11 After wedding, of course there will be a party!

After coming out of the bathroom, Zhiqiang found the occupants in the room had reduced. The blond family was nowhere to be found, but their things were still in the rooms. So they must have gone out to do something.

"Ah, Doctor Zhou!" A soft voice suddenly called him from the side of the room. Zhiqiang glanced to side seeing a woman seemed in her late twenties with a long wavy black hair was staring at him. He remembered the woman was one of occupants in this room.

"You are?" Zhiqiang asked politely as he walked toward her. A glance over the room showed Dominick already went out from the room. The man probably went to the military main post.

"Are you okay? Sorry about them, they had been acting really arrogant since the first time they came here. Don't take their words seriously." The woman said referring to the blond family.

"You knew them?" Zhiqiang asked curiously.

"They are Walton Family. They came at the second day after the blackout incident. You should be little careful toward them though, I heard Mrs. Walton's brother is a Colonel here. That's why they are acting so arrogant as if this place is theirs." The woman grumbled in disapproval.

"Colonel?" Zhiqiang raised his eyebrow. So they had been acting so arrogant because they have a high connection in the base, huh. "Do you know who?"

"I don't know the detail. But I heard it is Colonel Gregory." The black haired woman sighed. She then blinked as if just remembering it. "Oh right, my name is Mia Grant Lopez. I was a pharmacist in a hospital in the Brooklyn. Because of my former job, the Military asked me to take in charge of their drug logistic since their previous pharmacist was attacked by mutated beast." She smiled at the black haired man as she extended her hand out for a handshake.

"I heard from Dr. Lewis we have a new doctor, I am surprise to find you in the same room as me. Sorry to not greet you last night. I was a bit tired since there only me who handled the job as pharmacist. I was in the warehouse all day yesterday."

"I see. You had a hard work, Ms. Lopez. I am Zhou Zhiqiang, as you already knew." Zhiqiang accepted the handshake in police gesture.

"Ah, no, no, please call me Mia instead. Ms. Lopez makes me sound old." Mia laughed lightly.

A bathroom door in their room suddenly opened from inside. Zhiqiang glanced to it, feeling a bit surprise since he did not realize since when someone had entered it.

A beautiful girl then walked out from the bathroom. She had a long pretty red hair that lengthened to her waist. Her gait was so graceful and elegant, alongside with her beautiful face she looked like a high aristocrat woman. She had a pair of beautiful green eyes like jades, but they were so cold and distance made people to avoid her.

Mia also noticed her as she stared at her with hidden envy and awe. Any woman would be envy seeing another beautiful woman. The red haired girl did not even glance at them as she walked passing them to exit the room without any expression.

"Who is she?" Zhiqiang asked curiously. He remembered seeing her in the room last night, but she had cold attitude and ignored everyone else in the room.

There was a bit red blush when Mia heard his question. She glanced around at the room shyly before answering the question in low voice, "Her name is Scarlett Williams, younger sister of Colonel Williams."

"Truly?" Zhiqiang looked at her in surprise, not expecting anyone who had connection to the strongest soldier was in his room.

"Yes! I am surprised too! I heard Colonel Williams is really busy, not everyone can see him! But when that girl came here, Colonel Williams escorted her to this room personally! And he is so handsome!!" Mia said almost squealing like a teenager when she said the last sentences. The blush on her cheeks reddened in embarrassment as if just realized her act. She coughed shyly. "Ah, but your husband is handsome too, Doctor. Don't worry!"

Zhiqiang immediately black faced. What the hell did that means?!! He didn't need to be reminded about that pervert, okay?!

"What about the other two?" He asked referring to the Hispanic man who just defended him that morning. The man had already gone from the room since long ago, so he could not ask him personally.

"Oh, you mean Mr. Moore? His name is Ethan Moore. He came here with his wife, Sara. They are really kind, so you can ask them for help if you need anything. Mr. Moore and his wife were botanists before this. I think the military asked them to help the base researching the mutated plants." Mia explained helpfully.

Zhiqiang nodded thoughtfully. So there was the Walton family which consisted of parent, crude blond kid, and little girl, then Colonel Williams's sister, a pharmacist, two botanists in this room. He frowned as he realized he missed one person.

There should be eleven people in this room including him and Dominick. But he only met with eight people. Come to think about it, he remembered the bed above his was empty last night. There was only a blanket and small backpack. But the owner did not come back to the room last night.

"Mia, do you know who has that bed?" Zhiqiang asked pointing to a bed above his.

"Oh that… Sorry, I also never see him." Mia shook her head in negative.

"Him?"

"Yeah, I heard his name is Liam Cortez. He is one of the first survivors who came here on the first day. I only came the day after, so I did not see him. But then, even since I came here, he never show any sign of coming back to the room, only his bag that was left here. But Captain Garcia said he is still in the base." Mia explained.

"I see…" Zhiqiang nodded thoughtfully. After talking a bit more with the pharmacist, they then went to the infirmary to do their daily work. The pharmacy was located right beside the infirmary, so they went there together.

There was less patients who needed a heavy treatment today. Only two soldiers which were attacked by mutated cat beast needed suturing on their chest. Zhiqiang took them under his care so other doctor could handle other patients.

Strangely, there were a lot of patients with a high fever since yesterday. There were about 5 people with a high fever that were admitted to infirmary yesterday while today the amount was twice of them!

All doctors were treating this sickness in puzzlement. All these patients had same symptoms, high fever, shivering, joint pain, headache, vomiting, and weight loss. There were also some patients who had jaundice on their sclera. At first they thought it was just symptoms of infection or flu. But after more patients came with yellow coloring symptoms and continued to hemolysis anemia and convulsion symptoms. They realized it was more serious than they initially thought.

"Have their bloods been tested already?" Zhiqiang asked two doctors after he was done with his patients. There were four doctor including Zhiqiang in the base, Dr. Lewis who was the head doctor and a surgeon, while other two were just general doctor, Dr. Martin, a brown haired man in his middle of forties, and Dr. Evans, a blond haired woman in her early thirties.

Dr. Evans shook her head lightly. "Yeah, Dr. Lewis just took samples of them. We suspected this is some kind of virus infection."

Dr. Martin sighed in agreement. "I am afraid if we did not treat this quickly, it will become a plague."

Zhiqiang nodded grimly.

Doctor was not omnipotent. They could not treat all sickness. They also did not know all sickness. Especially general doctors, they could only treat general sickness and injury, something that needed further examinations like lab tests was beyond a general doctor's skill. Zhiqiang also was not that different. His specialty was neurosurgery. He only knew how to dissect a human body and brain. These kinds of viral diseases were not his forte.

However, as doctor, he still knew one or two knowledge about some diseases, as his profession required him to know a lot of diseases. Therefore after seeing the symptoms, a bad feeling suddenly rang in the back of his mind. If what he suspected were true, then they would face dangerous things.

Because testing some virus or parasite inside bloods was not a surgeon's forte, Dr. Lewis needed sometimes to comprehend the test results. Zhiqiang also decided to help him, but like the old doctor, he needed to refresh his knowledge about virus and parasites again.

Furthermore this was a military infirmary, not a hospital!

Soldier would only have some general sickness and body injury from military training, not complicated diseases from virus or parasite infections. At worst, the military only needed to send their soldier to hospital center for further examinations. It was already fortunate enough they had some basic laboratory equipment like a microscope!

After all day testing, they had not found the corrected results. So they decided to retire for today.

Zhiqiang walked back toward his room with a tired sigh.

Except the guard who worked at night, almost all of survivors finished working before dinner time. Therefore they could be seen walking back home alongside him. Because of limited resources, the water mechanism and electricity were turned off at 9 pm. So people had to use the times they had to do something whatever they wanted quickly.

When he arrived at the room, Dominick was already sitting outside the room like yesterday. After approaching him, he saw the man once again was skinning a carcass.

"I thought you went to work in the main post, not hunting." Zhiqiang commented drily.

The blond man looked up at him and sent him a bright grin. "Who said I did not work, babe?"

"And you came back bringing that?" Zhiqiang glanced at the beast's meat pointedly.

Dominick grinned and showed his prize smugly. A leg of some kind of beast was hung from his hand, with a size about a half of meter in length. "I joined the patrol guard today. We found a mutated dog wandering at the west walls. All members of the team received a part of meat from the beast."

"Dog again?" Zhiqiang sighed. But he guesses it could not be helped. Brooklyn was a city, not some countryside. It was fortunate enough the base did not meet many attack from mutated animal every day. He did not wanted to imagine what would happen if the base was near a zoo in the central park.

"How was the work as guard?" Zhiqiang asked as he watched the man preparing the meat for dinner.

Dominick paused at the question. There was a flash of almost imperceptible emotion on his blue eyes, but it vanished instantly as if it was just an illusion. The man glanced at him in curious expression. "Why, you wanted to join me tomorrow?"

"Stop joking." Zhiqiang rolled his eyes at the man, did not even feel the need to answer that question.

Dominick chuckled amusedly. "Too bad. I felt so boring without you there, doll!"

"Hn, good for you then." Zhiqiang sneered at the man's teasing coldly.

Instead of angry, the man was staring at him even brighter. Without warning, he pinched the younger man's cheek and rubbed them fondly. "Ahh, it seems my doll become more daring now!"

A warm flush quickly filled his cheeks. Zhiqiang slapped the salty paw away in anger. "Who are you calling your doll?!!"

Dominick chuckled in amusement as he saw the adorable red flush came back filling the black haired man's face again. Zhiqiang glared at the man sullenly as he also realized this. His cheeks reddened even more in embarrassment.

Damn it, how could he easily being teased like this?!! Zhiqiang thought with a sullen scowl.

Zhiqiang decided to ignore the man during dinner tonight. So their dinner became filled with the man's non-stop teasing and his sullen face.

After dinner, Dominick threw away their leftover meat to trash cans outside their room. He then walked toward Zhiqiang to bring him inside the room. It was nearing the curfew, so almost all people were already preparing to retire.

Zhiqiang watched him for a while before turning toward the door too. Just he was about to pass the door, rustling sounds suddenly were heard from outside.

Zhiqiang paused his feet and glanced outside again. He frowned as he did not see anything strange. It was dark outside. Not far in front of his room was empty field. Dozens of tents were lining up filling the fields. Between them and his room was only empty yard with trash cans and street lamps standing on it.

After glancing once again to make sure he really just misheard it, Zhiqiang finally entered the room.

Not long after the black haired man closed the door, the rustling sounds were heard again in the outside. A plastic bag which contained leftover meats fell over to the ground while the warping was tore open from outside. Squeaking sounds was heard in the dark shadows. Under the dim light something moved very fast and wiped clean the meats before rushing to disappear again toward their hiding.

..

Next day, Zhiqiang went to the infirmary as usual. He treated some patients before testing some blood samples again from yesterday's patients. Today, they also received six more patients with same symptoms. After taking blood samples from them, he then holed himself in the small lab to test them. Thankfully, there was no other patient except with weird symptoms.

Dr. Lewis let out a tired sigh as he closed another useless book in his hands. He put the book back to shelves and took out another one. The books he had were not much, but thankfully include about some virus and parasites. Even so, he only had a few books about them. Almost all his collection books were about surgery. With network could not be used, they could only rely with whatever books they had in hands.

"You really think it was because of parasites?" Dr. Lewis asked the younger doctor who was still bowing down to microscope. The black haired man had been doing that since morning without break. Seeing him, Dr. Lewis started to feel strains of his old age. He really could not compare to young generation anymore. Holing himself in the small lab to test blood samples non-stop like this really exhausted his mind.

Zhiqiang paused his inspection and look at the old doctor. "I suspected it. We have confirmed there are some abnormalities in all blood samples. I just found some protozoa in some blood samples. I just could not find the type. Do you recognize them, Doctor?"

Dr. Lewis shook his head grimly, knowing what the younger doctor mentioned since he also found them before. There were some similarities in the protozoa with other parasites they knew. But they could not pinpoint the exact type. They suspected the parasites were mutated like other living thing in the world, and it was really the worst possibility and the closest answer they afraid of.

"It is getting late, Dr. Zhou. We are better getting home now before the sky is dark." The old doctor suggested the younger man as he also prepared to go back to his room.

"Yes, be careful, Doctor. I will stay a bit longer before going back." Zhiqiang nodded at the doctor. After the old doctor left the room, Zhiqiang picked a book from the table and opened the pages. On papers could be seen some picture of parasites. He read them carefully as his mind quickly made differences between them with the ones he found on the blood samples. Occasionally he would inspect the blood from the microscope before matching them with the pictures.

He worked for another hour before eventually stopping as he saw the sky was getting dark through window. As he was tidying the table and sample glasses, he became aware of some indistinct noises from floor.

Furrowing his eyebrows, Zhiqiang looked down to check, only to jump back in shock. "What the fuck?!"

Squeaking sounds was bursting out as he kicked in shock at some creatures that were biting his shoes. Those creatures ran around to avoid him, before gathering again toward him.

Zhiqiang cursed and kicked them away in anger. They were rats, a little bigger than normal rats, and there were a lot of them!

He did not know since when these rats were suddenly gathering around him. He almost could not count their numbers as they were filling all over the floor of the small lab!

Zhiqiang cursed aloud as some rats were so persistent and jumping toward his body. He slammed them away with a large book. Fuck, he had to get out of here!!

He kicked and slammed any rats that ran toward him as he ran toward the door. It was difficult because there were a lot of them. He yelped in pain when one of them was succeed biting his hand. He slammed it to the wall in anger, causing it to squeak in pain and spurted out some bloods.

"Damn it!!" Zhiqiang cursed as some rats was climbing up his body. He slammed them in panic as he ran to the door. Just as he was about to open the door, it was slammed open from outside. Zhiqiang yelped in surprise when his body suddenly was pulled by a strong hand. Once his body was thrown outside, sound of gunshot was heard aloud behind him.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Screeching sound from the rats was heard painfully. There was a sound of door slamming before Zhiqiang felt his hand was being pulled again by a strong force. All of those actions were happened so fast that when Zhiqiang could hold his bearing again, he was already running quickly.

Zhiqiang looked up quickly to find a blond figure was pulling him to run. "Dom…" He called out in relief. Not expecting the man to come and save him.

Dominick only grunted and pulled him to run outside. It was then Zhiqiang realized the base was in chaos. Screaming was heard everywhere.

"What has happened?!" Zhiqiang glanced over his surroundings in shock to find the rats were also attacking outside. A lot of people were running in panic. Sounds of gunshot were heard from every direction as the soldiers were shooting the mutated rats. But gun was unsuitable for attacking small creatures. With the numbers of the mutated rats were too much, their attacks could not eliminate the dangerous situation.

Zhiqiang inhaled his breath sharply as he saw the numbers of the mutated rats were countless. Almost all grounds in the base were covered by the mutated rats.

"Where did they come from?" He whispered in fear.

Then as if the party was not horrifying enough, there was a sound of electricity buzz from the lamp and in the next second the darkness fell down on them.

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