The entire team moved quickly toward the guardhouse. As they drew near, Ethan Blake suddenly stopped and signaled for them to halt.
The soldiers immediately stopped and vigilantly surveyed their surroundings.
The guardroom door was wide open, and they had no idea what might be inside.
Ethan took a deep breath and cautiously edged forward with his rifle in hand. Reaching the door, he turned sideways and slowly began checking the guardroom’s interior.
Fortunately, there was no one inside—no zombies either.
After confirming it was safe, Ethan slipped into the guardroom and began searching carefully.
At last, he found the labeled access cards for the entrance doors of each building unit in a cabinet against the wall.
Golden Fortune Gardens had only two buildings and was not a large compound. Building One was merely thirty or forty meters from the guardhouse.
Now that they had the access cards, Ethan emerged and decisively led the team toward Building One.
To his surprise, after they had gone barely ten meters, they spotted a female zombie wandering about with her back to them directly along their path.
Ethan’s gaze sharpened. Signaling the team to stop, he drew his combat knife and quietly stalked forward.
He did this for two reasons. First, he did not want gunfire outside to draw in more zombies. Second, he wanted to test the zombies’ hearing and reaction speed.
Although Ethan had made his footsteps as quiet as possible, the zombie’s hearing seemed to have become more sensitive due to the mutation.
The female zombie’s ears twitched faintly twice before she abruptly spun around. Her cloudy gray-white eyes fixed on Ethan, saliva dripping from the corners of her mouth as she lunged at him with a rasping roar.
Ethan leaned forward slightly and swiftly lowered his center of gravity. The instant the zombie pounced, he sidestepped the attack and lightly hooked his foot forward.
Already off-balance from missing her target, the zombie sprawled face-first onto the ground.
Before she could rise, Ethan darted forward. His knife flashed coldly as he drove it straight into the back of her skull.
With a forceful twist of his wrist, the zombie went completely still.
Nathan Cole watched Ethan’s maneuver from behind, his eyes wide and his face full of amazement.
As expected of a soldier he had spent so many points to summon. Not only was Ethan fearless, his combat ability was outstanding as well.
After his brief admiration, Nathan summoned the control panel and checked it. Sure enough, his reinforcement points had increased by two. Added to the three zombies killed in the hotel earlier, he now had 308 reinforcement points.
As long as they continued clearing zombies, their points would steadily increase, their force would grow larger, and a positive cycle would take shape.
With the obstacle eliminated, the team smoothly reached the entrance to Unit One.
Ethan made a hand signal, and Deputy Squad Leader Victor Hayes immediately understood. The two of them quietly approached the unit entrance.
Ethan lightly swiped the access card over the reader. With a beep-beep, the entrance unlocked.
Victor immediately placed a hand on the door handle. After giving a slight nod, he yanked the entrance door open.
Ethan promptly stepped forward with his rifle raised, his sharp eyes examining the situation inside.
Finding the entry hall empty, Ethan signaled them forward and entered first. The others followed in single file, their steps light and orderly.
The apartments in Golden Fortune Gardens followed a two-elevator, four-unit layout. The smaller units were in the middle, while larger apartments with north-south exposure stood on either side.
In fact, many commercial apartment buildings in Lanzhou had this sort of layout. The corridors were not particularly spacious, giving them a faintly oppressive feel.
After entering, Nathan and Daniel Ward remained by the unit entrance to guard the door.
Ethan and Victor led the others in checking both sides. They confirmed there were no zombies in the hallway, and the doors of all four apartments were tightly shut.
According to their prearranged assignments, Ethan and Victor each took a rifleman and split into two teams, beginning with the two apartments on the left.
After loading breaching rounds into his shotgun, shotgunner Felix Monroe served as the mobile breacher for both teams.
As for the others, the machine gunner and his assistant guarded the stairwell to prevent zombies from rushing down from the upper floors.
The designated marksman and grenadier had no immediate role, so they drew their pistols and kept watch over the uncleared area on the other side.
Once everything was ready, Felix first approached the door of the smaller apartment and knocked hard on it.
When there was no response from inside, he turned sideways, found his position, and fired one round into the lock.
With a thunderous bang, the lock was wrecked, while the specialized breaching projectile shattered into powder. The gunshot echoed violently through the hallway.
Felix immediately slipped backward after completing his task, his movements swift and crisp.
Ethan, behind him, promptly stepped forward with his rifle raised, its muzzle trained on the security door.
At Ethan’s signal, rifleman Gavin Cole grabbed the badly mangled handle and pulled hard.
With a creak, the door opened. Ethan did not rush inside, merely keeping his rifle trained on the interior.
After waiting four or five seconds, Ethan and Gavin entered one behind the other, rifles raised, their steps slow and cautious.
The smaller apartment was only a little over ninety square meters. After common-area allocation, it had only seventy or eighty square meters of usable space, so the whole apartment was not large.
After searching every room, Ethan and Gavin discovered that no one had lived there. Judging by the thin coating of dust on the furniture, the owner had apparently left many days ago.
"Room 102 secure!" Ethan’s voice was transmitted clearly through the headsets to every soldier.
Just after Ethan finished reporting, machine gunner Mason Turner, who was guarding the stairwell entrance, suddenly spoke. "Contact!"
He and assistant machine gunner Owen Price raised their weapons toward the stairwell.
A chaotic flurry of footsteps came from above. As they drew closer, the zombies’ snarls became increasingly distinct.
More than ten seconds later, three zombies appeared at the second-floor stairwell landing.
Zombies that had only recently turned seemed to suffer from poor coordination and unsteady footing.
When the three zombies rounded the landing and saw Mason and Owen, they charged down like feral dogs spotting raw meat.
Moving too hastily, the lead zombie twisted its ankle and tumbled headlong down the stairs.
After the first zombie fell, the other two were tripped up as well.
The sudden development left the fully prepared Mason and Owen stunned for a moment.
Then the PKP Pecheneg squad machine gun in Mason’s hands abruptly opened fire.
7.62×54mmR machine-gun rounds struck the fallen zombies in the back, bursting clusters of blood from their bodies.
Not to be outdone, Owen, the assistant machine gunner, followed up with fire from his AK-12 assault rifle.
After several short bursts, all three zombies had their skulls blown apart.
The red-and-white matter that splattered at their feet made both men feel sick to their stomachs.
Though they were well trained, they had never actually killed anyone or seen real bloodshed before.
After Mason forcibly suppressed the nausea in his chest, he paused to listen. The gunfire seemed to have drawn only these three zombies.
Once he confirmed there was no further danger, he immediately reported, "Three zombies eliminated in the stairwell. Threat neutralized!"
"Received. Continue security!"
With the immediate danger resolved, Felix went to Room 101 and blew apart the door lock with his shotgun.
This time, as rifleman Tyler Grant pulled open the security door, a male zombie came charging out with a roar.
Its face was grotesque from the front, its teeth bared, its face and body covered in blood as both arms flailed wildly.
Victor, who was covering the doorway, fired without hesitation.
With several muted bangs from his suppressed weapon, the shots rang out.
Blood burst from the zombie’s head and chest. Driven by the bullets’ kinetic force, it fell backward and crashed heavily onto the floor.
After killing the zombie, Victor did not let down his guard and kept his rifle trained on the apartment.
Sure enough, another female zombie came racing out in a frenzy.
She was met by bullets carrying the smell of gunpowder. Her head was blown apart, blood and brain matter spraying everywhere as the walls and floor were instantly stained a vivid red.
After waiting several seconds and seeing no further zombies emerge, Victor and Tyler carefully stepped over the zombies at the doorway and entered the apartment.
Their combat boots made a chilling squelch-squelch as they stepped into the pools of blood.
Past the entrance of the larger apartment was a foyer corridor. Directly ahead was the master bathroom, while another bathroom and a secondary bedroom lay to the left.
The two checked them and found nothing inside.
But when Victor passed through the foyer corridor and reached the living room, the sight before him made cold sweat instantly spread across his back.
A figure in a school uniform lay on the living-room floor. The clothing around its neck, shoulders, chest, and abdomen had all been torn apart.
The exposed flesh bore marks of being torn and gnawed upon. A huge pool of blood spread beneath the body, and the room was thick with the pungent stench of blood.
Clearly, this had been a family of three. After the parents turned, they had knocked their child down in the living room and eaten the child alive. The cruel sight made Victor’s eyelids twitch.
Before he could approach to inspect it, the corpse on the floor suddenly began trembling. Its limbs convulsed ceaselessly, then it abruptly sat upright and stared at Victor with clouded eyes.
There was not a trace of life in those eyes—only endless emptiness and murkiness.
Because its neck had been bitten open, its windpipe and laryngeal cartilage were exposed. Combined with the bloody holes left in its chest, abdomen, and shoulder where it had been gnawed, it was an utterly horrifying sight.
The sudden change made Victor’s whole body jerk.
But startled as he was, he did not panic. As an elite soldier hardened by extensive training, his hands remained perfectly steady.
The instant the student zombie sat up, his rifle fired.
The gunshot echoed through the living room. A scorching bullet passed through its brain, and its body dropped back down after its head shattered.
This family of three could finally be "reunited" underground, though the manner of their reunion was far too tragic and heartbreaking.
Victor and Tyler then searched the remaining rooms. Finding no other zombies or survivors, they reported directly, "Report: Three zombies eliminated in Room 101. No survivors found."
"Received. Continue the clearing operation according to plan," Ethan replied.
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