Apocalypse Escape: Day One of Survival

Xie Ning glanced over, then immediately turned and ran upstairs. The two office workers saw this and scrambled to follow.

But as they ran, the worker with the injured arm and unnaturally flushed face began to make a chilling gurgling sound, her footsteps growing heavier.

”What’s wrong with you?” The other office worker glanced back at her companion and jumped in fright.

Her colleague’s mouth was hanging open, saliva trickling unnoticed from the corners as her pace slowed to a crawl.

When she looked up at them, her pale, fish-like eyes were utterly vacant.

By now, Xie Ning had reached the third-floor landing and peered down.

Seeing the female office worker still standing on the stairs in a stupor, she couldn’t help but yell, ”Hey, run! Your colleague is infected and turning into a zombie! You’ll be too late if you don’t move now!”

The female office worker snapped out of it, looked up toward Xie Ning, and scrambled desperately up the stairs.

Xie Ning took the stairs two at a time to the fourth floor and pushed open the heavy glass door to the stairwell.

The moment she looked in, several zombies were already staggering to their feet from behind the desks.

An instinct that craved flesh and blood drew their numb gazes toward Xie Ning.

THUD! A short scream suddenly erupted from a small, partitioned conference room. ”Hold him down! Quick, hold him down! He’s going berserk too!”

Xie Ning’s gaze shifted to the locked door of the small conference room. Gripping her long knife, she turned to face three uniformed zombies that were lunging at her with guttural roars.

Behind her, the female office worker gasped, ”They’re all swarming up the stairs! What are we going to do?”

”Lock the door!” Xie Ning commanded, her voice calm and steady as she dispatched a uniformed zombie with a few slashes of her knife.

Breathing hard, the female office worker’s eyes darted around the room. She lunged for a nearby filing cabinet and snatched up a large U-lock.

She had just pulled the heavy glass door shut when the gurgling cries of zombies echoed from the other side.

With trembling hands, the office worker wrapped the lock around the stainless-steel handles. But before she could snap it shut, two uniformed zombies slammed hard against the glass door from the outside.

Xie Ning finished off the last zombie and turned around just in time to see the heavy lock fall from the handles and hit the floor with a dull thud.

The female office worker stared, trembling, at the clawing zombies on the other side of the glass. She stumbled back a step, completely losing the courage to try and lock the door again.

THUD, THUD!

Seeing that the glass door was about to be forced open by the zombies, Xie Ning scrambled to pick up the U-lock. She looped it around the handles on both sides and snapped it shut with a CLICK.

With that done, Xie Ning ran to the door of the small conference room and knocked. ”Uncle! Uncle!”

”Xiao Ning?” The conference room door was solid; her uncle’s voice sounded muffled and indistinct from the other side.

KNOCK KNOCK. The female office worker ran up and knocked as well, her face a mask of anxiety. ”Director Ma, please open the door and let us in!”

The glass door wouldn’t hold for long.

More and more zombies were gathering. If they kept pounding on it, the glass door was bound to shatter.

”Xiao Zhu.” Someone opened the door from the inside and quickly yanked the female office worker in.

When Xie Ning stepped into the small conference room, she was surprised to find it crammed with seventeen or eighteen people.

A heavyset woman was tied to the conference table with strips of curtain fabric, her hands bound behind her back. She was splayed across the tabletop, letting out a series of hoarse roars.

”Uncle!” Xie Ning’s eyes scanned the crowd.

”Ning... Ningning! Ningning!” A sweat-drenched Song Youzhi squeezed his way out of the crowd.