Ch. 3 : Exploring the Hallway 1

Shi Xiao listened to outside situation. A threatening low grunt from those things, but they haven't yet sensed him.

He took a deep breath and begin to thrust his weapon to face the monsters!

Three hours ago....

" Qian Jie? Ah, I think she bring some documents up. You can wait here. " A beautiful young intern smilingly said. Shi Xiao smiled back through his mask, and thanked the beauty, " Thank you, but I will just place it here. Qian Jie requested it. "

After leaving the secretary department, he went down to the cafeteria, which unfortunately very crowded. Yesterday's memory is still there, so he silently left and decided to eat his stash of junk food. Anyway, he bought a meat sauce jar last night, he can make do with egg, meat sauce and bread from vending machine.

" Hey, what is that?? " Some people exclaimed. Shi Xiao glanced over. They looked through the glass window in smoking area near the vending machine, pointing and talking.

" A riot? Why so suddenly? "

" Tsk, tsk, luckily it wasn't at noon, otherwise we will go home late. "

" Oh, how is your wife, I heard she was sick... "

The conversation slowly faded as he left the area.

He plugged the earphone and listening to someone in Vtube about how to make long lasting snack bar.

Shi Xiao undergo military training before he stopped and instead entered the college. All of that knowledge are all returned to the teacher, but he still remembered practical things. He like to play survival games, and he like to read and watch on how things created from scratch. When he is younger, his most desired dream is to make money through farming in a quiet and safe mountain village.

He envied how the game character are all having the second chance to start over and realize their dream, but the reality is that people worked hard to make money, then pestered to get married, then died after the children grow up.

" ...you can add a lot of dried raisin to improve the taste. It will be be fresh for over a month of you store them in dry food keeping zip lock or in the refrigerator, just make sure it was away from water. "

Then after the ending song played, he pressed download button and switch to another DIY video.

He likes to save a lot of survivalist materials on his phone, he even has two drives to save them, and in holiday, he would watch them like movie.

He glanced at the notification, which is empty without a sign of order. It's weird. It's already 2 past 40, shouldn't there is a daily inspection? But he didn't save any of the finance department's number nor wechat, he couldn't ask anyone else.

He glanced around the empty room. Now come to think about it, why there's no one come in after lunch time? Did all of them immediately got orders? But why would he alone didn't have any?

He checked the app, and after a short, logical contemplation with himself, he decided to hack into one of his finance department's assistant account and checked the order.

...the latest order is at half past one, just right before lunch time' s crowded time.

Then a loud screech from outside distracted his thought. He stood up and looked from the glass window, and what he saw shocked him to the core.

Blood.

A lot of blood.

A stretch of blood painted some part of the busy street red, and some guys crouched down on some injured person.

" What....in the world...?! " One of the victim suddenly snapped his head up, letting Shi Xiao see a gruesome, blood stained face, with mouth full of red liquid and a chunk of meat. Shi Xiao eyes widen in disbelief as he watched other victims and even saw someone's bite other's neck and blood gushed out, creating other blood painting on the street.

His body froze, then he scrambled back to his table, and grabbed his phone, dialing 119.

A/N : 119 is Chinese police phone number, all other country have different number, so don't dial 119 even if you are at Chinatown of other country!

The busy ringtone replied, he turn off the call and repeated the process, but even after 10 calls, none going through.

He is about to call his little brother, but suddenly, the signal bar turned into an exclamation mark.

" What.... " Just after he said that, the light suddenly flickered twice and shut down completely.

" Shit, did that thing come inside....? " A horrifying thought suddenly appeared on his head. " Qian Jie...., what about her? No, I should go check on her.... " He muttered.

He immediately grabbed his backpack and filled them with dry foods and a full bottle of warm water, and his spare clothes, and a phone charger and someone's portable charger. He only can bring some, if that monster did charge into the building, it's better to run with light luggage, as he only have to make sure he have enough supplies. He opened all instant noodle cups and loaded the flavoring packets and dried noodle into ziploc bag, it's lighter without the extra cup. He only bring his lunchbox and two chopsticks and stuffed the biscuits inside.

Someone brought in a broom and forget to put it back to utility room, but it worked into his favour, if...if he did encounter that monsters, he could use the stick and try to beat them. That thing didn't look alive, maybe their couldn't feel pain, so he should aim for it's nape. Like most zombie novels and movies, they should be dead if the brain is destroyed, although he might have to check it out himself.

He press his ear on the door, and when he confirmed there's no sound outside, he opened the door, all while pointing the sharp ended pole he made himself by using the table to press out the part into sharp pointy end.

Luckily he didn't find anyone, or that thing lurking around, but still, the possibility of that man-eating monster entered the nearest building is still there.

He didn't even dare to breath heavily as he walked through the hallway and opened the door to the stairs with careful attention. Luckily, the building is quite new, so there's still many facilities that are new and didn't make any noise as he swing the door open with the makeshift spear thrusted out.

He hit nothing, but a pair of of grey eyes in the corner slowly turned over, a blood red liquid slowly dripped as it just feasted on an unfortunate staff.

He didn't blink, but those moment feels like it was slow motion as that monster slowly turned its head over, an unknown face with slack jaws filled with chunk of meats and blood, then he watched as it slowly raised his body, and start to crawling to bite it's new prey.

Without thinking, his spear pulled back and swinging with a great force as it meets the enemy head on.

He back stepped, then with another great force, he swung over the stumbling monster and managed to sent it tumbling down on staircase. It growled loudly and crawled up, but adrenaline-filled Shi Xiao could only watched himself swinging another strike, and pierced through it's heart.

One second....

Two seconds...

Three seconds passed, the monster didn't move.

Shi Xiao didn't forget that zombie bite might infect other, so after swinging his weapon and released the monster, he warily watched as the now reanimated corpse tried to control its movement as it's hands swinging wildly.

The pool of blood is now black red, the wound didn't close up, but surprisingly, they wouldn't be able to move like zombies in the movies straight after being reanimated.

He thrusted his weapon towards the heart, and it immediately collapsed back. Even after a full minute of catching breath and processing his newly found informations, the corpses on the floor didn't get up, thus he concluded, that they surprisingly could be killed with a strike to the heart.