Chapter Two

On the other end of the pier, the hotel's entertainment facilities were at the northern end of the long, modern building that was split in two.

The North Wing only contained Entertainment facilities and offices, whereas the South Wing was the actual hotel. Only two glass-enclosed bridges connected the two.

Usually, on a Saturday night, the number of people in the northern building reached the hundreds, sometimes over a thousand. Tonight, due to the emergency legislation, it was all closed down, looking like a ghost town.

At the top of the Northern Wing, the only person, except for security, roamed about. The top two floors were offices and meeting rooms. Including Wu Yichen's office, the young master of the budding and popular, Jin Resorts hotel chain.

With a frown on his handsome, stern face, Yichen pushed open the wooden door to see his 'enforcer', Bai Cheng leaning against Yichen's desk. With his bulky arms folded, Bai Cheng stared at the body tied to the chair opposite, like it had killed nine generations of his family.

"You killed him?" Yichen glanced at the dealer, who had been slipping narcotics inside his casino behind his back. It had taken his men weeks to find this bastard's identity and location; a damn RV downtown.

"I did nothing. He died on his own before I touched him," Bai Cheng raised his hands in defense.

Yichen glanced at the body that had been beaten to a pulp with an arched brow.

"He was like that when I got to him, Chen ge," Bai Cheng's voice rose a pitch in protest of his innocence.

Bai Cheng's father was Yichen's father's most trusted subordinate and friend, who ran their security company. He was a 'rich young master' himself and a few years older, yet he still followed Yichen to this hotel to be his subordinate.

Despite the technical master-subordinate relationship, the two were more like brothers with a deep bond of trust between them.

"Sure, I believe you Cheng Ge, nonetheless, it still doesn't stop the fact he died under our care," Yichen sighed, pulling out his mobile phone, "Johnny is gonna have my ear for this."

Johnny was his friend over in the police narcotics department, who helped him deal with the rather grey legalities of his life. Over the years, this casino had seen its fair share of drugs and blood. Johnny was the one who always helped him 'clean it up'.

Originally, Yichen's family had migrated to Australia three generations ago and were high-ranking members of the local Jinlong Triad. His father, repulsed by a life of crime, had branched out, laundering his ill-gotten family money and turning it into a completely 'legal' company, specializing in tourist attractions and hotels.

This hotel was a labor of love for his father, which he had passed down to Yichen on his twenty-eighty birthday, two years ago.

Despite ringing three times, Johnny did not pick up. Yichen frowned, checking the date and time, he was sure Johnny was working tonight. Maybe he was busy.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Yichen noticed the dealer's fingers twitching.

"Cheng Ge, check the dealer, he isn't dead," Yichen let out a sigh of relief.

He needed to know who had planted this prick in his casino. Growing up here, he had a lot of connections, as well as a lot of enemies. It wasn't the first time a 'competitor' had used drugs as a method to try to affect this damn place since he took over.

They all thought the young master, who only knew how to play and spend money, was weak.

Seeing the dealer was alive, he rang his paternal cousin, adopted by his father, Zhao Lixin, to come and treat him.

Lixin was only twenty-six and still a surgical resident. Even so, Yichen let him treat the non-customer people here like pincushions. Actual doctors were expensive to keep quiet. Secretly he just wanted to help nurture his didi's skills...

"Gege, gege, what the fuck is going on? People are going crazy," Lixin cried out through the phone, causing Yichen's heart to skip a beat.

Lixin came into his father's care when Yichen was just starting school. The little cousin of his was a skinny, useless brat in diapers, who followed him around like the plague.

Over time he couldn't help but see him as a pitiful baby bird, so he took him under his wing, like a little brother, to shelter him from the rain and cold. Often scolded by his father that Yichen sheltered Lixin too much...

Hearing his panicked, fearful tone stirred Yichen's cold soul into turmoil.

"Didi, calm down, tell me where you are," Yichen's unusually pandering, warm tone made Bai Cheng shiver.

Striding over to the computer, Yichen quickly brought up the security feed onto the large flatscreen TV on the wall.

"I was, I was in the bar with a few brothers, then Wei ge went crazy and killed Tao ge, ripped his throat out like he was fucking possessed," Lixin rambled whilst panting. "Ming ge shot him, but he just kept going… Tao ge died, but then he tried to bite me like he was fucking possessed."

Yichen glanced at the dealer stirring behind the rope. His battered face was awfully haggard and pale behind the blue and purple bruises. When he had first seen the cloudy eyes, he assumed the dealer had taken his own stash, but now it appeared to have an entirely different meaning.

"Where are you now?" Yichen tried to cut to the chase. Lixin was terrible for rambling, which often irritated Yichen's usually calm temper.

"In the bathroom with Ming Ge," Lixin replied concisely and quickly, noticing his cousin's change in tone.

"Yes, but which fucking bar?" Yichen was already annoyed that this little cousin's wings had hardened enough to invite some friends over without his knowledge.

"Ah, 'CyberDrunk', you know the gamer bar. We were having a Mario Kart tournament," Lixin tried his best to explain whilst drunk and knowing he was in the wrong.

Yichen brought up the feed for CyberDrunk, the cyberpunk-themed nightclub that had arcade games inside of it.

Roughly twelve young men were either being torn into or tearing the others apart.

Going over the blueprint of the place in his head, he recalled there was a cleaning station with a keypad lock in the hallway between the male and female toilets. Unlike the bathroom doors with no locks, that was the safest location.

"Go to the cleaning cupboard, the hallways clear, use the number 02151997 to get in, that's the master code to get in everywhere, remember it."

Lixin on the other end of the phone felt tears sting his eyes at the realization of those numbers. That was the date he moved into his uncle's house, a day after his parents had died.

"Got it," Lixin replied, dragging his friend, Yiming, out of the men's toilets and to the cupboard.

Yichen watched through the screen anxiously, noticing a few of those tearing into others turning their heads towards the bathroom hallway doors.

Fingers tapping on the wooden desk, he finally relaxed when his cousin and his friend were safely inside the cleaner's storage room.

"Stay quiet and as far from the door as possible, maybe spill some strong-smelling chemicals by the door to block your smell, I'm coming down with Cheng ge to come to get you."

Yichen's brain was running a thousand miles an hour as he found himself rambling like a parent sending their child off to school for the first time.

"En gege, don't worry, I'll be obedient and wait for you."

Reluctantly the two cousins hung up the mobile phone.

"Is Xiao Xin okay?" Bai Cheng asked.

"For now," Yichen replied, then walked over to the tied-up dealer.

Those foggy, vacant eyes did not move, yet at the sounds of them speaking the head had moved and his mouth opened and closed. Placing one hand atop his head to keep it still, he placed the other on his neck to check his pulse, finding none.

Yichen's entire worldview collapsed within a single moment. The dealer was dead, but still moving. The dead were eating the living. The dead were turning into zombies… fucking zombies.

"We need to go down to the fourth floor, to CyberDrunk, there are twelve dead 'zombies', aim for their heads only. Xiao Xin decided to throw a little party without us, only he and Yiming are alive and waiting in a secure room."

Bai Cheng blinked in disbelief, staring at the screen and then back at the dealer.

"Did I accidentally inhale some of this bastard's stash earlier?"

Yichen patted him on the shoulder, then aimed his Glock at the dealer's head and fired. Sure enough, a bullet to the brain was enough to put an end to them.

Due to the pandemic, the only people wandering the northern section of the building, except the two and the youths partying, were security. On their way down, they encountered three of the security.

Two were dead, most likely at the hands of the one wounded and unconscious not far from them.

"Drag Jerry into the storage cupboard, we'll get him on the way back," Yichen sighed at the two corpses, feeling helpless. "Xiao Xin will know what to do with him better than we will."

If it had been a bullet or stab wound, Yichen would have been more familiar. Unfortunately, it was a large, nasty bite on the arm and abdomen. Jerry had only made it a few feet from the two zombies before passing out.

Before they reached the nightclub section, his phone began to ring.

"Father? Are you alright?" Yichen asked, feeling surprised at his father's call. His father was on the East Coast, in the capital, right now.

"So you know to care, you stinking brat," his father's hoarse voice called through the phone, he sounded upset, "are you in the hotel? Are you with Xiao Xin?"

"Yes, we're both here, but there's a situation, I'm currently handling it," Yichen explained calmly. To him, this was a situation happening specific to where he was, so he could relax and concentrate on his tasks.

After hearing his father's tone and faint gunfire in the background there was now a heavyweight growing on his chest.

"Good, good, since it's you, I know you'll handle it well," his father muttered, keeping his voice low, "listen Ah Chen, there's a guest at the hotel and someone else I need you to take special care of, it's Jean and Chris' grandkids: Faye and Teddy."

A small, childish round face with glistening ocean-like eyes came to mind. "The Fraizer's kid that's here with her friends?"

"Yes, that one, she has a brother staying in the Fraizer's villa as well," his father let out a heavy sigh, "I cannot get through to the granddaughter, Jean's beside herself ringing me on the satellite phone nonstop."

There was a close bond between his father and Jean, who saved his life after a gang fight went wrong decades ago. It was she who helped his father turn his life around and onto this path that he, Yichen, was now blessed to walk. The Wu's owed the Fraizers a life debt that to this day, remained unpaid.

Last time he had seen either of those kids was well over a decade ago in his teenage years. The granddaughter was in dungarees and pigtails and the grandson was still in diapers.

He was shocked when he heard that the granddaughter had booked out the VIP rooms for her and her friends from Britain. Despite the elders pestering him, he remained distant, only telling Miles, who managed the hotel, to give them preferential treatment. Since then, he had not bothered to look into her further, yet.

The idea that that cute kid had grown up enough to party and drink made him feel like an old uncle. When the Fraizer grandparents had asked him to have a blind date with her, he was mortified and hurridly said she was too young for him, for marriage.

"Sure, old man, consider them under my wing," Yichen replied, trying to keep his tone calm, "how are things going on your end?" His pitch faltered towards the end with worry.

Even though his father was a complete wreck in his emotional life, -compared to his successful professional life- he still followed him after his parent's ugly divorce when he was eight. In return, the old man treated him and Lixin very well. His mother had returned to China months later and barely remembered his birthday after remarrying and having another son.

"To be honest kid, not good, it's not good," in the span of a few minutes, his father seemed to have finally caught up to his old age, then surpassed it.

"Are you still in the capital?"

"Yes, Ah Chen, I'm on the Yacht at the moment."

His father had gone to the East Coast to oversee the building of a brand-new hotel. He had already dominated the industry along the West Coast and decided to skip the barren middle of the country and head to the opposite side.

As a youth, his father often joked to Yichen "We are sharks and Australia is our prey, you just leave it to Papa to surround it, when I'm gone, I'll leave it up to you to devour it whole."

Yichen would vow to never devour the country because a world where his father was gone was one he refused to acknowledge. Right now, he was facing this terrifying, potential future. He still hadn't found a wife yet to give him the grandkids he whined for.

"When do you plan on coming home?" Yichen could not mask the desperate dependence in his tone.

"Ah, that depends on whether I travel by air or sea," he chuckled bitterly, "the land is a bit messy right now."

"Understandable," Yichen sighed, walking slowly but surely towards the nightclub. "Just going to put you on hold for a moment, talk later," he explained before pressing the button.

Through the glass doors, was pure carnage. Tables and chairs were upturned, with blood and body parts scattered all over. Only four of the young men remained intact, stumbling towards the glass doors where Yichen and Bai Cheng stood.

"Remember the heads," Yichen reminded Bai Cheng and opened the door aiming at the closest zombie, and fired.

The pungent smell of bleach invaded Yichen's nose as they entered the small hallway. Entering the code he opened it to see Lixin hovering over Yiming on the floor.

"What's wrong with him?"

"Gege!" Lixin's eyes lit up, "I don't know, he was talking one minute, then unconscious the next."

Yichen squatted beside them both, glancing over the clean clothes for signs of a wound. There was none, the young man was just feverish. Either he was ill from shock or had the virus going around, which Yichen had already had and overcame a month ago.

"Gege can you help me carry Ming ge to the clinic?" There were three in total: a small one on the pier and one in each of the north and south wings.

Yiming was a short and bulky young man, whereas Lixin was tall and thin as a bean pole, too weak to carry him alone.

"Sure," Yichen passed his gun to Lixin and mounted the man on his back with Lixin's aid. The guy was heavier than he looked.

"The safety is off, be careful with that," Yichen frowned at his cousin's pathetic handling of the weapon. Like his mother, Yichen's paternal aunt, he vowed to use his hands to save lives, not take them.

Despite this grand wish of his, he had been trained by Father Wu and Uncle Bai in self-defense and using a handgun.

"If we meet any zombies, you have to aim for the head, your gege is relying on you," Yichen smirked, carefully stepping over the puddle of bleach at the door.

As they approached the hallway, where they stashed Jerry in the supply cupboard, Yichen felt Yiming start to stir.

"Ming ge," Lixin exclaimed, then raised his gun, "gege drop him."

Unfortunately, it was too late, and Yiming's greedy mouth was tearing into Yichen's shoulder through his shirt. Yichen dropped and rolled on the ground, managing to throw Yiming off.

By the time he stood up, two guns fired, leaving two bullet holes in Yiming's head.

"Gege," Lixin ran towards Yichen, tearing off his shirt, leaving him in only a white vest, to press against the wound as he began to cry, "I'm so sorry if I hadn't asked you to carry him…"

"Still better than a knife to the stomach," Yichen chuckled, taking over pressing on the wound; the scar on his eight packs itching at the memory. Both shirt and flesh had been torn, leaving a bloody mess.

"Cheng ge, check if Jerry is alive. If he is, this time we'll drag him carefully by the feet," Yichen bitterly sighed and took the gun from Yiming's corpse.

After opening the door, Bai Cheng found Jerry dead and turned. With a heavy sigh, Bai Cheng put him out of his undead misery.

By the time they reached the stairs, Yichen had a strange premonition as his growing fever began to spike.

"Didi, go ahead with Bai ge," he turned to go back down the stairs, wanting to go somewhere off-camera to end his life in peace and quiet, without burdening his brothers to do it for him, "I forgot something."

"Don't even think about it," Lixin scolded.

The radio used by the security, that they'd taken from Jerry, went off. Usually, Bai Cheng also carried one, but he had just returned from outside with the dealer and was not in his work clothes.

"Who is this?" Bai Cheng answered.

"Boss Bai! This is Chen Daichi in charge of Miss Fraizer, we're inside the first aid station on Pleasure Pier. I was talking to Jerry before, is the old man alright?"

All three men hesitated to reply.

Whilst thinking over how to tell them that Jerrry had turned and died by their hand, Yichen recalled his father's words, to protect the Fraizer kids. Not wanting his final moments to disappoint his father, he gained a sudden burst of energy.

Snatching the radio from a stunned Bai Cheng, he spoke, "Is Miss Fraizer alright? Is she with you now?"

"Yes, Young Master Wu, there's Fang ge with me, Miss Fraizer, and six of her friends. Only the Rhodes' kid is injured," Daichi explained clearly.

"Hold your position, we'll come to you," Yichen instructed, then began descending the stairs. Seeing Bai Cheng and Lixin standing like statues, he waved his hands, "Are you coming or not?"

"Chen ge, you don't look so great," Bai Cheng stepped forward, but he was a step too slow. Yichen's vision faded and he collapsed down a few steps to the blissfully cold floor.