Next door is a rental house. The previous tenant moved out last month, and a new tenant hasn’t been found yet, so it’s currently unoccupied.
It’s a relatively spacious three-bedroom apartment. Although it only has one more room than her own house, each room is much larger. The total area is around 100 square meters, which is twice the size of Fu Erdie’s small house.
Each room has a door and a lock. Fu Erdie tried them and found that they could be opened and closed properly.
She moved quietly, opening every drawer to find the keys. She successfully obtained the keys to each room and even got a spare key for the main door.
Fu Erdie wrapped the keys in a prepared cloth and placed them in her shoulder bag, making no sound.
She quietly opened the main door, leaving a inconspicuous gap. The door handle was connected to a line that led directly to the bedroom where Fu Erdie was hiding.
Through her own surveillance system, which could be viewed in real-time on her phone via Bluetooth, Fu Erdie watched her phone and waited for twenty minutes until she finally had the chance to see a lone small zombie approach the door.
She gently pulled the rope, making a creaking sound.
The small zombie was attracted and looked up towards the inside of the house.
Fu Erdie’s position allowed her to see the face of the small zombie clearly.
It was a young boy who usually kept his head down. He belonged to the slim and delicate type, well-mannered and never ran up and down the hallway disturbing others.
Fu Erdie tightened her grip on the bedroom door handle.
The commotion on this side caught the attention of the older middle zombie, but when it turned back, it didn’t see any human presence or catch any human scent, so it casually wandered away.
Only the small zombie, in a chaotic manner, walked inside and followed the path Fu Erdie had created with the arrangement of the sofa, heading towards the balcony.
As soon as the zombie moved away, Fu Erdie immediately ran out, closed and locked the main door, intentionally making a loud noise to attract the small zombie’s attention, and quickly fled in the opposite direction.
Naturally, the small zombie was drawn towards the noise and stumbled its way over.
Fu Erdie entered the kitchen and skilfully hid in the ceiling through a pre-made hole, waiting for a while until she saw the small zombie chasing after her.
“Five seconds.”
Fu Erdie silently counted.
This one was much slower than the old zombie from yesterday.
If it were the old zombie, it could rush over in just two seconds.
In other words, the behaviour and qualities of different zombies were truly different.
The zombies outside and the zombies in the hallway indeed moved much slower, just as she had observed.
Fu Erdie breathed a sigh of relief, took out a prepared iron hammer, leaped down from a high point, and struck the small zombie’s head with the hammer.
“Sorry.”
The small zombie’s head burst open, and its brain matter and blood spilled all over the floor, splattering onto Fu Erdie’s face.
She turned on the tap.
Because nobody had used the water for over ten days, the water initially came out with a rusty reddish colour.
Fu Erdie’s hand trembled, but she continued washing her hands. When the water became clean, she used it to wash her face, neck, and cleaned the blood off her hair. She looked at the surveillance footage and saw that there were no zombies in the corridor for the time being, so she dragged the small zombie’s body outside.
The feel of the zombie’s body was truly awful. When she touched it directly, it was somewhat stiff but still had the texture of human skin.
Perhaps this was how a body felt right after death.
Fu Erdie forcibly endured it and dragged the small zombie outside, placing it next to the old zombie with a caved-in skull in the corridor.
This time, when she saw the older middle zombie coming slowly, Fu Erdie wasn’t as afraid.
Because their speed wasn’t that fast.
She calmly returned to her neighbour’s house and locked the door.
The temperature was high now, probably the same as last night, around 35 to 36 degrees Celsius.
She sat exhausted in a corner of the living room, listening to the sound of zombies scratching the door, expressionless.
It was only when scorching drops of water fell onto her knees and shins that she realized she was crying.
Staring blankly at her legs and the increasing pool of tears on the floor, Fu Erdie couldn’t hold back any longer and hugged her knees, silently crying in grief.
Why did someone like her, who was afraid of the popping of cockroaches and the touch of moths, now have to swing a hammer at zombies that were human just yesterday?
Zombies were disgusting, corpses were disgusting, and death was terrifying. Why did she have to face all of this?!
By the time Fu Erdie returned to her own house from the balcony, she had already regained her composure.
Her home still looked quiet and comfortable, just like before the apocalypse.
She took a shower, turned on the air conditioner, ate rice with pickled vegetables, poured dog food for her dog, and cleaned the dog’s toilet.
Everything was in order, not much different from before.
But Fu Erdie knew it was different.
She put the cleaned-up trash into a bag and packed it into the cardboard box where she had placed decorative plants yesterday, intending to hang it downstairs along with the plants.
However, looking at the half-empty delivery box, Fu Erdie decided to fill it up before throwing it away in a few days.
Now, whether it was the cardboard box or the trash bag, everything was being used little by little.
As for those decorative plants she had thought of “setting free” yesterday, Fu Erdie thought irresponsibly that it didn’t matter whether they were downstairs on the pavement or here without soil, there was no significant difference.
After experiencing a night of chaos, the flow of vehicles outside surprisingly became more orderly.
Because everyone knew that no one could move a car involved in an accident in this situation. One more accident would create another traffic congestion point.
If they could avoid competing for the road, they wouldn’t. If it got blocked, no one could get through.
Moreover, there were also quite a few people, like Zhao Xiaolu, who chose to drive away the cars of deceased owners that were blocking the way.
From the balcony, Fu Erdie witnessed ten identical incidents. However, only three groups of people successfully got into cars, while the rest were blocked and devoured by other zombies on the broad daylight roads, resulting in extremely gruesome scenes.
The survivors on the lower floors observed this and learned from the experience, choosing to act when the zombies had poor visibility at night.
Fu Erdie stood on the upper floor, enjoying the cool air from the air conditioner, watching the people below as if they were passing by like ordinary pedestrians, observing the crowd.
She knew that when her water, electricity, and gas were cut off, she would blend into the post-apocalyptic world like countless others, desperately seeking survival.
The events on the roads played out differently every day. The hallway also presented different situations.
On the first day, like Fu Erdie, most people either searched for cars to escape or hid in their homes as long as they hadn’t turned into zombies. The outbreak of zombies usually occurred when there were mostly elderly people, children, or those who finished work early and didn’t have shift work in the hallway. The number of people wasn’t large, and many were waiting for their family members to gather.
On the second day, those who couldn’t contact their families or were abandoned by them started rallying others to fight the zombies. After all, the zombies weren’t very fast, and clearing the hallway was a good idea.
Fu Erdie responded and spent several days fighting in the hallway. However, during these days, people were continuously injured. Even if they didn’t die on the spot, they eventually turned into zombies that scratched the doors continuously or even broke them open and wandered outside.
Gradually, there were fewer and fewer people who dared to come out and fight the zombies. The symptoms of stress increased, and even previously rational individuals became timid, cried, and dared not come out as they witnessed their once courageous companions turning into monsters.
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