Caught a Cowardly Little Zombie - Chapter 2

It was broad daylight by the time Chu Xiaoran finally opened her eyes. Thick clouds smothered the sun, casting the entire world into a dim, heavy gloom.

Cut off from the outside world within the confines of the operating theater, she had no way of knowing how much time had passed or what had become of the world beyond those walls. She tried to push herself up, but her vision was a blurry mess. Her clouded brain felt like a rusted machine, the gears groaning and clicking into place with painful slowness. She sat there, staring blankly for a long while before realizing she was actually sitting up. Slowly and with agonizing stiffness, she began to shift her weight.

As she moved, the surgical drape covering her slid off, succumbing to gravity and revealing a body that was smooth yet tinged with a faint, sickly shade of blue-green. She looked down to see three sutured incisions on her abdomen, surrounded by the yellowish stains of dried iodine.

Her brain continued its sluggish restart. Xiaoran tilted her head, pondering for an eternity before concluding that she couldn’t just go walking around like this. It wasn’t right. She needed to wear something. As for why it wasn’t right, her rusted mind couldn’t quite produce a coherent reason just yet.

Deciding not to overthink it, she braced her stiff body and tried to pick up the fallen drape at “top speed.” In reality, her “fastest” was a glacial crawl, no quicker than a hundred-year-old woman.

Once wrapped in the green surgical cloth, Xiaoran began to move like a slow-motion green barrel. Her stiff neck creaked as she turned it left and right, the bones making a series of sharp clacks. After a few rotations, the sound softened, as if a long-abandoned machine had finally been primed with a bit of oil. Her vision remained hazy, her eyeballs covered by a semi-transparent white film that made her surroundings look like a dream, but she could see clearly enough to know there were no living things nearby.

The room was about twenty square meters, and the door was shut tight, seemingly blocked by something on the other side. Xiaoran had no idea how to open it. She spent over an hour wandering aimlessly around the room, finding no other way out.

The door to the theater had a glass pane. Peering through it, she could just make out several figures flickering in the hallway. Excitement surged through her, and she began to wobble toward the door. It was a mere ten meters away, yet it took her five minutes to reach it.

“He—llo—?”

Xiaoran’s tongue felt thick as she struggled to squeeze out the greeting. Only then did she get a clear look at the man outside. He was shirtless, with a deep, jagged gash in his chest that exposed lungs and a trachea that were already beginning to blacken. His face was a bruised purple and his eyes were hollow, but with her poor eyesight, Xiaoran didn’t realize the horror of it. She simply thought the man looked a bit… eccentric.

The man outside leaned in, pressing his face against the glass. Deciding Xiaoran wasn’t “food,” he turned and shuffled away.

Several more “people” passed by, their leg joints so stiff that they swayed back and forth like soulless puppets. Finally, Xiaoran realized something was very wrong.

Most of them were covered in crusts of dried blood. Some wore hospital gowns, others wore green surgical scrubs. They were likely the doctors who had been mid-operation but they all shared the same blue-green complexion, clouded eyes, and rigid movements.

After a long bout of thinking, she realized the things outside were no longer human. And she, in all likelihood, wasn’t human either.

How depressing! Xiaoran slumped into a corner, her spirit wilting. What if she couldn’t get out? Would she starve? Would she die of thirst? There wasn’t a single living thing in this room; if she stayed here alone, wouldn’t she die of boredom?

She didn’t realize that just processing those few questions had cost her another half-hour.

As time ticked away, a faint, sweet scent suddenly brushed against her nose. The smell triggered an instinctive rush of saliva, and her fangs felt as if they were about to burst through her gums. Her teeth ached with an itch so intense she had to grind them together, creating a harsh creak-creak sound.

The scent grew stronger. Drool began to leak from the corner of Xiaoran’s mouth, and a low, guttural whimper escaped her throat.

Outside, the other zombies had caught the scent too. They grew agitated, growling as they lurched toward the source of the fragrance. A commotion erupted near the main doors at the end of the hallway, and the sweet aroma became intoxicatingly thick. Then came the sound of footsteps and muffled voices.

“Boss, why the hell are we going into the operating rooms?”

“Use your head! There are scalpels in there! Those things are razor-sharp. You tie one of those to a stick, and you can slice through a zombie’s skull like butter!”

“Boss, you’re a genius! But… listen to that noise. There are a lot of them in there!”

“Use the explosives! We need to finish this fast before the ones from the other wings catch on!”

The voices vanished, replaced by a rustling sound—likely the setting of a charge—followed by the frantic patter of retreating footsteps. Then, a massive BOOM shook the floor. The door was blown wide open. Most of the zombies behind it were shredded instantly, while the survivors snarled and lunged toward the sweet-smelling “food.”

Xiaoran instinctively tried to stand up, her nose twitching as the scent lured her toward the glass door. She wanted to join the howling chorus. But the sudden blast snapped her back to her senses, followed immediately by the rhythmic bang-bang-bang of gunfire.

Ahhh! Those people have bombs! They have guns! They’re like savages! So violent! So scary!!

Terrified, Xiaoran wobbled back to her corner. She pulled the surgical drape tight around her body and used her trembling, stiff hands to yank the cloth over her head, turning herself into a giant green quail. She began to chant a mantra in her head: You can’t see me, you can’t see me…

The noise outside died down, and she heard a man growl, “Move it! Scalpels, anesthetics, glucose, disinfectant—grab it all! Fast, fast, fast!”

The sweet scent drew closer, as did the heavy, clomping footsteps. Xiaoran gripped her drape with all her might, fighting the urge to surrender to the aroma. Saliva spilled from her lips, and her fangs practically vibrated with the need to bite something. She felt a ravenous hunger, as if she hadn’t eaten in an eternity. It was a gnawing, bone-deep hollow that made her vision swim. Those people outside were like soft, sugar-coated cakes; one bite would be so sweet, so delicious, and her hunger would vanish. But her remaining logic told her that if she showed her face, those people would kill her without a second thought. All she could do was clench her teeth and shiver in the corner.

Thud! The glass door was kicked open. Two men peeked inside cautiously; seeing no zombies, they began frantically snatching up instruments and medicine.

Peeking through a tiny gap in her cloth, Xiaoran watched the two menacing men wielding their clubs. Her fear far outweighed her hunger, and her heart began to wail.

These people are terrifying! Look at the size of them—they look so mean! They’re just looting everything like a pack of bandits! Waaaah, help! Mom, I want to go home!!

The room she was in didn’t have much to offer. The men only grabbed a few spare scalpels and some leftover anesthetics before rushing out. In their panic, they never even noticed the bundle of green cloth tucked in the corner.

Like a swarm of locusts, the group swept through and vanished just as quickly as they had arrived.

As the sweet scent drifted away into nothingness, Xiaoran finally stood up, moving her stiff limbs with agonizing slowness. Fortunately, the “bandits” hadn’t bothered to shut the doors behind them. A spark of excitement flickered in her chest. She could finally… get… out!

The hallway was a disaster zone. Scraps of furniture were strewn everywhere, and the floor was littered with the charred remains of limbs and the bodies of zombies whose heads had been blown open.

Seeing the carnage, Xiaoran felt a cold chill run down her spine. She instinctively touched her own neck and head, pulling the green drape up higher to cover her throat.

Suddenly, a crunch-crunch sound echoed from a corner. She turned to see the man with the exposed lungs; he had been blown apart, leaving only his upper torso, yet he was still dragging himself across the floor with his hands. His expression was blank, as if losing half his body was of no concern to him at all.

Poor guy, Xiaoran thought with a sigh. She turned away and began her wobbling journey toward the exit.

Being unfamiliar with the hospital layout and hampered by her own sluggishness, it took her an entire day just to find the building’s exit.

The world outside was a wasteland. The walls were scarred, trash was piled everywhere, and the stench was overwhelming. The streets were now home to countless shambling, soulless husks.

The once-bustling avenues were deathly silent, filled with rotting corpses and stains of dark, brownish blood. As she walked, she noticed that the zombies outside had clearly been through some battles. Many were missing pieces. The one closest to her had skin like shriveled parchment, with veins bulging like a spiderweb. Half of its cheek and lip had been torn away, leaving a gaping hole where pus-filled blood leaked down. Its yellowed teeth were flecked with bits of red and white—the remains of its last human meal. Every time it took a step, its mangled, skeletal hand dangled precariously from its arm.

Gross! That is beyond ugly!

Overcome with disgust, Xiaoran hurried away as fast as her legs would carry her. Then, a new fear took hold: Wait… do I look as hideous as that? If I do, that would be the most horrifying thing in the world!

No. I have to find a mirror.

But as a “handicapped” zombie, how was she supposed to find one? Her rusty brain churned for a long time without success. She felt as though she had lost her mind; her memory was a blank slate, retaining only basic survival instincts while everything else had been wiped clean.

When she passed a shop window, she saw a dark, grimy reflection. It was enough to make her eyes light up. A mirror!

She leaned in for a closer look. Despite her hair being a bit dry, it was still as clean as it had always been. Her face was pale blue and her eyes were white, but her features were perfectly intact. Her hands were a bit thin and her nails were black, but other than a bit of dirt and blood on her bare feet, she was quite tidy. After all, she had been very careful to avoid touching anything “yucky” on her way out.

She was a clean little zombie, after all!

Just as she was admiring her reflection, the sudden roar of a car engine erupted from behind her.

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