Apocalypse Ground Zero: Refusing To Leave Home

Chapter 333: Keep You Alive

"Then what did?" Lingyun asked, shifting his weight away from the wall as he waited for Tang Mei to provide an explanation that made any sense at all.

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Her gaze dropped toward the road instead, and the hand resting near her throat started rubbing the same patch of skin again.

I almost felt sorry for her.

Almost.

"Tell me about the water," I said, watching all three of them instead of only Tang Mei.

That got more of a reaction than the missing animals had.

Liu Fang’s eyes moved toward the empty containers tied beneath the cart before she seemed to realize what she was doing. Wang Lei’s jaw tightened, while Tang Mei pulled the bottle closer to her chest even though there wasn’t a single drop left inside it.

Yuche noticed too. His attention shifted from their faces to the containers, and the strip of metal suspended between us rose a little higher.

"The spring is clean," Wang Lei answered after a moment. His tone was careful, like he thought choosing the right words might make me stop asking questions. "Clearer than any water we’ve found outside."

"That wasn’t a difficult contest," I pointed out. Most of the water outside came with dirt, blood, dead bodies, or all three. "Do you boil it?"

Wang Lei shook his head. "No."

"Filter it?"

"We didn’t need to."

"You didn’t think you needed to," I corrected, keeping my eyes on him. There was an important difference between those two things, but he didn’t look ready to appreciate it.

Tang Mei’s fingers dug into the plastic bottle hard enough to bend the middle. "We’ve all been drinking it for months. If there was something wrong with the spring, everyone would be sick."

I looked over their sunken faces and the clothes hanging from their bodies. "And now all of you are starving while standing still, so I’m not sure that argument is helping you."

"That’s because there isn’t enough food," she insisted. Her voice sharpened, although she still wouldn’t loosen her grip on the bottle. "Everyone has had to eat less."

"Then why are you always so thirsty?"

The question settled over the road.

No one answered.

Wang Lei’s gaze shifted toward the abandoned houses. Liu Fang stared down at her hands, while Tang Mei swallowed and rubbed her throat again without seeming to notice.

I waited until her fingers had passed over the same spot twice before speaking. "You’ve touched your throat at least twelve times since I arrived. It’s not hard to figure out that you are dying for water."

Her hand dropped so quickly it slapped against her side.

Liu Fang glanced at her, then immediately looked toward Wang Lei. He didn’t return the look, but the muscle near his jaw tightened.

Ah... there it was.

They weren’t surprised.

They probably already knew. Or at least guessed.

They had noticed the thirst before. They simply hadn’t wanted to say it aloud, which was always a great way to deal with something potentially eating everyone from the inside.

"How much water do people drink in Qingxi Village?" I asked.

Wang Lei’s expression closed off. He lowered his hands completely, although he stayed behind Yuche’s barrier. "As much as they need."

"That answer is useless."

"It’s water," he replied, impatience creeping into his voice. "People drink when they’re thirsty."

"And people normally stop being thirsty afterward."

He looked away from me again, this time toward the line of houses behind Old Chen’s men. "Everyone drinks more than they used to."

"How much more?" Zhenlan asked from behind me.

His voice was calm, but Wang Lei’s shoulders stiffened anyway. Zhenlan hadn’t said much since we arrived, which meant every time he did speak, the strangers reacted as though the quiet one had finally decided they were worth questioning.

Liu Fang answered before Wang Lei could avoid it again. "Some people wake up several times during the night to drink. Others carry bottles with them all day because their mouths keep going dry."

"And they’re still thirsty," I said.

Her fingers flexed around the cart handle before she gave one small nod.

Tang Mei shook her head and stepped closer to the cart, as though standing beside the others might make her argument stronger. "That doesn’t prove anything. People work hard. The weather is hot, food is limited, and we have to walk farther every week to collect supplies."

"Sure," I replied. "Maybe everyone developed the exact same problem at the exact same time because the sun took a personal interest in your village."

Her lips pressed together.

I studied her for another moment before asking, "The corpses are light too, aren’t they?"

Tang Mei’s head snapped toward me so quickly that her loose hair swung across her cheek.

Wang Lei went completely still.

Even Liu Fang stopped gripping the cart.

That was all the answer I needed, but I waited anyway. People had a strange habit of confessing things when silence became uncomfortable enough.

Tang Mei finally found her voice, although it came out rough. "What do you mean?"

"You carried Pei Shuo before leaving him near the road," I reminded them. "Was he heavier or lighter than you expected?"

Wang Lei looked down at the dirt beside his boots.

Liu Fang closed her eyes for a second, her shoulders sagging as if she was remembering the weight of him between them.

Tang Mei didn’t answer at all.

I folded my arms. "That light, then."

"He’d lost weight," Wang Lei argued. His head came up, and his tone sharpened as anger replaced the fear he’d been trying not to show. "Everyone has lost weight. There hasn’t been enough food for months."

"Exactly."

His brows pulled together. "You’re twisting everything we say."

"No. I’m putting it in the right order."

The words landed harder than I expected. His hands curled into fists at his sides, but he kept them low and made no attempt to cross Yuche’s barrier.

"Qingxi Village kept us alive," he replied. The anger in his voice sounded rehearsed, like it was something he had repeated to himself whenever the village stopped feeling safe.

"Did it?"

"Yes."

The answer came immediately, but Liu Fang looked away.

I tilted my head. "Or did whatever is living there keep you alive long enough to spread it?"

Tang Mei’s face twisted, and one hand pressed against her stomach. "Stop."