Apocalypse Ground Zero: Refusing To Leave Home

Chapter 339: Not Fast Enough

I was still watching the last of Tang Mei’s body disappear inside Lingyun’s fire when something struck the side of the house behind me.

The sound was sharp enough to make everyone turn.

A vine clung to the brick near the upper window, slapping its head against the wall hard enough to shake dust from the frame. Another had wrapped around the drainpipe and was pulling itself toward the roof, while the flowers along the neighboring yard folded themselves flat against the fence.

They weren’t reacting to Tang Mei.

They were all facing the mansion road.

"Oh, good," I muttered. "Apparently, we were getting too comfortable."

Yuche followed my gaze before looking toward the smoke rising farther down the cul-de-sac. The metal blades he had been using beneath the infected yard lifted from the dirt, dirt clinging to their edges as they turned toward the original trench.

Zhenlan stepped beside me, his attention shifting away from the burning body. "Something’s wrong near the first breach."

"The plants seem to think so."

The vine on the wall struck the brick again, then pointed its head toward the mansion road so aggressively that even Lingyun stopped feeding the fire for a second.

"I think it wants you to hurry," he said.

"I noticed," I hissed in reply. "It’s not being very subtle."

"It is being very persuasive."

"It cracked a window this morning. Apparently, violence is how we communicate now."

Chenghai pulled the shovel free from the half-dug trench around the house. "I’ll check it."

"We’re all checking it," I replied. "I’m not staying here while something crawls toward my garden."

The five adults inside the house began protesting the moment we turned away. The woman who had traded for the water stepped into the doorway, although she kept both hands pressed against the frame instead of crossing onto the porch.

"You can’t leave us here," she called.

I looked back at the yard we had already cut off, the burned blood near the path, and her husband standing several feet away with his infected hand held stiffly at his side.

"Yes, I can."

"What if something happens?"

"Something already happened. That’s why half your lawn is on fire."

Her face tightened, but Zhenlan spoke before she could beg again.

"Stay inside and don’t touch one another," he instructed, his calm tone carrying across the yard. "Old Chen will remain nearby with two of the workers. If anyone starts bleeding, vomiting, or feeling movement beneath the skin, call out. Do not leave the house."

Old Chen looked like he had several opinions about being volunteered, but one glance at the burning dirt convinced him to keep them to himself.

Lingyun pointed toward the remaining fire around Tang Mei. "I’m leaving that burning."

Wang Lei’s face twisted, but he didn’t argue this time. He and Liu Fang remained behind the metal barrier beside the cart, both staring at the place where their friend had been.

Yuche tightened the barrier around them before we left. "Don’t touch the bottles."

Liu Fang looked at him as though the idea had become personally offensive. "We won’t."

At least someone was finally learning.

We ran back toward the mansion road with the plants moving ahead of us. Vines pulled themselves along fences and rooftops, avoiding the ground whenever they could. Several flowers had torn free of their beds entirely and were dragging themselves toward the mansion, leaving broken roots behind like they had suddenly decided gardening was optional.

The burned trench appeared around the bend.

At first, it looked exactly as we had left it. The soil was black, the road was cracked, and nothing moved across the surface.

Then Chenghai stepped closer and drove the shovel into the dirt beyond the trench.

The ground shifted beneath his boots.

He pulled the shovel back immediately.

A thin line travelled under the soil several meters beyond the burned section, heading toward the cluster of abandoned houses between the cul-de-sac and the mansion.

Another line appeared beside it.

Then another.

They weren’t crossing the trench.

They had already passed beneath it.

Lingyun stared at the ground, the amusement disappearing from his face. "I burned that deep down. Nothing should have been able to get away from my flames."

"Apparently, they disagreed," I replied.

Zhenlan crouched near the edge of the trench without touching it. Dust lifted around his hand as he pushed a narrow stream of air into the soil. The surface trembled, then sank several centimetres as pressure forced the loose dirt aside.

The hollow beneath it went much deeper than the fire had reached.

"They travelled under the burned layer," he said. "The soil is damp farther down. The heat didn’t penetrate enough."

Wonderful.

The parasites had discovered basements.

I looked toward the abandoned houses. Roots from the mansion’s outer defenses stretched beneath the yards and roads, connecting vines, flowers, grass, and trees across most of the area. If the things reached those roots, they wouldn’t need to crawl all the way to the mansion.

They could ride the plants directly into my garden.

"Cut everything between here and the main yard," I ordered, grumbling about the fact that I now had to repeat myself yet again. Only this time, I was talking about my own house. Not some strangers’.

Yuche turned toward me. "That’s a much wider section."

"Still well aware."

"We’ll lose most of the plants around those houses."

"You know, you could just shut up and do it. Kind of like ripping off a band aid."

The nearest vine curled tighter around a fence post, leaves trembling as though it understood exactly what was about to happen.

I hated this.

People had shot at the mansion, broken doors, threatened us, stolen food, and attempted every other stupid thing desperate humans enjoyed doing. None of them had forced me to dismantle my own defenses.

These things hadn’t even bothered attacking properly.

They had simply crawled under them.

Yuche lifted both hands.

Metal tore free from gates, window frames, abandoned cars, and broken fencing around the empty houses. The pieces flattened into long blades before sinking into the ground in a wide line that stretched from one side of the cul-de-sac to the other.

The first roots snapped beneath the soil.

Plants shuddered across the entire section. Vines released their grip on walls and pulled toward the mansion, while flowers tore themselves free before the blades reached them.

Not all of them were fast enough.