The supermarket's fluorescent lights hummed over aisles littered with convulsing bodies.
As Jeff predicted, nearly half the hundred-odd shoppers now twitched on blood-smeared linoleum – not cinematic "seven orifices bleeding" but clinically precise horrors: pink froth bubbling at their lips, limbs locking mid-spasm as neural pathways frayed .
Survivors' screams for ambulances died against phone screens flashing NO SIGNAL.
Jeff's amplified voice cut through the chaos:
"Emergency services are gone. If your fever exceeds 39°C or muscles stiffen, you have six hours to cool down or die. Move!"
Panic metastasized. The crowd stampeded toward exits, trampling fallen victims in their desperation .
Outside, the old man watched the exodus, his grip tightening on his granddaughter's shoulder.
"He's purging the space. Converting this place into an ark."
The overweight livestreamer wiped sweat from his brow, hefting his museum-plundered broadsword. "Should we help?"
The girl's knuckles whitened. "He's causing a crush!" Before she could protest, the old man steered them into the thinning current.
Jeff slammed a freezer door shut, gulping ice water before dousing his head.
Fever raged in his veins – a biological wildfire. He stuffed ice packs under his chainmail hauberk, groaning at the shock against his groin and armpits .
Nearby, the overweight man mimicked him, chugging three colas before gasping, "Burning alive's worse than zombies!" The girl recoiled.
"Must you be so... vulgar?"
Jeff's glare was scalpel-sharp. "When your organs cook, you'll wish you'd iced your brain."
Metal shrieked as they wrenched down the steel shutters.
The fat man rammed refrigerators against doorframes, his makeshift armor vest straining over his belly.
"Boss! What next?" Jeff kicked open a utility closet. "Steel cables! Triple-wrap every load-bearing pillar!"
The old man nodded. "Ling, use meat carts to weight the service door!"
The girl lunged toward the butcher section – hating Jeff's ruthlessness but trusting her grandfather's tactical instinct.
When the last bolt clicked, Jeff's sword clattered to the floor.
He hurled duct tape and fishing line at the twitching mass in the seafood aisle. "Tie every limb. They'll be hunting us by dawn."
The girl kicked the supplies away. "They're alive! We should—" "Play doctor?"
Jeff hauled a teen up by his collar, blood-flecked pupils dilated. "See his eyes? The virus is eating his brainstem."
The old man picked up the line. "It's mercy. So they don't suffer... or make us suffer later."
The binding became a grim liturgy:
The fat man used his bulk to pin thrashing victims, tape gouging their wrists as he wheezed apologies
The girl applied kung fu joint locks with surgical precision, avoiding the desperate pleas in their eyes
The old man swaddled a seizing child in burlap, humming a lullaby as he knotted the ropes
Jeff watched, leaning on his sword. Good. They adapt.
When a bound woman snapped her teeth at the girl, his blade flashed – not to kill, but to sever her restraints.
The woman face-planted, howling.
"Why?"
the girl screamed, pinning her legs. "Practice," Jeff said flatly. "Tomorrow, it'll be tendons."
Forty-eight infected lay trussed like grotesque parcels in the fishmonger's corner.
The air reeked of copper and voided bowels.
The old man met Jeff's stare over a twitching businessman.
"You've done this before." Ice melted down Jeff's neck. "We survive today to fight tomorrow. Nothing else matters."
As the girl secured the last knot, tears cutting tracks through blood-spatter on her cheeks, the emergency lights flickered – once, twice – and died.