The clothes on most of the zombies were not completely dry, so they didn’t ignite instantly, but the momentary high temperature and the damage from the splashing glass shards were not to be underestimated.
Soon, the air was filled with a mixture of burnt aroma and the stench of corpses. The unfortunate zombies that caught fire slowed down, causing more of them to notice the commotion and turn in that direction.
Under Cheng Yan’s cover, Song Jinhe ran to the nearest parking space with a baseball bat and smashed it against a car window.
A piercing alarm suddenly blared.
“…” Cheng Yan looked at Song Jinhe’s actions with horror.
Wasn’t she supposed to use the alarm to attract the zombies? The zombies were almost there—what was she doing sitting in that car! Why wasn’t she running yet!
At that moment, the people upstairs also heard the commotion.
Deng Miao looked down at the screaming car and shouted in a breakdown, “Jinhe, I beg you, save us! Zhang Ping has been bitten by a zombie!”
A zombie corpse lay on the floor, while Zhang Ping, who had already turned, was on the ground along with a chair, roaring frantically at Deng Miao.
Two rows of teeth marks under Deng Miao’s sleeve were bleeding. She wanted to hack off her arm, but ultimately lacked the courage to do so.
“That bastard Cai Zheng lied to me and ran away by himself. Help me! We’re friends, you can’t leave me behind…”
Deng Miao’s face was deathly pale. Out of her regret and fear, a surge of resentment grew.
If Song Jinhe had helped them yesterday, if she had trusted Zhang Ping and hadn’t tied her up, Zhang Ping wouldn’t have been bitten, and then bitten her out of revenge.
Why was it her who got bitten and not Song Jinhe or that bastard Cai Zheng!
Song Jinhe only spared a glance upward before retracting her gaze and speeding up her movements.
She was nervous too; her palms were drenched in sweat, and she had no time to pay attention to the other woman.
A zombie whose ankle bone was broken and only connected by a bit of flesh placed its salivating hand on the car window. At the critical moment, the sound of the car engine finally roared to life.
Song Jinhe slammed on the gas and surged forward, leaving the zombie grasping at thin air.
She did have a driver’s license, it was true, but she had rarely driven. While she might lack experience in dodging zombies, she was more than capable of smashing through them.
Because the car was moving too fast to turn the steering wheel in time to avoid them, she simply crashed straight through. The zombies in front were thrown from the windshield onto the ground, one even losing a shoe in the process.
The windshield cracked under the impact, and dark blood mixed with bits of rotten flesh obscured half of her vision.
“Holy shit! She’s that fierce?”
Peng Zhixue watched dumbfoundedly as the car charged out like a god of war, sending zombies flying several meters away.
Just as Cheng Yan threw the second Molotov cocktail, Song Jinhe drove the car with the blaring alarm, trailing a massive crowd of zombies, and slammed on the brakes to stop sideways by the iron gate.
The zombies inside pressed against the steel bars, their upper and lower teeth clashing together to make a crisp snapping sound—clearly a set of strong teeth.
Meanwhile, the zombies that hadn’t quite died after hitting the front of the car crawled onto the windshield.
Back when she took her driving test, she was supposed to shift to a lower gear to decelerate during a turn, but Song Jinhe had shifted incorrectly. She had accelerated and lunged forward, barely managing to wedge the car into a stop. It was exactly like the situation just now.
If she had been even an inch closer, she wouldn’t have been able to open the car door.
“The torch!”
Just as Song Jinhe ran out, a large hole broke through the windshield. A zombie’s upper body hung over the driver’s seat, a patch of flesh scraped off its cheek.
Cheng Yan’s reaction was quick. He ignited the alcohol-soaked rags on the end of the badminton racket and threw it through the car window.
The moment the flames touched the alcohol Song Jinhe had poured before getting out, the car erupted in fire.
She had intentionally unscrewed the cap of that bottle of alcohol and placed it in her space last night just to save time.
New zombies were constantly emerging from all directions.
As Song Jinhe prepared to leave, her peripheral vision caught a car key falling from a wobbling zombie.
A loot drop?!
That zombie was wearing a white lab coat; the car was likely parked in the staff parking lot!
Song Jinhe took a risk and turned back to pick up the keys. After identifying which car it belonged to, she rushed over to start the engine and drove Zhang Yi and Peng Zhixue toward the convenience store.
Seeing Song Jinhe head for the convenience store, Cheng Yan followed. Zhang Yi was stationed at the entrance to keep watch, while the others went inside to move supplies.
The convenience store door had long been pried open. After walking a few steps inside, they saw a corpse that had been eaten down to a skeleton. A large pool of blood stained the floor, white maggots were wriggling, and the stench was overwhelming.
Cheng Yan found a small handcart in the store and began loading food onto it. Time was limited; the zombies would be there in two or three minutes at most. Everyone grabbed whatever they saw.
To hide the existence of her space, Song Jinhe found two large plastic bags from the blood-stained checkout counter.
The speed at which she swept the shelves made Cheng Yan’s mouth twitch.
Was she a professional shoplifter before the apocalypse?
She was so practiced—biscuits, chocolate, bags of instant noodles, coffee from the drink cabinet, water, and juice were all swept into her bags with a series of clatters.
Jiang Hongrong and her son couldn’t even compete with her. They watched helplessly as she took the last two boxes of self-heating rice, eight-treasure porridge, and canned yellow peaches. They were flushed with frustration, cursing and mocking her with harsh words.
Song Jinhe didn’t care at all. If there was time to argue, it was better to take more supplies.
While the others were busy moving supplies to the car, she quickly stashed cases of water, bread, and instant noodles into her space.
There were also tissues, shampoo, toothbrushes, towels, water cups, and so on. Few people had taken these daily necessities before, so there was still plenty in the convenience store.
She even took the shell wind chimes hanging on the door. Shells could be processed into quicklime after being fired, which could be used to make traditional soap.
Industrial products would eventually be exhausted; only sustainable production would last.
“They’re coming!”
When she heard Zhang Yi’s urgent cry, Song Jinhe’s foot suddenly stepped on something. Looking down, it was actually a claw hammer and a crowbar!
She stashed the claw hammer into her space, kept the crowbar in her hand, and ran out of the convenience store carrying the two plastic bags.
She had opened the trunk when she got out of the car, so she threw them in and slammed it shut.
“How could you do this!” Jiang Hongrong turned frantic when she saw what Song Jinhe had taken. She chased after her and stood by the car.
“You took everything. What are we supposed to do? We were the ones who opened the door to save you yesterday! You can’t be this selfish. You’re only one person, and there are two of us. How about we swap a bag? Anyway, we won’t be short on things once we get to the shelter.”
Swap? In your dreams.
“I don’t care about your situation,” Song Jinhe said bluntly. “If it weren’t for the fact that Cheng Yan and the others opened the door yesterday, would I be out here in the front? Didn’t you say I have no medical ethics? That’s right, I have no morality anymore, so don’t try to guilt-trip me.”
“How can you talk like that! Don’t you know how to respect your eld—” Jiang Hongrong hadn’t finished her sentence.
“AAAHHH—” A heart-wrenching scream suddenly rang out.
She watched as a piece of flesh was torn from her son’s leg by a zombie that had suddenly crawled out. She immediately broke down and screamed.
“Mom, save me! I don’t want to die, save me!” The young man collapsed on the ground, wailing in agony.