Chapter 36: Zero-Dollar Shopping When Entering the City?
This damn place is too eerie!
The ramp of Interstate 75 on the outskirts of Atlanta.
The brake discs of the leading Ford police car emitted an ugly frictional sound.
Shane violently spun the steering wheel with both hands and slammed on the brakes.
Four vehicles stopped one after another on this asphalt road covered in scorch marks.
The road ahead was completely cut off.
Everywhere he looked were abandoned private cars deformed from collisions, stacked one on top of another, blocking the gap leading to the main road of the downtown area so tightly that not even a dog could crawl through.
Scattered across the road were various suitcases and clothing stained with black-red blood and filth.
The air was permeated with a strong smell of burning rubber, mixed with the disgusting stench of rotting corpses.
Shane pushed open the car door, stepped down onto the footboard, and waved his hand in front of his face a couple of times to drive away the blowflies buzzing around his face.
He turned his head, just in time to meet the heavy off-road vehicle behind.
Ling Feng lowered the car window, resting his left hand casually on the window frame, biting on half of an almost-finished cigarette in his mouth.
Facing the tragic apocalyptic scene before him, this Asian man didn't even frown, and that attitude of completely not taking this seriously made Shane find him exceptionally glaring.
Shane suppressed the anger in his heart and nodded slightly toward Ling Feng as a greeting.
He turned around and strode to the back seat of the police car, heavily patting the car window glass.
Glenn was huddled in his seat hugging an old backpack, startled, and hurriedly pushed the door open to get out of the car.
This Asian young man's forehead was covered in fine beads of sweat, swallowing hard as he looked at the city ruins not far away.
"The road is completely blocked."
Shane put his hands on his hips and directly threw out the question, "Is your living map actually useful or not? Are there any relatively spacious, safe routes where we can drive the cars in?"
Glenn hurriedly reached out to wipe the sweat from his forehead, his eyes sweeping rapidly across the familiar yet unfamiliar road signs around.
He was so anxious that he scratched his head continuously, muttering under his breath.
If he couldn't think of anything, the value of him tagging along to make a living would be completely gone.
Beside him, Merle had already gotten out of the pickup truck, carrying a large iron rod and spitting onto the ground, ready to start cursing.
"There is!"
Glenn suddenly raised his voice and slammed his thigh.
Everyone's gaze instantly concentrated on him.
Glenn walked forward a couple of steps somewhat excitedly, pointing at the area ahead-left blocked by weeds and barbed wire and began to explain.
"The railway! There is an abandoned freight train track! Right behind that isolation net, this railway line goes directly underneath the downtown storage area. Both sides are high walls, and nobody walks there usually. The road surface is definitely wide enough, and we can completely drive the cars straight into the Train Station platform in the city along the tracks!"
These words hit right on target with Shane's needs.
With high walls for cover, they could also penetrate straight deep into the area.
Shane's tense face finally relaxed.
He patted Glenn's thin shoulder with great appreciation, adding two parts of force to his hand.
"Good kid, your brain turns fast enough."
Shane nodded in affirmation, "Bringing you along really is a wise decision."
With a clear objective, the motorcade started again.
Glenn sat back in the passenger seat to lead the way.
Shane violently turned the steering wheel, and the police car directly crushed a section of rusty barbed wire by the roadside, its wheels grinding over gravel and dead grass all over the ground, forcefully rushing into that sunken abandoned railway.
The cars behind followed closely.
Ling Feng drove the off-road vehicle at the very back to hold the line.
The huge tires with extremely high chassis easily rolled over the rotten wood blocking across the tracks.
Driving forward along this railway ditch, both sides of the line of sight were seven or eight-meter-high concrete revetments covered in moss and vines.
The outside streets were completely cut off.
Bouncing around inside the railway for about half an hour.
The light ahead dimmed slightly.
The motorcade finally drove into a large freight Train Station at the bottom of downtown Atlanta.
Several green carriages covered in iron-red rust parked quietly on the tracks.
The huge canopy blocked most of the harsh sunlight.
The entire platform was empty and spacious, with a thick layer of dust accumulated on the ground.
This place had extremely high concealment, parking the cars here was simply perfect.
Most importantly, looking around, not even a shadow of a zombie could be seen.
"Stop and kill the engine."
Shane pushed open the police car door and gestured to the back in a suppressed voice.
The roar of the engines stopped one after another.
The entire Train Station fell into an extremely uncomfortable silence.
Even the wind blowing through the gaps of the iron carriages made a slight whimpering sound.
Shane walked to the trunk, pulled out a thick aluminum alloy baseball bat, and weighed it a couple of times.
He turned his head, staring with a very serious expression at these people who had just gotten out of the car.
Merle held a wrench in his hand, Morales held a sharpened water pipe, and T-Dog gripped a fire axe in his hand.
Everyone's nerves were pulled taut to the limit.
Ling Feng got out of the car last.
He didn't care about that scrap metal.
Tied to the outside of his left leg was the quick-draw holster for the glock pistol filled with bullets, and his right hand directly pulled out that extremely sharp machete.
On his back, the sniper rifle was slung very casually, ready to be taken down at any time.
"All of you prick up your ears and listen well."
Shane lowered his voice to warn, "Later when we go out, no one is allowed to shoot! Making that kind of commotion in the city is courting death. No matter what we encounter, solve it all with the weapons in your hands, understand?"
"So much nonsense."
Merle turned his neck impatiently, his bones making a cracking sound, "Are we going or not?"
Shane snorted coldly and ignored this punk.
Ling Feng couldn't even be bothered to speak.
Intermediate Shooting Skill brought him not only shooting experience, but also extremely acute battlefield environment perception.
He knew very well in his heart that firing a gun in this steel and concrete jungle with huge echoes could attract thousands of monsters in less than two minutes.
"Lead the way!"
Shane pointed his chin at a section of rusty iron stairs ahead.
"Let's go, zero-dollar shopping has begun."
Glenn tightly grasped the baseball bat in his hand, swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and trotted in the very front.
The group of people slowly climbed up along the iron stairs.
Boots stepping on the metal pedals emitted a dull echo.
Pushing open the bullet-pocked iron door at the top, the heat wave outside rushed straight into their faces.
The scene of truly penetrating deep into the downtown area was completely exposed before everyone's eyes.
The street before them was completely a giant garbage dump.
An abandoned bus crashed into the coffee shop at the street corner, and more than half of its body was burned into charcoal.
Scattered everywhere on the road were colorful flyers, damaged suitcases, and blackened bloodstains all over the ground.
Many windows of the high-rise buildings on both sides were completely shattered, and when a strong wind blew, a few sheets of white paper drifted down leisurely from a height of over a dozen floors.
Five people hugged the base of the wall, moving forward step by step.
The hands holding weapons were all sweating from the heat.
Walking through one street.
Nothing happened.
Then turning a crossroad, entering another commercial street.
Supermarkets and hardware stores with smashed signs were not far ahead.
Still excessively quiet.
Shane raised his hand, signaling the team to stop.
Leaning his back against a garbage can, his chest heaving violently, he looked around vigilantly.
"How strange."
Morales muttered softly, with a tone of relief, "Why is there not a single monster in this place? I thought we were going to be surrounded as soon as we went out."
"Don't jinx it."
T-Dog wiped his face nervously.
Glenn was also full of puzzlement.
He used to ride his bike delivering takeouts around here; this area was full of office buildings and shopping malls, and usually the pedestrian flow was shockingly large.
Logically speaking, even if it had been evacuated, it shouldn't be so empty that not even a single zombie could be seen.
The group felt their luck was good and relaxed their guard slightly.
But Ling Feng, walking at the very back of the team, took slower and slower steps.
Holding the machete with a backhand grip, his gaze locked onto the narrow alleys on both sides of the street like an eagle.
That face, which always carried a bit of arrogant casualness, sank completely at this moment.
Something's wrong.
This place is too eerie.
Although the bloodstains on the ground had turned black, some were obviously just dragged by some heavy object, leaving a few long, fresh scrape marks.
This proved that those monsters hadn't gone far at all.
They didn't vanish into thin air.
It was more like something that attracted them more, or some kind of large-scale sound, that had lured all the zombies in several blocks nearby to another fixed location.
Just as several people were preparing to cross the road and head straight for the open-doored daily necessities supermarket across the street.
Ling Feng suddenly stopped his footsteps, his right hand grabbing the shoulder of Merle walking in front.
This grip was extremely forceful, and Merle was in so much pain that he directly cursed out loud, "What are you doing! What kind of madness are you acting..."
Before Merle finished shouting, Ling Feng extremely crudely smashed the back of the knife in his hand against the hood of an abandoned car nearby, producing a muffled thud.
"Shut your stinking mouth!"
Ling Feng lowered his voice, his gaze terrifyingly sharp.
Shane and the others were startled by this sudden change and hurriedly turned back.
Ling Feng didn't look at them at all, but tilted his head, concentrating all his attention on the street corner turn directly ahead.
On this lifeless street, an extremely faint yet extremely discordant sound was carried over by the wind.
Chapter 37: Cutting the Chain and Entering!
An extremely faint "groan" sound swept into this dark passage with the hot wind.
Shane, walking at the very front, abruptly raised his right hand and clenched it into a fist.
This was the tactical gesture telling everyone to stop advancing.
With his back against the mottled brick wall, he lightened his steps, inched over to the corner, and slowly poked half his head out to look forward.
Just this one glance.
Shane felt his scalp completely explode, and an intensely strong chill rushed straight from the soles of his feet to his crown, causing the fish soup he had just drunk last night to churn wildly in his stomach.
The entire main thoroughfare ahead was completely stuffed.
They were all monsters with rotting faces and shreds of meat hanging from their bodies, rubbing shoulders against one another, numbering at least in the hundreds or thousands.
Lying in the middle of the road was the carcass of a massive, unknown animal, already torn apart until only a bloody skeleton remained, while hundreds of mouths dripping with black blood crowded around, fighting for the scraps of meat.
Those densely packed, swaying heads exuded a despair-inducing oppressiveness under the scorching sun.
Shane abruptly pulled his head back, pressing his hands tightly against the brick wall, and panted heavily.
He quickly retreated back in front of the others with a pale face.
"We can't get through ahead."
Shane lowered his voice to the extreme, his Adam's apple rolling up and down twice. "That road at the corner is completely blocked by zombies, and there are so many of them that they are simply uncountable. We must change routes."
As these words dropped, the expressions of Morales and T-Dog changed instantly.
Shane turned his head and grabbed Glenn by the collar.
"Weren't you delivering food around this area?"
Shane demanded eagerly, "Think carefully, is there any other way to bypass that street!"
Glenn was hoisted up onto his tiptoes, covered in sweat from anxiety, and waved his hands repeatedly.
"Big brother, when I deliver food, I only recognize main roads and office building gates!"
Glenn's voice carried a hint of a cry, and despair was written all over his face. "I wouldn't even glance at this abandoned Train Station on normal days, how would I know the layout of the secret passages inside!"
Merle, holding a wrench nearby, spat a mouthful of saliva.
"I said bringing along a deadweight who doesn't understand a damn thing is completely useless."
Merle grinned mockingly, tossing the wrench in his hand. "Shane, your eye for people really is terrible."
Shane's anger flared up, but he simply didn't have time to haggle with this punk.
He looked around and directly pointed at a narrower, darker back alley on his right-hand side.
"Follow me this way, move quietly."
The five of them continued to sneak further into the narrow alley.
Both sides were piled with stinking trash cans and abandoned cardboard boxes, and from time to time they stepped on slippery sewage underfoot.
They walked about forty to fifty meters.
There was no way forward.
An extremely tall concrete wall blocked the end, and a two-meter-wide bidirectional iron sheet door was embedded in the wall.
Several circles of security iron chains as thick as fingers were wrapped around the door, with a large iron lock hanging right in the center.
This was their only hope of leaving this dead end right now.
Shane strode over, without even thinking, and reached out with both hands to grab the dusty iron door handle, wanting to test how tightly the door was locked.
Just at the moment his hand was about to touch it.
A powerful, large hand suddenly reached out from the side, gripping Shane's forearm tightly.
The force was immense; Shane felt like his bones were about to be crushed.
He turned back in pain.
Ling Feng was standing just behind his flank, his sharp-featured face completely gloomy.
"Are you insane?"
Ling Feng lowered his voice and cursed unceremoniously. "This thing is covered in iron chains, and you're just going straight to pull the door? The sound of that metal clashing would echo through this alley, and the group of zombies behind us would come rushing over!"
Shane's face felt hot, left speechless by this extremely unsparing reprimand.
He had been too anxious just now and had indeed forgotten to worry about the noise of the chains.
But it was impossible for him to concede verbally.
"Then what do we do now? Stand here staring at each other?"
Shane brushed away Ling Feng's hand, his tone stiff.
Ling Feng couldn't be bothered to deal with his fiery temper at all.
He turned his head and looked at the few men standing behind.
"Get over here, all of you."
Ling Feng gave the order. "All hands on, use both hands to firmly grip every joint of the chains, hold all those iron rings tightly in your palms, and don't leave any space for collision."
Merle originally wanted to retort a couple of times, but seeing that Ling Feng's other hand was already resting on the pistol holster at his waist, he very wisely shut his mouth.
The five big men instantly crowded in front of the door.
Over a dozen hands directly covered it, gripping those rusted iron chains tightly.
After confirming that all the links were firmly wedged, Ling Feng stood by the door crack himself and grasped the mottled iron handle.
He slowly exerted force with his wrist, pressing down little by little.
As the door hinges let out an extremely faint, grating sound, this bidirectional door was pulled outward by a finger-width gap.
Ling Feng leaned closer to that gap to look inside.
The light inside was dim, resembling a basement warehouse passage.
The floor was covered with trampled packaging boxes, with no shadow of wandering zombies seen and no extra miscellaneous noises heard.
After confirming it was safe.
Ling Feng released the handle and gestured to the chubby black man at the back of the queue.
"T-Dog, take out the bolt cutters."
T-Dog hurriedly swung the shoulder bag on his back to his chest, unzipped it, and pulled out a large pair of nearly half-meter-long hydraulic cutters from inside.
The atmosphere at this moment was strained to the extreme.
Everyone was well aware that to cut through iron chains as thick as a finger, the noise definitely wouldn't be small.
But under the circumstance of having no way out, they could only gamble on this.
T-Dog was covered in cold sweat and panted heavily a couple of times.
He stepped forward, aligning the sharp metal jaws of the hydraulic cutters with the thinnest chain beside the lock.
The few of them looked at each other and nodded individually.
T-Dog clenched his teeth, the solid muscle blocks on his arms suddenly bulging as he pressed all his strength onto the two handles of the hydraulic cutters.
"Click—!"
An extremely piercing sound of metal snapping exploded in the narrow alley.
This sound was terrifyingly loud.
Almost simultaneously, the five big men shrank their necks, turned their heads in unison, and stared fixedly at the alley entrance they had come from dozens of meters away.
One second.
Three seconds.
Ten seconds passed.
Over at the alley entrance, aside from a few flies startled into flight, there was absolutely no roar or running sound of a zombie riot.
The group of monsters over there seemed completely immersed in the feast of eating the horse.
Glenn couldn't hold on any longer; his whole body slid down the brick wall and sat on the ground, frantically wiping the cold sweat from his forehead.
Shane also let out a long breath of turbid air that had been trapped in his chest.
He and Morales hurriedly crowded over, very carefully pulling the severed chain out of the handle bit by bit, not even daring to make a single metallic clashing sound.
The two of them handled the heavy pile of chains with care and placed them in the corner.
Afterwards, Shane pressed both hands against the door panel and slowly exerted force.
The heavy bidirectional iron door swung open inward.
A breeze mixed with the musty smell of cardboard and the chilly dampness unique to basements drifted out.
The few of them quickly squeezed through this door.
Ling Feng stayed at the back. Holding a short machete in a reverse grip, after walking in, he pulled the iron door tight and closed it again.
This completely isolated the terrifying aura outside that drove people to neurasthenia.
It was very dark in the passage.
Overhead, only a few nearly scrapped emergency indicator lights flashed with a faint red glow.
Shane felt a tactical flashlight out of his pocket, turned on the switch, and shone it around.
The crowd apprehensively passed through the passage, and light gradually appeared ahead!
Chapter 38: Finding a Way Out? Who Would Go Draw Away the Monsters Became a Dilemma!"
In the long, narrow, and gloomy underground passage, five people carefully crept forward hugging the base of the wall.
The dim, dying red lights overhead stretched their shadows long.
The moldy cardboard box smell in the air grew fainter, replaced by the hot wind blowing in from the street outside.
A large patch of somewhat dazzling white light shone in ahead.
They had reached the exit.
"Hurry!"
Glenn urged in a lowered voice, his pace involuntarily quickening.
He ran forward a few steps and threw himself straight against a heavily rusted iron barred gate.
The glaring sunlight made him squint directly.
After seeing the situation outside, the hint of excitement that had just risen on Glenn's face was instantly scared away.
He quickly squatted down, hiding most of his body in the shadow, and desperately pressed his hands downward at the others following behind.
Sean leaned over crouching, holding his baseball bat tightly.
"What's going on?"
Sean looked out through the gaps in the bars.
Outside was a fairly spacious commercial side street.
The ground was littered with messy newspapers and overturned trash cans.
Several yellow taxis were involved in a chain-reaction rear-end collision, blocking the middle of the road.
The most fatal thing was that quite a few blood-soaked zombies were wandering around in twos and threes on the street.
Although this number could not compare to the exaggerated scale of hundreds or thousands at the main road corner just now, a casual count revealed thirty or forty of them.
Through the gaps between these monsters, Sean sharply noticed that less than a hundred meters diagonally across the road, the glass automatic sensor doors of a large grocery supermarket were wide open.
A few abandoned boxes of mineral water were scattered on the steps at the entrance, and there were obviously a large amount of supplies inside that had not been taken away.
"Not bad luck."
Sean wiped the sweat from his forehead, "Across the street is the place we're looking for. As long as we move fast, don't make a big noise, sneak past behind the cars, and slip directly into the supermarket, these dozens of strays outside won't be a problem at all."
Just as Sean was scheming the infiltration route, a basin of cold water was poured directly over his head.
"Stop obsessing over your damn supermarket."
Ling Feng held a machete short blade with a backhand grip, leaning against the edge of the barred gate without lowering his voice at all.
Sean frowned, very unhappy about being contradicted.
Without even looking at him, Ling Feng used the hilt of his knife to point toward the depths of the gloomy passage behind.
"In your heads, besides going in to scavenge for things, have you ever thought about how to get back out?"
Ling Feng unceremoniously pierced through their ridiculous stroke of luck, "When everyone carries dozens of pounds of canned goods, rice, and flour back, how much stamina will be left? When we return along the original route and struggle to push open that two-way iron sheet door, do you guess that group of raw-meat-eating monsters on the main road just now will have finished eating and directly block us to death in that alley?"
When these words struck down, the men behind the barred gate were all dumbfounded.
T-Dog's hand holding the fire axe began to tremble, and the flesh on his fat face shivered continuously.
Morales broke out in a cold sweat of shock even more.
Ling Feng's words were too thorough.
Entering was easy, but as long as they carried heavy supplies on their backs and encountered that kind of tightly blocked situation from earlier, it would be a desperate situation where they couldn't even run.
The horse bones gnawed by hundreds of zombies were still vivid in their minds; if they were really trapped in the narrow alley, the few of them wouldn't even last a minute.
"This won't do and that won't do! Then I'll just swing my wrench and kill my way out!"
Merle was made very irritable by this oppressive atmosphere.
The bald punk waved the heavy large wrench in his hand, his fierce flesh shaking, "How long can a street be? I'll smash all their heads along the way and forcefully hammer out a path, isn't that it?!"
Ling Feng directly sneered out loud, his gaze sweeping over Merle's muscles.
"Then you'd better go right now, and I'll watch you smash them right here."
Ling Feng pointed outside the door, "When you're pounced on and have your throat bitten off by the dozens of monsters outside, it will just happen to help us lead all the rest away."
The veins on Merle's neck bulged, and his chest heaved violently several times.
But he didn't dare to make a move against Ling Feng at all, so he could only forcefully swallow his anger and fiercely spat on the ground.
Glenn ignored Merle's madness; his entire body pressed against the iron bars, his eyes staring fixedly at the street terrain outside.
Having delivered food in this area for two years, every path and architectural structure was imprinted in his mind.
He was also desperately trying to figure out a way out now just to survive.
"There's a way!"
Glenn suddenly turned his head, his voice slightly higher due to excessive excitement, "We can do the opposite! Instead of returning from this street, we draw away all those hundreds of monsters at the corner!"
Sean was dazed by his words: "Speak more clearly."
"It's very simple."
Glenn reached out and drew the route on the ground, "We strike first, eliminate those wandering around outside this door to clear out a clean area, and then send someone with something that can make a huge commotion, like smashing car windows or hitting an iron basin, to run to the corner of the main road where we came from."
Glenn slapped his hand heavily on the ground at the location representing the main road.
"Once this noise sounds, those hundreds of zombies will definitely be attracted. As long as we lure them to run in the opposite direction of this side street, our pressure on the supermarket side will be completely gone. Even if we're carrying supplies, we can swagger back to the Train Station along the original route!"
After hearing this plan, Morales drew in a sharp breath.
"Draw away the monsters?"
Morales shook his head repeatedly and stepped back half a step, "Go draw those hundreds of zombies—how is this any different from seeking death? Once the noise comes out, run two seconds too slow and not even bone scraps will be left!"
Everyone's gazes avoided each other.
No one wanted to take on this fatal chore.
Whichever head this kind of job fell on, that person would most likely not be able to return to the Quarry.
Glenn hurriedly waved his hand to explain, "I'm not asking you to throw your lives away! There's a fallback route!"
He reached out and pointed to a hidden back alley less than thirty meters ahead and to the right outside the barred gate.
"Look over there! When I used to deliver express mail to this commercial building and the front door security guard refused to let me in because my clothes were dirty, I always took that back alley! Hanging on that wall is an external fire escape ladder leading straight to the roof of the fifth floor!"
Glenn spoke with absolute certainty.
"Those monsters will only run following the sound and won't climb up the ladder at all. As long as a sufficient number is lured, the person drawing the monsters sprints with all their stamina into that alley, climbs up the ladder to the roof, and the zombies below can only stare blankly from the bottom."
"After we finish scavenging the supplies and return along the original route, the person on the roof can figure out a way to evacuate from inside the building or another fire escape route, and we'll meet them outside."
The logic of this plan actually made sense.
It not only solved the dead end of being blocked on the return trip, but also left the bait with an extremely reliable escape route.
After hearing this, the knot in Sean's heart untied.
He involuntarily turned his head, his gaze crossing over Morales's shoulder and falling on Ling Feng who was standing further back.
In the group, nobody else's words counted; only when this freakishly powerful man nodded could this matter be carried out.
Following the direction Glenn pointed, Ling Feng looked at the narrow alley whose entrance was mostly blocked by a few trash cans.
The distance was not far; for someone with good stamina, a full-speed sprint of ten seconds could reach beneath the ladder.
"The path is open, the method is feasible."
Ling Feng gave a very straightforward judgment.
Getting Ling Feng's affirmation, Glenn let out a long breath.
But immediately afterwards, the most fatal question lay once again between these five grown men.
The passage was somewhat eerily quiet, with only the heavy breathing of a few people echoing.
Drawing away the monsters was physical labor, and even more, a job dancing on the edge of a knife.
If one's speed wasn't fast enough or mental resilience wasn't tough enough, as long as one slipped up halfway, hundreds of monsters would pounce and send them straight to meet God.
As the person organizing this trip into the city, Sean naturally couldn't do this job.
Morales had a wife and children at home waiting for fever medicine; he lowered his head and pretended not to hear.
T-Dog's weight of nearly two hundred pounds made his sprinting speed a joke.
Not to mention Glenn; his legs were trembling.
Just when everyone was at a stalemate.
Merle was completely impatient.
"Go, go, go! A bunch of spineless cowards pushing each other around here, who are you trying to disgust?"
Grasping the heavy large wrench, Merle squeezed directly to the very front of the barred gate.
Although this punk had a rotten personality to the core, he really didn't hesitate when facing matters.
"The question of who goes can be argued later."
Merle pointed at the small group of zombies still wandering aimlessly outside the iron barred gate, "There are still seven or eight things shaking around just a few steps away outside. Let's clear out this nearby trash first! Go check if that damn ladder the yellow-skinned kid talked about is actually still hanging on the wall!"
Merle turned his head and glared at Sean.
"Damn it, if that ladder broke long ago or rusted and became unusable, everything you guys were yapping about here just now is utter bullshit! A complete waste of my time!"
Although Sean hated Merle's hooligan face, he had to admit that this punk's words hit the vital point.
No matter how good the plan was, there had to be a ladder for retreat first.
No one retorted.
Sean took a deep breath and shifted the baseball bat in his hand to his right hand, gripping it tightly.
"Merle is right, let's go out first."
Sean began assigning the most basic tasks, "Merle and I are responsible for pulling this door open. There are a total of five right near the door outside. Once the door opens, Merle and I will deal with the two at the very front. Morales, T-Dog, you guys handle the remaining three on the left."
Ling Feng didn't chime in the entire time.
This kind of minor scene of clearing out stray zombies wasn't worth him making a move at all.
He just needed to stand in the back to hold the line and incidentally observe that so-called escape route.
Sean turned his head and looked around at everyone for confirmation.
Several people gripped the sharpened iron pipes and fire axes in their hands tightly, their palms covered in sweat.
Except for Ling Feng and Merle, the rest of them were facing these living, man-eating monsters for the very first time. The visual impact and sense of oppression were completely indescribable in words.
"Get ready."
Sean placed both hands on the rusty handle of the iron barred gate, and Merle reached out to help on the other side.
The two glanced at each other and exerted force simultaneously.
The old door hinges rubbed against thick rust, making a teeth-aching "creak."
This sound appeared exceptionally clear at the relatively quiet passage entrance.
The five zombies outside that had originally been facing away from this side stopped their swaying steps in almost the exact same second.
They stiffly turned their heads with half-chewed faces, their dead-gray, turbid eyeballs locking directly onto the gradually opening iron door.
The zombie at the very front wearing a tattered suit squeezed out an airy low roar from its throat, directly opened its mouth dripping with black blood, and pounced toward the crowd inside the door.
Chapter 39: The Beginners Are Speechless...
Outside the door, the suit-wearing zombie squeezed out an extremely harsh, strange sound from its throat, opening its mouth streaming with black blood as it lunged into the doorway.
T-Dog, following behind Shane and Merle, completely lost his composure.
This heavy-set Black man looked massive, but when facing living, human-eating monsters, his legs shook like a sieve.
The heavy fire axe in his hands was raised mid-air, stopping dead in its tracks, and he couldn't even muster the strength to swing it down.
Morales beside him was even more pathetic to the extreme.
His mind was entirely filled with the zombie's half-rotted face, and he kept shrinking backward, his heel accidentally tripping on a protruding gravel brick, his entire body pitching backward as he fell heavily on his buttocks into the sewage puddle in the passageway.
The iron water pipe Morales was holding flew out of his hand, smashing against the side brick wall and producing a crisp metallic echo.
This extra commotion completely stimulated the other four zombies wandering the street outside.
They instantly accelerated, bypassing the suit-wearing zombie at the very front, and crazily squeezed toward the gap of the iron gate that had just been pulled open.
Shane gripped his baseball bat tightly, preparing to smash the suit-wearing zombie's head, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the few rushing in from the side, and his scalp instantly tingled.
He and Merle simply couldn't block this width.
Seeing that the fastest zombie had already stretched out its hand with long, black nails, reaching straight for the ankle of Morales, who had fallen to the ground.
Just as Morales opened his mouth, preparing to scream out in misery.
Ling Feng moved.
He did not sprint, but merely stepped forward two steps with extremely steady strides, his figure directly cutting into the gap left between Merle and T-Dog.
The short machete reverse-held in his right hand slashed an extremely fast arc through the dim light.
There was not a trace of sloppiness, completely devoid of any redundant wind-up movements.
"Puff!"
The blade chopped with extreme precision into the forehead of the zombie that went to grab Morales.
The sound of the blade jamming into the hard skull was dull and piercing.
Ling Feng's wrist turned smoothly, taking advantage of the body's forward momentum to violently pull the blade out, followed by a backhanded swing to the left.
Dark red, viscous blood followed the blade, flung into mid-air.
The next second, the zombie on the left, whose body had just squeezed more than halfway through the gap, had more than half its head above the chin directly sliced off and sent flying by this backhanded slash.
That half-rotted head spun twice in mid-air, rolling to the edge of T-Dog's dirt-covered shoes.
The headless corpse, losing control, continued to lunge forward from inertia, smashing heavily onto the dusty ground.
In less than three seconds.
Ling Feng stood at the very front of the group, hacking down two zombies consecutively, without his facial expression changing even slightly, and his breathing rhythm was frighteningly steady.
That decisive, unhesitating demeanor made the few people standing in the back row twitch at the corners of their eyes.
Shane reacted extremely quickly, seizing this counterattack opportunity, and swung the baseball bat in his hand fiercely, directly bashing the suit-wearing zombie's head in until it caved.
Merle also swung that oversized wrench, smashing the skull of the last approaching zombie.
These few isolated threats at the doorway were completely cleared away.
Several corpses covered in rotting flesh were all piled up on the threshold of the iron gate.
The passageway instantly filled with heavy panting.
Merle stood in place, a fine layer of sweat bursting out all over his bald head.
He looked down at the corpse with half its head sliced off by his feet, then turned his head to look at Ling Feng, who was wiping the blood off his short machete with a rag, his Adam's apple rolling up and down noticeably.
Merle considered himself a ruthless street thug, having lost count of the fights he had gotten into since childhood.
But he knew very well in his heart that fighting and killing were two completely different things.
The unhesitating crispness with which the Dragon Country man in front of him struck was definitely not a ferocity that suddenly burst out when driven to a desperate situation.
That appearance of going for a headshot with every single blade stroke and not even blinking an eyelid was completely treating slaughter as commonplace.
Before the apocalypse, this guy was probably an unblinking, murderous fiend!
Merle involuntarily shrunk his neck back in his heart.
If the kick he took yesterday was just simple physical suppression, then this current scene maxed out his fear of Ling Feng directly.
He completely suppressed even the thought of finding an excuse to talk back.
On the other side, Shane supported his knees and panted heavily.
He raised his head to look at Ling Feng, his eyes filled with extreme approval.
In this world full of human-eating monsters, a person who could step up at a critical moment without any nonsense was truly a companion one could rely on to survive.
Morales climbed up from the ground, shivering, his whole body stained with stinking sewage.
T-Dog also re-gripped the fire axe that had fallen to the ground.
The two looked at Ling Feng and stammered out their thanks.
"Thanks... truly thanks! If not for that move of yours just now, I would already be dead."
Morales looked pale, glancing lingeringly at his right leg's ankle.
T-Dog also nodded repeatedly, swallowing his saliva out of lingering fear.
Ling Feng casually tossed the bloody rag onto the ground and shoved the short machete back into its scabbard.
He frowned, his gaze sweeping across the faces of these men, his tone full of undisguised disdain.
"Save the words of thanks to tell your wives when you get back."
Ling Feng didn't leave them any face at all, "You'd better put away this spineless act today and get used to how to chop off these things' heads as soon as possible."
Ling Feng extended a finger, heavily tapping Morales on the chest.
"Today it's me standing here, and I can casually chop them down, but what about tomorrow? What about the day after? Every second these ghosts will be thinking about biting through your throats, and on the day I'm not beside you, do you plan to just stand there with your eyes closed and wait for death?"
His voice was not loud, but the words spoken were extremely blunt and piercing.
These words completely shattered that unrealistic sense of security in the hearts of these civilians.
The few of them all fell silent.
They understood this logic completely in their heads, but this hurdle of having to personally kill this group of humanoid species was truly not something that could be crossed just like that.
"Blech——!"
An exaggerated retching sound suddenly burst out in the extremely quiet passageway.
Glenn, who had been hiding at the very back of the group, slumped against the corner, his hands tightly clawing at the brick gaps, vomiting out all the grilled fish and fish soup he had eaten in the morning.
The sour, rotting gastric juice mixed with the fishy smell of the fish splattered all over the ground, and mixed together with the smell of blood outside the door, the odor was simply nauseating to the extreme.
The half-head that Ling Feng had sliced off earlier rolled right to a spot less than half a meter away from him, and that grayish eyeball stared straight at him like that.
This highly visually impactful scene completely pierced through the delivery boy's psychological defense line.
Ling Feng looked at Glenn's pathetic, dizzying vomiting state and shook his head speechlessly.
These people were simply weak beyond measure right now.
To what extent did they need to be pushed before these guys could turn into fierce generals who killed people if mortals blocked and gods if deities blocked like in the later stages of the plot?
Keeping them protected behind him like flowers in a greenhouse was definitely not going to work.
Ling Feng pondered secretly that after finishing scavenging supplies and returning to the Camp this time, he definitely had to think of a way to forcefully up the intensity for these guys, forcing them to train that ruthlessness in their hands sooner.
Otherwise, having to act as this all-around babysitter every time they went out was just too much of a loss.
"Attention! They're coming again!"
Shane suddenly let out a low roar with a suppressed voice, directly interrupting Ling Feng's thoughts.
The iron gate had been completely pulled open just now; although they intentionally controlled their footsteps, the muffled sounds of several corpses collapsing onto the ground one after another still alerted the zombies slightly further away on the street outside.
On the road diagonally opposite, a dozen or so zombies swayed their bodies, began changing directions, and slowly gathered toward this passageway entrance.
Their grayish eyes had already locked onto these living people inside the door, and wave after wave of bloodthirsty roars came from their throats.
The distance was rapidly shortening.
Shane stepped forward, raising the baseball bat in his hand.
Merle also cursed with an extremely foul phrase, stepping forward with the large wrench.
The two of them stood one on the left and one on the right, standing beside Ling Feng with great tacit understanding.
These three people with the strongest combat power directly blocked the space in front of the threshold side-by-side, protecting the few dead weights behind them inside.
Ling Feng pulled out the short machete once again.
"Don't dawdle! This place can't be defended!"
Shane turned his head and shouted.
Hearing this, Merle turned around directly and strode over to Glenn, who was still wiping his mouth.
He grabbed a handful of the clothes on the back of this Asian kid and forcefully lifted his entire body off the ground with one hand.
"Are you done vomiting yet, kid!"
Merle's flesh-laden face twisted together, his spit spraying all over Glenn's face, "If this bunch of things outside all press over, everyone won't even be able to get out of this door! Hurry up and lead the way!"
Glenn was choked until he couldn't breathe, coughing repeatedly.
He hurriedly reached out to wipe the sour water from the corners of his mouth, his face pale as he extended his right hand to point at that dark alley diagonally opposite.
"Right... right over there! That place blocked by two blue trash cans, the fire escape is at the very inside of that alley!"
Having obtained the exact route, Merle didn't talk nonsense at all.
With his right hand pulling Glenn's arm, he violently flung him forward.
"What are you waiting for then! Run for me!"
Merle cursed loudly.
Glenn staggered two steps under his feet, immediately stabilizing his center of gravity, spreading his legs and sprinting frantically in that direction.
T-Dog and Morales also followed closely behind, rushing out with all their might.
At this moment, whoever fell behind at the very end would definitely end up surrounded and torn alive by the monster pack behind them.
The three of them had just rushed out of the iron gate when the two fastest zombies had already closed in to less than five meters.
"Let's go!"
Ling Feng directly issued the command.
Shane and Merle received the signal, immediately turning around to abandon the defensive position, rushing toward the opposite street following the main force ahead.
Ling Feng walked at the very back to cover the rear.
His right leg exerted force suddenly, kicking heavily onto the chest of the zombie rushing at the very front.
The extremely strong explosive force directly kicked this monster flying more than three meters away, taking down and smashing over another one closely following behind.
Taking advantage of this gap, Ling Feng turned around and strode out with long legs, instantly raising his speed to the absolute maximum.
The physical enhancement brought by the Intermediate Combat Skill allowed him to catch up to the front-running team in just a few seconds.
The group frantically crossed the road piled with abandoned cars.
The roaring sounds of the zombies behind were getting closer and closer.
When rushing to that alley entrance with the blue trash cans.
Glenn squeezed in first.
Before the few people behind could catch up, Merle and Shane heard this kid emit an extremely desperate scream deep in the alley.
"What's going on!"
Shane rushed in and shouted.
Glenn collapsed and sat under that high wall, pointing his hand upward at the wall, tears swirling in his eye sockets.
"The ladder... the lower half of the fire escape is completely rusted and broken! It's suspended as high as the third floor, there's no way to climb up!"
Chapter 40: The Broken Ladder, A Dead End, Trapped in the Alley—Who Will Climb the Rope Becomes a Dilemma!
"Fuck!"
The veins on Shane's forehead bulged directly.
He took a fierce step forward, grabbed Glenn by the collar, and forcefully shoved the skinny Asian kid against the brick wall behind him.
"You led us into a dead end!"
Shane spat all over Glenn's face, his right hand immediately reaching for the holster at his waist. "You call this having a way out? This fucking ladder is completely useless!"
Glenn was choked so hard that his feet left the ground, his hands desperately clawing at Shane's thick arms.
A gurgling noise came from his throat, and he couldn't even say half a complete sentence, his face turning as white as a sheet.
Merle leaned against the wall on the other side, spinning a large wrench in his hand, with no intention of going over to help.
He enjoyed watching this stupid cop lose his mind.
Seeing that Shane had drawn his pistol, raising the butt of the gun to smash it down.
A rough, large hand thrust in out of nowhere, accurately locking onto the joint of Shane's wrist.
Ling Feng curled his five fingers, his thumb pressing heavily onto the bone seams of Shane's wrist.
The force brought by the Intermediate Combat Skillerupted completely.
Shane's facial features twisted.
He felt his entire right arm go numb instantly, and his fingers could no longer muster any strength.
Glenn slid down to the ground along the momentum, clutching his neck and coughing violently.
"Can getting angry solve that broken ladder up there?"
Ling Feng flicked his wrist, directly shaking Shane back two steps.
He ignored Shane's cannibalistic expression, turning around to quickly scan the entire dead-end alley.
This was an old-fashioned employee passageway.
Although the fire escape ladder overhead was broken, both ends of the alley were equipped with grid-like thick wire anti-theft doors.
Back when Americans built this kind of commercial building anti-theft infrastructure, they used plenty of materials.
The group of zombies outside had completely noticed the commotion here.
They turned the corner, dragging their mutilated bodies and surging toward the entrance of the alley.
The distance was less than thirty meters.
"T-Dog! Go to the front and pull that wire door shut and lock it!"
Ling Feng directly issued an order, raising his leg to kick T-Dog in the butt. "Morales, get your ass to the back and jam that door you just ran through!"
Startled by Ling Feng's roar, T-Dog snapped out of it.
He grabbed the fire axe on the ground, stretching his thick legs to charge toward the alley entrance ten meters away.
Morales didn't even hear Ling Feng's words fully before running back using both hands and feet.
The fear of death squeezed out the fastest speed of his life.
T-Dog rushed to the alley entrance and grabbed that rusty wire door.
The door hinge was stuck tight.
The zombie at the very front with a big hole rotting in its neck had already pounced over.
Its withered hand reached straight through the gap in the door frame, clawing toward T-Dog's face.
T-Dog let out a roar, swinging the fire axe horizontally in his hand, directly severing those fingers.
Taking advantage of the zombie leaning back, T-Dog pressed his entire weight onto the door panel, forcefully shoving this heavy wire door into the lock slot.
He groped for the old bolt with a chain hanging on the wire mesh, wrapping it twice around the handle and buckling it tightly.
Almost at the same second, Morales's exhausted shout came from behind: "This side is closed!"
Dozens of zombies slammed heavily into the wire door.
Sharp black nails desperately squeezed inward through the diamond-shaped grids of the wire mesh.
The zombies' faces were squeezed into dark red bloody marks by the wire, their mouths full of black blood roaring crazily.
The doors at both ends were completely blocked off.
The number of hundreds of monsters kept increasing.
The iron door made an unbearable creaking sound, but this thick iron frame could still hold on for a while.
All five big men leaned against the moldy brick wall, panting heavily.
Sweat flowed down their cheeks, soaking their clothes completely.
The entire alley was filled with a heavy smell of sweat and the stench of rotting flesh drifting in from outside.
No one spoke, all feeling this oppressive weight that drove people to death.
Shane buried his hands in his hair, squatting on the ground along the wall, his expression extremely terrible.
Ling Feng stood in the middle, his breathing rate not even disordered.
He raised his head, his gaze tracing all the way up the brick wall, staring fixedly at that rusted fire escape ladder suspended in mid-air.
It was at least seven or eight meters high from the ground.
The walls on all four sides were bare, without even a water pipe to leverage.
Ling Feng lowered his head, his gaze sweeping across the black canvas bag on the ground that had originally been carried on T-Dog's back.
"Take the nylon rope out of the bag."
Ling Feng reached out to T-Dog, who froze for a moment and hurriedly pulled the zipper.
He pulled out a large bundle of mountaineering rope as thick as an adult's thumb from inside.
This was what they had originally intended to use for tying up bulky supplies.
Ling Feng took the rope and weighed it in his hand.
He turned his head to look at Merle.
"Lend me that wrench in your hand."
Merle was still gripping that solid, large mechanic's wrench in his hand.
Hearing this, he wanted to curse a couple of times, but meeting Ling Feng's uncompromising gaze, he forced the dirty words back down.
Merle threw the wrench over with extreme displeasure.
Ling Feng caught it with one hand, threaded one end of the nylon rope through the circular hole at the tail of the wrench, and tied an extremely sturdy knot.
He wound it around his hand twice and pulled it hard.
Several people now fully understood what Ling Fengintended to do.
He was going to forcefully throw this rope into the gap of the stair treads seven or eight meters high.
Ling Feng stepped back three steps, finding the most suitable point of leverage.
He smoothed out the excess rope in his left hand, gripped the heavy wrench with his right hand, and began swinging it back and forth with small amplitudes.
All his attention was focused on the fist-sized tread gap above.
His wrist suddenly exerted force.
The wrench carrying the long rope charged straight into mid-air.
The force was immense.
But the distance was off by just a tiny bit.
The heavy metal wrench slammed directly into the concrete wall beneath the fire escape ladder, making an extremely crisp collision sound.
The wrench, losing momentum, grazed the wall skin and dropped down.
Morales was so frightened that he hurriedly dodged to the side, and the wrench heavily smashed into the muddy puddle by his feet.
This sound echoed out in the narrow alley.
The zombies blocked outside the wire door were stimulated, their roars rising directly by an octave, and their force in slamming the iron door became even more crazed.
A small piece of sheet metal was chipped off the old bolt on the iron door.
"Can you do it!"
Shane stood up, pacing anxiously in place, "You've enraged all those things outside! Once the door breaks, we're all going to die here!"
Ling Feng didn't bother to pay attention to him at all.
He pulled the rope back and grabbed the wrench in his hand again.
The feel of the previous throw allowed him to calculate the distance and weight more accurately.
He adjusted his footing.
The second throw.
The wrench soared into the air again.
This time the distance was definitely enough, even half a meter higher than the tread.
But encountering the draft blowing backward into the alley in mid-air, the rope deviated from the predetermined trajectory.
"Clang—"
The wrench smashed against the iron railing on the side of the fire escape ladder, bounced off directly, and dropped down again.
This time the commotion was even greater.
Merle gritted his teeth beside him, spat on the ground, and reached out to touch the dagger at his waist.
He was already prepared to kill his way out and fight to the death once the door broke.
Ling Feng took back the rope expressionlessly.
He released all the rope loops in his left hand, letting them scatter on the ground without causing any extra resistance to the throw.
His chest heaved slightly once, adjusting his breathing to its steadiest state.
Ling Feng narrowed his eyes, the muscles of his right arm completely tensed, his shoulder driving his entire arm, throwing it upwards fiercely.
The solid wrench with a knot carved out an extremely high and precise parabola.
It steadily crossed the outermost railing, accurately passing through the gap between the second rusted tread and the third tread.
"Release the line!"
Ling Feng took a step forward with the momentum, letting the rope slide forward.
The wrench passed through the gap along gravity, dragging the rope from the other end and falling vertically down.
Stable.
A rope formed an inverted U-shaped stress channel on this extremely high fire escape ladder.
T-Dog let out a long, heavy breath, raising his hand to wipe away strings of sweat from his forehead.
Morales pressed his entire body against the wall, putting his hands together to bow twice at the air.
Ling Feng walked forward, grabbed the two hanging ends of the rope together, and wrapped them twice around his palm.
"Shane, come help."
Ling Feng didn't pull it himself.
Shane strode over, grabbing the rope near the upper position with both hands.
The two men rooted their feet in a horse stance, pulling the ropes downward at the same time.
This force was transmitted directly to the fire escape ladder treads above.
Just as over a hundred kilograms of force was added.
A hair-raising sound of metal snapping instantly came from overhead.
"Creak—"