Two shots, two kills.
At this distance, shooting heads was no different from target practice.
The bare-chested zombie lunged from the left in the brief interval as its two companions collapsed, its speed a notch faster than the ones before.
Its body coordination was superior to that of the other zombies.
Though its muscle tissue had mutated, it still retained some level of functionality.
Lincoln didn’t use his guns.
When it rushed to within a meter, its arms spread wide and its mouth gaped open, bringing a wave of decaying stench with it.
Lincoln sidestepped to dodge its frontal lunge.
Taking a step forward with his left foot, he slipped his right shoulder under its arm.
At the same time, he brought the shotgun in his left hand across, catching the zombie’s throat with the metal barrel.
This wasn’t a shot, but a physical block, using the metal barrel to hook the creature’s neck in a choke-hold.
The creature had significant forward momentum.
When the shotgun barrel cut off its rush, its upper body bent forward while its lower body slid back a step as its center of gravity shifted.
Seizing the opportunity as its body bent forward, Lincoln pressed the muzzle of his M1911 right against the back of its head.
Point-blank range.
He squeezed the trigger.
*Bang.*
The bullet entered the back of its skull and exited through the cheekbone just below its left eye, spraying a shower of dark red fragments across the hallway wall.
Its body went limp instantly, sliding down the barrel of his shotgun.
Lincoln stepped forward over its twitching legs and continued his advance.
There were only three zombies left in the rest of the hallway.
One was emerging from a doorway on the left, but had gotten stuck halfway.
With half its body inside and half outside, it was struggling to squeeze itself through.
The other two were near the end of the hallway, about fifteen meters away.
Lincoln dealt with the one stuck in the doorframe first.
By the time he reached it, the creature was still struggling.
Its entire upper body was leaning out, arms flailing wildly in the air.
Lincoln pointed his M1911 at the top of its head, adjusting the muzzle’s angle to ensure the trajectory was as perpendicular to the skull as possible, and fired a single round.
*Bang.*
The bullet pierced the crown of its head.
The body immediately ceased all movement, hanging limply against the doorframe.
The last two were still shuffling toward him.
One was slightly faster than the other, creating a gap of about two or three meters between them.
Lincoln stood in the center of the hallway, raising his M1911 level.
He didn’t rush to shoot, waiting instead for the faster one to close within seven or eight meters.
He pulled the trigger twice.
*Bang, bang.*
Two shots in rapid succession. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
The first struck the lead zombie in the forehead, while the second caught the trailing one square in the face.
Both fell at almost the same time, hitting the concrete floor one after the other with dull thuds that nearly merged into one.
The hallway fell silent.
Lincoln stood where he was, slowly sweeping his muzzle across the area in front of him.
After confirming there were no stragglers left, he looked down at his weapons.
The M1911 had two rounds left in the magazine.
A full magazine held ten; he had fired eight shots in the hallway, scoring headshots on all eight targets.
The shotgun had expended two shells.
He pressed the magazine release, dropping the near-empty magazine.
He pulled a full one from his waist, slapped it in, and racked the slide to chamber a round.
He slipped the partially used magazine back into his belt to save for an emergency.
The entire reload took less than two seconds.
The system interface popped up.
[T-Virus Sample Library]
[Collection Progress: 34/100]
[Safety Threshold: 66/100]
Lincoln looked over the figures, double-checking the math in his head.
On the footbridge, the four Eliminators—being enhanced Bio Organic Weapons (B.O.W.s)—had yielded double the sample collection and safety threshold drain of ordinary infected.
Those four had added 8 points of progress and drained 8 points of the safety threshold.
After the bridge, the interface had shown progress at 23 and threshold at 77.
The three zombies in the stairwell plus the eight in the hallway made eleven ordinary infected, which added 11 points of progress and drained 11 points of threshold at a one-to-one ratio.
23 plus 11 was 34; 77 minus 11 was 66.
The math checked out.
From a starting maximum of 100, the safety threshold had already dropped by more than a third.
The system interface warned that falling below 30 would trigger a state of genetic instability.
He had a buffer of 36 points left.
It sounded like a decent cushion, but at his current rate of consumption, it wouldn’t last long.
Especially if he encountered more Eliminators or even stronger creatures later on.
If they drained two or more points each, thirty-six points would only be enough to handle a dozen or so.
He closed the interface.
Rebecca and Billy had already caught up.
Eight zombie corpses lay strewn haphazardly across the concrete floor.
The air was thick with the acrid scent of gunpowder residue mixed with the stench of rotting flesh.
Rebecca’s eyes swept over the bodies, then shifted to Lincoln.
Her mouth opened as if to speak, but she ultimately just let out a long breath.
He tested the flashlight—it still worked.
Lincoln didn’t linger.
He kept walking toward the end of the hallway.
Turning right at the sign brought them into an even narrower passage.
At the end of the passage was a heavy iron door.
A sign above it read: “Emergency Exit · To Surface”.
Lincoln walked up to the door and grabbed the handle.
He gave it a push.
The door didn’t budge.
He put more weight into it, pressing his shoulder against the metal.
Still nothing.
It didn’t feel like it was blocked by something on the other side; rather, the door itself was sealed shut, completely unyielding from the inside.
Lincoln knelt down and shone his flashlight along the door seam.
His face darkened.
In the gap between the doorframe and the door, he could see silver-gray weld lines.
Not just one or two spots—the entire edge of the door had been welded shut in a continuous seam.
The weld was thick, having seeped into every single gap between the metals.
This door had been welded shut from the outside.
It hadn’t been done by mutated creatures; mutants didn’t know how to use welding torches.
Someone had taken industrial welding equipment and sealed this door shut, inch by inch.
Lincoln stood back up and glanced at the upper half of the door.
There were several warped dents on the surface of the door, hammered out from the inside with great force.
It was clear that someone had once tried to break the door open from within, but had failed.
A thin layer of rust had already formed over the dented surfaces.
This probably wasn’t done tonight.
It had been welded shut much earlier—at least several days ago.
Lincoln fell silent for a few seconds, his brow furrowing deeply.
Someone had sealed off all the facility’s external exits before the outbreak even began.
And it wasn’t to keep things from the outside out, because the welding had been done from the exterior.
It was to prevent the people inside from getting out.
He recalled the director’s report: *’Headquarters reply: Situation is under control, continue normal operations.’*
He also thought of the train’s sabotaged brake system.
Headquarters hadn’t just rejected the evacuation requests; they had sealed off every escape route.
Dozens of people inside the Training School—instructors, trainees, and researchers alike—had all been trapped inside.
This was no oversight, nor was it a misjudgment that the situation was under control.
This was a deliberate silencing.
Someone had decided to make this facility and everyone inside it disappear forever.