Seeing the bloodstains on the bathroom floor, everyone instinctively slowed their steps. Their coordination had improved dramatically over the course of the day; without needing to speak, each of them already knew where to position themselves and what to prepare.
Song Jinhe tapped the ground twice with her crowbar. A zombie roar echoed out, and the last stall door swung open. A zombie that had been gnawing on severed limbs turned toward them, its wide-open mouth showing its fury at being disturbed.
Cheng Yan was responsible for closing the door, using the gap to trap the zombie in place. Zhang Yi forced down her fear and disgust, gripping a knife as she stabbed upward into the zombie’s jaw.
A corpse and a moving zombie were two entirely different things, facing them in practice required extremely strong psychological endurance and courage.
Thick black blood slid down the blade as the entire door shook violently.
When Zhang Yi realized the zombie wasn’t dying easily and was even trying to force its way out, she panicked. Her right hand trembled as she tried to pull the knife back, but it was stuck in bone.
Song Jinhe braced the door while Cheng Yan grabbed Zhang Yi’s hand and helped her pull it free. Only then did the zombie finally collapse.
“I…” Zhang Yi held the kitchen knife, guilt written all over her face as she struggled to speak.
Song Jinhe pushed the door open. “Take it slow. It’s normal to mess up.”
When she first arrived, she had also seen zombies eating people and been completely overwhelmed.
At a time like this, there was no need to distinguish between men and women. They went in one after another to deal with the situation inside the same bathroom before returning together to the office.
They moved the foldable beds and blankets they had found into the innermost private office, ate a simple meal, and Song Jinhe hung a ceramic cup on the door handle.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, everything was pitch black. Only when lightning flashed could they see the ruined city. The wind and rain were getting more violent; the sounds of metal sheets being torn loose and heavy objects crashing down came one after another, filling the air with unease.
Bang!
A violent gust carrying cold rain and shards of glass suddenly surged into the office. Papers flew into the air like they were being tormented by invisible hands, and the sound of the ceramic cup hitting the floor was completely swallowed by the storm.
Song Jinhe grabbed a flashlight and sat up abruptly. Several windows in the office area had shattered, and it was hard even to stand steady against the wind. She couldn’t make out what Cheng Yan was saying at all.
“Fall back to the tea room!”
As soon as Song Jinhe spoke, the cold wind filled her airway; even her face felt like it was being warped by the force of the gusts.
Chairs and computers near the windows were blown out, and the foldable beds toppled over after they left the area.
Rain leaked through the roof on this stormy night. Before they could even retreat into the tea room, Song Jinhe faintly heard piercing howls and the sound of claws scraping against the door outside. Her expression changed instantly.
Click, click, click. The door handle spun violently.
They had already encountered zombies that could open doors at the hospital, but this was the first time they had heard such a shrill, horrifying scream.
Zhang Yi looked tense. “Are those zombies outside? Why does that sound…”
“Yes, zombies,” Song Jinhe said in a low voice. “It’s very likely it’ll attract more of them. We have to kill it.”
Her use of “very likely” actually meant “certain.” This was a more adaptive, highly specialized type of zombie. She didn’t expect one to appear so early, and of all places, it had run right into them.
Looking at the wooden door that was already shaking under pressure, Song Jinhe made a decisive call. “Let it in. You two hold the door.”
Cheng Yan hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll count to three. Get ready.”
“One—”
“Two—”
“Three!”
The moment the door opened, the zombie and the howling cold wind rushed in together. More than one zombie slipped inside, and Cheng Yan and Zhang Yi could no longer control them, they could only throw all their strength into holding the door shut.
Two zombie shadows loomed on the wall, tall and grotesque, lunging straight toward Song Jinhe.
Seeing this, Song Jinhe retreated to the broken floor-to-ceiling window and dodged sideways. One of the zombies couldn’t stop in time and was swept out by the violent wind, its body torn apart in the dense darkness outside as it fell.
The remaining one was the special zombie. It changed direction mid-charge and leapt at her again. Song Jinhe quickly raised her crowbar horizontally, barely blocking its decayed face as it pressed closer.
The nauseating stench of rot flooded her nose, and the sharp clacking of its teeth was right beside her ear.
If she took a few more steps back, she would fall out of the high-rise together with the zombie and be smashed into pulp. If she didn’t, the strengthened zombie, buffed by the night, would definitely tear off pieces of her flesh.
Cheng Yan and Zhang Yi were too busy to help.
She was already very close to the window.
The raging cold wind cut across her back as veins bulged at her temples.
The zombie’s teeth were almost touching the tip of her nose. In a near-mad burst of strength, she twisted her body and forced a position swap with the zombie, shoving it forward until it was half a step off the edge of the window.
At that moment, Song Jinhe stored her crowbar into her space, causing the zombie to lose its support. She managed to grab the metal window frame in time, steadying herself and preventing herself from being dragged down.
Ahead of her was an overwhelming darkness filled with raging wind and rain. There was no warmth left in her body; even her legs felt weak. Taking advantage of a brief lull in the wind, she quickly moved away from the window. She didn’t even have time to catch her breath before pulling out her crowbar to clear the zombies outside through the gap in the door, helping Cheng Yan and Zhang Yi shut it properly.
When they entered the narrow tea room, all three of them were soaked from head to toe. Fortunately, the clothes they had taken were waterproof and insulating, just wiping them down with a blanket was enough. Otherwise, the night would have been unbearable.
Song Jinhe broke apart a wooden drawer to start a fire and boiled water with ginger, handing each of them a cup to drive out the cold.
The slightly spicy hot water warmed their mouths, easing the fear in their hearts. She had nearly died just now; even now, thinking back to that height made her head feel dizzy. If not for the storm and the fact that the floor-to-ceiling window had already shattered, the three of them combined still wouldn’t have been a match for that special zombie.
In a way, it was a case of “risking danger for fortune.”
Killing a single special zombie expanded her space more than all the zombies she had killed that day combined.
The wind and rain continued raging through the second half of the night, so violently it felt as if the entire building was swaying. Song Jinhe didn’t dare close her eyes at all.
The next morning, when they came out of the tea room, they only saw the devastated office area. The carpet was soaked through, and cold drafts kept pouring in.
The situation outside was equally dire. Tin roofs had been torn off, and the glass sunroom was gone without a trace, only a ruined city remained in sight.
“It’s getting colder. Let’s take our things and head back.” As soon as Song Jinhe opened the door, she saw a zombie lying by the entrance with only bones left on its left arm. She immediately raised her hand and finished it off.
The three of them quickly packed supplies from the administrative area into travel bags. On the way back, they also stopped by a clothing store to grab thicker clothes.
Inside the bathhouse, Peng Zhixue paced anxiously back and forth near the staff passage.
He was worried that Cheng Yan and the others would return to find no one to open the door, so he had stayed there all night wrapped in two blankets, yet still hadn’t seen them return.
“They still haven’t come back at this point. Looks like something went wrong,” someone nearby said, sounding almost pleased.
“Better if they don’t come back,” Wu Dayong said, glancing at the silent metal door. He almost felt grateful to the zombies, hopefully they hadn’t eaten those people completely, leaving just enough for them to crawl back if they survived.