Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 84: The Zombies Were Here

Chapter 84: The Zombies Were Here

Si Dong looked down the fixed front peep sight of his CSIG JS 9mm submachine gun as he swiped right to left to right again with each step forward.

It didn’t matter that the streets were utterly deserted; he was not going to take any chance of yet another zombie ambush. He ignored the puddle he had just stepped in, didn’t even register it. Puddles of blood were too large to have dried even after all this time.

His footsteps fell silently as he continued forward. He wasn’t rushing, but there was no way he was going as slow as he was before.

None of them were taking their time anymore.

Not when it could be Wang Tian Mu’s life or death.

It took them thirty minutes to get to the hospital after they got off the highway.

There were several different accidents in front of it, all in and around lighted intersections. They must have happened when the EMP hit, and everything turned off. The cars wouldn’t have been able to function either.

He scanned the inside of one car, a skeleton behind the wheel with a bullet hole in its skull. At least they had a quick death. And a pretty much painless one.

Or at least more painless than if the zombies had gotten their hands on them.

Si Dong stepped to the side, pointing his gun in a downward arch as the remaining men in his team walked in front of him.

As soon as Fan Ten Fei went, Si Dong raised his gun again, spinning around so he was walking backward.

Right, left, right.

Right, left, right.

Always scanning.

They couldn’t drop their guard for a single second. Si Dong blinked for a second, the picture of one of his teammates being pulled from a second-story window as the zombies climbed up the wall to get to him.

Quickly shaking his head, he went back to scanning the area.

"Her car is here," growled Bai Long Qiang under his breath. He used to be loud, but he has now learned his lesson that these creatures can use sound just as well as scent for a hunt.

"That doesn’t mean she is," replied Cheng Bo Jing just as softly. "All it means was that she was on shift when the EMP hit, and it took out her car."

"We don’t know if it was an EMP," muttered Bai Long Qiang, and Si Dong rolled his eyes. The two of them had always been oil and water, but now they were so much worse.

"If it looks like a duck..." sighed Ye Yao Zu, ignoring the two men as they started bickering back and forth.

Bai Long Qiang wasn’t wrong. There had been nothing official sent out to say what caused this devastation, so an EMP attack hadn’t been confirmed.

On the flip side, everyone in the unit knew what happened. Nothing would have sent Country K back into the dark ages like this but an EMP attack.

What they were having a hard time piecing together was whether or not Country M sent the zombies to Country K as a way of dealing with the civilians as a backup to the EMP or if the zombies were here first and the EMP was completely separate.

Either way, to have both hit the same day was overkill.

Or maybe just enough kill.

"We have to search the hospital, just in case. We can’t rule out the possibility that she is hiding in there all this time, waiting for us," said Bai Long Qiang. He quickly looked in her car before turning his attention to the building.

"She is not going to be in there, and we will just end up wasting a few hours," grumbled Cheng Bo Jing.

Si Dong was inclined to believe Cheng Bo Jing more than Bai Long Qiang. That woman wouldn’t wait around for someone to come save her; she would have already saved herself.

Bai Long Qiang didn’t bother to reply, only walked the few meters to the employee entrance of the hospital. He knew his team would have his back. They might not always agree with his decisions, but he was the team leader for a reason.

"What is this?" he whispered, cocking his head to the side as he stared at a metal rod slipped through the two handles.

"Proof that she isn’t here," grunted Cheng Bo Jing. "I was there when these things arrived. She called them a wheel lock. Said that she needed them for her car since the hospital wasn’t always the safest place to be, especially in the middle of the night. She didn’t want anyone to steal her car."

Once again, Bai Long Qiang ignored him and looked for a way to get inside.

"Over here," grunted Fan Teng Fei softly as he reached into the bushes beside them. He held up a small, rusty key.

Pushing both Bai Long Qiang and Cheng Bo Jing to the side, he inserted the key into the lock and turned.

Manipulating the bar so it could be removed, he put both the bar and key into his pack.

Bai Long Qiang nodded his thanks and slowly opened the door.

As soon as it opened, the stench of rotting corpses hit them like a wall.

Clearly, the hospital hadn’t been venting, and the doors hadn’t been open in months if this level of decay could be smelled.

"Masks," grunted Fan Teng Fei. There shouldn’t be a problem breathing in the air, even with the decomposition, but it was a hospital, so there was no telling what some of these individuals had died from.

And no one knew how the zombies were created.

Si Dong kept his gun steady as the others donned their masks. Getting a nod from Ye Yao Zu, he quickly lowered his weapon and pulled his own mask from where it hung on the side of his pack, and put it on.

His gun once again in his hands, he faced the back door.

"Let’s get a move on," grumbled Cheng Bo Jing, ignoring the piles of bones littering the cafeteria and hallway around them. "The zombies were here."

Si Dong rolled his eyes but didn’t bother to say anything. He might have been the comedian of the group, but even he couldn’t pretend to be happy all the time. And his ability to joke around left the same time the last member of their team was dragged away to their death.