In the darkness, he closed his eyes and listened.
The improvement from Perception 7 was real.
He could hear the wind moving through the corn leaves, and birds calling from the pine forest.
Farther away, faint, broken groans drifted in from different directions, some near, some far.
Judging by the sound, walkers were wandering around the area.
But they were still some distance away.
For now, they would not reach him.
Luke Li steadied his breathing, kept his eyes half open, and maintained a light, alert sleep with the Glock 17 within reach.
Time passed second by second.
Around two in the morning, the first impact came.
It was near the front door.
The sound was not heavy, but it had a rhythm.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Once every three or four seconds, like someone slowly pounding the door with a fist.
Luke Li opened his eyes, got up without making a sound, and pressed himself beside the door.
Through the crack, he saw a figure in the moonlight facing the front door, its forehead pressed against the wooden boards as it slammed forward again and again.
The buff above its head was blank.
The second one.
He moved to the side window and checked the yard.
There were two more outside the fence.
One was stuck in a gap, half its body squeezed through.
The other was wandering aimlessly along the fence, occasionally stopping to slap the wood with its hand.
Three of them.
Fine.
He could handle that.
Luke Li picked up the fire axe and went out through the back door.
The moonlight was bright enough to see the ground clearly.
He kept close to the wall and moved to the corner of the house, taking care of the one stuck in the fence gap first.
The axe came down from above and struck the top of its head cleanly.
The creature collapsed to the ground without a sound.
[Walker Killed ×1.
Bladed Weapons Skill EXP +15]
The walker walking along the fence heard the slight noise.
Luke Li waited until it came within two steps, then swept the axe sideways.
The blade cut into its temple, and black fluid sprayed out.
[Walker Killed ×1.
Bladed Weapons Skill EXP +15]
Last was the one at the front door.
When he circled back to the front of the house, it was still slamming into the door.
The skin on its forehead had already been scraped raw, exposing white bone, yet it had no idea at all.
Luke Li approached from behind and brought the axe down again.
[Walker Killed ×1.
Bladed Weapons Skill EXP +15]
[Bladed Weapons Skill: Lv.2 → Lv.3]
[Lv.3 Effect: Melee Damage +15%, Attack Speed +8%]
Three walkers, in less than five minutes.
He stood under the moonlight, breathing steadily, his heartbeat only slightly faster than usual.
Compared to killing the first one, he had clearly adapted a lot.
Human genes really were powerful.
Once killing began, it would slowly become routine.
The faster a person adapted, the longer they lived.
Luke Li rinsed the filthy blood from the axe with the yard faucet.
It seemed the local water plant was still running, though he had no idea how long that would last.
He filled every container he could find.
Then he returned to the house and bolted the door again.
Around four in the morning, when he sat by the second-floor window again, he heard something new.
From the distant highway came the rumble of many engines, blending into one continuous roar.
There were even scattered gunshots mixed in.
In the darkness, Luke Li saw a long string of headlights moving from north to south, winding along the highway like a glowing snake.
A large convoy.
The lights were arranged in a very orderly line.
If nothing unexpected had happened, they were probably military vehicles.
He watched from the second-floor window as that band of light slowly moved south, and his heart sank little by little.
The army was retreating.
If even the army was running, it meant the north could no longer be held.
It took about twenty minutes for the convoy to pass through the stretch of road in his sight.
The last few vehicles were clearly moving faster than the ones in front, as if something was chasing them.
After the convoy passed, gunfire rang out again for a while, growing farther and farther away until it was swallowed by the wind.
The highway returned to darkness and silence.
Luke Li could no longer sleep.
He sat by the window for a long time.
Until dawn.
Today, he had to start thinking about his next move.
The farmhouse was only a temporary base, not suitable for long-term defense.
Supplies would eventually run out, and the walkers would only gather in greater numbers.
He needed to move northwest, toward the outskirts of Atlanta.
He picked up the fire axe and pushed open the door.
The cool morning light spilled in.
The air carried the dampness of dew.
The scene had the feel of an American comic.
The pickup drove along the country road for less than ten minutes before merging onto Interstate 95.
Luke Li chose the southbound lane.
From where he was, the other side looked like a long metal dragon stretching all the way to the edge of his vision.
Sedans, SUVs, pickup trucks, and RVs were bumper to bumper, completely motionless.
Some had their doors hanging wide open, the driver’s seats empty.
Some had their hoods raised, white vapor still drifting from cooled engines.
Others had dark red handprints smeared across their windshields.
Luke Li did not stare for long.
He brought his attention back to the road ahead.
The southbound lane was mostly clear.
Occasionally, a few cars came at him from the wrong direction, swerving hard to avoid his pickup as soon as they saw it from a distance.
Everyone was running for their lives.
No one cared about traffic laws anymore.
He kept his speed at forty miles per hour, neither fast nor slow.
If he drove too fast, his field of vision would narrow, and he would not have time to react to obstacles.
The radio was full of static.
Every so often, he could catch a faint piece of a broadcast.
“…All residents…
stay away from urban areas…
the military is currently…”
The signal was too poor, cutting in and out.
He could not piece together a full sentence.
Perception 7 let him notice many details while driving.
An overturned suitcase on the shoulder, clothes scattered all over the ground.
A man crouched beside the guardrail, hands over his head, completely still.
Under a distant overpass, there seemed to be traces of firelight.
After about half an hour, he reached the first roadblock.
An eighteen-wheeler was lying across the middle of the highway.
Its cab had slammed into the concrete barrier in the median, and the trailer was angled across the entire lane.
Luke Li stopped the truck and picked up the binoculars he had bought at the hardware store.
The windshield of the truck cab was shattered, and there was no one in the seat.
The trailer door was half open, but the inside was too dark to make out.
There were no walkers around the truck.
He rolled down the window, turned off the engine, and listened quietly for thirty seconds.
No walker groans.
Luke Li started the pickup again and slowly drove around the truck.
The shoulder was just barely wide enough to pass.
Once he got around it, his view suddenly opened up.
Two hundred meters ahead, on the emergency lane to the right of the highway, a silver Honda Civic was parked.
The door was open, the engine was still running, and white smoke was still coming from the exhaust pipe.
A woman stood beside the car with a child in her arms.
She was waving in his direction.
Luke Li took his foot off the gas, and the pickup began to slow down.
He looked above the woman’s head.
[Fear].
Deep orange, flashing violently.
[Exhaustion].
Gray.
[Protectiveness: Strong].
Warm yellow, steady.
Then he looked at the child in her arms, probably three or four years old, with her face buried in the woman’s shoulder.
[Fear]
[Sleepy]
Both were emotions a normal person would have.
Then he noticed what was wrong with the Honda Civic.
The right rear tire had gone flat.
It was probably a blowout.
Luke Li stopped the pickup twenty meters in front of her and pulled the handbrake, but he did not turn off the engine.
He picked up the Glock 17 and got out.