Apocalypse Ground Zero: Refusing To Leave Home

Chapter 338: Didn’t Protect The Dead

"Lingyun," I hissed, but he was already moving.

Fire hit the ground before the thin line beneath the soil could travel more than a few inches. The grass blackened instantly, curling in on itself as the flames spread around the man’s boots. Yuche jerked the metal bands upward at the same time, lifting him clear of the yard before the fire reached his legs.

The man shouted as his feet left the ground. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Saving your shoes," I replied, my expression void of emotion. This... whatever it was was really not on my bingo card for the first year of the apocalypse. And for some reason, I don’t remember this happening in my last life. "You’re welcome," I continued after a moment, still lost in thought.

Yuche dragged him back onto the porch and lowered him beside the door. His wife reached for him, but Chenghai stepped between them before her hand made contact.

"Don’t," he warned.

She stopped so suddenly that her fingers remained stretched toward her husband’s arm.

A second drop of blood gathered beneath the man’s nose.

Zhenlan caught it with a tight pull of wind before it could fall. The blood hung in the air, turning slowly inside the invisible pressure wrapped around it.

Something dark twisted in the center.

The man stared at it and suddenly, his anger disappeared.

"That came from me?" he asked, his voice dropping so low I almost didn’t hear it.

"No," I replied. "It climbed out of the ground and jumped into your nose for attention."

Yuche looked down at me.

"What? He asked."

Lingyun widened the fire over the yard, burning the place where the first drop had landed until the dirt cracked and smoke poured through the grass. The man’s wife backed into the house, one hand pressed over her mouth, while the other three adults crowded behind her without stepping too close.

They finally understood.

This wasn’t a quarantine because I enjoyed controlling strangers, although I wasn’t denying that part had its appeal. Something was living inside them, and it had just tried to leave through a nosebleed.

"Close the door," I ordered.

The woman stared at me. "My husband is still outside."

"He’s on the porch. That’s close enough."

"You can’t leave him out there."

"I’m not bringing him closer to everyone else after his blood made the lawn crawl away like a toddler spotting a treat in the next room."

The man wiped beneath his nose with the back of his hand before anyone could stop him.

Every person watching froze.

He looked down at the smear of blood across his skin, then at the dirt still burning near the path.

"Don’t touch anything," Zhenlan told him, keeping the trapped drop suspended well away from us. His voice stayed calm, but the air around the porch tightened enough to lift the edges of the man’s shirt. "Keep your hand where it is."

The man swallowed and held his arm awkwardly away from his body.

That was probably the smartest thing he had done since trying to leave.

I turned toward the yard. "Cut the entire house off."

Yuche’s attention shifted to the ground. "How wide?"

"The whole yard. I don’t want one root connecting this place to anything outside it."

He nodded and lifted both hands. Metal peeled away from the gate, porch railing, and an abandoned frame lying beside the house. The pieces flattened into long blades before sinking beneath the grass around the property.

The plants moved before the first cut.

Vines pulled free of the fence and dragged themselves toward the neighbouring yards. Flowers folded their mouths shut and leaned away from the house, while the grass along the property line flattened as roots snapped beneath the soil.

Chenghai planted the shovel near the front path and drove it down hard enough to split the earth. "Where do you want the trench?"

"Outside Yuche’s cutting line."

"That’ll take most of the yard."

"I’m aware."

The woman inside moved closer to the open doorway again, although she kept her hands clasped tightly against her chest. "You’re destroying everything."

"Yup," I agreed.

"We live here."

"For now."

Her face crumpled. "Please. We didn’t know."

"I know."

And that was the problem.

Nobody knew until their blood hit the ground and something inside it went looking for a new home.

Chenghai began clearing soil away from the house while Yuche severed every underground connection he could reach. Each time a root came free, Lingyun burned it before it could touch another patch of dirt.

Zhenlan moved closer to me, still holding the infected drop of blood inside the wind. "Is there any way to remove them without killing the host?"

I looked at the five adults trapped in and around the house, then toward Tang Mei sitting beside the cart farther down the road.

"I don’t know," she muttered over and over again, her head in her hands.

"What about medicine?" Liu Fang called from behind the metal barrier. Her voice shook, but she forced the words out. "Antibiotics. Parasite medicine. Anything."

"Do you have any?"

"No."

"Do you know what these things are?"

Her mouth closed.

"Neither do I."

Wang Lei crouched beside Tang Mei without touching her. "There must be something."

"Maybe," I replied. "But guessing wrong could make them leave the host."

Zhenlan lowered his hand slightly, bringing the suspended drop closer to the fire. The dark shape inside it twisted harder as the heat approached.

"Heat affects them," he murmured.

"It also affects people," I pointed out. "Unless you have a way to cook the bugs without cooking the person around them, that isn’t much of a plan."

Lingyun looked over his shoulder. "I could try smaller flames."

"No."

He sighed. "I was offering science."

"You were offering arson with extra steps."

Chenghai drove the shovel into another section of soil. "Starve them?"

"And starve the person first?" Yuche asked without looking up from the blades moving beneath the yard.

"Force them out somehow," Zhenlan suggested. "Heat, lack of food, lack of water."

"And then what?" I asked. "They leave the body and go into the floor, the walls, the dirt, or whoever happens to be standing nearby?"

Nobody had an answer.

The people inside the house did.

"Please don’t leave us here," the woman begged. Her husband still stood stiffly on the porch, one bloody hand held away from his body while the rest of them stayed behind the doorway. "We’ll do whatever you say. Just help us."

"I’m trying to stop you from becoming a bigger problem."

"That isn’t the same thing."

"No," I agreed. "It isn’t."

Her expression changed like she had expected me to pretend otherwise.

I wasn’t going to.

The radio at Old Chen’s belt crackled before anyone could say more. He answered quietly, listening for only a few seconds before turning toward the cart.

"Tang Mei’s getting worse."

We all looked over.

Tang Mei had folded against the side of the cart, her head resting near the wheel while Wang Lei hovered beside her. Liu Fang knelt several feet away, speaking quickly, but Tang Mei didn’t answer.

Her body jerked once.

Then again.

Wang Lei leaned closer. "Tang Mei?"

Her eyes opened, but they didn’t focus on him.

A movement travelled beneath the skin of her neck and disappeared into her jaw.

"Back away," I ordered.

Wang Lei didn’t move.

Lingyun did.

He crossed the road with fire already running over both hands while Zhenlan shifted the wind around Tang Mei’s body. Yuche pulled the metal barrier inward, forcing Wang Lei and Liu Fang several steps away before either could argue.

Tang Mei’s chest rose once.

It didn’t rise again.

Her fingers curled against the dirt, nails scraping weakly as something moved through her arm.

Wang Lei stared at her. "She’s still alive."

"No," I replied.

Tang Mei’s shoulder lifted from the ground before dropping again. Her mouth opened, and a pale shape pressed briefly behind her teeth.

That was enough.

"Burn her."

Lingyun’s fire hit before the body could split open.

Wang Lei shouted her name, but Yuche’s metal held him back while Liu Fang covered her mouth with both hands. The flames swallowed Tang Mei completely, and Zhenlan tightened the air around them so nothing could escape.

The body twisted inside the fire, but it was easy to tell that it wasn’t Tang Mei that was responsible for the movement.

Wang Lei stopped fighting.

Liu Fang’s hands slowly fell away from her face.

Neither of them argued when the skin split and dark shapes burned beneath it. They watched until the body collapsed into itself and Lingyun kept the flames going long after there was nothing left that looked human.

Qingxi Village hadn’t protected its dead.

It had made sure there was never enough left of them to rise.