For Food

Zhang Xiao Qiang was sitting on the floor panting heavily, with one leg stretched out, and the other leg bent. There was a 1.6 metre spear by his side, the triangular spearhead was pointing at the security gate. It was covered in old black foul blood. The green security gates were 7% open leaving a 10cm gap, from where he was sitting he could see several bodies quietly laid outside.

20 days ago they were humans, now they mutated into zombies lying outside.

‘I killed them!!!’

He didn’t feel any guilt from killing them, only the excitement of the victory.

“I did it” Zhang Xiao Qiang told himself.

“I can continue living, I will keep on living.”

After sitting for 5 to 6 minutes he was done resting. Zhang Xiao Qiang picked up his spear and stood up. He untied the thin rope on the door and pushed the door open. There were zombie corpses pressing against the door.

Zhang Xiao Qiang used his spear to push the bodies out of the way before walking out. He observed the area; the corridor outside had 7 bodies strewn all across, he could barely even find an empty spot to take a step. The zombie that he killed 5 days ago was lying face down beneath his feet, with its entire head hammered into pulp and dark blood and yellow brains were splattered everywhere.

Zhang Xiao Qiang did not dare keep looking, he was afraid that if he did he would throw up.

Standing on the heap of corpses he felt a chill to his bones, even the cologne infused scarf could not stop the strong stench.

Zhang Xiao Qiang found the pot lid s.h.i.+eld from 5 days ago and upon picking it up he felt a surge of confidence, even though it was useless against knives and guns, it was capable of blocking the zombies’ claws.

Facing the door, he pushed it open. The house had no lights, the darkness made the air feel cool. He carefully walked to the opposite side of the living room, his body cast a shadow with the dull light s.h.i.+ning on the white floor and his body felt a certain coolness. Zhang Xiao Qiang found the light switch for the living room and turned on the lights for the living room. Under the illumination he could finally feel comfortable.His goal was the kitchen, he dare not enter the other bedrooms, just in case he ran into a zombie and got scratched which would mean he was screwed.

He carefully approached the kitchen. Looking through someone else’s home for something will never feel comfortable, I’ve never attempted burglary in the first half of my life, with the apocalypse Zhang Xiao Qiang had to become a thief.

Not making a sound he slowly approached the kitchen.

Zhang Xiao Qiang heard something scratch at the kitchen doors, his chest tightened, he was afraid of everything! Can G.o.d not give him some peace?

Zhang Xiao Qiang swore, he decided to just bite the bullet and hold out the pot lid in front of him. Using three fingers of his right hand to hold the body of the spear, he used the thumb and index finger to hold the door handle, gently turning and quickly pulling.

Woos.h.!.+

A dark shadow come out of the kitchen. Zhang Xiao Qiang held the s.h.i.+eld with his left hand and pointed the spear at the shadow with his right hand, ready to attack.

After looking carefully it turned out to be the neighbour’s fat cat, the black and orange spotted cat looked at him and ran out.

That cat made his heart flutter.

“Guess facing a cat is harder than facing a zombie”. Zhang Xiao Qiang said to himself as he walked into the kitchen, there was a thin layer of dust on the imitation mahogany dinner table as no one cleaned the kitchen for 20 days. There were only a few plum flower shaped cat paw prints scattered across the table.

Zhang Xiao Qiang opened the fridge,  some of the vegetables have been left there for a while and is no longer fresh, but he didn’t mind and packed them into his pouch. The vegetables and eggs above and the frozen fish and pork below were all taken by him. He also found half a barrel of rice in the kitchen, a jar of pickles, a bag of sugar and some other spices. Zhang Xiao Qiang had to make 2 trips from the kitchen to his house to move everything.

Looking at the food in the living room he felt like he was missing something, and thought of the alcohol and tobacco cabinet next to the TV across from the living room. Zhang Xiao Qiang quickly went and carried the tobacco and alcohol back.

Looking at the corpse outside the door, he thought of a way to get rid of it was it was too smelly. Zhang Xiao Qiang went out looking for a place to leave the body. He saw that the platform with the garden still had 30 more cabbages, now he could freely take them, the desperate situation from 5 days ago still felt like yesterday.

“Gah!!! this stupid virus, this stupid world”

After the apocalypse he had many emotions.

The cabbage isn’t going to run away so he’ll ignore them for now. He went to the platform stairs to see the zombie that he kicked down. Ever since he was attacked by the zombie from opposite of his house he has become careful every time he leaves the house. He slowly walked towards the stairway opening and looked down, at the bottom of the stairs a broken-legged zombie was crawling on the ground. His clothes had become pieces of cloth clinging to his body. It suddenly caught the scent of Zhang Xiao Qiang, and started crawling towards him.

Zhang Xiao Qiang sat on the platform and watched it slowly crawl from the lowest step. Upon smelling a fresh person, it excitedly opened its mouth, baring its sharp teeth, its claws leaving a trail on the cement.

A three point spearhead entered through its nose bridge and pierced the brain. The spearhead rotated left and right , after pulling it out, there was a cup sized hole in its face with dark blood dripping out.

Zhang Xiao Qiang became more and more accustomed to killing zombies, just like when he was younger he would sit in the corner killing ants, There was no excitement, no more fear, only a face of indifference was left. He knew he couldn’t kill all 60 million zombies in the world, so he will only kill the ones that pose a threat to him.

At the bottom of the stairs there is a flower garden. In January the climate makes the vegetation in the garden more bleak; the few 20 year old vines only had a few old leaves and the lawn turns yellow. There are 3 cement plates that form the pavilion, it was a recreational area for the elderly from the 7 buildings, usually it is a popular place. Now there were 30+ zombies in the flower garden wandering around, the closest one was more than 40 metres away. Looking at it until now, it still doesn’t give a reaction, letting him know that you needed to be at least 40 metres away to be safe from a zombie.

There is also a canteen downstairs. Normally it would sell some alcohol, tobacco and condiments but it also sold some rice and eggs.At this point he dare not go there to look for food,  because he would need to go through over 30 zombies!

The platform on the second floor has a garbage disposal. Normally this would serve two buildings. Zhang Xiao Qiang threw the seven bodies in there. It tired him out and he started to sweat but the problem was solved, but he would leave the one by the stairs, it was far from his home anyway so the stench wouldn’t reach him.

Looking across the platform he saw the two families’ houses still open. With some hesitation, by now the units left and right of those are likely to have zombies, and each house had a security gate, so he had no way of opening them. Upon thinking of that, he made a decision. Holding on to the s.h.i.+eld and spear, he started heading towards that direction…

Zhang Xiao Qiang returned to his house’s security gate and placed a pouch at the side of the gate. A filled backpack and a bulging snakeskin bag; these were the rewards for going across the platform. He didnt face any zombies, come to think of it, the six zombies he killed makes up their whole family. Zhang Xiao Qiang quickly dragged the two bags to the sofa to start preparing an inventory of today’s rewards.