Apocalypse Ground Zero: Refusing To Leave Home

Chapter 327: Burn It

The corpse’s eyes opened.

They were dull and empty, without the hunger that usually appeared when the dead woke up. He wasn’t looking at any of us.

Instead, something appeared to move behind the left eye.

A narrow shape pressed against the white from inside the socket, forcing the eyeball forward until the skin around it stretched tight. It pushed farther, as though it meant to come straight through.

Lingyun stopped waiting for permission.

Fire burst from his hands and struck the corpse in one solid wave.

I didn’t stop him.

The clothes caught first, followed by the dead man’s hair and skin. Zhenlan held the heat over the road and pushed the smoke away from us, while Yuche kept the metal spinning around the outside of the flames.

The corpse began shrinking almost immediately, but it wasn’t only from the fire.

Whatever remained inside him was trying even harder to escape.

The arms and legs of the dead body kicked against the pavement, jerking harder as the flames burned through the skin. His mouth opened wide, and a pale shape twisted behind the blackening teeth before disappearing again.

A sharp popping sound came from the chest, followed by another near the stomach.

"Hotter," I ordered.

Lingyun smiled for the first time since the body began moving.

The flames brightened until the center turned almost white. Heat rolled across the road, cracking the pavement beneath the corpse as flesh, clothes, and bone blackened together.

For several seconds, nothing escaped.

Then the burned skin along the man’s side split open.

Small shapes dropped onto the pavement and scattered in different directions. Some looked pale and soft, twisting like worms as they moved. Others curled into dark shapes before forcing themselves toward the nearest cracks in the road.

Zhenlan’s wind caught several and hurled them back into the flames. Yuche brought the metal down over the others, striking the pavement hard enough to crush anything beneath it.

Lingyun sent another wave of fire across the road.

The pale shapes shriveled almost immediately, but the darker ones kept moving even while they burned. One vanished into a crack before Yuche’s metal could reach it.

Lingyun blasted the entire section until broken pieces of pavement jumped into the air.

"Did you get it?" I asked.

"Yes." I narrowed my eyes. He answered that too quickly.

The last of the corpse collapsed into ash, broken bone, and a dark stain across the road. Lingyun kept the fire burning for another minute before letting it fade, while Zhenlan continued circling the area with wind.

No one moved closer as the body continued to burn.

That was, until the ground beneath it began to move.

At first, it was only a slight shift beneath the broken pavement. Ash slid into one of the cracks, followed by several small stones that disappeared as the space widened underneath them.

Then a thin line raced away from the burned body.

It passed beneath the road, crossed the ditch, and entered the dirt at the edge of my territory before I could say anything. Another line followed, then three more, all moving in different directions beneath the surface.

"Burn the ground," I ordered.

Lingyun’s fire struck the road again, but this time he spread it outward, following every shifting line he could see. The heat scorched the ditch and turned the damp soil black, yet the movement continued beyond the flames.

Whatever had escaped the body was faster underground.

The plants reacted all at once.

Roots tore through the soil as the closest vines dragged themselves away from the road. Flowers twisted their stems in the opposite direction, while several patches of grass folded down and pulled free as if they were trying to crawl toward the mansion.

Pain flashed through my entire body and I felt my knees getting weak.

It wasn’t the usual warning that something had entered their territory. This was panic, sharp and messy, spreading from one plant to the next as they tried to get away from whatever moved beneath them.

Chenghai grabbed a shovel from beside the nearest house and drove it into the soil, cutting a trench between the road and the garden. Each time he lifted a section of dirt, Lingyun burned it before anything could crawl out.

Zhenlan forced the wind downward, driving the heat deeper into the open trench while Yuche sent strips of metal through the soil to slice apart the roots still connected to the infected area.

For a few seconds, it looked like we were getting ahead of it.

Then one of the smaller vines cried out, and the pain made me stumble.

Yuche caught my arm before I could fall, but I barely noticed him. My attention had already locked onto a young vine near the ditch.

It had tried to pull away with the others, but part of its root system remained trapped beneath the soil. A dark line moved beneath its green skin, starting close to the ground and climbing through the stem.

The leaves nearest the root folded first.

Their bright color faded to grey as the line passed beneath them, leaving the vine limp and shaking. It tried to drag itself backward, but the infected roots held it in place.

I pulled away from Yuche and hurried toward it.

"Rouxi," Chenghai warned.

"I see it."

The vine reached for me before I could get close, wrapping weakly around my wrist. Pain flowed through the contact, carrying fear, confusion, and the horrible feeling of something chewing through it from the inside.

I tightened my fingers around the stem. "Cut the roots," I ordered, my eyes never leaving the vine. The vine curled closer instead.

"You have to cut them," I told Yuche, forcing my voice to stay steady. "If it reaches the others, they’ll all get sick."

Several larger vines moved toward us, ready to help, but the infected one hissed and pulled away from them. It knew what I was asking.

It just didn’t want to do it.

The dark line climbed higher.

Another leaf collapsed, then another, each one losing its color as whatever had entered the plant consumed everything in its path.

"Now," I ordered.

Yuche moved before the larger vines could reach it. Several thin strips of metal slid beneath the soil and wrapped around the infected roots, holding them away from the rest of the garden.

The young vine tightened around my wrist as he cut through the first root.

Its body jerked against my arm, leaves trembling while Yuche worked through the rest one at a time. He kept the blades low and precise, making sure none of the infected pieces touched the healthy roots nearby.

The final root snapped, followed by several smaller strands that tore free from the dirt. Yuche lifted every severed piece into the air and held them over the burned section of road, far away from the garden.

The vine collapsed against my arm, no longer connected to anything else, but the dark movement beneath its skin didn’t stop.

It kept climbing.

Lingyun stood several steps away with fire burning across both hands, but for once, he wasn’t smiling. His eyes stayed on the vine wrapped around my wrist as he waited.

The last green leaf near its head began to curl.

I ran my thumb over it once, then looked at Lingyun.

"Burn it."