It took more than ten minutes of hammering and banging to nail aluminum sheets over all the windows, four sheets per window, forming an X pattern. Brian Carter yanked the boards hard to make sure they were secure, checked once more that the security door was locked, and finally collapsed onto the floor tiles, drenched in sweat.

The cool, smooth white floor was already covered in dust from all the hammering. A faint smell of blood lingered in the air. Even with the windows sealed, the scent of blood from outside was gradually seeping in.

Sitting by the front door, exhausted and scared, Brian Carter felt completely drained. The extreme tension and fear from earlier had sapped his strength. Now that he felt a little safer, drowsiness crept up on him. Having just exercised, his eyelids grew even heavier. Before he knew it, he had fallen asleep leaning against the doorway.

In a daze, he didn’t know how much time had passed.

“Dong dong.” The heavy knocking on the security door startled Brian Carter awake. When he opened his eyes again, the room was pitch black, and there was no light coming through the drawn curtains. Brian Carter tensed up, pressing his ear against the security door.

“Dong... dong dong...” It sounded like something was pounding on the wall. Brian Carter estimated the distance in his mind—it should be the neighbor’s living room next door. The units in this building all had the same layout, with only a wall separating the two living rooms, so any loud noise from the neighbor’s living room could be heard here.

Brian Carter stood up and quietly rubbed his legs. After sitting on the cold floor for so long, he needed to get his blood circulating in case he needed to use his strength. He peered out through the peephole.

All he could see was darkness, but in the gloom, it seemed like a shadow was swaying back and forth.

A heavy, ragged breathing faintly reached Brian Carter’s ears through the door.

“A zombie!” He jumped in fright, nervously backing away several steps, gasping for air.

It seemed the sound of his retreat had alerted the zombie outside the door.

“Hiss...” A harsh scraping sound came from outside the security door, accompanied by a faint stench of rotting meat.

Brian Carter’s expression was uncertain. He stood frozen in place, not daring to move.

The scraping continued, as if fingernails were scratching against steel. Brian Carter could almost picture the zombie’s blood-red eyes, roaring as it clawed up and down the iron door with both hands.

The shrill noise was especially loud in the night.

One minute, two minutes.

“Bang!” The security door suddenly gave a heavy thud, as if something had slammed into it.

Chapter Two

“Bang!” The security door suddenly gave a heavy thud, as if something had slammed into it.

After a brief silence, the scraping resumed.

“No! Something’s wrong!!” Brian Carter’s face changed dramatically. This time, the scraping didn’t sound like just two hands—there was clearly twice as much. That meant another zombie had arrived.

“No! I can’t let them keep scratching, or more zombies will be drawn here.” Brian Carter hurried to the storage room and turned on the light. He grabbed a wooden stake as thick as an adult’s arm—leftover from the last renovation. The storage room was also piled high with leftover wood and several thousand pounds of coal for winter, taking up ninety percent of the space.

Brian Carter examined the stake carefully, making sure the rusty nail sticking out was facing outward as the attack point. He rushed into the bedroom, pulled out a heavy winter coat, and put on three layers, making himself look much bulkier. Then he wrapped tape around the stake to secure it to his arm. The over-one-meter-long stake instantly became a deadly weapon.

The scraping at the door continued. Brian Carter crept over, placing his finger on the light switch on the wall by the door, ready to turn it on at any moment.

He took a deep breath, pulled out his phone, and turned it on in front of his face. Once his eyes had adjusted to the light, he suddenly flipped the living room light switch.

With a snap, the living room was flooded with light, and the scraping outside the security door stopped. Brian Carter gripped the door handle tightly and pushed outward with all his strength.

“Bang!”

He clearly felt a heavy object being knocked aside. Without waiting to see what was at the door, he gritted his teeth and swung the stake wildly outside.

“Bang bang bang bang...”

The heavy thuds echoed in his ears. Faint howls came from outside, and with each blow, black blood splattered, along with occasional spurts of thick white fluid. The stake’s original wood color was now completely black.

Brian Carter kept swinging wildly outside the door until there was no more sound. Only then did he stop, exhausted.

By the light of the living room, he looked outside. A corpse, still vaguely human-shaped, lay at the doorway like a broken rag doll, its head smashed to a pulp, the stench of rot wafting inside.

Wait! There was only one—where was the other one?!

Brian Carter’s expression changed. He raised his right hand, still bound to the stake.

“Roar!!”

Suddenly, a dark shadow lunged in.

Brian Carter felt the world spin as the shadow tackled him to the ground.

A ghastly, blood-soaked zombie face roared as it lunged for Brian Carter’s neck.

“Get off!”