When the trio arrived and saw the child standing in front of Ginny Jarvis, reluctance washed over their faces.
The curly-haired woman was the most blunt.
“We can’t bring this little brat along.
What if he cries and attracts zombies?”
“We never asked you to come with us,” Caleb Grant retorted.
With that, he walked into the gas station with Ginny.
He knew she had to go in first to store the gasoline in her space.
However, upon entering, both of them froze.
The station was newly built and hadn’t even begun operations yet.
There wasn’t a single drop of gasoline inside.
Aside from a few snacks on the shelves, the place was empty.
Ginny quickly waved her hand, sweeping the snack racks and the beverage freezers into her space.
When she turned around and walked back out, the other three were already approaching.
“There’s no need to look.
It’s newly built, and there’s nothing inside,” she told them.
The woman clearly didn’t believe her.
She let out a cold scoff, bumped her shoulder against Ginny’s, and marched inside.
“Heh, how ungrateful,” Ginny thought.
“I originally wanted to keep you around as training fodder for the people back home, but now it seems you’re not even worthy of that!” She mentally plotted to ditch the group—or perhaps just feed them straight to the zombies.
“Let’s go.
We need to find some supplies at the supermarket, or we won’t have anything to eat tonight.
We also need to get some food for the little guy,” Ginny said.
She carried the child back to the car.
This time, Caleb took the wheel, considering Ginny had her hands full with the toddler.
Caleb glanced at the child in her arms through the rearview mirror.
“Are you planning to keep him?”
“Just for now.
We’ll figure something out once we find a safe place.
We’ll definitely have to find a couple to adopt him—I have no idea how to raise a kid.”
After all, even though she had married Gideon Lynch in her previous life, the two of them had always been busy running missions.
In a chaotic world where even their own survival was uncertain, having children had never been an option.
“Alright, as long as you have a plan,” Caleb said.
“By the way, are we really going to the supermarket?”
“Yeah, we need to stock up on more supplies.
If we want to live securely in the apocalypse, we have to establish our own base.
The residential compound we’re staying in right now is pretty good.
I’m considering using it as our base, though it’s a bit small.”
This was something Ginny had been mulling over for a while.
The compound only had thirty villas.
The surrounding park could be utilized, but expanding the base would have to wait until they had enough manpower later on.
They soon arrived at the supermarket’s parking garage.
Since the zombie virus had erupted in the middle of the night, there were only a few scattered vehicles in the garage, allowing them to drive straight to the stairwell.
Ginny folded down the middle seat and placed the child in the very back.
“Lie down and be a good boy.
Don’t move around, or you’ll turn into an idiot if you fall.” She pinched the little guy’s cheek.
She didn’t know if it was just her imagination, but she swore the toddler gave her a look of utter disdain after she spoke.
Leaving the boy in the car, Ginny stepped out, with Caleb following closely behind.
The other car soon pulled up behind them.
The trio got out one by one and walked toward Ginny and Caleb, who were scanning their surroundings.
“Ginny, are there really no zombies here?”
The eerie emptiness left Ginny feeling a bit unsettled.
She didn’t know what exactly had happened, but logically, the place shouldn’t be completely devoid of infected.
“Let’s go up and check the supermarket. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
Be careful.
Something doesn’t feel right,” she warned.
The curly-haired woman hesitated before speaking up.
“I won’t go up, just in case I drag you down.
I’ll stay down here and watch the cars for you.”
Since she never expected the woman to actually be of any help, Ginny didn’t argue.
Once the four of them went upstairs, they found the supermarket in utter ruins.
About a dozen zombie corpses littered the entrance, all bearing deep slashes from what looked like an animal’s sharp claws.
Some of the zombies had even had their heads bitten clean off.
“RETCH…”
“GAG…”
The two men instantly vomited.
The air was already thick with a foul, coppery stench, and the addition of their puke only made the smell more unbearable.
Ginny couldn’t help but frown.
“You two go back down.
We’ll gather the supplies ourselves,” Caleb said, his face dark as he glared at the men.
“I…
I can do it,” Mr.
Warren said with difficulty, leaning against the wall for support.
It wasn’t that he actually wanted to go; he was just terrified that Ginny and Caleb would hog all the supplies for themselves.
As the four ventured deeper inside, Ginny sensed something was terribly wrong.
She felt eyes boring into her back—a sensation that left her deeply unnerved.
She looked around but saw nothing.
The fact that this massive warehouse supermarket didn’t have a single living zombie was simply unfathomable.
Even if someone had already come through and cleared the place out, it was far too quiet.
Caleb had a bad feeling as well, sensing that this place was highly dangerous.
“Ginny, you guys wait outside.
I’ll go check it out first.
If it’s clear, you can come in.”
“No,” Ginny warned the other two men.
“You two had better stay out for now.
Otherwise, we can’t guarantee you’ll make it out of this supermarket alive.”
“No…
no need, we…
ARGH!” Right as Mr.
Warren spoke, a dark shadow lunged from behind a door and drove a claw straight through his chest, killing him instantly.
Ginny and Oscar Lynch hurriedly shot at the dark shadow, but it moved so fast they couldn’t even make out its appearance.
“Go, retreat!
We can’t go in here!”
Ginny and Caleb quickly backed out of the supermarket and sprinted toward the parking garage, immediately jumping into their car once they arrived.
“What happened?
Where are the supplies?
Don’t tell me you didn’t get anything?
Glasses, where’s Mr.
Warren?
Why are you the only one back?” The woman, sitting in the passenger seat, looked at the bespectacled man with disdain.
“Dead…
he’s dead…” Glasses stammered, trembling uncontrollably.
“What?
How…
how could that be?
How are you still alive?
You…”
The question clearly struck a nerve.
Glasses’ face flushed red, his chest heaving heavily as his grip tightened on the steering wheel.
Ultimately, he didn’t say a word.
He just put the car in gear and followed Ginny’s vehicle toward the exit.
In the lead car, worry etched itself across Ginny’s face.
She had only caught a fleeting glimpse of the shadow, but she had seen what looked like an animal’s tail.
The tail alone must have been three feet long, hinting at a truly massive beast.
It seemed she would have to continue collecting Corpse Crystals tonight and upgrade her abilities as soon as possible.
However, none of them expected that the moment they exited the garage, their path would be blocked by a mutant dog larger than an elephant.
Ginny’s face paled the instant she saw the colossal creature.
In her previous life, these monsters hadn’t appeared until six months into the apocalypse!
“Back up, Caleb!
I’ll get out first; you back me up.”
Taking advantage of the brief window while Caleb shifted gears, Ginny quickly put the child down, climbed over to the passenger side, threw open the door, and leaped out.
She sprinted directly toward the mutant dog.
Seeing Ginny charging at it with a reckless death wish, the beast let out a cold snort from its snout.
Disdain and contempt filled its eyes.
It thought, “A puny human like you wants to take on the King of Dogs?
Heh.”
The mutant dog wasn’t panicked in the slightest.
It waited until Ginny closed the distance before bracing its hind legs, lowering its massive body, and baring its teeth.
Drool splattered toward her as it snarled.
Seeing the monster snap its jaws and endlessly drip viscous saliva, Ginny felt utterly disgusted.
She dashed right up to the beast, then suddenly dodged to the left, acting as if she were flanking it.
In reality, she ducked directly into her dimensional space.
The mutant dog wasn’t in any rush, fully confident that it would turn this human into its next snack in a matter of seconds.
It slowly turned its enormous head, only to find that Ginny had completely vanished.
Meanwhile, after reversing the car, Caleb grabbed his gun and bolted outside.
He aimed squarely at the dog’s head and fired several rapid shots.
However, the bullets had little effect on the mutant dog.
They only managed to draw a trickle of blood and thoroughly enrage it.
At the exact moment Caleb opened fire, Ginny reappeared from her space right behind the beast.
She leaped onto its back and sprinted forward along its spine, then threw herself flat.
Gripping the thick fur around its neck, she drove her dagger violently into the center of the mutant dog’s brow.
She had executed this maneuver thousands of times in her past life, allowing her to smoothly plunge the blade right between its eyes.
To her utter shock, the strike did absolutely nothing.
With a violent thrash of its body, the mutant dog sent Ginny flying through the air.
She slammed heavily against a concrete wall several yards away, coughing up a mouthful of blood.
Witnessing this horrifying scene, the curly-haired woman yanked on Glasses’ arm from the passenger seat.
“Back up!
Let’s get out of here, go!
I don’t want to die!” she shrieked.
His face pale with terror, Glasses instinctively floored the accelerator, throwing the car into reverse and speeding away.