbreak, as expected. His condition was even worse than Harriet's but not bad enough to call for an ambulance. There was no longer any reason to fear rousing suspicion at the hospital that received him, so he advised him to go if he wanted to, but that was it. Going to the National Hospital wouldn't change the result. If he went to another town to be hospitalized for analysis, it just meant that he would die there without ever returning home again. Of course that couldn't be said to the patient himself so that was all the more reason to hesitate in recommending it.

When he returned to the waiting room, while he was just drawing into the graph, there was a call from Callahan. Callahan's voice was stiff.

"Prichett is gone."

Jimmy's eyes remained on the graph as he responded. "That's..."

"He disappeared, last night. Talking with his family, that's all that she can say."

Jimmy was on the verge of dropping his pen. "Ridiculous."

"According to his wife, at night, when she had gone to bed, he was definitely awake in the living room, she says. From there, when she woke up in the morning, he was nowhere in the home. The car was left in the garage. Thinking he could not have gone far, they've been searching for him since this morning but they haven't yet found him."

(Disappearance--moving.)

Jimmy stood up. "I'll try going to Mr. Prichett's place."

"I will go too."

They made plans to meet up at Prichett's house, hurrying with the things they were to bring. Prichett's wife Amanda's color was drained.

"What could have happened. ---For him to go missing, that's just...."

"Calm down. Last night, was anything strange about Mr.Prichett's behavior? Or for example was he pale, was he not very talkative?"

"No.... Not really. It was the same as usual."

"Did he eat dinner?"

"He ate as much as usual. The day before yesterday was busy it seemed, he had brought his work home. Yesterday he took off from work in the morning to finish it, too. But, it seems he finished with that and in the afternoon he went to the office, and had a relaxing evening drink. If anything, he was more cheerful than usual!"

Then, Jimmy and Callahan understood exchanging looks. It wasn't as if Prichett had an outbreak. But, if not then why did Prichett suddenly go missing. And was there any reason forhim to leave the house after his wife had gone to sleep?

"Uhm," Callahan started to speak with Amanda. "Pardon me but, we were to receive a few documents from Mr. Prichett; might you know of them?"

"Documents... you say?"

"Yes. You said that he had brought work home the day before yesterday, I believe that would have been them."

Ah, Amanda nodded. "Then that would be in my husband's room. I saw him put the envelope in his desk drawer. ---Yes, those must have been for you, Father Callahan. I thought it was strange that he didn't bring it to the town hall when he went back to work yesterday."

Amanda stood before them and guided them to the room on the second story. The room upon immediately going upstairs was probably formerly used by Prichett's child. There was a word processor set on the writing desk, and furniture in place that no longer seemed used, and two or three cardboard boxes piled up with unnecessary items.

"This is my son's room---now it is used as a storage room," Amanda said with a seemingly embarrassed smile, opening the drawer on the writing desk."It's right---what's this?"

Amanda searched within the drawer. "Now that's strange. I thought I had saw him put it in here, but..." Amanda murmured while opening another drawer. "How odd. I wonder if he had brought it to the office after all?"

"Pardon me," Jimmy said nudging Amanda aside. "Would you mind if I looked? It's an important document."

"Yes... Help yourself."

Jimmy searched the drawer. It was mostly filled with stationary and memo note pads with things written down, but there wasn't anything anywhere that looked like a properly written up document. It wasn't just the written report that he couldn't find but the memos and copies and data he would have used were nowhere to be found.

"The data shouldn't have been..."

Hearing Jimmy's voice, Callahan pulled the word processor towards himself. Prichett should have been using this. He looked but there didn't appear to be a disk in it. He tested the eject button but as expected there was no disk inside of it. Opening the lid, he pressed the switch and started it up.

"Jimmy, is there a disk anywhere?"

"There is. Just three. Two of them have labels. One's New Years Cards, one's an address book.

Callahan accepted the disk from Jimmy. They tried the third one with no label but they didn't find the document they were looking for. Nor was it saved on the Word Processor itself. Just to be sure they checked the other two disks but, just as labeled, there were only New Years cards and an address book on them; the report was nowhere to be found.

"It's not here... not anywhere."

Jimmy turned to face Amanda. "He didn't take the documents to another location? He didn't save it to a disk or anything?"

"No. My husband was a very orderly person, he wouldn't scatter things about. If it isn't there, I don't think it is in the house."

"This is ridiculous."

Amanda shook her head, seeming bewildered. "If it isn't in the desk, it is not here. ... Yes, I am certain that yesterday he was empty handed. Even though he was going to the office, there was nothing in his hand. He usually does go empty-handed."

"Are you certain? He did not take anything from the entryway before going out?"

"Nothing. He asked for me to make hamburgers for lunch. I was told that in the morning and so when I came here to bring him pop and hamburgers, my husband was just then putting the document into the envelope. He put it into the envelope, took out the disk and tidied up, and all of it was placed into that drawer. Since he was finished, he came down to eat." Amanda said, looking between Jimmy and Callahan. "Was it.... that important of a document?"

"Well," Jimmy prevaricated.

"I went down with my husband. Since you'd come through all the trouble of bringing it up, he had said to me, he would bring it back down, he said. So we went back down to the first floor, ate lunch, and from there he said he was going to the office. He changed in the bedroom---the bedroom is on the first floor. He changed clothes there and then went out. I tended to him until he went out, so there's no mistake. He was definitely empty handed. He didn't come back to the second story."

"It's all right," Callahan interposed. "We were simply surprised. It is all right. There is a spare."

Is that so, said Amanda sounding half relieved, but have unsatisfied and still confused. "Uhm, I will try to look for it."

"Please do. If there is any word from Mr. Prichett, if you could tell him to contact the temple or the hospital urgently."

Yes, nodded Amanda once again becoming uneasy about her husband's whereabouts. "But... Where could he have gone. This is ridiculous."

Comforting Amanda, Jimmy and Callahan left the Prichett household. Jimmy asked if Callahan wanted to swing by the hospital but Callahan looked to his wrist watch and shook his head.

"No... I have to get back. There's a vigil tonight."

Those words seemed to get Jimmy in the heart. "I see...."

Mr. "Prichett----"

"No matter how you look at it, it's strange. He shouldn't have suddenly gone missing. At least going by his wife's story, it doesn't seem like he suffered an outbreak. But still, he hid where he was going, going out in the middle of the night. And on top of that, probably bringing the document and all its materials with him."

As for the data, Jimmy had it on hand himself. Callahan's notes were also on hand, so the document itself could be made again. But why did Prichett have to completely disappear with them?

This was like, yes--like being surrounded. Moves, retirements, the feeling that something was intentionally isolating them. Jimmy and Callahan were being put under siege, plucked off---interfered with.

(Ridiculous...)

That in itself was a ridiculous prospect. Who would be doing something like that and for what purpose? Was he planning to cook up his own ridiculous conspiracy theories now?

"Something is strange..." Callahan murmured behind Jimmy whose hand lingered on the car door as he thought. Jimmy nodded.

"....It's possible this isn't just a disease."

Callahan nodded too, and with that turned towards his own car.

(The vigil... At the McDougall house.)

They had two with an outbreak, and the disappearances---.

While returning to the hospital, that repeated in Jimmy's head. One death, two outbreaks, one disappearance. Chanting it like a magic spell, he returned to the hospital, there was a young boy about high school age standing before the entryway's closed curtain peering in. He must have noticed the car as he turned around, coming jogging towards Jimmy as he pulled into the parking lot.

"What is it? An emergency case?" Jimmy asked while getting out of the car. He'd seen that face somewhere before. He'd given a few medical exams to him.

"It isn't an emergency case, but... You are Doctor Cody, sir?" The young man said. Hearing that, Tosio remembered. A long while back, he was the patient who had been brought in for a knot on his shinbone.

"You were, if I remember, Henry's place's son, weren't you?"

"That's right," the boy nodded. He had said his first name was Mark, if he remembered. "I have something I would like to ask you, Doctor; may I?"

"By all means."

"It is about Miss Crockett. Ruthie Crockett. You were the doctor who did her medical examination, weren't you?"

"I examined her, and I was the one who did her death certificate, too."

"What did she die of?"

"Acute anemia, wasn't it?"

Mark hesitated to speak, looking to Jimmy with upturned eyes.

"She was definitely dead? ---See, there's a lot of things like brain death it could be, right?"

Jimmy gave a light laugh. In his depths, he could feel something unfamiliar vaguely stirring. "Even if there are doctors who might call a patient with brain death not dead, there aren't any who'd say a patient whose heart's dead isn't dead." Jimmy said with a laugh. For no particular reason he switched his car keys to his other hand. "Her breathing and heart rate stopped, her blood pressure was zero, and her pupillary response was gone. She was dead. No room for doubt."

"But, they say suspended animation happens a lot, don't they."

Jimmy gave a bitter smile. "I haven't seen too many in a state of apparent death but there are patients who look a lot like a corpse but who aren't really dead. If their heart rate is too weak, an amateur can't feel a pulse, their breath is so shallow it can look like they're not breathing at all. But, her heart had completely stopped. Anyone whose heart is stopped that long, even if they were alive, would be dead. --Well, I don't think people in suspended animation have postmortem lividity or rigor mortis either, but."

"Did you know that some are buried alive?"

Jimmy laughed all the more. "I wouldn't put out a death certificate if there was even the slightest chance she was still living. I'd have performed decisive medical treatment. Even if the family tried to stop me. And, without a death certificate from me, they can't bury her."

"Then, there's no absolutely possibility at all of Ms. Crockett coming back to life, right?"

Jimmy burst out laughing. "If she came back to life from that state, she'd be a zombie or a vampire!" His huge laugh was one that Jimmy could feel becoming stiff. (What did I just say?) He looked back at Mark with a smile still. "When purple spots and rigor mortis appear, it means she'd already become a plain old corpse. Things that aren't alive start to rot like that. No matter what kind of famous doctor you have on hand, once decay's started, I don't think they'd be bringing 'em back to life."

"Is that so," Mark murmured lost in thought. Soon he lifted his face and bowed his head. "I understand. Pardon me, asking something strange."

"By the way, you---" In spite of Jimmy speaking to him, Mark turned away. He crossed the parking lot as if running away. "What was it, again, that had you coming to ask me that?"

Mark gave no answer to Jimmy's question. Glancing over his shoulder he gave a faint salutation, then hurried off of the grounds.

---A zombie or a vampire!

Jimmy reflected on his own words.

The patient's state, the cause of death. He thought and shook his head. (Ridiculous. He laughed bitterly at himself but as expected midway his laughter became strained and tapered off. (Impossible. Those things, they don't exist.)

--When kids are bad, the devil comes.

Up from their graces, they came. Capturing children, taking them to a hole in the ground and devouring them.

When he was a really little kid told that by the elderly, he remembered saying two people wouldn't fit in one grave back at them. There were no demons that rose from the grave. (One dead, two outbreaks, one vanished.)

(Nodes.... Marks like insect bites.) Jimmy went around to the back entrance, returning to the waiting room through the staff entrance. (Bites, anemia---death.)

One dead, two outbreaks, one vanished.

Closing the open waiting room door, Jimmy showed his face in the break room.

"Mrs. Coogan." When he called out, the nurses stopped rolling gauze and looked back. Mrs. Coogan stood up nimbly. "Sorry but could you remake the coverage list?"

"The work schedule?"

Jimmy nodded. "I know we're short on help but I've just got a bad feeling. ---We're going to be hospitalizing the wife of the Durhams."


Mark half-ran. His shadow grew long at his feet as the sun sank down into the western mountains.

(A zombie or a vampire.) The shadow looked ominous. (A corpse that can live---the dead revived.)

With that, it wasn't impossible.

Because this village still buries its dead.

 

Comments

8D

[(Anonymous)]

Ho ho ho ho, your prank for April Mop! I like it though, really creative. That being said, congratulations for having completed translating book one of Shiki! Thank you very much, as well, for not stopping translating till this day. I really really do appreciate your work. I enjoy talking to you as well. ^^

Now I plan to reread all the translations of book one. Will try to analyze them more. Perhaps I'll even pick some new notes worth having discussions about, especially about our favorite pairing.

[sinnesspiel]

I'll start on Book 2 in May if not sooner, so don't think of this as stopping! I'll be checking for any lines I missed, lines I may have thought meant something at that time but mean something else, unnecessarily awkward translations, stuff like that.

8D

[(Anonymous)]

Of course I don't ^^ wanted to thank you anyway. I'll be looking forward to book two! Next up will be that part I asked you about; Seishin and Toshio hanging out in Seishin's room and having that shiki discussion. In their case extremely important discussions always happen in bedroom, apparently. (except that moral horizon part, I suppose)

I actually nearly fell for that prank, as I haven't read 'Salem's Lot. There are some things which I felt off still, and the ending part was what ultimately gave it away. I have a question though: do Jimmy and Father Callahan have quite a similar relationship to Seishin and Toshio's?

[sinnesspiel]

Nah, they're not close at all. There's no Tohru to the Natsuno, no Sunako, no Tatsumi... A lot of major characters just have no equivalent, best I can tell. I've never read it either, to be honest; I just plucked names that seemed to fit the characters best from some summaries and such.

[airlynx]

Lolol! Ah yes, my favorite part of Salem's Lot. I should have known something was up when the post didn't include character tags!

Again, thank you soo much for choosing to follow through with this translation, with regular updates and culture notes too; congratulations on getting this far, I'll be looking forward to part 2 in May! I'll reread it too, since so much material's been covered that I don't want to forget any of the parts. I'll grammar-Nazi anything I notice that I think could be fixed; it's hard to tell occasionally, since I'm not sure if the grammar's off to preserve the original Japanese formatting sometimes. Glad to hear you'll still be around, it'd be weird not having comment convo's while reading ^__^ I like Mafia, count me in for Sunday's game.