Chapter 408: The Barrier Still Works
The line ending beneath my living room was rude enough that I briefly considered making Yuche crush the entire scratched panel into a ball.
Unfortunately, destroying the evidence wouldn’t stop whatever had drawn it.
"Is there anything beneath the house?" Chenghai asked as he studied the marks.
"Dirt," I replied with a shrug. What answer was he looking for?!? A secret chamber? He had been in this house longer than I had. He should know better than me. "Rocks," I continued because apparently, I was dumb. "Probably pipes. Maybe the bodies of contractors who charged too much."
Zhenlan looked toward me. "That last one was a joke," I grumbled at the cranky man.
"I know," he replied, but his expression suggested he wasn’t entirely convinced.
I reached through the plants surrounding the mansion and followed their roots beneath the foundation.
They had spread farther than I’d realized, threading between stone, old utility lines, and cracks in the soil. Nothing living moved below the house, and I couldn’t feel any tunnel large enough for the Devourer to use.
But that didn’t mean it wasn’t trying.
The thing had sent limbs through walls before. If the line on the metal box represented a route instead of a map, it might be searching for somewhere weak enough to break through.
Yuche lifted the scratched panel and folded it into a smaller square without damaging the marks. "I’ll reinforce beneath the living room."
"With what?" I asked.
"Metal."
"Thank you," I replied with a nod of my head. "I was worried you meant decorative pillows."
The corner of his mouth moved as he carried the panel toward the garage wall. Steel shifted beneath the mansion, spreading through the foundation in overlapping layers. The floor vibrated slightly under my feet with his work before settling down again.
Inside the metal box, the bitten man watched us through the narrow opening. "I didn’t tell it where you live."
"No one said you did," Zhenlan replied.
"You’re all looking at me like you’re deciding where to bury the body."
Lingyun leaned against the garage wall with one arm pressed over his ribs. "We don’t need to decide. Rouxi has plenty of plants and I’m fresh out of bonemeal."
The man’s face became paler.
"Stop helping," I told Lingyun.
"I wasn’t helping him."
Before I could decide whether the prisoner needed to be moved farther from the house, every plant along the western barrier turned at once.
The change pulled my attention so quickly that the pain in my scar disappeared beneath it.
Vines tightened over the wall, roots rose beneath the grass, and the baby vine twisted around my shoulder to face the same direction.
Something was outside.
"Stay here," Yuche said.
"No."
His gaze shifted toward my injured ankle.
"I’m not walking outside," I clarified. "I can check it from the house."
That answer satisfied him enough that he opened the metal door between the garage and the interior hallway. We returned to the living room without allowing the bitten man out of his box, although Lingyun paused long enough to remind him not to draw anything else.
The man didn’t look reassured.
By the time we reached the windows facing west, the plants had begun pressing against the outer barrier. They weren’t attacking, but their attention remained fixed on one point beyond the wall.
There seemed to be a running theme of my day today, and it wasn’t getting naked with my guys and finishing what we had started. Wasn’t it almost night time? Or was it supposed to be day time?
Did I miss a day somewhere?
I shook my head and looked up at the sky like that would answer all my questions.
Spoiler alert. It didn’t.
Shaking my head in disgust, I turned my attention back to Yuche just in time to see him open a narrow section in the metal covering the window.
Zhenlan pulled the curtain aside, and I looked through the reinforced glass toward the road.
A single zombie stood outside the property.
It wasn’t striking the wall or trying to climb through the vines. It simply faced the mansion with its head tilted slightly upward.
Toward me.
Fuck my life.
See? This was what happened when you left your house during an apocalypse. You get bitten by a creature too ugly for even it’s mama and then zombies follow you home like creepy stalkers.
0/10. Would not recommend.
Lingyun moved close enough that his shoulder brushed mine. "That seems unfriendly."
"It’s only one," I sighed pinching my eyebrows.
"That’s how hordes begin."
Chenghai checked the empty road beyond it. "There’s nothing else moving."
The zombie remained still even when the plants shifted directly in front of its face. It didn’t snap at the leaves or react to the roots curling around its feet.
I stepped away from the window.
The zombie turned before I reached the other side of the room.
Yuche sealed the viewing slit and opened another one near the front of the house. When I crossed into the foyer, the zombie moved along the outside of the wall, following my position even though it couldn’t see through the metal, stone, and vines.
"At least it can’t cross," Chenghai said.
"We don’t know that," Zhenlan replied.
The plants answered for me.
The zombie placed one hand against the outer vines, and every stem covering that section of wall reacted. Thorns punched through its palm while thicker vines wrapped around its wrist and arm. The creature tried to pull free, but the roots beneath it tightened around both ankles.
It hadn’t crossed the barrier.
It hadn’t even come close.
I moved toward the dining room, and the zombie dragged itself sideways despite the plants holding it in place. Its shoulder tore beneath the pressure, but it continued turning until its face pointed toward me again.
"Well, that’s reeking of creepy desperation," I muttered.
Lingyun smiled. "I can burn it."
"You can barely stand."
"I can burn things while sitting."
"No."
Yuche looked through another narrow opening and watched the vines restrain the creature. "Move farther into the house."
I crossed the dining room and headed toward the stairs. The zombie followed every change, twisting against the plants until one arm separated from its shoulder.
It still didn’t stop.
The barrier worked exactly as it was supposed to. Whatever connection the Devourer had left inside me could guide the dead toward my location, but it couldn’t make them immune to the metal or plants surrounding the property.
That should’ve made me feel better.
But it didn’t.
"Kill it," I sighed after a moment. I was done with all this bullshit, thank you very much.
The vines tightened around the zombie’s neck before pulling in opposite directions. Its spine snapped, and the body collapsed outside the wall.
For several seconds, nothing moved.
Then the severed head rolled across the ground.
It should’ve stopped facing the mansion, but its jaw continued opening and closing while the eyes shifted beneath clouded lids.
I moved back toward the living room.
The head didn’t follow me.
Instead, it turned in the opposite direction.
Toward the garage.
Everyone in the room noticed.
Lingyun’s smile disappeared, while Yuche sealed every viewing slit in the windows. Chenghai looked toward the hallway we had just crossed, and Zhenlan’s wind moved through the house as if searching for something that shouldn’t have been there.
The zombie had tracked me while it was alive, but the moment its body stopped moving, whatever remained inside its head had chosen the other bite.
The man in the garage screamed.
Metal crashed against metal as he threw himself against the walls of his box. The sound carried through the sealed door, followed by his voice shouting that something was pulling at him again.
I looked toward the garage while the old scar on my leg began to burn.
Because of course it did.
My plants could stop the zombies outside, but it couldn’t stop the pain in my own body.
And they definitely couldn’t stop the Devourer from reaching the things it had already marked.