Hold it in! If you can't hold it, the zombies will eat you!
Throw up only when you're safe! Please, I'm begging you! You really can't throw up right now!
My hands are covered in blood, so even though I'm wearing a mask, I daren't cover my mouth. All I can do is bite my lips hard to suppress the urge to vomit.
Damn it, this is absolute torture!
Just as I was about to bite through my lips, the zombies that had lunged into the elevator suddenly fell silent.
Then I heard the sound of them walking away, and I quickly raised my head to look.
...
When I saw what the zombies walking out actually looked like, I was dumbfounded.
Both zombies had motorcycle helmets stuck on their heads. One had its hands tied behind its back, and the other had its upper body wrapped up like a mummy with something that looked like curtain fabric.
A message I had seen earlier in the residents' chat group suddenly flashed through my mind.
Unknown person: If you put a helmet on a zombie's head, it can't bite people.
So this helmet was meant to be put on the zombie's head! And here I thought it was advice for people going outside.
Holding my breath as I walked out of the elevator, I discovered a dozen or so similarly dressed zombies wandering around the garage.
Either they were wearing helmets, or their heads were wrapped up like mummies.
If I guessed correctly, these were probably zombies that had rushed into the residential building earlier and gotten left behind, after which the neighborhood organized a security team to subdue them and throw them into the underground garage.
As for why they weren't killed, their families had probably stepped in to stop it.
So, once a zombie vaccine is developed, will these zombies turn back into humans?
Treading lightly as I crept toward Building 13, the zombies in the garage didn't react at all to my appearance. I cracked a grin, let a wave of malice rise to my heart, and suddenly reached out to shove a nearby zombie before tilting my head to wander around in imitation of the zombies.
The zombie I pushed staggered a few steps and fell to the ground. Because its hands were tied and it couldn't get back up, it just writhed and howled on the floor.
The surrounding zombies heard the noise and swarmed over to surround it, but realizing it was just one of their own, they scattered and went back to wandering.
Goodbye, you guys.
Using the lighting in the garage, I quickly spotted the directional arrows for Building 13. I tried picking up the pace, and since the zombies still paid me no attention, I grew bolder and walked over in long strides.
I hesitated for a moment at the basement level elevator lobby of Building 13, but ultimately chose the stairs.
The elevator didn't make much noise when operating, but it still made some sound, which might attract someone's attention. Stairs it is, then—it's only five or six floors anyway, piece of cake.
When I reached the fifth floor, I used my unbloody left hand to retrieve the key for 501 from the corner of the fire cabinet.
Generally, apartments that haven't been rented out yet have spare keys left outside by real estate agents so their colleagues can use them when bringing clients to view the property. Zhou Qing had mentioned this to me when she took me to see the apartment before.
So if I move in here, I'll still need to go to the hardware store to get a door lock and replace the old one, just in case some criminal secretly made a copy of this viewing key.
The door to 501 looked relatively new—a thick and sturdy security door. After unlocking it, going inside, and inspecting it, I saw there were six fixed screw positions; I just needed to find the corresponding model to change the lock.
There's a hardware store right outside, within arm's reach.
The room layout is identical to 3101 where I currently live, and the appliances inside are mostly the same. The water and electricity work, the gas works, but the putty on the walls is peeling.
It looks like nobody has lived here for a while, and there's a tiny bit of dust accumulated. The curtains are too old and not very good—they don't block out the light well. I'll see if I can just slap up a pitch-black set later.
Pugging the key away and closing the door, I hunched over and crept along the shadows, avoiding the direct glare of the streetlights as I moved toward the south gate.
Because no zombies had ever charged at the south gate, the fence suffered very little damage.
I found a spot that was easy to climb over and scrambled across on tiptoe, feeling the thrill of reliving my middle school days when I used to scale the wall to skip class and go to the internet cafe.
Good thing that, clumsy as I am, I'm still pretty practiced at climbing fences.
After landing smoothly, I briefly checked my surroundings, then lowered my head to inspect whether any of my equipment had fallen off during the climb.
Perhaps because the south gate is the back gate of the residential complex, or because there weren't many people around here to begin with, or maybe because the zombies here had been drawn away to other places, there were only a few scattered zombies wandering down this path.
The zombie outbreak happened near dusk, and almost all the shops had their lights on, so I could see clearly what the situation was inside them.
And since it's summer, these shops basically all have their glass doors closed while the air conditioning runs. I quickly spotted zombies trapped and wandering inside two of the shops.
The glass door of the hardware store was smashed to pieces, and there were dripping and splattered bloodstains on the ground—it looked like a fight had taken place here.
There was no one inside, and with no store owner to guide me, I could only search bit by bit to find what I needed.
The door lock of 501 is a common model on the market in recent years. I quickly found my target, and just to avoid a wasted trip, I grabbed several similar models and stuffed them into my backpack, along with two doorstops.
Passing by the shop that sold bedding sets and curtain fabric, I hesitated for a moment, but ultimately went in and picked out a dark, thick curtain, folding it into my mountaineering backpack.
With that, my mountaineering backpack was almost full. I'll just have to bring fewer things this trip and focus on the essentials first.
The fifth floor is rather low, so the curtains must be chosen carefully to prevent people outside from seeing what's inside, and they also need to block out the light well.
Stepping out of the fabric shop, I pushed open the glass door of the small department store and propped it open. I pulled a boning knife out of my camouflage suit for self-defense, then tied a washing machine drainage pipe I'd swiped from the hardware store into a knot, wound it up, and hurled it as far as I could while pressing my back against the wall to wait for the zombies to come out.
The sound of the pipe landing wasn't very loud, but the continuous noise of it twisting, deforming, and scraping against the ground upon impact attracted three zombies inside the department store. They charged out excitedly, then stopped and stood frozen in place.
I walked leisurely into the department store and pulled the glass door shut, cutting off the muffled roaring of the three zombies outside.
I don't know if it was my imagination, but the zombies at night are slightly more agile than the daytime zombies, though I can't quite put my finger on it—probably that kind of 0.1 to 0.5 difference in agility.
There's a difference, but not a huge one.
It could also be that nighttime is much quieter than daytime, making their hearing sharper.
I quickly grabbed three USB-rechargeable nightlights, five high-capacity solar power banks, and stuffed a set of stainless steel camping cookware with a small pot and an alcohol stove into my bag.
I barely managed to zip up the mountaineering backpack, then clipped on a box of solid alcohol fuel blocks, grabbed another set of alcohol stoves, and headed to the entrance. Opening the door gently, I pressed myself against the side, picked up a few boxes of condoms from the checkout shelf, and tossed them one by one into the furthest corner of the supermarket.
The three zombies howled and charged back into the store. Once they all reached that shelf and were out of sight, I leisurely walked out and shut the door.
The supermarket is too close to the south gate fence; if I didn't lure these three away, I'd very likely attract them while climbing the fence.