"What?"
Hearing Brian's sudden question, Sarah's expression changed slightly, and after a while, she said softly, "I... let him go."
Shrugging, Brian didn't care too much. In fact, he had already guessed the outcome. He glanced at the clock hanging on the wall, stood up from the sofa and said, "Come on, it's time to go."
Walking out of the door on the other side of the house, the two of them went straight to the opposite house. Brian just watched the route from the bedroom on the second floor. The path here was basically blocked, so he could only see if he could roll through the windows on the opponent's side of the house.
As usual, they are still looking for the available things. After all, they don't know what will happen on the way. It is necessary to collect more useful things.
Opening the window of the house next door, a large crack appeared on the ground in front of the two of them. It should be the basement of some family. It might be due to the explosion, so the entire upper surface was blown away.
Looking at the crack, it was full of red lumps formed by fungi, and the air turned yellow-green, but the basement was only less than five meters wide, there were no infected people, and there was a man on the opposite side. One of the windows is open, and it takes less than 5 seconds to pass through the basement from there.
"What should I do, do you want to go in?" Looking at this obviously dangerous place, Sarah asked uncertainly.
"No, there is a problem with the air at first glance. Although we do not know whether these germs can be infected through the air, we cannot take this risk."
Shaking his head, Brian rejected the way into the basement and looked at other places. The left side was blocked, and the right side was the passage leading to the main street. Now that all the infected people are on the street, this street is definitely not allowed. After leaving, he looked out the window behind him, thinking whether he should go back and find a new way.
"Well, we can go up there."
Just as Brian was trying to find another route, Sarah beside him looked up at a two-story apartment building in front of her.
Looking in the direction of Sarah's finger, Brian observed the height of the hallway on the second floor. He visually estimated that it was about 3 meters high. His eyes lit up and he said, "I remember there should be a folding ladder in the house. I don't know if it's high enough, so let's try it first."
After returning to the house he came from, after a while, he took out a small ladder more than a meter high from a utility room.
"It's done, be careful." Extending the end of the stairs outside the window, Brian signaled Sarah to be careful. If she fails and falls to the ground, she will definitely attract the attention of the infected people nearby.
He successfully lifted the stairs to the outside, and then also turned around and placed the stairs separately on the wall.
"...How come it's so short!"
Seeing that the height was obviously still far away, Brian scratched his head, then thought about going upstairs, straddling the seat in the middle of the stairs, and then visually checked the remaining height, and nodded to Sarah below, said: "Come on, if you step on my shoulder, you should be able to climb up. Then you tie the rope to the railing and I will climb up the rope."
"¡Um!"
Sarah listened without hesitation. She walked up the stairs, took Brian's outstretched hand, and climbed up. When his shoulders were stepped on, her eyes glanced down without realizing it, and she immediately felt dizzy and a little unsteady.
"Sarah, don't look down." Feeling the girl's legs begin to shake, Brian knew that she must be looking down. He grabbed Sarah's legs, supported her body, and quickly reminded her: "Take a deep breath, adjust your emotions, and don't be afraid, I'll support you."
"Hmm~"
Brian's voice was like a reinforcement, giving Sarah incomparable courage.
He took a deep breath, stabilized his emotions, raised his head and looked up, leaned on the handrail at the edge, pushed his hands against the wall twice and managed to climb up.
But as soon as she went up, she saw an infected person with his back to her not far from the corridor. This astonishing scene made the unsuspecting person almost scream in horror.
She quickly covered her mouth with her left hand, and Sarah only suppressed her scream. At the same time, she stretched out her right hand and desperately shook it back and forth, reminding Brian not to shout so as not to disturb the infected person in front of her.
Seeing this, Brian below understood that there might be infected people above, so he just waited quietly, not daring to make a sound.
After waiting for a while, seeing that the infected person had no change, Sarah secretly breathed a sigh of relief, carefully took off her backpack, took out the rope inside, and fixed one end of the rope while watching the movement of the infected person on the armrest.
Grabbing the rope thrown from above, Brian stood up and stepped onto the highest point of the stairs and climbed up easily.
Turning gently into the hallway, Brian looked at the infected person standing in front, took out his dagger and was about to move forward to resolve the threat, but a small hand beside him suddenly reached out to stop him.
Confused, he looked at Sarah beside him, who knew the other person was pointing at the dagger in his hand, and then whispered, "This time, I want to do it!"
Looking at Sarah's firm eyes, Brian nodded and handed the dagger in his hand to the other party. Everyone needs to grow up in this environment, so he had no idea of dissuading her, he just followed her silently, keeping her safe.
Holding the dagger tightly, Sarah approached the infected person. At this moment, her heart was very nervous, but she could no longer accept that he was a person who could only be protected by others.
When she is in danger, Brian will protect him. If Brian is in danger, who will protect him, so that she can no longer hide behind, she must stand up and face these dangers.
Looking at the infected person who was obviously much taller than her, Sarah remembered the way Brian drove to the other side, raising his right foot and kicking the other side's knee violently.
The infected person who was caught off guard fell to the ground in an instant, and then a slender arm appeared behind him, tightly hugging his neck, preventing him from making a sound, and then a sharp dagger pierced directly through him, the infected person was resolved in a moment.
"Amazing, amazing," Brian, who witnessed the whole process, couldn't help but praise Sarah's actions in one breath: "I didn't expect you to hide your strength, I underestimated you."
"Okay, it's getting late, hurry up."
Looking at Brian, Sarah returned the dagger to the other party's hand and looked at the infected person who fell to the ground, feeling a little smug in her heart.
"Wait, there's someone there."
Just as they were about to move on, Brian suddenly saw a young African-American woman walking out of a restaurant diagonally opposite, but the backpack behind her was crumpled. Obviously, she didn't find anything in it and didn't get the food she wanted.
Just as he hid his figure and moved towards the opposite convenience store where he had been hiding, an infected person suddenly appeared with half of his head covered by fungus, his eye socket growing and having completely destroyed one of his eyes.
Unusually, this infected individual did not directly roar and bite the target, but instead sneaked up on the young African-American woman, seemingly closing the distance between itself and its prey.
"So... What happened to the infected person?" Sarah pointed at the specially shaped infected person and asked in horror. She could see that this infected person was obviously different from the other infected people. It seemed even stranger.
"Really!"
Brian looked at the familiar infected person with an ugly face. This was the infected person with the largest fungus coverage he had ever seen, and it seemed that he had completed the "evolution" and entered the second stage.
He knows his speculation is correct. Over time, the bacteria in these infected people are constantly transforming the host's body, making it more powerful, in order to infect more prey and "work" for the bacteria.
On the other hand, just as the evolved infected person got close enough, he suddenly let out a strange "hissing" cry and rushed towards the young African-American girl. At the same time, the strange cry also woke up all the people nearby. Those who were standing still seemed to have received a signal and ran in the direction of the sound with a roar.
And the young girl quickly turned around after hearing the strange screams behind her. When she saw an infected person rushing towards her, she immediately panicked, but she also killed many infected people during this period, so she quickly responded, took out her pistol, and shot the head of the infected person who rushed over.
The bullet flew out, hitting the infected person's head unbiasedly, and the entire body was burst open in an instant, but the infected person seemed to be fine and still rushed towards the prey in front of him.
Looking at the infected person who was still alive, the young girl screamed in horror, turned around without hesitation and wanted to run away.
But this evolved infected person is obviously faster than the ordinary infected person, catching up with the young girl in a few steps and throwing her to the ground.
"Ahhhh--!"
Suddenly, shrill screams echoed throughout the block, and the desperate wails penetrated deep into the hearts of all the survivors hiding nearby.