Chapter 1

The zombie's severed finger was almost torn off my eardrum, and the acrid smell of flesh rubbing against the air made my stomach churn.

Instead of retreating, I advanced, slamming my left elbow into its sunken nose. With the force of the impact, I plunged my military hunting knife from bottom to top into its withered jawbone, the tip of the blade precisely piercing its skull.

This is the only way to shut these rabid creatures up forever.

With a muffled thud, I kicked it in the chest, pulled out my hunting knife, and shoved the rotting carcass into the dry ditch in front of me.

"Bang!"

He raised the Colt "Python" revolver, which he was holding upside down in his left hand, and fired, shooting another infected person who was trying to pounce from a blind spot directly in the head.

I expressionlessly ejected the spent cartridges, shook the smoking barrel, and shoved the slightly hot "Python" back into the holster on my thigh.

Old Apache was pacing restlessly a few steps away, snorting uneasily.

"Relax, buddy, all the trouble's been taken care of today." I walked over, patted its blood-stained neck, took the reins, and slowly headed toward the abandoned farm settlement not far away.

As soon as I pushed open the rickety barbed wire gate of the camp, an extremely faint breathing sound entered my ears.

My feet paused slightly, my eyelids twitched, and my right hand calmly returned to the gun handle.

In this damned wasteland, the living are often more deadly than the dead.

Using the reflection in the rearview mirror of the abandoned pickup truck in the yard, I coldly glanced at the shadows on the side of the barn. Four gaunt figures huddled behind a pile of dilapidated agricultural machinery, shivering like withered leaves in the cold wind.

Not raiders.

I released the gun handle, grabbed a rag and wiped the black blood off the hunting knife, my voice devoid of warmth: "Come out, you little mouse that hasn't starved to death yet."

There was a half-second of silence in the corner.

Immediately afterwards, a girl who looked about sixteen or seventeen years old timidly stepped out.

She was so thin that her eyes were sunken, and her clothes were so dirty that their original color was unrecognizable. Three even younger children followed closely behind her.

The girl walked to the center of the front yard and stared intently at the water jug I had hung on the saddle.

The next second, her knees buckled, and she knelt stiffly on the gravelly ground. The three little ones behind her knelt down in a row as well.

“Please…” she swallowed hard, her voice hoarse, “give us a sip of water… or half a hard cookie. I know you don’t want trouble, but I really have no other choice… My name is Ellie, and these three are little ones: Bobby, Leo, and Mia. Mia has a fever, and she’ll die if we go any further.”

She pointed to the youngest girl, and looked at me with a pleading expression.

Unfortunately, in this wasteland, God had long been devoured by the zombies, leaving not even a trace of his bones.

Looking at those four pathetic creatures, a sense of irritation flashed through my mind.

The rules of wilderness survival are cruel: compassion is a suicidal poison. In an era where even clean water is traded for bullets, taking four helpless burdens is tantamount to shoving a gun barrel into your own mouth.

But seeing the three little ones trembling and still clinging tightly to Ellie's clothes, my heart, hardened like stone by the wasteland, still felt a damn prick.

"Save your tears for your throat." I suppressed my useless weakness, walked to the saddlebag, and coldly pulled out two crushed meat cans, throwing them with a thud onto the muddy ground in front of them.

“I’m not offering shelter. That’s all I can give.” I looked down at them, my tone cold and hard. “Now, take this thing and get out of my base immediately.”

The glimmer of hope on Ellie's face froze instantly.

She looked at the cans in the mud, then at my cold face, and a desperate, all-or-nothing feeling burned away her last shred of reason.

She suddenly pulled an old, rusty revolver from her oversized jacket, her hands trembling violently, and pointed the dark muzzle at me.

"Let us stay here! Just for one night!" She completely broke down, her eyes red like those of a wild beast driven to the brink of despair. "Don't force me!"

Looking at that broken gun, whose sights were almost worn smooth, I felt inexplicably amused.

The girl didn't even know how to hold a gun. Just as her fingers turned white from excessive tension, my arm lashed out like a raptor, and the leather lasso hanging from my waist swung out instantly.

The rough lasso seemed to have eyes in the air, precisely wrapping around her wrist, and I pulled her back sharply with one hand.

Under the overwhelming force, Ellie let out a short cry of pain, lost her balance and fell heavily forward. The broken gun flew out of her hand and slid a long way across the sand.

I strode forward, the heavy soles of my tactical boots pressing firmly against the gun, and looked down at the woman lying on the ground, trembling.

"You don't even know how to turn off the safety, yet you dare to point a gun at someone's head?" My tone was full of merciless mockery. "You're not even qualified to be a robber. Grab your canned food, take these kids, and get out of here before I waste my bullets on you."

Ellie bit her lip until it bled, and her tears finally fell into the soil.

Knowing it was all hopeless, she could only get up in humiliation, shield her three younger siblings who were too frightened to make a sound behind her, pick up the cans on the ground, and drag her heavy steps toward the door.

The moment they stepped out of the farm's iron gate.

The earth began to tremble violently without warning.

A dull, dense roar tore through the wind in the wilderness. My pupils contracted sharply, and I leaped onto the roof of the abandoned pickup truck, grabbing the binoculars hanging around my neck.

The eastern horizon was completely swallowed up by a nauseating dark brown.

That was the vanguard of the zombie horde, surging forth like a raging wave!

Dozens of zombies covered in rotting flesh were charging toward the location at a frenzied pace, instantly going berserk upon smelling the scent of fresh blood and flesh.

Less than thirty meters directly in front of them stood Ellie and her group, frozen in place, terrified.

The tall zombie at the very front had already bared its blood-stained fangs and was only a few steps away from the smallest one, Mia.

"What the hell!"

I muttered a curse under my breath.

Without a second's hesitation, I leaped off the roof of the car like a taut spring. Before my feet even touched the ground, my right hand had already swiftly pulled out the "Python" revolver.

"Bang--!!"

Deafening gunfire swept across the desolate wasteland.

The zombie, which was only a meter away from Mia, had its entire upper head explode violently like a smashed tomato, splattering bone fragments and foul blood all over Ellie.

As soon as the footpad touched the ground, I held the gun in one hand and rapidly flicked the hammer with my thumb.

In less than three seconds, the fastest-moving six or seven zombies were blasted away by the enormous kinetic energy, piling up in front of the children to form a shocking roadblock of mangled flesh.

"What are you all standing there for? Are you waiting for me to send you dinner invitations?!"

I strode forward and kicked the last half-zombie that was trying to get up, crushing its neck.

Immediately afterwards, I grabbed Ellie by the collar and, along with the three terrified brats, roughly shoved them into the sturdiest stable inside the farm, like throwing sandbags.

I followed and retreated inside, slamming the heavy wooden door, which weighed several hundred pounds, against the wall and attaching the rusty steel latch.

As soon as the door was locked, a sickeningly distorted sound rang out from the first line of defense in the outer courtyard, cobbled together from old cars and barbed wire.

More than twenty zombies charged forward like mad dogs, the ear-piercing scraping of metal and inhuman screams piercing the eardrums through the gaps in the wooden planks.

We, who were originally facing off with guns drawn, were forcibly bound together under the cruel laws of this wasteland.

I leaned against the wooden door and reloaded a few gleaming yellow bullets into the revolver's cylinder, the mechanical gears turning with a crisp "click."

Listening to the increasingly intense impacts outside, I knew that the fragile barbed wire fence outside could only hold out for another hour or two at most.

Looking at the four children huddled together in the corner, clinging to me as their only lifeline, my face fell completely.

If we can't find a way out within a few hours, this dilapidated stable will be our shared grave.