Chapter 1: Wu Shou
Dizziness!
A powerful wave of vertigo.
Wu Shou's consciousness was hazy, and he nearly vomited up last night's dinner.
The people around him had vanished at some point, leaving only a blur. A persistent ringing in his ears grated on his nerves. Wu Shou pressed a hand hard against his chest; he felt as if he were trapped in a small, enclosed space, unable to breathe.
He struggled to sit up, hanging his head and giving it a shake. The vertigo slowly began to fade.
Wu Shou opened his eyes. The overlapping images of the world gradually merged back into one, and he slowly raised his hands.
"Sheriff, what did I do?"
Wu Shou stared at the dark, gaping barrel of the gun that was nearly touching his nose and shrank back.
The man before him wore the uniform of a sheriff. Pinned to his chest was a gold star sheriff's badge, one that granted him the authority to enforce the law across jurisdictions. He held a Colt Python .357 Magnum revolver. From the smell of gunpowder and the warmth emanating from the barrel, it wasn't hard to guess the weapon had just been fired.
"It's Deputy Sheriff…"
Hearing his voice, the man squatting in front of Wu Shou let out an unconscious sigh of relief. He shifted the gun barrel slightly away, but he didn't lower it completely. The father and son he had met yesterday had taught him to be wary of seemingly normal people…
Leaning back against the steel wall, the man gestured with his chin at Wu Shou and introduced himself.
"Rick… Rick Grimes. What's the situation with the military?"
Rick's uniform was soaked through with sweat. The finger resting near the revolver's trigger twitched uncontrollably, but his deep-set eyes, though tinged with a need for composure, remained fixed on Wu Shou.
It was only then that Wu Shou noticed the soldier's corpse lying not far from Rick.
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A large-caliber bullet had blown a massive hole through his chin, tunneling all the way to the top of his skull. Blackish blood oozed from the wound.
But what was most shocking was the condition of the body itself!
The dry, cracked skin, like old, worn leather, had a grayish-black hue. Necrotic muscle tissue, hollow eye sockets… everything about it screamed that this was no ordinary corpse.
Wu Shou's eyes widened. His lips parted as he numbly whispered its name.
"Walk… Walker?"
Realizing his tone was a little too dramatic, Wu Shou quickly cleared his throat with a soft cough.
He was beginning to understand his current predicament.
Before Rick could speak again, Wu Shou shot to his feet. In a single, swift motion, he reached up and violently slammed the tank's top hatch shut!
The hatch closed on a pale white arm that had been stealthily creeping inside. The hand had been inches from Wu Shou's skin, and an intense, rotten smell assaulted his nostrils. Wu Shou was certain that if that hand had touched him, its nails would have easily torn his flesh.
Acting on pure instinct, he used all his strength. A series of sickening cracks, like crunching through brittle chicken bones, echoed in the small space. The sound of flesh and sinew tearing from bone made Wu Shou's scalp tingle.
But still, Wu Shou gritted his teeth and forced the hatch completely closed until the last gap was sealed.
'Thud.' The pale white arm dropped and landed between his legs, twitching a few times amidst a pool of black blood.
The entire process took less than ten seconds, but a thin layer of sweat already covered Wu Shou's forehead.
"My name is Wu Shou. I think I know why you look the way you do now."
Looking again at the recently awakened Deputy Sheriff, Wu Shou was overcome with a mix of emotions.
Before arriving here, he had been just an ordinary person.
After graduating from university, he ran straight into a wave of unemployment—laid off before he even started. To keep his family from worrying and to avoid starving, Wu Shou had eventually chosen to enter another field. It just so happened that this field was a little different from most.
Wu Shou had gone to work… in a slaughterhouse.
Sharpening the knife for pigs, cattle, sheep, fish, and geese… this sentence perfectly described his life. Who knew how much hardship Wu Shou had endured, going from a bright-eyed university student to a skilled butcher?
Stunning, slaughtering, bleeding, butchering, deboning… Wu Shou knew the entire process by heart. Even the master butcher at the slaughterhouse praised him for his natural talent.
But just when Wu Shou had saved up enough money and was rubbing his hands together, ready to open his own shop and become his own boss, he had inexplicably appeared here.
He glanced down at the military combat uniform he was wearing, then at the completely sealed steel walls of the tank around him. He had already lost all hope of returning.
Wu Shou sighed, deciding it was best to play along for now. "I don't know. We were scattered. When I woke up, you were the first thing I saw."
Rick nodded slightly at his words. He pursed his lips as if he wanted to ask something, but in the end, he said nothing.
The two fell silent as the sound of the horde beating against the tank's steel hull filled the air.
'Shh-kzzzt-shhh-kzzzzzt-'
"Hm?"
A sudden noise made both men look up at the same time, their eyes landing on the radio at the front of the tank.
Unlike Rick, who looked completely stunned, Wu Shou, having just recovered his wits, seemed to remember something. A flicker of excitement lit up his eyes, and a glimmer of hope appeared in their depths. He quickly scrambled forward and grabbed the radio's handset.
As if grasping at a lifeline, Rick immediately moved to Wu Shou's side.
"Hey, you. Dumbass. Yeah, you in the tank. Cozy in there?" A young man's voice, laced with a hint of mockery, came through the speaker.
But at this point, neither of them could afford to care about that. Wu Shou asked decisively, "Are there still walkers outside the tank?"
"Finally decided to speak up… kzzzzt… you should really see this from my angle. You'd be paralyzed with fear. But you're in luck. The walkers have gone to take care of that horse. You can come out now."
'Looks like the plot hasn't changed much just because I'm here,' Wu Shou thought with some relief.
"The bag with my weapons and ammo, I dropped it out there. Is there any chance we can get it back?" Rick asked urgently.
"…kzzzt… Forget the bag! Don't even think about it! Just grab whatever you have on you right now and get out of there!"
The young man's voice suddenly dropped, becoming more urgent. After giving them a direction, he quickly signed off.
Wu Shou turned and met Rick's eyes. They immediately sprang into action.
From the dead soldier, they scavenged a single grenade, a military entrenching tool about one and a half times the length of a forearm, and a Beretta pistol with 15 rounds in the magazine.
Although he was wearing a combat uniform, Wu Shou, being a normal civilian, was naturally far less familiar with firearms than the former Deputy Sheriff. He gripped the entrenching tool with both hands, a drop of sweat slowly trickling down his temple. He could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears.
"Ready?" Rick glanced back at him. Wu Shou gave a firm, determined nod.
Rick opened the top hatch.
The hatch hinges let out only a faint creak, but it was enough to attract two or three scattered walkers nearby.
'BANG!'
Without the entrenching tool in his own hands, Rick fired without hesitation at the walker looming over them.
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The gunshot echoed through the street. A walker tumbled heavily off the tank, and in that instant, Rick felt thousands of cloudy, dead eyes turn toward them.
"Dammit, we have to move! Now!" Rick roared, quickly climbing out of the hatch.
Wu Shou scrambled out of the tank, swinging the shovel in a backhanded blow at a walker shambling toward him.