"Hurry up, it's your turn"
In the bank's reception room, Anna, Sylvia, Sarah, and Allan were sitting together, holding cards they got from somewhere in their hands, playing excitedly.
Brian kept running up and down the stairs, starting from the door on the first floor and running to the end of the hallway on the second floor. This cycle continued to sweat profusely as he ran, but there was no sign of stopping.
At the door, Tracy paced back and forth with a rifle in her hand, looking closely at the sky outside, as if waiting for something.
Today is the third day here. No one thought this snowstorm would last that long, but thankfully, the wind and snow outside gradually dissipated. It was no longer as shocking as the previous days and it was already clear several places outside.
During this period, they did not find or see any survivors escaping or being pursued by infected people. The entire city fell silent, as if everyone had disappeared, leaving only them.
"How are you doing? What's going on?"
After running back and forth, Brian wiped the sweat from his forehead, walked over to Tracy, and asked, "Still can't you contact them?"
Sighing slightly, Tracy shook her head helplessly and said, "I've been trying to contact you through the military channel these past few days, but there's still no response whatsoever."
Hearing the conversation between the two at the door, Wilfred, who was sitting on the sofa, said with a solemn expression, "So... should we keep waiting?"
He then pointed to some open backpacks placed on the side and said, "We've consumed a lot of food in the last three days. We still need to save some food for the drive to Atlanta. If we still can't communicate, we must leave quickly!
Perhaps the three of them spoke too seriously, so the four who were happily playing put down their cards and raised their heads to look in their direction.
"Look, there's a red light there!"
At that moment, Sarah's eyes looking at Brian suddenly froze, and suddenly a red light appeared in her pupils. He suddenly raised his hand and pointed outwards, shouting loudly.
In fact, I didn't need to say anything at all. The moment the red light appeared, all eyes were already on it.
The red light shot straight into the sky, remained at a very high altitude, and then slowly fell from the sky, emitting a burst of dazzling red light, which was particularly striking, needless to say, it was the signal light.
"Great, the commander finally threw the flare!" Tracy looked at the red light in the sky, her expression gradually changed from surprise to excitement, and she shouted excitedly.
The rest of the people also quickly gathered at the door to watch. Unexpectedly, they had just planned to go straight to Atlanta, but they didn't expect the flare signal to suddenly appear at that moment.
Brian stared at the direction in which the flare fell. The location should be more than ten kilometers to the east. As long as you walked down the road in that direction, it would probably take you less than two hours to get there.
Seeing this, he clapped his hands fiercely, and said to the few people who were still watching, "Okay, now that we have a goal, let's pack quickly and set off, we will try to arrive in two hours."
After everyone heard this, they quickly turned around, walked to their backpacks, and picked up all the things scattered on the sofa.
Brian went back to the couch, put on his backpack, and then hung the shotgun on the side of the backpack. He had reassembled the shotgun a few days ago, and naturally attracted everyone's attention at that moment, but it didn't matter anymore. Anyway, there are no rules for convoys now. It's always better to have an extra weapon for self-defense.
Then he took another backpack and handed it to Sarah who was walking beside him. As for the bag, without the weight of the shotgun, it became light, so he gave it to Allan. Anyway, there were only women's products that can be discarded at any time.
After a while, everyone was ready to leave and everyone had more or less self-defense weapons and other weapons in their hands. After all, bullets were limited, they couldn't always use firearms, and daggers were too short, so. They prepared some long handguns that facilitate dealing with infected people scattered about.
As I opened the door of the bank, a gentle breeze blew over everyone's heads. The large trees on the side of the road were now bare, with leaves falling all over the ground and ice picks forming on the branches.
Walking down the freeway, ten minutes later, they were back there, on the ramp leading to the interstate.
At this time, more than a dozen buses from the fleet were parked here. After three days of heavy snowstorms, cars and the ground were covered in thick snow, but judging by the appearance of the bulging blankets of snow, you can see that there should be dead bodies inside.
Wilfred stepped forward cautiously, walked into a layer of snow, and pulled the body out of the interior. He was a middle-aged man who looked to be in his forties.
He bent down and looked at the corpse for a while, wanting to see if there was anything that could be used, but after a while, he let out a slight squeak, and then began to move the corpse, as if he was looking for something.
When Wilfred turned the body over, he found a bright red spot on the back of the body, with several transparent bullet holes inside.
Then he stopped caring about the body and walked straight to other snowbags, pulled the corpses out of the interior, and started searching again. In this way, he pulled several corpses out of the snow in front of everyone's eyes.
"Dad, what's wrong?"
Anna looked at her father's behavior with some confusion, walked forward quickly, looked at Wilfred who had stopped moving and was meditating there, and asked with some confusion.
After scanning the excavated corpses, Brian pondered for a while and noticed something unusual about the corpses. With a twinkle in his eye, he understood what Wilfred meant by doing this.
Looking at the last corpses pulled out of the snow, Wilfred seemed to be sure of something. He slowly got up and said to everyone, "These people were not killed by infected people, but shot in the back."
Tracy stepped forward and looked at the corpses strewn on the ground, all face down. In a low voice, he commented:
"Yes, the gunshot wounds in their backs indicate that they were shot from behind. They probably tried to use them to slow the progress of the infected. But, even with these measures, more infected people continue to leave the hospital."
"It's not surprising that they were shot in the back. The strange thing is that they all died together. And did you see their wounds from the bites of the infected?" Brian slowly came out from behind and explained Tracy's doubts.
"What?"
After hearing this, Tracy was stunned for a moment. He quickly ducked down and began searching for several corpses nearby, and found that there were actually no traces of bites from the infected.
"That's right!" Wilfred looked at Brian appreciatively and found that this child really suited his thoughts.
"I just noticed that there are no corpses of infected people nearby. Although distances vary, it is clear that all of these people were shot in the back. In addition, the wounds are of various types, not just from guns," Tracy said, pointing to the evidence. "But the most worrying thing is that all the firearms and backpacks have disappeared. I'm afraid that..."
When Wilfred said this, all eyes turned to him, waiting for his next words.
But Wilfred said nothing. Instead, she looked at Brian, as if she wanted him to keep talking.
"Good..."
Brian frowned, trying to take in the scene in front of him. After a moment of hesitation, he spoke slowly:
"Someone deliberately killed these survivors to loot their supplies. From the wounds on their backs, it seems that they were caught while trying to flee. Moreover, it could not have been a single person; it must have been a group. They used shotguns, rifles, and other equipment, probably obtained from an army supply truck."
"..."
After hearing Brian's words, a gloomy silence came over everyone. Their gazes fell on the corpses scattered on the ground, as if scenes of past horror came alive in front of them. They could clearly imagine the expressions of terror and disbelief etched on the faces of the victims, and the ruthless countenance of the perpetrators, marked by greed and cruelty.
Although they had already expected this kind of thing to happen sooner or later, when this kind of cruelty was in front of them, they were all still a little out of breath.
"Why is this!"
Anna and Sarah covered their mouths gently. They had a kind heart and couldn't accept that something like that would happen.
And Brian after saying these words, felt a little tightness in his chest and clenched his fists slightly. He was very disgusted with this behavior of stripping other people of life at will.
Whether sacrificing others to ensure one's survival, using human lives to slow the advance of the infected, or deliberately taking life to steal supplies, each of these actions contradicts both morality and law.
But so what? Nothing will change. As long as this damn end of the world continues and social order is not restored, this kind of thing will continue to happen, and as time goes on, people will, of course, gradually forget the old days. This kind of thing won't cause any stirring in people's hearts in the new age!