In the urban area of Austin, tall buildings rise majestically, and the roads on both sides are crowded with people and traffic, but there is no reason on the road. Occasionally, there are ambulances rushing by. Even if in the environment is extremely noisy, some people can clearly hear the car, the patient's howl of pain.
"Are you sure you want to choose here?"
Looking at the large shopping mall where the crowd was going in and out, Brian asked Sarah next to him with some uncertainty, knowing that the things there were not cheap.
"Surely."
Sarah pulled $50 out of her pocket and said proudly:
"I've been saving money for a long time for this day. Dad has been complaining about the broken watch. I can buy him a new one."
"Oh..."
Brian looked at Sarah's $50 with a very strange expression. If the $50 was converted into Chinese currency, it was only over 350 yuan. It was a dream to buy a nice watch.
"Sarah, your money seems to be..."
"What the--!"
Just when Brian wanted to remind the other party that the money was not enough, a sudden noise was heard on the opposite street, both of them were attracted by the movement and turned their heads to look in the direction of the sound.
They saw a black man kneeling weakly at the side of the road, his chest heaving violently, panting heavily, his body trembling, blood vessels hidden under the skin bulging, the eye sockets were black and bright red injected blood overflowed from inside and outside the eyes A series of symptoms made him look extremely frightening.
Everyone around him knew that this person had a new type of infection that suddenly appeared recently, and they covered their mouths and noses one by one to stay away from this area.
"Call headquarters, find symptomatic patients and ask for an ambulance to be assigned."
What happened here attracted police patrolling nearby. They saw him run and call for an ambulance on the walkie-talkie. When he ran to the black man, he removed his handcuffs and put the other man's hands behind him.
This action by the police has aroused strong discontent among the black people around them, the more temperamental ones are persuading the police to release the handcuffs quickly, while the less temperamental ones are swearing aside, and some even have guns in their hands, as if they would like to run out at any moment into the crowds to rescue their fellow countryman.
The policeman looked coldly at the crowd around him, drew his gun casually and silently warned the people around him not to do anything drastic.
After a while, the sound of the ambulance "Di Du Di Du" went from far to near, and stopped next to the police. At that moment, the big black man seemed to have lost his mind. It took a lot of energy to fix him in the hospital bed and put him into the car.
With the departure of the ambulance, the crowd of onlookers saw that there was no lively surveillance, and everyone gradually dispersed, and the normal scene resumed in the street, as if nothing had happened at this time.
Witnessing this whole process, Brian suddenly became very frightened, a voice in his ear seemed to tell him that something bad was about to happen, and he muttered:
"Why do I always have a sinister premonition?"
On the other hand, when Sarah saw the crowd dispersing, she too retracted her gaze. This kind of thing happens every day, and everyone is used to it. She took Brian's hand at her side and was about to walk toward the mall. Go , with a mischievous smile on his face, "Let's go in quickly, fortunately you're here, otherwise I wouldn't dare to come here to buy things."
"Huh?"
Brian, who was still surrounded by anxiety at first, heard what Sarah said and instantly left the insecurity behind and looked at the girl in disbelief.
"You asked me to come here to support you with money, didn't you?"
"Bingo."
Snapping her fingers vigorously, ignoring the surprised eyes of the others, Sarah wrapped her arms around Brian's right arm,
With her head resting on his shoulder, she looked at him expectantly and said:
"You won't disappoint me, will you?"
Looking at that cute little face and those hopeful eyes, Brian covered his forehead with his palm and sighed helplessly:
"My goodness, my poor pocket money."
.....
It was already 2:30 by the time they got back to school, school was almost out, and the students in the hall were packing their bags, Brian and Sarah slipped into the hall while everyone was not paying attention.
Back in his seat and looking at Sarah, who had a watch box and a greeting card with a cartoon dinosaur cover in her hand, Brian twisted the corners of his mouth. That was his pocket money for weeks.
When Teacher Judy returned to the classroom, everyone packed up their belongings, followed her to the school door and boarded the oncoming school bus.
By 3 o'clock, the two were back in the suburbs, teasing Jimmy's puppy a few times, and Sarah invited Brian to her house.
Brian thought for a moment that he had nothing to do when he got home, so he readily agreed. When he walked into Sarah's house, he found that, well, the room was very clean and tidy.
"Sit down for a while, I'm going upstairs to change my clothes."
Watching Sarah disappear up the stairs, Brian wandered boredly around the room. There were many pictures of Sarah and her father Joel on the table, and there was a soccer ball in the corner with Sarah's team name on it.
"This is...."
On the kitchen refrigerator, Brian saw a note Joel had left Sarah and looked at the contents:
I'll be home late tonight, you can order takeout yourself, see you in the morning.
dad
"Kick-Kick-Kick-"
Hearing footsteps on the stairs, Brian knew Sarah had come downstairs, so he pointed to the note and said in the direction of the stairs, "Sarah, it looks like your birthday present can't be delivered today."
"What?"
Sarah, who had just come downstairs, was stunned when she heard Brian's words and then saw the note pointed the other way, as if realizing something, and quickly stepped forward and looked at the contents.
Within minutes, Sarah sat on the living room couch with a sad face like a deflated ball, without the happy smile she had a few hours ago.
"So, what should you do with this gift?"
Brian looked at this scene with some amusement and didn't know how to console him.
"If it's delivered tomorrow, it shouldn't be too late."
"No."
As soon as Brian finished speaking, Sarah immediately got up from the couch, puffed out her cheeks and said angrily, "There's no way you're sending a gift the next day, I'll be here waiting for it to come back."
"....."
"Okay."
Seeing the determined look on the other's face, Brian shrugged, but didn't know what to say, after all, this matter had nothing to do with him in the first place.
"Have you decided what to do about dinner?"
Sarah pointed to the sheet of paper Joel left and said, "Don't write it all down, let's order takeout."
"You had takeout yesterday too."
Brian scratched his head, walked to the kitchen, opened the fridge, looked at some ingredients and said, "Forget it, I'll make it for you. Eating takeout is not good for your health."
"Do you still cook?"
"Surely!"
Night falls.
Brian lingered in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows in the room, moonlight shining through the window on his slightly perturbed face. Josie, the babysitter, had already left and wouldn't be here until tomorrow morning.
Looking out the window at the night, remembering the sickness of the black man he saw during the day, even though it was almost 12 o'clock, he could not sleep peacefully.
Looking at Sarah's house next door, there was a light in the living room, he saw Joel coming home just now, thinking that the gift should have been delivered by now.
At the thought of this, the corners of Brian's lips lifted slightly, he picked up the remote next to the bed and turned on the TV. Since he couldn't sleep and didn't have a cell phone, watching TV was also a good pastime . .
"let go--!"
The sudden ringing of the phone woke Brian, who was sleeping. He slowly opened his eyes and sat up from the bed. The screen of the landline phone next to him was still flashing with a bright light. Just now he was watching TV and fell asleep without realizing it. He looked at the time on the clock. It was 2 am now The clock ran out.
"Who called so late?"
Muttering into his mouth, Brian sleepily reached out and picked up the phone next to the bed, put it to his ear and said:
"Who?"
He only opened his mouth to say a word, and a woman's scream of joy came from the other end of the phone.
"Oh, my God, finally connected!"
As soon as he heard the voice on the other end of the phone, Brian's head, which was still a little confused, woke up immediately, the voice he was very familiar with came from his mother.
Just as he was about to speak, the voice on the other end of the phone rang again, "Brian, you must listen carefully to what I say next."
"The world is about to fall into a disaster, the infection is completely out of control, these lunatics are constantly hurting people, we have a black box in our bedroom closet with a gun in it, and your dad and I can ... don't communicate with Washington, go get ... d.... d..."
But before the other party could finish speaking, the phone suddenly hung up. Brian quickly hung up the call and called back, but there were only bursts of blind tones on the phone.
The sinister premonition was pouring out uncontrollably, and he stared at the lights that were constantly on in the dark night outside the window, he knew that an unknown storm was about to sweep over the entire world.