Darkness at the stair's bottom swallowed flashlight beams like crude oil. Each step squelched on unseen sludge, the stench of decay laced with chemical sharpness.
"Blood trail's fresh." Lin Wei swiped dark fluid. "Within three hours."
Zhao Qiang's light hit the crimson words: "IT WAKES". Paint dripped like bloody tears. "Foreman Wang's handwriting… vanished last month. Depression."
Scraping echoed ahead, wet with sucking sounds.
Chen Mo gripped the fire axe. Its blade was notched from battling the fungal corpse—now more bludgeon than blade. His father's Arctic warning surfaced: "Bad tools kill faster than bears."
They edged along the wall.
Light speared the darkness. Stomachs lurched—
The tunnel widened into a cylindrical shaft. Rusted ladders scaled the walls. Below, sewage festered, bloated rat corpses bobbing like grisly buoys. At the shaft's heart pulsed a tumor the size of a truck tire, veins glowing like lava. Fungal tendrils radiated from it, skewering the skulls of a dozen suspended corpses. The bodies swayed like macabre puppets.
Worse—below the tumor, a legless corpse in engineer's overalls crawled on rib bones, shoving rat carcasses into a puckered maw at the tumor's base. Each offering made the tumor convulse with pleasure.
"Symbiotic feeding…" Lin Wei trembled. "It's nurturing the proto-nest!"
"Bypass it." Chen Mo pointed to a narrow catwalk skirting the sewage. "No noise."
Su Qing's bare feet whispered through muck.
The tumor stilled. Every hanging corpse snapped its head toward them!
"Sonic detection!" Chen Mo hissed. "RUN!"
Corpses plummeted into the sewage! Zhao Qiang smashed the first attacker with a skeleton frame, his broken wrist bleeding fresh. The scent drove the tumor into frenzy. Its maw roared like a vacuum!
Chen Mo hacked a fungal zombie. Black ooze sprayed. The axe jammed in collarbone as bony fingers clawed for his throat—
Su Qing flung citric acid blindly!
HISSS! White smoke boiled from eye sockets. The zombie shrieked. Chen Mo wrenched the axe free.
"Keyhole!" Lin Wei pointed to a door across the shaft. A triangular lock hid under rust.
The catwalk was submerged. Only path—scaling hanging cables. But the tumor's tendrils rose, dripping luminous green slime.
"Distract it!" Zhao Qiang ripped off his bloody bandage. "I'll bleed for bait!"
"Suicide!" Chen Mo grabbed him.
"Better than all dead!" Zhao Qiang charged the tumor, flinging the bandage into its maw. "Chow time, ugly!"
Tendrils lashed toward the blood. Zhao Qiang rolled aside as slime splashed where he stood, corroding concrete with acidic hisses.
"Climb NOW!" Chen Mo shoved Lin Wei onto a cable.
It was slimed with fungal mucus. At three meters, a falling corpse yanked the cable! Lin Wei plummeted. Chen Mo caught her mid-air, crashing into sewage.
Foul water choked him. He surfaced to see Su Qing frozen mid-cable. Zhao Qiang was cornered, his cleaver bouncing off rubbery tendrils.
Chen Mo's hand brushed something long and metallic in the muck.
He hauled it up—
A broken fire hydrant striker! One meter long, rusted, fracture point sharp as a spear.
As a tendril coiled for Zhao Qiang's skull, Chen Mo hurled the striker!
THWOCK!
The fractured end pierced the tumor's core! Geysers of green slime erupted!
Suspended corpses spasmed and fell. The tumor wailed, veins graying rapidly.
"Move!" Chen Mo hauled Lin Wei to the door. The key turned. Hinges screamed.
Zhao Qiang tumbled through. Chen Mo glanced back—the broken striker gleamed atop the dying tumor.
Beyond stretched a wide utility tunnel. Flickering emergency lights revealed a faded arrow: "BOMB SHELTER →"
"Clear… for now." Zhao Qiang gasped.
Lin Wei ripped Chen Mo's sleeve. Gray tracery now reached his shoulder, something squirming beneath the skin. "Neurotoxin accelerating! Need antivenom now!"
"Where in hell?" Su Qing despaired.
Chen Mo's gaze locked on a toppled van. Its doors bore biohazard symbols: "EPIDEMIC CONTROL - EMERGENCY RESPONSE".
Prying it open, they found tetanus vaccines, adrenaline… and three vials of "Viper Antivenom"!
"Shared neurotoxin traits!" Lin Wei loaded a syringe. "Gambling!"
The needle plunged into Chen Mo's vein. Cold fluid spread. Gray tracery receded to his elbow, numbness easing.
"Delay, not cure." Lin Wei watched his pupils. "Need real meds in 24 hours."
Zhao Qiang dragged a metal case from under the seat. "Jackpot!"
Inside—a military shovel, edge honed to razor sharpness. Beside it, a whetstone and oil can.
Chen Mo laid the notched axe across his knees. Stone scraped steel, echoing his father polishing ice axes: "Tools are your hands. Respect them as life."
As the blade regained its killing edge, faint cries echoed from the shelter's direction.
"Survivors?" Hope lit Su Qing's eyes.
Chen Mo shook his head. The sounds warped, almost melodic.
"Lure." He strapped the shovel to his back. "The hive… learns."
Down the tunnel, a fluorescent arrow pointed toward the shelter. Beneath it, fresh blood scrawled:
"SHE WAITS"
Chen Mo tightened his grip on the axe. In its polished steel, his pupils flickered with ghostly gray filaments.