Zombie Apocalypse: Creation

"Let's go. Everyone back inside the truck!"

All the men headed back to the back of the truck, and the man who had answered Xiaoyun earlier went towards the passenger seat.

"Just follow us. We can lead you to our base."

"Okay."

---

After driving for almost ten minutes, the truck finally arrived at its destination.

In front of them was a heavily blockaded road with tire spikes and a wall made of sandbags reinforcing a gate to a condo building.

As the truck stopped, several people hopped out to drag the spikes to the side, with the guy in the passenger seat going over to open the gate.

Seeing the signal from the man to come closer, Xiaoyun and Kate hopped out of their car and walked over to him.

"You guys do this every time?" Xiaoyun curiously asked as the two followed him inside.

"Yeah... It doesn't hurt to be extra safe, just in case... Anyway, here's our base."

The man guided the two to the front entrance, which had a large label on top that said Fei Fei's salvage group.

"Damn... This whole condo building block is yours?" Xiaoyun asked as the man guided them inside one of the condo buildings.

"You could say that. We can do whatever we want here, and all these areas are under our control...

But of course, we're not doing anything illegal. We're law-abiding citizens with permits to operate here."

The man quickly added the last part, as if he almost forgot he was talking to a 'journalist' when he noticed Xiaoyun took out his notebook and pen.

"I see... Then how would you describe your life here, then? What separate working in a salvage group and living in the civilian building back at the outpost?"

The man didn't answer right away but brought the two to a table in the condo's main lobby.

"Compare this to living at the outpost, where the army ensures your security. Living in a base like this still has risks.

First, your safety isn't 100% safe, even when most of the zombies in the city are killed. There have been a few cases where some mutant managed to sneak past the army's parameter in the north.

The invisible ones, especially, are almost impossible to spot at night unless you have traps set up. You two probably noticed it when coming inside the building."

Xiaoyun and Kate both nodded in acknowledgment.

They remembered seeing tons of strings attached to bells on several of the paths to the main entrances.

"But it's not all downside. The pay from all the shops in Luoping is crazy high even after the tax.

I earned more working here for a month than working in Luoping for half a year."

Hearing the man's answer, Xiaoyun wasn't too surprised. But several questions popped up in his head.

"Sorry if I'm asking too much, but when you said earlier that you can do whatever you want... What do you mean by that?"

The man suddenly froze for a second, then laughed as he reached behind his pocket.

"I was just joking earlier... We have a contract manager from Luoping to check everyone is doing okay.

What you are suggesting won't happen, at least in my salvage group. We're all brothers here, right?"

All of the workers who were carrying boxes inside from the truck immediately responded with a yes.

"See? We all know each other pretty well at this point. Not to mention, we're all from the same hometown."

After getting a satisfactory answer, Xiaoyun decided to move on to the next topic.

"One last thing I just wanted to ask... Why did you come to the outpost here? Were you planning to be a part of a salvage group?"

The man sat in silence for a whole minute, then finally replied.

"I came here because I got nothing much to do in Luoping... All of us were actually planning to join the army.

But as you can see, we ended up here for one reason or another... It's a long story that I don't want to go over."

Xiaoyun looked a little puzzled, but he didn't interrupt him.

"Anyway, after we got all the way here in the outpost, we were tired of doing manual labor in the outpost.

So we decided to do something else... Which ended up with us forming a salvage group after getting enough funding from a shop in Luoping."

"Damn... That is a very interesting path." Kate murmured as she was surprised by the journey the group of men had taken.

"Yeah... Anyway, do you guys have any other questions?"

"That's all... Thank you for your time, sir."

"No problem. Just put our salvage group in the newspaper, and we'll be extra thankful... Here's our business card."

Xiaoyun accepted the card and put it inside his pocket, alongside his notebook and pen, as he packed everything back up.

"Yo driver, can you bring them out to the entrance?" The man yelled out loud.

The driver from earlier quickly came back up and guided the two back outside.

---

"Where do we go now?" Kate curiously asked as they sat inside their car.

"To the north of the city... I'm just curious how they had set up the parameter."

"Okay."

Kate quickly started the car back up and continued to drive northward until they ran into a sign and a large, continuous metal fence that blocked off the entire street block.

"Do not go beyond this point. The area ahead is not cleared... Do we keep going?"

Xiaoyun tried to look as far as he could, but all he could see was an empty street across the fences, with no sign of zombies.

"Let's turn back... Some of the buildings are probably not fully cleared yet."

Just as Kate was about to reverse the car, she suddenly noticed several lines of buses approaching from behind through the rear window.

"Don't worry about them. Those buses are from the army."

Xiaoyun quickly reassured Kate when he noticed that one of the soldiers' uniforms was the same as the one in Luoping.

"What are you guys doing here?" One of the soldiers got out of their bus and asked, holding her rifle up as she looked fully alerted.

Behind her, all the soldiers raised their rifles as they noticed that the car Xiaoyun was in was fully armored.

"We're just journalists. I have a permit to travel around the outpost." Kate answered as she rolled down her window.

Xiaoyun quickly took out his permit and handed it over to Kate, who then handed it over to the soldier.

"Huh... Okay, here's your permit back."

After handing the permit back to Kate, the soldier decided to warn the two about something.

"You probably shouldn't be here. There have been a few cases of mutants sneaking past the fences.

It's not fully cleared yet. There are still a few metro stations around this area and several condos and apartments that have zombies in them."

"Thank you for the heads-up. We'll be heading back now."

As soon as Xiaoyun finished talking, Kate quickly drove off before the soldier could ask any more questions.

"Why are they so nervous? Do I look scary or something?" The soldier murmured as he headed back inside the bus.

---

"Why did I feel so nervous there?" Kate murmured as she couldn't understand her feelings.

"Because it's almost like getting a ticket from the police. Except it's the army. Anyway, let's head back now."

"Okay..."

A few minutes later...

"What the hell is that car?" Kate curiously asked as she noticed a heavily decorated car in the distance.

"I have no clue, but it sure looked cool," Xiaoyun replied as he could see the flame decal with his vision.

As they drove closer, Kate could finally see the flame decal as well.

"They think they're race racers or what? Why are they driving so fast?" Xiaoyun wondered as he could feel the car in front of them speeding up.

"I got no clue... I'm just going to slow down."

With Xiaoyun's car slowing down, the car in the front also began to slow down, forcing Xiaoyun's car to slow down even more as they were right behind them at this point.

"Should I just overtake them?" Kate asked, feeling a little annoyed that she was being brake-checked by someone.

"No need, just keep driving behind them... I wonder who's inside that car thinking they can brake checking an armored car, though."

After driving all the way to the entrance of the outpost, the car in front suddenly made a sharp turn to the left.

"Should we follow them?" Kate curiously asked as she slowed down her car.

"They really do look suspicious... Go for it. Not like anyone can damage this car anyway."

With permission granted, Kate quickly turned left and floored the gas as if she wanted to get revenge for earlier.

But as she kept following behind the car, it started to speed up as if it realized it had messed up.