Jack flicked away the cigarette butt in his hand and focused his gaze on a row of six garages to his left, which were right next to the main office building. Two of the roll-up doors were wide open, revealing empty interiors, while the rightmost garage had a half-meter gap. Jack crouched down to take a look inside and immediately lost interest in the vehicle within. It wasn't that the car was faulty; it was just that the garage housed an Audi A6, a sedan that would surely get stuck in the sand if driven out. The environment here had become Marcus Sand's world, and without a high-clearance SUV, it was impossible to navigate!
Jack tossed a few cigarettes back into the trunk of the Camry and walked towards the garage marked with the number "3." He stopped in front of the roll-up door, looked up at the intact door, and cautiously knocked on it. Sure enough, after a few breaths, the roll-up door suddenly made a loud "bang," and a series of steel bars rattled as if something inside was violently pounding against the door!
Jack shrugged disinterestedly, listening to the commotion inside the garage. There were at least three or four zombies causing trouble in there, and he didn't want to get into trouble by doing something foolish like "releasing the corpses." He turned and walked towards the adjacent garage marked "4," which was quiet and showed no signs of movement. He bent down and pulled open the roll-up door; even if there were zombies inside, they couldn't be deaf or completely incapacitated given the noise next door!
As the roll-up door opened, Jack frowned in frustration because a Toyota Reiz appeared inside. He didn't want to know why the county had bought so many Japanese cars; he just wanted to know why there couldn't be a single SUV here. Even a van would be better than these sedans—at least they could carry more people!
Without even looking at the two gruesome corpses next to the Reiz, despite the blackened blood splattered everywhere, Jack knew that investigating how these two strangers had died was pointless. He turned around and opened the roll-up door of the fifth garage. This time, he was lucky; a nearly new Changfeng Leopard was quietly parked inside.
Seeing the Leopard made Jack smile. He quickly found a few handy tools and skillfully opened the car door. In just a few moments, he removed two ignition wires from under the steering wheel, but when he connected them... uh, there was no response at all!
Jack, feeling frustrated, put down the ignition wires, knowing that the Leopard must have suffered from battery failure due to long-term inactivity. In this situation, a mechanic would be hard to find, and the only solution was to call the girls out to push the car!
After jumping out of the car, Jack opened the last garage, which turned out to be empty of vehicles. However, there were several barrels of gasoline and a large pile of automotive supplies clearly used as a storage area for the small vehicle team. He filled the Leopard with gasoline and went into the office building to call out Hu Laoda and a few women. With everyone working together, Jack took control of the steering wheel, pushed hard, and within just a few meters, the vehicle roared to life, sounding very powerful!
"Everyone bear with it a bit; although it's a bit cramped, it's still better than walking!" Jack jumped down from the Leopard and clapped his hands. The girls were now very coordinated, knowing exactly what to do. They worked together to start loading their backpacks full of supplies onto the roof of the car, while a few girls, led by Bai Ru, began moving useful items from the office building outside one by one.
"Hey? I just remembered!" Boss Hu suddenly slapped his thigh while standing in front of the car, pointing at a small two-story building in the yard and said to Jack, "There's a small warehouse on the second floor, filled with cigarettes and whiskey. The good stuff in there is quite a lot; all the cigarettes and alcohol for the county chief's banquet were taken from there!"
"Then let's go take a look!" Jack nodded. Alcohol was optional for him, and he had just managed to get quite a few of his preferred cigarettes. However, since they had been walking before, the heavy drinking girls couldn't carry much, so what they were really short on now was drinking water. If they were lucky, they might even find some drinking water in the small warehouse.
Jack and Boss Hu arrived at the second floor of the annex. This was an old red brick building, with the corridor's railings and security windows being the oldest steel style. The walls were in a terrible state of peeling. If it weren't for the large amount of good cigarettes and alcohol Jack had found in that Camry, he would have thought that the person in charge here was a clean official worthy of praise!
Boss Hu rubbed his hands, looking excited and somewhat lewd as he stopped in front of a dark green security door. He glanced at the "Archive Room" sign hanging above and pointed at the door, saying to Jack, "This is it. Only the office director has the key to this place; ordinary people aren't allowed in at all. The stuff inside could probably stock a supermarket!"
"Then where is their office director?" Jack suddenly asked Boss Hu.
"...How would I know? He's probably either been eaten or turned into a zombie!" Boss Hu was baffled by Jack's nonsensical question and looked at him in confusion.
"Since we can't find him, what do you think we can do to open this security door? Use your Type 81 rifle or my handgun?" Jack said, tapping on the security door named "Panpan Brand." The door immediately produced a solid sound, as if telling Jack that whether you are a person or a zombie, without a key, you should just stay outside obediently!
Boss Hu was dumbfounded. This shabby house built by rural migrant workers had very few windows in the corridor, and this so-called archive room didn't even have a single window that could be opened. Moreover, the security door in front of them, once locked, had at least nine locking points. Unless they brought a welding gun or cutting tools for violent destruction, even if there were mountains of gold and silver inside, they could only look on with longing!
"How about I try shooting it a few times?" Boss Hu asked, not willing to give up as he took down the shiny Type 81 rifle from his back.
"Don't waste your time, let's go!" Jack shook his head and turned to leave. This kind of door couldn't be damaged by their current firearms at all. With at least nine locking points, even if you hit the target with your gun, whether it's a shotgun or a .45 caliber handgun, that thumb-thick bolt couldn't be broken with just a few shots, unless they had a specially made shotgun slug, but unfortunately, they didn't!
Big Hu followed Jack downstairs with his head down. Bai Ru, who was observing the surroundings, walked over and asked curiously, "Master Lin, what's wrong? Is there nothing in the warehouse?"
"I don't know if there's anything inside, but we can't open that security door first; we don't have the key!" Jack said with a wry smile, shrugging his shoulders.
"Damn it, it's so frustrating! Who knows where that unlucky guy with the key has gone? Even if he's dead, he should have left the key behind!" Hu Lao angrily kicked a trash can beside him and spat on the ground.
"Key? Wait a minute!" Bai Ru suddenly brightened up, hugged her gun, and ran into the building. In no time, she came back holding a large bunch of keys and stuffed them into Jack's hands, excitedly saying, "Try to see if any of these work!"
"Where did you find these?" Jack looked at the large bunch of at least dozens of keys in his hands in surprise. Could they have been left behind during a crisis?
"I found them on a living corpse in the bathroom; the keys were hanging from his waist. That corpse had a really big and fat belly, so I remember it quite well!" Bai Ru smiled slightly, looking quite pleased.
"Haha~ It might really be that guy! The office director's belly isn't small either!" Hu Lao exclaimed in surprise, instinctively patting his own belly!
"Let's go up and try! Whether there are dates or not, we'll give it a shot!" Jack said, and he went back to the security door with the keys, carefully searching through the pile until he indeed found a key engraved with the pinyin for 'Panpan'.