Chereads / Zombie Apocalypse: Back to the past / Chapter 11 - Chapter 11. Mutan

Chapter 11 - Chapter 11. Mutan

In a fairly large room, with entirely black walls equipped with various weapons, she sat on a wide sofa. Beside her, Jeffry was once again dressing her wound.

While waiting for him to finish, she observed the surroundings. The decor of the room felt oddly familiar, as if she had been here before, she thought.

Glancing at the stack of papers on the table, she picked one up and read it.

"What's this?" Karina asked.

"Seeing things are starting to get out of control, 'Haven' plans to form a research team. Interested?" Jeffry explained.

She shook her head. "Just asking."

"This bandage needs to be changed daily, and stop pressing your hand so hard."

"Hm, thanks." She hadn't realized she was pressing her hand too hard—it was a habit she found difficult to break when she was irritated.

Feeling finished, she stood up to return to her room.

"Wait," Jeffry called, stopping her and holding her arm.

"Take this. You'll need to change it tomorrow," he added, handing her a first aid kit.

"Thanks," she said, leaving Jeffry's room.

As she walked down the dimly lit corridor, limited by the expensive cost of electricity, she suddenly heard a noise and saw a shadow in the dark corner of the wall.

"Waaah, sob sob sob."

To be sure, she approached the figure in the corner, ready to take out her flashlight to illuminate the figure.

As the beam of the flashlight hit the figure, it turned to face her.

But what she saw wasn't a zombie—it was a girl she knew, with swollen, red eyes.

"What are you doing?"

"Waaah, I'm heartbroken," Eila cried hysterically, even louder than before.

Hearing that, Karina rolled her eyes. She thought Eila had a serious problem. It's just a broken heart, why waste energy crying over that?

Not knowing how to console someone who was upset, she merely patted Eila's shoulder lightly in an attempt to comfort her.

"Why, why! He already has a girlfriend! Waaah!" Hearing Eila's cries grow louder, Karina began patting her shoulder harder to calm her down.

In between sobs, Eila pulled away. "That hurts," Eila said, holding Karina's hand on her shoulder.

Ah, realizing that, Karina stopped patting her.

Eila, whose heart and now shoulder hurt, pulled up her shirt to inspect her shoulder. Karina took the initiative to shine the flashlight on Eila's shoulder, revealing a red bruise on her pale skin.

"Oh, sorry."

Eila looked at Karina with sad, incredulous eyes, wondering why all this was happening to her.

Quickly, Karina opened the first aid kit Jeffry had given her, hoping there might be some ointment to relieve the pain. If only she had a high-class zombie core, just a touch would heal it.

When she opened the white box, instead of finding ointment, she found a lot of candy and chocolate. Unable to find the ointment, she handed Eila a chocolate bar, hoping it would calm her down.

"Umm, thanks, Karina," Eila said, devouring it ravenously. Maybe she was crying because she was hungry, not heartbroken, Karina thought.

The soft morning light shyly reflected towards her. Blinking slowly, Karina began to wake from her sleep, then stretched lightly, glancing at the clock on the wall, which showed 7:10 a.m.

As she washed her face, she paused for a moment. It seemed she had forgotten something. After a long moment of thinking, a name crossed her mind.

"Rubi!"

Still dressed casually, she began wandering down the corridor, calling Rubi's name while muttering complaints. "Stupid dog, where could you be?"

Suddenly, she spotted the brown dog she'd been looking for and hurried over.

"RUBI!" she yelled when she saw Rubi happily eating. Her loud shout startled the dog, and without realizing it, she also startled someone standing in front of Rubi.

Realizing someone was staring at her, she looked up. The man was taller than her; she wished she had a taller body.

"Sorry if my dog bothered you."

"No problem, I like dogs too," the tall man smiled as he petted Rubi's head, and Rubi seemed to enjoy the strokes.

"Stupid mutt," Karina muttered to herself.

"Excuse me, thank you for looking after Rubi," Karina said stiffly as she picked Rubi up and turned to head back to her room.

"Ugh, so heavy. Starting tomorrow, you're on a diet."

"Woof," Rubi grunted, as if understanding Karina's words.

After days of living a boring life, only hunting for zombie crystal cores, yesterday she decided to join the team. There was a difference between hunting alone and officially joining the Haven team. Besides the prospects of rising to a higher rank, there were also secret access privileges.

In her previous life, she decided to become a researcher; this time, she chose to join the military team.

In a massive outdoor field with hundreds of others, she also saw many women joining. In these times, you couldn't rely on others—you had to depend on yourself.

Today, everyone present would be sent out into the field to search for supplies and hunt for zombie crystal cores.

Karina and her group were dropped off at a mall in the city center. Skillfully, she grabbed her rifle and ran toward a crowd of zombies, shooting them one by one. But the more zombies she killed, the more that came her way.

"Damn, where is everyone else?" she muttered breathlessly. It felt like a wave of zombies was being controlled.

Controlled? Hah, it seemed she might encounter a high-class mutant zombie this time.

Securing her weapon, she started running to hide, planning to enter an old-looking car. But after pulling hard, the door wouldn't budge.

"Ugh," she hissed as all the doors seemed jammed. She was getting overwhelmed, and the energy from the crystal purification was too weak to fight off the controlled zombies. She readied her gun again and shot at the zombies surrounding her.

Suddenly, a car sped toward her with its door open. Without thinking twice, she jumped into the car.

Whoosh!

The car sped away, and she caught her breath.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, thanks."

"You seem to say 'thank you' a lot," Jeffry joked, focusing on driving.

"Where are we going?" Karina asked.

"No idea."

Hearing that, Karina looked at Jeffry in disbelief. Glancing out the window, she saw the car moving farther away from her high-level mutant zombie, and she really wanted to hit Jeffry on the head.

Jeffry, focused on driving, sensed the shift in Karina's mood—was it sadness? He wasn't sure. This whole movie-like storyline was making his head spin, with all the changes. He wasn't sure if changing the plot would benefit him. He was just trying to survive comfortably in this world before returning to the real one.

After driving for a long time, the car finally stopped. Karina looked at the view outside the transparent window, then turned to Jeffry with a questioning expression.

"This place is safe from zombies. Let's get out," Jeffry said, diverting Karina's gaze, and walked over to open the car door for her. Jeffry raised his eyebrows, signaling her to get out.

Seeing that, she got out and looked around. A building that was once white now appeared dirty, covered in wild plants and moss everywhere.