The world froze over. Sixty degrees below zero.
I left my wife and daughter outside and went into the shelter alone.
The moment the door closed, I heard Lin Xi cry out. It was brief, as if someone had cut her off.
Our three-year-old daughter, Xiao Nuan, was in her arms. She was already dead.
I survived. I mined coal in an underground bunker, fled through hordes of corpses, and rode the death train bound for the south, watching the zombies walk in lines outside the windows.
They were all heading south.
No one knew why.
Then one day, the train screeched to a halt on the tracks.
Someone was standing ahead.
Long hair, a tattered padded coat, and a tiny bundle in her arms.
I had looked at that face for eight years, from dating to marriage, from pregnancy to childbirth.
Lin Xi.
She had become a zombie.
Xiao Nuan was in her arms. She had become a zombie, too.
They stood on the tracks, their gray-white eyes fixed on me.
I waited for them to lunge and bite me.
But they didn't.
Lin Xi walked over and touched my face with her icy hand.
Xiao Nuan opened her eyes and glanced at me, then buried herself in her mother's arms again.
Then they turned and walked south.
After a few steps, they looked back at me.
Waiting for me to follow.
Everyone says zombies have no consciousness and bite anyone they see.
So why do they still remember me?
Where are they going?
What will I become if I go with them?
The train whistled behind me. Someone was calling out to me.
I stood in the snow, watching my wife and child walk farther and farther away.
They looked back again.
They simply stood there, looking at me.
