Chapter 465: Father?

Chapter 465 -78 – Father?

The roof of the train caved inward with a violent crash.

The little girl screamed.

Chen reacted before the sound had even finished echoing through the carriage. He grabbed the child around the waist and dragged her away as a section of metal buckled downward where she had been hiding only seconds earlier.

“Skyy, move!”

Skyy didn’t need to be told twice. He ran for the opposite doors, swinging his metal pipe into the window beside them when he realized they wouldn’t open. The first strike cracked the glass. The second sent a web of fractures across it.

Above them, claws scraped across the roof.

Chen looked up.

Whatever had landed on the train was heavy enough to make the entire carriage groan beneath its weight.

Then another impact came from behind.

Not one.

Two.

“Chen!”

“I see it!”

A gray arm punched through the damaged roof.

The little girl shrieked and buried her face against Chen’s chest. Chen twisted away as long fingers clawed blindly through the opening, ripping at the metal until the hole widened.

He couldn’t fight properly while carrying her.

“Skyy!”

Skyy turned, and Chen immediately pushed the girl into his arms.

“Take her.”

Skyy caught her awkwardly. “What about you?”

“Break that window.”

Another hand tore through the ceiling.

Chen raised his own.

The air inside the carriage compressed so suddenly that Skyy’s ears popped. Chen forced the pressure upward, and the roof exploded outward with a deafening metallic crack.

A zombie was thrown from the train.

Chen caught only a glimpse of its body twisting through the air before it slammed onto the platform.

The second infected immediately dropped through the opening.

Chen’s knife was already in his hand.

The zombie landed between the seats, snapping its jaws as it scrambled toward him. Chen stepped aside, caught its arm, and drove the blade through the side of its skull.

It collapsed at his feet.

“Got it!”

Chen turned.

Skyy had finally broken the window. Jagged pieces of glass still clung to the frame, but there was enough room to climb through.

Outside, the station had become complete chaos.

The soldiers who had been holding the far entrance were retreating. Several bodies already lay across the platform, and more infected were pouring down from the ceiling. The gunfire had become scattered now, each burst coming from farther away than the last.

They were losing control of the station.

Chen climbed through the broken window first and dropped onto the narrow maintenance walkway. He turned immediately.

“Give her to me.”

Skyy passed the little girl through, then climbed after her. Chen caught his arm when his foot slipped on the frame and pulled him down beside him.

“Run.”

They took off along the walkway.

The girl had wrapped both arms around Chen’s neck and wasn’t making a sound anymore. That frightened him more than the screaming had. Her whole body shook against him, but she seemed to understand that crying loudly would attract attention.

The maintenance path followed the wall toward an emergency stairwell. If the old station layout on Liang Wei’s map was accurate, it should lead toward the western service road.

They only had to reach it.

Something slammed onto the walkway behind them.

Chen didn’t look back.

Skyy did.

His face changed. “Chen.”

“Keep running.”

“That’s not a normal one.”

Chen heard it then.

The scrape of claws against concrete was too fast. Too close.

He risked one glance over his shoulder.

The infected chasing them moved on all fours, its limbs unnaturally long and thin. Parts of its back had split open, exposing ridges of bone beneath gray skin. It wasn’t running so much as launching itself forward in violent bursts, using the wall whenever the narrow walkway slowed it down.

And it was gaining on them.

Chen shifted the girl higher against his chest.

“Skyy, stairs!”

They reached the emergency door.

Skyy grabbed the handle.

Locked.

“Fuck!”

The creature shrieked behind them.

Chen shoved Skyy aside and kicked the door near the lock.

It didn’t move.

The zombie landed less than twenty meters away.

Chen kicked again.

Metal bent.

“Again!” Skyy shouted.

Chen drove his heel into the lock a third time.

The frame cracked.

Skyy threw his weight against the door, and it burst inward.

They stumbled through just as the infected launched itself at them.

Chen spun and threw out one hand.

A wall of compressed air slammed into the creature.

It flew backward, but unlike the ordinary zombies, it twisted in midair and caught the railing with one clawed hand.

Chen stared.

“Oh, fuck off.”

The zombie hauled itself back up.

Skyy grabbed Chen’s sleeve. “Come on!”

They ran upstairs.

The stairwell spiraled upward through several levels, their footsteps echoing wildly against the concrete. Chen could hear the creature below them, claws scraping over the steps as it followed.

The little girl finally spoke.

“It’s coming.”

“I know.”

Her grip tightened around his neck.

Chen’s lungs were beginning to burn. The underwater tunnel, the fighting, and now running while carrying a child were taking their toll, but he refused to slow down. Skyy was struggling too. His wet hair stuck to his forehead, and his breathing came in rough gasps as he forced himself up another flight.

A door appeared above them.

Daylight showed beneath it.

“There!”

Skyy reached it first and shoved it open.

They burst outside.

Cold afternoon air hit Chen’s face.

For the first time in hours, there was open sky above them.

He barely had time to appreciate it.

“Stop!”

Several rifles swung toward them.

Chen stopped so abruptly that Skyy nearly crashed into his back.

They had emerged onto a service road behind the station, but it wasn’t empty. Military vehicles blocked the road, and a temporary barricade had been built across the intersection ahead. Soldiers were moving equipment into trucks while others watched the surrounding buildings.

At least eight guns were now pointed directly at Chen.

“Don’t shoot!” Skyy shouted. “We’re human!”

“Put down your weapons!”

Chen slowly lowered his knife.

The little girl was still clinging to him.

“We have a child.”

One of the soldiers hesitated when he noticed her.

Then the emergency door behind them shook.

Chen’s head snapped around.

The creature had reached the top.

“Move!” he shouted.

The door exploded outward.

The infected launched itself into the open.

Gunfire erupted.

Chen dropped and covered the little girl’s head while Skyy threw himself down beside him. Bullets tore through the creature, but it moved too quickly, scrambling sideways across the wall before leaping onto one of the soldiers.

The man screamed.

The entire checkpoint dissolved into chaos.

Chen shoved the girl toward Skyy.

“Stay down!”

He surged to his feet.

Wind gathered around his arm as the infected lifted its head from the fallen soldier. Before it could leap again, Chen slashed his hand sideways.

Compressed air tore through its shoulder.

The creature spun from the impact.

Soldiers opened fire again.

This time the bullets found their target.

The infected staggered backward under the barrage until Chen sent another blade of wind through its neck.

Its head separated from its body.

The corpse collapsed.

For a second, nobody moved.

Then someone shouted from farther down the road.

“More are coming out of the station!”

That ended the silence.

Soldiers immediately began retreating toward the vehicles. Someone grabbed the wounded man while another yelled for the western barricade to be sealed.

Chen pulled Skyy and the girl upright.

“Where do we go?” Skyy asked.

Chen looked around.

They had escaped the station only to emerge into another collapsing checkpoint.

A military truck started moving ahead.

“Get civilians behind the second barricade!” someone shouted.

Chen grabbed Skyy’s hand.

They ran with the retreating soldiers.

A burst of gunfire came from behind them, followed by screams as more infected poured through the station exits. Chen didn’t waste time looking back. He kept the girl against his chest with one arm and Skyy’s hand in the other, forcing his exhausted legs to keep moving.

They passed the first barricade.

Then the second.

More soldiers appeared ahead.

One of them stepped into the road and started shouting orders.

“Move those trucks! Get the injured through first! Where the hell is the western unit?”

Chen barely paid attention.

Until he heard the man’s voice properly.

His steps faltered.

Something about it struck him strangely.

Familiar.

Impossible, but familiar.

Chen looked up.

The man stood beside a military jeep, dressed in a dark combat uniform with a rifle strapped across his back. He looked older than Chen remembered. There was gray at his temples now, and several days of stubble covered his jaw.

But Chen knew that face.

His entire body simply stopped.

“Father?”

The word left him quietly.

The man didn’t hear.

Chen’s throat tightened.

“Father!”