Chapter 136: Money Over Life

Chapter 136: Money Over Life

Manuel saw the two blood-covered women moving slowly, but he ditched the idea of taking the elevator. Instead, he bolted for the stairwell and started sprinting down.

Just as he jumped down a couple of steps, he heard a noise from a dark corner.

Heavy footsteps. In the dead of night, they were loud and clear.

Someone was dragging their feet, slowly coming up the stairs.

No, it wasn't just one person.

It was a whole group.

Dozens, maybe twenty, or even more.

Their clothes were torn and bloody, eyes white and terrifying, mouths hanging open like broken puppets. Some were missing arms, others legs, and some had shoulders chewed off or gaping holes in their stomachs. Sticky, dirty blood and filth oozed from their bodies, soaking the carpet and looking utterly disgusting.

I'm really screwed this time!

That thought flashed through Manuel's mind.

He was horrified to find himself trapped by these monsters. There was no way to get through the hallway or the stairs.

There was nothing around that could be used as a weapon.

There were a few potted plants in the hallway, but the nearest one had already been passed by the woman who had come out of the room.

Manuel didn't think he could take on such a monster.

She could bite and eat people. The staggering flight attendant following her was the best example.

At least, I wouldn't bite a chunk of flesh off a beautiful woman and chew it down.

What should I do?

What the hell should I do?

Manuel heard his teeth chattering violently, almost to the point of breaking. He stared wide-eyed, turned, and ran back to the elevator, frantically pressing the down button, praying to every deity he knew, and making countless desperate promises he didn't know if he could keep.

The elevator doors finally opened.

Luckily, it arrived a few seconds before death.

Manuel rushed in at the fastest speed of his life, hastily pressing the button for the first floor and the door close button.

"Come on! Come on! Hurry the hell up! Damn piece of junk elevator, it must be a knockoff, taking so long to close. Please, hurry up..."

The cursing and crying seemed to have an effect. Manuel, sweating profusely and jumping in anxiety, saw countless blood-stained hands reaching for the elevator, saw those terrifyingly broken faces. God knows why they turned out this way; the sound he heard in the bar must have come from one of them. Now, they had set their sights on him.

Lady Luck must have been particularly fond of Manuel today. The elevator doors finally closed, blocking all the man-eating monsters outside. Feeling the elevator slowly descend, Manuel let out a long sigh of relief.

At this moment, he realized his clothes were soaked with sweat.

The hotel lobby was unusually quiet. Maybe everyone had gone upstairs, hoping to catch Manuel, the only living prey.

He ran forward in large strides, accidentally bumping into the door frame, then got up despite the pain, stumbling out the door.

Fortunately, there was a cab parked outside. The mint-green paint was very eye-catching, and the driver was a chubby old man. He must have come here hoping to get lucky and unexpectedly found Manuel as a passenger.

The driver clearly hadn't been infected and showed no symptoms like those monsters upstairs. He leaned out of the open window and waved at Manuel, "Hey! Need a ride?"

Manuel widened his eyes, staring at the driver with an almost paranoid gaze, scrutinizing every detail of him.

This was no time for mistakes; if this guy was a man-eating monster, getting into the car would be like walking into a trap.

Luckily, the driver seemed normal.

Manuel yanked open the back door and jumped in, shouting, "Lock the doors, lock the doors! And roll up the windows!"

The driver was a bit reluctant but complied with the passenger's request. He turned around from the driver's seat and asked, "Where to?"

At this moment, Manuel saw through the car window that several blood-stained strangers had appeared in the hotel lobby, including the bartender he had seen in the bar earlier. Whether he recognized Manuel or was driven by instinct, these staggering, lurching monsters began to turn collectively, heading for the hotel door.

"Go! Drive!"

Manuel pounded on the partition between the front and back seats, shouting, "Go! Drive!"

The driver looked at him unhappily, "You still haven't told me where you want to go."

"To the airport!"

Manuel blurted out without thinking. Less than a second later, he immediately changed his mind and shouted, "To downtown, quick, I need to go downtown."

He had come from the airport.

But Manuel instinctively felt that the monsters in the hotel might be sick, possibly with some highly contagious plague. The hotel was close to the airport, so the source of the infection might be there. It's no wonder, with so many people coming and going at the airport every day from various countries and regions. Despite good quarantine measures, no one could guarantee that there wasn't a single virus carrier among them.

Since he could still make a call to the police, it meant the city was still functioning normally. Compared to the airport, downtown was a safer place.

Moreover, Manuel had quite a few friends in the city.

"Alright! Downtown it is."

The chubby driver still didn't start the engine. He hadn't noticed the chaos in the hotel or the people squeezing out of the hotel entrance. A sly smile appeared on his greasy face.

"Business at night isn't easy, especially driving all the way to downtown. How about this, a flat rate of $160, or an extra $50 on top of the metered fare. Which one do you choose?"

Manuel didn't want to haggle over this.

He quickly pulled out his wallet, only to find that in his rush to escape, the zipper was open, and all the cash had fallen out. Was it on the stairs? Or in the elevator? In any case, it must have been in those places.

He wanted the driver to start the car immediately. When he looked up, Manuel was stunned, speechless.

The monsters had already gotten very close, right in front of the cab. The headlights illuminated their bodies, making them look even more sinister and terrifying in the bright light. Their constantly shaking bodies blocked the way, blood continuously dripping from their mouths, mixed with unidentifiable chunks.

There were many of them.

Eight, maybe nine.

Manuel wasn't sure of the exact number. His heart turned cold as he saw more people appearing in the hotel lobby. These monsters seemed to be blind, often bumping into each other as they walked, like a bunch of fools playing a mindless bumper game.

The chubby driver was at a loss. He was annoyed by the people blocking the way and shouted at the blood-stained monsters through the glass, "Move! Get out of the way!"

Saying this, he pressed the horn hard, producing a piercing, shrill sound.

Manuel was scared out of his wits in the back seat. He was almost begging, "Drive! Please, just drive! Get out of here quickly. I'll pay you, just find an ATM, and I'll give you however much you want."

The loud horn blared through the night, catching the attention of the people in the hotel. They stumbled through the lobby, pushing open the doors. There were so many of them that they got stuck at the entrance, unable to move forward or backward, clawing and howling fearfully.

A woman in a short skirt lunged onto the cab's hood, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the windshield.

Seeing the red filth slowly sliding down the glass, the chubby driver got furious. Without a second thought, he unlocked the door and stepped out.

Manuel saw everything from the back and shouted, "No, don't go out! Don't go out!"

It was too late.

A man immediately grabbed the driver's waist from behind, using an extraordinary amount of strength to pin him down. The people surrounding the car also pounced, pressing the driver underneath them. They were so low that Manuel couldn't see them from inside the car, but he knew what was happening and heard the driver's agonizing screams.

The woman in the short skirt climbed into the driver's seat.

With the car lights on, her face was covered in grime and blood, one eye missing, with pus and blood oozing from the empty socket. She opened her mouth, clawing at the transparent partition between the front and back seats, trying to bite Manuel, her live prey. Unable to break the barrier, she licked the partition with her tongue, smearing it with bloody, foul saliva.

Manuel screamed like a woman.

He frantically opened the car door and ran towards the distant road. At this point, he didn't care about anything else. As long as he could escape, as long as he could get away from these man-eating monsters, he was willing to pay any price.

Ahead was the hotel exit. A hunched security guard emerged from the booth. His hat was askew on his head, arms outstretched, lunging at Manuel.

Running downhill with great speed and inertia, Manuel used his shoulder to slam the mutated guard aside. The guard staggered backward, headfirst over the railing, unable to get up for a long time.