It was already four o'clock in the afternoon. Due to the sudden strong wind and sandstorm, the three cars could only crawl forward at a speed of just over ten kilometers per hour. The wind, which was blowing at a force of six or seven, lifted a large amount of sand and gravel, causing the cars to make a loud "thud" sound.
In the Hummer driven by Jack, Bai Ru was sitting in the passenger seat, carefully studying the map. Although there were four women sitting in the back, they were all slender and petite, which not only made the space feel less crowded but also quite spacious.
Cao Mei was sitting on the right side, leaning against the car door, gazing blankly out of the window. Next to her was the college student Jiang Yan, who had been dragged along by Jiao Jiao. At that moment, Jiao Jiao was stretching her pale right foot onto Jiang Yan's thigh, lazily leaning against No. 6, holding a bottle of imported nail polish in her hand. She looked at Jiang Yan, who was carefully painting her toenails, and said with a pout, "Hey, hey, can you even paint? You said you learned painting, but is this how you paint? Do you think my toes are for you to create an abstract painting on? Wipe it off, wipe it off, start over!"
"The car is shaking, it's hard for me to paint!" Jiang Yan looked at Jiao Jiao with a hint of grievance, helplessly pulling out a Thomas tissue to dab some nail polish remover, gently wiping Jiao Jiao's right foot.
"Hehe~ Hey, which color looks better on my hands? Do you like black or blue? Actually, I think this white is pretty nice too, right?" Without waiting for Jiang Yan to finish cleaning her toes, Jiao Jiao happily leaned over to the front seat, wrapping her arms around Jack's neck to show him her colorful hands.
"Strange!" Jack glanced at Jiao Jiao's ten colorful fingers and shook his head with a light laugh.
"Then forget it, I'll just switch to clear nail polish!" Jiao Jiao pouted in disappointment, her body sliding back into her seat. Suddenly, she rolled her eyes and said to No. 6 behind her, "Hey, No. 6, why is there not a bit of meat on you? Leaning against you is killing me!"
"If I had meat, no one would want to eat me!" No. 6 said quietly, resting his chin on his hand and gazing out the window, uttering a chilling remark.
"Tch~ creepy skeleton!" Jiao Jiao shivered all over, murmuring under her breath. After pressing down on No. 6 a few times, she finally adjusted to a comfortable position, only to find that Jiang Yan had smeared a lot of nail polish on the top of her foot.
Jiao Jiao immediately glared angrily at Jiang Yan beside her. From an angle where Jack couldn't see, she pinched Jiang Yan's chest with her toes, causing Jiang Yan to let out a muffled groan of pain, but she didn't dare to make a real sound, only able to blink back tears as she continued to carefully beautify Jiao Jiao's alluring toes.
"Brother Lin, Brother Lin, my left rear tire is flat, stop and wait for me…"
Jack's walkie-talkie, which was charging on the drink rack, suddenly rang. He looked at his rearview mirror and saw Thomas Xu's hunting vehicle swaying as it stopped by the roadside. Jack immediately pulled over, put on his sunglasses and baseball cap, and wrapped a light green scarf around his mouth and neck before jumping out of the car.
The wind seemed to be getting stronger, causing Jack's clothes to flap loudly. The swirling sand and gravel stung his body like needles. He tightly held the scarf over his face and rushed over to Thomas Xu, who was changing a tire, shouting, "Hurry up! Once you're done, we need to find a place to camp. We won't make it to the gathering point tonight!"
"I know!" Thomas Xu shouted back, also wearing a scarf. Even though they were close, the howling wind made it impossible to hear each other without shouting.
"Jack..." At that moment, Gao Chujing also jumped out of the car to help. But as soon as he reached the side of the hunting vehicle, his branded baseball cap was blown off with a whoosh, disappearing into the gray Marcus-colored sky. He didn't have time to retrieve his hat and shouted, patting Jack's shoulder, "It seems we've taken a wrong turn. The gathering point is to our northwest. If I remember correctly, this position is directly west. We must have gone off course!"
Jack nodded and shouted, "Yeah, I feel something's off too, but I can't see the road clearly. Our top priority now is to find a place to rest. We'll hit the road again once the wind and sand pass!"
"Okay, but we can't go any further. It looks like there's a densely populated town ahead, and there are definitely many living dead!" Gao Chujing waved his hand and shouted with effort, "You get in the car first. Thomas Xu and I can handle it here!"
"Is there anywhere nearby where we can rest?" Jack tightened his hat and shouted loudly.
"What?" The wind seemed to suddenly pick up again. Gao Chujing pointed to his ears, indicating that he couldn't hear Jack at all.
"I said, is there anywhere to rest around here?" Jack leaned close to Gao Chujing's ear and yelled.
"Ah!" Gao Chujing winced at Jack's loud voice, his eardrum aching. He grinned and dug at his ears, then leaned closer to Jack and shouted, "I don't know! I'm not familiar with this area either. You should get in the car and check the map. We should be near Marcus Flag Town!"
Jack nodded as he saw Thomas Xu skillfully removing the flat tire. He turned and went back into the car. As soon as he entered the driver's seat, several women rushed over to pat the dust off him. Jack shook off half a pound of sand, like a little groundhog that had burrowed into a sand pile. He smiled wryly at Bai Ru beside him and said, "Ru Ru, your navigation skills are really something; you've taken us further away from our destination!"
"No way?" Bai Ru blinked her beautiful big eyes in surprise, quickly picked up the map that was on the dashboard, flipping it back and forth. Accidentally glancing at the printing date in the lower right corner of the map, she exclaimed angrily, crumpling the map into a ball of waste paper, and pouted at Jack, explaining, "The map you gave me was published in 2005. It's been almost ten years; the roads have changed, so you can't blame me!"
"Really? I didn't notice!" Jack was also surprised for a moment, then smiled and patted Bai Ru's head, saying, "Forget it, anyway, we can't make it tonight. Let's talk about it tomorrow!"
After saying that, Jack lit a cigarette in the car, thought for a moment, picked up the walkie-talkie beside him, pressed the button, and said, "Old Hu, do you have a new version of the map? My map is outdated!"
"Let me check the date... Oh, mine is from the year before last, so it's quite new. Do you want me to guide you?" Hu Laoda's voice quickly came through the walkie-talkie.
"We're not going tonight. Lao Gao said we've deviated from the provincial road and are near Marcus Banner Town. Can you check the map for a suitable place to rest?" Jack took a puff of his cigarette and said into the walkie-talkie.
"Wait a minute..." After a while of silence, Hu Laoda's voice came back, but it was Gao Chuanjiang's voice this time. Gao Chuanjiang said, "We can't go any further; we should be about seven or eight kilometers from the town. There's a fork in the road ahead. If we go north, there's a small mountainous area. We can get some shelter from the wind and sand there, and we won't have to worry too much about the living dead. However, it's quite desolate, with no villages around. If we go there, we might just have to camp... Oh, if we go straight ahead, there's an international conference center three kilometers from the town. According to the map, there aren't any villages around, so we might be able to rest there... But how to get there, you should decide!"
"Let's go to the conference center; we might even be able to take a shower!" After hearing Gao Chuanjiang's words, Jiao Jiao in the back seat immediately sat up excitedly and shouted into the walkie-talkie.
"Jiao Jiao..." Jack frowned and looked at Jiao Jiao disapprovingly. After Jiao Jiao timidly shrank back into her seat, Jack thought for a moment and said into the walkie-talkie, "Lao Gao, we can't take the risk. That conference center is too close to the town, and no one knows how many living dead might be there, so we should head into the mountains!"
"Lin Ge, I also think we should go into the mountains. What if that conference center happened to host a large meeting on the day of the disaster? If we rush in, we would just be delivering food to those living dead!" At this moment, Thomas Xu's voice also came through the walkie-talkie.
"Well, Lao Gao, you have the map, so you lead the way!" Jack said as he put down the walkie-talkie and slowly drove forward, following the pickup truck that had overtaken them.