Level up Zombie

Although Chinatown didn’t have huge skyscrapers like the rest of the city, there were still apartments located within Chinatown itself. Oftentimes it would be directly above the shop, and most of the time, owners would live there, making it easier for their work and lifestyle.

In fact, some people had turned their homes into shops and just doubled them up as a place to sleep. It was just the way of living for those who thrived here and based on a certain Reborn zombie girl’s action, it didn’t look like she had suggested Chinatown just because she liked the style of clothing they had.

Along with Fingers, Pink had practically walked past most of the shops after giving a few seconds of glances. They didn’t even give them a proper look to see if people were hiding or anything like that. At the pace Pink was walking out, it was clear she knew where she wanted to go. Fingers did notice this but he didn’t say anything because he had a faint doubt about why they had come here in the first place.

Eventually, she had come to a stop and upon lifting her head, she stared at the sign above the shop. It had a large meat bun sign with the words “Fresh Baozi” written underneath It.

“Are you hungry?” Fingers asked, not really knowing why she had decided to stop outside of this shop out of all of them. In all the previous shops, she would instantly enter and come out, but here she was staring at the sign.

Instead of giving a reply, Pink directly rushed right towards the shop, which was actually a small restaurant. She then started to lift all of the plant pots in the corner of the restaurant. It wasn’t a big shop and had a few seating areas, but eventually, she found a small key.

Using that Key, she went to the back counter and rushed upstairs. That was when it finally hit Fingers. This wasn’t just any shop, this was her home, her real home before the Zombie apocalypse changed everything. This explained why she had been acting strange, and also confirmed his earlier doubts._.

Just in case there was any trouble, Fingers rushed up the stairs as well but stood by the door. After all, this was quite a private matter, and he didn’t wish to interfere too much.

“Mom!” Pink cried aloud while looking left, right and throughout the second floor. “Dad…Jasmine!”

There was no response, but Pink continued to look for them, searching their bedrooms, the living room and the kitchen, but she was unable to find them. It was clear that they weren’t there, but when going into the bathroom, that was when she spotted something else.

“Huh..No…no…they have to be okay.” Pink started to sob. The scene in front of her had shocked her.

Hearing this, Fingers ran into the room. It was easy to find Pink due to the noise she was making, and when he saw the scene in front of her, he pressed his hand onto her shoulder in consolation.

“You can’t give up yet.” Fingers said, “This is just blood. We don’t know what happened, so don’t jump to conclusions.”

The room had streaks of blood inside, though there were no corpses, and when looking around the room, there were a lot of blood streaks on the walls as well. It wasn’t an overly large amount, but clearly, there had been some type of struggle.

After around fifteen minutes, Pink had managed to regain her composure enough to leave the place. She had taken a contact diary that her parents kept. It had the names of those that possibly they would have gone to. Then she also took a family photo of all four of them.

In the photo was she herself, her sister, who was older than her by a few years, and her parents, all smiling at a local funfair.

[0)ᴠʟ With no leads and still in Chinatown, Pink decided it was time to get serious about her task, and it seemed like they were in luck. Just as Pink was about to exit the shop, Fingers pushed her back behind the door.

“Hey, watch where your hands are going, I know your names, Fingers, but that doesn’t mean you can put your fingers wherever you want!” Pink complained.

Quickly, Fingers put a single finger to his mouth, indicating her to shush, as he pointed towards one of the cross sections of the street. Since Chinatown wasn’t just a single row of streets with several shops, it had different sections and alleyways that could be explored as well.

“Man, this kid is tough, he looked like an easy one, but he really fought with all he had, didn’t he.” They heard a hoarse voice.

Both Pink and Fingers leaned forward, hiding their head mostly behind the exit of the shop, and around twenty metres away, walking across, they could see several people. Without a doubt, this group wasn’t Reborns because even from the house, the two could smell that they were humans.

At first glance, there were two people in front with weapons, mostly crowbars or pipes. Behind them were two men, dragging a person across the road, and finally, there was a man at the very back, wearing a black suit, with a tattoo of a snake going up his neck.

“That’s Cobra,” Pink whispered.

“Who? Is he some type of celebrity or something?” Fingers asked.

“He’s a well-known person in Chinatown because he’s basically a gangster. He’s the landlord that owns most of the land in this place, and he uses it to abuse the shopkeepers. There are a lot of Asian businesses here that thrive in this particular area.

“Taking advantage of immigration exploitation, Cobra charges more and more each year, and whenever he visits places, he expects the hosts to give him something for free otherwise, they might lose their shops.”

“So he’s a thug.” Fingers said. “I guess we don’t need to feel too bad about getting these guys’ brains then, after all. Let’s head back and tell Shark.”

Pink wasn’t so quick to move, though, she was watching what was happening, the person they were dragging looked young, and he was badly hurt. This was something she had seen happen once or twice in Chinatown, with these people before, those that tried to cross with them.

It was strange for Pink to see the same thing that was happening now despite the current situation. She was sure if anything like this was to happen, those with wealth and power currently it would mean nothing in a world like so.

“Shouldn’t we follow them?” Pink asked. “I mean, we don’t even know where they’re heading yet. If we brought Shark back here, we would only know a general direction. At the same time, it looks like that other person they have hostage will die if we don’t step in to help.”

Fingers chuckled hearing this.

“Die? Are you really worried about that? Here we are willing to kill people, so we get to live, and we are in a world where people are dying left, right and centre, and now you’re worried about a random kid’s death? I know you feel bad at the moment, but you have to look reality in the face. We are Zombies. We are the ones that need to kill humans to live. We are not the Heros, so we don’t need to start doing heroic stuff.”

After hearing how Fingers put everything out like so, she understood that he was right. Perhaps it was because of her emotions after returning home, but she had to get a hold of herself. But just as she turned around to head back to where they had come from, she heard the others say one more thing.

“Come on, let’s hurry and deal with this guy, that way, we can get back to that fine woman as quickly as possible!” A man chuckled.

Immediately, images of Pink’s older sister appeared in her mind, and before Fingers could react, she was already racing ahead as she went towards Cobra and his gang.

*****

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