Chapter 3: Change
Chapter 3: Change
2. Change
After Jin-su was gone.
Seon-yeong and I silently endured our grief.
How much time had passed?
Seon-yeong, who had been standing a short distance from the car, hurried over.
Her face was streaked with tears, and urgency trembled in her tearful voice.
"Team Leader, someone's coming."
Seon-yeong was staring toward the vehicle entrance to the parking lot.
An entrance pedestrians normally had no reason to use.
I wiped away the moisture clouding my vision and saw a man walking slowly toward us.
There wasn't even time to grieve in peace.
"Hide quietly back here. His gait is strange."
The man was limping, as if one leg was injured.
Then a smell suddenly rode the wind toward us.
The metallic scent of blood.
By now, I recognized it unmistakably.
"Huhk... huhk..."
"Shh."
I put my arm around Seon-yeong's trembling shoulders, and we crouched down together behind the company car.
Stay calm. Don't panic, I repeated inwardly.
'I was gripping the bat too tightly. I needed to relax.'
The man walked slowly into the parking lot and then came to an abrupt stop.
It still wasn't certain whether he was a person or a zombie.
The parking lot interior wasn't very bright, so I couldn't see his face clearly.
Thud
He collapsed.
Should I go help him?
"Do you think he was bitten too? It looks like he fled here..."
"His leg did look injured, and I smelled blood."
I thought we should watch him a little longer.
If he hadn't been bitten and was merely injured—if he was still human—I could only hope he'd hold out a little longer.
I wasn't a bad man, but I couldn't risk my life on a reckless rescue.
If this zombie outbreak continued, I would have to become more selfish than I'd ever been.
I sorted through my thoughts slowly.
The top priority was my safety.
If something threatened me, I'd have to avoid it or fight and win.
'Helping others... Right. I wouldn't act on emotion. I would stop, think once more, then decide.'
If I rushed in blindly and landed in danger, there'd be no one to blame.
I felt sorry for the man lying on the cold concrete, but I kept watching.
"Based on how long Jin-su took to turn, it shouldn't take long. I'd say it was about ten minutes. Let's wait and see."
"Yes..."
Seon-yeong also seemed to think stepping in now was dangerous.
I could feel her breathing growing calmer as time passed.
She was probably thinking along the same lines.
Grrrrrrr
'Ah. He was bitten.'
This time, I checked the time on my phone.
About ten minutes after he collapsed, the man transformed into a zombie and got up.
It rose with a guttural growl.
Once upright, the zombie swayed in place and began shuffling around.
He was an employee of our company.
He was an employee who loved League and was always bragging about his girlfriend.
'What a shame...'
Memories of him surfaced in fragments.
When off-site work ended early, we'd sometimes slack off together at an internet café.
He was terrible at Planet War, so we ended up playing League together.
It had always struck me how tough this normally quiet guy became when he played games.
'He had a lot of nerve...'
When I offered to buy him dinner, he even asked if he could bring his girlfriend along.
It caught me off guard, but the three of us had drinks over dinner before parting.
My thoughts began running wild again.
Had I always thought this much?
'That was a zombie. It was already a zombie. It wasn't a person.'
Ding
I was trying to convince myself that those things were no longer human.
A sound came from the parking lot elevator, and soon a very fat man came running out.
At the same time, our quiet employee... no, the zombie, also started running.
It was faster than I'd expected.
"Uh... uh? What's with this guy? Hey! Uwaaaagh!"
The fat man who had emerged from the elevator saw the zombie charging and screamed in panic.
That was the end of him.
Crunch. Thud.
At the horrible sound, I quietly rose from my crouch.
Seon-yeong looked up at me from where she was sitting.
I pressed a finger to my lips, signaling her to stay quiet, and crept forward.
The man and the zombie were tangled together.
Instinct told me this was my chance.
I couldn't just wait endlessly for that zombie to find us.
I felt sorry for the man, but there had been no safe way to help him sooner.
My grip tightened.
I tightened both hands around the baseball bat, using one to steady the other's trembling.
I could do this. I could do this. I could do this.
I repeatedly chanted the short phrase like a spell.
It seemed zombies didn't have a keen sense of smell.
Their hearing clearly still worked, though.
Even though I had walked right up behind it, it didn't react.
Up close, I saw the zombie tearing into the fallen man.
It seemed more interested in ripping and biting than chewing and swallowing; blood and chunks of flesh flew everywhere.
'Ugh. Shit.'
Over the zombie's shoulder, I could see the grotesque sight.
One of the man's ears and much of his cheek were already gone.
'Enough. I needed to stop looking.'
I barely managed to tear my gaze away from the macabre sight.
Staring any longer felt like I was damaging my own mental health.
The gruesome sight almost left me dazed, but I pulled myself together and moved behind the zombie.
I aimed for its head and raised the bat.
Whoosh. Thwack.
The zombie collapsed, the back of its head crushed.
Not a twitch.
'Its skull was softer than I'd expected.'
Next, I had to check the fallen man.
The man's face, collarbone, and chest area were in shambles.
From the moment the zombie attacked him until I killed it...
Hardly any time had passed.
Yet his body was far more mutilated than I'd expected.
The flesh had been dug out, and white bone was exposed here and there.
'Could an ordinary human bite do this? So quickly?'
I didn't know.
I put that question aside and positioned the baseball bat over the man's head.
I wasn't a doctor, but he was definitely dead.
Since a zombie had bitten him, he would probably rise again after a while.
'Don't remain a monster. Rest in peace.'
I offered a moment of prayer for his soul, then swung the baseball bat and struck the man's skull.
I reasoned that if I crushed his skull now, he shouldn't be able to rise later.
I returned to Seon-yeong, crouched down again, and held my breath.
Three corpses now lay between the company car and the elevator, and the smell of blood was overpowering.
What should I do with the zombie corpses?
Moving the zombie corpses right then with just Seon-yeong and me was impossible.
It was dangerous, and even if we moved them, I didn't know where.
After turning the problem over for a moment, I found myself worrying again about what we should do next.
One thing was certain: we had to leave.
"Seon-yeong, it's been over ten minutes now, right?"
"Yes, about fifteen minutes."
This parking lot was too open, so the zombies on the sports field could come flooding in at any moment.
I had to either drive out or go up into the building.
'Jin-su...'
I decided to treat the company car we'd hidden behind as Jin-su's grave.
So I quietly got up and approached the zombie lying on the floor.
The fat man who'd met his end still had his car keys clutched in one hand.
'I'm sorry. I need to borrow your car.'
Apologizing inwardly, I took the car key from his hand.
I immediately pressed the button.
Beep
The black midsize sedan right in front flashed its headlights.
Thankfully, the car was nearby.
"Seon-yeong, let's get to that car for now."
I called softly to Seon-yeong, who was still crouched behind the company car.
She and I got into the man's car.
Thump.
"Phew..."
Only once I sat in the driver's seat did some of the tension drain away.
How hard had I been tensing my entire body?
I was definitely going to ache all over tomorrow.
Tomorrow... I only hoped there would be one.
Seon-yeong and I, both completely soaked, sat silently for a moment.
Our rain-soaked clothes clung to us, and as our sweat cooled, the chill deepened.
The abrupt release after so much tension made the cold feel even worse.
'I couldn't afford to come down with a cold. I'm counting on you, body.'
My body was still in decent shape.
It couldn't give out over something like this.
This wasn't simply about not wanting to feel ill.
If I fell sick in a situation like this, I'd be truly helpless. The thought made me desperate.
#
How long had we been sitting in the man's car?
Seon-yeong also seemed to have calmed down a bit now.
Jin-su's death still didn't feel real.
On top of that, I couldn't believe I had crushed the skulls of three things that were once people.
Did all this really happen?
'I kept thinking of them as people without even realizing it...'
I smashed zombie skulls.
I didn't kill people.
I repeated that consciously.
'Come on. Pull yourself together.'
I kept recalling what had already happened.
Thinking about what to do next would be far more helpful than that.
I had already resolved several times to pull myself together, but it wasn't easy.
The faces of the dead flickered before my eyes, and I kept remembering the things Jin-su had said.
"Team Leader, shall we turn on the heater?"
As I rubbed my face with both hands, I heard Seon-yeong's trembling voice.
Both of us were shivering from the cold.
"Sure. We need to warm up."
Vroom, vroom, vroom
I kept pressing the engine start button, but it wouldn't start.
Had the battery died or something?
I couldn't turn on the heater.
The man must have gotten out without knowing his car battery was dead.
"It won't start. We might have to tough it out a bit."
"Okay... Phone calls still won't go through either. What do we do now?"
I didn't know either.
Thinking about it again, even if we drove out, it seemed too dangerous.
The noise had died down, but another thunderous explosion had echoed only moments earlier.
Still, we couldn't remain in the parking lot when we had no way to call for help.
'What was in this building again?'
It suddenly occurred to me that the building had shower facilities.
If we couldn't go out, should we go up into the building?
I asked Seon-yeong about the building.
If my memory was correct, we could at least wipe ourselves down.
"Seon-yeong, do you know what the upper floors of this parking lot building are used for?"
"More or less. The first floor has a gymnasium or auditorium, and the second and third floors have showers and multipurpose rooms."
"Then shall we go up? If we stay still like this, we'll both catch a cold. Let's at least find a towel."
If we could get to the rooftop, we'd also be able to look around the area.
The loud booming and crashing sounds that had echoed were still bothering me.
First I needed to deal with being soaked, then survey the area.