Chapter 60
Chapter 60
The atmosphere sank once more into suffocating silence. The only sounds were the clicks of the drone’s controls and Lin Hao’s heartbeat pounding louder and louder.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It felt ready to burst out of his chest. Every ounce of his attention was locked on the small screen in his hands.
The image shook and spun from the rapid movement, but he could still clearly see Qingshui and the other three fleeing for their lives across rooftops of varying heights. Several twisted figures raced after them on all fours.
Fuck!
Cold sweat burst from Lin Hao’s skin, soaking through his clothes. The clammy fabric clung to him, sending a shudder through his body.
He forced himself to shut out every useless thought. His fingers flew over the controls so quickly they blurred, while his aching eyes remained fixed on the map data synced to the screen.
A route! He needed a new route! They had to avoid that open area ahead. They couldn’t go there… Look! Look carefully! The platform on the low building to the left was connected to a rusty fire escape. Once they climbed down, there was a narrow alley… Yes, that way! Hurry!
His mind raced, plotting a new route in an instant. He sent the drone into a sharp turn and dive, flying back to a position diagonally ahead of Qingshui’s group and desperately directing them toward the new path.
Just then, Chen Yuhui, who had been watching his reactions, felt her heart sink.
“Lin Hao?” she called tentatively.
Lin Hao did not respond. It was as if his entire soul had been sucked into the screen. His lips were pressed into a hard line, and the veins at his temples bulged.
Something was wrong.
Chen Yuhui struggled to get up, but from the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Zhou Yaping standing guard by the door. At some point, the little girl had retreated behind it, leaving only her eyes visible. She stared back at Chen Yuhui in terror, her small face deathly pale and even her lips trembling.
“Uncle Haohao…” Zhou Yaping whimpered, barely above a whisper.
Lin Hao still did not notice.
What was going on?! What was outside?!
The dreadful premonition in Chen Yuhui’s heart instantly surged to its peak, overpowering the excruciating pain in her leg.
Gritting her teeth, she forced herself upright and inched toward the door. Every movement tugged at her wound, sending stabbing pain through her.
When she finally reached Zhou Yaping, she leaned against the cold wall and took two quick, ragged breaths. Then, following the direction of Zhou Yaping’s trembling finger, she peered through the narrow crack in the door.
Outside lay a deathly silent construction lot.
They had deliberately chosen this corner to stay hidden, and piles of building materials surrounded the prefab shelter.
Clouds obscured the moonlight, leaving only vague outlines visible.
The traps… The crude alarms they had rigged with empty cans seemed to still be in place, with no sign that any of them had been triggered.
“What’s wrong, Pingping? What did you see?” Chen Yuhui whispered, trying to keep her voice steady.
Zhou Yaping pressed tightly against her. Her little hand was ice-cold, and her voice shook with fear. “There was… there was a monster… I saw it just now… over there.”
She pointed toward a pile of concrete pipes to the right of the door.
The Madmen? Were the Madmen approaching? But why hadn’t they made a sound?! Why hadn’t the traps gone off?!
Chen Yuhui forced herself to hold her breath and pressed her eye to the crack again. She strained to see outside as her pupils slowly adjusted to the darkness.
Suddenly…
Something moved at the edge of the shadows cast by the dark gray concrete pipes.
No, it had not moved.
It was slowly… emerging.
A grotesque, horrifying mouth, its corners stretched unnaturally high in a grin, appeared in the dim light. The sight was enough to stop a person’s heart.
One face.
Two.
Three.
Three nearly identical “smiling faces” slowly peeked out from the shadows behind the concrete pipes.
They simply “stood” there in silence, several meters away, facing the prefab shelter without moving a muscle.
Chen Yuhui’s breath stopped.
The muscles at the corners of their mouths had been stretched to their limits, the grins almost reaching their ears and exposing every inch of their gums and crooked teeth. But what truly made Chen Yuhui’s scalp crawl was what lay inside their mouths.
They were packed with chunks of stone of every size!
The stones had distorted their mouths completely. She could even see sharp edges bulging beneath the skin of their cheeks.
Dark red blood seeped continuously from the corners of their mouths where the stones had torn the flesh, running down their chins. Their faces were smeared with blood and grime, but their eyes shone unnaturally bright in the gloom, gleaming with inhuman malice.
They made no sound. There was no shrill laughter, no stream of obscenities. They merely stood there in silence, smiling with bloody, stone-filled mouths as they stared at the flimsy door.
It was as though they were playing a silent, patient game of… hide-and-seek.
Chen Yuhui jerked her head back and clamped a trembling hand over her mouth, barely stifling the scream that almost escaped.
The traps were useless against them… They had avoided every object that could make a sound.
The Madmen… They had actually stuffed their mouths with stones to silence themselves!
It was over.
“Lin Hao.”
Her entire body rigid, Chen Yuhui turned around with the trembling Zhou Yaping in her arms. Her voice quavered as she called softly to Lin Hao, who still had no idea what was happening.
“They’re… here.”