June 20, 2027
The day broke with great reluctance, like a shroud that had been repeatedly starched and washed until it was yellowed and stiff, clinging grimly to the window frame.
Eleven in the morning.
The entire building was like a giant, welded-shut pressure cooker, suppressing all sounds and signals to their very depths. Yu Molan stood by the window, his right arm aching from being held up, the muscles even beginning to twitch. The signal bars in the upper-right corner of the screen were like a dying patient's EKG, occasionally struggling to jump up a bar before quickly flatlining again. He switched hands. The phone case tapped against the aluminum alloy window frame. The sound was jarringly loud in the dead-silent living room.
In the living room, Lin Zhixi was sitting on the sofa, reading *Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows* to Xiaoyu. Ten-year-old Xiaoyu would normally have scorned such a bedtime story, but now she was curled up in a corner of the sofa, clutching a cushion for dear life. Lin Zhixi read extremely slowly, her tone as flat as if she were reciting some tedious lesson plan. With every turn of the page, she would rub her thumb repeatedly against the corner, as if the paper's thickness could offer her some sense of security.
It was as if, so long as the story wasn't finished, the snake-faced Voldemort wouldn't emerge from the filthy, yellow fog outside the window.
The phone by the window suddenly vibrated. A single, weak bar of signal flickered to life.
Yu Molan's thumb slammed onto the screen. The browser page spun a dozen times on its white background before finally squeezing out a few fragmented lines of a bulletin:
"June 17… Pacific Ocean… Deep-sea anomaly report"
"Coastal communications completely severed. Public advised to remain silent, stay away from water sources, and move to higher ground…"
He quickly switched to WeChat. In the company group chat, the "check-in" messages from the administration department had stopped the day before yesterday. Hundreds of "Safe" messages were lined up neatly like tombstones. No one had said anything since. In the family group, there was only a single voice message from his mother, sent yesterday afternoon.
Yu Molan played it. Only fragmented static and the shriek of electrical interference came from the speaker:
"...Molan... you... over there... don't drink the tap water... at home... whatever you do, don't..."
The rest was twenty long seconds of dead silence.
Yu Molan stared at the screen and slowly typed out the word "Safe," then hit send. The small sending circle spun until it made him dizzy. By the time the signal disappeared again, the word was still accompanied by that spinning icon. He didn't know if the message had been sent, or if it had vanished like a shooting star.
Lin Zhixi had come up behind him at some point. She glanced at the half-loaded short video on the screen. In the video, a coastal highway had been completely obliterated. The asphalt looked as if it had been ripped apart by a giant hand, and a thick, rust-colored black water was surging in from the horizon, blanketing everything. The people in the frame scrambled about like panicked ants until the camera suddenly flipped over and plunged into eternal darkness.
"Don't let Xiaoyu see." Lin Zhixi reached out and pressed the phone screen-down. Her voice was soft, but held an unquestionable chill.
"I know." Yu Molan slipped the phone into his pocket.
He walked to the kitchen, his hand pausing for a second before turning the faucet.
He turned it on.
"Hiss—"
No water flowed out, not even the usual sputtering sound that preceded a water cut. There was only a long, drawn-out sucking sound, as if from the depths of the earth. The negative pressure sucked the palm of his hand against the spout. It was cold, with the acrid tang of rust.
It was completely out.
He looked to the corner. The bathtub was less than half-full of water, a thin film of gray dust already floating on the surface. Beside it were three full jugs of purified water. This was their entire lifeline.
"Molan." Lin Zhixi was standing by the balcony door. She didn't turn around. Her voice was hushed, laced with an indescribable fear. "Look down there."
Yu Molan walked over barefoot and peered through the gap in the curtains.
The rain was still falling. The Black Rain had stained the residential community's pavement a deep ink-black. Puddles collecting in the low spots looked like the eyes of dead fish.
Right at the entrance to Building 2, directly opposite them, there was a person.
It was a man, not wearing a raincoat, dressed in a jacket whose original color was no longer discernible. He was kneeling in the pooled water, his hands frantically groping for something in the mud. His movements were bizarre—stiff and violent, like a rusty-jointed puppet being forcefully yanked by its strings.
"What is he looking for?" Lin Zhixi asked.
Yu Molan shook his head. It was hard to see clearly through the curtain of rain, but the man's posture looked like he was on a pilgrimage.
Just then, the building's entrance door opened.
A young man in a yellow delivery raincoat came out, carrying a bag. He clearly saw the kneeling man, paused for a moment, and tried to go around him.
The change happened in an instant.
The kneeling man suddenly shot up.
There was no warning, no shout. He was like a spring compressed to its limit, launching himself violently at the young man in the raincoat.
Splat!
The two of them fell heavily onto the concrete, sending up a splash of black water.
The man made no attempt to get up. He clung tightly to the young man's leg and pressed his entire face against it.
Yu Molan had initially thought he was trying to snatch the bag. But in the next second, the young man let out a shriek so shrill it was distorted.
"Aaaargh—!"
Even through the double-paned glass and from seven stories up, the sound still pierced his eardrums like a needle.
Through the downpour, Yu Molan could see him shaking his head from side to side like a rabid dog with a bone. The raincoat's waterproof fabric was instantly torn, and then a chunk of flesh was ripped clean off.
"Let go! Fuck you, let go!" The young man frantically smashed the bag of trash against the man's head and kicked violently at his chest with his other foot.
Thud! Thud!
The dull sounds of impact carried up. The attacker was kicked back, but he refused to release the piece of flesh from his teeth.
His face was exposed to the daylight.
He was a young man, his skin a grotesque purplish-red. Half his face was torn, and a grayish-white eyeball stared blankly at the sky.
The young man finally broke free. Ignoring the wound on his leg, he scrambled back, slamming the iron gate of the building shut with a clang.
The man didn't give chase. He lay on the ground, making a gurgling sound like phlegm caught in a windpipe. He slowly raised his head, his one murky eye seeming to peer through the endless Black Rain, devoid of malice, filled only with a pure, vacant bewilderment.
"Gag—"
Behind him, Lin Zhixi clapped a hand over her mouth and ran for the bathroom.
Yu Molan wanted to draw the curtains, but he couldn't tear his eyes away.
In the shops along the road, behind second-floor windows, even on the balcony of the apartment next door, countless pairs of eyes had appeared at some point. Everyone was watching.
No one went down to help. No one called the police. No one shouted to stop it.
The entire residential community was dead silent, save for the sound of the man eating in the muddy water and Lin Zhixi's dry heaving in the bathroom. For a moment, the two sounds formed a kind of grotesque harmony.
Ten minutes later.
Yu Molan finally drew the curtains.
The room was plunged back into dimness.
He walked to the entryway, picked up the boning knife, and then rummaged through the toolbox for a roll of duct tape.
"What's wrong?" Lin Zhixi came out of the bathroom, her face pale, with tear tracks at the corners of her eyes.
He paused, his gaze fixed on the tightly shut security door, his expression growing darker than it had ever been.
"That young man's leg is ruined. In this weather, the wound will probably get infected within three days. If he can't get to a hospital, he's a dead man."
Lin Zhixi shuddered.
Yu Molan tightened his grip on the knife handle. It wasn't that he'd never seen a zombie movie, but he was still stunned that a human being could devolve into that.
Proofreader: Peter Pan