Apocalypse: I Can See Health Bars
Chapter 38: Depart! Gas Station

Chapter 38: Chapter 38: Depart! Gas Station

Lin Fan drove the van east along a small road. When he passed the supermarket where he’d seen a few figures scavenging for supplies yesterday, he hesitated for a moment and pulled over, but left the engine running.

He pulled the short spear from beside the driver’s seat and cautiously entered the supermarket.

If those petty thieves could find a decent amount of supplies, it meant there was still plenty left in the supermarket.

Whether it was water or food...

After all, food that required refrigeration was inherently very perishable.

Canned luncheon meat or vacuum-sealed meats with a three-to-five-year shelf life were far more convenient.

They might not be healthy, but in these times, survival definitely came before health.

Theoretically, the zombies from the supermarket should have already chased after the thieves and joined the horde outside, but Lin Fan remained on high alert.

The supermarket was a total mess. All sorts of small packages of snacks and candy were scattered across the floor, some of which had been crushed underfoot.

In the fresh produce section, the fruits, vegetables, and meat had rotted and molded over, covering the entire counter in a layer of grayish-green fungus.

However, there were still some things left in the refrigerated display cases. After all, the power had only gone out today. The leafy greens were already withered and dry, but plenty of carrots, potatoes, and the like were still holding up well.

Lin Fan found some plastic bags, filled them one by one, and then loaded them into the van.

A small supermarket like this, situated beneath a residential complex, wouldn’t have had many vacuum-sealed cooked foods to begin with, let alone after being picked clean by those people.

Lin Fan didn’t find much in total—just two bags’ worth, which he also loaded into the van.

There were also lots of snacks, instant noodles, and junk food. Lin Fan even meticulously picked out the zero-calorie snacks and tossed them aside.

Adding in various cooking oils, seasonings, sugar, soap, plastic bags, trash bags, and other manufactured goods, he had nearly filled more than half of the van’s cargo space!

He then crammed the remaining space full of supplies like large water jugs, bottled water, various teas, and energy drinks.

Lin Fan drove the van back, fully loaded. He opened the rolling shutter door, moved everything into the clinic, and emptied the vehicle’s cargo area.

But he didn’t go upstairs to greet Su Qing. Scavenging these supplies had been a spur-of-the-moment, unplanned detour.

As time passed, the zombies he had lured to the street corner would start to spread out again, which would cause unnecessary trouble.

He wanted to find enough fuel and a generator as soon as possible. But since he had lured away all the zombies from downstairs, he worried that other survivors might take advantage of the window of opportunity to clean out the supermarket.

’Besides, finding a small generator is the best-case scenario. If I can’t find one, the food in the fridge will spoil in a day or two at most. I need to have a backup plan.’

That was why he had hauled a van-load of supplies back first.

The clinic’s rolling shutter door and security grille were designed for anti-theft purposes and were very sturdy.

Lin Fan locked the door, returned to the small supermarket, and loaded more packaged food, mineral water, and drinks into the van to serve as a temporary reserve.

After checking that he still had more than half a tank of gas, he slammed on the accelerator and charged toward the zombie horde at the street corner!

Just as he was about to reach them, he yanked the steering wheel and honked the horn!

The van, like an agile, fat-headed fish letting out a "BEEP BEEP!", shot past the rear of the horde with a WHOOSH!

The horde, which had been milling about aimlessly, was instantly roused by the honking. They began waving their arms and roaring as they charged after the van, which had already turned onto the main road.

Seeing the dense, dark mass of zombies chasing him in the rearview mirror, Lin Fan felt his hair stand on end.

After all, he wasn’t equipped with the Invisibility Crystal right now.

But in order to lure the zombies away, he couldn’t drive too fast.

’If I go too fast, the zombies won’t be able to keep up. If I don’t pull them far enough away, they’ll just wander back before long.’

So, he had to constantly check the distance of the horde in his rearview mirror while dodging the zombies lunging at him from the road ahead and the sides.

He even had to honk the horn occasionally to keep the zombies at the back from falling behind.

’This was one of the problems with a small van: the bumper was too fragile.’

Lin Fan thought about how awesome it would be to just mow down all these zombies like in a video game.

But hitting a single zombie made him give up that idea.

’A van isn’t a semi-truck. I can’t just run over a big lump like a zombie as if it were a speed bump.’

Not only did he fail to kill the zombie in one hit, but its body got stuck under the chassis and was dragged for a good distance. Lin Fan had no choice but to press harder on the gas just to maintain his speed.

The farther he drove, the more zombies from the sides joined the horde behind him. It continued to swell in size until there were at least two hundred of them.

The dense cluster of health bars in the rearview mirror was enough to make his head spin.

Seeing that he was already far from the intersection near his clinic and that the outer ring road was just ahead, Lin Fan slowly pressed down on the accelerator, gradually picking up speed.

He slowly increased the distance, leaving the zombies further and further behind.

At an intersection up ahead, he made a sharp U-turn and equipped the Invisibility Crystal. A gem icon appeared below his health bar, and the invisibility effect took hold.

Lin Fan slowed down, trying to minimize the vehicle’s noise as he slowly drove back the way he came.

’Just as I predicted,’ Lin Fan thought. ’After equipping the Invisibility Crystal, the zombies can’t sense my presence. The car by itself isn’t that attractive to them.’

The zombies that Lin Fan had drawn to the guardrail in the middle of the road earlier merely shambled a few steps closer upon seeing the moving vehicle. As the van drove away, they didn’t give chase. Compared to their previous relentless pursuit, it was like they were completely different creatures.

The gas station was on the east side of the road he was on. He had already passed it on his way out, but he hadn’t made his U-turn at that intersection in order to pull the horde farther away.

On the other side of the road was the dense horde he had just lured away. As Lin Fan slowly drove past them, he noticed that several Mutated Zombies had joined the horde at some point.

He couldn’t see what they looked like since they were mixed in with the horde, but he noticed their presence thanks to several [1000/1000] health bars.

But because they were still far away, even the Mutated Zombies hadn’t noticed him.

’So, the final stage for those two Mutated Zombies with the incomplete health bars really is 1000 health...’

Huh?

’Mutated Zombies!’

’Crystals!’

For a moment, Lin Fan’s heart pounded with temptation!

But he immediately suppressed the urge.

’Are you kidding me? Never mind the fact that every Mutated Zombie looks bizarre and has different abilities.’

’Even if it were a stationary target with 1000 health, I could never charge into a horde of two hundred zombies to get to it.’

’Who do I think I am, Zhao Yun? Am I supposed to charge alone into a horde of a million zombies to take one of their heads?’

"Enemy general down... Time to go strip him..."

Just as Lin Fan was letting his mind wander after the tense moment, a plume of black smoke to his right caught his attention...

To his right was a park. A few scattered zombies were wandering aimlessly inside, trapped by an iron fence.

And behind them, deeper in the park’s woods, an area was inexplicably shrouded in a black fog...

At first, catching it out of the corner of his eye, he thought it was just smoke rising from a fire in the park.

Just like on his way here, several storefronts and office buildings had been emitting black smoke.

One row of street-facing shops had been completely burned away, leaving nothing but a line of pitch-black openings amidst a stretch of ruins.

But now, he was certain this black fog was completely different from the fires he’d seen before.

It wasn’t just because the fog didn’t rise upwards with the air currents.

More importantly, when he turned his head to look at the black fog, his gaze went past the few red [300/300] health bars, and a new health bar appeared within the fog.

It read:

[10000/10000]!