Chapter 189: Zombies and outing.
If anything, it made her even more alert. A quiet stairwell in the middle of the apocalypse was never truly quiet. It was the kind of silence that made the back of your neck itch, the kind that felt like something was waiting just out of sight. Bai Li kept her body angled slightly forward as she moved, her knife held ready in both hands, her steps light but steady. Yan Cijin followed close behind her, not speaking, not making any unnecessary noise, just keeping pace and watching the corners Bai Li could not focus on at the same time. The stairwell walls were stained in places, the smell of old blood and damp concrete hanging in the air, and every landing looked worse than the last. By the time they reached the fourth floor, Bai Li had already lifted her guard a little higher, because the place ahead felt wrong in a way she could not ignore.
Three zombies stood at the large white door of the fire escape on the fourth floor. They were all male zombies, and all three turned at roughly the same time the moment they sensed movement on the stairs. Bai Li’s eyes ran over them in a single quick sweep. The first zombie was closest to the door, broad in the shoulders with its head slightly tilted to one side, its jaw hanging open in a slack, broken way. The second was a little shorter, with one eye half buried under a torn patch of skin and a jerky way of moving that suggested it had been hit or damaged before turning. The third was behind them both, standing a little crooked, one arm hanging lower than the other, fingers bent like dead branches. Bai Li did not waste any time studying them beyond that. In a fight, details only mattered when they could help you kill faster.
The moment she saw the zombies’ posture shift, Bai Li charged forward before they could even properly react. It was too late already. The zombie at the front had not even managed a full lunge before Bai Li got to it. She gripped her knife in both hands, tightened her shoulders, and brought the blade down in one sharp motion. The knife severed the zombie’s spine cleanly, and the head fell to the ground like a ball rolling off a table. The body stiffened for half a beat, then collapsed in a stiff, ugly heap. Bai Li did not stop to look at it. She let the momentum of the strike carry her to the side, because the second zombie was already rushing in from her right.
The slightly shorter male zombie pounced at her with both arms raised. Its mouth was open in a terrible silent howl, and its body lunged forward with the odd, unstable force that zombies always had. Bai Li did not meet it head-on. She kicked Lin Lei, sending him stumbling backward against the wall, and used that opening to turn her body just enough to keep the other zombie in front of her sword line. Her knife flashed like lightning as she slashed down at the shorter zombie. The cut landed hard and deep. The zombie fell to the ground with a thud, its upper body twisting sideways as it crashed onto the concrete. Bai Li’s breathing stayed even. Her face stayed calm. That kind of stillness in the middle of a violent scene made her seem even more dangerous than if she had been shouting or gritting her teeth.
At that moment, the remaining zombie charged at Bai Li again. It had been slightly behind the others, but now it threw itself forward with ugly force, reaching out with both hands. Bai Li did not use her knife on him. Instead, she kicked him again, hard enough to throw off his balance and keep him from closing in. She used the second kick almost like a reset, buying a half second of space while she turned her head just enough to speak to Yan Cijin behind her. "Let’s go, keeping him alive might still be useful."
Yan Cijin understood immediately. She was already focused, her own knife held at the ready, her shoulders slightly lowered so she could move without delay. She did not question Bai Li’s decision or ask why that zombie might be useful. There was no time for that. In situations like this, whether a zombie should be fully killed or temporarily left alive depended on the route, the escape path, and whether they needed to use it to block the others. Yan Cijin trusted Bai Li’s judgment on that. More importantly, Bai Li clearly had a plan, and Yan Cijin was not about to slow her down by overthinking things.
With that, the two continued rushing downstairs. Bai Li killed two more zombies in quick succession as they moved. One came out from the turn of the stairs below, half hunched and swaying, and Bai Li met it with a fast diagonal slash that took it down before it even finished opening its mouth. The other appeared on the next landing, and Bai Li cut across its side while stepping past it in one clean motion. Her feet barely lost speed. She did not stop after every kill. She let the rhythm of the fight carry her downward, turning the stairwell into a narrow channel of movement and death. Yan Cijin stayed tight behind her, ready to cover the back if anything slipped through. The whole thing was moving so quickly that there was barely any room for fear. There was only action, timing, and the sound of heavy bodies hitting the floor.
By the time they reached the first floor, only four of the ten zombies in the stairwell remained. One of them was Lin Lei, and the remaining three were likely wandering on the upper floors. Bai Li and Yan Cijin had not encountered them on the way down, which meant those zombies were either stuck somewhere awkward or slowly dragging through the upper landings in search of movement.
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To be continued.
