During dinner time, looking at Alice devouring her food at the dining table, Clemens turned to the old couple with a smile and asked: "Are you really not going to go to the airport with us?"
"With the army there, it will be safer."
Old Honey tapped the plate with his spoon and said loudly: "Kid, let me teach you something. The most unreliable people in the world are two groups of people. One is the politicians, and the other is the army."
Vanya, holding taro soup in her hand, said to Clemens who looked embarrassed: "Don't care what this old guy says. The war back then made him complain every day."
Old Honey scratched his head and said, "I'm telling the truth!"
Vaniya threw a spoonful of mashed taro into Honey's bowl: "Shut up and eat."
Liz put down the tableware, glanced at Clemens, and then asked the old couple carefully: "Our transportation has been damaged, and the road to Shashi Airport is still far away, so I want to ask
…”
Honey swallowed a mouthful of taro paste and said nonchalantly: "Do you need a vehicle? There is a white Ford in the back garage. It originally belonged to my son, but he hasn't come back for a long time... You can take it and use it."
Clemens and Liz looked at each other, and both breathed a long sigh of relief.
Clemens said: "I can't express my gratitude to you in words. When things settle down, we will definitely find ways to contact you."
Vaniya sat next to Alice, looked at the girl tenderly, and said softly: "We have a granddaughter, just like this child. She used to like to come here the most and let her grandpa take her skiing. If not
because……"
The old woman only said half of what she said. Just as Clemens was about to ask, Liz pulled his clothes, hinting him not to ask any more questions.
Vanya wiped her eyes and said to Clemens: "The room upstairs has been tidied up. You can rest peacefully tonight."
"I will get up earlier to make breakfast tomorrow. Remember to eat together."
"The car keys are on the wall at the lobby bar."
After dinner and washing, Clemens walked into his room on the second floor of the hotel.
Alice, who went to bed early, was already asleep, while Liz was sitting at the desk looking at the map.
She gently hugged Liz's waist from behind. Before Clemens could do anything, the woman suddenly said: "The airport is closed."
Clemens asked in surprise: "Closed? Why?"
Liz turned on the walkie-talkie that had been taken from the soldier's body.
I could only hear a voice inside, accompanied by the roaring sound of electricity, repeating the following content.
"The Sandstone Airport has been occupied by infected people, and all rescue operations have been cancelled! Repeat, the Sandstone Airport has been occupied by infected people, and all rescue operations have been cancelled!"
Like a bucket of ice water being poured down on us, Clemens said anxiously: "If the airport is closed, where should we go?"
Liz motioned for him to continue listening.
Another recording began to play on the walkie-talkie: "At 6:45 tomorrow morning, the military will launch a cleansing operation on the mother body..."
Clemens: "Operation Purge? What was that?"
Walkie-talkie: "Please evacuate all personnel as soon as possible. Temporary evacuation sites include the following locations."
“DrykeRange”
"CrescentIsnd"
“SheepPeakCamp”
…
Liz marked these refuge points on the map one by one, and finally studied them with Clemens.
After comparison, the closest location to the Paiute Snow Mountains is Sheep Peak Camp.
But to get there, you must pass through the Desert National Wildlife Refuge.
Clemens looked at the winding path on the map and said with emotion: "That's a long road."
Liz said: "But the road is sparsely populated, which means the threat is minimal."
Clemens nodded, kissed Liz gently, and said, "Go to bed early. We will set off after breakfast tomorrow."
A night of silence.
The next morning, it was just dawn.
Clemens and Liz, who were still sleeping, were suddenly awakened by the sound of a gunshot.
Sitting up from the bed, Clemens looked at Liz in shock, as if to confirm whether the gunshot just now was just a nightmare.
But soon, a second gunshot came from downstairs.
Clemens quickly jumped out of bed, put on his clothes briefly, squatted down and walked to the corridor on the second floor.
Holding the handrail of the corridor, Clemens looked down and saw a scene that froze his blood.
On the floor of the hotel lobby, Old Honey lay motionless in a pool of blood, with the shotgun falling beside him.
Not far away from him, Vanya, who had been shot in the leg, struggled to crawl forward, with blood spreading far behind her body.
A face that was all too familiar to Clemens, Mr. Goodman, was holding a pistol and yelling angrily.
"Fuck! Fuck! Son of a bitch! This is all this old guy's fault!"
"If he didn't point a gun at me, I wouldn't shoot!"
"I was defending myself, and I was not wrong!"
Goodman's suit was already in tatters, and he was as dirty as a beggar who had fled, but the madness on his face remained unchanged.
He looked at Honey's body on the ground, first rubbed his forehead with his hands, then took two quick steps, stepped on the injured Vaniya who was crawling, and whispered: "I am an upright and good person, all this is just an accident...
You understand me, right?"
Vanya turned her head with difficulty and looked at Goodman angrily.
Goodman kicked the old woman hard, raised his head, and suddenly stopped.
He looked at the tableware on the dining table not far away, thought for a moment, then knelt down and asked softly: "There are more than just the two of you here, right?"
Vaniya gritted her teeth and growled: "Go to hell!"
Goodman sighed, pointed the gun at Vaniya's forehead, and pulled the trigger.
Upon hearing the gunfire, Clemens trembled and quickly retreated from the second floor.
Liz climbed up to him with Alice, glanced downstairs, covered her mouth in surprise, and tried her best not to scream.
Clemens took a deep breath and said to Liz, "I have to go down."
Liz quickly stopped him: "Don't go!"
Clemens: "The car keys and weapons are all downstairs."
After waiting for a while, Clemens leaned out slightly to take a look, and then said to Liz: "Look, he left."
Liz looked down from the second floor, and sure enough, Goodman was no longer in the lobby.
Clemens nodded to Liz, then tiptoed down the stairs, bypassing the bodies of the old couple, and walked towards the lobby bar where the car keys were stored.
Suddenly, a gunshot rang out.
The bullet struck the table next to Clemens, sending up a shower of sawdust.
Frightened, Clemens quickly hid behind the table and closed his eyes.
Immediately afterwards, there were two more gunshots.
The bullet hit the table where Clemens was hiding, making a loud noise.
Goodman's voice rang again: "Professor Scott, I know it's you."
"You saw what just happened, I know you saw it!"
Goodman fired again, and the bullet struck the floor at Clemens' feet.
"I didn't want to kill them. This was just an accident." Goodman approached Clemens and said, "I am a decent man. I have rescued stray animals and helped the poor."
"Come out and let's talk."
Clemens said nothing.
Goodman stood up straight, his eyes gradually becoming colder: "I can't let others know about this...but only dead people can keep it secret, right?"
Goodman came to the spot only five meters away from where Clemens was hiding, pointed the gun there, and said: "Don't worry, I promise everything will happen quickly and you won't feel pain..."
After I'm done with you, I'm going to go find your little girlfriend and your daughter."
As soon as he finished speaking, a dazzling flash of light appeared in the distant sky, illuminating the entire earth.
A deafening explosion instantly suppressed all the noise in the world.
The huge shock wave was like a tsunami, washing away everything on the ground.
All the windows in the hotel were shattered at the same time, and the tables and chairs in the room were rushed into the air, and then smashed to the ground.
When the aftermath of the explosion subsided slightly, Clemens, who was gradually recovering from tinnitus and dizziness, stumbled to his feet.
Goodman fell in a corner of the hotel lobby, not knowing whether he was alive or dead.
In one quick step, Clemens rushed to the key board behind the bar and started looking for the car key he wanted.
Seconds passed, and when Clemens finally found the car keys, Goodman was also struggling on the ground trying to get up.
Clemens glanced at the gun in Goodman's hand and shouted upstairs: "Wait for me at the car!"
When Goodman finally stood up straight, Clemens was nowhere to be seen in the lobby, and the roar of a car engine could be heard from behind the hotel.