Watching the bloodstains on the bathroom floor, everyone instinctively lightened their steps. Over the course of the day, their rapport had skyrocketed; without saying a word, they each took their positions and prepared themselves.
Song Jinhe tapped the ground twice with her crowbar. A zombie’s roar erupted, and the last stall door swung open. The zombie, which had been feasting on a severed limb, looked toward them, its gaping mouth displaying its fury at being disturbed.
Cheng Yan took charge of the door, using the gap to pin the zombie in place. Zhang Yi, suppressing her fear and nausea, gripped her knife and thrust it into the zombie’s chin.
A corpse and a living, thrashing zombie were two different things; putting theory into practice required immense psychological fortitude and courage.
Slick, black blood dripped down the knife as the entire door shook.
Seeing that the zombie wouldn’t die and was nearly forcing the door open to escape, Zhang Yi panicked. Her right hand trembled as she tried to pull the knife out, but it was wedged in the bone.
Song Jinhe braced the door while Cheng Yan grabbed Zhang Yi’s hand to help her pull. Only then did the zombie collapse to the floor, motionless.
“I…” Zhang Yi held the kitchen knife, her face full of guilt as she hesitated to speak.
Song Jinhe pushed the door open. “Take it slow. It’s normal to mess up at first.”
When she first arrived, she had seen zombies eating people and had been just as paralyzed with terror.
There was no need for gender formalities at a time like this; they went in one after another to handle their business in the same bathroom before returning to the office together.
They moved the folding beds and blankets they had found to the innermost private office and ate a simple meal. Song Jinhe also hung a ceramic cup on the doorknob.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, it was pitch black. The ruined city was visible only when lightning flashed. The wind and rain grew increasingly violent; the sounds of metal sheets clattering and heavy objects falling echoed one after another, creating a deep sense of unease.
Crash!
A fierce gale carrying cold rain and shards of glass suddenly surged into the office. A4 paper flew into the air amidst the howling wind, and the sound of the ceramic cup hitting the floor was completely drowned out.
Song Jinhe grabbed her flashlight and bolted upright. Several windows in the office area had shattered. It was difficult even to stand steady in the wind, and she couldn’t hear a word Cheng Yan was saying.
“Retreat to the pantry!”
As soon as Song Jinhe opened her mouth, her entire respiratory tract felt the chill, and her face was nearly distorted by the wind.
Chairs and computers near the windows were blown out, and the folding beds flipped over after they left.
Misfortunes never come singly. Before they could transfer to the pantry, Song Jinhe vaguely heard a shrill roar and the sound of claws scratching against the door panels. Her expression shifted instantly.
Click, click— the doorknob turned frantically.
They had encountered zombies that could open doors back at the hospital, but this was the first time they had heard such a piercing shriek.
Zhang Yi looked tense. “Is that a zombie outside? Why does it sound…”
“It’s a zombie,” Song Jinhe said somberly. “It will likely attract more. We have to kill it.”
When she said “likely,” she meant “certainly.” This was a “Special Zombie” with much higher agility! Song Jinhe hadn’t expected such a zombie to appear so early, let alone that they would cross paths with it.
Looking at the trembling wooden door, Song Jinhe made a split-second decision. “Let it in. You two guard the door.”
Cheng Yan hesitated for a moment before nodding. “I’ll count to three. Get ready.”
“One.”
“Two.”
“Three!”
The moment the door opened, the zombie and the howling cold wind squeezed in together. Cheng Yan and Zhang Yi couldn’t control how many zombies entered; they could only use all their strength to press against the door panel.
The shadows of two zombies were cast onto the wall, looking exceptionally tall and hideous as they lunged fiercely toward Song Jinhe.
Seeing this, Song Jinhe retreated toward the floor-to-ceiling window, which was now just a black hole. She dodged to the side at the last second. One of the zombies couldn’t stop its momentum and was swept out by the surging gale, shattering into pieces in the dense darkness of the night.
The remaining one was the Special Zombie. It changed direction at the last moment and lunged at Song Jinhe. She hurriedly braced her crowbar horizontally, struggling to hold back the rotting face that kept inching closer.
The nauseating stench of death filled her nostrils, and the crisp clicking of its teeth echoed in her ears.
If she retreated a few more steps, she would fall from the high-rise with the zombie and be reduced to a pulp. If she didn’t retreat, the zombie—strengthened by a nighttime buff—would surely tear chunks of flesh from her body.
Cheng Yan and Zhang Yi were occupied and unable to come to her aid.
She was already very close to the window.
As the raging cold wind whipped across her back, the veins on Song Jinhe’s forehead bulged.
The zombie’s teeth almost touched the tip of her nose. In a frantic burst of strength, she twisted her body to swap positions with the zombie, pushing it forward until its half-foot stepped into empty air at the window’s edge.
At that moment, Song Jinhe stashed the crowbar into her Space, causing the zombie to lose its support. She herself grabbed the steel frame of the window edge just in time to steady her body, preventing her from being dragged down with it.
Before her lay terrifying darkness and the raging storm. Her body felt frozen, and her legs were trembling. Seizing a momentary lull in the wind, she hurried away from the window. Without even a second to catch her breath, she pulled out her crowbar and cleared the zombies outside through the door crack, helping Cheng Yan and Zhang Yi shut the door.
When they finally entered the cramped pantry, all three of them were drenched in rainwater. Fortunately, the clothes they had taken were waterproof and warm. They just needed to dry off with blankets; otherwise, the night would have been unbearable.
Song Jinhe broke a wooden drawer to start a fire and brewed some crushed ginger in boiling water to ward off the cold.
As the slightly spicy hot water entered her mouth, her terror subsided slightly. She had almost died just now; looking back at that height made her head spin. If it weren’t for the weather and the fact that the window was gone, the three of them combined wouldn’t have been a match for that Special Zombie.
It was a case of seeking fortune amidst danger.
Killing a single Special Zombie had expanded her Space more than all the zombies she had killed during the day combined.
The storm raged through the rest of the night. It felt as if the entire building was swaying, and Song Jinhe didn’t dare close her eyes.
The next morning, they emerged from the pantry to find the office in a shambles. The carpet released water with every step, and the cold wind whistled through the gaps.
The situation outside was equally grim. Metal rooftops had been torn off, and glass sunrooms were gone, frames and all. Looking out, there was only a desolate, ruined city.
“It’s getting colder. Let’s grab our things and head back.” The moment Song Jinhe opened the door, a zombie with only bones left in its left arm collapsed by the entrance. She raised her hand and delivered a finishing blow.
The three of them quickly packed the supplies from the executive area into travel bags and put on another layer of thick clothing at a garment shop on the way back.
Meanwhile, in the bath center, Peng Zhixue paced back and forth anxiously in front of the employee passage.
He was afraid that Cheng Yan and the others would return with no one to open the door, so he had stayed there all night wrapped in two duvets. He still hadn’t seen them.
“They haven’t come back by now; looks like things took a turn for the worse,” someone said nearby, their tone sounding rather gloating.
“It’s better if they don’t come back.” Wu Dayong glanced at the silent iron gate. He felt he should thank the zombies—hopefully, they wouldn’t finish eating those people and would leave them in a state where they could only crawl.