Apocalypse Ground Zero: Refusing To Leave Home

For several minutes after Rouxi announced that they had rung the dinner bell, nothing happened.

Chenghai kept driving, knowing that nothing was going to happen, but still not understanding what she was actually trying to accomplish.

Was she trying to get them all killed by making them lose control?

But that didn’t sound like Rouxi either.

Shaking his head, Chenghai kept his eyes locked on the road ahead. It remained empty, the houses and trees on either side were perfectly mundane, and not a single zombie stumbled out of the ditches. The only sound inside the SUV was the hum of the engine and Lingyun breathing a little too loudly beside Rouxi.

Chenghai should have felt relieved.

Instead, the longer nothing happened, the more certain he became that something was about to go wrong.

It was then that a shape lurched out from between two abandoned cars ahead.

Then another followed it.

A third dragged itself over the cracked pavement with one leg bent at an impossible angle.

Zombies began appearing from everywhere.

They stumbled through the trees, crawled out of drainage ditches, and dragged themselves from behind houses Chenghai had assumed were empty. Some moved quickly enough to run. Others could barely remain upright, but every rotten face was turned toward the SUV.

Toward them.

"Here they come," Rouxi announced, sounding entirely too pleased. "But that took a little longer than I thought it would. Maybe you guys aren’t as strong as I thought. We’ll have to fix that this time around, too."

As he was trying to process her statement, a zombie dropped from the roof of a roadside building and landed in the middle of the lane, causing Chenghai to have to slam on the brakes.

The SUV jerked to a stop, throwing everyone forward.

Rouxi lurched between the front seats before the seat belt caught, but Yuche’s arm locked around her waist first and hauled her back against him. His eyes snapped toward Chenghai in the mirror, narrowing with enough anger to make the air inside the SUV feel colder.

"I didn’t put it there," Chenghai growled, pointing at the zombie that had thrown itself onto the hood.

Lingyun let out a string of curses as he grabbed Rouxi by the shoulders and checked her face and arms like Chenghai had driven them into a wall.

"I’m fine," Rouxi complained, batting at his hands.

"You nearly went through the windshield," hissed Lingyun, and everyone could hear the worry in his voice.

"I barely moved," replied Rouxi, completely relaxed like there wasn’t a hundred zombies outside, trying to get to them.

"You were halfway into the front seat," interjected Yuche, still glaring at Chenghai like it was his fault.

"Hardly," Rouxi scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Besides, you saved me, didn’t you?" Yuche didn’t know what to say after that, just kept one arm around her as Lingyun continued to check her over.

The entire vehicle shook as another zombie slammed into the passenger-side door before three more hit the SUV from behind.

Rouxi looked at the bodies gathering against the windows and gave Chenghai a smug smile. "Told you we were ringing the dinner bell. But I have to say, I was hoping for more."

Chenghai let out a strangles moan as the road in front of them completely disappeared beneath the dead.

They crowded around the SUV, piling over one another as they clawed at the doors and struck their skulls against the glass. Rotten mouths opened inches from Chenghai’s face, as grey fingers scraped across the windshield like they were trying to open a tin can. Even more zombies were pressed in behind them, crushing the first row against the vehicle.

Chenghai reached for the door handle, then stopped.

Opening it would be suicide.

The moment the door moved, the zombies would force their way inside. Even if he struck first, there were too many packed around them. He wouldn’t have enough room to swing, and his strength wouldn’t matter if ten sets of teeth reached him before his feet touched the road.

Someone hit the roof causing the metal above them to dip with a heavy thud.

Chenghai’s breath caught.

For one second, he wasn’t sitting in the SUV anymore.

He was back in the last life, trapped beneath grasping hands while teeth tore through his clothing. He could hear Zhenlan fighting somewhere nearby until the sounds stopped. He could feel the weight of the dead crushing him down while he understood exactly how he was going to die.

Cold sweat slid down his back.

Beside him, Zhenlan had gone pale. His hand hovered near the door, but he didn’t touch the handle. His eyes searched the windshield for a path that no longer existed.

Metal groaned behind Chenghai as Yuche gathered his power, but there was nowhere to use it without crushing the vehicle around them.

Lingyun’s heat rose enough to fog the glass, then stopped. Fire inside a sealed SUV packed with five people would solve the zombie problem by creating several new ones.

For once, no one had an answer.

And not even Lingyun was smiling.

But Rouxi sighed like they were all being too dramatic for her liking. The sound was so bored that Chenghai looked into the mirror.

She lifted one hand and flicked her fingers. Suddenly, every zombie completely vanished.

The weight disappeared from the roof. The windows cleared. The hands scraping against the doors dropped out of sight so suddenly that the silence afterward felt wrong.

No one moved.

Chenghai stared through the windshield at an empty road. Zhenlan’s hand remained frozen beside the door handle. Yuche tightened his arm around Rouxi’s waist instead of releasing her, while Lingyun leaned forward, trying to see where several hundred zombies had gone.

"Oh, please," Rouxi grumbled, rolling her eyes. "We aren’t going to get any cores inside the car."

Before anyone could ask what that meant, she leaned across Lingyun’s lap.

Lingyun stopped breathing as Rouxi gave him a quick wink and reached for the door handle.

Yuche dragged her backward before she could open it more than a few inches. His other hand caught the door while he looked through the narrow gap.

Nothing reached inside.

Nothing tried to force it wider.

Lingyun slowly leaned toward the opening, his face going blank as he looked down at something Chenghai couldn’t see.

"Holy fuck," he muttered, his eyes widening. "I think I just got a boner."

Rouxi laughed and twisted around, straddling Lingyun’s lap before Yuche could tighten his grip again.

Chenghai stared through the windshield.

He didn’t need to see Lingyun’s hands fly to Rouxi’s hips or the way his face lit up like he had just been handed the only prize left in the apocalypse.

"If you think that’s hot," Rouxi murmured, leaning close enough that Lingyun forgot how to blink, "you should see what comes next."

She slipped out of Lingyun’s grip, pushed the door open, and stepped outside.

Chenghai opened his own door before anyone could stop him.

At first, the road looked empty.

Then he looked down.

Every zombie was buried in the earth.

Hundreds of rotting heads covered the road, their bodies trapped beneath packed soil. Some had sunk deep enough that only their eyes and foreheads remained exposed. Those that weren’t buried so deep had their mouths opened against the dirt, and their heads jerked from side to side, but none could move far enough to bite.

The sight stretched down the road in both directions.

Rouxi walked between them like she was choosing produce at a market.

She pulled a knife from somewhere, crouched behind the closest zombie, and drove the blade into the back of its skull. A quick twist opened the bone. She reached inside and pulled out a medium-sized green crystal core.

Rouxi held it up between two blood-covered fingers and looked straight at Chenghai.

"And here you said I couldn’t find only green crystals. Bet you feel stupid now, huh?"