Evolution Day: An American Apocalypse Chapter 6

"Damn, this one's harder to trick than that old lady."

A man covered in unidentifiable bloodstains complained.

"Shut it. You killed that old lady, didn't you?"

A middle-aged man with a security baton scolded him.

The man grinned sheepishly after the rebuke.

"We barely got any food from her place anyway."

"She was gonna starve anyway. Better I got to her first."

"Once this job's done, you can eat your fill."

The security captain, who'd been silent, finally spoke.

Remembering all those supplies he'd seen, his eyes gleamed with greed.

"And that hot resident..."

The captain glanced at him with a knowing smirk.

"She's yours. Do whatever you want."

The man beamed.

"Thanks, boss!"

Watching them through the monitors, I felt nothing. But Duke, lying at my feet, and Cooper, whose belly I was using as a backrest, bared their teeth, growling threateningly.

I soothed them patiently and kept watching.

Honestly, I wasn't angry. You don't get angry at dead men.

The moment I realized they were coming for my supplies, I'd decided their fate.

The ivy surrounding my villa's perimeter—I still didn't know how dangerous it was.

Duke and Cooper had grown stronger, but what if they couldn't beat the vines?

Someone testing the danger for me was actually convenient.

On the monitor, the ivy visible during the day had vanished in the darkness.

The three men were one person's distance from the wall and still hadn't noticed the ivy. I mentally noted its camouflage abilities.

Soon, someone touched the wall. Instantly, countless vines rustled and surged from the ground, lunging at them from behind.

One man was quickly entangled. The vines tightened with each breath he took until he stopped breathing entirely.

The captain managed to cut off one vine while escaping. The remaining vines paused, even dropping their captured prey momentarily—but then they attacked with renewed fury. The other two quickly met the same fate as the first.

The ivy carried away its three prizes, satisfied.

The street was silent again, showing no trace of the one-sided slaughter.

But I stared thoughtfully at the empty monitor, replaying the moment when the ivy recoiled from pain.

So the plants could feel pain too?

After discovering the vines' pain response, I realized I could approach this differently.

I'd been stuck in old thinking patterns. Once I reconsidered, treating the ivy like an immensely strong but immobile person made it easier to handle.

The simplest method would be dousing it with gasoline and setting it ablaze, but that would be mutual destruction—I couldn't escape the fire either.

A different approach: high-voltage electricity was better.

My wall had been fitted with an electric fence system, and the gate was electrified too—I just hadn't turned on the power yet.

Now that the ivy clung to the wall, it also clung to the electric fence.