Chapter 37: The Moving Corpse

Chapter 37: Chapter 37: The Moving Corpse

Xiang Yi, who had just reached the fifth floor, heard the massive crash from downstairs as well.

Even though a storm was raging outside, the building was still relatively quiet. The commotion below was impossible to miss.

He paused his ascent and looked down over the fifth-floor railing.

From his vantage point on the fifth floor, however, he couldn’t see a thing.

All he could make out were the faint, flickering flames and chaotic silhouettes on the second floor. He had no idea what was going on.

’Whatever it is, it can’t be good.’

Xiang Yi immediately turned and headed back downstairs.

He was in the hospital, just like those Scavengers. If some danger had emerged downstairs, he would eventually run into it too. He had to find out what was going on so he could be prepared for whatever came his way.

On the second floor.

A few quick-acting Scavengers had already rushed to the blood-stained tent. They ripped it down in one swift motion, revealing the scene within.

A man covered in bandages was tearing at a woman’s neck, blood spraying from the wound.

The bandaged man’s skin wasn’t a normal color. It was a ghastly grayish-blue, a complexion no living person should have.

A grayish-black dust was shedding from his body, settling over the dead woman.

Under the powder’s influence, the dead woman’s skin rapidly began to turn the same grayish-blue.

Everyone instinctively recoiled at the bizarre sight. Only the leader remained standing, motionless.

He remembered everyone in the team.

The bandaged man was Xue Hong. He had been severely wounded yesterday while covering his teammates’ retreat and had to be carried back to camp.

And the woman was Wang Yingying, the team’s doctor, who was responsible for examining all the wounded.

Changing dressings was supposed to be done on the first floor, per his orders. But Xue Hong’s case was different; his injuries were the most severe, leaving him almost completely immobilized.

So they had moved him into the tent first, then called the doctor over to change his dressings.

And this was the result...

Xue Hong must have died from his grievous wounds. After death, he had turned into this... thing, killing the doctor as she examined him.

The leader opened his mouth. "There’s no doubt about it. This is..."

BANG—

Before he could finish, another massive crash echoed from the stairwell.

The sound had clearly come from the hospital’s basement.

A sudden realization hit the leader. His face changed as he roared, "Everyone! Drop your gear! Move!"

He had barely given the order when the sound of a door being smashed in echoed from downstairs.

A torrent of dense, chaotic footsteps thundered up from the stairwell.

"Head up! There’s a fire escape outside! We’ll circle around and get out!"

"But the wounded!"

"We’ll all be dead if we don’t!"

The words that came from the leader’s mouth were cold and cruel.

No one objected, not even the wounded themselves.

Everyone had already guessed what kind of things were storming up from below.

Anyone who could still move scrambled for the stairs.

The fastest ones were already heading up, but the slower ones had just reached the stairwell when they ran head-on into the things coming from below.

The... walking corpses.

A few, unable to stop in time, plunged straight into the horde of corpses.

Screams and sprays of blood filled the stairwell.

Terrified, the Scavengers behind them immediately turned and fled, hoping to escape via the staircase on the other side of the hospital.

But another grotesque presence was waiting for them there.

Xue Hong had stopped tearing at the doctor’s grayish-blue corpse. It turned its attention to the people still there.

After a brief moment of hesitation, it lunged toward the leader, who was closest.

The leader, covering the team’s retreat from the rear, quickly slung the rifle off his back, took a moment to aim, and pulled the trigger.

A muzzle flash lit the air as the bullet fired. It struck Xue Hong right between the eyes, tearing off the top of its skull and spraying a mass of thick, grayish-green matter.

The force of the impact sent it reeling backward. Its bullet-shredded brain splattered against the floor, leaving a fan-shaped stain.

But even with half its head gone, it was still moving. It struggled for a moment before clambering back to its feet and lunging at the nearest person again.

Destroying its brain had only momentarily slowed it down.

It did, however, provide enough cover for the few Scavengers who had turned back to get past Xue Hong.

As these Scavengers passed their campsite, they paired up with unspoken understanding, each pair hoisting up an immobilized comrade and sprinting toward the other end of the hospital corridor.

A moment ago, in the heat of the emergency, the wounded were nothing but a burden. But given a chance to save them, they wouldn’t completely abandon their teammates.

The leader pulled the trigger again in rapid succession, the bullets completely obliterating what was left of Xue Hong’s head.

But it kept moving. Its head might as well have been a useless ornament.

The bizarre sight forced the leader to fall back as he yelled, "Where are the spears I had you prepare?"

The two men who had stuck with the leader retrieved two long spears from near the tents, which had been prepared in advance.

They used to wonder why the leader always insisted on preparing long weapons like spears for every outing. They never expected they would actually be put to use today.

"Go for the knees!"

The two Scavengers gripped their spears and lunged at Xue Hong.

One spear pierced its thigh, while the other successfully drove into the knee joint, locking it in place.

Now running on pure instinct, Xue Hong immediately dropped to its knees.

But its headless torso suddenly erupted with terrifying strength, snapping both spears embedded in its legs.

The recoil from the breaking shafts sent a numbing jolt through the two Scavengers’ hands.

This was not a power that any human could confront head-on.

Even firearms were proving ineffective.

Worse, the doctor’s corpse nearby suddenly began to convulse violently, as if it were about to get up.

The leader decisively put a bullet in the doctor’s head, but her body kept moving as well. Physical damage didn’t seem to affect them at all.

It was as if their bodies weren’t what was moving, but the grayish-black powder itself.

’A direct confrontation is hopeless.’

Maybe if all twenty-odd members of their team were together, they could subdue one or two of these monsters.

But more corpses were rushing up from below, and several had already spotted the leader’s group and were closing in.

"Let’s go. We can’t fight these things head-on."

The leader glanced around. Besides one last immobilized casualty that the others couldn’t carry, everyone else had already fled the floor.

Their once-orderly team had been scattered into three groups.

One group of about five had gone upstairs; another, with four people and two wounded, had taken the other staircase on the second floor; and the last group was the four of them.

The rest were already dead.

The leader had his two men take the last casualty and also ran toward the other end of the corridor.