"ah?"
Hearing Brian's sudden question, Sarah's face changed slightly. After hesitating for a while, she said softly: "I...I let him go."
Brian shrugged and didn't care too much. In fact, he had already guessed the result. He glanced at the clock hanging on the wall, stood up from the sofa and said, "Let's go. It's time to leave."
Going out from the door on the other side of the house, the two headed straight for the house opposite. Brian had just observed the route from the bedroom on the second floor. The roads here were basically blocked, so he could only see if he could climb over from the window on the side of the other house.
As usual, they still searched for some usable things. After all, they didn't know what would happen along the way, so it was necessary to collect more useful things.
After climbing out of the window of the house next door, the two of them saw a huge crack in the ground. It should be someone's basement. Perhaps because of the explosion, a gap was blown in the entire roof.
Looking down into the crack, it was filled with red lumps of fungi and the air had turned yellow-green. However, the basement was less than five meters wide, there were no infected people inside, and there was an open window opposite. If one went through this window, it would take less than five seconds to pass through the basement.
"What should we do? Should we go in?" Sarah asked uncertainly, looking at this place that was obviously full of danger.
"No, there's something wrong with the air. Although we don't know whether those germs can be transmitted through the air, we can't take the risk."
Shaking his head, Brian rejected the idea of entering the basement and looked in other directions. The left side was blocked, while the right side was the passage leading to the main road. Now the streets were full of infected people, so this road was definitely not passable. He looked into the window behind him, wondering whether he should go back and find another way.
"Well, we can go up there."
While Brian was trying to find another route, Sarah next to him looked up at a two-story apartment building in front of him.
Following the direction of Sarah's finger, Brian glanced at the height of the corridor on the second floor and estimated that it was about 3 meters high. His eyes lit up and he said, "I remember there should be a folding staircase in the house. I don't know if it's high enough. Let's take it out and try it out first."
He returned to the house he came from, and soon he moved a small staircase more than one meter high out of a utility room.
"Okay, be careful." Brian stretched one end of the stairs out of the window and signaled Sarah to be careful. If she dropped it to the ground, it would definitely attract the attention of the infected people nearby.
After successfully lifting the stairs outside, he then flipped them inside out and placed them apart against the wall.
"...Why is it still so much shorter!"
Brian scratched his head, thinking about it, and climbed up the stairs. He sat on the seat in the middle of the stairs, estimated the remaining height, nodded, waved to Sarah below, and said, "Come on, you step on my shoulders, and you should be able to get up. Then you tie the rope to the handrail and I'll climb up."
"Um!"
Sarah didn't hesitate to climb up the stairs, took Brian's hand and climbed up. When her feet stepped on his shoulders, she glanced down inadvertently and felt dizzy and unstable.
"Sarah, don't look down." Feeling the girl's legs begin to tremble, Brian knew that she must have looked down. He held Sarah's legs tightly, supporting her body, and quickly reminded her: "Take a deep breath, adjust your mood, don't be afraid, I will support you."
"Huh~"
Brian's voice was like a shot of adrenaline, giving Sarah immense courage. She took a deep breath, stabilized herself, looked up, leaned on the handrail at the edge, used both hands to push against the wall twice, and barely climbed up.
But as soon as she climbed up, she saw an infected person with his back to her not far away in the aisle. This shocking scene made her unprepared and almost screamed in fright.
Sarah quickly covered her mouth tightly with her left hand and suppressed the scream. At the same time, she stretched out her right hand and shook it left and right, reminding Brian not to shout, so as not to alarm the infected person in front of them.
Brian below saw this and realized that there might be infected people above, so he just waited silently, not daring to make any sound.
After waiting for a while and seeing that the infected person did not move, Sarah secretly breathed a sigh of relief, took off her backpack carefully, took out the rope from it, and while paying attention to the movements of the infected person, she fixed one end of the rope to the handrail.
Grabbing the rope dropped from above, Brian stood up, stepped on the highest point of the stairs, and climbed up easily.
Brian tiptoed into the aisle, looked at the infected person standing in front of him, drew out his dagger, and was about to step forward to deal with this threat, but a small hand next to him suddenly reached out to stop him.
Confused, he looked at Sarah next to him, who pointed at the dagger in his hand and whispered, "Let me do it this time!"
Looking at Sarah's determined eyes, Brian nodded and handed the dagger in his hand to her. In this environment, everyone needs to grow up, so he had no intention of dissuading her. He just followed behind her silently to protect her safety.
Holding the dagger tightly, Sarah approached the infected person little by little. She was very nervous at the moment, but she could no longer accept that she was a person who could only be protected by others.
If she is in danger, Brian will protect her. If Brian is in danger, who will protect him? So she can't hide behind anymore, she must stand up and face these dangers.
Looking at the infected person who was obviously much taller than her, Sarah recalled the way Brian dealt with him, raised her right foot and kicked hard at the inside of the opponent's knee.
The infected person was caught off guard and fell to his knees in an instant. Then a slender arm appeared from behind him, tightly clamped his neck to prevent him from making any sound, and then the sharp dagger seized the opportunity to pierce his temple, killing the infected person in a moment.
"Great, great." Brian, who witnessed everything, couldn't help but praise Sarah as she performed the moves smoothly, "I didn't expect you to have hidden your strength. I underestimated you."
"Okay, it's getting late, let's hurry up."
Rolling her eyes at Brian, Sarah handed the dagger back to him, glanced at the infected person lying on the ground, and couldn't help feeling a little proud.
"Wait, there's someone there."
Just when they were about to move on, Brian suddenly saw a young black woman walking out of a restaurant diagonally opposite. However, the backpack behind her was empty, and it was obvious that she got nothing in it and did not get the food she wanted.
Just as she hid her body and headed towards another convenience store opposite, an infected person with half of his head covered by mushroom-shaped fungi suddenly appeared in the place where she was hiding. The fungus grew out of the eye socket of one of its eyes and had completely destroyed one of its eyes.
Contrary to its usual behavior, the infected person did not roar and pounce on its target. Instead, it sneaked closely behind the black young woman, seemingly trying to close the distance between itself and its prey.
"Then...what's going on with that infected person?" Sarah pointed at the infected person with a peculiar shape and asked in horror. She could see that this infected person was obviously different from the other infected people and seemed even more weird.
"really!"
Brian looked at the familiar-looking infected person with a grim expression. This was the infected person with the largest fungal coverage area he had seen so far, and it seemed that it had completed its "evolution" and entered the second stage.
He knew that his speculation was correct. As time went on, the pathogens in the bodies of these infected people were constantly transforming the host's body, making the host stronger so that it could infect more prey to "work" for the pathogens.
On the other side, just when the evolved infected got close enough, it suddenly let out a strange "hissing" sound and pounced towards the black female youth. At the same time, the strange cry also awakened all the infected standing nearby. They seemed to have received some signal, and they roared and ran towards the direction of the sound.
The black female youth turned around quickly after hearing the strange cry behind her. When she saw an infected person rushing towards her, she was suddenly frightened. However, she had killed many infected people during this period, so she reacted quickly, raised her pistol and shot the infected person in the head who was rushing towards her.
The bullet flew out and hit the infected person's head exactly. The whole bacteria exploded instantly, but the infected person seemed to be fine and still pounced on the prey in front of him.
Staring at the still alive infected people with wide eyes, the black female youth screamed in fear and turned around without hesitation to escape.
But this evolved infected was obviously faster than ordinary infected. It caught up with the black young woman in a few steps and knocked her to the ground.
"ah--!"
Suddenly, shrill screams resounded throughout the entire block, and the desperate wails pierced deeply into the hearts of all the survivors hiding nearby.