After dealing with the zombies in the apartment and closing the door, Rhodes tightened the rope around his zombie girlfriend, Julie. Once he made sure Julie would not be able to break free, he took out a spare blanket from the wardrobe in the bedroom before closing the bedroom door. This way, if Julie broke free, he would be alerted and would have time to react.
Finally, Rhodes looked at his body. Due to the commotion earlier, he neither had the time nor the luxury to pay attention to it. He discovered his body was covered with white substance, blood, and brain matter. The stench from his body was ten times more disgusting than a garbage truck. Now that he smelled the stench, he could not help but retch.
He quickly went to the bathroom to wash himself. After that, he did not leave the bathroom but slept in the bathtub instead.
...
Early the next morning.
Rhodes was woken up by an angry roar. He startled awake and rushed out of the bathroom to look at the bedroom door. He discovered the sound did not come from the bedroom.
Then, he checked the door and windows and found no sign of further damage.
After making sure it was safe, he opened the bedroom door and found Julie still tied up.
How strange! Where did that sound come from?
He surveyed the apartment warily. If he was not mistaken, the sound had come from the house. However, all of the zombies had been cleared out of the house yesterday...
He suddenly thought of a possibility. Could it be that?
This was New York City. The price of a house was exorbitantly high. Now that he thought about it, it was strange for an apartment in such a good location to be empty. Moreover, it was a duplex. When he had first entered the house, he noticed there was no dust, and the electrical appliances were working well and seemed to be frequently used. This meant the house had an occupant or occupants. In that case, where is he or she or they?
With this thought in mind, he could not help but feel a surge of fear. To think he was sleeping defenseless in this place. How terrifying!
Now that there was a possibility of a threat in the house, he began to feel uneasy. He picked up the blunt knife he had kept with him in the bathtub.
Since he was constantly in danger yesterday, he had no time and had forgotten to check the second story of the apartment. If there were still people or zombies in the apartment, they had to be upstairs.
Rhodes climbed up the wooden stairs as silently as he could, but the creaking noises resonated loudly in the empty house. Normally, nobody would pay attention to the creaking noises of stairs, but at this time, it sounded incredibly eerie.
After a while, he finally arrived upstairs. The space upstairs was smaller. There were three rooms, and the doors were closed.
Based on the decorations and ornaments on the doors, he speculated the rooms must be guest rooms and a child's rooms.
The certainty of whatever it was that made that sound was in one of the rooms grew stronger and stronger.
Rhodes instinctively raised the knife in his hand as he slowly walked toward one of the rooms he assumed to be the guest room. He stopped at the door and put his ears against it, listening for movements. After confirming there were no movements in there, he slowly opened the door. He did not find anyone there. He only noted that the picture on the wall was crooked. After determining the threat was not in this room, he slowly backed out of the room.
He made his way to the second guest room. Similar to the first time, he made sure there were no movements in there before opening the door. The layout of the room was similar to the one before. However, there were a few holes in the wall of this room. He rummaged through the wardrobe and cabinets and found a few solid iron marbles. He kept them and left after finding nothing of value.
Finally, he made his way to the child's room. The door was painted pink, and stickers of cute cartoon characters were stuck on the door. Ordinarily, he would find this cozy and warm, but he could not help but shiver at this moment. Who knew what lay behind the door? The unknown was the most frightening, after all. For a brief moment, he was overcome with the urge to turn tail and run. It was too terrifying!
After a while, he forcibly suppressed the rising panic and fear in his heart. In the meantime, it was best to stay in this apartment. He could not recklessly venture out without a plan; it would likely get him killed if he did that. Moreover, Julie was here. Therefore, he steeled himself to check for threats in this room despite his reluctance.
Similar to earlier, he pressed his ear against the door. Initially, he could not hear anything. He was about to pull away, somewhat relieved, when he heard noises in the room. It sounded like the creaking sound of the wardrobe door being opened.
Rhodes felt as though his heart was going to jump out of his chest. He stilled his movement and continued to listen. After a while, there was no more sound so he decided to open the door.
He squatted on the group as he slowly opened the door. He did not open it all the way; it was just slightly open. However, it was enough for him to have a quick look at the room.
As expected, it was a child's room.
It was obvious something had happened here. The books on the shelves were scattered messily on the ground. The bed was in a mess. The lamp and toys on the desk had clearly been swept to the floor. The floor was littered with all kinds of things.
However, he did not see anyone in the room! Instead of feeling relieved, chills ran up his spine immediately. Then, he recalled the sound he heard earlier seemed to be the sound of the wardrobe opening or closing.
He inhaled deeply and rose to his feet. He entered the room and cautiously approached the wardrobe. With swift movements, he opened the doors. To his surprise, he did not see anything. However, the wardrobe was rather big and dark so he moved closer to have a better look.
At this moment, a head appeared in front of him, causing him to jump back in shock and fear.
He retreated three to four meters back before he stopped moving and looked at the thing in the closet again.
It was a zombie!
He thanked God for his luck. He was only hair's breadth away from the zombie earlier. If the zombie had bitten him, he would not have been able to avoid it.
Now that the zombie sensed the presence of a human, it became agitated and charged at Rhodes immediately.
Although he felt slightly frightened, he advanced and slashed the zombie's neck. The zombie did not die and quickly skittered deep into the wardrobe.
With the zombie no longer blocking the entrance of the wardrobe, he saw the scene in there. He gasped when he looked inside. 'What happened in here?'
The more than 20 square meters wardrobe that looked like a secret chamber was drenched in blood from the floor to the wall to the ceiling. There was a rifle on the ground, and visible scratches could be seen on the wall.
With the sunlight streaming into the dark space, he saw a pair of small hands lying in a pool of coagulated blood and a woman slumped against the wall.
With this, he had a vague idea how desperate the situation in here must have been before this.
At this moment, the zombie rushed up to him. He was about to strike with his knife when he saw the tear stains on the zombie's face. There was also a fist-sized hole on its chest. He could not help but sigh heavily.
With this, he managed to piece a vague picture of what had happened.
When the outbreak of zombies happened, the family in the house must have taken refuge here. However, the male owner of the apartment must have been infected. When he showed signs of infection, to keep his family safe, he had shot himself in the heart. Alas, he did not know that zombies could not die unless their heads were heavily damaged. Once he had died, the mutation process would speed up since there was no more resistance from him. Therefore, he must have quickly risen back to life as a zombie and tore into the woman and the child before they could even escape.