Last Days On Earth

Chapter 9: Searching for Hope (1)

In the midst of the night, Ye Ke and Wang Hao slept perturbedly. A scream originating below awakened the two. Caught in a trance and moment of confusion, Ye ke wondered what had transpired.

What was going on? How could there be screams?

“Help! Help!” Fierce cries pleading for help came from inside the dormitory while accompanied with low mumbling groans.

Ye Ke instantly awoke from the trance. He recalled the scene happening earlier. He hadn’t realized cold sweat had clung tightly to his clothing.

Wang Hao also awakened. His body straightened quickly. Realizing what had happened, his body stiffened and sweat dripped from his forehead.

Those monsters managed to enter. This was an unexpected turn of event. How they managed to enter the dormitory while sleep lulled them was beyond their imagination. Whether they broke through the door or someone had concealed themselves from being bitten and infected, it nevertheless meant the others were in danger.

Ye Ke hoped it to be the latter. If truly those walking corpses managed to break in, then the protective measures they placed against the door proved useless. They wouldn’t be able to live past the day if the place was flooded with those walking corpses.

Ye Ke and Wang Hao were wide awake. Sleep was no longer in their mind. Their bodies were tense and none dared to speak.

A few minutes later, the voice downstairs gradually faded but after half an hour later, the two heard footsteps akin to the infected monsters. Suddenly, they couldn’t breathe and their hearts dropped in that instant.

……

Wang Hao could no longer stay awake. His body swayed back and forth for a short while before he laid down and falling into a deep sleep.

Ye Ke hadn’t slept yet. Though immensely tired, he didn’t dare close his eyes out of fear. If he let a moment of carelessness pass him by, the infected would surely come and tear him apart at a moment of weakness. Besides, what had transpired last night caused him a huge scare.

By the time he realized the time, dawn came and the sun shone high in the air.

Ye Ke grabbed his phone and turned it on. It was only six in the morning. He hadn’t taken out his phone to call a friend or for other means. There was no other reason but to look at the wallpaper. It was a picture sent to him by the beautiful teacher. She wore a snow white dress and a pure ivory waistcoat. A soft smile slowly crept into his face when looking at the wallpaper.

Though he hated to admit it, this teacher’s continuous bugging truly did get under his skin for better or for worse. He wondered if she was safe. If he ever he managed to find her, he’s sure that he’ll hold her hand tightly and never let go.

Ye Ke got up from the bed and pulled out a cigarette and lighter from his pants lying on the foot of the bed. There were only four cigarettes left. It was almost gone. It had to be said that when one is trapped somewhere without nowhere to go, the greatest invention ever created is a mobile phone and cigarette.

Ah, that’s right.

Now that communications are broken, the network headquarters may have also been compromised.

You’d not be able to communicate via messages nor access the internet but there is an alternative method.

How could he forget this?

“Wang Hao, wake up! Wake up!” Ye Ke jumped off the bed and shook Wang Hao fiercely.

Wang Hao woke up at once. He thought the corpses had broken in and he quickly looked around in panic.

“Do you still have a bar phone?”

“Eh…?” Wang Hao looked around for a while. He saw there were no corpses to be seen and realized nothing had happened.

Good.

“Bar phone!” Ye Ke exclaimed. He’d never been this happy.

“What do you mean? What do you need them for? The phones are already useless so a bar phone’s even more useless.”

“For broadcasting! A bar phone can listen to the radio.”

He remembered the beginning of his military career. The platoon commander said the bar phone could be used for this.

“Do you know the biggest function of a bar phone besides communication? It’s for broadcasting purposes—a public platform where one can share messages via broadcasting in the event of chaos where current communications and networks are proven useless.”

What they lacked was not only food, weapons, and ammunition, but they also lacked information about the outside world which Ye Ke eagerly wished to know.

Though much to his dismay, current smartphones no longer supports nor does it have a built-in FM radio tuner. But with a bar phone, radio broadcasting should prove plausible. So long as the invisible electromagnetic radio wave doesn’t disappear, then they’d be able to listen to broadcasting channels for as long as possible.

He learned bar phones needed an antenna and chips in order to listen to the radio. The antenna would then receive the electromagnetic signals whereas the chips restores the wave frequency into sounds.

Wang Hao suddenly understood Ye Ke’s intent and quickly scrounged his cabinet. Finally, he found the item inside his shoebox. Although the bar phone was dead, the model wasn’t too old and could be charged with a universal charger.

After plugging the bar phone to charge, the two waited three to five minutes as they burned a cigarette. A wisp of smoke gradually rose into the air.

Ye Ke and Wang Hao’s eyes looked giddy when the bar phone was charged to a decent percentage. They’d never felt this happy before.