Chapter 114: The Shock in the Garage
(with 8.5w nutrient solution extra)
"Who is that? Who is talking? Don't talk nonsense. How could a living person disappear? Did he miss the opportunity?"
Someone in the team raised his mobile phone and shone it back. Several people shone their flashlights at the same time. The young man who was talking immediately closed his eyes subconsciously.
They were all from another community nearby. They knew each other. Even with a mask on, they knew what Xiao Zheng looked like and what he was wearing. However, after waving the flashlight several times, they still couldn't see Xiao Zheng's figure.
"What, what happened?" Someone stuttered, "Why did Xiao Zheng disappear?"
Those who could walk at the back of the team were the backbone of the entire team and had some strength. Xiao Zheng was over 1.8 meters tall. Even if he was attacked by a mutated animal, he should have made a sound or struggled a few times. How could he disappear silently like this?
This is not a horror story...
Although everyone thought so in their hearts, they could not hide their fear on their faces. The stagnation of the team behind was noticed by the other members of the Youxi team. The Gou brothers, who were leading the team, turned back and asked what happened behind.
The two teams gathered together, and the light from the flashlights gathered, making the surroundings much brighter.
After listening to the other party's story, Gou Yaoyang frowned and asked, "Are you sure he disappeared without making any sound?"
In addition to the person who first spoke up and discovered that Xiao Zheng was missing, the other people walking at the back of the team also nodded.
While they nodded, the person walking at the front of the team remembered something and pointed at You Xi, saying that she suddenly stopped at that time. It was because of her stop that the other team behind was forced to stop, and then they discovered that Xiao Zheng was missing.
In an instant, the eyes of the two teams were focused on You Xi.
"My hearing is better than that of an average person. I did hear a subtle sound, but I can't tell what it is."
"Let's look for him first!" Someone in the other team who was more familiar with Xiao Zheng was a little anxious, "We can't just ignore him!"
Gou Yaoyang turned around and asked the team here. It was still the early days of the apocalypse, or in other words, the social order had not yet collapsed. Most people still lived under the law and conscience, and it was impossible for them to show their selfish side all of a sudden.
Someone said he was willing to look, and others agreed.
In order to ensure everyone's safety, everyone did not split up too much. They still divided the two communities into two teams, divided the two areas in the direction they came from, and began to look for people carefully.
After more than ten minutes, the two teams, who had searched in their respective areas without success, returned to the original place and reunited.
There was no movement around, and no strange creatures were found. It was as if Xiao Zheng had disappeared. They even began to doubt whether he had followed the team down to the underground garage.
"He must have come down. He even talked to me at the beginning of the journey..." The young man closest to him was the most devastated at this moment. A living person disappeared silently behind him. "It can't be, there must be a ghost..."
"Don't talk nonsense." Someone retorted.
"What should we do? I'm so scared..."
"Should we keep looking?"
"But we don't know where he went. What if he's not in the garage and went back upstairs?"
"How about we go to the supermarket first and come back and then..."
"What's more important, human life or supplies?"
"We can't just keep waiting like this..." The man sighed, "Just now we were looking in the direction we came from. Could it be that he walked faster, passed us, and went to the front?"
"Is it possible? There are so many people in our two teams. If he really went to the front, someone would definitely find him. Instead of guessing that he went to the front, you might as well guess that he
went upstairs. I think it's more reliable--" The man said, raised his chin above the heads of the crowd, and subconsciously shone the flashlight upwards.
The light flashed by, and the man's voice stopped abruptly when he caught a glimpse of something hanging above.
He suddenly froze in place as if his acupuncture points had been pressed, and his face turned as pale as a ghost. Although he didn't see it clearly, when his flashlight flashed past, what he shone on... was it, was it a person's foot?
There was, there was a person - hanging above them!
He suddenly realized that Xiao Zheng, who they had been searching for in vain, had been hanging right above their heads...
**
"What's wrong with you?" The person next to him frowned, "Why do you suddenly look like this?"
The man's whole body was shaking, and he was so scared that he couldn't make a sound. He just pointed upwards with his trembling fingers.
The next second, several flashlights were shone upwards at the same time, and several people nearby raised their heads at the same time. When they saw the thing hanging above, some people couldn't help but scream at the horror of the scene.
As soon as the sound came out, the person next to him hurriedly covered his mouth with his hands: "Don't shout, it will disturb that thing..."
The thing the other person was talking about was a thick green strip that looked like a vine, but it was also bare and looked like some kind of mollusk.
This green object wrapped around the body of the person above, hanging him on the top of the underground garage, and at this moment this strange thing was still slowly moving on his body and legs.
That thing is alive!
Everyone quieted down and stepped aside a few steps.
Someone asked in a low voice: "Is it Xiao Zheng?"
"Yes, I recognize his pants and shoes."
"Oh my God, is he dead? What is this thing?"
...
Some people whispered in fear, while others calmly planned to save people.
It was a person from the other team, a young man in his twenties, who seemed to be an amateur archery enthusiast. This time he brought a full set of equipment. When the two teams just met, Youxi noticed him.
His teammates saw him silently installing arrows and knew that he was going to save people, so everyone tacitly calmed down, and at the same time, they suppressed their fear and pointed all the flashlights upwards, trying to provide him with the best conditions for saving people.
However, the man's hand that was drawing the bow was gently held down by Youxi.
The other party frowned unhappily and looked at Youxi with a questioning look.
"Don't be impatient, take a closer look, your friend is covering his mouth, as if he doesn't want to make any sound, why?"
Before, everyone avoided Xiao Zheng's face because they were afraid. Now, after You Xi said this, the flashlights in the hands of others slowly moved upwards.
Sure enough, although the other party was entangled by an unknown creature and hung on the ceiling, he was conscious, with terrified eyes, and covered his mouth tightly to prevent himself from making any sound.
He saw the people below shining their lights on his face, and he made a hissing gesture at them, and then carefully pointed in the direction of the other end of the ceiling.
The ceiling of the garage under the shopping mall is originally very high, and most of the lights are turned off at night. Some corners above are not visible at all. Even if you shine a flashlight over there, you can only distinguish a vague shadow.
The light passed by, revealing a long, dark, hairy limb. The limb moved slowly on the ceiling, and gradually retreated from the coverage of the flashlight.
Someone couldn't hold back the scream in his throat: "Yes, it's a spider!"
It was a spider, and a huge mutant spider. Each leg was fluffy and looked about half the size of a human.
In addition to the direction Xiao Zheng pointed, everyone soon discovered that there were two smaller spiders lying in the corner farther away on the roof.
They were originally lurking in the dark, and at this moment, they probably realized that they had been discovered, and they climbed down the wall from the upper corners little by little, coming towards them from different directions.
The largest spider was brown-black, with golden-brown curls covering its limbs, chest, and abdomen. It silently climbed over the wall, landed on the ground, and crawled toward them with its chelicerae raised.
Perhaps because the threat from the rooftop was no longer present, Xiao Zheng, who was hanging by the green vines, finally spoke, but his voice sounded a little unclear, as if he had just regained consciousness: "Be careful... spiders are... poisonous..." As soon as he finished
speaking, an arrow was shot at the largest spider.
The spider reacted quickly and immediately backed away. The arrow brushed the spider's chelicerae and fell to the ground. The spider seemed to be enraged, raised its upper body, and suddenly sped up and rushed over with its chelicerae open.
People in peacetime had never seen such a battle. Even though they had seen all kinds of mutated plants and animals, such a huge spider still refreshed their cognition.
Everyone retreated in panic, but the other two spiders had already landed on the ground silently, and at the same time raised their claws to surround them from different directions, and one of them jumped towards them.
For a moment, everyone was attacked from both sides.
An object similar to a green vine suddenly broke through the air and hit the spider that jumped up hard. The spider was hit directly, and after landing, it turned over on the spot, sprayed a piece of spider silk towards the green vine, and then raised half of its body to show a state of alert.
The green vine failed to dodge completely and was caught by the tail of the spider silk. It twisted violently for a few times and then shrank back.
"Fuck, was this thing helping us just now?"
"Be careful, the spider is coming again!" Someone warned. This time it was the largest one. It bounced more vigorously and was in front of them in a blink of an eye.
While the people in front were busy dodging, someone went in the opposite direction, swung the sharp blade in his hand, and chopped at the spider.
After a brief confrontation, two fluffy limbs fell to the ground, and green liquid oozed out of the broken limbs. The injured spider lay there, trying to raise its chelicerae and making angry cries.
This cry was not loud, but it was like the friction and creaking sound of leather, but it made people feel creepy.
Youxi did not stop after the successful attack. When the spider pounced on him, he bent down and dodged, and then cut off several limbs on the other side with his knife.
Five of the eight spider legs were chopped off. At this moment, the spider was like a huge lump, lying there limping and twitching. It opened its mouth and suddenly sprayed spider silk. Youxi dodged to the side, and the spider silk sprayed on other people, and the protective suit on that person's body immediately turned black.
"Spider silk is also poisonous!" The man said, and then reacted, "It's not poison, it's acid, spider silk is highly corrosive!"
"We need to use fire, hurry up!" Someone shouted, and then a glass bottle was smashed out, hitting the spider's back.
The glass bottle shattered, and the air was immediately filled with the smell of gasoline. Seeing that Ma Tiantian had hit the target, Xia Xuan immediately took out a sushi spray gun, lit it, and pressed the alcohol spray towards the flame.
Instantly, a long flame shot out, and the flame touched the gasoline on the spider's body and immediately burned.
The spider struggled and screamed in the fire, and finally aimed in the direction of someone, and jumped up again with all its strength.
"Puff--" Two sounds of breaking through the air came one after another. This time, the arrow accurately shot into the spider's abdomen. The spider that had just jumped up fell halfway and fell on its back on the ground. The remaining three legs struggled a few times in the flames, and the movement gradually weakened.
The young man who was shooting the arrow heaved a sigh of relief, fortunately he didn't fail at the critical moment.
Everyone worked together to kill a spider, but the crisis was not resolved. Youxi saw that others could deal with the spider with a broken leg, and had come to the other side to deal with other spiders, and cut off the legs as usual.
Everyone had the experience of working together once, and the degree of cooperation was very high afterwards, and finally all three spiders were killed.
The raging flames burning in three places completely illuminated the underground garage, and everyone discovered that there was a hollow metal frame in a certain area on the top of the garage, and on this metal frame, there were densely packed green plants. The green tentacle-like objects before were the meridians of this plant, or the tendrils of the vine.
Everyone gathered together and looked upward vigilantly, thinking that there would be another tough battle. However, after the three giant spiders were killed, the meridian that had originally wrapped Xiao Zheng slowly lowered and let him go, and then together with several other meridians, it slowly retracted and hid behind the densely packed leaves, never to be seen again.
Someone else started to complain: "Shit, why do I feel like this thing wants us to help it kill spiders? Is it a spirit?"
Someone else frowned and thought: "It seems that these mutated animals and plants have exceeded our imagination in some ways..."
**
Ten minutes later, a group of people finally found the stairwell. They rushed into the stairwell and checked it thoroughly before closing the door and locking it. Everyone sat or leaned against the wall and slowly calmed down.
Xiao Zheng's shoulder was injured. After cutting open his clothes, there were two small black holes on it, which were probably bitten by a spider.
Chen Tong was more careful and brought a medical kit in her backpack. She was a nurse before she got married, so she stepped forward to help clean and disinfect the wound and do temporary treatment. After bandaging it, she told him to go to the hospital for a check-up.
"Forget it. In this situation, you might die faster on the way to the hospital. Go back and find some anti-inflammatory drugs. If you don't die, just bear it!"
Chen Tong admired Xiao Zheng's optimistic smile, and she took the initiative to introduce herself to him.
Seeing that Xiao Zheng was doing well, some people couldn't help but pull him aside to ask about the previous situation.
It turned out that when he was walking at the end of the team, he vaguely noticed a thin shadow passing by. Because there was no sound, the people in front did not hear it, and only he caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of his eye.
He subconsciously stopped to see, but in the few seconds he stopped, a sharp and cold object pierced his shoulder. When he wanted to shout, he found that his lips, tongue and limbs were quickly paralyzed, and then he couldn't move at all.
He felt something fluffy rubbing against him, as if to drag him away. At the critical moment, the thin shadow appeared again, wrapped around his body and snatched him away...
He lost consciousness afterwards. He thought he had been unconscious for a long time, but later found out that he had only been unconscious for more than ten minutes.
When he woke up, he was already hanging by the plant. With the help of the flashlight below, he caught a glimpse of the giant spider on the ceiling not far from him.
For some reason, the spider seemed to have poor eyesight and did not find him, but it kept wandering near the ceiling, as if looking for his traces. The green plant that wrapped around him did not make him feel hostile.
Everyone knows what happened next.
"So, those spiders have been lurking on the ceiling since we entered this underground garage, intending to bite and paralyze us one by one and then drag us away?" The man shuddered, "And that plant saved you and even worked with us to deal with the spiders? Oh my god, so magical!?"
"You guys... do you think the spider just now looks familiar? It looks like someone's pet..."
"Don't mention spiders, I'm so scared of spiders. My legs were so weak just now that I couldn't even run. I almost died here!"
"I remember that there is an open-air pet park on the top floor of this mall. There seems to be a small spider pet museum inside... The mall has closed floor-to-ceiling windows, and the doors are closed at night, so the spiders can't get in, so they ran directly to the underground garage..."
"Oh my god, it's so big, and there are pets?"
"So, spiders have mutated, right? Ordinary spiders have acidic venom, but their silk shouldn't be corrosive, and they can't be that big..."
As soon as this was said, everyone else fell silent.
Cold-blooded animals have the biggest changes of all animals, but many of them are also the most dangerous. What will their future life be like?
Everyone felt heavy in their hearts. Even after they successfully entered the elevator, went up to the basement, found the direction of the supermarket, successfully pried open the door lock of the French gate, and saw the supplies inside, they were not very happy.
Of course, this was also related to the fact that there were not many supplies on the shelves.
Before the plant outbreak, supermarkets had been restricting purchases and the supply was insufficient. But then again, although half of the food shelves were empty, there were not many people in their two teams, and they could take all the supplies no matter how little they had.
However, there was a new problem now.
It's not like everyone has read apocalyptic novels similar to zombies. In those plots, as soon as the zombies broke out and the outside was in chaos, the survivors ran to the supermarket and opened the door. It was first come first served, and they took and robbed everything without ever considering whether to pay.
They thought that when they came to the supermarket, they would be like in the apocalyptic novels, and they would go up and take everything for free without saying a word. But the social order has not collapsed, the supermarket still has electricity, and the surveillance is still working.
If this crisis is over in a few days like the last one, the mall will have trouble holding them accountable.
And this time is different from the previous situation of being on the verge of running out of food and water. Although everyone risked their lives to form a team, most people still have a lot of water and supplies at home, so they are mainly out to check the situation.
Just as they were hesitating, someone came out from the other side of the shelf with a stun gun in his hand and a vigilant look on his face: "Who!?"
The man was wearing a mall security uniform, and there were two other security guards beside him.
What happened afterwards was very smooth.
The security guard opened an automatic cash register and asked them to take the supplies and pay directly with their mobile phones after swiping the price.
In the meantime, the security guard naturally proposed a purchase limit rule, but this rule was ignored by everyone.
Everyone took the risk to come here, and they were already very disciplined and law-abiding by paying money. What a bullshit to limit their purchases!
Three for thirty, the security guard knew he couldn't do anything, so he gave up after a few words. After all, they had been staying in the supermarket for a few days, and they got their food and drinks from here, and they didn't completely abide by the rules.
With surveillance and people around, Youxi couldn't fill the space with a lot of things, but she had just stockpiled five trucks of supplies and food for two parties in the Acid Rain World, so she didn't lack anything at the moment.
After a little consideration, she went to the luggage area to find a few oversized travel bags - a bag that could directly fit a curled up person.
Then she came to the women's products area and swept all the sanitary napkins on the shelf into the bag, regardless of brand or quantity for daytime and nighttime use.
There were two young girls in the other team who were pushing a shopping cart and frantically taking all kinds of canned food and instant noodles in the convenience food area. When they saw her clearing out the entire shelf of sanitary napkins, they immediately became dissatisfied and pushed the cart over to question her why she was so selfish and didn't leave any for others.
The other party's tone was questioning from the beginning. If it was a different tone, You Xi would probably take some out of her travel bag and share them with them, but now, she raised her eyelids and glanced at them: "You can ask the security to take you to the warehouse. The inventory in the warehouse will only be more than here."
"We all came here together. Why did you clear the shelves and let us go to the warehouse? You--"
The Tang sword was suddenly unsheathed. You Xi was too lazy to talk to them and chopped the empty shelves with the sword. The metal hit each other and made a crisp sound: "I don't like to talk nonsense. Either we fight or shut up."
The two: ...
Another woman in the other team noticed the atmosphere here and immediately ran over, saying to You Xi While apologize, he forcefully pulled the two people away: "I haven't seen you for a while and your old habits have recurred! I clearly told you before I came here, things are no longer the same now, be careful when talking to people, you were the popular ones before, now who cares who you are in this situation... Also, be more careful when causing trouble, that woman just chopped off a spider's legs like she was cutting sugarcane, who can you mess with?"
The two people were unconvinced: "What's so great about that, we are also black belts in Taekwondo!"
"Yeah, if it weren't for this, would you be allowed to come out with the team this time? Stop making trouble, we'll go find the security guard. If she hadn't reminded me, I would have forgotten about the warehouse. In addition to sanitary napkins, there are more food items in it.
You guys go push a few more shopping carts, I'll call the people in the community and see if we can form another team to come over and help, and try to get more things back!
Our group came early, so the supermarket supplies haven't been touched. People from other communities will come out soon to check the situation. If we can come in, they can come in too. If we don't get enough supplies this time, the next time we come, I'm afraid this place will be emptied..."
The older woman who came later was organized, and Youxi glanced at her sideways.
"That's their agent, his surname is Huang, they've always lived together. "Someone came over. It was the young man who could shoot arrows. He took the initiative to introduce himself to Youxi.
His name was Lu Bin. He was a recent graduate. Shooting was his hobby. He never expected it would be useful.
The other party talked to Youxi because of her skills. In this world, education, money, status... everything in the past is useless.
The world is reshuffled, and he naturally needs to meet someone who can adapt to the new world. After the two sides
met, they exchanged mobile phone numbers and WeChat accounts at Lu Bin's initiative. The other party also had similar ideas as Gou Yaoyang. If S City could not get through this crisis, he planned to evacuate to other cities with his parents.
The more reliable people in the evacuation team, the better.
After the two chatted briefly, they went shopping separately.
Considering that other people needed it more than her, Youxi did not touch the food. , and then turned to the coffee shelf, and swept all the bagged coffee beans and coffee powder on the shelf, regardless of brand and type, into the travel bag.
After that, she went to the paper products shelf and filled up the remaining travel bags.
She took out the climbing rope from her backpack and tied all five bulging travel bags together. When she dragged the five huge travel bags past the wine shelf, she thought of the boxes of red wine she had stocked up for You's father before. After estimating his consumption, she decided to stock up enough for him at one time.
But red wine is fragile and not convenient to put in a travel bag. She sensed the position of the camera and thought of a way.
The red wine on the shelf has several layers inside and outside. The shelf is very long and has several rows. She pretended to pass by the shelf. Wherever she went, except for the row outside the entire shelf, the rows of red wine inside were all put into the Star House warehouse by her.
She also bought a lot of Coke, Sprite, Fanta, and various bottled, canned, and boxed milk tea, milk, and drinks in this way.
On the surface, the shelves were still full.
In addition, she was wearing a mask and a hat, so even if someone saw the surveillance and became suspicious, they would not be able to find her. Of
course, when she checked out, she directly paid more for the drinks. She still had a lot of money in her bank card from the last time she sold gold bars, so she was not short of money. Instead, she wanted to use them up as soon as possible.
There were too many sanitary napkins in her travel bag, and it took too much time to swipe them. She ignored the automatic checkout machine and swiped the supermarket's payment QR code to transfer an amount far greater than the five bags of items.
The security guard waiting at the checkout machine was also a little stunned, but the man paid a six-digit number, enough to buy everything, and let her go without saying anything.
When she walked out of the supermarket, Xu Yan had already taken the supplies he needed. Like everyone else, he took mostly food and travel bags from the luggage area, but he only took two bags because he couldn't carry more. At this moment
, he saw You Xi dragging five bags that were bigger than her. He was stunned for a few seconds, and then told her that he had asked the security guard for the spare key to the side door of the mall. Next time he came, he could enter directly from the ground door to avoid going to the underground parking lot again.
He had just notified other people in the community and explained the general situation, asking those who were willing to come out to hurry out and come to the supermarket to grab supplies.
He had a hunch that the news that it was still safe outside would spread soon, and the news of taking supplies from the supermarket would also spread. It was estimated that after tonight, the supermarket would be emptied.
The other party had a brain and a plan, and You Xi felt that she could lie down again.
She sat down on the ground, and waited until everyone in her community came out, then she followed the team again, following them all the way back to the community.
Of course, she was only escorting this time, and she didn't care if other people wanted to go to the supermarket again, anyway, Xu Yan had the key and the brain, he could arrange it.
She dragged her five giant travel bags all the way out of the supermarket, then tightened the climbing rope and carried them all on her back. The five travel bags were like a small mountain, completely submerging her slender figure, like a strange landscape line in the team.
Ma Tiantian and Xia Xuan held back their laughter all the way, and when everyone finally returned to the residential building safely, they immediately came forward to exchange mobile phone numbers and WeChat with her, saying that they admired her very much and wanted to hang out with her in the future.
Youxi: …
**
That night, Xu Yan, who had been busy planning and leading the team to the supermarket several times, finally came back empty-handed.
In the entire community, everyone who dared to go out had gone out, and all the supplies were taken. These supplies were everyone's confidence and reassurance.
Afterwards, Youxi sent a message to Xu Yan, telling him about the disappearance of food from the family on the 14th floor.
Compared with what they experienced outside today, this was just a trivial matter, but Xu Yan did not ignore it. He knew very well how important this building was to them.
As long as the building was there, the people would be there. If there was really a problem in the building and it was not solved in time, it would evolve and spread, and it would be too late to pay attention to it.
Following Youxi's suggestion, they first entered the surveillance system from the computer at the reception desk of the building and checked the surveillance of the fourteenth floor from the previous day and the night before.
The surveillance clearly showed that the professor and his wife left with empty hands. In addition, the weather was hot and everyone was wearing little, so it was impossible for them to hide anything on
their bodies. The professor and his wife were cleared of suspicion. After that, they quickly entered the surveillance and reviewed the surveillance from the whole night until the morning when the middle-aged woman came to the professor and his wife. They did not see anyone entering their home.
Not to mention people, not even a suspicious creature was seen.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
