40

"Time to eat," someone called out from a distance.

Breakfast consisted of sliced bread, rice soup, and pickled vegetables. As expected of people stationed in a supermarket, they had a variety of side dishes for the congee, including my favorite pickled long beans.

During the meal, Zenith Franklin recounted the outbreak of the virus from his perspective.

He retold this story every time a new survivor arrived.

We were hearing it for the eleventh time.

On November 19, 20xx, the third day of Springfield's lockdown,

the government issued a full lockdown order, and the D Department war zone urgently deployed 50,000 army troops from HarbourWest City to support Springfield's epidemic prevention tasks.

All remaining security forces in Springfield also participated.

According to unpublished data, the outbreak showed a characteristic of multiple points of explosion, radiating from the center to the suburbs, with infected patients exhibiting a clear tendency toward violence.

By the time the army entered the city, cases had appeared in all 15 districts except for the subordinate Everbright Isle.

In the urban area, infected individuals accounted for more than 80% of the total number of cases.

Therefore, most of the troops were dispatched to the central eight districts to enforce a quarantine on the infected communities.

About 16,000 troops were sent to the eight districts outside the ring line.

Zenith Franklin was one of them.

His group stationed two regiments of soldiers in J District. All soldiers were split up and participated in maintaining public order and transporting supplies in small teams.

After the virus fully broke out, they were ordered to stay put.

But just three days later, a large number of infections appeared within the army.

In Zenith Franklin's squad, eight people were infected by the virus, while the rest were killed by their zombified comrades.

Out of twelve, Zenith Franklin was the only survivor.

"What happened next?" Anne couldn't help but ask.

"Then I lost contact with my superiors," he said, snapping out of his reverie. "The command post was set up at the city government; things must be pretty bad over there."

From this, it seemed there were two peaks in the virus outbreak.

Once on the seventh day of the lockdown, and again on the tenth day.

I silently sorted out the details as I listened.

Wait...

no.

The second peak was also on the seventh day—

the seventh day after the army entered the city!

This conclusion startled me.

Could it be that everyone entering Springfield would become infected and mutate after seven days?

How could a virus follow territorial lines?

Moreover, according to Zenith Franklin, their food and water were uniformly supplied by the army, and they wore protective suits at all times after entering the city.

How were they infected?

I must have missed something.

This story dragged everyone's thoughts back to four months ago.

The dining table grew silent.

After breakfast, we stood up to leave.

We had already discussed the staple food problem with Zenith Franklin, and he gave us two options:

either participate in the labor or offer food of equal value.

The condition wasn't unreasonable.

So we planned to go home and get some vegetable seeds for exchange.

Zenith Franklin asked Simon Harper to see us out, along with the buzz-cut young man named Ethan Jackson.

They seemed to be on good terms, as they were the ones who had welcomed us.

"Are you sure you don't want to stay?" Ethan Jackson asked as we walked down the stairs. "This is a supermarket; aren't you tempted?"

"Tempted, tempted," I played along. "Maybe next time we meet, we'll have moved in."

"That's just painting us a pretty picture," Simon Harper laughed. "But since you're here, Captain Zenith specifically instructed us not to let you leave empty-handed."

We descended to the first floor via the fire escape.

With the glass walls shattered, it was easy to enter the supermarket from the street.

"Can't you enter directly from the stairs?" Anne asked.

"No, all the fire doors in the stairwell are locked from the inside," Ethan Jackson explained. "Captain Zenith said to keep the supermarket and fire escape separate to prevent zombies from breaking in."

I looked around. Although many supplies had been moved to the rooftop, there were still plenty of items left.

Where was the coffee aisle again...

"Vice-Captain, what happened to the glass downstairs?" I asked while searching.

"Just call me by my name; I'm not used to the title," Simon Harper said, slightly embarrassed. "It was originally Captain Zenith's idea, but then something went wrong."

It turned out that Zenith Franklin had tried to keep all the zombies outside,

but this angered the horde.

They broke into the mall and almost breached the barriers made of shelves on the third floor.

"So never, ever provoke them," Simon warned.

"Disrupting their routine behaviors, killing their companions in front of them, or making too much noise can all cause a zombie riot."

"Oh, right," he slapped his forehead. "Wait here, I'll get you something nice."

As soon as Simon left, I heard a commotion from the shelves behind me.

It was Chris.

"Gathering supplies?"

"What else?" He didn't look at me. "Wait for someone to give me something?"

"..."

This guy had been eavesdropping.

As if reading my thoughts, he said, "Your voices were too loud."

Tch.

I ignored him and wandered nearby.

At the end of the aisle was a fire door.

Was this the passage Simon mentioned?

The lock was on the inside of the mall.

I walked over and tried turning the latch.

With a click, the door opened, revealing the stairwell we had just come down.

I quickly shut the door, new concerns rising within me.

This door could keep out zombies but not people.

Any outsider entering the mall could easily access the passage.

So, humans still had to guard against other humans.

Old Grant was the core of the supermarket's defense.

Just as this thought crossed my mind, a sharp whistle sounded from the top floor.

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