Chapter 299: We Should Leave
The zombie launched itself toward us before Lingyun could answer.
It crossed the first aisle before I could even blink. Moving on all fours with its head still hanging at the weird angle, I couldn’t help but stare at it. Its backward-bending knees scraped against the tile, and every time its hands struck the floor, the black claws at the ends of its fingers left pale scratches behind.
Lingyun raised his gun, but I grabbed his arm before he could fire.
"The thread," I reminded him. "No touchy."
"You’re worried about the thread?" he asked incredulously.
"I just spent twenty minutes choosing it," I reminded him. Could I have out it all in my space? Of course, but that would also meant screaming at the top of my lungs that I had a space system.
My mother might not have raised me, but she didn’t give birth to a stupid woman.
The zombie reached the end of the aisle before he could continue to argue. Zhou Chenghai shoved the shopping cart out of its path while Yuche took one of the posts from the metal shelves and wrapped around one of its rear legs.
The creature hit the ground hard enough to crack the tile, but it didn’t stay there. Its body twisted almost completely around, and its claws tore through the twisted metal holding it as though it were butter.
Well, that was new. And not a good thing.
The zombie sprang toward Yuche with its mouth stretched wide enough to fit around his head. Before it reached him, Zhou Chenghai stepped between them and caught it by the throat.
The force of the impact drove him back half a step. It might not have seemed like a lot, but for a fighting power user, that might as well have been a football field.
Zhou Chenghai tightened his grip, but the creature’s neck bent with the pressure instead of breaking. Its head folded sideways against his wrist, and its teeth snapped less than an inch from his skin.
"That is disgusting," I muttered, shaking my head in disgust.
My baby vine unwound itself from my wrist and struck the creature before Zhou Chenghai could throw it away. One leaf sank its teeth into the creature’s shoulder while the second bit through the side of its neck.
Black blood spilled across the back of Zhou Chenghai’s hand.
He grimaced but didn’t release the zombie until the poison began moving through its body.
It clawed at Chenghai’s chest, tearing through the front of his shirt without reaching the skin beneath, before Xu Zhenlan sent a bolt of lightning through its body.
Huh. Could he always do that? I thought he was air? Did he evolve somehow?
So many questions... But I really didn’t care about the answers.
The smell that filled the aisle was worse than the glitter.
The zombie convulsed once, then collapsed between Zhou Chenghai and the shopping cart. Its limbs continued twitching after the rest of it had stopped moving, while black smoke curled from the ruined skin along its back.
I stared at the drops of blood that had landed dangerously close to the cart.
"Did it touch the thread?"
Lingyun lowered his gun. "You told me not to let that happen. Of course it didn’t touch the thread."
"And that’s why you are the best."
The smile on Lingyun’s face made my knees to weak for a moment.
Then Yuche stepped over the body and checked me for injuries even though the zombie hadn’t come close enough to touch me. Once he was satisfied that all my limbs were still attached, he looked toward Zhou Chenghai’s torn shirt.
"Did it break the skin?"
"No," Chenghai said as he wiped the black blood from his hand onto the remains of his shirt. "But it was fucking close."
I crouched beside the corpse and used one of the craft knives from the shelf beside me to cut into its skull. The bone was thicker than I expected, forcing me to press harder before the blade finally slipped through.
The crystal core inside was larger than the ones I was used to seeing. Its color was darker too, with thin red lines running through the center like veins.
I held it up to the light.
"That looks healthy," Lingyun said sarcastically.
"It came out of a zombie’s head. What were you expecting?" I demanded, putting the core in the back pocket of my jeans. Of course, what I was really doing was putting it in my space.
No one bothered to respond when I wiped the core clean with a piece of fabric I didn’t intend to take home. Whatever had changed this zombie might have changed the energy inside its core too, and I wasn’t going to let anyone absorb it until we knew more.
I had never seen a core like that before, and I didn’t like that.
Zhenlan looked toward the stockroom doors. "We should clear the rest of the building."
"There shouldn’t be anything else in the stockroom," I said.
All four men turned toward me.
I looked at the empty opening behind the dead zombie. "Because this one was obviously territorial."
Lingyun narrowed his eyes, but before he could ask anything inconvenient, another sound came from deeper inside the back corridor.
This time, it sounded like something metallic falling over.
The men moved toward the stockroom immediately. Chenghai took the lead despite the shredded remains of his shirt, with Zhenlan beside him and Lingyun following close behind.
Yuche paused near the doors and looked back at me. "Stay here."
I raised an eyebrow.
He sighed before correcting himself. "Stay where we can find you."
"That sounds much more reasonable."
Yuche followed the others through the stockroom doors, leaving me beside the cart with the dead zombie sprawled across the floor.
I stayed close enough to hear them moving through the back rooms, opening doors and checking the rear exit. They weren’t gone for long. There wasn’t much left for them to search after I had already pulled everything from the stockroom into my space.
By the time they returned, the zombie had finally stopped twitching.
"There’s nothing else back there," Chenghai said as he wiped the last of the black blood from his hand. "The rear door was damaged, so it might have entered through there before becoming trapped."
"Or it changed after it got inside," Lingyun added. "Either way, I don’t want to meet another one in a narrow hallway."
I looked down at the twisted body. "You’re assuming there are more."
"There are always more," Zhenlan replied. "Plus one rule."
He wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t need him ruining the first enjoyable shopping trip I’d had since the end of the world.
Yuche lifted the basket containing my thread while Chenghai took control of the cart. Most of the things I had chosen were still inside it, safely away from the black blood spreading across the floor.
"We should leave," Zhenlan said as he looked toward the front windows. "The people watching us have had enough time to report our location."
