Chapter 20: Adaptation
Chapter 20: Adaptation
#
After the first scavenging run, everything went smoothly.
We repeated the simple task of shuttling back and forth between the house and the convenience store.
When we returned after the fourth run, both women collapsed, gasping for breath.
Seon-yeong and Ga-yeong were so flushed with heat that they threw off their outer layers.
Their tops, soaked in sweat, clung to their bodies.
Seen like this, Seon-yeong looked even more generously endowed.
"Mister, do I really have to carry this golf club around? I don't think I need it."
While I was lost in idle thoughts as they caught their breath, Ga-yeong whined.
The golf club was apparently nothing but a nuisance.
That was a dangerous thing to say.
"Think of it as a part of your body. Of course you have to carry it."
Ga-yeong must have been merely complaining, because she picked up the golf club she had tossed aside.
By now we had nearly stripped the convenience store clean.
Plenty of ice cream remained, but if we brought it back, we had no way to store all of it.
The house had two refrigerators, and both were already full.
"There's not much left. How about we leave Ga-yeong to organize and make the next trip by ourselves?"
Seon-yeong stood up first, maybe because she had better stamina.
As she suggested, we left Ga-yeong behind and the two of us headed out again.
By now the sun had completely set.
Although the sky was completely dark, lights shone throughout the complex and the many streetlamps kept it from feeling dark.
The commercial building was empty of people but all its lights were still on.
"Seon-yeong, if I carried this entire thing back, would we have somewhere to put it?"
I lifted a small chest freezer filled with ice cups.
It seemed like I could carry it in my arms.
"Wow... Tae-sik, you're seriously overflowing with strength. I think we could put it on the balcony. Wouldn't the electric bill be huge?"
I smacked Seon-yeong's butt as she giggled, then checked the large freezer packed with ice cream.
Chapsal-tteok ice cream, Psycho Bungeoppang, Fanfare, World Cone, Melon Bar, Chestnut Bar, and so on.
I loaded up mainly the ice creams I liked.
"Is this the middle-aged guy's pick? Stuffing it full of only what you like!"
Seon-yeong brought over an armful of premium ice creams that had been displayed in another freezer.
Other people might disagree, but to me they were genuinely premium ice creams.
Even the cheapest ice cream bars cost over 5,000 won each.
They were expensive, and I wasn't convinced they tasted good enough to justify the difference.
Everyone had different tastes, so I included Seon-yeong's choices too.
We stuffed the small chest freezer full of ice cream and filled two backpacks to the brim as well.
Finally, we walked through the convenience store together one last time to see if there was anything else to grab.
I was anxious that the ice cream might melt.
"Tae-sik, I think this is enough, right? Shall we head back?"
Whish.
I pressed down on Seon-yeong's shoulder and ducked low.
I had definitely seen a streetlight some distance away flicker.
It felt like something had passed in front of it and briefly blocked the light.
"Shh."
I warned the startled Seon-yeong to be quiet and pulled out a compact mirror.
I lifted the mirror just above the display rack and scanned outside the convenience store.
We waited like that for a while.
Soon, a pair of blue eyes appeared in the darkness reflected by the mirror.
"A cat?"
The tension drained away in an instant.
Was it a stray cat?
Seon-yeong, seeing my dumbfounded expression, poked her head out to look.
"Oh? An orange tabby. Isn't it huge for a cat? How did it grow that big?"
At her words, I looked directly outside. It really was far too large for a cat.
It wasn't merely a fat, well-fed stray; its entire frame was enormous.
It was nearly the size of a car tire.
I knew some cat breeds were naturally large, but I had never seen a stray cat that huge.
"Oh, it's leaving. Goodbye, kitty. Things must be hard for you too, but good luck out there."
By then, most former house pets were essentially strays.
It lingered near an abandoned car, then casually bounded toward the park.
Perhaps because of its size, it was incredibly fast.
"Whew... that thing startled me."
As Seon-yeong wiped the sweat from her forehead and spoke, I stood nonchalantly and picked up the chest freezer.
To be honest, I was a little startled myself.
It felt like I had met Schneider's cat in real life.
#
All the goods from the convenience store made even the spacious living room feel cramped and chaotic.
The three of us threw ourselves into organizing.
We sorted the supplies we had brought back and the food already in the house by type and expiration date.
Ga-yeong brought her tablet and was making an inventory list.
"Tae-sik, stack all that instant rice on one side. They say it lasts quite a long time if you freeze it."
"Six nail clipper sets, ten bundles of wooden chopsticks, five boxes of 003 condoms, six boxes of 001 condoms... Wow, we could run a business with this!"
"Right. Let's open a shop. I never expected to become a shopkeeper, but I'd like to try it once."
To organize the supplies, I went to the convenience store by myself and hauled back two display racks.
We moved the sofa into the hallway and set the display racks up in the living room.
Once we filled them with goods, it really was like a store had moved into the living room.
A bit weird, but what could we do.
We carried on with the work while chatting.
If we organized everything properly once, sorting the supplies we brought back later would be much easier.
"We need to visit a pharmacy soon. The only medicine we have is fever reducers and digestive remedies."
"Then let's clear a path to the pharmacy tomorrow."
I told her the schedule I had planned.
I had no idea what the route would be like.
Depending on conditions, we would clear the route as thoroughly as possible, then return home to rest that evening.
In the end, we spent even longer on the organizing than on the scavenging itself.
"You worked hard. Let's rest now."
"Good work! Good night, you two!"
After letting the two women shower first, I opened the front door and stepped out.
I sat on the sofa we'd put in the hallway and lit a cigarette.
I planned to take only Seon-yeong with me on tomorrow's outing.
Ga-yeong was inexperienced in too many ways, making it much riskier to take her.
I also wanted Seon-yeong to earn Available Points first by hunting zombies.
'It'd be nice if there was a clothing store too.'
All of Ga-yeong's father's clothes were too short overall.
Maybe because my muscles had gotten bigger, even the training clothes I mostly wore were tight on my body.
They were uncomfortable for me, and probably uncomfortable to look at too.
'Haa... I needed to reply.'
A forgotten problem came to mind, so I opened my phone.
Yesterday I had sent a text to Jin-su's parents.
Jin-su's father had replied, saying that they were in a safe situation so I shouldn't overdo it and should take care of myself.
I hadn't told them about Jin-su.
'I'm sorry.'
I had told them that Jin-su and I had been separated and that I would look for him when I had the chance.
I couldn't bring myself to tell the truth, so I had lied.
They replied that I was like a son to them too and shouldn't put myself in danger recklessly.
After reading that message, I couldn't type a single word.
With a lump lodged in my throat, I smoked another cigarette.
The suffocating night wore on.
#
"Am I really staying home?"
"Yes. Once I think it's safer, we can go together."
Yesterday, all three of us had fallen asleep like we'd passed out.
I woke up first and prepared breakfast, and the two women came out a little while later.
We ate together, and now I was getting ready to go out with Seon-yeong.
I told Ga-yeong to stay home.
At that, she went off to do the dishes with a relieved look on her face.
Was it because her trauma from the first day was so strong?
Ga-yeong seemed intent on staying home forever.
"Tae-sik, so aside from a day's worth of emergency rations, we should pack our lunch for today separately, right?"
"Yeah. I already packed about three or four more days' worth of emergency rations, so let's do that."
"Got it. I'll go make some rice balls with the leftover rice."
I increased the weight of my survival pack to ten kilograms.
I packed more food and water, and also put in a blanket and other items in case we ended up sleeping outside.
There were plenty of convenience stores on the way, but I packed on the assumption that they'd all been picked clean.
To be honest, I could handle more weight without strain, but I left spare room in case we ended up scavenging.
Seon-yeong's pack weighed about four kilograms.
It was less than half the weight of mine, but it would still be tough carrying it all day.
'Weight wasn't the only problem.'
Yesterday we had moved at night.
Even so, maybe because we were wearing raincoats over our clothes, we tired out faster from the heat.
If it was already like this, what would summer be like?
Even if we got through this moment safely, the future worried me.
"All done!"
"Oh. That was fast."
Seon-yeong had quickly made rice balls and brought them over in a plastic pack.
The shape looked familiar.
Not a plastic bag exactly, but oddly familiar.
I pushed aside the unpleasant memory it stirred and performed one last gear check.
Seon-yeong and I both threw on green poncho raincoats, shouldered our backpacks, and each held a baseball bat in one hand.
We put on our shoes looking like a pair of robbers.
"Guard the house well. No matter who comes, don't ever open the door."
"Okay, Seon-yeong. Don't worry. I'll even have dinner ready. You have to come back safely, okay?"
"I'm not just saying this. Even if someone's crying for help, even if they're dying out here, never open the door. Got it?"
"Ah... okay. I will. You two should come straight back if it gets too dangerous."
Ga-yeong answered Seon-yeong's warning with a grave expression.
Seon-yeong was right.
In some ways, people might now be scarier than zombies.
Even familiar neighbors had to be treated cautiously.
Then again, had that not always been true?
"Hoo. Let's go."
"Yeah. I'm ready."
We came out onto the four-lane road in front of the apartment complex and set our course to the northeast.
We walked along the road, checking every blind spot and every car interior.
I was so focused on listening for any sounds the zombies might make that I became sensitive to every little noise.
One reassuring thing was that the odds of encountering a zombie were still relatively low.
Across the street was a park, and on our side, there was a small hill along the road thickly planted with trees.
In short, there were no buildings or other places where people might have hidden.
There could still be zombies in the park, but probably far fewer than in buildings that had once been crowded.
We spotted bloodstains here and there on the asphalt road, but there were no zombies.
It seemed the people who had turned into zombies in the middle of the road had followed the fleeing survivors and moved on.
The survivors would have kept running toward cover until they reached a building.
"Team Leader Kim! Team Leader Kim!"
I was considering why the road might be empty of zombies when—
A small voice came from somewhere.
It was a man's voice.
At the sudden human voice, I tightened my grip on the bat and whipped my head toward the sound.