Blood Bags
"No way—if I keep trailing these zombies, I won't even get a scrap of meat!" John Carter muttered to himself, secretly planning his next move.
First and foremost, staying alive was the priority—you've got to fill your stomach!
John wasn't the kind of guy who'd just choose to die—if he wanted to kill himself, he could've quietly nibbled on some peanuts back at the checkpoint.
He didn't want to die; he'd rather struggle with everything he had just to get a bite of human flesh!
Even though he hadn't managed to bite a living person yet, he no longer dared to wonder—if there really was a human on the other side, would he hesitate or be confused?
"Damn it, I'm gonna charge in and bite as much as I can! Whether they're zombies or humans, if I'm starving, I'm eating!" he vowed.
However, fighting in a horde with so many zombies meant that, although their numbers could slowly block off the faster ones, it was a hassle—at the end of the day, you still wouldn't see a decent chunk of meat.
It was better to go solo—even if the odds were slimmer, at least you wouldn't just watch the meat get snatched away.
John figured he should head back to the hospital first, find an emergency kit, and drink some blood to boost his strength—only then could he afford to go hunting!
…
"Damn, this stuff is amazing!" John exclaimed as he chewed, ripping open bag after bag of plasma with teeth strong enough to bite through steel pipes.
The bright red blood flowed down his throat into his stomach, which convulsed from hunger.
The icy plasma sent chills through his body, and even his heart, pounding over 200 times a minute, seemed to slow down a bit.
After gulping down more than twenty bags of plasma, John lay on the ground with a rounded belly, satisfied.
Although his fingers were still a bit stiff and couldn't pick up a scalpel, it was obvious his strength had increased considerably.
Lying there, he mused: zombies sure do eat like beasts and move so slowly that taking down someone who can run and scream isn't even that hard.
The bigger and naturally stronger zombies got more meat, while the weaker ones were left with nothing but scraps—making the strong even stronger and the weak fall further behind.
Over the past few days, John had noticed several unusually large zombies—behemoths that could even lift a wooden chair.
They moved as fast as any normal adult man, clearly well-fed.
Meanwhile, the ones that hadn't eaten much were as famished as John used to be—unable to even lift a small knife.
Strangely enough, the hospital's blood bank had remained undisturbed; the plasma was sealed tightly in plastic bags and didn't smell appealing at all.
The low-IQ zombies wouldn't have thought of this place as a ready-made blood buffet!
So, where else could zombies easily get some meat?
The very thought of meat made John's stomach rumble again—it was clear that drinking blood alone wouldn't be enough.
Then, a brilliant idea struck him: "I'll check out that big supermarket! They must still have packaged raw meat hidden away in boxes, probably untouched by looters."
John fumbled his way over to a large chain supermarket—a thousands-of-square-meters store where various products were haphazardly piled on shelves, a complete mess left behind after humans had fled in panic and looted everything they could.
Just as he stepped on something unknown and fell on his butt, nearly passing out, he got up in a rage and suddenly his bloodshot eyes lit up—
"Is this it?" In front of him was a huge slab of lean red meat mixed with white fatty pork, weighing over two pounds!
John was so excited he pounced on it, immediately dropping to the ground, ripping open the package with hardly any effort, and began devouring it hungrily.
"Hmm, tastes like wax…" John grumbled with a frown, but deep down he knew: no matter what, he had to eat that meat—only a full stomach would give him the strength… to go after more human flesh!
After swallowing that slab of raw meat in one go, John slowly got to his feet by the checkout counter, dragging his exhausted body toward the fresh food section.
Along the way, he tried tasting the roasted beef, beef chunks, beef sauce, bread, cookies, and fruits—but everything he put in his mouth ended up spewed out in a mess.
It was clear that cooked food just couldn't satisfy his ravenous hunger.
At that moment, he felt more like a primitive man—only raw food would do.
The supermarket had long been looted—clearly, those fleeing humans had already grabbed everything useful.
As John scanned the empty shelves, he suddenly spotted over ten pounds of white pork loins lying on a cutting board, surrounded by swarming flies!
It looked like the meat had already spoiled, which was why the looters hadn't taken it.
But John was so starved he couldn't stand it—even if the meat tasted off, he had to shove it down his throat.
If he could cry, he'd probably shed buckets of tears; if he could talk, he'd chat with that spoiled meat for hours.
"Eat, eat, eat!" John cried with reddened eyes as he devoured every single bit of that over-ten-pound spoiled meat.
After finishing, he lay on the ground, completely satisfied, and soon fell into a deep sleep.
When John finally woke up, he discovered that his strength had increased noticeably!
His once stiff fingers could now bend, his wrists moved freely, and his head no longer slumped against his shoulder.
Though these movements might be child's play for a five- or six-month-old baby, for John it felt like a rebirth—making his days of barely being able to stand seem much better.
He struggled to get up, feeling his limbs gradually regain their strength, and nearly wanted to shout to the heavens in celebration.
When he tried to walk briskly, he got too excited, lost his balance, and ended up crashing into shelves, knocking everything over.
A few zombies, drawn by the commotion, wandered in slowly; when they saw John struggling to get up off the floor, they turned away in disappointment and slithered off with drooling mouths.
Though John no longer felt as ravenous, he knew that while he still had some strength, he had to get out and get his fill—whether it was living humans or those who once were like him, he wasn't going to let them off!
…
The entire city had become a wasteland, with abandoned bodies strewn across the streets.
He recalled that not long after John left the checkpoint, a massive horde of zombies had swarmed in, turning a plaza that once held hundreds of thousands into a scene of carnage.
In the panic, people smashed through barriers and broke down walls to flee in every direction, and with the indiscriminate gunfire of the U.S. Army, the whole scene descended into utter chaos.