Chapter 246: First sighting of the sea of corpses
The Prince motorbike did a drift that unleashed a sharp and screeching scream, it was actually Zhang Huai An who was seated as a pillion rider and the stunt had scared his wits out.
The rider wore a covered helmet and fiery red jacket. He had to support the trembling Zhang Huai An down, who took a few deep breaths before being able to calm down.
“The situation is bad, Leader Zhang, Three and his men are surrounded at the coal town along with their drivers.”
Upon hearing that, Zhang Xiao Qiang felt a pain in his head. He did not understand what Zhang Huai An was saying and roared at him, “Speak properly, they are all holding guns, even the HMG gunners can’t be defeated that easily. Can you explain everything properly?”
Upon hearing that Zhang Xiao Qiang was angry, Zhang Huai An tugged at the rider’s sleeve, “Quickly explain it to Leader Zhang, I didn’t hear it well just now, you do the explaining.”
Zhang Xiao Qiang looked at the wrinkled Zhang Huai An for a long while before lowering his head, speechless. Was Zhang Huai An here to report to me or make me feel worse?
When the helmet was taken off, Zhang Xiao Qiang saw someone familiar, it was the chauffeur that had driven into the horde of zombies.
Zhang Xiao Qiang did not recognize the young man as the bearded man, who was rather good-looking after removing his thick beard. He looked towards Zhang Xiao Qiang and explained….It was the second day where Three and his men were transporting coal. The location where the coal was situated was not far from the base and they could make a round in three hours. Additionally, the county which the coal belonged to required a four hours journey. On the first day, Three brought back 100 vehicles worth of coal, each vehicle carrying 6 ton of coal, which meant that in a day, they had brought back 600 tons worth of coal.
According to the plan, they were to transport the coal and be back on the same day. with the thousand tons worth of coal, it could potentially last time for a few years. But in the afternoon, scouts from the area discovered a convoy of vehicles driving towards them. The convoy was not small, totaling up to more than 50 cars. As the convoy had kicked up a storm of dust, the scouts did not check clearly and immediately returned to the coalfield and informed Three.
Upon hearing of the news, Three became worried. The base was already lacking in manpower, how could the convoy hold 300 to 400 men? Upon thinking about that, Three led his subordinates and drove four off-road vehicles with machine guns installed out.
After going through the painful lesson in the prison, Three no longer made rash decisions. From a height, he used the 10x binoculars Zhang Xiao Qiang gave him and observed the convoy.
The scale of the convoy was truly large and was not just the 50 cars that his member had stated. Inside the storm of dust behind the convoy were at least another 30 off-road vehicles, 10 large buses, two large oil tankers and more than 10 large trucks.
At this point, Three threw the idea of bringing his men to charge at them. He noticed something amiss, the cars were moving extremely quickly with no proper formation in the convoy. They traveled in disorder and in random, as though they were escaping from something.
As the convoy got closer, Three heard occasional gunshots. At this time, Three knew that the convoy had encountered a problem. But according to their speed, it was impossible for a zombie horde to catch up to them, so what were they escaping from?
When the convoy was about a kilometer away, Three finally saw small black dots within the cloud of dust. S2s, many S2 zombies. There were at least 10 of them, and if it was Zhang Xiao Qiang himself, he would have turned and run. He would have ordered for them to evacuate with all the fast-moving vehicles and give up on the excavators.
But Three was different, for he had never personally experienced the terror of the S2s. He had seen them twice before and knew that they were fast, but at that time, the S2 had not unleashed its full potential in its charged and was shot down by Shangguan Qiao Yun. To Three, the S2s were just slightly stronger than Type-S and Type-D zombies. Even when his members had told them about their encounter with an S2, he never kept it to heart.
Three brought four off-road vehicles and moved in recklessly to save them, but his HMG only wounded a few of them before being locked. The S2s were extremely cunning, after experiencing the power of the HMG, they dodged and scattered about. Although they were scattered, they never gave up, some of them dealt with Three’s off-road vehicle while another group made a detour and charged in from the side. When he saw how slippery and cunning they were, Three finally realized the trouble he got himself into and quickly ordered them to head back to the coalfield.
Three’s vehicles had been revamped by Wang Le and upon driving, they quickly reached the front of the convoy. Three no longer cared about the potential few hundred manpower and rushed towards the coalfields. He only cared about getting his own people to leave.
Who would have thought that Three’s bold and formidable firepower would have gained the acknowledgment of the other convoy as they followed behind Three. Seeing them behind, Three immediately regretted his actions but he was unwilling to use the HMG to explode one of the vehicles behind him.
Just like this, all the vehicles drove along with his team into the coalfields. Fortunately, the coalfields value was high prior to the apocalypse. To prevent thieves from entering and stealing his coal, the owner of the land built a wall around the coalfields, to which Three installed four HMGs to seal and cover the big gates.
Three’s plan was to hold the fort like that, but the chauffeur before Zhang Xiao Qiang had witnessed the scene where the S2 jumped down a building but was killed by Zhang Xiao Qiang. He quickly informed Three that the S2s could climb walls, which caused Three to be anxious. They then informed everyone to retreat to the coalfield’s main building.
Regardless of whether it was the hot spring base people or convoy, everyone worked together and sealed themselves in. The main building was also constructed in a strange manner with five stories built with quality materials. The most crucial thing was that the upper floors did not have windows and vents the size of human heads.
Lu Ren Yi explained the rationale behind the vents. The quantity of soot in the coalfields was high and whenever the wind blew in, all the glass windows would turn black. If they opened the windows, the soot would dirty the interior of the building.
Angered by this, the owner bricked up all the windows and used lights to illuminate the rooms within. But due to this, the building became warm in winter and cool in summer with fans installed to ventilate and circulate the air in the room which pleased the owner for a long time.
The pleased owner was either turned into bones or into a zombie that Three’s subordinates had killed, but the entire building became Three’s. And just like that, everyone got stuck in the building while the S2s gathered outside.
Three had everyone work together and pile large furniture against the entrance doors and had the machine guns aimed at the doors. Three regretted that they had used explosives to burst down the locked doors the previous day. Aside from a few zombies that died from starvation, there was nothing inside the building. If Old Frank as around, they would have simply opened the lock. That way, the S2s would have been locked outside.
Initially, the S2s attempted charging into the building. But after the first few were burst into smithereens by the machine guns, the other S2s no longer dared to charge in.
The five-story building had a flight of steps that led to the roof. On top, 10 members held onto binoculars and observed the S2s climbing the walls. But without windows, the S2s had no way to climb up to the roof. Aside from firing down from the roof and causing the S2s to jump about, the members also discussed on the strange and small build of the S2s. In the end, they finally realized that all the S2s were female.
Zombies did not distinguish themselves by gender and could not reproduce. Just like the D2 Zhang Xiao Qiang killed at the granary, the large D2s that were comparable to giants had minute little brothers that did not mutate along with the rest of the bodies. Even if Zhang Xiao Qiang had somehow chopped it off, it would not have caused a serious wound to the D2. The fact that the S2s below were all females only proved that all of them were female before the apocalypse.
If Zhang Xiao Qiang was present, he would have shocked by this revelation. Zhang Xiao Qiang did not have any thoughts on the Type-S or ordinary zombies before, but the D2s that he had killed were all male.
While the members stayed vigilant and chat all day, hoping to ease the tension in their hearts, they caught sight of the slow-moving zombie horde from far away.
Three and the leader of the convoy, a robust man about the age of 30, arrived at the roof. As they looked into the horizon, they could faintly make out a long black line that had no end, slowly surging in like the Qiantang River. Not knowing how long it would take for the zombies to move towards them, Three’s face quickly became pale. The leader of the convoy remained calm, as he commented, “The Earth no longer has a safe haven for humans to live in anymore.”