Chapter 42: Dead Spirit Dust

Chapter 42: Chapter 42: Dead Spirit Dust

All five people on the rooftop were members of the Scavenger team, including their leader.

The moment he saw Xiang Yi haul himself up over the edge from the fire escape, he called out: "Who are you?"

Xiang Yi raised his hands to show he wasn’t armed. "Just passing through. Don’t mind me — I’ll be out of your hair once those things clear out down there... They will clear out, right?"

"Hard to say."

The leader raised his own hand, signaling the others to lower their weapons.

He let Xiang Yi stay without a word, though he kept his guard up all the same.

He didn’t say anything more. The weight of everything seemed to have settled over him.

Once Xiang Yi got his footing, he quickly noticed that one of the two people who had been with the leader earlier was missing. Probably didn’t make it on the way up.

A team of over twenty, and only five had made it to the roof alive. Anyone would be gutted by numbers like that.

Xiang Yi didn’t push his luck with the Scavengers. He found a corner of the rooftop, sat down, and kept a casual eye on the situation outside every now and then.

The rough picture was this: the Abnormality had reanimated every corpse in the surrounding district, and somehow they had all converged on the hospital.

Running was out of the question. Charging headfirst into a horde of Abnormalities with no idea how many there were would be suicide.

That left only one real option — wait it out and see if the Abnormality dispersed on its own.

Or wait until the horde had fully pushed into the hospital building, then use the exterior routes to slip out while the coast was clear.

Time crawled by.

The rain that had been hammering down without a break finally showed signs of letting up. It might stop altogether before long.

And it had already been a good while since Xiang Yi arrived. Dawn couldn’t be more than a few hours away now.

Xiang Yi stood up and stretched, trying to work out the stiffness that had crept into his body.

Then footsteps echoed up from below — fast and steady, accompanied by faint voices.

The leader on the other side of the rooftop snapped a quick order to his people, grabbed a nearby ladder, and lowered it down through the hatch.

Three people climbed up.

Xiang Yi took one look and nearly did a double take. It was the same three he had crossed paths with twice on the third floor.

They’d managed to get out from that swarm on the third floor — these people actually knew what they were doing.

The tall, lanky one looked like he was about to burst into tears at the sight of living people. He practically fell over himself trying to get close.

The leader pushed him back and pointed toward a corner of the rooftop. "Go sit down and rest over there. We wait for daylight and see when those things move off."

"Is rescue on the way?"

The leader shook his head. "I already fired a signal flare. No response from the city. We’re on our own for now."

"No response?"

"Nothing. No idea what’s going on in the city. We just have to sit tight."

The three of them did as they were told. But as they turned to head for their corner, they spotted a familiar figure sitting in the far end of the rooftop.

"Ah!"

The lanky one yelped: "Boss, that guy — that bastard screwed us over back there! He drew all those things straight into our room. We almost died down there because of him."

Xiang Yi wasn’t about to let that slide. "Oh, really?" he shot back. "And who was it in that room talking about shoving me out the door to use as bait?"

The three of them froze. They started to open their mouths, but the leader had already read the situation — Xiang Yi was telling the truth.

The last thing anyone needed right now was a fight. He’d already lost enough people. He wasn’t losing more.

"That’s enough. Drop it."

"You over there — sounds like you and my people have both done each other dirty. So let’s just call it even and table it for now."

At the same time, he shot a pointed look at the three beside him. Whatever their grievances, it could wait until they were safe.

Xiang Yi had his doubts about whether the grudge would actually stay buried, but right now was genuinely not the time for it.

"Fine by me. We’re square anyway. So — do any of you actually know what’s going on here?"

"Abnormality incident. Two types. One is Dead Spirit Dust — that black, ash-like stuff floating in the air right now. And then there’s its derivative Abnormality, the Shuffling Monster."

Xiang Yi gave a small nod. "What exactly is an Abnormality?"

The leader looked genuinely caught off guard. "You came out here without knowing what an Abnormality is?"

"I know. I just want to confirm."

His entire understanding of Abnormalities came from a few offhand remarks Brother Long had made back in prison. All he knew was that it was a catch-all term for certain kinds of dangerous creatures. That was the extent of it.

The leader, though, read between the lines and got the impression that Xiang Yi might actually know more than he was letting on. He figured it was worth fishing to see if the man had any information he didn’t.

To ease the tension from earlier, the leader thought for a moment, then said: "Monsters. Abnormalities are monsters."

"They started appearing out of nowhere on every planet with human colonies. Their abilities are completely beyond anything normal people can make sense of, and there are countless different kinds."

"Like what you’ve seen tonight — the one we’re dealing with can raise the dead, and they come back violent as hell."

"Every planet with human colonies?" Xiang Yi echoed.

"Every single one. Wherever humans have settled, Abnormalities just show up."

That answered Xiang Yi’s question about why cities were built with walls. If Abnormalities were wandering the surface of the entire planet, the walls were the only thing standing between the city and whatever was out there.

Dead Spirit Dust was a different story — walls probably couldn’t stop that. But something like the Shuffling Monsters could at least be kept out.

"Speaking of which — Dead Spirit Dust, I get the name. But why are they called Shuffling Monsters?"

"Don’t let how aggressive they are right now fool you. Without any living people nearby, they just wander aimlessly around an area with no real purpose."

"Leave them alone long enough and once the Dead Spirit Dust dissipates, they’ll drop back into being regular corpses."

The way the leader talked, it was pretty clear he knew Dead Spirit Dust well. If he said it would disperse, it probably would.

"So why not just call them Stumblers? Seems like it fits better."

"Probably so people have less trouble putting them down. They’re Abnormalities. They’re monsters. They’re not people."

The leader paused, then continued: "Which brings up the real question — why did Abnormalities show up here out of nowhere?"

There was something pointed in the way he asked it. Xiang Yi said nothing and waited for him to go on.

"Abnormality appearances usually follow certain patterns. And Dead Spirit Dust in particular needs a large accumulation of corpses to manifest."

"The hospital has a morgue in the basement with over forty bodies, but that’s hardly what I’d call a large accumulation — unless something triggered their appearance."

The leader let the implication hang in the air between them.

Xiang Yi raised an eyebrow. "You think I triggered the Abnormality?"

"Just asking. When we get back, I’ll need to file a report with the military. There has to be some explanation for everything that happened here tonight."