Reborn with a Space: Hoarding Food and Raising My Kid

Oscar Owen’s minivan took the lead, and the road was surprisingly calm. Everyone’s attention was fixed on Rhea Thornton and her fever. If she couldn’t fight it off, she could turn into a zombie at any moment and attack everyone else in the vehicle.

It wasn’t until they were a hundred meters past the intersection at the pedestrian street corner that Oscar Owen noticed something was wrong behind them.

SCREECH! First came the sound of a vehicle behind them braking hard. For some unknown reason, the Lincoln directly behind them flipped over, crashing down toward the Audi that followed it.

The Audi slammed on its brakes, swerving violently to dodge the tumbling Lincoln. Then the driver cranked the wheel, stomped on the gas, cut across the grassy median, and pulled up behind Oscar Owen’s minivan once more.

Oscar Owen couldn’t imagine what would make a car flip like that while driving normally. Not even slamming the brakes on flat ground should cause that.

He was about to stop and check on their companions in the Lincoln when Sam Tanner suddenly stuck his head out of the Audi’s window behind them. "Oscar, go! Speed up!" he screamed. "Zombies! So many zombies!"

Oscar Owen’s window was down, so he heard the shouts clearly. He slammed the accelerator to the floor. It wasn’t just because of the warning; it was because of the horrifying scene unfolding in his rearview mirror.

A red-haired woman in a blue-and-white-striped hospital gown, her face deathly pale but otherwise looking like a normal person, leaped from behind the car and landed on the roof of the Audi A8. With one hand shaped into a claw, she lunged for the neck of Sam Tanner, who was still leaning out the window.

The woman’s hand was emaciated and abnormally slender, looking as if it had no strength. But the instant it touched Sam Tanner’s neck, long nails shot out and slit his throat.

She lifted Sam Tanner’s head with one hand and, with an air of relish, took a bite out of his temple, revealing jagged, bestial fangs.

A violent shudder ran through Oscar Owen, and he nearly lost his grip on the steering wheel.

’Is that a zombie?’

He had no time to dwell on it. His ears were already filled with the rough shouts of Luther Houseman and Felix Lynch from the Audi.

The red-haired woman clung to the Audi’s roof with one hand while holding Sam Tanner’s head with the other, gnawing on it as if it were the most exquisite delicacy. A purplish-black tongue, like a long, thin leech, would occasionally dart from her mouth. It shot into Sam Tanner’s eye socket, swallowing the eyeball whole, then pierced the top of his skull. The tongue pulsed like a straw sucking up brains, feeding the gruesome meal into the woman’s mouth. Oscar Owen fought back his terror and just kept driving, flooring it.

The others in the van had also noticed the horror unfolding behind them. Seeing the spectacle, Luna Thorne, Leigh Atwood, and Jane Monroe all leaned to the side, heads down, retching bile.

"Lock the windows! All of them!" Sasha Gable said, checking the latches and reminding the women. The words had barely left his mouth when a loud THUD came from the roof, as if a heavy weight had just landed on it. The entire minivan sank on its suspension.

Oscar Owen glanced at the rearview mirror again, and a cold sweat broke out down his back.

The monster that had been eating Sam Tanner’s head was gone. Then he saw it: the red-haired monster’s face was hanging upside down, pressed against the front windshield.

A chilling dread washed over Oscar Owen. "Sasha Gable, watch my mother! Everyone, hold on tight!" he yelled. Then he slammed on the brakes and cranked the wheel, veering sharply off their path.

The sudden stop threw the red-haired monster off the van. Oscar Owen immediately floored the accelerator again, sending the vehicle lurching forward.

Once he steered the van back onto the road, he saw a dense, dark horde of zombies swarming behind the Audi. Among them, a few had sparks flying from their hands, while others were shrouded in a faint golden light.

Zombies with superpowers... they had to be approaching Level 3, and very likely were Level 3 zombies already! How long had it been since the apocalypse began? How could so many Level 3 zombies have gathered in Phoenix City? And not only that, the red-haired female monster was catching up again from behind.

She let out a hideous, ear-splitting roar. Then, with the rest of the horde shrieking in chorus, she leaped from the pack and began running on all fours like a wild animal.

She quickly caught up to the Audi and leaped onto its roof. Her hands, like claws, stabbed through the metal, impaling the heads of Luther Houseman in the driver’s seat and Felix Lynch in the passenger seat in a single motion.

Now driverless, the car began to swerve wildly down the road before finally crashing into a utility pole.

He wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination, but in the rearview mirror, Oscar Owen saw the red-haired monster stare at him. Her eyes had vertical slits for pupils, and she gave him a wide grin. A chill seeped into his very bones.

’This monster is definitely holding back its speed and strength. It’s finishing off everyone behind us first, and then it’s going to torment us.’

"Sasha Gable, at this rate, we won’t be able to shake this horde and that monster even if we make it to the suburbs! Is there anywhere, any place we can go to lose them?"

Sasha Gable’s eyes were fixed on the chaos behind them, his mind replaying the destruction of the other car. Oscar Owen had to call his name twice before he snapped out of it.

"Let me think, let me think."

"What in the world is that thing? Can we... can we fight it?" Leigh Atwood and Luna Thorne huddled together, shivering. Even Jane Monroe’s face was ashen, her lips trembling as she stared, lost.

"I’ve got it! We’ll go to the air freight base!" Sasha Gable exclaimed. "There’s a small military defense installation there. If we can get inside, we can drop the main gate and lock the zombies and that monster out."

"Oscar, head straight for the air freight base! And step on it!"

Two intersections past the pedestrian street was a dedicated transport channel—the road to the air freight base.

All the way from the pedestrian street to the road leading to the air freight base, a single minivan sped down the once vast and quiet highway. Less than thirty meters behind, a sea of zombies gave relentless chase, following them toward their destination.

Just then, two large military trucks turned from a side road onto the air freight base’s dedicated lane. They quickly caught up to the minivan, then accelerated past, rapidly putting a large distance between them.

"Military trucks? Are those military trucks? Are those soldiers inside?"

Jane Monroe’s eyes lit up as she saw the two military trucks pull ahead of them. She pointed forward and shouted excitedly.

"The trucks up ahead! Wait for us! Hey!" Luna Thorne started to open her window to shout. Suddenly, she saw a red-haired figure rapidly closing in from behind. The creature’s eyes—a pair of vertical slits—fixed on her. They were like the eyes of the Grim Reaper, a terrifying blend of pallor and blood-red, and they seemed to stare straight into the depths of her soul.

SLAM! The sound of the window shutting snapped Luna Thorne back to reality. She realized the red-haired monster’s claws had just scraped against the glass before slipping away as the van sped on. Her clothes were soaked in a cold sweat, and she couldn’t stop shivering.