Apocalypse Ground Zero: Refusing To Leave Home

Gu Han didn’t open the basement door.

Instead, he stood in front of the largest house with his armed men behind him, staring at me like he thought we were still negotiating.

On the other side, something hit the metal door beneath the house again and again.

The sound travelled through the foundation and came up through the pavement beneath my boots. It wasn’t loud enough to carry across the entire cul-de-sac, but I felt it through the roots already spreading under the yard.

Someone was down there.

Someone alive enough to keep hitting the door.

Or someone dead and hungry.

I looked at Gu Han. "Open it," I said again.

His hand stayed near the weapon at his side. "The people below the houses are infected. The doors remain sealed for everyone’s safety."

"You chained them underground and used them to move zombies."

"They would’ve turned eventually."

"Then you could’ve killed them."

A few of his men shifted behind him.

Gu Han’s expression tightened. Apparently, saying that out loud was worse than keeping half-dead people under houses and driving them around whenever he needed zombies delivered somewhere.

I didn’t care.

Killing them would’ve been cleaner than what he had done.

Gu Han glanced toward Zhenlan’s tablet. He knew we had Head Luo’s records now. He knew we had seen the shelter names, the route maps, and the notes about people he had reduced to numbers.

He still tried to smile. "We can discuss the marked survivors once you understand the larger situation," he said in a patronizing manner.

"There isn’t a larger situation," I replied, my face void of emotions. What he really trying to mansplain the apocalypse to me?!?

"There are hundreds of people in this district who need food, protection, and somewhere secure to live. You have more space and supplies than you use, while I have the people needed to maintain them," he continued like all those points were important.

But he kept forgetting... or maybe overlooking on very important fact.

Everything he was saying wasn’t his to want.

My house.

My food.

My men.

People outside my barrier he had already counted and assigned jobs to that I didn’t give a fuck about.

And even now, with someone beating against a basement door beneath his feet, Gu Han wanted to talk about how useful everyone would be once he owned them.

I looked past him at the houses lining the street.

My roots moved deeper.

They slid beneath the dead lawns and followed old pipes, cracked foundations, and dried tree roots. Most of what they touched belonged exactly where it was supposed to be.

Then one root found a metal wall beneath the house in front of us.

Another found a door two houses down.

Three more doors sat beneath the buildings across the street.

There were rooms everywhere.

Gu Han watched my face as the roots continued spreading. He didn’t know exactly what I could feel, but he knew I had found something.

His hand moved closer to his gun, but Chenghai stepped between us.

He didn’t threaten Gu Han or say anything dramatic. He simply moved in front of me, broad enough that Gu Han could no longer reach for the weapon without doing it directly in front of him.

Zhenlan remained at my side. Lightning flickered once around his fingers, and every rifle behind Gu Han moved a little lower.

Yuche looked toward the house.

"The entrance is behind the front wall," I told him. "There’s something heavy in front of it."

He crossed the yard without waiting for Gu Han’s permission.

Two men near the steps lifted their weapons.

A strip of metal tore free from the SUV behind us, crossed the street, and wrapped around both rifles. Yuche twisted his hand. The barrels bent together before either man could fire.

Lingyun stayed beside the SUV as ordered, one hand pressed over the reinforced vest around his ribs. Fire moved across the fingers of his other hand.

"If anyone else wants to try," he called, "please stand close together. I’m injured, and I don’t feel like aiming twice."

Gu Han’s men spread out.

That worked too.

Yuche reached the front door and pulled it open with the metal already inside the lock. Zhenlan followed him into the house while Chenghai lifted me and carried me up the steps.

"I can walk," I told him.

"The thread is pulling," he replied.

"That doesn’t mean my legs stopped working," I sighed in frustration. I didn’t want to look weak right now...

Chenghai carried me inside anyway.

The house looked empty.

Someone had removed the furniture, rugs, pictures, and anything else that might have been useful. Dust covered the floor near the walls, but the middle of the room had been swept recently.

Gu Han followed us through the doorway with two men behind him.

He still acted as though we were guests.

"The people below are restrained because the mark affects their behavior," he said. "Some become violent when the zombies move nearby."

I looked over Chenghai’s shoulder. "I would probably become violent too if you chained me under a house like some fucked up bait for zombies."

Gu Han ignored that.

Yuche stopped near a tall wooden shelf pressed against the back wall. The shelf was empty, which made it even more obvious that no one had placed it there for storage.

He pulled it aside.

A narrow metal door stood behind it.

There was no normal handle. Three heavy locks had been welded across the frame, and a small opening near the top had been covered from our side.

Something scraped against the other side of the door.

Then a woman’s voice whispered, "Please," she begged, and even I could hear the desperation in her one word.

Gu Han’s men looked away, unable to stomach what was happening right in front of them.

But they didn’t look surprised, which could only mean...

They knew.

Maybe they hadn’t chosen the rooms or written the plans, but they walked through these houses every day knowing people were locked below them.

Yuche placed his hand against the first lock. The metal softened and peeled away from the door. He removed the second and third just as easily, letting each twisted piece fall onto the dusty floor.

Gu Han stepped closer. "You can’t release them into the settlement."

Yuche pulled the door open, not bothering to reply.

The smell rolled through the room.

Chenghai turned me into his chest before I got the worst of it, but there was no hiding what waited below. Sweat, blood, waste, infected skin, and damp concrete had been trapped behind the door for weeks.

I pressed my mouth against Chenghai’s shirt until the first wave of nausea passed.

Then, holding my breath, I turned my head and looked.

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