Chapter 24: Julia was taken away

Chapter 24: Julia was taken away

Since Luke didn't have much stamina to fight for a short while, the duo became even more cautious. They slowly and stealthily moved toward the Lori's house.

Even though they encountered a few small hordes of zombies walking here and there, thanks to Lori, who was familiar with the place, they easily evaded them and continued moving toward her house.

After walking for a while, Lori excitedly said, "We are almost there. My house is right after this next turn."

Luke distractedly nodded. He was looking around with a frown on his face. Lori noticed this asked, "What's wrong, Luke? Why do you seem worried?"

Hearing the question, Luke glanced at her and sighed. From what he had seen until now, she was an intelligent woman. But as they neared her house, she entered a state of panic and excitement, which made her miss all the suspicious signs of the way.

"Wasn't this a heavily populated area?" He asked.

"Yes. Compared to the neighbourhood where my store is, many times more people lived here." Lori answered.

"Since that's the case, there should be many zombies here, but we only saw just a few small hordes ever since we arrived here." He said and then pointed at the houses on both sides of the road. "Another strange thing is that almost every house in this block has its door wide open."

Hearing this, Lori's eyes widened. She hurriedly glanced at the houses, and indeed, the doors were open.

"No. No. No." She muttered in coherently and her face lost colour in fear. Then suddenly, she ran toward the turn.

Seeing her run off, Luke sighed. After checking his stamina, he followed her.

[Stamina: 11 (23)]

Roughly twenty minutes had passed after he learnt the [Rapid recovery] skill and had recovered seven stamina points thanks to it. Adding in the four points he already had, he now had 11 stamina points. Although this was less than half of his total stamina points, these were enough to fight for a while.

Running at her full speed, Lori quickly arrived in front of her house. Her body trembled, her eyes lost their spark, and silent tears started streaming down her cheeks when she saw the broken door of her house.

She didn't even have the courage to go inside and check if her daughter's corpse was still there or not.

Her world was completely shaken. She wobbled as her knees gave out.

Whoosh!

But just as she was about to fall, Luke appeared beside her and supported her.

He glanced at the door of her house, which seemed to have forcefully broken, and sighed. However, just then, he noticed a zombie's corpse laying on the side. Its head was burst open.

As he glanced around, he noticed there were a few dozen more corpses sprawled on the road.

"Lori, stop crying. Look, there are zombie corpses here. Maybe someone has saved your daughter." He said, forcefully turning her face toward the corpses.

When Lori heard his voice and saw the zombie corpses, a ray of hope sparkled in her eyes again.

She looked at Luke with her red, teary eyes and asked in a trembling voice, "C-Can... can she be really... alive?"

"Yes." Luke nodded. "Perhaps whoever killed all these zombies has evacuated all the people somewhere. That's why the doors of every house were open. Now we just have to find where they are. So, stop crying now."

"Mhm. Okay." Lori nodded and stopped crying. Wiping her tears, she said, "Let's take a look inside. Maybe she hid when the door was broken."

Luke nodded, and they entered the house. Everything was a mess. Things were broken and blood stains were everywhere. Clearly, a fight had taken place here.

Seeing this, Lori's breathing turned heavy. "L-Let's go upstairs. My daughter's room is there."

Saying this, she nervously walked upstairs. Halfway, she saw a headless zombie corpse. Seeing this, she almost staggered and Luke had to support her.

Arriving on the second floor, they saw another three corpses sprawled in the corridor. Lori ignored them and walked in front of her daughter's room. The white wooden door was also broken.

Seeing this, Luke frowned because he noticed this door didn't seem to have been broken by the zombies.

'It seems these people didn't have good intensions.' He thought, his brows knitted.

In his last life, he had seen many cases where evolvers raided houses to find food supplies and survivors. n//o//v-)e)(l()b-(I-)n

When the survivors were found, both males and females had different treatment, especially in the initial days. If males were strong and could be of use, they would be spared. If not, their only outcome was death. As for the females, they were treated as sex slaves.

'I hope she is alright.' Luke thought.

After a while, Lori came out of the room with a picture in her hands. She seemed relieved and said, "You were right. My daughter isn't here. Those people must have taken her with them."

She then showed the picture. There were two people in it. One was Lori, while the other was a beautiful young girl. She pointed at the girl and with tears in her eyes, she said, "See, this is my daughter, Julia. Isn't she beautiful?"

"Yeah, she is." Luke nodded and then wiped her tears away. "Don't worry. She will be alright."

They then walked out of the house. Luke looked around and asked, "Is there some building nearby that can house many people?"

"Yes. There are two such building in our block. One is a public hospital, and another is a small food factory where food items such as biscuits, noodles, etc are manufactured." Lori said.

"Which one is nearby?" Luke asked.

"The hospital is nearby, but there should be many zombies there. So, I don't think those people would be gathered there. They must have moved to the food factory since it's in a somewhat isolated place." Lori said. After she had calmed down, her mind was finally working properly.

After thinking for a moment, Luke nodded in agreement.

After seeing how most people had turned into zombies, the survivors must have naturally chosen the isolated factory where few people usually go, making it a safer place to stay instead of the hospital, where countless people frequented at all times.

"Let's go to the food factory, then." Luke said while inwardly praying that the people who took her daughter weren't the bad sort of people and she was safe.