Apocalypse Ground Zero: Refusing To Leave Home

Chapter 334: Pei Shou Was Only Tired

"The zombies avoid your village because something there eats them," I continued, no longer interested in protecting a belief that might get everyone near my mansion killed. "Mutated plants don’t grow because something eats those too. Your crops are dying from the roots, your animals disappeared without leaving bones, your dead weigh almost nothing, and everyone is hungry and thirsty no matter how much they eat or drink."

Wang Lei’s face hardened with every word. By the time I finished, his hands had curled into fists at his sides and his shoulders were pulled tight enough to make him look ready to argue with the entire road.

"You don’t know that," he snapped.

His voice rose enough that Old Chen’s people shifted behind us, several hands moving toward tools that could become weapons out of habit. Yuche didn’t bother looking back at them. He only moved his fingers slightly, making the metal barrier between us creak as it bent a little higher.

Wang Lei heard the warning, but he didn’t step back.

"I watched Pei Shuo’s corpse collapse from the inside while things crawled behind his eyes," I replied. "Unless that’s a normal village tradition, I’m fairly sure something was wrong."

The anger on Wang Lei’s face faltered. His fists loosened, and the color slowly drained from his cheeks as the image settled somewhere he couldn’t push it away.

Liu Fang looked down at the cart. Her fingers slid along the wooden handle until they found a deep crack in the side, then stopped there. Tang Mei had gone still beside her, one hand pressed against her stomach while the other held the empty bottle so tightly that the plastic had folded beneath her fingers.

I stepped closer to Yuche’s barrier, stopping before the plants behind me could decide I needed to be dragged backward again. "Your village didn’t protect Pei Shuo after he left. It carried him here already full."

Tang Mei shook her head hard enough for more of her hair to fall loose around her face. "No. He was sick. That was all. He’d been tired for days, and he wasn’t eating properly."

"He was empty."

Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.

Wang Lei looked toward her, then quickly back at me. "He wasn’t the only one who was tired. Everyone is tired. We work from sunrise until dark, and there isn’t enough food."

"How long had he been thirsty?" I asked.

The question caught him off guard. His brows drew together, but he didn’t answer.

Liu Fang rubbed her thumb over the crack in the cart handle. "A few weeks."

Wang Lei turned toward her. "Liu Fang."

"What?" she asked, finally looking up. Fear had replaced the careful expression she had worn since we arrived. "She already knows something is wrong."

Tang Mei’s bottle made a soft cracking sound in her hand.

Liu Fang swallowed before continuing. "Pei Shuo started carrying two bottles when everyone else still carried one. Then he started waking people during the night because he wanted more water. He said his mouth felt dry no matter how much he drank."

"And no one thought that was strange?" I asked.

"We thought he was working too hard," Wang Lei answered, although his voice had lost most of its anger. "He helped dig the new garden beds. He carried bodies to the pit. He was always doing something. Then again, drinking the water also helps combat the gnawing hunger most nights."

"Did he eat more too?"

Tang Mei’s eyes closed for a moment.

That was enough of an answer, but Liu Fang gave me one anyway. "He ate whenever there was food left. Sometimes he came back ten minutes later and asked if the meal had started yet."

Lingyun shifted beside me, the joking expression finally gone from his face. "And you still brought him outside the village?"

Wang Lei’s jaw tightened. "We needed people for the supply run."

"You needed a walking bag full of parasites," Lingyun corrected, his voice calm in a way that made it sound worse.

Tang Mei glared at him, but there wasn’t much force behind it. "You don’t know that."

"No," I agreed before Lingyun could answer. "We only watched the things eat through him, crawl out of his body, infect one of my plants, and then hollow out a zombie. It’s all very unclear what is going on."

Yuche’s mouth twitched beside me, but his attention remained on the three strangers. Zhenlan had gone completely still behind us, watching the way Tang Mei kept swallowing and the way Liu Fang’s fingers trembled against the cart.

"He had almost no organs left," I continued, turning my attention back to Tang Mei. "Whatever was inside him had eaten through his stomach, chest, and muscles before he died. Then it used what remained of his body to move."

Tang Mei pressed both hands against her stomach.

At first, I thought she was trying to steady herself after hearing what happened to Pei Shuo. Then her shoulders jerked, and the color drained from her face so quickly that even Lingyun stopped smiling.

"When did you last eat?" Zhenlan asked.

Tang Mei blinked at him, breathing through her nose as though she was trying to force the nausea down. "This morning."

"What did you eat?"

"A piece of dried bread."

"Did it stay down?"

Her eyes moved toward Wang Lei.

That was apparently another question they had already discussed.

Liu Fang released the cart handle with one hand and rubbed her palm against her trousers. "She was sick yesterday too."

Tang Mei turned toward her. "It was the heat."

"You said the same thing about Pei Shuo," Liu Fang replied. Her voice shook, but she didn’t look away this time. "You said he was tired. You said he only needed water."

"That doesn’t mean—"

Tang Mei’s words cut off when her stomach cramped. She folded slightly at the waist, one hand gripping the front of her shirt while the other dropped the crushed bottle onto the road.

Wang Lei reached toward her on instinct, but my earlier warning caught up with him before his hand made contact. He stopped halfway, fingers stretched toward her back while fear pulled his face tight.

"Tang Mei?" Liu Fang’s voice rose as she leaned toward her friend without stepping away from the cart. "What’s wrong?"

Tang Mei tried to answer, but the effort turned into a gag. She bent over suddenly and vomited onto the road.

Everyone moved back at the same time.

Yuche’s metal barrier widened with a sharp screech, cutting off the entire section around the strangers. Zhenlan lifted one hand, and the air tightened around them hard enough to send dust spinning along the boundary. Fire appeared across Lingyun’s fingers without him saying a word, while Chenghai shifted the shovel into both hands and planted himself between me and the cart.

Old Chen’s people retreated several steps, dragging anyone within reach behind them.

Tang Mei coughed and spat, one palm braced against her knee while the other clutched her stomach. There was almost nothing in her stomach except water and a thin line of yellow bile spreading across the road.

The plants reacted before anyone else did.

A flower near the wall tore one of its own roots free in its rush to get farther away. The vines pulled higher onto the roofs, and the grass surrounding Tang Mei flattened until strips of bare dirt appeared around her shoes.

"Cause that is a normal reaction," I grunted, rolling my eyes.

Wang Lei stared at the plants, then at Tang Mei. Whatever argument he had been preparing disappeared from his face.

"She’s only sick from the road," he insisted, although his voice shook badly enough that he didn’t seem convinced. "We’ve been walking for days. She hasn’t eaten properly."

"Of course," I murmured. "And Pei Shuo was only tired."

Tang Mei straightened slowly, still breathing through her mouth. Sweat had appeared along her hairline, and her eyes looked unfocused as she wiped the bile from her lips with the back of her hand.

She bent to reach for the bottle she had dropped.

Then something moved beneath the skin of her throat.