Chapter 571: Fragile
Translator: _Min_ Editor: Rundi
The most prosperous area east of the city center was filled with deafening car horns.
The not-so-wide street was congested by a long line without end. Without realizing the situation in the front and no cell phone reception, people could only use their horn and curse to express the dissatisfaction in their mind.
“Could people in the front be faster! What the fu*k are you doing!” A truck driver looked out the window and cursed at the people in the front.
The traffic didn’t make any advancements. The man walked out of the car, leaned against the door to peak at the surrounding and began to chat with the driver in the car next to him.
“Sh*t, when will the traffic end?”
“Hopefully not tomorrow. Do you know what happened in the front?”
“Only God knows, there is no cell phone reception, no internet, my wife is still waiting for me at home. Fu*k, this is so unlucky, did a congestion like this ever happen here?”
“I think… no. Wait, there was a traffic jam a year ago.”
“I heard a plane crashed in the east side of the city, perhaps it is because of that.” Another driver joined their conversation.
“Ah ha, that was a plane? I thought it was a meteor… Regardless, please don’t land in my backyard.” Leaning against the car window, the truck driver muttered while cursing.
Right now, there was a violent explosion from the distance. People subconsciously ducked down before they returned to their casual conversation.
The war has lasted for half a year already and the explosion and firing never stopped at MLL Island. They would scream in the beginning, now the most they would do was to duck down. People grow into habits; once they can’t change the situation, they become accustomed to life in the war.
“The guerillas are firing again?”
“Those lunatics that don’t want to live… Wait, what is that?” The man leaned against the car door and suddenly noticed the commotion on the road in front of him, he began to furrow.
Someone was racing.
No, a group of people was racing. They ran in between the vehicles, stepped onto windshields, and dove toward people.
Their face was…
Covered in blood!
Realizing something was clearly wrong, the man locked the door, took a few steps back while hesitating, and then gritted his teeth and began running at full speed. Everyone began to run to avoid the lunatic that bit anyone he saw.
There were waves of screams and the congested road turned into a complete mess. The drivers reluctant to leave their car either curled up or stepped down on the gas. While a lot of people saw Resident Evil before, when everything became a reality, their first reaction was being clueless.
Are they really zombies?
Are they died or alive?
Once they exhibited similar hesitation, only death awaits.
The truck driver anxiously closed the car window, but the half opened window was stuck by a hand reaching in.
While he cursed out, he turned his steering wheel while smashing the bloody hand. At the same time, he pressed on the gas.
The truck demolished the BMW in the front and pushed it forward two meters without being able to move a inch further.
The driver’s face was pale white. Only now did he realize how stupid of a decision he made to stay in the car with a bunch of bloodthirsty people leaping toward him.
The lunatics with blood on their faces already surrounded him.
The driver put the steering wheel in front of his chest, watched the windshield slowly crack, and his pants began to be stained with a yellow liquid.
And then, he used the corner of his eye to see that the taxi driver just chatting with him was dragged out from the broken windshield. He was crying and shouting the name of God and his daughter, then his neck was bitten off by the zombie…
…
The City K, a row of police cars lined the bridge that spanned across the river. Police with shields guarded in front of the blockade while attempting to stop the crowd from passing the river.
The east side of the city had completely lost the cellular and electricity grid, but because the police used the city line, the control system was not in chaos, only everyone’s brain was in chaos.
Compared to the civilian who knew nothing, they acquired firsthand information from the front line.
The crashed plane carried an unknown virus and the status of the infected was unknown. The known symptom was that the infected would turn insane and attack any non-infected target. The entire east side of the city was covered under the gloom of the virus. To prevent the virus from spreading to the west, they established temporary inspection stations on the bridges that spanned the river.
Of course, the police force at the front line didn’t know the truth behind it.
The only order they received was to block this bridge and prevent anyone from passing through. And the riot that happened in east side of the city was the action of the rioters. To prevent rioters from mixing with the crowd and entering the west side of the city, they were ordered to block any passage to the west before the security force took control of the situation.
But their superior didn’t precisely tell them how to take care of the situation.
This included if they should fire against zombies?
Fire? They are all civilians, even if their brain was poisoned by the virus, they could still move, that meant they are not died! Against unarmed civilians and firing at their own citizens, who could bear the consequence! Especially what if they discovered a better problem solving solution after the fact? Such as an antidote.
What kind of consequence it would cause was no longer important.
Anyone ordering to shoot must face persecution after the incident, and could even bear the name of “butcher” for hundreds of years.
Not firing? Tear gas and baton were useless against the lunatics. Even if the trained soldiers could use force to take down a few zombies, against a swarm of zombies, personal strength was ineffective.
No one wanted to take responsibility, everyone knew what to do, but no one wanted to be the person ordering.
When crisis arrived, management still had an attitude of shifting and deflecting responsibility, perfectly demonstrating the lack of decisiveness in crisis management.
This point was already demonstrated by several typhoon events.
“Why won’t you let us cross the bridge! There is a riot there! You’re not there to stop them and you’re here to stop us from escaping!” The man smashed the shield with his fist while roaring in anger.
Riot was the official explanation given to the virus.
To prevent unnecessary panic, it was a necessary lie.
The reporters with cameras used satellite stations to broadcast the chaotic scene.
“I’m currently in City K. Tonight at 10:37, three shocking events occurred in the city! Air crash, guerillas launched a full-scale attack to the military base in the southwest, the Green Church in the east side of the city responded to the attack of the Moro guerillas by launching a riot. In handling the event, Country F government demonstrated a lack of competency. Xiangjiang reporter, who ran the fastest, reporting for you.”
But obviously, there were misinformation in the reporting.
Facing the angry crowd, the police force here shared a complex emotion. While they must face the curse and saliva, they could not fight back.
The government force already mobilized a brigade from the front line to establish the defensive nest to the east of the bridge. As long as they could control the situation on this side of the bridge, they could establish health inspection stations and transport verified “safe” civilian to the other side of the bridge.
The sheriff felt slightly relived by the thought.
Although even till now, the Ministry of Health had yet to come up with a virus containment plan.
Suddenly, there were screams from the back of the crowd.
A few zombies ran, rolled, and tumbled across the fence of the bridge and leaped at the crowd without anywhere to ran.
The zombies already broke through the line of defense set by the army.
At the location where the commotion started, the sheriff saw a zombie in military uniform. One of his ears was bitten off, there was still a rifle across his shoulder, and that rifle was stained in blood…
The zombies that rushed into the crowd were like tigers leaping into a herd of sheep. People used their backpacks, umbrella, and even cameras to smashed the zombies frantically, but it was futile against the insane monsters.
People pleaded to the police with shields and begged them to make a way. The police all looked in their sheriff’s direction while waiting for his order. The sheriff held the radio, but after anxiously speaking out the first sentence, he became silent.
Reality proved that even an insignificant individual standing at the right spot could influence the life of thousands.
The police saw the hand holding the radio slowly drop down and gradually began to lose grasp…
The radio slid out of his hand, he took out the revolver and aimed at the crowd.
Bang!
Instantly, everyone became silent.
The man fighting over the shield with the police widened his eyes slowly with disbelief, then collapsed onto the ground.
No one thought the police would fire first. And even the police didn’t think their superior would be the first one to fire.
“What are you all waiting for! Fire! Think about your family behind you! They are the infected, not rioters! Can you not see! All the people being scratched or bitten will become their kind! I’ll take all the responsibilities, I order you, fire! Fire! Fire—” The sheriff used all the strength in his body and screamed at his subordinates.
The roar dispersed fear.
Guns were gradually beginning to be shot. After the initial hesitation, they became dense.
The people being abandoned watched the people that once protect them in despair, their eyes changed from agony to decisiveness to finally apathy.
The lives of the one hundred thousand in exchange for the sacrifice of the few thousand people.
The sheriff didn’t execute his superior’s ambiguous order and made the executive decision to fire. People who didn’t want to die jumped off the bridge, the despaired opened their arms to welcome their fate, the people who could not accept being given up on used their last effort to throw rocks at the shields.
A rock hit the sheriff in the face, cracked his forehead. Blood dripped down from his face and clouded his left eye.
But he was laughing.
“The right order” was already executed, but what would happen in the end was out of his control.
He raised his revolver again and closed his eyes.
But this time, he was pointing at his own temple.
Bang!