Chapter 287: Better Late Than Never
"If you can hear this, get out while you still can!"
People ran past an open doorway behind him while someone farther down the hall fired repeatedly at something we could not see.
The man flinched and looked over his shoulder before turning back toward the camera. "Don’t come to the compounds—" he started, but then the screen broke apart.
Static filled the living room again, swallowing the man, the gunfire, and whatever else he had been trying to tell us.
No one spoke for a second. All of us continued to stare at my TV like we were watching a train wreck in slow motion. None of us could have turned away even if there was a zombie horde about to enter the mansion.
Hell, they probably would stop to watch what was going on on the TV with us.
The signal returned with a sharp crack, but the man was no longer standing behind the desk. He was crouched beside it with one arm over his head while pieces of the ceiling fell around him.
"—stay where you are!" he shouted, his voice finally getting through to his captive audience.
Gunfire rattled through the mansion’s sound system, making us feel like we were there in that room with him. He tried to continue, but the words vanished beneath the noise before the screen went black again.
A second later, the image returned in thin, broken strips.
"Stay where you are," the man repeated, his voice cracking beneath the effort. "Do you hear me?"
Something exploded beyond the doorway, the camera shook violently, and a body struck the floor behind him.
"Barricade—"
The signal cut out again.
The television flashed between black and grey so quickly that it made my eyes hurt. Someone near the back of the living room began praying under their breath, only for another person to tell them to be quiet.
The picture came back.
Smoke filled most of the room now as flames climbed along the wall behind the desk. The man crawled toward the camera, reached for it, and missed. His hand struck the floor hard enough that the sound came through the speakers.
"Trust no one!" he screamed before stopping to cough violently. A shadow passed over him and the man rolled onto his back and fired at something outside the frame.
"They are coming to get—"
The television went silent.
There was no static, gunfire, or screaming. The picture froze with the man’s hand reaching toward the camera before the entire screen turned black.
Everyone continued to stare at the black screen in front of us almost too scared to breathe.
Qin Fen adjusted the wires again, then struck the side of the open panel with the heel of her hand. The screen did not change.
"Bring it back," someone demanded.
"I’m trying."
"Try harder."
Qin Fen turned around slowly enough that the man who spoke took a step backward.
That was probably the smartest move he had done all day.
She returned her attention to the panel, checked the connections again, and struck the side one more time. But still, nothing happened.
Old Chen moved closer to the television with his pipe hanging forgotten at his side. "Was that one of the compounds?"
No one answered him.
It wasn’t like we had the answers any more than he did.
But if I was a betting woman, which I wasn’t... stupid waste of money you didn’t have.... I would say that this was the moment the bases fell in my past life.
A woman near one of the couches covered her mouth with both hands as another one stared at the dark screen as though she had recognized the room, the uniform, or maybe only the sound of the gunfire.
Gao Shun lowered himself onto the arm of the couch. "What were they coming to get?"
"Food," someone answered immediately.
"Weapons," another person guessed.
"People."
"Maybe he meant the zombies."
"That wasn’t zombies shooting at them."
"You don’t know what was happening."
"Neither do you."
The room began filling with voices as everyone produced an answer to a question none of them understood. Some of them insisted that the warning had come from the government even as others argued that no government signal would look like that.
One man claimed the broadcast could have been recorded days ago, while someone else demanded to know why an old recording would suddenly override every available channel.
Xu Zhenlan remained near the front of the living room with his attention fixed on the television. His expression had gone blank in the way it always did when his mind was running faster than everyone else’s mouth.
Zhou Chenghai stood beside him, just as silent.
Yuche’s fingers tightened around mine like he needed to remind himself that I was standing there beside him.
The workers continued talking over one another until Fang Lihua finally turned on them.
"Shut up!"
The room fell silent, mostly because she looked willing to start throwing people if they ignored her.
She pointed toward Qin Fen. "Can you find anything else?"
Qin Fen looked down at the open panel before turning toward the dead television. "I can try."
"That isn’t what I asked."
"No," Qin Fen snapped. "I don’t have some tech powers that shoot out my fingers to get whatever working that I want to. I don’t have the ability to change anything any more than you do. I do electrical shit. I can’t find something just because we are all scared out of our minds."
I grunted, liking her even more. "Why be scared?" I asked, cocking my head to the side. "You aren’t there. You are here. And we have a whole plan to deal with ’they’."
"We do?" grunted Lingyun, sinking into the sectional very, very carefully. "Why wasn’t I informed of the plan for ’they’? Is it the same plan as for ’them’? What about ’the man’? He is the one I have issues with."
The room broke out in soft chuckles as most of the workers’ shoulder dropped just a bit when they realized that yeah.. they weren’t in the base. They didn’t have to worry about they, them, or the man.
The only thing they had to worry about was me. Whatever had happened at the compounds was now bleeding out into the world, but that didn’t mean anything to anyone here.
For a brief moment, I thought about the armed men at the intersection, the roadblock, and the way they had already started deciding what belonged to them.
That warning would have been more useful before that, but before or after, it didn’t matter.
I reached for the half-empty bag of Cheezies sitting on the coffee table, pulled one out, and crunched it between my teeth.
"Better late than never, I guess."
