Rebirth in the Apocalypse: Third Time's a Charm-Chapter 267 Welcome To City B
Once breakfast was done, we cleaned up camp and got back on the road. It would take us only a few hours to get to Liu Wei's house in City B, depending on how many zombies were currently occupying the city.
The fact that we made great time put me even more on edge. "Cerberus, is there any way for you to be able to pull over for a few minutes?" I asked. I was practically crawling out of my skin, and I didn't know why.
Not even asking any questions, Cerberus pulled over, and I quickly got out of the truck. As soon as my feet touched the ground, I could feel eyes on me. I couldn't tell where they were coming from, but I knew at least one set of eyes belonged to my stalker.
The guys, realizing that I wasn't following them anymore, turned around and formed a circle around me, their bikes pointing out into the unknown. "You okay, Sweetness?" asked Liu Yu Zeng as he leaned over Lin's handlebars, his attention on the forest surrounding either side of the highway to City B.
"Not sure yet," I replied honestly as I spun around in a circle, trying to find the direction where my stalker might be in. But if nothing else, my skin had stopped crawling simply because I now knew what we were driving into.
"It's a zombie city," I said as I continued to search in every direction. The number of eyes in the woods confirmed that fact. These were the front lines protecting the city from the outside before any other zombie could get close enough to be a threat. The biggest question was why were they hiding in the forest? They should be attacking us for no other reason than we were food.
"Flight, fight, or freeze?" asked Wang Chao as he, too, looked out over Ares' front.
"Continue," I said. "We keep going forward to Liu Wei's house," I continued. I found the direction of the stalker, their eyes practically burning holes into my body. But they seemed almost… excited? Was that possible? Why would they be excited?
I took one last look into the trees before I slipped between Liu Yu Zeng and Chen Zi Han to climb into Cerberus.
"Tell the bikes to pay attention. There is something seriously wrong," I said, my voice low. How was my stalker connected with a zombie city? And was this a trap of some kind? But that was impossible. There was no way for the stalker to know I was coming here. I didn't even know I was coming here.
Narrowing my eye, I thought about all the possible situations as to how my stalker knew that we were coming here.
That was… unless they didn't. As far as I could tell, the stalker was not always around. Sometimes there would be months between when I felt them. Like when we moved from the Naval base to Elysian City. I had just assumed that I didn't feel them because I didn't go outside the building. But what if it wasn't a matter of me being in or out of the condo, but rather the fact that the stalker had other things to deal with at that time, and so they vanished?
To be here and surrounded by so many zombies could only mean that my stalker was a useful human or a zombie. Either way, I was not going to let my guard down. I still wasn't completely sold on the idea that my stalker was on my side either.
We passed by the welcome sign on the highway, and there wasn't a single zombie as far as our eyes could see. Did that mean that I was wrong? That it wasn't a zombie defense line in the woods but something else? 𝚋e𝚍n𝚘ve𝚕.𝚘𝚛𝚐
No. I know for a fact that this city falls. I might have thought that maybe the future was changed, but there was still a tide in City Y, which meant that things were staying along in the original timeline that I was told.
"Okay, now I am freaking out," joked Liu Yu Zeng as his voice filtered over the truck cabin's speaker. We were absolutely flying through the completely emptied roads of downtown City B. The last time we were here, they were completely congested with broken-down cars to the point that we could barely walk down them, let alone drive.
"There is something wrong," agreed Liu Wei as the bikes started to weave back and forth.
"Thank you, Captain Obvious," replied Liu Yu Zeng, and I could hear his eyes rolling. "Sweetness, what should we do?"
I chuckled at his question. The last time we were here, he couldn't even be bothered to address me. How times have changed. "We make our way to your house," I said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. And as far as I was concerned, it was.
That was the original plan and the whole reason why we were stuck in this city in the first place. I heard grunts of agreement coming from the four men. "And I might as well say this so you can't complain later… but they aren't coming with us. I will be killing the bitch and then leaving the others, including your grandfather, to their own devices. They didn't follow us the first time around, I am not putting up with them now simply because they finally believe me."
I took a deep breath after I spat all that out. Unfortunately for all of us, that was how I felt. They had their chance, and they weren't getting a second one.
"All good, Princess. I am pretty sure that we were all on the same page," came Chen Zi Han's voice, reassuring me. I smiled sadly. I didn't understand what it had cost them to say that because I never had that type of relationship with anyone else. But I did understand that it couldn't have been easy to say. These men fought side by side with my own, and any friendship forged in combat was a strong one.
"Thanks," I said as I shook myself out of my melancholy. Besides, there was no guarantee that anyone would still be living.