Apocalypse Ground Zero: Refusing To Leave Home

The thing at the other end pulled hard enough to drag the breath from my lungs.

For one second, the garage disappeared.

I felt streets instead.

Broken pavement. Houses packed too close together. Several thin threads buried beneath them, twisting through dark rooms where people breathed too quickly and tried not to make noise.

One thread moved.

Something scratched against concrete.

Then the pressure behind all of them turned toward me.

Chenghai’s arm locked around my waist and lifted me from the floor.

The connection snapped before it could open any farther.

I came back against his chest with my hands clenched hard enough that my nails had cut into my palms. The scar on my leg still burned, but the brighter line inside my head had vanished.

Zhenlan stood close enough that the air around us smelled sharp. Lightning crawled between his fingers and disappeared when he touched my face.

"You followed it."

"A little."

His thumb moved across my cheek. "How many?"

"I couldn’t count."

The man inside the box hit the wall again.

"They’re still there."

His voice had changed. The screaming had torn most of it away, leaving every word rough and wet.

Yuche dragged the metal chair closer to the opening and sat. He rested his elbows on his knees, calm enough that the man inside had no reason to know how dangerous the room had become.

"Start at the beginning," he said.

The box stayed quiet.

Chenghai carried me back to the workbench and put me down. This time, he remained directly in front of me with one hand around my ankle, his thumb pressed above the scar.

Zhenlan stood beside my other leg.

Neither of them planned to let me touch the tether again.

That was probably sensible.

The man’s breathing scraped through the vent.

"I was bitten three weeks ago."

"Where?" Yuche asked.

"Near the old bus terminal."

He paused long enough that I thought he might stop answering.

Yuche waited.

The man continued.

He had been travelling with six other people when the zombies found them. Most died near the buses. He made it through a broken fence with a bite on his arm and reached Gu Han’s streets before dark.

The men at the entrance had almost killed him.

Then one of them noticed the zombies behind him weren’t behaving properly.

"They kept stopping," the man said. "Looking around. Like they could smell me but didn’t know where I was."

Gu Han came to the gate himself.

He didn’t allow the bitten man inside the main street. His people tied his hands, covered his head, and dragged him into an empty garage near the edge of the neighborhood.

They waited.

When he didn’t turn, they gave him water.

Then they started moving him.

"Where?" Yuche asked.

"Everywhere."

The man’s hand scraped along the inside wall.

"They put me in the back of a van. Drove three streets north and stopped. Gu Han watched from a roof while his men opened the doors."

The zombies changed direction.

Gu Han moved him again.

A parking lot. An abandoned clinic. The road near another shelter. Each time, Gu Han watched which way the zombies turned and how long it took them to notice.

My stomach tightened.

"He used you as bait."

"At first."

The answer came too quickly.

I looked toward the opening. "What happened after that?"

The man breathed through his mouth for several seconds.

"When they knew it worked, they took me back."

"Back where?"

"Under one of the houses."

The room I had felt through the tether returned inside my head. Concrete walls. No windows. Someone scratching near the floor.

I rubbed my palms against my shorts.

"There were other people down there," he said. "Some were bitten. Some had marks but no bites I could see. Gu Han kept them in separate rooms."

"How many people did you see?" Zhenlan asked.

"Seven."

The answer came after a pause.

"Maybe eight. They moved us at different times."

"Were they alive?"

"Most of them."

Chenghai’s fingers tightened around my ankle.

The man inside the box began coughing. The sound went on too long, ending with something wet hitting the floor.

Yuche didn’t move from the chair.

"What did Gu Han ask you?"

"Where the zombies looked. Whether I heard anything. Whether the bite hurt when they took me east or west."

"Did it?"

"Yes."

The man dragged in another breath.

"East was worse."

Toward the cul-de-sac.

Toward the other marked people.

Gu Han hadn’t stumbled across one bitten survivor and guessed.

He had collected enough of them to test the tether from different directions.

I looked at the metal wall between us. "Why did he send you here?"

The man didn’t answer.

Zhenlan’s hand settled against the back of my neck. Chenghai remained in front of me, his body blocking most of the box.

Yuche leaned closer to the opening.

"He already told you," he said. "Say it again."

A soft sound came from inside. The man might have laughed, but there was nothing amused in it.

"Gu Han said your house would stop me."

My plants shifted outside.

"He knew about the barrier?"

"Everyone knows about the barrier."

"That isn’t what I asked."

The man’s fingers appeared briefly near the vent before falling away.

"He said you had something around the property. Something the zombies couldn’t cross."

That much Gu Han could have learned from anyone who had watched the mansion.

It didn’t explain why he expected me to recognize the tether.

I pressed my heel against the workbench to keep my leg still.

"What exactly did he say about me?"

Silence filled the box again.

This time, I heard the man swallowing before he answered.

"He said you’d been bitten before."

No one moved.

Rain struck the garage roof hard enough to blur every other sound for several seconds.

Zhenlan’s hand tightened at my neck.

Chenghai turned toward the box completely.

Yuche’s voice remained level. "How did he know that?"

"I don’t know."

"Did he say where she was bitten?"

"No."

"When?"

"No."

"What else?"

The man took several rough breaths.

"He said you survived it. Said the thing that marked us already knew you."

My scar pulsed beneath Chenghai’s hand.

The man continued before anyone asked another question.

"Gu Han thought if he sent me close enough, the zombies would follow. He said either they would break your walls, or you would come outside to find out why they were there."

"And then?" I asked.

"He wanted the house."

That was expected.

The next part wasn’t.

"He wanted the people outside it too. The workers. The guards. All of them."

"We don’t have guards," I said.

"He called them yours."

Of course he did.

Anyone living near the mansion had become part of my settlement inside Gu Han’s head, whether I wanted them or not.

The man shifted inside the box.

"He said once the dead forced you out, your men would have to choose somewhere else to keep people safe."

Zhenlan went completely still beside me.

Gu Han had been counting on an older version of him. The one who would see a crowd, build walls around it, and start deciding how much food everyone needed.

He had been counting on Chenghai doing the same.

The man coughed again.

"He said they’d understand what needed to be done."

Chenghai’s thumb stopped over my scar.

I looked down at his hand, then toward Zhenlan.

Neither man looked tempted.

Gu Han had built his entire plan around a future they had already torn apart.

Yuche sat back slightly. "Who carried the instructions between Gu Han and Head Luo?"

"I never saw his face."

"Did you hear a name?"

"No."

"Voice?"

"He didn’t speak around us."

Yuche’s fingers tapped once against his knee.

"What did Gu Han call him?"

The answer took longer.

"Courier."

Nothing useful.

Then the man added, "He came through the tunnels."

Yuche’s hand stopped.

"What tunnels?"

"Under the houses."

The tether inside my scar pulled east again.

The man pressed closer to the vent, his damaged voice dropping until we almost lost it beneath the rain.

"Gu Han didn’t build the rooms."

A cold line moved through my leg.

"He found them already locked."

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!