Apocalypse Ground Zero: Refusing To Leave Home

Chapter 329: I Didn’t Fight It

"Burn it before they come back out," I ordered, my eyes flashing as I continued to stare at the zombie on the ground.

Lingyun moved immediately. Fire rolled across the road and covered the zombie from head to foot before the loose skin could split open. The body twisted inside the flames as the parasites tried to escape, but Zhenlan tightened the air around it and forced everything back toward the center of the body bag.

The smell reached us anyway.

I covered my nose and stepped farther from the road while Yuche pulled every loose piece of metal into a wide circle around the burning corpse. Chenghai kept the shovel ready, watching the cracks beneath it for any sign of movement.

The zombie collapsed quickly. There wasn’t enough left inside it to burn for long, but Lingyun continued feeding heat into the body until the bones blackened and the road beneath it began to soften.

"Keep going," I told him. "I don’t want anything crawling out after we turn our backs."

Lingyun glanced over his shoulder. "You say the sweetest things."

"I’ll say something much worse if one of those things reaches my garden." That wiped the smile from his face.

The parasites had already taken one vine. They weren’t taking anything else.

I turned toward the plants gathered farther up the driveway. They had pulled themselves into a tight group, leaving the edge of the property completely bare. Even the larger vines stayed behind the flowers instead of stretching toward the road.

"We’re cutting this section off," I told them, pointing toward the ground between the ditch and the driveway. "Anything with roots inside it has to let go."

Several vines shifted uneasily. "I know," I muttered. "I don’t like it either. But we can’t take the chance of those things hiding from us."

The strip wasn’t small. The roots beneath that part of the yard connected to flower beds, climbing vines, and several trees that had spent weeks spreading toward the abandoned houses. Cutting everything apart would leave a wide hole in the defenses around the mansion.

It still had to be done.

Yuche stepped beside me and looked over the section I had marked. "How deep?"

"As deep as you can reach."

He nodded once, then lifted both hands.

Thin strips of metal peeled away from the ruined fence and flattened into narrow blades. They sank into the dirt in a straight line, disappearing beneath the surface before spreading outward.

The plants reacted the moment the first roots were cut.

Leaves shook. Several vines jerked backward, while flowers folded their mouths shut and pressed closer together. Roots snapped beneath the ground one after another as Yuche moved the blades deeper.

I kept my attention on the edge of the property instead of watching the plants retreat. If I looked too closely, I would start counting everything we were losing.

Chenghai drove the shovel into the soil beside Yuche’s cutting line. He lifted the first load onto the pavement, and Lingyun burned it before it touched anything else.

"We need a wider trench," Chenghai pointed out as he dug again. "If they can travel beneath the fire, a narrow break won’t stop them."

"Then make it wider."

He didn’t waste time asking how much of the yard I was willing to lose. He simply moved several steps closer to the mansion and started a second line.

Zhenlan stood between the two trenches, one hand raised as he forced the air downward. The flames bent toward the ground, heat sinking into the exposed soil instead of spreading across the surface.

Steam rose from the dirt.

Lingyun adjusted his fire, following the trench as Chenghai opened it. Every root Yuche cut was lifted free and burned separately before it could fall back into the ground.

The plants continued pulling away.

One climbing vine refused to release the fence until another wrapped around it and dragged it loose. Several flowers left pieces of their roots behind, sacrificing whatever they couldn’t free quickly enough.

The bare strip widened with every passing minute.

I hated it.

People had attacked the mansion before. Zombies had crossed the road. Gu Han had marked the territory and sent idiots to test us. None of them had made the plants run from their own ground.

These things had.

They didn’t care about walls, strength, weapons, or numbers. They crawled beneath everything and ate whatever they found.

"Rouxi." Yuche’s voice pulled my attention toward the trench. One of the metal blades had stopped underground.

"What?"

"There’s resistance beneath the road."

Chenghai moved closer and drove the shovel into the spot. The soil came up in a heavy clump, blackened by heat but still damp in the center. And something pale twisted inside it.

Lingyun burned the dirt before Chenghai finished throwing it onto the pavement.

The small shape curled in the flames, then went still.

"There’ll be more," Zhenlan warned.

"I know."

That was what made the whole thing worse.

We couldn’t see how far they had spread. We only knew where the plants refused to stand.

Chenghai continued digging while Yuche swept the metal blades beneath the ground, cutting every remaining root between the road and the mansion. Lingyun followed with fire, and Zhenlan forced the heat deep enough that the dirt cracked around the trench.

By the time they finished, a wide black scar crossed the edge of the property.

The road smoked. The ditch had become a burned channel filled with ash and broken roots. Nothing living remained between the infected section and the plants gathered near the driveway.

Lingyun finally lowered his hands. "I don’t see anything moving."

Yuche pulled the metal from the ground and inspected the blades. "Neither do I."

Chenghai rested the shovel against one shoulder, his eyes still scanning the trench. "We may have caught it early enough."

"Maybe," Zhenlan murmured.

I didn’t answer.

The ground had stopped moving. No pale shapes crawled through the ash, and nothing shifted beneath the ruined road. For several minutes, the only sounds were the crackle of dying fire and the soft scrape of metal cooling against the pavement.

Lingyun looked toward the plants. "They can move back now."

None of them did.

The flowers stayed closed. The vines remained gathered near the driveway, and the grass closest to the trench continued leaning away from one section beside the road.

Lingyun frowned. "Maybe they’re being cautious."

"They’re plants," I replied. "They’re never cautious."

Yuche followed my stare toward the untouched patch. It looked no different from the rest of the burned ground. The dirt was black, the roots had been severed, and Lingyun’s fire had passed over it twice.

Still, nothing would go near it.

Chenghai picked up the shovel again. "Do you want me to dig it out?"

"Not yet."

I walked closer, stopping well before the bare strip began. One vine wrapped around my ankle and held me there, making it clear that another step would cause an argument.

I didn’t fight it.

The fire had stopped them from moving.

But it hadn’t convinced the plants they were gone.