With a dinging beep, the customer service said, "This consultation is approaching timeout, we should end the call."

"Wait a minute, one last question, will the zombie virus spread on the new planet?"

"Don't worry, as a professional planet customization company, we certainly consider this, your stargate is installed with a harmful substance filter, all bacteria, viruses, and harmful substances are unable to cross the energy barrier without authorization. Wish you have a nice mood."

After an afternoon of strange consultation, dusk has fallen, the zombies are more active at night than during the day, the horrific howling fills the city.

I sat on the first floor of the museum without lights on, closed my eyes, and listened to the noise of zombies outside the walls, imagining the carnival party of the urban festival from ten years ago in my mind, just as if I was back to the past, if I opened the door and walked out, my friends would be fighting to scramble the last piece of the cake outside. But I know for sure that they are gone and I am the only person alive on this planet.

Although I had run out of water and food, it was clearly not a good time to go out and resupply. I re-nailed the first-floor door and window panels that had been knocked loose by the zombies, then I went to the second floor and blocked the only door with a table, next formed a semicircle around the corner of the load-bearing wall with a few upside-down bottles, finally, I huddled in this little safe corner to wait for the next dawn with my gun in my arms.

Unfortunately, what woke me up this day was not the early morning sunlight, but the piercing noise of zombie's nails scratching the glass. I opened my eyes tiredly and unexpectedly saw a zombie stand behind the glass window on the second floor of the museum, trying to break the glass and rush in. I walked over to check the situation, realized that all the zombies in the whole town overnight had gathered around the museum because of the smell of the living, they stepped on each other to build a ladder of blood and flesh outside the museum wall, eventually managed to get to the second floor.

I was like an almond wrapped in chocolate with nowhere to go, but this is not the first time this has happened, the zombies' acute sense of smell, keen hearing，and flexible limbs always help them find surviving humans. You have to keep running and hiding, if you stay in a fixed position for a night or just a few hours, then the zombies surrounding ten kilometers will come to eat you alive, that's why many people never slept a peaceful sleep after the doomsday.

I tiredly scratched my hair and found the essential tool from my backpack for everyone after the doomsday- firecrackers. Then set up the folding bow which had been modified to have more power to fire heavier arrows further away. I wrapped my shirt around the arrow shaft as well as wrapped the firecracker around my shirt, went to the rooftop, lit the firecracker, and aimed at the roof of the building over two hundred meters away, and shot this mess out with one arrow.

Shortly after this arrow landed, the sound of continuous firecrackers came back from afar. The smell of humans, the sound, the heat, the odor of gunpowder, each point has a strong attraction for zombies, it becomes perfect zombie bait when they are mixed. The zombies surrounding the museum couldn't help but rush to the direction where the sound was made, leaving only a few stubborn guys still determined to stand guard outside the museum, eagerly awaiting me like fans stubbornly waiting for their idols. So I packed my bag and take the map of the town from the wall, went out of the building, leave a permanent signature on their brains with a knife.

After the doomsday, no one uses cars anymore because the smoke from burning gasoline, the roar of the engine, the heat from the water tank, are all deadly temptations for zombies, driving a car through the city is equivalent to pushing a hamburger cart into a group of college students who have been hungry for three days, the zombies will chew you up like a hamburger. In contrast, electric cars may sound like a good idea - don't kid yourself, how can you expect the power system that could be destroyed by tornadoes, floods, or even a bird to work after it loses maintenance for a week?

I got on my happy bike and headed north.

After the doomsday, nature began to repair itself with magical efficiency, recovering so well that you could even call it " rebirth ". In the countryside, endangered plants grew into vast forests, even the flowers and trees hidden deep in the forests which had been classified as extinct by scientists were all reappearing, happily sowing seeds in all directions. In the city, thick vines cascade down from skyscrapers like waterfalls, leaves flip in the wind, showing ripples of light and dark waves. Weeds pierce the flat tarmac into sieves, trees break through the concrete parapets, these powerful plant seeds always take root in the most incredible places, you can even see flowers growing from the heads of the zombies.

I rode my bike through half of the town to the unfinished stadium.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Parked my bike on the main road, I put on my backpack, cleaved through the red currant bushes and half-high mint bushes with my long knife, and the site gate appeared in front of me.

The stadium had just dug its foundations when the end came, and a ten-meter deep pit was filled in by months of heavy rain to become an artificial lake. Two rusty tower cranes separated the two sides of the lake, collapsed relative to hold each other because of the sinking foundation, looking like a couple embracing. The tower cranes are covered with taro vine, a nest of bees saw this scenic site and built a hive under the iron frame. Migratory birds bring roes from distant rivers as a gift, making the lake rich in sturgeon, carp, and there are some cute little turtles and frogs in the grasses along the shore.

I came to the edge of the artificial lake, snapped off some dry branches from the willow trees on the shore, the orchid mantis hiding in the trees in ambush prey was frightened, suddenly flapping its splendid wings into the distance like a blooming flower.

I took off the nylon hair rope and wire hairpin from my head to make a 20 cm long simple fish hook. Then tied the nylon rope to my right index finger, leaned over the waterside to drop the hook in the water, slightly shaking the hook to imitate the ripples of the worm struggling on the surface, then hold my breath and wait quietly. Fishing here does not need bait at all, these fish hiding in the gymnasium never have been faced predators, do not know what is dangerous, they are willing to bite anything floating on the surface. Soon after, a curious sturgeon tried to bite the hook, I seized the best opportunity to lift the rope, a bottle-sized sturgeon arced through the air and landed on the grass.

The dry branches I just broke off were just right for lighting a campfire - yes, it would attract zombies, but the few zombies in the suburbs were almost drawn into the city by the scent of humans. As long as I move fast enough, I can finish cooking before the zombies arrive. In this age of no movies, no computers, no friends, a delicious meal is totally worth taking the risk of my life. I fill a stainless steel kettle with lake water and mint leaves picked in front of the gym, then put the kettle on the fire to heat it. While waiting for the water to boil, I found a thin stone, lit a handful of dry grass, went to pull out a long taro vine under the tower crane, then smoked the honey out of the hive with the black smoke from the burning grass, cutting a piece of a honey-filled hive by the thin stone.

I returned to the fire with the vines and honey, first throwing the taro tubers into the fire, then scraping the scales off of the fish with the thin stones, removing the guts, stuffing the fish's belly with gooseberries plucked from the gymnasium gate and honey obtained from my adventures, twisting the fish tightly with the taro vines, finally, string it with a branch and grill by the fire.

I lay on the soft lawn and smelling the aroma of grilled fish, but the harmonious scene was suddenly interrupted by a mournful howl, I followed the sound and was surprised to find a hanging corpse in the cockpit of the tilting tower crane howling at me, the poor tower crane driver chose to hang himself in the sky with his belt after the doomsday outbreak, decaying with the tilting tower crane for 10 years, but due to the metabolic qualities of zombies, it has not been able to free itself from this pathetic torture.

Then I saw the zombie fluttering arms and legs to break the rotting belt, head smashed the door glass, and dropped down into the calm lake. The zombies would not need to breathe and would not drown, but they would instinctively gnaw at the sight of the living, so the zombie will fill himself with water as water balloons before swimming to the shore.

I raised my gun to his head and sent him back to the bottom of the lake where the fish swarmed and began to feast, not worrying if the fish would transform into the dreaded zombie fish, according to my observations over the years, the zombie virus only works on mammals. I looked at the splash on the lake, then back at the perfectly grilled fish, suddenly losing my appetite, so I mournfully extinguished the fire, hung up the kettle, put away the grilled fish and taro tubers, left the stadium with my backpack, rode my bike continuing north.

With one hand in control of the direction and one hand holding up the grilled fish to eat, it is well known that an invisible kitchen is a clean kitchen.

After two hours of riding, I came to the head of a broken bridge over a large, fast-flowing river that would pass west through a city and then into the sea. I pulled the town map out of the side pocket of my backpack, the paper clearly showed there is an excursion dock across the bridge and that' exactly where I planned to go on this trip, I needed to transport an engine boat to the new planet - no creature with a brain would want to ride a bicycle across the ocean, and I certainly had a brain!

I fired a shot into the sky in situ, all the zombies in the opposite dock ran out and snarled at me across the two hundred meters of river. Some zombies with very low intelligence fell over the fence into the river and swept towards the sea by the turbulence, other zombies with even lower intelligence had to stay put as they couldn't even get over the fence. I sat by the broken bridge while drinking mint tea and assembling my rifle, then sent a walker away with one bullet in this most suitable position.

The cry of the zombies disappeared after the last one fell to the ground, I climbed along the remaining steel cable to the opposite bank.

The boats that had been moored on the river were rotting beyond use. I followed the signs to the maintenance dock located deep in the dock and then used the global master key - a crowbar - to open the dock door. This is a dark, deep, cobwebbed dock, with a steel frame and planks set in the water that rattled as soon as I stepped on them and seemed ready to break, so it probably takes me some time to find the tools I needed.

When I was concentrating on my countermeasures, a horrible wailing sounded in the sky, then the unstable dock floor began to crumble under my feet, water flooded from the channel onto the maintenance platform, seems to be an earthquake. Just as I was bending over and holding my head to find a safe place to escape this natural disaster, a huge tail with an evil stench smashed half of the dock ceiling and landed heavily back in the water.

I held my breath in fear, guys, did you know that whales are also mammals?