Stolen Clothe

Chapter 3 - Stolen Clothes

"Hurry… There're too many zombies… Watch out on your left!"

"This side is blocked… There's no way through…"

"Ah!"

"Lin Yu..."

"Don't go over there! Lin Yu's hand has been scratched by zombies..."

"Don't come over! Captain! Don't let me turn into a zombie… Hm… Kill me now… I… Captain..."

"Lin Yu! Lin Yu!"

On the other side, the battle situation had now changed. The result of the battle was tipping in favor of the zombies as some human squad members had been wounded.

"Captain… Take care of my… sis-sister… for me..."

...

"No! Lin Yu! You hang in there! That's an order! What would Lin Yan do if you died?"

Lin Qiao didn't hear these conversations with her ears. Instead, the words just appeared in her mind. In addition to these, she had also been hearing other voices, some of which were repeating two words over and over.

'So hungry… So hungry… So hungry…'

These voices were like tiny hammers that had been ceaselessly pounding her brain. Because of them, Lin Qiao suffered a splitting headache once again. She bared her teeth in pain, slowly twisting her body to struggle.

"Captain… you go! I have got your back! I'll save a bullet for myself! You go now!" Lin Yu gripped his gun with both hands and blew a zombie's head off with a bullet each as he shouted at Captain Li Zheng.

However, Li Zheng wasn't swayed. "No! Lin Yu, we must return with the same number of people as we came out with. I can't leave you here alone!" He insisted.

Lin Yu shouted hysterically, "Captain! There are too many zombies! We can't all leave! Someone has to stay and cover the rear. I'm already infected by the virus! I'll become a zombie whether I make it back or not! Let me do this!"

For some reason, Lin Qiao felt a jolt of recognition when she heard the name 'Lin Yu'. However, the piercing pain in her head stopped her from thinking clearly, making her tumble on the ground while screaming and pounding her head with her hands.

"Roar..."

Waves of pain distorted her perception of the surrounding environment. By the time she recovered, another day had passed away.

She lied on the ground while gazing at the sky. She had no idea how long she had lain there. The only sensation available to her right now was hunger. She was so starving!

However, when she covered her stomach with her hands, her stiff hands only found a hole.

She was speechless.

'Damn it! I don't even have a stomach! How could I still be hungry?'

Lin Qiao wanted to stand up, but she immediately realized that her body would not obey this command.

Why wouldn't her knees bend? How was she supposed to stand up like this?

After struggling on the ground for a while, Lin Qiao finally got up.

'Damn it! The life of a zombie is so hard!' She was starving, but what could she do? She wanted to eat so, so badly! Even though she wanted to find her family, she needed to fill her 'stomach' to give herself the strength to look for them!

Lin Qiao raised her nose, sniffed around and sensed a faint, sweet aroma.

She lowered her head to look at her stomach and chest, then raised her stiff arms, trying for some time to bend her finger joints and pull at her ragged clothes.

'Hmm, these rags can't cover my body.'

It seemed that she needed to find some decent clothes to cover herself with first.

She was now a zombie. How was she supposed to live her life hereafter? What should she do when she was hungry? Eat human beings? That wouldn't be possible! But, would she starve to death if she didn't eat human beings? She could always replace human beings with other living things, right?

Lin Qiao moved her feet and tried to walk forward, but she found that her extra heavy legs were as stiff as her arms. Thus, it was extremely hard for her to walk normally.

She could only move slowly toward a shopping mall step by step.

In this apocalyptic world which had been deserted for five years already, Lin Qiao had no idea why didn't she wake up until now, neither did she know if her family survived the destruction of the old world, or if they were even alive right now.

She should at least go back to her hometown and try finding them. However, finding a way back seemed to be a little difficult under the current circumstances! The internet had been paralyzed in the city, and telecommunication was already impossible. The ruins lay everywhere, making Lin Qiao feel awfully disturbed. She watched the zombies shamble all over the place, and even wondered if she should feel lucky for becoming a conscious zombie. After all, it would be much more convenient for her to move around like this.

To go back to her hometown, she needed to find a car first. She could only go back once she had transportation. However, at this moment, finding some clothes was a more pressing matter. However, even after putting in quite a lot of effort in searching through the entire shopping mall, she failed to find any wearable clothes, or even suitable fabric!

Even more annoyingly, the search had exhausted her highly disabled body. 'Strange! Why would zombies feel tired?' She wondered.

Lin Qiao sat by the front entrance of the shopping mall while struggling with this question. She raised her head and glanced at the sky, finding that it was noon already. She then glanced across the zombies lumbering around and suddenly had an idea.

She could borrow clothes from those zombies, couldn't she?

With this thought, she fixed her eyes on a female zombie in a long dress and stood up immediately, walking toward it.

"Roar… Roar… oar!"

What she had said was, 'You! Stop!'.

The female zombie stopped moving and turned her already-broken neck while tilting her pale face at an impossible angle toward Lin Qiao.

"Roar?"

Lin Qiao stared at the female zombie's pale gray eyes with her own pure black ones and continued roaring, "Roar… roar… roarrrrrr!"

'Lend me your clothes,' she said.

"Roar?"

Clearly, this zombie wasn't intelligent, and was having trouble understanding her.

Lin Qiao stopped roaring, walked straight up to the female zombie, and raised a hand to rip her clothing.

"Roar!" The female zombie suddenly went crazy and raised her zombie claws to scratch Li Qiao's face when she saw the latter trying to rip off her clothes. Lin Qiao instinctively tilted her head and dodged the claws while slapping the female zombie's face at the same time. 

Crack!

This female zombie's head, which was tilted on her neck, was slapped off clean by Lin Qiao and fell onto the ground.

'Hmm? Eh?? Damn it! How could it just fall off? Was it no more than a piece of skin that was holding her neck and head together before?'

Lin Qiao was astounded, gazing at her own claws. Had she grown stronger? Or, was the head falling off already?

'This zombie should have followed my words while I was being nice! How dare it attack me first?' Lin Qiao raised a foot and angrily kicked the headless zombie.

Thud!

The zombie fell onto the ground.

Lin Qiao slowly moved toward the female zombie and tried to squat down beside it…

'Damn it! I can't even bend my knees!'

In the end, she directly sat on the ground.

She bent down from the waist and ripped off the female zombie's clothes. Fortunately, her fingers were still agile.

With more than a little difficulty, she finally managed to put on the zombie's gray, dusty dress. She then crooked her stiff hands, buttoned up the dress, and dusted it off. Finally, she looked a little more respectable now.

At this moment, Lin Qiao again caught a whiff of the attractive aroma and followed it slowly.

She was so hungry! She needed to find the source of that aroma and figure out if it were edible.

After pondering briefly, Lin Qiao moved her stiff legs and followed the aroma step by step. However, her movements were agonizingly slow. She had no way to speed up, because her legs wouldn't allow it. If she forced them, she would just end up falling face down on the ground.