Lao Mao slammed on the brakes, exclaiming while pointing at the bridge stretching across the river in the distance, "Look, what’s happening there?"
Hearing Lao Mao’s voice,
Han Shuang and the others were puzzled. But when they looked in the direction Lao Mao was pointing, they were all shocked.
The bridge was swarming with zombies, staggeringly numerous. The bridge was the city’s exit, and the situation could only mean that these zombies had come from somewhere else.
How could this be possible.
Han Shuang said, "Go back."
Without a second thought, Lao Mao hit the gas, crushing the zombies blocking the way. Swerving the steering wheel, he drove towards the district. In such times, there certainly were no traffic rules to follow, but if Lin Fan had been in the car, perhaps he would’ve kindly advised Lao Mao, "You’re on the wrong road," which could have been caught on camera, possibly incurring a penalty.
Lin Fan looked at the bodies of zombies scattered on the ground, gently shaking the viscous substance off his sword.
"In places I’ve never been to, the number of zombies is really high,"
The cleaning process was a long one. Although only one street was being cleaned, at this rate, even if there were survivors here, they would encounter only a handful of wandering zombies.
They would definitely not run into an entire horde of zombies.
He couldn’t guarantee that places he had cleaned were completely zombie-free, but he could ensure that they wouldn’t see large numbers of zombies.
"My name is Lin Fan, a security guard from Sunshine District. If you need help, just let me know,"
he shouted down the street.
Looking at each window, open or shut tight, how he hoped to see a friendly survivor poking their head out and saying,
Standing at the end of the street, quietly waiting, he hoped that what he wished for would happen.
Deathly silence reigned, the empty streets utterly still, as if he alone existed.
His eyes shifted from hopeful to regretful. Carrying his sword, he turned and walked away.
A violent roar came from afar.
The shaking was terrifying; despite the distance, he could feel the tremors.
"What’s happening over there?"
Lin Fan leaped to a higher position.
He could see flames soaring into the sky, thick smoke billowing up to the heavens.
Frowning, his expression solemn, he thought of the explosion some time ago, but the blast from that incident was clearly much smaller than this.
"I remember that’s a factory over there."
Thinking, he recalled the dangers of the factory.
Not far from the site of the explosion was a fire station.
The decision to place the fire station there was made by a leader of Huang City, thinking that as an important city with fire stations everywhere, they could respond to fires immediately.
But with many factories around, in the event of a fire and with the distance being great, if it coincided with rush hour and the roads were blocked, the impact of the delay would undoubtedly be much greater.
At the time of its establishment, the citizens of Huang City jokingly said it was to wipe the factories’ butts.
the citizens agreed with it, as safety was paramount.
Inside the fire station,
it was very empty, everything in disarray.
About a dozen zombies staggered around the courtyard, their actions lacking any rationality, bowing their heads as if here was their destination, the outside world having nothing to do with them.
The violent roaring and the accompanying terrible shaking.
The zombies in the courtyard heard the noise.
As if receiving some kind of order, they all turned to look in the direction of the sound, as if frozen in place.
In that moment, a zombie that looked like a middle-aged man, wearing a vest and barefoot, seemed to react instinctively, heading towards the alarm bell.
Suddenly, the alarm bell rang.
This sound brought the zombies in the courtyard back to their senses, as if a familiar command deep in their subconscious surfaced, a command deeply ingrained.
They started running towards the blast site.
And on the second floor of the building,
a mentally exhausted man stood in front of the window, looking at the situation downstairs, his expression revealing disbelief.
The sound of the alarm bell reached his ears.
"Why would the alarm ring?"
"Did the captain set off the alarm, knowing about the fire over there..."
His name was He Yong, a member of the fire brigade. Seeing his former teammates turn into zombies had scared him, and he had been hiding here all this time. But what puzzled him was that his comrades had been shaking downstairs and not going anywhere, even when there was a commotion outside, they would just glance at it and then continue nodding off.
He pushed the door open and saw none of his teammates-turned-zombies.
Instead, he smelled a pungent odor.
His face instantly turned pale.
As a firefighter, how could he not recognize that smell?
He hesitated for a moment.
Then suddenly came to his senses.
Thinking of the oath he had taken when he became a firefighter,
"I volunteer to join the national fire rescue team: to be loyal to the Party, to maintain strict discipline, to brave the fire and pour out my utmost efforts, to obey commands and directions without hesitation, to be responsible in my duties, to train hard in my skills, to fear neither hardship nor sacrifice, and to give everything for the protection of the people’s life and property and to maintain social stability."
Anyone who wanted to be a firefighter was not afraid of death; if they were, they wouldn’t choose this profession.
Once you enter a sea of fire, life and death are in heaven’s hands.