The Return
"What the hell? Where's the police car?!"
She could have rubbed her eyes raw and it wouldn't have changed a thing. The road was empty. Not a cruiser in sight.
"D-did somebody drive it off?"
"After all that chaos, who stops to check every damn car for keys and then just takes off in it?!"
Kang Hanna was still shouting at Lee Jaemin when a harsh engine roar tore through the street.
"Ah—ah, th-there! Over there!"
Kim Minho had spotted something in the racket. He jabbed a finger toward it and yelled, and at the end of that finger sat the very police car they'd been desperate to find, the eagle of the force stamped across its flank. It was not, however, the parked cruiser everyone had been praying for. Through the glass, Park Jaeho sat behind the wheel.
After he split from the group, Park Jaeho turned right and walked.
He did not do what he had promised. He did not sprint, make a racket, and drag the zombies after him. He moved as carefully as he could.
Bait? What a load of bullshit. Why the hell would I play bait for you people? You out of your minds?
From the very start, he had never meant to sacrifice himself for any of them.
The alley on the right was far shorter than the one on the left, and he was out of it in no time. What waited for him at the mouth of it was the police car. It had never been on the left side of the road at all. From the beginning, it had been sitting on the right.
The keys were the same story. He'd only said they were still in the ignition to fool the others. They had been in his pocket the whole time. The moment he saw the cruiser, he fished them out of his back pocket and unlocked the door.
"That goddamn bitch! What, just because you're a cop you're supposed to protect civilians? What a load of horseshit! You want to die, die on your own—why the hell drag me into it?"
Only once he was up in the cruiser, a little safer than he'd been a moment ago, did he finally spit his curses at Kang Hanna.
"Pretty face, so I went easy on her, and she just keeps climbing all over me!"
He jammed the key into the ignition and drove the cruiser straight out onto the road.
"Hahaha, you dumb bastards! I'm gone! Have a nice life!"
And with that he drove off, laughing at Kang Hanna and the others as they stood staring blankly after the departing police car.
"That—that motherfucker played us?"
Only then did Kang Hanna understand she'd been had, and the profanity tore out of her.
"Wh-what do we do now?"
"We're screwed. We're screwed. We're completely screwed!"
Kim Minho had no idea what to do. Lee Jaemin, sunk deep in panic, crouched where he stood, clutched his head, and kept muttering.
"Hanna! Get a hold of yourself! You fixing to die like this?"
As the group came apart, Jang Sangcheol grabbed her and shouted.
"Goddamn it! Everybody, we go back!"
That snapped her out of it. She turned on the others, still flailing, and yelled.
"B-back there? Again?"
"Then what the hell do you want to do?! That idiot Park Jaeho just dragged every zombie's attention onto that cruiser, so we have to move now!"
She was right. The noise of the police car had the dead chasing after it—though at their speed, catching a car was hopeless.
"Run!"
At Hanna's order, the group turned and started back the way they had struggled to come.
"We're done, we're done, I don't want to die!"
"Jaemin, we have to go! Snap out of it!"
Panic had him crouched on the ground despite Hanna's orders, and even Lee Jia's urging couldn't get him moving.
"Get your head on straight, you crazy bastard!"
Her palm cracked across his cheek.
"Ghk—!"
"You gonna die here? Run!"
"Y-yes, Noona! Yes!"
She'd sprinted over, hauled him to his feet, and slapped him, and only then did Jaemin come back to himself and start to run.
"Jia! You too, let's go!"
"Yes, unni!"
Only after she'd gathered Jia—who had been trying to look after Jaemin—did the whole group turn together and run for the store.
"Get inside, quick!"
Thanks to Park Jaeho's cruiser soaking up the zombies' attention, the way back was easy. Even so, a few of the dead had locked onto Hanna's group instead of the car, and at the store entrance the party had to hold them off.
"Keep stabbing!"
Fortunately, not many had chased them. They made their stand at the door and put the zombies down without much trouble.
"What do we do now?"
"First we rest, and we think on it tomorrow. I'm too worn out for this, I am."
"Let's do that. I'm exhausted too."
A late-night fight with the dead, a run for their lives, and a betrayal had left them too spent to stay on their feet. They decided to leave the worrying to tomorrow's selves and rest first.
"Well, look who it is. Weren't you the ones who ditched us to go to police headquarters?"
"Coming back like this—guess it didn't go so well?"
"Where's that cop guy? Zombies get him?"
When they climbed to the second floor, the delinquents still cuffed and restrained were there to greet them.
"Haa... right. Those assholes are still here."
Only then remembering the thugs, Hanna dragged a hand down her face and sighed, a headache already settling in.
"We'll figure out what to do with them tomorrow. Tomorrow."
None of them had the energy to spare on the delinquents. They ignored them and settled in to rest.
"Hey, you ignoring us?! Hey!"
Something clanged as it struck.
"Shut up!"
Hanna silenced the noisy thug by hurling whatever junk was lying around, then dropped straight into sleep. And so that exhausting night passed.
The moment they woke, the group started a meeting.
"Honestly, we've already cleared the zombies downstairs, so staying here isn't a bad idea. Hunting for another base means taking on risk the whole time we're looking."
"I feel the same. The layout's good if we have to hole up, so I think we should stay."
Jang Sangcheol opened the debate on where they would live, and Lee Jaemin threw his weight behind him.
"Right. Unless we already knew of a better base, searching for one with no information at all doesn't make sense. Then we stay here for the time being."
With Hanna's closing word, the first item was settled.
"Which leaves what we do with them."
The group turned to look at the delinquents.
"Hey! What's there to decide?! You let us go, obviously!"
"Quiet! Can't you see we're discussing exactly that?!"
At Choi Minhyuk's shout, Hanna yelled him down.
"I... I don't think we should let them go. Who knows what they'll do if we do..."
Jeong Mina, who had been molested by them, raised her hand carefully and offered her opinion.
"But we can't keep them tied up forever. So long as we don't mean to kill them, we'll have to keep feeding them too..."
"I'm sorry, Mina, but I'm still a police officer. I don't care if they're criminals—I don't want to keep them bound in a situation this dangerous..."
Once Jang Sangcheol and Kang Hanna spoke against it, opinion gradually swung toward letting them go.
"We'll cut you loose, so you'd better cooperate. Got it?"
"Yeah, yeah. You let us go, we'll cooperate just fine."
In the end they extracted a promise of cooperation for the sake of survival and took the cuffs off.
"Whew. Feels like I can finally breathe."
"Then first thing, we secure food."
The food inside the store had been eaten down long ago. Someone would have to go outside and bring more back. The problem was deciding who would step out into a street crawling with zombies to get it.
"I think everyone should go except Jeong Mina, Lee Jia, and Lee Jaemin."
"What? Wh-why? I can go too!"
"Me too..."
When Hanna left them off the supply team, Jaemin and Jia both protested that they could go.
"No. Jaemin, the second things go bad you freeze and panic. You did it last time, didn't you? And Jia, you don't have the stamina. I saw you gasping while the rest of us were running."
"Th-that's..."
"..."
Faced with a decision built on closer observation than either of them had expected, the two high schoolers had no choice but to shut their mouths.
"But Mister Jang is going too. Last time his leg was bad, and Jaemin and you had to hold him up."
"That was because he fell while we were moving fast. Move carefully and it won't happen. Did you forget he made it back to the store just fine?"
Jia wasn't ready to give up, and she pushed back—only to have the argument taken apart without effort.
"Besides, Mister Jang has the sharpest eye of any of us, and he makes the calmest calls. He's essential."
"...All right. I understand, unni."
At Hanna's follow-up, Jia had no choice but to accept it.
Even so—
"Then the supply team's settled."
"Hey there, Officer~ Got a second?"
She was a breath away from locking the roster in when Choi Minhyuk called out to her and stopped her cold.
"What? What's your problem?"
"Nothing. Just, from what I'm hearing, it sounds like you're planning to stick us on the supply run with you."
At Hanna's question, Choi Minhyuk answered with a sneer already curling his mouth.