Chapter 143: Guiding the Zombie Horde
The sky south of Savannah thundered with the rotors of ten Little Bull helicopters.
Wearing a headset, Marcus swayed slightly with the aircraft's movements as he tapped his fingers against his knee in rhythm.
Music blasted from the external speakers mounted on the helicopters. The guitar intro of CCR's Run Through the Jungle echoed across the open plains, mixing with the roar of the rotors to create an eerie yet magnificent symphony.
Flying in a wedge formation, the helicopters skimmed low over the zombie horde. Their shadows swept across the gray-white tide like a swarm of giant dragonflies.
Below, countless zombies raised their heads toward the sky.
Their gray, decaying faces stared upward, mouths hanging open. Their roars were drowned out by the engines, but the sound still rose from the ground like muffled thunder.
Then they began to move.
Not wandering aimlessly, but advancing directly toward the helicopters.
The ones in front moved first.
The ones behind followed.
Then the rest followed after them, as though invisible hooks were dragging them forward.
Marcus looked through the side window and watched the massive horde shift shape.
The gray-white sea of corpses converged into a giant V.
Then it dispersed.
Then it gathered again.
The formation stretched outward, becoming a giant arrow pointed directly at Savannah.
Marcus turned up the volume.
"Good thing I'm not running down there."
He spoke into his headset.
"Otherwise we'd be trapped in that V-shaped encirclement and surrounded at any moment."
A few chuckles came through the communication channel before being swallowed by the roar of the engines.
---
Meanwhile, every person in Savannah had been mobilized.
Soldiers in black uniforms carried ammunition crates from warehouses to the city walls, then hauled them up to the battlements.
Bundles of barbed wire were transported outside the city, stretched into position, secured with stakes, and tightened into defensive barriers.
Workers dug deep trenches in front of the walls.
Shovels and pickaxes flew through the air as dirt piled up along the edges, creating makeshift embankments.
Others planted sharpened wooden stakes at the bottoms of the trenches.
Dense rows of stakes resembled the teeth of some gigantic beast waiting to devour anything that fell inside.
Five Chinese men squatted near the base of the wall, hacking away at the hard ground.
The leader was Zhang Chong.
He was in his early forties, bald, round-faced, with a faded blue dragon tattoo wrapped around one arm.
Straightening up, he wiped sweat from his forehead and glanced toward the artillery crews in the distance.
"Damn it."
He spat onto the ground.
"After escaping the Latino gangs, we ended up in the hands of some Umbrella Corporation. What kind of luck is this?"
Beside him, a tall and skinny man planted his pickaxe into the dirt and caught his breath.
"Come on, Zhang Chong."
The man shook his head.
"Who told us to come overseas looking for opportunities? When the apocalypse started, those white pigs and Latinos targeted us first. Our group started with hundreds of people. Now there are only five of us left."
He glanced toward Kong Dexiang and Li Hua nearby before lowering his voice.
"Didn't you notice? Boss Fu and those Bamboo Union guys haven't looked happy lately."
Zhang Chong followed his gaze.
Kong Dexiang leaned against a dirt mound with his arms crossed.
His face looked as though he'd just swallowed a live fly.
Li Hua squatted beside him, drawing circles in the dirt with a blade of grass.
Zhang Chong looked back.
"Hey, Lao Bi."
"Can you stop calling me Zhang Chong all the time? I've got a nickname."
Bi Yuntian rolled his eyes.
"Isn't Zhang Chong your name?"
"Sure, but you can call me Ah Chong."
"Fine, Ah Chong."
Bi Yuntian grinned.
"But then don't call me Lao Bi."
"Okay, Lao Bi."
Bi Yuntian rolled his eyes again.
"Hopeless."
After a brief pause, Zhang Chong pointed toward Kong Dexiang.
"Why does his face look so dark?"
Bi Yuntian glanced around before lowering his voice.
"There are three of us from 14K, but only two from the Bamboo Union."
"Boss Fu has been suppressing Kong Dexiang ever since we got here. If you were him, wouldn't your face be dark too?"
Zhang Chong nodded.
Then confusion appeared on his face.
"But why blame Kong Dexiang? Wasn't he the one who brought us here?"
Bi Yuntian sighed heavily.
"Are you pretending to be stupid?"
"It's exactly because he brought us here."
"We only wanted to find a safe place to hide for a few days."
"Instead, we got detained by Umbrella Corporation."
"They say once the battle is over, we can either take payment and leave or stay and join them."
He snorted.
"Do you think Boss Fu isn't worried?"
"He's lived in America for years. The people he trusts the least are foreigners."
Zhang Chong thought about it.
That actually made sense.
Being free was certainly better than digging trenches all day.
"But those black-uniformed guys don't seem like liars."
Bi Yuntian slammed his pickaxe into the ground.
"What do you know?"
"When Boss Fu was making his name in the underworld, you were still running around in open-crotch pants."
"If he says foreigners can't be trusted, then they can't be trusted."
"Have you ever seen foreigners keep their promises to Chinese people?"
Zhang Chong fell silent.
He remembered plenty of incidents where locals had discriminated against them and taken advantage of their communities.
Bi Yuntian snorted.
"I don't know whether Umbrella can be trusted."
"But I do know that if we don't keep digging, we won't even have a hole to hide in when those things arrive."
The group resumed working.
---
Nearby, Kong Dexiang watched Li Hanfu's back.
His fingers slowly rubbed against the seam of his pants.
Li Hua squatted beside him and snapped the blade of grass in half.
"Brother Fu's in a bad mood."
"Don't argue with him."
His voice was barely above a whisper.
Kong Dexiang remained silent.
He simply looked away.
In the distance, a train whistle sounded.
A train emerged from the forest railway north of Savannah.
Its iron wheels clattered across the tracks.
The cargo doors slid open.
Hundreds—perhaps thousands—of soldiers in black leather coats poured out.
They moved swiftly, silently, and in perfect formation toward the city.
As they passed by, Li Hanfu instinctively stepped aside.
His grip tightened around his pickaxe.
The soldiers never even looked at him.
Their eyes remained fixed ahead.
Their strides were uniform and unwavering.
Bi Yuntian also stopped working.
His mouth slowly fell open.
He stared at the endless stream of disciplined soldiers.
Even Zhang Chong froze.
The pickaxe in his hand hung motionless in midair.
After a long silence, Bi Yuntian finally spoke.
"Actually..."
His voice sounded dry.
"Staying here might not be so bad."
Zhang Chong turned toward him.
Bi Yuntian continued staring at the marching troops.
"Look at them."
"Those aren't ordinary people."
"They're elite."
"A lot stronger than those Latino gangs."
Zhang Chong said nothing.
Bi Yuntian nodded to himself.
"Yeah."
"We've been running around for so long."
"When is that ever going to end?"
"At least this place has walls."
"It has guns."
"It has food."
After a moment, Zhang Chong planted his pickaxe into the dirt and dusted off his hands.
"Let's survive this battle first."
"We can talk about the future afterward."
The two men returned to digging as the endless stream of black-clad soldiers marched toward Savannah.
And in the distance, beneath the roaring helicopters, the massive zombie horde continued advancing toward the city.