Chapter 11: The Hulking Men Return
The basement was safe; even if zombies entered the convenience store, they wouldn’t discover this hidden world beneath the floor.
The owner’s wife sliced a sausage, brought out a bag of peanuts, and three bottles of beer, giving each man one.
“One bottle each, no more. You can only have soft drinks.”
Even in safety, vigilance was necessary.
“Here’s to us! It’s been a long time since we’ve been this happy.”
The three men opened the beer bottles with their teeth, drank directly from the bottles without using cups, clinking them together before drinking.
The owner asked, “Where are you headed?”
“To the mountainous region of City B. My grandma’s there,”
Qin Xiao replied.
“Is it safe there?”
The owner grabbed a handful of peanuts—dry-roasted—peeling them as he asked.
“I don’t know. We’re going to check. My grandma lives in the most remote part of the mountains, at the top of the highest peak. I think she’ll be fine.”
Qin Xiao also grabbed a handful of peanuts, peeled them, and offered them to Ji Nian.
Ji Nian directly refused with a gesture. He also took a few, peeled and ate them. Qin Xiao didn’t seem embarrassed; he ate his own.
“Oh, I see.”
The owner nodded, raised his bottle again, and the three clinked them together. He said, “Then I wish you…”
At that moment, a sound came from above, from inside the convenience store, as if someone had entered.
The owner made a “Shh” sound, telling everyone to be quiet. He walked to the stairs leading to the convenience store to listen.
“Hurry! Pack everything up!”
“Is that even a question? Keep your voice down, or we’ll attract zombies, and none of us will survive! Hey? Can you stop looking outside? Help me pack!”
“I have to keep watch!”
“Watch what?! Come here! Don’t you see that Honda outside? Those two little brats must have been bitten by zombies. Let’s hurry up, grab it, and go!”
It was the two hulking men.
Ji Nian and Qin Xiao’s car was outside. The zombies that had been shot left only a pool of blood on the ground; they’d probably run off somewhere.
The two men imagined Ji Nian and Qin Xiao being eaten to pieces by zombies.
They were too hungry. The bearded man stuffed food and supplies into his bag while tearing open a chocolate bar and stuffing it into his mouth. The other man wasn’t much different; while saying “hurry up,” he was stuffing the food he picked up into his own mouth.
In the basement.
The owner listened for a while and returned, whispering, “It’s probably two men.”
Ji Nian and Qin Xiao exchanged glances, instinctively knowing it was the two robbers.
The owner sat down again, softly resuming their conversation.
He would save people.
But he wasn’t a saint.
The people upstairs already had food and drinks, enough to survive for a while. He didn’t need to let them down.
“Clang!”
At that moment, the daughter dropped a bowl.
The sharp sound of shattering clearly travelled through the cracks in the floor to the convenience store above.
“Did you hear something?”
“I did.”
“Then get the hell out of here! It must be zombies!”
The two men grabbed their bags and rushed out. And coincidentally, as they exited, a zombie was wandering at the entrance.
“Shit!”
The two men turned around and went back inside. With a loud “Bang!”, the door slammed shut, attracting a horde of zombies.
“Heh heh heh…”
The zombies poked their heads in through the shattered glass, baring their teeth, their faces contorted, some with brains spilling out mixed with black blood, looking like blueberry yogurt!
The door couldn’t be locked anymore.
The bearded man used all his strength to hold the door shut, while the other pushed a shelf against the door.
Just as they managed to wedge three shelves against the door, there was a “Crack!”, and the glass shattered.
With this shattering sound, the two men turned pale, breaking out in a cold sweat.
“What do we do?”
“How should I know? You ask me, who do I ask?!”
But the zombies didn’t come in. The shelves were perfectly wedged against the broken window, preventing the zombies from entering.
The men breathed a sigh of relief, but they were like juicy little pieces of meat, and the zombies outside were hungry and wouldn’t leave.
The two men frantically racked their brains for a solution, exchanging glances, only to look at each other blankly.
Every little sound from upstairs could be heard clearly in the basement.
The sound of moving the shelves was particularly jarring.
The owner’s wife hugged her daughter and asked her husband, “What do we do? Do we save them or not this time?”
The owner smacked his lips, unsure what to do.