Extreme germ phobia

Chapter 208 A dead Taoist friend is not dead but a poor Taoist

In the afternoon, Ouyang divided the remaining food among the three of them, and they barely ate their fill before taking their gear and crawling out of the bridge tunnel.

A cold wind swept across our faces, and layers of swirling snowflakes fell. The sunlight shone on the vast, boundless snowfield, making it dazzlingly white.

The road leading to the dam was covered with snow at least half the thickness of a tire, the surface of which was so smooth and pristine that one hesitated to disturb it.

Only on the snow by the roadside, a line of footprints led from the bridge arch all the way to the hill, making Ouyang click his tongue in disbelief.

Great!
If anyone were to pass by, they would surely discover that someone was hiding in the archway.

After removing his goggles and putting them on his face, Ouyang followed the footprints he had left behind and headed towards the hill.

Zhu and Jiang followed closely behind. Although they didn't say anything, they felt somewhat fortunate when they saw the footprints.

Half an hour later, the three climbed up the hill, and Ouyang set up his rifle to observe carefully.

The highway leads directly to the dam, connecting the north and south banks. The road surface is covered with smooth snow, without any vehicle tracks or human traces.

A thin layer of ice had formed on the water below the dam, which was somewhat unusual; on the north bank, the charred corpses were still hanging on the transformer.

Whether it's the main body of the dam or the north and south sides, it's exactly the same as what I observed this morning; I didn't find any differences.

But whether there is any difference or not, Ouyang couldn't say for sure.

He was hungry and tired at the time, and his body and mind were extremely exhausted. He didn't remember many details clearly, so they can't be used as a reference.

Seeing that he hadn't moved, Zhu Yiming couldn't help but ask, "Ou Yang, how long do you want to see?"

Ou Yang said in a low voice, "Something's not right!"

Zhu Yiming peeked at the dam, then pulled back to look at Ouyang: "There's no difference, right? I can't see it."

Ou Yang holstered his gun: "There are still people hanging on the transformer. At night, you can say it's because of poor lighting and you're afraid of accidents, but in broad daylight, why haven't you sent anyone to repair it?"

Zhu Yiming was stunned: "What's wrong? Are we still going to go?"

"Yes, how can we not pass!" Ou Yang said decisively.

Fortune favors the bold. There's no other place to find a car besides the dam, so how could we not go?
Moreover, the weather is so cold, we have to hurry, otherwise the battery will run out and even if we manage to get the car, we won't be able to drive it.

The three of them walked and stopped frequently, taking breaks every so often to observe the surroundings. What should have been a half-hour journey stretched into more than an hour.

There is a guardhouse at each of the north and south ends of the dam, as well as cameras facing all directions.

Ou Yang was constantly worried that someone might be hiding in the shadows, secretly watching the three of them.

Upon closer inspection, it became clear that the guardhouse's glass was shattered and the door was ajar. The room was empty, but covered in blood.

The glass surface looked very new, and there wasn't much snow in the guardhouse; it didn't have that old, neglected feel of a place that had been unattended for a long time.

Ou Yang patted Zhu Yiming, pointed to the power plant on the north bank of the dam, made a warning gesture, and then pointed towards the guard room, indicating to Jiang Yuwei to check the situation.

Jiang Yuwei slipped into the guard room and quickly emerged again: "The blood is frozen, but it's very fresh and won't be long."

Ouyang immediately thought of the power outage last night. Could it be that paratroopers attacked the dam?

But then I thought about it and it didn't make sense. There were no tire tracks on the road, so they definitely didn't come by car. The snow near the dam was also intact. There was a helicopter landing while singing... No, there was no need to land. Even just hovering over the dam would have caused a strong downdraft to lift up a large area of ​​snow, leaving a circular clearing.

Since they didn't arrive by car or by air, paratroopers can't just appear out of thin air, can they?
Ouyang couldn't figure out the answer, but he wasn't there to investigate a case, so he immediately put his doubts aside and pointed to the snowmobile parked behind the guardhouse: "Is the key here?"

This is good stuff!

Jiang Yuwei turned and went into the guard room, quickly returning with the key: "Is this it!"

Ou Yang was both surprised and delighted. He carefully put the motorcycle away, but didn't touch it: "Provide cover for each other and advance in shifts!"

After saying that, Ouyang was the first to rush forward.

But after taking only a few steps, they saw a row of shallow pits in the snow behind the snowmobile.

Ou Yang's pupils contracted, and he immediately stopped.

Those are footprints left after being covered by fresh snow!
"What's wrong?" Zhu Yiming asked.

Ou Yang gestured for them to come over, and the two men immediately came up.

Seeing the snow pits all over the ground, Zhu Yiming whispered, "So many footprints, there must be more than one person, right? What's this?"

Besides the footprints, there was also a dent in the snow that ran from the guardhouse all the way to the edge of the dam.

Ouyang mentally reconstructed the scene of the guards' sudden attack: "Did they throw the body down the dam?"

He quickened his pace, stood on the edge of the dam, and looked down, but found nothing.

Zhu Yiming felt like his brain was about to explode: "Ugh, why do we have to run into all sorts of things?"

Jiang Yuwei hesitated for a moment: "Should we continue forward?"

Ouyang's gaze followed the footprints, from the guardhouse all the way forward, eventually extending to the power plant on the other side of the dam.

"Since we're already here, we should at least take a look, right?" Ou Yang wasn't sure either, and he kept thinking to himself: If only we had a drone!
"Won't there be any danger?" Zhu Yiming asked cautiously.

Ou Yang's gaze was complicated: "I hope not."

They were dressed as guards, and given the proximity of the power plant to the base, there must have been some murky relationship between them.

The three continued on and arrived at the power plant safely more than ten minutes later.

The door to the factory was half open, letting in a lot of snow. The corridor was eerily quiet.

Just as Ou Yang was preparing to act as a vanguard, Zhu Yiming rushed in first without warning.

Ou Yang quickly followed and immediately saw a corpse lying at the end of the corridor, its eyes wide open in death.

It was an old white man with chestnut hair, probably between thirty-five and forty years old. His left neck had been ripped open by something, and there was blood splattered everywhere on the floor and walls.

Zhu Yiming cautiously observed his surroundings and was the first to rush over.

But his gaze didn't fall on the corpse; instead, he kept staring at the bloodstains around it, gesturing for Ouyang and Jiang Yuwei to come and look.

The two exchanged a glance and leaned closer, discovering a very clear footprint in the frozen pool of blood.

The heel, sole, and toes are clearly defined!
The three people looked at each other, their minds still a little confused.

In this freezing weather, who would walk barefoot on the ground?
Infected individuals who develop symptoms?
A cold wind howled, and a gentle breeze blew out from the factory. Ouyang suddenly smelled a faint scent of spores.

He thought it was his imagination, but after taking a closer sniff, the scent became even more pronounced, and his thoughts became much clearer.

"Holy crap!" Ou Yang was on high alert and immediately made several hand gestures to warn his companions that there were infected people here!
Zhu and Jiang immediately gripped their guns tightly.

Ouyang rummaged in his pocket for a moment and pulled out a rearview mirror with a hole in the middle.

This thing was found in the survival kit. Ouyang thought it might come in handy sometime, so he put it in his pocket for emergencies.

He quietly moved to the end of the corridor, carefully hid in a corner, and only stuck out the rearview mirror, adjusting the angle as he observed the situation inside.

The factory building is tall and spacious, with several large hydroelectric generator sets lined up under the high dome.

They are at least eight to ten meters in diameter, yet the gap between them and the wall is only wide enough for two people to stand side by side.

But right in front of this narrow gap, several corpses lay scattered about.

Among them were ordinary people wearing various warm coats, as well as infected individuals whose heads and faces were covered with fungal patches and hyphae.

Ou Yang stood up abruptly and stepped into the factory.

More corpses came into view, at least twenty or so, with ordinary people making up more than half and intelligent zombies making up only a third!

Several elderly Americans in guard uniforms were still holding guns.

The ground was littered with spent shell casings, the walls were riddled with bullet holes, and the windows were riddled with bullet holes.

Zhu Yiming and Jiang Yuwei immediately followed, and both of them were stunned by the scene in the power plant.

It's confirmed: the power outage last night was caused by a special infected individual attacking the power plant.

Ou Yang tried to recall carefully, but couldn't remember the exact time he rescued the intelligent zombie, nor could he remember when the power went out. He could only confirm that the interval between the two times was not very long.

It took him more than two hours to get from the hill to the base. Even if the intelligent zombies didn't take detours, they wouldn't have been able to reach the power plant that quickly, right?
No, that's not right. They don't need to enter the power plant. They just need to get to the substation as quickly as possible and sabotage the transmission equipment.

Ou Yang had a strong premonition that the bodies hanging on the transformer might not have been sourced locally, but could have been brought from Warehouse No. 4.

It's even possible that they were intelligent zombies who willingly sacrificed themselves in revenge!
With a heavy heart, Ou Yang carefully stepped over the corpses on the ground and found that each intelligent corpse had many bullet holes, ranging from three or five to more than a dozen or twenty.

Upon closer inspection, the vast majority of intelligent zombies died from gunshot wounds to the head.

Ouyang went to the gap between generator number one and the wall and continued to observe the situation with the reflector.

On the open ground between Unit 1 and Unit 2, there were also many corpses lying on the ground, about seven ordinary people and four infected people.

Two of them remained entangled until their deaths.

After confirming there was no danger, Ou Yang gave a hand signal to Zhu and Jiang behind him, indicating that it was safe, and prepared to pass through the gap and continue forward.

He had just lifted his foot when he stopped again and pulled a pistol from the dead guard's hand.

The sleeve is engraved with the Glock logo, followed by the number 47 and the caliber marking of 9 by 19.

Ouyang wasn't surprised to find Glock, as this product holds a 65% market share in the US police market. Compact pistols, such as the G19, once accounted for two-thirds of the total sales of handguns in the US!

Therefore, in the US, not only do law enforcement officers have a lot of Glocks, but civilians also have quite a few. The dam guards are also law enforcement officers, and at least five out of ten of them use Glocks.

Zhu Yiming and Jiang Yuwei exchanged a glance, both feeling that Ou Yang was too obsessed with Glock.

They knew this gun was good, but they weren't so averse to using anything but Glock.

Ouyang removed the magazine and checked it; there were still eleven bullets in the magazine. He pulled the slide, and there was one bullet left in the chamber.

He searched the guard again but couldn't find a spare magazine.

Expanding the search area, several empty magazines were found on the ground not far away, four of which belonged to Glock and each had a capacity of 17 rounds.

Ouyang carried all the magazines with him and was immediately satisfied.

There are plenty of 9mm bullets in civilian hands in the United States. If he looks carefully for a while, he will definitely find enough spare bullets to fill all the empty magazines.

They continued forward through the gaps, and the further they went, the fewer corpses there were. There wasn't even a single one left behind Unit 4.

He encountered more than a dozen guards along the way, at least half of whom were armed. He didn't need to search for them; he could fill all the empty magazines with bullets from the corpses alone.

Not only did they find enough bullets, but they also found seven extra magazines and three Glocks, two .17s and one small .26.

Without hesitation, Ou Yang immediately switched the guns for Zhu Yiming and Jiang Yuwei.

Unit 6... that is, the last unit, came into view of the power plant's control room. Ou Yang had just extended the rearview mirror when he immediately pulled it back and gestured to his companions behind him to stop.

He saw several corpses lying outside the control room, while inside the control room there were not only flames but also moving figures!

Ou Yang hesitated for a moment, then made several hand gestures. The three of them retreated behind Unit 5 and lowered their voices to the lowest level: "We didn't see anyone, but there were shadowy figures. There's a very high chance that the other party has a gun!"

“They must be infected,” Zhu Yiming said. “Otherwise, there would be no need for them to hide.”

"That's not necessarily true," Jiang Yuwei objected. "Such a large base was destroyed; isn't it normal for a few people to escape?"

Zhu Yiming thought about it and agreed, so he obediently shut his mouth.

Jiang Yuwei looked at Ou Yang: "What are you thinking?"

A sharp glint flashed in Ou Yang's eyes: "Whether they are friend or foe, we must find out their identities. We can't leave any loose ends behind us!"

The three quickly reached an agreement. Ouyang returned to the back of Unit 6, let out a soft breath, and suddenly called out, "Is anyone inside?"

Actually, he wanted to shout something to the people inside, like, "You're surrounded," but that would easily escalate the conflict, so it was better not to take the risk.

The shouts echoed through the empty factory. The figures in the control room immediately moved away from the campfire. Although it was impossible to see where they were hiding, it could be inferred that there were people hiding on both sides of the door.

"Who's out there!" A normal human voice came from the control room, clearly not an infected person.

Ou Yang immediately breathed a sigh of relief, his voice instantly becoming much firmer: "I'll give you ten seconds to state your identities, or you'll face the consequences!"

The voice inside carried a hint of surprise and doubt: "Who are you?"

Ouyang didn't answer at all, and continued counting down: "Ten, nine, eight..."

"FK, die!" Several gunshots rang out from the control room, the bullets striking the thick casing of the generator with a crisp sound.

Ou Yang let out a long breath, took out a grenade, and threw it with all his might toward the control room.

Since the other side fired first, he had no psychological barriers.

With a crash, the grenade shattered the glass and fell into the control room, followed by a muffled thud, and the gunfire ceased.

Ou Yang sighed. When did he start to become so cold-blooded and ruthless?
Although I was forced by circumstances, I still felt a bit uneasy... Oh well, better to sacrifice my friend than myself, it's more important to take care of myself first!

(End of this chapter)