Kapitel 25: BARE NECESSITIES [6]
Sam and Xian Mei exchanged glances. 'Hurt how?' asked Xian Mei. 'Is there anything we can do?'
There was a further pause, and then the door opened a bit more to reveal a slender, almost frail young girl, who peered out at them with wide dark eyes, like a timid animal uncertain whether to emerge from its burrow.
'Hi,' said Xian Mei with a sudden warm smile which transformed her face. 'What's your name?' 'Jin,' said the girl. 'Hi, Jin. I'm Xian Mei, that's Sam, and our driver's called Purna.'
Jin looked at Xian Mei and then at Sam.
'How come you're not like the others?' she asked.
'The infected, you mean?' said Sam and shrugged.
'We don't know. We're just not.' 'Infected?' Jin asked. 'There's a virus,' explained Xian Mei. 'It… affects people's minds, sends them crazy.'
'One of the crazy people hurt my papa,' Jin said. Sam tried not to look alarmed. 'Hurt him how?' 'She bit him. She tried to kill him.'
Jin swallowed. 'My papa had to shoot her.'
To his shame, the first question that leaped into Sam's head was to ask Jin what kind of gun her father owned. Resisting the urge, he asked instead, 'And how's your papa now?'
'He's sick,' Jin said. Hesitantly she asked, 'Can you help him?' 'We can try,' said Sam.
'You want to show me where he is?' After another moment's hesitation, the girl nodded and led the way inside.
'Let Purna know what's going on,' Sam muttered to Xian Mei and followed Jin through the door and into the cool gloom of the body shop.
There were tools on racks against the walls, a hydraulic pulley system overhead to lift heavy car parts, and a small office space in the corner.
The place smelled of oil, grease, and metal. Jin led him over to an open door in the left-hand wall. 'This is where we live,' she said simply.
'Papa's through here.' They passed through a short hallway with a threadbare carpet and into a small sitting room at the back of the house.
There wasn't much in there but a small color TV perched on a wooden fruit box, a bookcase which mostly contained Reader's Digest editions of classic novels, and a ratty gray sofa with a matching armchair.
There were also lots of framed family photographs on the walls – some of Jin on her own at various ages, or with her parents, smiling and happy.
Sam wondered what had become of the pretty woman in the photographs who, from the resemblance, was clearly Jin's mother.
He turned his attention to the man lying on the sofa with a blanket over his legs. He was evidently the same man in the photographs, but the difference between the smiling images on the walls and the flesh-and-blood figure on the sofa could not have been more marked. Jin's father was sweating and feverish, his face a ghastly gray, his eyes ringed with dark flesh and rolling in his sockets.
He was breathing stertorously, and there was a bad smell about him, a smell of sickness and fear. His left arm was heavily bandaged from elbow to wrist, and on the floor beside the sofa was a bowl of water with a white cloth floating in it.
'I cleaned and disinfected the wound, and gave him some painkillers, and I've been trying to keep him cool,' said Jin.
'But he's getting worse.
He's been delirious for the past hour and he's had a couple of seizures. I tried calling for an ambulance, but all the phones are dead.'
'How long ago did he get bit?' Sam asked. 'About… four, five hours.' 'And this woman who attacked him? It wasn't…?' Instead of finishing his question, Sam glanced up at the family portraits. Jin shook her head vigorously.
'No. My mama died when I was twelve. Anaplastic large-cell lymphoma.' When Sam raised his eyebrows she said, 'I'm a nurse.
Just about to qualify anyway.' 'Good for you,' Sam said distractedly. He was thinking hard, wondering what to do, what to suggest. He knew that if Jin stayed here with her father he would eventually turn, just like the others, and attack her. Indicating the man's bandaged arm, he asked, 'So how exactly did it happen?'
'He heard a noise in the night, thought someone was messing with the gas pumps. When he saw the woman he thought she was drunk or maybe ill.
He went out to ask if she was OK, and she just attacked him. Papa said she was like a wild animal. He said if he hadn't shot her she would've killed him.'
'So where's this woman now?' Jin shook her head. 'I don't know. Papa said he was sure he'd killed her, but when we looked out later she'd gone.'
Sam was silent for a moment, and then he said, 'Listen, Jin, there ain't no easy way to say this. Your papa's ill, really ill, I mean, and he ain't gonna get better.
This thing he's got, there's no cure for it. Pretty soon he'll turn, like the woman that attacked him, and he'll attack you too.' Jin shook her head almost angrily.
'No! He would never do that!' 'He won't be able to stop himself.
Believe me, I've seen it. You can't do nothing to help him.
All you can do now is help yourself.' 'What are you saying?' Jin's face was stony. Sam took a deep breath.
'You gotta get away from here. You gotta come with us.'
She recoiled, almost as if he had tried to strike her. 'I'm not leaving him!'
'You got to, if you want to live.' 'No!' 'He's right,' croaked a voice from the sofa. Surprised, Sam looked down at Jin's father.
Moments before, the man had been delirious, but now, temporarily at least, the fever had abated and he seemed alert and lucid.
'Papa!' Jin exclaimed delightedly and cast Sam an accusatory look.
'You see. He's getting better.' 'No,' said Jin's father, his voice so weak it was barely there, 'I'm not.' Jin knelt beside her father and took his hand.
'I'm not leaving you, Papa.
You will get better.
I'll make you well.' Jin's father shook his head and winced, even that simple movement seeming to cause him pain.
'You must go,' he said. 'If you don't… then I'll do something terrible, I know it… I'm having such thoughts, my beautiful Jin… such awful thoughts…
You are not safe here…' His eyes drifted closed. Jin clung to her father's hand, shaking her head, tears running down her face. After a moment, the man's eyes flickered open again.
'Leave me some medicine… and lock me in… Help will eventually come… I know it… But
in the meantime… you must go…' His eyes shifted to focus on Sam. 'What's your name?' 'Sam, sir.' 'Sam… a good name…'
He swallowed. 'Sam, do you promise to look after my little girl?' 'Yes, sir,' Sam said gravely. 'I promise.' A ghost of a smile played around Jin's father's lips.
'Thank you,' he whispered. Gently Sam placed a hand on Jin's arm. 'We should go.' Sobbing, Jin lifted her father's hand and kissed it. 'I'll come back for you, Papa. I promise.'
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein