58. Old Soldiers Never Die, Part 2

“Right, right. Please, go on. I think what you’re saying makes perfect sense.” Wang Chen glanced at Pablo, who was slowly reaching for the military knife at his thigh.

“So our plan is to first pretend to be zombies, then go look for a place to hide. We thought about smearing ourselves with rotting entrails, filth, even worse things to disguise ourselves, but that kind of camouflage doesn’t last. It has to be reapplied, and if we get caught in a heavy rain and happen to be surrounded by zombies, we’ll definitely end up eaten. So we need a backup plan. How do we make sure the zombies will treat us like one of their own? To figure that out, we first need to understand what zombies are like. Tell me, what is the greatest trait of a zombie?”

The drunk man tapped Pablo’s arm with the barrel of his pistol, his face full of mockery. Pablo could only slowly raise his hands to show that he wouldn’t make any sudden moves.

Wang Chen hurriedly shifted the drunk man’s attention and chimed in, “What trait?”

“Of course, they eat people. They hunger for human flesh! So we infer that zombies have no heartbeat and no blood circulation, which means they probably don’t sweat. The smell on them likely comes from the bacteria in their bodies breaking down the human meat they’ve eaten. Once you think of it that way, the whole thing gets simple. As long as we keep eating human flesh and smear ourselves with rotting meat and filth, the odor we give off will gradually become very much like a zombie’s. When we go out then, it’ll be much safer. We won’t even fear the rain, because just like zombies, we’ll also be eating human flesh!”

“So that’s all there is to it. Simple as that!”

Boom!

Watching the body whose head had been obliterated above the neck by the shotgun blast, blood shooting out of the severed arteries under the pressure of the heart like a fountain, the corpse swaying for several seconds before finally collapsing, Wang Chen, whose head and face had been splattered with shattered bone and brain matter, even leaving a bloody scratch across his forehead from a flying fragment, muttered, “Killing you wasn’t exactly simple.”

“You guys all right? This damn basement has metal shielding, so the radio signal wouldn’t get through. I waited two minutes and realized something was wrong before I came over. Good thing I didn’t arrive too late!” The petite Yang Xiaohua was holding the shotgun, looking a little like a child swinging a giant hammer, but the three lucky survivors had no time to care about that. They needed to get out of the basement first and make sure they were safe.

After disinfecting Sheng Qingru’s wounds, stopping the bleeding, and bandaging her up, cleaning the shredded human flesh off their bodies, checking whether Wang Chen and Pablo’s bulletproof vests had held and whether the impact had caused any fractures or internal injuries, and reorganizing their weapons, gear, and ammunition, more than half an hour had passed. After a brief replenishment of food and water, the four members of Team 08 had recovered about eighty percent of their fighting strength.

Only this time, they had learned their lesson. They searched the entire museum from top to bottom first, making sure no other lunatics were hiding anywhere, and only then returned to the vault door in the basement.

His chest still felt a little tight and sore, and Wang Chen twisted his body uncomfortably before saying in a low voice, “Xiaohua, you and Qingru watch our rear. Pablo and I will go in and take a look.”

“Okay.” Yang Xiaohua was still holding that shotgun, absurdly large for her height, and nodded in agreement.

Sheng Qingru held her submachine gun and said softly, “Be careful.”

Wang Chen gave a slight nod, raised his weapon, and came to the vault door. He felt Pablo pat him on the shoulder, and immediately kicked the door open, then darted inside under the beam of the flashlight!

As a little-known museum, the vault was not large, about a hundred square meters. There were none of the flashy laser alarms one saw in movies. In one corner lay scattered wooden crates and several plexiglass cases used for storing artifacts. Larger objects were arranged along the walls. In another corner were beer, rice, sausages, instant noodles, and other food supplies. Beside the cabinets in the center of the room, five people were leaning or lying on the floor, all hooded and tightly bound.

Most striking of all, two plexiglass cases had been tipped over and used as worktables, with hand saws, knives, axes, and similar tools scattered atop them. Dark red blood had been smeared across the dim gold surfaces of the cases and around the iron-gray tools. Bits of flesh and fat were strewn on the floor. The greasy, rotten, bloody smell was even stronger now. It was obvious that this was a one-stop workshop for storage, dismemberment, and processing.

Glancing at the pale pink skull in the trash can, stripped of most of its flesh and skin so that only the hair remained, Wang Chen still felt a slight churn in his stomach. It reminded him of what had happened at the Aijian terminal station in Harbin. There, for the sake of survival, Aunt Hui had dismembered bodies, killed people, and written scriptures. Here, people were directly eating human flesh in hopes of turning into living zombies. In essence, these people were all of the same kind, with much the same goal.

Only the dead two had been even more twisted.

After being tricked so many times, he had naturally learned some experience. Wang Chen did not rush to untie everyone. Instead, he drew his military knife and first freed the fattest one, because the file had said that Ren Wanrong was a man in his forties and rather stout. Besides, having an informed person standing nearby to identify him would reduce the chance of being ambushed again.

Unexpectedly, the fattest one was clearly a young man, completely different from Ren Wanrong’s age, and he had already been terrified out of his wits. He just sat there, giggling idiotically nonstop. Wang Chen slapped him four or five times in a row, drawing blood from the corner of his mouth, but the broad and stout fool still did not come to his senses and kept grinning vacantly.

Probably beyond saving.

Untying the second fat man, Wang Chen found that the age and appearance matched exactly: thick brows, large eyes, and ears that stuck out, precisely Ren Wanrong. His face was deathly pale, his lips devoid of color, and his left hand was gone, the wound crudely bound with torn cloth. He did not look in good shape at all. Wang Chen hurriedly cut the ropes off Ren Wanrong’s body and, together with Pablo, helped the former fourth-rank sergeant major sit upright. They pinched beneath his nose and rubbed his chest, doing their best to help him catch his breath.

After more than two minutes of fussing, Ren Wanrong groaned a few times and opened his eyes. He looked at Wang Chen in a daze, then at Pablo, and said in a mournful voice, “I’m not dead?”

“No, you’re alive.” Wang Chen introduced himself. “Security Bureau Special Ops Team 08. I’m the person in charge of this operation, Wang Chen.”

Ren Wanrong stared at Wang Chen, who looked no older than twenty-five, and almost asked, Is the special operations service out of people? Then he gave a self-mocking smile. Back then, he had wanted so badly to serve the country, but in the end he had been transferred back home and become nothing more than a small-time neighborhood cop. One could only say that fate made fools of men. Now the epidemic had broken out and people were dying everywhere. The special operations side was probably grabbing anyone they could use, better than having no one at all. Besides, he was just a local cop. With a bit of help from old comrades, he could make a rescue call, but could he really expect a whole force to come roaring in to save him? What was he, exactly? Some indispensable giant?

Ren Wanrong said nothing, his expression shifting back and forth. To Wang Chen, it naturally looked like the reaction of someone badly shaken and a little unhinged. But in such a chaotic environment, no one could remain perfectly normal. As he and the others continued untying the living people captured by the drunkard, Wang Chen cut into Ren Wanrong’s thoughts and said directly, “We can’t tell whether these people are trustworthy, but you probably can. Without your guarantee, aside from you, I can’t take the risk of bringing anyone else back to the base. Do you understand what I mean, Mr. Ren?”