Chapter 433: Little Zombies
Chapter 433: Little Zombies
On the outskirts of Xiangcheng, An Ran—still firmly refusing to enter the city—is feeding Doll, changing her diaper, and heating water for a warm bath. Just then, Zhan Lian hurries into the maternity and baby store.
“What’s going on outside?” An Ran asks, holding Doll in her arms as she gently rocks her to sleep.
Zhan Lian glances at the two of them, shakes his head, and frowns. “The metal-type zombies are down, but something strange happens. After that wave, another one follows—smaller ones.”
“Huh?”
An Ran blinks, confused for a moment. metal-type zombies? What kind of zombies are those? Then it clicks—he must mean the copper-skinned zombies they just dealt with. Since they’ve already seen a water-type zombie, calling those ones “metal-type zombies” makes sense.
But when Zhan Lian mentions a second wave of tiny zombies, An Ran frowns. “Did they all come from a school or an orphanage or something?”
Zhan Lian doesn’t answer. Instead, he leads her—still holding Doll—into the clothing store and points through the window toward the blaze outside.
Luo Feifan has lit the fire. Within the sea of flames, several small zombies writhe and scream.
These new zombies crawl instead of walk. They no longer move upright like humans. It’s as if they’ve degenerated—shifting from humanoid creatures into something beastlike.
“After we wiped out the copper-skinned zombies,” Zhan Lian explains, “we started seeing some regular zombies that seemed to have awakened a sense of taste. Then these things showed up—smaller, crawling, no intelligence at all.”
The little zombies wail in the fire, letting out high-pitched, unnatural screeches. They don’t even look human anymore, more like some grotesque hybrid between beast and corpse. Though they still have limbs and torsos, their posture, movements, and expressions are all animalistic.
What’s most disturbing is their mouths—rows of jagged teeth like shark jaws, with two huge fangs jutting out. Every time they screech, it sends a chill down the spine.
They seem like zombies that have entered a new evolutionary phase, their skeletons and body shapes completely altered. They’re only about two-thirds the size of a normal zombie, but far more terrifying to look at.
An Ran instinctively hugs Doll closer. Staring at the hellish scene beyond the glass, she shudders and mutters, “Are those… still zombies?”
Zombies begin as transformed humans. They start out slow, mindless, stripped of senses. Over time, they develop hearing, smell, sight—even taste.
But now, these little monsters… is this what zombies become next? If so, what’s their final form?
No one knows.
“I have no idea where all these little ones are coming from,” Zhan Lian says, shaking his head. “Good thing they’re easy to kill.”
These small zombies have thin skin and brittle bones. They’re more violent and physically stronger than the freshly turned ones from early on, but still much easier to kill than the copper-skinned kind. They’re not smart—they just follow the scent of flesh. And with so many humans and mutant mice around, they’ve all swarmed toward the mall.
Worse yet, they grow fast. Unlike normal creatures that evolve slowly, these things grow with every bite. Some of the larger ones are already lying on the ground with their spines bulging—sharp bone spurs pushing up beneath the skin, like they’re ready to tear through at any moment.
(Author’s note: My head’s a mess. I switched computers, but the new writing program is driving me crazy.)