There are four people. All of them are unfamiliar and carrying weapons. I lift my lips back into a smile despite the crushing disappointment.

“Hello,” I say in Mandarin. “Who are you?”

One of them, presumably the leader, steps forward.

“I am called Lu Yang, and these are my ---. We are searching for ---. Can we come in?”

There are a few words in his speech which I can’t understand, but at least I can understand the question. I obligingly step aside and they enter the kitchen. While everyone else searches the place, Lu Yang stays with me.

“Are you by yourself?”

“I am.”

I’m not sure how to explain the existence of Snowflake, both because I don’t think they’d believe me and I just don’t have the vocabulary, so I just don’t.

He says something else and points out of the cafe. I stare blankly at him and tilt my head.

“Sorry, my Chinese is not good. Do you speak English?”

Lu Yang looks back at his companions. Two of them shake their heads while the third says “Only a little bit.”

Lu Yang gestures for the man to come speak to me. He steps up and says haltingly, “I am Kui Renshu. We have, safe place. Do you, want, come with us?”

“I think it is easier to speak Mandarin,” I reply after a moment. “I want to come with you, but I have been…”

I can’t remember the word for ‘bitten’, so I just roll up my sleeve and make a chomping motion at the injury. I know that zombieness isn’t contagious, but do they know that?

Lu Yang chuckles and ruffles my hair. “No need to worry. --- will not ---.”

A part of me bristles at being treated like a child, but the rest recognises it as a good thing. My goal is to survive, and if it means being seen as a child in need of protection, so be it. It chafes at my pride, but what use is pride without life?

The one woman in the team yells something at Lu Yang from the other side of the room. Lu Yang yells something back.

“We’re leaving now,” he says to me. “Are you ready?”

I adjust my backpack and nod. The kitchen has been stripped of all the non-perishables. The team has taken a some of the cookware as well.

On the way out, Lu Yang nods at the dead zombie.

“Was it you who killed the sangshi?”

‘Sangshi’? I suppose that means zombie.

I shake my head. “When I arrived, she was already dead.”

Lu Yang hums thoughtfully and moves to the front of the group. The four people are in a diamond shape around me, with Kui Renshu taking up the rear. The two I don’t know the names of are beside me. I take this opportunity to look at everyone more closely. They all look to be university students, and are carrying different weapons. Lu Yang wields a cross bow, Kui Renshu a staff, the unnamed man a long and thin sword, and the woman a machete.

Outside the café, there are surprisingly little zombies, which Lu Yang quickly takes care of. You’d think that with all the racket they were making banging on the door, there’d be more. He yanks the bolts out of the zombies afterwards.

The woman reaches into her pack and hands me a sheathed hunting knife. It is entirely black and one side is serrated.

“Here, I’ll give this to you,” she says.

“Oh… thank you.” I take the knife from her gingerly. She huffs a laugh and helps me affix it to my side.

“My name is Wang Xiuying. That guy,” she nods at the man on my other side, “is Jin Hailin. You are?”

“My English name is Alex. My Chinese name is Lin Mingyue.”

“Alex… Lin Mingyue…” Wang Xiuying taps her chin with the hilt of her own knife. “Mm, I’ll call you Xiao Lin.”

“I’m bigger than you,” I mumble, which makes her laugh. “I’ll call you Xiuying-jie then.”

We stop by a hair accessories kiosk on the way to their base and Xiuying-jie snags a bunch of hairties while I grab a headband to push my bangs back. There are surprisingly little zombies in our way and I can only assume it’s because the majority chased the humans out of the shopping centre. We also pick up another survivor, a middle-aged woman who introduces herself as Lu Yunhua.

“Do either of you have ---?” Jin Hailin asks. This is the first time I’ve heard him speak.

I don’t know what yi neng means, but I’m surprised to hear Ms Lu repeat yi neng quizzically.

“Ah, like…” Xiuying-jie taps her chin. “Here, I’ll show you.”

She holds out her hand and concentrates. At first, nothing happens, then a drop of water appears above her palm and grows until it’s about half the size of a closed fist. Lu Yang turns around briefly to show us the flame hovering above his hand.

Ms Lu stares in shock and shakes her head. “I don’t have anything like that.”

“I do.”

Xiuying-jie asks me what it is and I swipe my thumb down my jawline, unsure of how to explain. I am strangely reluctant to show them my phone. Eventually, I settle on “I can call people over.”

“You can call people over?” Ms Lu says.

“Sorry, my Chinese is not good. I don’t know how to explain.”

“Can you show us?”

I think about Jin Hailin’s request.

“Maybe when we see a lot of zombies,” I decide.

He nods. We move through the shopping centre, the four corners of the diamond on alert. Ms Lu walks closely beside me.

“Are you American?” she asks.

“No, I am from Australia. I have come to China to visit my maternal grandparents.”

We make quiet small talk all the way to the base. Kui Renshu takes the opportunity to join in as well. I only understand about a fifth of what he says though. Eventually, we arrive at what looks like the security office of the shopping centre.

Lu Yang knocks on the door – knock knock knock-knock-knock knock, knock – and after a few seconds, the door opens. A man dressed as a mall security officer opens the door and lets us in.

“Uncle Bo, we’re back.”

“Good, you’re safe. How many people did you bring?”

“We only found two.”

Ms Lu and I introduce ourselves to Bo Chenming, who tells me to call him Uncle Bo. One of the tables in the room has been cleared off, and the team places their loot there.

Another series of knocks on the door sounds about half an hour later. I spend that half an hour trying to chat with the two university students who had stayed in the security office with Uncle Bo.

Uncle Bo answers the door and another team of four enters. They bring with them two survivors, an old lady and a sniffling child.

The office is getting kinda crowded, with fifteen people. Uncle Bo calls over Lu Yang and the leader of the other team to discuss something.

I shuffle over to the old lady, who is wiping the child’s nose.

“Here.” I take out a lollipop from my backpack and offer it to the kid.

He sniffles and takes it. The old lady helps him unwrap it and smiles at me gratefully. I offer her one too but she refuses. I shrug and pop it into my own mouth instead.

The two men and one woman are still discussing something. Uncle Bo and the woman seem to be in agreement while Lu Yang is agitated. Uncle Bo keeps pointing at the radio he’s holding and repeating something. Eventually, Lu Yang gives in.

Uncle Bo calls for the whole room’s attention and begins a short speech. I try to follow it to the best of my ability, but the end, all I get out of it is that we’re moving. And maybe something about the military? Lu Yang still looks disgruntled but doesn’t interrupt.

There are murmurs of dissent from some people, but Uncle Bo eventually manages to win everyone over and we start packing everything up. Xiuying-jie hands me some of the food and a medical kit to carry.

About an hour later, everything is packed up and everyone, except me and the kid, understands the plan. I tried my best, but all I got is that we’re separating into two groups.

Oh well. I’ll just stick to Xiuying-jie like glue.

I have no idea where she got them all, but before we separate, Xiuying-jie hands everyone without a weapon a hunting knife.

The group I’m in consists of the team I came with plus one of the uni students who stayed behind in the security office. Her name is Su Xinya and she looks even more apprehensive of the knife than I am.

The other team leaves first. We wait for half an hour, and it’s only when the two-way radio crackles out a “Clear” do we move.

Our team employs a diamond formation with me, Ms Lu and Su Xinya in the middle. Lu Yang takes point again, but Jin Hailin serves as rearguard this time.

The journey to the shopping centre entrance is uneventful, and we only encounter four individual zombies. Kui Renshu keeps up a steady stream of chatter. This expedition could not possibly go better.

But for some reason, I have a bad feeling. It only grows the closer we get to the outside. When we’re in sight of the entrance, I get real nauseous and just stop moving. Jin Hailin nudges my back but I ignore him.

“Xiao Lin?” Xiuying-jie calls. “What’s wrong?”

Kui Renshu stops talking and Lu Yang turns around.

I don’t even know how to explain what I’m feeling in English, so how am I supposed to do it in Mandarin? I shake my head.

“I just have a bad feeling.”

At that moment, the radio crackles to life and panicked Mandarin starts spilling out of it.

Lu Yang grabs it and speaks into it.

“Uncle Bo? Uncle Bo, what’s wrong? I need you to-”

The radio cuts off with a final “Help!” and there’s a scream just outside. Lu Yang curses and sprints for the doors. Everyone else follows a moment later.

The first thing I see once outside is Uncle Bo flying towards me. I yelp and duck, and he crashes into Jin Hailin.

Oh dear. His neck… should not look like that.

Jin Hailin checks for a pulse and his face turns grim.

“Oh my god, what is that?” Su Xinya screams.

I whip around. That’s a lotta zombies. But the horde of zombies is not what Su Xinya is screaming about.

Massive hand outstretched, gaping grin on its deformed face, the biggest zombie I’ve ever seen points at us and roars.