Chapter 58

Chapter 58

Before dawn, the group set out toward the city. They stopped in a desolate area on the outskirts.

“This should do. It’s fairly safe here.”

With Lin Hao supporting her, Chen Yuhui settled against the corner of a wall. Though she forced herself to appear at ease, the weakness on her face was impossible to hide. Cold sweat beaded at her temples, her lips were pale, and even her breathing was deliberately slow and shallow.

Lin Hao crouched beside her, head lowered as he adjusted the drone in his hands.

“Can the drone still fly?” Qingshui asked from behind him.

“Yes. The casing’s cracked in a few places, so it’s a little shaky in the air, but everything still works.” Lin Hao looked up. After a moment’s hesitation, he turned to Qingshui. “Maybe… I should go instead. Gao Yizhou, he…”

He glanced at Gao Yizhou’s blood-covered face and left the rest unsaid.

Gao Yizhou looked even closer to death than he did.

“No,” Qingshui refused without hesitation. “Your job is more important. Whether we can get in safely and find the antibiotics depends on you scouting ahead and guiding us. Besides, right now…” She paused, her gaze passing over Zhou Yaping, who was curled up beside Chen Yuhui. “You don’t just have to protect Yaping. Yuhui needs you too.”

Lin Hao closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. When he opened them again, his gaze was steady. “Understood. Leave it to me.”

The drone rose with a low hum and skimmed across the dark sky toward the city. Lin Hao carefully controlled its altitude and range, keeping it circling around the outskirts.

Images flickered rapidly across the screen as his eyes swept over the blurry storefront signs.

At last, a sign bearing a dark green emblem appeared in the center of the screen.

“Found it!”

He mentally mapped out the route he had just recorded and spoke quickly. “Go straight down the avenue in front of you until you reach an intersection. There’s a residential neighborhood on the other side, with a lot of building-supply stores along the street. Be careful when you pass through. A lot of buildings have collapsed, and there’s debris everywhere.

“You’ll have to enter the apartment complex and cut through it to reach the pharmacy on the other side of the block! Remember, you have to get through those buildings before daybreak!”

“Understood,” Qingshui replied quietly. She turned to the others behind her. “Let’s go.”

An Xiaolin, Ji Feifan, and Gao Yizhou nodded at the same time.

Dawn had yet to break, and the city remained shrouded in darkness.

The four of them crouched behind a roadside guardrail, holding their breath as they surveyed the area ahead.

An empty intersection lay before them. Small landscaped parks flanked both sides, their vegetation a lifeless green in the gloom.

The traffic lights in the middle of the road continued cycling through their colors, oblivious to the trails of dried, blackened blood stretching across the pavement.

This was not the city center, but the oppressive sense of dread was enough to make everyone’s heart race. Unlike the wilderness outside the city, shocking crimson stains were everywhere here.

Keeping close to the roadside shrubbery, they made themselves as small as possible and inched toward the nearby apartment buildings. Everyone kept their breathing shallow, and their footsteps were so light they were almost inaudible.

Suddenly, they spotted a figure in dark clothing sitting motionless on a bench ahead, its back turned to them.

Everyone froze and tightened their grip on their weapons.

Qingshui narrowed her eyes. After studying the figure for two seconds, she whispered, “No, that’s…”

A corpse.

As they crept closer, they finally saw the body that had been brutally fastened to the bench.

All four limbs were missing. A long, slender length of rebar had been driven diagonally through her back and out through her chest, pinning her to the bench beneath her.

The corners of her mouth had been torn all the way to her ears, leaving ragged wounds. A dark red trail of blood wound down from an empty eye socket, leaving a glaring streak across her face.

Qingshui lowered her gaze and looked away. “Keep moving.”

The group bent low and quickly crossed the sidewalk.

High above them, the drone hovered over a massive billboard. Lin Hao watched tensely as the four figures entered the street below.

Please let everything go smoothly.

He clenched his teeth and prayed in silence.

The four pressed themselves against the cold wall like geckos, inching through the shadows cast by the buildings.

Qingshui led the way, her keen ears filled with shrill laughter and howls coming from every direction.

Holding her breath, she rapidly scanned the road ahead. Even in the dim light, she could clearly see the revelry unfolding in the street.

Several twisted Madmen stood atop cars, toying with the bodies and severed heads of their companions.

Their faces were contorted with delight, their eyes filled with a sickening, malevolent lust that chilled the blood.

On the balconies overlooking the street, several naked figures lay sprawled against the railings, shrieking meaninglessly at the night sky. Every last one of them was lost in ecstasy.
The entire street reeked of a twisted semblance of human habitation.

They couldn’t stop. They couldn’t risk being exposed here.

Qingshui rapidly processed the terrain around them. The intersection ahead was badly obstructed, ruling out a straight path, while the stench of blood to the right was far too strong!

“Left, hurry!” she whispered, decisively turning left.

Yet no matter how many turns they took between the apartment buildings, they could always see the Madmen’s handiwork. Clotted, blackened chunks of flesh and tiny white bones lay scattered across windowsills and outdoor air-conditioning units.

Beneath the security grilles of some windows hung incomplete bodies. Like cured meat left out to dry, they swayed gently in the night breeze.

The odors of decay and blood mingled in the air, so thick they seemed impossible to disperse.

“Down!” Qingshui suddenly hissed, grabbing An Xiaolin by the shoulder and forcing her lower. The others immediately crouched behind the cars parked along the street.

Several staggering figures lurched past the corner.

As they held their breath, a familiar, cloyingly sweet stench, thick and mingled with blood, suddenly flooded Qingshui’s nostrils.

That smell… It was too strong. And… too fresh!

Which way? Left? Right?

As the smell drew closer, Qingshui’s breathing quickened.

They had to hide!

“Inside!” she ordered without hesitation, practically ramming An Xiaolin through the shattered display window of a nearby shop. Ji Feifan and Gao Yizhou hurriedly dove in after her.

They crashed onto a floor littered with debris, then scrambled and crawled behind a freezer.

Gao Yizhou planted a hand on the floor and felt something wet, slick, and sticky beneath his palm. He instinctively looked down. In the moonlight, he saw the body of a woman lying facedown.

She had long hair. Her upper body was still mostly intact, clad in a stained pair of pajamas, but below the waist… there was nothing. The severed flesh was a mangled ruin, surrounded by a large pool of blackish-red blood.

…Qianxue?

For a dazed instant, the image of his girlfriend, He Qianxue, overlapped with the corpse on the floor. Gao Yizhou’s heart felt as if it had been struck by a sledgehammer. A dull ache spread through his chest as his stomach churned violently. He had to clench his teeth to force himself to remain calm.

Qingshui, meanwhile, had all her attention fixed on the street outside. Through the shattered glass, she stared unblinkingly at the corner.

They were here.

In the dim moonlight, several naked figures staggered around the corner, their skin smeared with blood.

They flailed their limbs in excitement. Two of the Madmen were fighting over a human arm, waving it about and spraying bright red blood everywhere.

Behind them, two stronger Madmen were carrying a man whose body was still twitching faintly.

Both his arms were gone, and he had only one leg left. The other had been torn away at the top of his thigh, leaving jagged shards of bone jutting through the flesh and swaying as he was carried.

His face was contorted beyond recognition by extreme pain and terror. His mouth gaped open, but only breathy, rasping sounds escaped it. His hollow eyes stared up at the night sky.

The gruesome sight sent a chill through An Xiaolin and Ji Feifan behind the freezer.

It was horrifying.

Death… might have been a thousand times better than staying alive like that.

“I saw you… Where are you, you little bastards?” One of the Madmen carrying the man with the severed leg suddenly stopped. It cocked its head and shrieked in a hoarse voice, its blood-red eyes sweeping aimlessly over the shadows on either side of the street.

“Where are you…? Where…? I want my little piggies. I want to play with you until you die, hee hee hee…”

It abruptly hurled its “prey” to the ground with a heavy thud, then began sniffing around like a wild beast. Roused by its actions, the other Madmen stopped fooling around and began jabbing their sharpened sticks into the piles of garbage along the road.

“My favorite… Hide-and-seek is my favorite… Heh heh heh… Once I catch you, I’ll tie you up, heh heh heh. One, two, three, tee hee hee…”

Brandishing their sticks, the Madmen advanced toward Qingshui and the others’ hiding place.

An Xiaolin and Ji Feifan hardly dared to breathe. Fear had tightened their throats.

Qingshui silently reached toward a Molotov cocktail strapped to the side of her backpack. Dawn hadn’t broken yet. Should they fight their way out?

No… Stay calm. Even if they managed to kill these few, the noise and flames would undoubtedly draw more of them.

But there didn’t seem to be any other choice.

Just as she was calculating her throwing angle and planning an escape route, with every second counting–

Bzzzz–

Bzzzzzzzz–

The familiar whir of drone rotors rapidly approached from the distance!

A small drone shot in at low altitude from the other end of the street, skimming so close that it nearly clipped the Madmen’s heads and faces! In an instant, every Madman turned toward it!

“What the hell is that?!”
“It flies! It can fly! Catch the flying thing!!! Shove it into the little piggy’s body! Hehehehehe!!”

“That feels so good… Mash the little piggy’s brains to pulp!! I want to stuff its body until it’s bursting!”

The Madmen’s attention was immediately drawn to the drone. Shrieking and flailing their arms, they raced after it, completely forgetting the poor man lying half-dead on the ground.

Inside the shop, the tension instantly drained from Qingshui’s shoulders.

Nice work, Lin Hao, she thought.

Avoiding a fight and conserving their strength was the best possible outcome.

Once she was sure the Madmen outside had been lured far enough away, Qingshui signaled to the others. She led the three of them out of the shop again, and they slipped deeper into the street with their backs pressed to the walls.

They could already see the end of the residential block when–

“Hee-hee.”

A soft, unmistakable chuckle suddenly drifted down from above.

…Huh?

Everyone froze. They looked up toward the source of the sound.

Several figures were crammed around the empty frame of a glassless window overhead.

They were engaged in some unspeakably gruesome activity, their eyes staring unblinkingly at Qingshui and the other three.

A horrifying thrill gleamed in their crimson eyes at the sight of fresh prey.

When Qingshui’s group looked up, the figures grew even more excited and burst into shrill, piercing laughter. One of the Madmen became so frenzied that it tore apart the struggling creature beneath it, scrambled onto the windowsill on all fours, and opened its mouth in a huge grin as it prepared to jump!

“Over there!”

Without the slightest hesitation, Qingshui locked her gaze on a shorter building across from them. Its rooftop terrace was only a few meters above street level!

She shot forward like a gust of wind, took a running leap, and caught hold of a utility pole with both hands. Using all four limbs, she rapidly climbed several meters.

Then Qingshui launched herself through the air and landed on the edge of the low rooftop terrace opposite.

“Hurry!” she called back in a low voice. “Climb up!”

Ji Feifan followed close behind, but his foot slipped as he jumped, sending him plunging downward. Fortunately, Qingshui reacted instantly. She leaned half her body over the edge and clamped a hand around his wrist. The cold sweat coating their palms made their skin terrifyingly slippery.

Gritting her teeth, she hauled backward, the veins standing out along her arms. By sheer force, she dragged Ji Feifan onto the terrace.

An Xiaolin clenched her jaw. With Gao Yizhou boosting her from below, she clambered upward on all fours. Her arms were trembling violently, but she did not dare stop.

By the time Gao Yizhou began climbing the utility pole, several Madmen had already gathered below. They started scrambling up after him, trying to grab hold of him!

Qingshui, Ji Feifan, and An Xiaolin lay flat at the edge of the terrace and reached down for him together.

Gao Yizhou seized their hands and poured nearly every ounce of strength he had into pulling himself up as the three of them hauled on him. The instant he rolled onto the terrace, they dragged him to his feet and kept running without a moment’s pause!

They could not stop!

Qingshui led the other three as they sprinted and leaped across the neighboring rooftops. The old apartment buildings stood close together, with some gaps less than two meters wide. An adult could clear them with a determined jump.

But every leap took a tremendous toll on their stamina. Each time they pushed off, it felt as though the last dregs of strength were being wrung from their limbs.

A rusty sweetness rose in Qingshui’s throat, but she did not dare slow down. She kept her eyes fixed on the uneven rooftops ahead, calculating where every step needed to land.

After crossing only three or four buildings, An Xiaolin and Ji Feifan felt as though their chests were on fire. Their vision repeatedly dimmed, and sweat poured from their bodies.

But they did not dare stop.

Behind Qingshui, Gao Yizhou’s mind had long since gone blank. The shrill laughter drawing closer behind him had crushed every conscious thought, leaving him with only one instinctive command.

Keep up with the person ahead.

He could no longer see his surroundings or hear his own ragged breathing. All that remained in his vision was Qingshui’s swaying back as she ran.

Keep up with her. Keep up with her!!! Faster! Faster! Run-!

Bzzzzzz–

The drone’s engine buzzed again. It swept over their heads and flew out in front of them.

Qingshui gritted her teeth, about to follow Lin Hao’s guidance, when countless crimson pinpricks suddenly began appearing beneath the drone, one after another, without warning.

One pair, two pairs, ten pairs… Eyes brimming with madness, hunger, and malice lit up in the shadows in quick succession.

Then countless smiling faces emerged from the darkness.

“Right-!”

Qingshui screamed herself hoarse and dragged An Xiaolin by the arm as she sprinted to the right, only to skid to an abrupt halt the next second!

…It was over.

All four of them froze.

Standing at the edge of the terrace, they stared blankly at the next building in the distance.

The gap between them was hopelessly wide.