On January 20, 2013, at 7:30 a.m., Zhang Xiaoqiang was startled awake by the alarm on his cellphone. After getting out of bed, he went to the living room and, as usual, took stock of the remaining supplies. The Chinese cabbage he had risked his life for five days ago was still more than half left, about four to five kilograms of rice, but he had run out of cigarettes yesterday. The days without cigarettes made him, a seasoned smoker, extremely uneasy.
A sound of impact came from the security door.
For the past five days, the zombies outside the door had been relentlessly trying to break down the iron door. Their thirst and greed for flesh kept them guarding his door like loyal dogs.
The stench of decay inside the house had become more intense, but fortunately, Zhang Xiaoqiang had grown accustomed to it. Sometimes, subconsciously, he thought that only this smell was normal. The past was slowly fading away from him, leaving only the instinct to survive.
He walked into the kitchen, turned on the induction cooker, poured yesterday's leftover preserved meat rice into a frying pan, added the chopped cabbage and water, and boiled it. After it was cooked, he divided it into two portions, one for breakfast and one for dinner.
After finishing breakfast, Zhang Xiaoqiang, as usual, walked to the window of the computer room and looked down at the zombies below, at the end of the road, and at the dim, heavy, and oppressive sky. The obscure clouds carried a hint of chilling air, suppressing his heart and making even breathing feel difficult.
How he wished that at the end of that road, a convoy suddenly appeared, with a row of PLA soldiers standing in camouflage-colored vehicles, sweeping away the despair of the world with their steel guns, driving those putrid zombies into hell, and bringing him back to the days of the past.
But fantasies were still fantasies. The zombies continued to roam around, and Zhang Xiaoqiang still had to worry about food. He returned to the living room, clasped his hands over his head, and prepared for today's physical training. Being a shut-in for a long time had gradually weakened his body. If he wanted to survive, he had to desperately improve his physical fitness. Even a slight improvement now would be good.
"Forty-seven," "Forty-eight"... "Fifty."
... "Phew." Zhang Xiaoqiang exhaled a long breath and placed both hands on the ground. He was exhausted; it had been a while since he had exerted himself this much. Thinking about the zombies outside, still guarding the door, and the dwindling food supply in his home, Zhang Xiaoqiang took a deep breath, clasped his hands over his head, and began again.
He placed the eight-pound hammer in the corner and wiped the sweat off his face with a towel. Two thousand frog jumps and five hundred swings of the eight-pound hammer had taken a toll on him. Breakfast had been digested, and his stomach was starting to growl.
Sitting on the couch, Zhang Xiaoqiang contemplated how to deal with the six zombies outside the door. He had thrown his shield outside and without any defensive weapons, he couldn't overpower the zombies. The anti-theft iron door opened outward, so he couldn't barricade the door from inside. Opening a small gap to deal with them one by one wouldn't work either. Even though he had gained some strength from eating dry rations for a few days, it was still impossible to take on six of them alone.
Unable to come up with a solution, Zhang Xiaoqiang held his head in his hands, vigorously scratching his scalp. He had thought through various options, but nothing seemed feasible. He noticed the Yellow Fruits cigarette box on the coffee table, instinctively reached for it, and shook it before realizing that he had run out yesterday. Glancing at the cigarette butts in the ashtray, he grabbed a piece of white paper, carefully dismantled the remaining tobacco from the cigarette butts, and neatly rolled it into a makeshift cigarette.
He found a lighter, lit it, took a drag, and leaned back on the couch, staring blankly at the landline telephone in his home. He wondered how many months he hadn't paid the telephone bill—was it three or four months? The pretty girl at the telecom office had probably turned into a zombie as well. He had over 80 yuan worth of phone credit left on his mobile phone, which he had contributed to the telecom company in vain. Wasn't he at a huge loss? His mind filled with irrelevant thoughts, and Zhang Xiaoqiang's gaze unconsciously shifted from the telephone wire.
"Wait a minute."
Telephone line? Zhang Xiaoqiang refocused his gaze on the phone line, but couldn't grasp the sudden idea that flashed through his mind.
He stared blankly at the phone line, his brain rapidly spinning. Besides making calls, what else could a telephone line be used for? Hanging clothes, drying quilts, binding things... As he thought, a light bulb went off in his head. "It could be used as a rope!" He stood up and paced back and forth, looking for a rope to tie to the handle of the anti-theft door and secure on the other end. Then, he could open the door without worrying about the zombies pushing it open. He could just open a crack and take them out one by one.
With the idea in mind, Zhang Xiaoqiang found a thin hemp rope in the storage room and tied one end to the iron railing of the window, leaving ten centimeters of length to tie it to the door handle. A hammer was not a suitable weapon, as the space was too small to use it effectively. He found a galvanized steel pipe that was about 1.5 meters long and shook his head. It wouldn't be powerful enough to deal with the zombies.
Continuing to search for his father's toolbox, Zhang Xiaoqiang couldn't help but sigh. Fortunately, his father was a jack of all trades. He went to the countryside to dig canals in the 1960s, became the factory director of an electric motor factory in the 1970s, and even though it was just a small business with a dozen employees, it was still considered an official position. In the 1980s, he opened a restaurant and became one of the first millionaires in the small town!
Unfortunately, his father loved to play, fishing, hunting, and didn't pay much attention to the business. Otherwise, he could have been a small success himself. His father made his own fishing rods and hunting guns, but during the period of strict gun control in China, he threw the hand-made flintlock gun into the Yangtze River out of fear. Although his father had passed away, the tools were still left behind.
"Found it!" Zhang Xiaoqiang pulled out a triangular file. The file was over a foot long and had been stored for quite some time, but the blackened file was still rust-free. The tool steel from the 1970s was definitely of high quality.
He used a knife to shave the wooden handle of the file down so that it could fit inside the steel pipe. He tried it out to make sure it was secure and then nailed it tightly to the connection between the steel pipe and the wooden handle so that it wouldn't come loose at a critical moment.
Everything was ready, and Zhang Xiaoqiang stood behind the door, checking his equipment. His military coat was already clean, but unfortunately, it would get dirty again today. The tap water had been cut off, so he didn't expect to drink it, let alone wash his clothes with it!
With a homemade iron spear in his left hand and the door handle in his right, Zhang Xiaoqiang opened the door.
"Bang"... Zhang Xiaoqiang closed the door again. It was too smelly. The stench of the zombies he had killed a few days ago made it impossible for him to keep his eyes open.
There were no masks at home, so Zhang Xiaoqiang found a woolen scarf and covered his nose and mouth. He sprinkled some floral water on the scarf before feeling a bit better.
He opened the door again, and a black claw reached out towards his face, as the owner of the claw tried to squeeze through the crack of the door. This time, he was prepared and not scared. He carefully observed the zombie, whose flesh on its claws tightened inward, revealing its bones like an eagle's claws. Its sharp nails, along with the withered fingers, stretched back and forth. The zombie desperately tried to push its head through the crack of the door. Its facial skin was the same as its claws, with sunken eye sockets and protruding cheekbones rubbing against the iron door, as if trying to sharpen its head to squeeze through.
Zhang Xiaoqiang held the iron spear with both hands and stabbed it directly into the zombie's eyes, using the triangular tip of the file. He exerted all his strength on the water pipe, pushing it outward with all his might. Although this was his first time holding an iron spear, he only knew to stab outward and couldn't control his strength. However, he felt a burst of blood hidden deep in his bones, and he became excited, feeling like killing all the zombies was just that easy.
Two more claws reached out towards him through the crack of the door, shaking in front of his eyes, and he regained his consciousness. He pulled out the tip of the iron spear, and the zombie's eye sockets turned into deep black holes, slowly oozing dark and sticky blood. The zombie first fell onto another zombie beside it before slowly slumping to the ground, its head facing him, with one pupil-less eye and one black hole oozing black blood. The extreme contrast made Zhang Xiaoqiang feel a chill in his heart.
"There are still five more," he murmured, not looking at the dead zombie.
He had never used a long spear before and could not control his strength. He used his extremely crude and rudimentary spear skills to grind down the remaining five zombies, and when the last zombie fell to the ground, there was a "clang" sound. Zhang Xiaoqiang could no longer hold onto the iron spear, letting it fall to the ground.
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