Chapter 121: Chapter 109: Phoenix City Riot

After Oscar Owen and the others disposed of Hayden Winters’s body, they began to pack up with everyone else. It was for no other reason than the overpowering stench of blood from the corpse. Hayden Winters had been killed by Oscar’s Wind Blade skill, and the blood that covered his body hadn’t coagulated yet, still flowing endlessly from the major artery in his neck.

Although they were in an underground parking garage sheltered from the wind, a zombie’s sense of smell was tens, or even hundreds, of times better than a human’s. High-level zombies, in particular, could smell a single drop of human blood from a hundred kilometers away.

When they first arrived in Phoenix City, they all survived in the city’s camp. But the camp was crowded, and the food rationed to each person was meager. To fill their stomachs, Oscar Owen and his group often snuck out through the underground sewers to scavenge for food.

On their way back from their last scavenging run, they found Sasha Gable’s group in the sewers, escaping with his mother and Jane Monroe. He told them that the camp had been overrun by a horde of zombies that included high-level ones, and everyone was trapped inside. Only the few of them who knew about the secret passage had managed to escape in the chaos.

Places with many people or the smell of blood were both extremely likely to attract attacks from zombie hordes.

This was a lesson they had learned quickly during their short time on the run. It’s always better to be safe than sorry; you can never be too careful.

They loaded everything into the van Oscar Owen’s group had driven from the horse ranch. Lianne Kendall and the other women sat inside, with Oscar driving and Sasha Gable, the Phoenix City local, giving directions.

The others got into the two cars behind them. One was a Lincoln Nautilus, a durable SUV with decent performance. The other was an Audi A8, a comfortable sedan with good acceleration.

With everyone settled in the vehicles, the group drove out of the underground garage and headed for the suburbs, following Sasha’s directions.

The residential complex they’d been staying in wasn’t far from the city center. To get to the outskirts, they had to cross an intersection by a pedestrian street, near which was Phoenix City’s Second Hospital.

"Sasha, are you sure this route to the suburbs is safe?" Oscar Owen asked, focusing on his driving.

"I’m sure. There’s a road there that leads to the Phoenix City Air Freight Base. Before the apocalypse, it was always guarded by soldiers, so very few people used it. Taking that road to the suburbs is our safest route."

Sasha Gable patted his chest confidently. "My father used to drive transport trucks along that route to deliver supplies. I’ve been there a few times myself. Unfortunately, my father..." As he spoke, a look of sorrow crossed his face. "If he hadn’t been saving me, he wouldn’t have..."

He clenched his fists as if he wanted to go back to that day and take those damned zombies down with him.

Oscar Owen remained silent. The apocalypse hadn’t given anyone time to prepare. Too many people had experienced immense sorrow. He was one of them.

The three vehicles drove out of the residential complex and soon reached the intersection at the corner of the pedestrian street.

Perhaps they were lucky. Looking out the side windows, the entire pedestrian street was deserted—not a single zombie in sight. There was no sound other than the hum of their engines.

Inside the van, Lianne Kendall, one of the five women, was hugging her shoulders, trying to warm herself up. She felt cold all over, and her throat was aching badly. Soon, she leaned against the window, looking as if she had fallen asleep.

Luna Thorne and Leigh Atwood sat in the back row, huddled together and holding hands, as if drawing strength from one another and giving each other the courage to carry on.

Jane Monroe sat on their other side, gazing out the window. Her face was expressionless, but her tightly furrowed brow betrayed the constant anxiety she felt.

Only Rhea Thornton had kept her head down since getting in the car, saying nothing. Her expression was hidden, but her hunched shoulders and chattering teeth suggested something was wrong.

Sasha Gable was the first to notice something was amiss with Rhea Thornton. ’Even though she’s the reason for the final confrontation between Oscar Owen and Hayden Winters, which cost the team a powerful Fire Ability User, if she doesn’t cause any more trouble, I wouldn’t mind looking after her a bit if something’s wrong.’

"Rhea Thornton, what’s wrong?" Sasha Gable walked over and asked, tapping her on the shoulder. But her body was scorching hot to the touch. He quickly felt her forehead.

"You have a fever?"

Sasha’s question got no response. Instead, his light touch on Rhea Thornton’s forehead caused her to suddenly collapse onto the floor of the van. She hugged her shoulders, buried her head, and began to shake even more violently.

Oscar Owen saw the situation in the back of the van through his rearview mirror. He glanced at everyone and saw his mother leaning against the window, asleep. Her face had an unnatural flush, and alarm bells went off in his head.

’That’s the same flush my mother gets whenever she’s sick. Getting a cold and fever at a time like this, especially with a weak constitution, could easily lead to infection with the zombie virus.’ He was deeply worried about his mother’s health, but he didn’t want anyone else to notice her condition.

He had good reason. Just like now, after finding out Rhea Thornton had a fever, Luna Thorne and the others had subconsciously scooted away from her. Jane Monroe had even moved all the way up to the front passenger seat.

Even Sasha Gable, a fellow superpower user, was now ignoring Rhea Thornton, leaving her to tremble on the floor beneath the seats.

The atmosphere in the van grew tense, but the people in the two cars behind them were completely unaware. And as they sped along, Oscar Owen and the others failed to notice a red-haired woman strolling leisurely past the entrance of the Second Hospital, as if she were out shopping.

Their vehicles flashed past in an instant.

The red-haired woman looked toward the three rapidly departing vehicles and lifted her head.

Her features were delicate and her figure slender, but the skin all over her body had an unnaturally sickly appearance. The IV catheter still embedded in her arm looked as if it had been stuck into a dead branch.

As she lifted her head, her eyes, with their vertical, cat-like pupils, reflected the sunlight. The whites of her eyes were a deep, bottomless white, as if they had been filled with paint.

She sniffed sharply a few times in the direction of the cars, her mouth splitting open to reveal beast-like fangs.

"SKREEE!"

She threw her head back with a piercing shriek, then began chasing after Oscar Owen’s convoy like a primitive ape.

She switched between running like a beast and leaping onto rooftops more than ten meters high, then vaulting again to the top of an even taller building. The excitement on her face stretched her mouth even wider, and her vertical pupils pulsed with a blood-red light.

Along the way, her piercing shrieks rang out intermittently. Zombies hiding in corners and shadows were infected by her excitement, thrashing about as they followed her lead and ran in the same direction.

Phoenix City’s center wasn’t large, but the zombies in the houses and shops lining every street and alley poured out like beasts flushed from their lairs. Before long, they had filled the once-empty streets and every other available space.

If Lex Cross had opened the satellite positioning system at that moment, or if Saul Sterling had activated his sensory superpower, they would have been shocked by the sight.

A swarm this dense could only be possible if the entire population of the city had turned into zombies.