58 Volume 3: Zombies (1/2)

Yan Li felt the whole hill shudder and almost tripped from the ground moving under him unexpectedly. Brushing off the dirt that the ceiling had dumped on his head, he hoped Shan Hui kept control of himself. If his Older Bro got too aggressive it might cause the entire underground structure to cave in on them. That was fine for later, but right now he had a search to complete.

There were ten rooms and a single, large bathroom. The place was like some strange underground fortress, with a kitchen and food storage area. You'd never know such a big place existed from the outside. Unfortunately it was empty, not even the kitchen containing a single morsel.

Except for one room.

The one that wasn't empty… He thought the shock of seeing his Mother had been bad enough, but these disgusting kidnappers somehow managed to top themselves.

In the center of a room was another circle, but it looked very different from the others. The others had the Five Elements written on them, with some kind of incantation linking each Element together. But this circle had no Nature Elements, but instead had a giant X with the incantations along the four straight lines. And each of the four lines lead outside the circle, with the ends having another circle attached. Sitting within each of these circles was a body.

More precisely, a corpse. Four of them.

The nearest one was shriveled, as if it'd been drained of blood. On the face of the corpse was an expression of agony. The room reeked of evil and death, so much so he almost vomited. He took a step back to leave, deciding that this room was better dealt with by his smarter siblings, when a movement caught his eye.

He watched for a moment and saw slight signs of breathing from one of the corpses. Or what he'd thought had been a corpse. Someone was still alive in this death filled room.

Using his sleeve to cover his nose and mouth, he took cautious steps forward. He poked the body with his foot and heard a gasp, as if someone was in pain.

He knelt down to get a better look.

It was a little girl.

If Auntie's daughter was any standard to judge by, this girl couldn't be more than seven or eight years old. She was so emaciated she was almost as bad as the blood-drained corpses. How she had the strength to move or make any kind of sound, he didn't know.

Even if he was a little slower than the other two, he understood well enough: This circle had been taking the lives of these people. Based on the size of the other corpses, at least one other had been a child too. Two adults, two children. These were human sacrifices.

His heart cried out in despair. Why would anyone do this? What great power could this circle give that was worth murdering, much less murdering innocent children? How could anyone be this evil?

Without any care to what might happen, he impulsively scooped the little girl out of the circle. Even if she was doomed to die, he couldn't leave her in this kind of place. He just couldn't.

The moment her body was separated from the floor, the circle gave a strange glowing pulse of blood red. The other bodies, the truly dead corpses, began to stir. Arms and legs began to stiffly move. Dried shrunken faces lifted up to stare at him with dead, unseeing eyes. They moaned as their bones creaked and they struggled to rise, shriveled hands reaching out to him.

Yan Li froze for half a second and then screamed in a high pitched voice, which surprisingly did not wake up the girl he was carrying, and ran out of the room at top speed. No one had ever told him he'd have to fight dead people! He could tolerate a lot of things, but re-animated corpses turned out not to be one of them.

——

Shan Hui had just finished breaking another bone of his Mother's harasser when he heard Yan Li's scream. He'd turned to see what had happened when his younger brother came screaming into the room, colliding into him, smelling of death.

”Wha—?”

”Scaryscaryscaryscaryscaryscary!”

”Calm down! What is—”

”They're moving! They're moving—!!!!!”

”What's moving?”

”The corpses!”

Shan Hui paused, unsure of how to take such news.

”Corpses…?”

Groans sounded from the hallway and Yan Li squealed like a frightened girl, trying to fold his needlessly large body so it was small enough to hide behind his much smaller Older Brother.

Shan Hui didn't bother asking what was going on, he just marched forward to see for himself.

The smell of death grew stronger and he was forced to cover his nose and mouth with his sleeve.

Three… things… were shuffling around in the hallway somewhat aimlessly. Since Yan Li called them corpses, he assumed that's what they were. When the corpses 'saw' Shan Hui, they sprinted forward and made to attack him.

He gave a mighty shudder, as their nearness also carried a strong taint of evil. His hands and feet lashed out, kicking and hitting the corpses without any mercy. They were easily pushed back and fell onto the floor like ugly rag-dolls.

Shan Hui turned to ask his younger sibling exactly what these were when he felt something hit him. Looking down he was surprised to see the smallest corpse he'd just finished hitting had stood back up and made a run at him. Even as he dealt with this one, another came up to take it's place.

After dealing with this several times, he realized these things were really dead. No matter how much he hit them, they just kept coming back. Worse, even if he broke off an arm, it didn't make any difference. They'd either keep attacking or just re-attach the limb. Even lopping off their head didn't slow them down, and the bigger ones actually used their decapitated heads as weapons.

It was not that they were very strong, but they were persistent. Even though he wasn't afraid of being seriously injured by their attacks, he also wasn't able to do anything with their constant interference. He got progressively more frustrated as he fought them. He wasn't on the mountain, he couldn't just call power to himself instantly to dispose of them. He needed time to prepare!

Between arms and heads getting tossed at him, bodies slammed against him and attempts to gnaw off his flesh, he concluded that fleeing was the best option. If he could get away from them for just a few moments, he could use fire to incinerate them. If Yan Li could fight them off a bit or start the process…

But no. His younger brother wasn't going to be any help. Besides being absolutely terrified of these dead bodies, his elemental manipulation was still weak. Having him around just meant he'd get in the way and possibly be hurt. Shan Hui couldn't afford having another family member seriously wounded.

”Take the kidnapper and leave.” Shan Hui finally ordered Yan Li, vexed at the whole situation.

”B-but you—!”

”Are you going to fight these corpses instead? If not, get out of here, you're just in my way!”