Chapter 64

"Quickly, are you still playing or not?"

In the reception hall, Anna, Silvia, Sarah, and Alan sat around together, playing poker they somehow obtained from somewhere, enjoying themselves.

Meanwhile, Brian kept running up and down the stairs, starting from the first-floor entrance and running to the end of the second-floor corridor, repeating this cycle. Despite being sweaty and exhausted, he showed no signs of stopping.

At the front door, Tracy paced back and forth with a rifle, gazing intently at the sky outside as if expecting something.

It was their third day here, and no one had anticipated the snowstorm lasting this long. However, the storm outside was gradually dissipating, no longer as fierce as the previous days, and they could now clearly see everything outside.

During this time, they hadn't encountered any survivors fleeing or infected chasing them. The entire city seemed to have fallen silent, as if everyone had disappeared, leaving only them.

"How's it going? Any updates?" Brian wiped the sweat from his forehead and approached Tracy. "Still no luck contacting them?"

With a sigh, Tracy shook her head in frustration. "I've been trying to reach them on the military frequency for days, but still no response."

Listening to their conversation at the door, Wilfred, sitting on the couch, looked concerned. "So... do we keep waiting?"

He then pointed to the backpacks lying nearby. "We've used up a lot of our food in these three days. We need to save some for the road to Atlanta. If we can't contact them, we have to leave soon!"

Perhaps sensing the seriousness of the situation, the four people who were originally playing cards put down their poker hands and turned their heads to look at them.

"Look, there's a red light over there!"

At that moment, Sarah suddenly noticed something in Brian's direction. A red light appeared in her pupils, and she pointed outside, shouting loudly.

Without her saying anything, everyone's gaze was already fixed on the direction where the red light appeared.

The red light shot up into the sky, hovering at a very high altitude, then slowly descended from the sky, emitting a dazzling red glow, especially conspicuous. It was undoubtedly the light from a signal flare.

"Great, the commander finally launched the signal flare!" Tracy looked up at the red light in the sky, her expression changing from surprise to excitement, shouting with joy.

The others hurriedly gathered at the door to watch. They had just begun to plan to head to Atlanta when the signal flare suddenly appeared.

Brian watched the direction where the signal flare fell. It should be about ten kilometers to the east. If they followed the road in that direction, they could probably reach it in less than two hours.

Seeing this, he clapped his hands and said to the others who were still watching, "Alright, now that we have a target, let's pack up and leave as soon as possible. Let's try to reach there within two hours!"

Everyone listened and quickly turned to their backpacks, gathering up the scattered items on the couch.

Brian returned to the couch, strapped on his backpack, and then hung the shotgun, which he had assembled a few days ago, on the side of the backpack. At that time, it had naturally attracted everyone's attention, but since they were not bound by any rules of the convoy now, having an extra gun for self-defense was always a good thing.

Then he picked up another backpack and handed it to Sarah, who was next to him. As for the handbag that had lost its shotgun, it was handed to Alan. After all, it only contained some women's items, which could be discarded at any time.

In no time, everyone was ready to go, each holding some weapons for self-defense. Since bullets were limited, they couldn't rely solely on firearms, and knives were too short. So they prepared some longer weapons to deal with scattered infected more easily.

Opening the door of the reception hall, a gentle breeze blew over their heads. The trees on the roadside were now bare, with leaves scattered all over the ground, and ice cones hanging from the branches.

Following the road forward, after about fifteen minutes, they returned to the entrance ramp to the interstate highway.

Here, dozens of buses from the convoy had stopped, covered with thick snow after three days of blizzards. From the appearance of the bulging snowdrifts, it could be seen that there were bodies inside.

Wilfred cautiously approached one of the snowdrifts, pulled out the bodies, and found a middle-aged man who looked to be in his forties, with the same yellow skin as Brian, indicating he was Asian.

He squatted down and observed the body for a while, trying to see if there was anything useful, but soon he made a light sound of surprise. He began to move the body, as if searching for something.

When Wilfred turned the body over, he found a bright red patch on the back, with several clear bullet holes.

Afterward, he didn't bother with the body and went on to the other snowdrifts, pulling out the bodies and searching through them. Soon, several bodies were unearthed from the snow.

"Dad, what's going on?" Anna looked at her father's actions with some confusion and walked up quickly, looking at Wilfred, who had stopped moving and seemed lost in thought.

After scanning the bodies that had been unearthed, Brian pondered for a moment and also noticed the anomaly on these bodies. With a flash in his eyes, he somewhat understood Wilfred's actions.

Glancing at the most recently unearthed body, Wilfred seemed to confirm something and slowly stood up, saying to everyone, "These people weren't killed by infected. They were shot from behind."

Tracy also approached, looking at the bodies lying face up on the ground, and said softly, "That's right, the gunshot wounds on their backs indicate they were shot from behind. They were probably intended to delay the infected, but is it strange when such things happen when the infected break out of the hospital? Is there anything unusual?"

"Being shot from behind isn't surprising, but what's strange is that they all died together. Have you seen any bite marks from infected?" Brian stepped out from behind and explained Tracy's confusion.

"What?"

Upon hearing this, Tracy was stunned for a moment and quickly squatted down to search the bodies nearby, finding no traces of any infected bite wounds.

"Exactly!" Wilfred praised Brian after noticing this. He found that this kid really suited his taste.

"I just noticed that there are no infected bodies nearby. Although the distance varies, it can be confirmed that none of these people were bitten by infected. All of them were shot from behind, and the types of guns used were different. Obviously, it wasn't just pistols. The key is that all their firearms and backpacks are missing. I'm afraid..."

When Wilfred said this, everyone's gaze turned to him, waiting for his continuation.

But Wilfred didn't say anything more. Instead, he looked at Brian, as if wanting him to continue speaking.

"Um..."

Brian didn't understand why he was doing this, hesitated for a moment, and then slowly said, "Someone deliberately killed these survivors and looted their belongings. These people must have been caught while fleeing, so they were shot from behind. That's why their wounds are all in the back, and the number of people killed should be considerable. They

 still had shotguns and rifles in their hands, probably obtained from a military supply truck."

"..."

After hearing Brian's words, everyone fell silent, looking at the bodies on the ground. In their minds, they could vividly see the expressions of fear and disbelief on the faces of these fleeing survivors, as well as the ferocious and ugly faces of their killers.

Although they had anticipated such things happening sooner or later, when faced with such cruelty, they couldn't help but feel breathless.

"How could this happen!"

Anna and Sarah covered their mouths lightly, unable to accept such a thing with their kind hearts.

As Brian finished speaking, he also felt somewhat suffocated, clenching his fists slightly. He felt a strong aversion to such acts of arbitrarily taking others' lives.

But what could they do? Everything would remain unchanged as long as this damn apocalypse continued for another day. As long as society's order wasn't restored for a day, these kinds of things would continue to happen, and as time passed, people would gradually forget everything from the old era. Then, such events would no longer stir up any waves in the hearts of the people of the new era!