Chapter 45：Undead

"Undead's corpse!" Scott muttered. He saw Mia carefully cover her face with a trace of a of loss: "Clean up the room! This thing must be burned otherwise it will be a source to nurture the other monsters! "

Mia's mouth was fretting. She silently got up, looked at this woman rotten face and turned around to clean up the room of other available materials.

Dudian heard Scott's words. His heart was startled. He couldn't help but ask: "What is 'undead' ? "

Scott looked at Mia's back and saw her silently picking up the materials on the ground and table. He sighed and replied to Dudian: "Undead's are a type of monster which are extremely powerful and similar to human being. They like the taste of the blood so they will hunt and eat any living being which they detect. They suck the life out of body by eathing the flesh and drinking the blood. As more they feed on animals and humans, more powerful they will get"

"How did they come about?" Dudian asked.

Scott sighed: "They were infected by the devil. Before death these undead were human beings. Unfortunately they could not withstand the temptation of power offered by the devil and eventually abondoned their soul for it. Although they gain eternal life and unlimited power, but they loose their personality and memories. In short they turn to devil's minions."

"Infected?" Dudian naturally didn't believe in the 'devil' version of the story, so he asked more: "Is the infection direct result of the radiation?"

Scott did not think that Dudian would want to go to the bottom of the hole for the answers. He looked at him and shook his head: "Of course not! Radiation damages the body distorting its shape. But they will never become such bloodthirsty monsters. However in this case, it's the devil that agitates them by exchaning their soul for power. Moreover it is like a plague disaese which can be transferred to others if they bite someone off. It's like the previous 'bone rat' which was a low-level monster that could infect others by biting."

Mutual infection, ha? Isn't this a virus? .

However, how the virus come to be?

Could it be three hundred years ago, after he went into frozen storage capsule other things had happened?

Scott sighed and said: "These 'bone rats' like hiding in the darkness. Hunters would normally ignore them. Although with our power we can kill them but you all should be careful not to be bitten by them. In case your skin is scratched then you will turn into an undead!"

He looked at Mia who was silently picking up materials and said: "Mia's husband was bitten on the arm by a rat monster..."

Bang~

The metal object in Mia's hand suddenly fell onto the ground.

Scott was startled. He didn't say anything anymore to Dudian. He changed the topic: "We should separately clean the rooms. Remember to be careful. These monsters can smell our body's odor and blood. Although the 'bone' rat ran away but it still is hovering in the vicinity. Be carefully as they hide in the darkness. So check corners and dark places before going in. The best is team up into groups of four so that you can take of each other in case of emergency!"

He was mainly talking to new scavengers. Those consortium scavengers were not as good as the regular scavengers but they had rich experience.

Hearing Scott's instructions, the people began to scatter away. Mason, Zach, Sham and others were shocked by the terrible appearance of the undead. Moreover the previous 'bone rat's' huge body had made their minds uneasy. They had never seen such a bloody and dangerous scene! Most of them had forgotten their studies in the training camp and at the momemt just to wanted to hold together close to Scott.

Scott looked at these children's pale faces which was the result of shock. He slightly frowned: "Haven't your instructors told you that being a scavenger is not a simple job? If you continue to follow me, you will lose your chance to pick up anything valueable. By the way, there is a quota set by the consortia. If your scavenging results are lower than that for several times you will be expelled from the consortium!"

Expulsion? Mason, Sham, Zach and other turned paler. They fought back the fear in their hearts, clenched their weapons and turned to leave.

Dudian was about to turn away when Scott called out, "You do not have to follow them, just follow me. This time, I will give you one third of everything that I will pick. However the next time you will be on your own."

"I'd like to go alone. If there's something wrong I'd call for help!" Dudian frowned.

Scott looked at him in surprise and said: "Well then, be careful."

Dudian nodded slightly and turned towards Mason and the other two: "Let's go!"

Mason secretly gave him the thumbs-up and left the room with them. Dudian saw that all the rooms in the second floor had already been occupied by small teams for search so he said: "We are going to go to third floor."

Mason and the other two didn't object. They had come to unconditional decision that Dudian's decision would be final say at all times.

The third floor was also the top floor. Vegetation was sparse. Gray cloudy shadows shone in from the broken windows. The floor was piled with a thick layer of dust while blood was scattered on the walls and the corridor. There were corpses along the corridor. Some were cut at different parts of the body while the others had their heads crushed. There were traces of blade scars on the walls. The hunters had been here and a vicious battle had taken a place.

Dudian noticed that all the corpses had sharp claws instead of fingernails. Although he didn't know where the virus originated from but there is no doubt that to have such amazing effects it had to be created at world's top biological institute. Maybe, not, most likely it was made by 'those guys'...

Mason and the other two swallowed their saliva when they saw the bodies on the ground. During the training they had killed snakes, lizards and other animals. They have cut them into pieces, taken out their organs and seen their blood flow out. But at the end of the day, human is human. Witnessing a human corpse in front of the eyes was totally different to killing an animal and dismembering it.

Mason, Zach and Sham felt a sense of fear. Their limbs went cold as if these dead bodies will suddenly get up to claim their lives.

Dudian was equally afraid, but he tried to keep calm. Through illumination of the sunshine he came to the first room in the corridor. The door of the room was open, and the lock was broken. There was a violent intrusion and traces of the battle that had happened not long ago were still engraved on the walls of the room. There was a pool of blood on the ground and two more corpses. The dead bodies belonged to a young man and a woman. Their complexion was unusually pale. The green veins appeared on their body and their feet were dry and lean. It was as if the body fat was drained and only the muscle tissues was left.

Dudian put on his mask and spoke in a low tone through it: "Do not touch the corpses. Look around for useful materials."

Hi eyes swept the whole room. He saw a laptop covered in dust.

Dudian cleaned the dust off the laptop. He gently pressed down the power button. Apparently the spring connecting the button had rotten and was unusable. He took it back so that later on to dissemble it to see what parts were functional.