There was a reason Everly asked the driver to go to the park instead of leaving the city limits of Radyard directly.
Radyard was a city with a very unusual layout. It sat against mountains and beside water. To the west and north lay the tail end of the Abanayaqi Mountains, one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world. To the east and south flowed the mighty Chata River.
The L-shaped bend of the river and the winding mountain range enclosed Radyard in the middle. Anyone wishing to leave the areaâwithout getting lost in the deep forestsâhad only one option: travel through the eastern or southern sides of the city and cross one of the three bridges built over the Chata River.
These three bridges were Radyardâs only land connections to the outside world, aside from air and water routes. The earliest settlers who established themselves here had relied on this natural barrier to stay far away from the flames and gunfire of the Civil War. However, after the shadow of war faded, the inconvenient land transportation also caused Radyardâs economy to stagnate, preventing it from developing for a long time.
Before setting out on this trip, Everly had downloaded and studied the city map of Radyard. Jack Feld Airport was located in the northeastern corner of the city, beside the Chata River, but it was still more than twenty kilometers away from the eastern bridge.
It might not sound far, but that route passed through several residential areas and commercial districts. The many traffic lights meant cars couldnât move quickly. More importantly, crowded areas meant a higher probability of encountering infected people. If even a few infected individuals appeared in the crowd and began attacking passersby indiscriminately, the streets would soon descend into chaosâcar crashes, traffic jams, or even explosions could follow.
And after finally overcoming all those obstacles to reach the eastern bridge, they might still run into massive congestion on the bridge itself.
An assault had already occurred in the city center this morning, and by the afternoon the virus had spread to the airport. At this rate, there were probably quite a number of infected people in the downtown area already. Frightened by them, residents in the central districts would very likely choose to flee the city by car.
When everyone rushed over at once trying to escape the city, yet there were only three bridges leading out, traffic congestion was inevitable.
Thinking of what happened during the cockroach disaster in Lemot Town, Everly shuddered. If a few infected people accidentally mixed into the crowd on a blocked bridge, no one would be able to run. They would be trapped there, bitten and infected one after another. Just imagining that scene made her uneasy.
So after the air route failed, Everly decisively abandoned the land route and prepared to leave by water.
She had set her sights on the sightseeing boat they had taken earlier that morning in the park.
As someone who had caution engraved into her bones, Everly had also taken a photo of the park map when they entered earlier that day. The map listed the operating hours of the parkâs facilities. The park itself was open from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., while facilities like the cable cars and sightseeing boats, which required staff to operate and maintain them, stopped running at 6:00 p.m.
When the taxi arrived at the park, it was 17:42 in the afternoon. That left only a little over ten minutes before the sightseeing boats stopped operating.
After paying the fare, Everly and Misha walked into the park. At a glance, they noticed that because the park was rather remote and it wasnât dark yet, most of the visitors had already left. The main road through the park was now quite empty, with only the occasional small group of tourists heading toward the exit.
Another piece of good news was that the area was quietâthere were no infected people in sight for the time being.
Following her memory, Everly made her way to the dock where they had boarded the boat earlier.
On the wide river, the last sightseeing boat was still moving across the swift current. It would circle around a triangular islet rising from the middle of the river, making a large loop while giving passengers a view of the steep cliffs and jagged rock formations along both banks, before finally returning to the dock.
Everly crouched down behind a clump of bushes, watching the time as she waited.
At 17:57, the sightseeing boat on the river finally turned back.
It cut two long ripples across the water and steadily docked at the pier.
The cabin door opened, and two or three scattered tourists stepped off the boat.
After the passengers had all disembarked, two crew members came out of the wheelhouse. One of them stood on the deck, taking long drags from a cigarette, while the other pulled a ring of keys from the back of his belt, bent down, and locked the wheelhouse door. Then the two of them walked together toward the ticket booth near the dock.
Another five or six minutes passed. The lights at the ticket booth finally went out. Including the two who had just entered, three staff members came out of the booth chatting, locked the iron gate, and left the pier.
By now, Everly had been crouching behind the mosquito-filled bushes for so long that her patience was nearly gone.
A moment earlier, using the cover of the bushes, Misha had secretly checked her phone again. From the time they had left the park earlier that afternoon until now, just over an hour had passed, yet the number of eyewitness posts about people going mad and biting others on the forum had already reached an alarming level.
Moreover, as the number of cases increased, people had gradually discovered that this âfrenzied bitingâ symptom was contagious. Once someone was bitten or scratched by one of the frenzied attackers, it didnât take long before the victim would join the ranks of the crazed, losing all reason and becoming as ferocious as wild beasts.
[They eat peopleâonly people! I saw a girl pinned to the ground by two crazed attackers. They literally gnawed the skin off her face until she stopped breathing⊠Then just a few minutes later, that girl âcame back to lifeâ and became a new attacker! This is exactly like zombies in video games!]
[What do I do? My apartment building is surrounded by wandering zombies now. Their hearing is really goodâany little noise and they look over. I donât dare open the door.]
[Aim for the head! Hitting anywhere else doesnât work. You have to destroy the head!]
[âŠ]
Post after post kept appearing on the forum. It was clear to the naked eye that the situation was deteriorating at a terrifying speed.
Yet those few park employees had moved painfully slowly, completely unaware of the bloody chaos unfolding outside.
Watching them, Everly couldnât help but feel increasingly anxious.
Everly forced herself to stay calm, watching the three staff members walk farther and farther away until they rounded a corner and completely disappeared from sight.
âMisha, go!â
âGot it!â
At Everlyâs command, the two immediately split up to tackle different tasks. Mishaâs target was the vending machine across from the ticket booth. They were moving quickly, carrying almost no food with them, and since they didnât know how long theyâd be drifting on the water, Misha needed to grab as many snacks and drinks from the machine as possible and bring them onto the boat.
Everlyâs target, meanwhile, was the ticket booth.
When the three staff members left, they hadnât taken the boat keys with them. The keys to the sightseeing boat were likely kept inside the ticket booth, so Everly needed to get the keys first before they could successfully take the boat.
The ticket booth was a small wooden cabin, slightly larger than a newsstand. Two sides of the cabin were solid walls. One side had a window, which was fitted with horizontal iron bars to prevent anyone from climbing through, and the other side had an iron door.
The staff had locked the iron door when they left. Everly examined the lock and found, to her disappointment, that it was a pick-proof lock cylinder. Even a professional locksmith would have difficulty opening it without tools. She didnât have the tools, and her own abilities werenât strong enoughânine times out of ten, she wouldnât be able to open it.
Left with no other choice, Everly had to figure out a way through the window.
She ran to the iron bars and studied them. Luck wasnât on her sideâthe bars werenât screwed into the frame; they were welded directly to the window frame.
She bent her fingers to tap on the bars, then grabbed them with both hands and tried to wiggle them apart. The bars were as thick as a finger, solid, and more like cast iron rods than rebar. Even with her strength, trying to bend these by hand was still quite difficult.
Fortunately, Everly had another plan to solve this problem.
Having figured out the material properties of the bars, Everly took off her backpack and rummaged inside for a towel. She soaked it in the river until it was fully wet, then wrapped it around two of the iron bars. Next, she grabbed the folding trekking pole tucked into the side of her backpack and inserted it into the middle of the towel, twisting it like a makeshift wrench or hinge tensioner.
One turn, two turns, three turns⊠the towel tightened progressively, squeezing out a lot of water from the edges. The bars inside the towel let out a loud âclank, clankâ as they were stressed. Everly didnât stop, continuing to rotate the pole with all her strength. Finally, there was a light âcrackâ sound, and the iron bar wrapped in the towel snapped in the middle under the force.
This was a trick she had learned from Old John. By combining the lever principle with the mechanical properties of a wet towel, one could bendâor even breakâmetal bars with less effort. The effectiveness depended on the strength of both the towel and the metal, so it was always necessary to confirm the material of the bars first.
The pier had no other attractions nearby; only sightseeing boat tourists came here. Once the boats stopped operating, the entire pier became silent.
Everly looked aroundâseeing no one nearby, she grabbed the broken metal bars and forcefully pried them outward. Repeating this four times, she managed to create a gap large enough for a person to bend through.
Apparently, the staff felt the bars made the booth secure, because they hadnât even locked the rear glass window before leaving. Everly easily opened the window, grabbed the sides, planted her legs on the lower wall, pushed with her arms, and quickly climbed over the bars, bending her body to slip inside the ticket booth.
With no one around, Everly turned on the lights. The booth was small, and she had no trouble finding the sightseeing boat keys hanging on hooks on the wall.
Besides the keys, Everly also rifled through the long drawer of the ticket counter, pulling out a few bags of potato chips, and from a corner of the booth she found two sets of life jackets.
The sightseeing boat already had life rings hanging on it, but life jacketsâwhich could be worn directlyâwere obviously much more useful.
Everly first threw the life jackets and chips out of the window, then, holding the keys, climbed out of the ticket booth window. By this time, Misha had already emptied most of the vending machine. At her feet, there was a pile of drinksâsodas, sparkling water, mineral waterâbut the snacks were sparse, mostly just potato chips, which wouldnât fill them up much.
âThis machine hasnât been restocked in a while. Not much food.â
âDoesnât matter. Just get it onto the boat first.â
Everly picked up the life jackets from the ground, held a few bottles of water in the other hand, and marched straight toward the sightseeing boat at the dock.
The operation of Radyard State Park wasnât very profitable, so there was only one sightseeing boat at the dock. It looked similar to the tourist boats common in Chinaâs scenic areas in her previous life, but smaller in size.
The boat was about five to six meters long and over two meters wide. Its hull was made of wood, flat and floating on the water, with slightly raised bow and stern for standing platforms. In the middle of the boat was the cabin and the wheelhouse.
The cabin had 16 seats. Tourists could enjoy the scenery through the side windows while seated. The wheelhouse was near the bow and was connected to both the cabin and the front deck by iron doors.
Once on board, Everly dumped everything she was carrying into the cabin and ran to the wheelhouse door. She took out the keys and tried them one by one to unlock it.
Misha followed behind her, moving drinks onto the boat in bundles like ants transporting food.
By the time Misha finished moving everything, Everly had successfully found the right key and gained entry into the wheelhouse.