Treating an Illness - 1

From a cinematic standpoint, the franchise is a renowned sci-fi cult classic, its shooting techniques having influenced nearly an entire generation of horror directors. However, from a physiological perspective, practically every installment features a scene that is both iconic and wildly inaccurate: the infected victim shrieks, writhes, and screams, accompanied by crisp and melodious bone-snapping sound effects, as a newly born and thoroughly underdeveloped extraterrestrial larva suddenly bursts forth from the chest to menace the survivors.

Admittedly, editors and die-hard fans of the films might argue that this setup occurs because the alien larva possesses acidic saliva and razor-sharp teeth, allowing it to chew through a human sternum with absolute ease. Yet, analyzed from the most basic principles of physics, the alien larva lacks the typical beak of a bird; instead, its mouth resembles the lips of a mammal. Based on established evolutionary common sense, the mouthparts of the larva—both in overall shape and fine details—are clearly optimized for tearing and chewing rather than pecking, lacking the conditions required to instantly shatter a sternum with a sharp cracking sound. Therefore, even with their sharp teeth, they would hardly take the hardest route and pick a fight with solid bone; they should logically select a softer region within the infected host's body, bite out an exit hole suited to their dimensions, and emerge that way. That would align with the laws of nature.

Much like the scene currently revealed by the drone.

Yes, at this very moment, the screen before everyone clearly displayed Boss Tian’s corpse, frozen in the exact posture from the identity verification—lying prone on the ground. The only difference was that while his body had merely been stripped of its clothes and trousers during the check, Boss Tian’s rear end now featured a fully bloomed chrysanthemum, forming a remarkably large and bloody crater.

Judging by the size of the wound, even if someone were depraved enough to harbor unnatural desires for a dead male corpse, that perpetrator would either have had to use an artificial implement or possessed a dimension far exceeding ordinary human limits, worthy of application for a Guinness World Record. Since no murder weapon of corresponding size was found at the scene, and even bloodstains were scarce, with the entire wound clearly rolled outward from the inside, the possibility of human intervention could basically be ruled out. The remaining answer, no matter how bizarre, was entirely plausible in this ruined world overrun by zombies and unbridled outlaws.

"It is obvious! Something crawled out of Boss Tian's body! What we have to deal with might be a parasitic organism! No, it is definitely a parasitic organism!" Sheng Qingru's tone shifted from trembling to resolute. For her, the unknown might evoke fear, but the known was quite the opposite. Would a woman who had already tasted the depths of hell truly fear some tiny creature wriggling out of a dead body?!

"If something burrowed into a living body, causing the death and the subsequent bodily changes..." Wang Chen’s thought process differed from Sheng Qingru’s. He rubbed the stubble on his chin and glanced at Ma Tian, who was wearing a similarly furrowed brow. Seeing Ma Tian curl his lip and look back toward him, the two spoke almost in unison: "Big Fatty / The silly fatty is still alive, so there must be something inside him!"

The very next second, Ma Tian and Yang Xiaohua spoke in unison: "I know what that is!"

Slender-bodied, capable of burrowing and spreading viruses, nocturnal and subterranean—if that wasn't a zombie rat, Ma Tian would gladly dig out his own eyeballs and step on them like glass bulbs! Back when he was still idling away his days as the deputy captain of the town's armed police, just starting to spark something with Yang Xiaohua and going to the small store to buy ice cream, he had personally killed two rats mutated by the rabies virus! Don't let their small size fool you; their talent for biting necks and burrowing into flesh was formidable. The owner of that little store had been bitten to death right before their eyes and instantly transformed into a zombie!

More crucially, the initial speed of zombies mutated by this rabies virus was extraordinarily fast, and being bitten by one meant the speed of zombification was equally instantaneous!

"Never mind anything else! Kill the silly fatty right now!" Ma Tian stood up, pulled out his gun, and charged toward the door with a cartridge in the chamber. In truth, Ma Tian was merely outgoing and occasionally extremist, not a reckless person who acted without thinking. However, the horrific scenes from that small town were practically etched before his eyes; the entire command center had been subjected to heavy machine gun fire, tearing buildings apart and turning the place into a river of blood! Nearly all of Ma Tian's comrades had perished in that localized sudden outbreak! Everyone had a psychological trigger, and clearly, Ma Tian's trigger was that town's zombie epidemic! That was the first time in his life he truly understood what a zombie was, what death was, and what utter helplessness felt like!

Ma Tian's current state could be described by an old saying as being utterly obsessed and driven to madness! It would be a miracle if he could control himself!

After all, this peninsula stronghold embodied the blood, sweat, and tears of everyone, naturally including Ma Tian's share. Putting everything else aside, being laid up with a lame leg for over half a month, often watching others fight for their lives while he could only sit idly by and offer no help—that feeling was far from pleasant. Now that his leg had healed, a dead rat carrying a fast-acting zombie virus had somehow sneaked into the stronghold. Even if the silly fatty was merely a passive infection and entirely innocent, for the sake of the elderly and children filling the entire stronghold, Ma Tian had no choice but to play the role of a cold-blooded killer!

Wang Chen had not expected Ma Tian to leap up and bolt out instantly, so by the time he got up to chase him, he was already a few seconds too late. Fortunately, his physical fitness surpassed the average person, and Ma Tian's leg injury had only just healed, allowing Wang Chen to barely intercept Ma Tian right outside the courtyard of the brat. He opened his mouth to advise, "Calm down!"

"Calm down my ass!" Ma Tian's eyes were bloodshot and his face distorted, retaining none of the radiance of a sunny young man. The slide of the NP22 in his hand was fully open, requiring only a pull of the trigger to fire. Frustrated to the point of dancing with rage before Wang Chen, he shouted repeatedly, "You haven't seen a rabies-mutated zombie! That damn trash spreads infection super fast! If we don't deal with Big Fatty immediately! Once he zombifies, it'll be too late for anything!"

"I told you to calm down!!!" Seeing that Ma Tian was bordering on frantic, impossible to hold back, and entirely unreasonable, Wang Chen seized the opportunity when Ma Tian turned to lunge into the courtyard, leaving his back completely exposed. He stepped forward quickly and put Ma Tian into a solid rear naked choke.

Deprived of oxygen, vision darkening, seeing stars, accompanied by a dry throat, Ma Tian finally released the gun in his hand just before losing consciousness, raising his hands to pat Wang Chen's iron-banded arms. Sensing the timing was right, Wang Chen loosened his grip, allowing Ma Tian to slide down and sit on the cold muddy ground, clutching his neck and breathing heavily.

"Calm down and listen to me. If the thing inside Big Fatty could transmit the zombie virus—transmitting the kind of ultra-fast rabies-mutated zombie virus you mentioned—then when we first went to the processing plant, we should have seen Boss Tian and the others already zombified, rather than finding corpses scattered all over the ground." Wang Chen reached down to pick up the pistol Ma Tian had dropped, pulled Ma Tian up to sit on the threshold, waved to the armed militiamen who had gathered in pursuit to signal that everything was fine and they could resume their patrol, and continued, "From the time Boss Tian the Fourth died until he was burned to ashes by gasoline, there was no sign of zombification. So while there is likely something inside Big Fatty, the possibility of it turning people into zombies is, in my view, quite slim."