Pushing open the iron gate, Keke led the way, cradling a Type 56 rifle, her footsteps hushed as she swiftly surveyed both sides of the corridor.
It was somewhat peculiar that the zombies seemed to have converged at the far end of the hallway, drawn by some unknown lure.
Adhering to the principle of not provoking trouble unnecessarily, Keke signaled for silence, gesturing for the others to follow, but the three high school students in the middle of the group were notably sluggish.
By the time Keke had descended to the third floor, her rifle shouldered and aimed at the as-yet-unattracted zombies in the corridor, the three high schoolers remained stranded on the landing between the third and fourth floors.
A tall, slender student zombie on the third floor, its back partially turned to Keke, seemed to detect the faint footsteps of the humans.
With a perpetually grim expression, the zombie slowly turned its head, observing Keke, who was pointing a rifle directly at it, with an unsettling curiosity.
‘Could you not pretend nothing is happening?’ Keke silently pleaded within her mind.
Almost simultaneously, however, the gaunt zombie’s mouth tore open, stretching into a grotesque grin that revealed crimson gums, seemingly still clinging to some mangled flesh and debris.
Witnessing this horrifying sight, the high schoolers who had just descended the stairs were about to scream when Keke decisively pulled the trigger.
The raw, violent roar of the Type 56 automatic rifle reverberated through the entire stairwell, blasting away half of the slender zombie’s head.
“Target silent at ten o’clock! Classroom door at one o’clock!” Keke barked out the immediate situation at top speed.
Close behind her, Jing Lan quickly brought up his MP9, its stock now extended, and shot down the zombie peering out from the classroom door directly opposite the stairwell.
No sooner had the gunshots faded than a chorus of resentful groans echoed through the corridor.
Immediately, a hundred responses followed, with countless zombies erupting into howls.
The horde, which had been clustered at the end of the hallway, wheeled around in unison, their eyes, like blossoming sparks, fixed on the group before they began flailing their arms and rushing forward.
It was clear, then, that a quiet escape was no longer an option.
Keke dispatched the nearest zombies with a few precise bursts, then shouted again, “Jing Lan, switch positions! Cover the others as they go downstairs!”
Jing Lan, with his supply bag slung over his shoulder, shot down several zombies on the right side of the corridor with his submachine gun, then yelled to the three high schoolers, “Move, now!”
The siblings each fired bursts down their respective sides of the corridor.
Keke, having trained somewhere unknown, demonstrated an exceptional feel for the AK, using only controlled bursts to tear through dozens of zombies surging from the left side of the hallway, sending gore flying.
She could even instantaneously judge which zombie to shoot to achieve a pass-through, knowing the stray bullet would continue to injure the zombies behind.
Her ammunition usage was remarkably efficient.
While Jing Lan’s marksmanship, suppressing the right corridor, was also commendable, his unfamiliarity with the MP9 meant his control over the weapon was less than perfect, and his attempts at headshots occasionally missed.
Switching to shooting the chest and abdomen, though effective in knocking zombies down, revealed their tenacious vitality, as they would often continue to crawl for a distance on the ground.
Consequently, Jing Lan had to fire extra shots, quickly expending his thirty Parabellum rounds.
“Reloading!” he called out, reloading as he descended the stairs.
Gao Fei, pistol in hand, followed behind him, preparing to deal with the zombies coming down from the fourth floor.
Despite having trained as a soldier in his youth, Gao Fei, having not handled a gun for so long, struggled to execute all the intricate details required for accurate shooting.
Thus, he primarily aimed for the zombies’ bodies.
After firing, he would simply switch to another weapon and continue shooting.
Though the P22 pistol was a popular product in recent years, its 5.588mm rimfire cartridges were an ancient, common type, hardly powerful.
It often took two or three shots to suppress a single zombie.
Keke was forced to redirect her muzzle to help Gao Fei suppress the incoming fire.
As Keke fired her last shot, Jing Lan, having already reloaded and initially cleared the second floor of zombies, immediately turned back to provide cover for Keke while she reloaded.
More teacher-turned-zombies suddenly emerged from somewhere in the stairwell.
Perhaps they had been in a meeting room, discussing countermeasures, but before they could conceive of anything to act as a pea shooter defending the school, the zombies had already devoured their brains.
During the few seconds Jing Lan spent covering Keke’s reload, a girl’s scream, Yu Fang’s, echoed from the second floor.
Turning back, they saw she had been tackled by a male zombie, a scene that, at first glance, resembled some melodramatic campus romance.
Jing Lan quickly turned back again, aimed precisely at the male zombie’s temple, and shot it, sending it toppling sideways.
However, several more zombies on the second floor quickly swarmed forward, like eager shoppers rushing for discounted goods.
Jing Lan felt a surge of anxiety, his magazine seemingly almost empty.
Just then, a room door on the corridor burst open, instantly drawing the attention of several zombies.
Curious and enraged, they peered towards the doorway.
A cold glint flashed as a spear-like object thrust out from within the room, striking a zombie directly in the throat.
It was then deftly withdrawn, only to stab out again, as a pristine white figure lightly leaped out of the room.
The white-haired girl, wearing a cheap Firefly cosplay outfit and glasses, gazed blankly at the boys, girls, and middle-aged man descending the stairs.
She spoke in a somewhat emotionless tone, “I’m here to save you…”
But then, as if suddenly overcome with emotion, her blue eyes welled up, almost trembling.
“Senior…” the girl murmured in astonishment.
A nearby zombie lunged, opening its maw to bite the girl’s neck.
The girl sidestepped, letting go of the long spear and raising her hands.
Only then did Jing Lan notice the silver handcuffs shackling her wrists.
Pressing her hands against the top and bottom of the zombie’s head, she twisted violently.
With the crunch of breaking bone, the zombie’s body went limp.
Jing Lan fired his last few bullets, leaving a few zombies still unhandled, but the white-haired girl quickly snatched up the long spear she had just dropped.
Even with her hands shackled, she raised the spear and thrust it at the neck of the lead zombie.
Black blood splattered as the girl used the spear to guide the zombie’s body sideways, tripping two more zombies rushing up behind it.
At that precise moment, Keke, having just inserted her last magazine, leaped down to the second floor.
Four precise bursts later, she had blown apart the heads of four more zombies.
The white-haired girl retrieved her long spear, and only then did Jing Lan realize it was a mop handle with a knife fixed to it.
It appeared quite sturdy, suggesting it was unlikely to be a makeshift weapon.
At that moment, a slightly overweight young man in a suit, clutching his head in terror, emerged from the room the girl had previously occupied.
Jing Lan peered into the room, observing a desk and stacks of homework, clearly an office.
This man must be a teacher.
‘How has he survived for so long?’
On the desk, there were several packages of spicy strips and bread, along with two bottles of “Keke Cola.”
These were likely snacks confiscated from students for violating school rules and stored in the office.
Unexpectedly, they had saved the male teacher’s life.
“Follow us,” Jing Lan instructed the teacher, who nodded furtively.
Jing Lan then looked at the white-haired girl holding the spear.
“Ye Xuening?”
The girl hesitated slightly, then nodded. “That’s me.”