CHAPTER 2

Fu Erdie sighed. She was determined to be safe for herself. She was terrified and very anxious but she was trying to survive. She carefully touched the dog’s every part of the body to check its injuries.

The old man’s kick was impactful. It was full of force, which means it was painful to her dog. To her surprise, there were no fractures but there were a lot of bruises.

She picked up her dog’s first aid kit. She sprayed something that would help the dog’s bruises to heal, though she was not sure if it would help.

After she had treated her dog, she turned on the computer connected to the surveillance camera to retrieve and review the footage.

The camera was at a perfect angle and could clearly capture how the zombie lunged hideously.

Fu Erdie zoomed in on the picture and the video as much as she could, but the old man’s face and state was exactly the same as the zombies described in movies and novels.

If someone looked at the whole process of escaping and fighting back of her at the infected man, she could considered as attempted murder. Her tears slowly flowed and her hands could not help but shake.

She thought that if this is truly a zombie, is she still considered a killer?

Or is it a self-defense counterattack?

She saved the video on the computer and to her mobile phone. She also wanted to save the footage in the cloud, but the network was too slow to upload it.

Fu Erdie tried to dial 110 from her mobile phone. It would be good for her if she turned herself first for her advantage to reduce her sentences.

The call did not work.

Her hands were shaking like a sieve but she still continued to dial for twenty minutes, and she finally got through in the line.

“Hello, I am…” Her voice was shaking but she cut off when someone replied.

The other line said loudly, “An unknown virus has attacked! For the meantime, please stay at home and close all the doors and windows. Do not let someone scratch or bite you by people who behave strangely. Please disperse the information. Tha…n…k…”

Then, the call disconnected.

That call assured Fu Erdie that the situation outside was surely chaotic. For her to be sure, she sent an emergency warning to her family and to people in the building.

She thought that she would be treated as a special case since she was in contact with an infected person which made her calm. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and saw that her face and hands were covered with blood and unidentified body tissues bursted out by the zombie.

She rushed into the toilet and vomited. She also vomited out the dinner she had just eaten to the point that her stomach was about to come out.

Fu Erdie was a bookworm. She loved to read books in any genre, especially apocalyptic novels about natural disasters, human disasters, alien powers, man-made disasters, crystal nuclei etc.

She also thought more than once that if she came to the end of the world, she would just basically have to wait for her death. She did not know much about household chores. She did not know how to drive and she sucked up at her own cooking skills. She only knew how to cook instant and easy cooking foods, like stir-frying and heating up cooked meals bought at the supermarket.

To her, without supermarkets and grocery stores, or dining and take-out, she could only eat egg fried rice, canned foods, or rice and pickles every day.

She was also particularly prone to catch a cold. When the temperature suddenly drops, she might catch a cold.

She also once joked that without the help of zombies, she was willing to toss herself out.

In the past, it was just a thought. But now, it was about to become a reality.

She moved all night to forget the thought of being a murderer. She charged all the electronic devices that could be charged, and filled all the buckets and pots with water. But she did not clean the blood and tissues outside of her unit. She also made a rope from unused sheets and covers that ripped out into long pieces and tied it and if something terrible happened, she would just risk sliding down the 16th floor.

She thought about everything that might happen in disasters and apocalypse. But she knows clearly and well in her heart that she was just a poor unemployed person who prepared all her drawing materials for her peace of mind and to feel at ease.

With her physical strength, it was impossible to hang from the 16th floor to the ground floor.

She dragged the heavy dining table to the door. So, when Zhao Xiaolu came in later, she could immediately block the door.

Even the sofa, TV cabinet, and ceramic mop sink in the bathroom were all dragged by her. She was just waiting for Zhao Xiaolu to arrive.

When she was done, she took out a radio that she bought for emergency when she moved out from her mother.

A decorative radio. It was on FM mode. It also has different channels that broadcasts pre-set listening station programs, but there was no more updated news about the unknown virus.

The phone was outgoing and Fu Erdie kept calling her family and friends. But all the calls failed which made her teary-eyed. She calmed herself and quickly cleaned up the tissues and blood on the ground and then took a shower again.

When she shower this time, she did not use the stereo or play a song. She did not even close the bathroom door so she could move immediately without any disturbance and heard Zhao Xiaolu’s voice and knocked on the door.

But after she took a quick shower, she was very uncomfortable as if her face and hands were stained with blood that could not be washed off.

She washed her face and hands for a long time. She stopped when she realized that there was still no Zhao Xiaolu’s presence in her house.

Fu Erdie finished the last rinse and peeked at the window where the noises and heat were surging. She looked down to the ground. It was full of

excited and fearful screaming with drizzling rain.

She came to her conclusion that Zhao Xiaolu would never come.

Fu Erdie continued to call everyone, whether it was her mom and dad, grandmother, uncle and aunts, even her friends, Zhao Xiaolu and Cen Xiyang. She kept calling alternately and continuously until the phone and her fingers heated. That was when she finally stopped for a while.

The streets outside are still rowdy. Some people desperately look for buildings or corners to hide. Some people are driving desperately to escape from the c-city.

Even the car accident or unknown virus that made people become zombies happened suddenly, some people know something about zombies from movies and series. In this case, the farther away from the main city and more rural and remote places, the safer it will be.

Fu Erdie does not have a car and even could not drive. If she rashly went outside, she could not even fast run away from those zombies. She can only wait to die.

She still thinks if Zhao Xiaolu was still racing against the zombies or if she had found a nearest place to hide.

Fu Erdie charged up her mobile phone and took out her spare phone to continue making calls to her loved ones. At the same time, she was busy searching up the various news outlets and television channels on the internet if there was news about the unknown virus.

However, there was a problem with internet connection. The page kept spinning in circles

and the website never loaded.

She could not help but push the keyboard away in her annoyance and took the phone. She went back to the balcony to see what was going on outside.

It was still drizzling outside, and the sky became darker in the evening. She lives on the 16th floor, she could not see the situation on the road clearly. She used her mobile phone’s telescope function.

She lifted her phone up. There were some raindrops drifting past under the camera. She suddenly felt blessed, thinking of something she had decided to make up her mind after reading the apocalypse novels.

If she was given an opportunity for her to choose becoming a zombie or a psychic, she would definitely try any of them. Even if there was a 99% chance of becoming a zombie and only a 1% chance of becoming a psychic, she would try. For her, this was her only chance to live.

Without supernatural powers, she would definitely not be able to live.

It was written in the novels about the apocalypse.

At the beginning of the mutation, there would be special particles in the air, and different people would turn in a different direction.

She opened the balcony window completely and let the drizzle rain stick to her cheeks and hair, waiting for the heavens to give her a trial for mutation.

A zombie, or an alien, come on.

She stroked the dog’s head that rubbed against her legs. She was thinking chaotically that zombies should not be smart enough to open door locks and anti-theft chains. If she was zombified at home, she would probably be a zombie who could not get out of the house and would not bring much of a blow outside. It will just harm the dog, so it would be better to let the dog out now.

She took the clothesline and opened the door. She slightly stiffly poked the old man’s zombie body out of the way, and pointed outside, “Dear, run away.” Fu Erdie calmly said.

In the past, when it came to this kind of situation, the dog was definitely happy to go out and play. But now, it was reluctant to move. It even turned and ran back to the far corner of the balcony, the farthest away from the door to sit. As if it knew that to leave is to leave forever.