Apocalypse Cockroach-Chapter 9: Evolution?
Evolution?
Ever since 9 days ago, after the deathly experience from the D Virus, after a week of self-care, his body had almost recovered. He slowly recovered the strength to start training. Even though he had that nightmare that was a life or death situation, his body was still the same. He didn’t become stronger, he didn’t become more flexible, Zhang Xiao Qiang still couldn’t see without his glasses. Thinking of those characters from novels that were infected by a virus, didn’t they get special powers and after finding a space to mess around with it, then they became heroes going around the world looking for zombies to fight, why wasn’t his life good like that?
After experiencing the D Virus he wanted to kill himself, his body was weak for a week, he couldn’t even hold a rice bowl.
“Gahh!!!!!! Zhang Xiao Qiang sighed deeply, same circumstance but different life!!!!
“huff! huff! huff! huff!” Zhang Xiao Qiang gasped, the spear thrust forward and retracted again and again. His forehead sweat profusely, gathering at the scar, stinging a little. He kept thrusting the spear, trying to use as much of his energy as possible, just make himself a little stronger for survival.
He put down the spear and rubbed his aching wrist, and picked up the mineral water from the table and took a large gulp. “ha!!!” he felt refreshed, even though it was an apocalypse, Zhang Xiao Qiang feels like himself right now compared to before, was getting through life with much more enjoyment. He exercised everyday after waking up, has breakfast, does 5000 thrusts, has lunch, takes a nap, practices thrusts again, has dinner, plays a single player game then sleep! Even he didn’t know how to appreciate his previous collections anymore.[TLN: ? Porn stash?] His physical fitness was getting better and he was losing weight.
“Man! It was forced out of me!!” Zhang Xiao Qiang sighed.
As usual, he went to the window and looked through it with his binoculars. It was already a kind of habit, other than the zombies there wasn’t much of a view to see. Using the binoculars he could see up to the zombie’s nose, seeing its every move clearly.
Even though it had rained for over 10 days, the sky was still so gloomy and dull. There were black gray clouds cascading, blocking the winter sun. Only a few weak rays of light shone through, illuminating the city.
“Could it be that it was starting to evolve?”
Zhang Xiao Qiang was holding the binoculars, even with the rain from the last few days it wasn’t able to clean the streets. Broken bones, shards of glass and broken bottles were scattered everywhere.
Thinking of that day when it was raining, he could feel a dull pain, not only did the rain contain some of the virus, it also had a strong corrosive effect. The steel fence outside the window had become rusty, if he didn’t look at them everyday, Zhang Xiao Qiang would have thought that it was corroded by water vapour for more than 10 years. Turns out it was the rain, could it be that it was the acid rain?
The corrosive water falling onto the zombies clothes left them wandering around in tattered clothing, all that was left was some fragmented rags on the zombies body.
The zombies on the street were still wandering around as usual, their walking was a bit more flexible, their fingernails on the claws were a little longer. Some zombies looked taller and stronger, their walks were no longer staggered. It looked no different from a normal person walking, naked, with black translucent skin, pushing down many zombies that were walking in front of it, but this didn’t affect it at all. Some other zombies were more skinny, their bodies became smaller, but also became more agile, with more flexible joints. It was already able to climb some small obstacles, their nails were longer, double the length of ordinary zombies.
Zhang Xiao Qiang felt a chill in his heart, the zombies are beginning to evolve. Did mankind have any hope left? He gripped his binoculars, with both hands until the blood started to recede, and his fingers turned green.
Putting down the 10x binoculars, his mouth was left with a bitter taste, he lit a cigarette and deeply inhaled then slowly exhaled. Leaning on the windowsill all he felt was decadence.
After a few days of observations, Zhang Xiao Qiang saw that downstairs had roughly 200 zombies. There were 9 evolved zombies; 3 agile ones and 6 strong ones. The mutation rate was about 5 percent. Since the Y city had roughly 500,000 people, there should be 25000 evolved zombies. China had a population of roughly 1.5 billion, there should be 75,000,000 evolved zombies, with the world having 7 billion people? he shuddered… not daring to do the calculation.
Zhang Xiao Qiang leaned on the window sill, blankly staring at the zombies downstairs. Beneath his feet were many cigarette butts. he remembered watching an American movie, <>, the hero lieutenant Dunbar lost contact with the outside world. Living in a vast grassy plains, living a peaceful and monotonous life, with only a wolf that had 2 white front legs with him.
He was in a better situation than Zhang Xiao Qiang. He had a whole field, but Zhang Xiao Qiang was trapped by countless zombies in his living room. The wolf’s name was “Two White Socks”and it liked scampering around, while Zhang Xiao Qiang had “Nameless Cockroach”quietly lying at the bottom of a bottle.
Zhang Xiao Qiang picked up the mineral bottle and looked at it. The cockroach was still playing dead at the bottom, shaking the bottle, the cockroach started crawling around at the bottom, trying to climb out, falling back down again and again. Zhang Xiao Qiang quietly watched, feeling some sorrow for the cockroach, but more sorrow for himself, he was not different from the cockroach in the bottle, bound by their own destiny.
Watching the cockroach filled his heart with boredom, he suddenly wanted to go the roof, to look at the sky, the ground, and the city and the Yangtze river at the edge of the city!!!
So he did, he fastened the knife, hung up the binoculars and picked up his spear. Climbing up the stairs, the rooms that had zombies smelled Zhang Xiao Qiang and started scratching at the door. On the stairs to the roof, looking out to the vast world, his depression slowly faded away. The sky and earth was still so dark, in the distance he could see building rooftops with zombies wandering, only the Yangtze river was still the same, quietly flowing.
Looking at this he was ecstatic. “dong… dong… dong…” the sound of the heavy object reached Zhang Xiao Qiangs ears,
“It came from downstairs. ” Zhang Xiao Qiang decided.
Putting the binoculars away and picking up his spear, he went down. “dong… dong.. dong…” the sound became clearer and the sound grew louder.
“7th floor, 6th floor, 5th floor, should be here.”
The door near the stairs were violently shaking, it was almost like there was a rhino banging at the door. The gates were violently trembling and putty around the frame and the paint started to fall onto the floor, the space in the corridor was too small, Zhang Xiao Qiang wanted to go downstairs first.
Thinking of main characters in novels, the one that killed zombies not melon slices [TLN: ???], reaching a point like this needed extreme caution, truly speechless with a thousand silent tears!!
[TLN: May be an idiom, not sure. 想到起点小说里的主角们，那一个杀丧尸不是杀瓜切菜般的，怎么到了他这就得小心小心再小心，真是无语泪千行啊！！！]
Zhang Xiao Qiang tried to rush down to the 5th floor, “Tong…” the gate had opened, caught by surprise the gate flung open towards him, hitting him with full force, his mouth could taste some sweetness as it filled with blood. A tall dark figure pounced towards him, his mind had no time to think, his body fell to the ground.
“kuuhhh… squeeaaak” the metal gate next to Zhang Xiao Qiang made a loud screeching sound as if it was breaking, a large zombie made several visible scratches on the gate.
In that moment, Zhang Xiao Qiang lying on the floor used both his legs to push off the zombies thigh, falling down the stairs to the fourth floor, the individual steps were hitting his back as he fell. He was so nervous he didn’t feel any pain, all he could think of was to keep his head raised.
“thump…” was the sound heard as Zhang Xiao Qiang hit a broken sofa that was near the bottom of the stairs, his head was still faint, “ROAAR…”the zombie upstairs started to rush towards Zhang Xiao Qiang. The zombie had no sight, and was missing a foot, it used its claws to pounce down the stairs. He had no time to think, he gripped his spear with his right hand, and held his crossbow, with the stock resting on the sofa behind him, eyes pinned on the zombie.
“pu…” the triangular spearhead pierced the zombie’s chest and the zombie’s momentum was halted by the spear pierce. The spear had reached a point where the water pipe was between the ribs before the zombie had stopped. Zhang Xiao Qiang then started to loosen the spear, rolling the zombie to one side, leaving it on the sofa. He knew that this wouldn’t kill the zombie, he got off the floor and at the same time took out his knife, “chiak…” the knife entered the zombies temple and he twisted the knife before pulling it back out.
“huf…” its done. The clothes that Zhang Xiao Qiang were wearing were thick winter clothes, he was lucky to have no injuries.
With the zombie at one side, Zhang Xiao Qiang cleaned the knife with dirt before putting it back in the sheath. Placing his feet on the corpse, he ripped out the spear. The zombie lay on the ground with its eyes facing the heavens, it was at least 180cm tall and was thick and strong. It was a strength variation of the zombie, its muscles had branches of veins, and its fingernails on its claws had remnants of metal.
Leaving it alone, Zhang Xiao Qiang walked into the house that it came out of.
Once he entered he smelt the stench of a corpse. He walked into the living room, looked left and right, the house was well decorated. The living room was made of mahogany, there was a huge fish bowl next to the window, but the water in the tank was cloudy, there was only a few dead fish inside. There was a lot of paintings and calligraphy hanging on the walls. Going to the bedroom door, the ground was covered with expensive handmade carpets, there were 2 to 3 skeletons on the ground, by the head of the Simmons bed there was a huge picture framed on the wall, a young husband, with a delicate, lovely wife, there also were lively and beautiful twins. The family of 4 were smiling, the scattered bones and smile corresponded, the sight was particularly cruel!!
Next to the bedroom was a study, which was next to the balcony. The glass on the balcony was broken and there was broken glass scattered on the floor. Stepping out onto the balcony, further broke the glass beneath his feet, making “clinking” sounds. The balcony was soaked from rainwater, making the wooden floor wet and slippery, the paint on the wall also began to fade.
Zhang Xiao Qiang seemed to have figured it out, “the master mutated, turning into a zombie, killing his wife and children in the bedroom, before they could mutate he ate them. After it started raining, the zombie broke the window so it could catch some rainwater, evolving into the strength zombie that it is now. “
Zhang Xiao Qiang did a search of the house and realised that the family never cooked at home. The kitchen was empty, there was only a few boxes of milk and 2 cans of coffee, but there was at least half a tank of water on the water dispenser. [TLN: I assume its the tank of a water cooler] He brought these goods back down with him.
