Chapter 260: Machine Gunner and Sister Cao (1)
The sky quickly got dark. Zhang Xiao Qiang stood on the mound and observed his surroundings; the intersection between the two counties was laid with mounds of all sizes. At the same time, plenty of abandoned vehicles littered across the land, from trucks to sedans, to vans and minibusses, there were even tractors used by villagers all over the place.
When the outbreak occurred, the survivors from one side ran to the other, and the survivors from the other ran here. All of their vehicles converged on the small narrow path, which was coincidentally in between the hills, both of which around 10m tall, but their bases were over 200m wide.
Even if they managed to detour around, they would encounter all sorts of concave depressions and a 7m wide river channel that had a depth of 4m that had no water in it, but instead filled with rocks and large pits at the base with the occasional rusted nets by the banks.
Zhang Xiao Qiang had no choice to pick such a location, it was only an hour away from their base. According to the speed of their vehicles per hour, the distance between their current location to the base was roughly 80km, which was 160li. The huge sea of zombies was most probably a tad slower than an ordinary zombie but could clock up a distance of at least 3km every hour.
In other words, the zombies could most probably arrive by their doorsteps in the morning the next day. The sea of zombies was different from the other scattered zombies around, they had a fixed goal, they had identified that Zhang Xiao Qiang was their prey. With that said, they no longer had the need to search for preys and simply followed behind Zhang Xiao Qiang.
Zhang Xiao Qiang was forced to engage in battle with them in the night, as the space between their current location to their base was an empty and open space, they had no strategic grounds or any terrain that they could take advantage of. Zhang Xiao Qiang did not dare to let them go just like that.
Additionally, it was not as though Zhang Xiao Qiang did not think of having a few members lure them away. The thing was, a few vehicles could not do the job, and Zhang Xiao Qiang was unwilling to send the entire team off. It was already evening and by the time it was night, the entire place would be pitch black. If they had the slightest miscalculation and end up charging back into the sea of zombies, it would mean definite annihilation.
Their current location was the most suitable for bottlenecking the zombies, the continuous undulated hills forced the zombies to split up and the 7m wide river channel could easily hold up a few thousand zombies. The 4m height river channel was capable of storing up to ten thousands of zombies for them to become flat.
On his other side, although there were no river channels, there were plenty of hills that formed plenty of pot-holes and hillslopes. Any ordinary person with the ability to see could not even scale the entire terrain, making it even more improbable that the blind zombies could. With the terrain to his advantage here, the zombies would have to fork out at least a third of their numbers to cross through.
This way, Zhang Xiao Qiang was able to reduce the area to defend and at the same time reduce the consumption of ammunition while improving the life of the gun barrels. All of these little advantages were to stall for time. As long as they survived to the next morning, Zhang Xiao Qiang would bring the people to retreat to the flat and open terrain to kill the zombies. Ahead of them, the sea of zombies was at least a few tens of thousands, with many D2s.
But without the S2s that could catch up to them and attack them, Zhang Xiao Qiang believed that as long as he infuriated the mysterious zombie, they would stop chasing after them. At that time, getting rid of them would be easy.
“Bang…. Bang….” Two loud sounds came out. Amidst the smoke, the side of the hills that were closer to the zombies was removed and the precipitous slope prevented zombies from climbing up and threatening the combat team members’ lives. Up above the 10m tall hills were the hidden machine gun formations, with 20 sets of HMGs well-distributed along the edge.
The machine gunner relied on the bonfire near him to maintain his weapons while the assistant machine gunners inserted heavy and pointed bullets into the empty bandoliers, “Creakk..” The bolt of the gun was restored. He pulled on the bolt and looked ahead of him into the darkness, then turned and looked at the assistant machine gunner who was covered in the smoke, revealing only her white teeth.
“Sister Cao, today might be where we forfeit our lives here….”
“Why? Are you scared? I, this old woman here knew that you brutes will always succumb to pressure at such crucial moments.” Sister Cao teased while loading the bandolier.
“What are you talking about, when have I ever been afraid since following Brother Cockroach?” The machine gunner was infuriated, he hated to hear people calling him scared. No matter what, he was a person that had stood within a pile of zombies and peed on them before, how could he be afraid?
“What are you trying to say? If you have something to fart, fart it out now. Can’t you see that I’m busy?” Sister Cao became annoyed.
The machine gunner walked over to the ammunition crate and grabbed a bandolier, a few bullets and started loading them with her.
“I’m just saying, did you see the sea of zombies in the afternoon? They were endless, and did our Maxim fire out over five thousand bullets? The way I see it, the rifling inside it must be smoothened out already, but how many zombies have died? Did it reach even ten thousand? How many are left? What are their exact numbers?”
Upon hearing that, Sister Cao immediately turned and looked around, only to ease up when she realized that the other machine gun groups were all 10m away.
“Brute, can you lower your voice, you wanna die? If others heard you, Leader Zhang will kill you right now.”
The moment she finished her words, Sister Cao’s face changed. She dropped the bandolier and drew out her Type-77 Pistol and pressed it on the machine gunner’s head. The pressure she applied on his head pushed down his hair to his scalp.
“Sister….Sister Cao….wha-….wha-…what are you doing?” The machine gunner was confused by the sudden turn of events.
“Speak, are you thinking of running? Let me tell you this, if you dare escape, I will kill you…”
It was the machine gunner’s turn to become annoyed. He was merely talking about the bad day and was instantly accused of trying to escape. He extended his hand out and pushed the pistol away from his head.
“Bang” Cao Jie’s pistol struck the machine gunner on his cheek and caused him to fall to the ground. Following that, she pounced onto him and pointed the pistol at his throat.
“Brat, don’t try and play dumb with me, you ain’t thinking of running? And you’re spewing such nonsense? Let me tell you this, I was found by Leader Zhang inside the granary, he fed me and prohibit men from touching me. My life belongs to him, if Leader Zhang wants me to die, I will not speak a second word. But if you want to run from here, I will kill you first…”
“It’s not that, Sister Cao ah, Granny Cao ah, listen to me…”
“Speak….” Sister Cao pointed the pistol at his head once more while confiscating his Type-77 pistol.
“It’s my fault, upon thinking that I am going to die here, I immediately thought about my biggest regret in life…”
“Stop beating about the bush, spill it now. If it is something ordinary, I’ll let you write your own will. If you want to run and live, I will kill you first.”
“Can we change you for a man, I can’t say it in front of a lady…”
Sister Cao did not speak, her thumb pulled on the safety of the Type-77 Pistol. The crisp sound came into the machine gunner’s hear. He swallowed his saliva and shouted immediately, “I’ll talk, I’ll talk…”
