The heatwave on the highway was so intense it made people dizzy. Several abandoned trucks were crookedly blocking the intersection, their paint peeling off in the sun, revealing the rusty iron underneath. The windshield was shattered, and the shards were scattered all over the ground, sparkling in the sunlight like scattered diamonds.
Sandra jumped off the Humvee, her boots crunching on the broken glass. She squinted at the pile of cars stuck in traffic and frowned. The road was flanked by waist-high guardrails, the green paint faded to reveal the iron-gray underneath. The car was stuck in the guardrail and couldn't be pushed down.
"Trouble," she muttered a curse under her breath, then turned and shouted to the people behind her, "Pull out the oil first! The rest of you, dismantle the guardrails!"
Several team members unloaded oil drums and pipes from the vehicle and crawled under it to find the fuel tank. Others squatted by the railing, tightening screws. The rust was so severe that they had to use a lot of force to pry it open with a wrench.
Sandra ignored them and walked through the gaps in the convoy. This place looked like it had been blocked off on the very first day of the apocalypse. An SUV was parked across the middle of the road, the door open, the driver's seatbelt still fastened, but the person was nowhere to be seen. There was a pink child seat in the back, covered in dust. She glanced at it and continued walking.
Inside the cab of a van, the driver was still sitting there, his seatbelt tightened around his chest. His head was tilted to the side, a bullet hole in his head, and dried blood running from his temple down to his collar. The dried skin clung tightly to the bones, like a layer of parchment. She reached out to close the car door, but it didn't close properly; the door bounced back and opened again.
She stopped after turning a corner. The road ahead suddenly opened up, and the guardrails on both sides ended, turning into a wide open shoulder. A yellow bus was lying across the middle of the road, tilted to one side, with all its tires flat. Around the bus, three or four hundred Walkers stood—no, remained stationary—in dense clusters. They faced the bus, the highway, and some faced the sky; their mouths were open, and their eyes half-closed, as if dozing. There was no sound in the air, not even a breeze.
Sandra took a step back. Her boot stepped on a pebble, which rolled away and hit the roadbed with a crisp sound. All the Walkers turned their heads at once, hundreds of gray-white eyes staring at her. Sandra's hair stood on end. Her hand touched the grenade, gripped it, then released it.
"We can't blow it up; the traffic is still stuck. Blowing it up would only make things worse and delay progress by another day," she thought.
She slowly backed away, one step, then another. The Walker didn't move; it just looked at her. As she took another step back, a shout suddenly came from behind her.
"Sir! Sir, Sandra!"
The shouts echoed across the empty highway, like stones thrown into still water. The Walker group erupted—they moved not in a slow, shuffling manner but as if charging. Hundreds of Walkers surged forward at once, a grayish-white tide pouring out from both sides of the bus, bypassing the abandoned vehicles, stepping over scattered debris, rushing toward her.
Sandra turned and ran. She held the walkie-talkie to her lips, her voice low but firm: "Everyone get in the vehicle, reverse 100 meters, machine guns ready."
Her boots crushed broken glass, gravel, and scorching hot asphalt. Behind her, rapid footsteps and a low roar sounded. The engine was already running as she rushed into the Humvee. The tires screeched as they reversed, kicking up a cloud of dust.
The Walkers' pack squeezed through the gaps in the convoy—some got stuck between cars, some climbed over the roofs, some were pushed from behind, falling, being trampled, getting up again, and continuing the chase.
"Retreat! Retreat some more!" Sandra shouted. The Humvee drove several dozen meters before stopping on an open stretch of road. The Walkers poured out of the traffic jam, losing cover and exposing themselves in the middle of the road. They crowded together, pushing and shoving, surging toward the Humvee. Blocked by guardrails on both sides, they could only rush straight forward.
Sandra stared at the approaching gray-white figures.One hundred meters.Eighty meters.Sixty meters."Fifty meters," she said.
The machine gunner's voice was tense: "Wait.""Stop," Sandra ordered. The faces were now clearly visible—open mouths, grayish-white eyeballs, rotting skin.Thirty meters.The newest ones could already smell the scent of living people, and they were moving even faster."Fire," she commanded.
The machine gun fired. The sound was more like a chainsaw—tearing cloth, screaming. Bullets poured from the roof of the car, carving a trench through the horde of corpses. The first row of Walkers fell like wheat stalks cut by a sickle, their heads exploding and bodies flying out. Those behind them were overturned, torn apart, and crushed. Clumps of black mist—dried, blackened blood—bloomed among the corpses, vaporizing and dissipating.
Two hundred, one hundred fifty.The corpses on the highway formed a low wall. Walkers climbed over the bodies in front of them, only to be flattened by machine gun fire. The gun barrel grew hot, and a wisp of smoke rose from it.
"Stop!" Sandra yelled.The gunner released the trigger, panting heavily. The horde was no longer recognizable. The few remaining stragglers still moved forward, being called out one by one by the team members' rifles. The last one fell fifty meters away, its head burst open, its body twitching once, then remaining still.
"Go up and finish them off—finish every single one," Sandra ordered. She pushed open the car door and jumped out. The team members dispersed, their daggers gleaming in the sunlight. They crouched, pierced the skulls, pulled out the bodies, and moved on to the next.
Their movements were mechanical; their expressions, blank. Sandra stood in the middle of the road, looking at the pile of corpses, and picked up the walkie-talkie.
"Who shouted that just now?" she asked.
There was only static."I asked, 'Who shouted that just now?'" she repeated, her voice cold and sharp.
A young voice trembled: "Yes, sir, Snyder. I... I found a screw stuck in the fence and wanted to ask you—"
"We'll talk about it when we get back," Sandra cut him off. She turned off the walkie-talkie.
A team member ran over from the pile of corpses, face pale."Sir, there's a full tanker truck behind the bus; it's blocked and can't be towed out."
Sandra looked at the pile of abandoned vehicles and the crooked bus. She remained silent for a moment."Clear the road first, then use a bulldozer to tow the tanker truck back," she ordered.
She turned and walked toward the Humvee, pausing briefly as she passed Snyder, who stood there with a pale face and trembling lips. She looked at him, said nothing, and left.
The car ride back was quiet. Snyder huddled in the corner, and no one spoke to him. Sandra sat in the passenger seat with her eyes closed, as if asleep. The Humvee rolled over the road surface with a dull hum. The driver glanced in the rearview mirror at Snyder, then at Sandra, before focusing on the road.
It was almost dark when they arrived at the base. Sandra jumped out of the vehicle and told the team: "Unload the oil drums and put them in the warehouse. That's it for today." She turned and left.
Snyder watched her figure disappear into the main building entrance. Someone patted him on the shoulder, said nothing, and walked away. He stood there for a long time. He stood there for a long time.
Third-floor office.After listening to Sandra's report, Wu Fan took a pack of cigarettes from his drawer and tossed it to her. Sandra caught it but didn't pull out a cigarette; instead, she held it between her fingers and twirled it.
"What do you plan to do with that new recruit?" Wu Fan asked jokingly.
"Hang him up and beat him," Sandra replied.
Wu Fan glanced at her.
Sandra put the cigarette in her mouth and lit it."Scare him a bit. He's a greenhorn; he never learns his lesson." She exhaled a puff of smoke. "His marksmanship is alright, though; he finished off the last one."
Wu Fan nodded and didn't ask any more questions.
Sandra stood up, stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray, and turned to leave.
The corridor was quiet. Guillermo stood in the doorway and nodded to her.
She nodded in response and left.
As she passed by the training field, she saw Snyder standing alone next to the equipment, head down, seemingly lost in thought. She didn't stop; she just left.
...
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