Moving Out

Only after the monster's footsteps had faded did I dare open the fire-hydrant cabinet and crawl out. From the sound of it climbing the stairs, I figured the thing's den was up on the fifth floor.

"Ugh."

The moment I emerged, what greeted me was the woman's upper body, eyes bulging as they stared straight at me. It was enough to make me grimace, but I forced my feet toward home all the same.

"Hhk—!"

Damn it, pull yourself together! You still have to make it to the apartment!

Whatever stamina the Sixth Sense had burned out of me still hadn't come back. My legs shook under me, and the world spun in sick circles in front of my eyes. Half-blind, I jammed the key into the lock. The bolt clicked. The door banged open, and I stumbled through.

Haa... this is as far as I go...

The instant I was inside, the sanity I'd been holding together by sheer force of will slipped out of my grip. My vision cut to black, and I collapsed where I stood.

"Mmm..."

Sunlight spilling in off the veranda dragged me awake. I twitched against it and opened my eyes.

"Hah. Passed out the second I got home."

The shoes still on my feet said I hadn't even had time to take them off.

"So what do I do now?"

The monster from last night was the first thing that came back to me.

"Nngh. That's why this place is the worst home a man could have. Because of that thing."

I'd been lucky its hours were nocturnal, which was why we hadn't crossed paths yet. Nobody could say when a whim might send it downstairs in broad daylight. A time bomb was living on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the floor directly above me. Staying here wasn't an option.

"Haa... and I nearly killed myself hauling all of this."

I looked over the food I'd carried in from the convenience store. I couldn't keep coming and going from an apartment with a bomb overhead, so I'd get one trip out of it when I left—and even that had to be the bare minimum, light enough that I could still move out there where the zombies swarmed.

"More to the point, where am I even going?"

Bigger than anything else was finding a place actually fit to live in. Wandering the streets with nowhere to go until I happened to stumble on one was a fine way to die.

"Haa. Where would even be good?"

I started turning over the houses I'd seen while living in this neighborhood, hunting for something that might work in an apocalypse. Places I'd passed on the way to work. Places I'd noticed when I went out to kill time. Places I'd walked by back when I was a student, heading to school...

"Wait. On the way to school?"

That last memory pulled up a house that might actually do.

"Right—that place!"

A detached house I'd seen on my walk to school, back when I was in middle school. It was the kind of upscale single-family home you'd expect to find only in Seoul, sitting oddly out of place in an ordinary residential neighborhood. From what I'd heard, an old couple—he'd been a medical-school professor—had built it when retirement came, preferring to spend what was left of their lives in a quiet mid-sized city rather than in crowded Seoul.

"Hm. That's actually perfect."

As I remembered it, the place was ringed by a wall over two meters high, and the yard had looked anything but small from the outside. About as suitable a residence as the present situation allowed.

"Hm. No way they're still alive, right?"

I didn't believe a retired old couple could still be surviving, so I set that house as my target.

"All right. Head out, then?"

With a destination fixed, I got ready to move as fast as I could. Getting ready, such as it was, meant putting a reasonable amount of the convenience-store food into a bag.

"Haa... I have to leave all of that behind."

I stared pitifully at the food I'd hauled over from the store.

"Haa. It's not even like I regressed into the past. What the hell is this."

All I could carry was fifteen packs of ramen and five cans. Exactly the same amount I'd brought home on the first day.

"Any more than that and I'll be too heavy to move."

In the end ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I gave up, picked up the baseball bat, got to my feet, and opened the door.

"Take care of yourself, home."

And with that, I said my goodbye. The door slammed shut behind me—the last sound my apartment would ever make for me.

"Mmm..."

The first thing waiting outside was yesterday's corpse: the woman, her lower half gone.

"Just in case."

I'd nearly died on the first day to a woman zombie who was nothing but an upper body, and I meant to learn from it. Even a stone bridge gets a tap before you cross it. The bat came down, and I crushed her skull.

"Good. Let's go."

Once I was sure ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠she hadn't turned, I left the corpse behind, went down the stairs, and walked out of the building.

"All right. Time to move."

And so I left the apartment complex and headed for my destination.

The bat connected with a wet crack.

They say the moment you leave home, the suffering starts, and they weren't wrong. I'd already put down my fifth zombie and cleared the daily quest.

"Still. I made it."

I had arrived at the huge detached house I'd been aiming for, walled in behind a two-meter fence.

"Damn... it's big."

When I was a student it had just been a house behind a wall. Seeing it again as an adult, I could tell how expensive the place really was.

"Mm. What if they're still alive?"

The odds that a retired old couple had survived looked vanishingly small, but a freak stroke of luck wasn't impossible.

"Well. Talk it out and live together nicely. Or else..."

When the time came, the baseball bat would make an excellent conversational aid. Done deliberating, I climbed onto the car parked at the foot of the wall and went over.

"Nngh."

Grunting my way across, I found a wide yard and a handsomely built two-story mansion waiting on the other side.

"Huh. Impressive."

The yard was broader than I'd imagined, and the house was the sort of luxury residence you only ever saw in dramas. My mouth fell open.

"Huh. There's even a vegetable patch?"

In one corner of the yard sat a kitchen garden, probably a hobby the old couple had kept up.

"Ahem. This isn't the time."

I shut my mouth, got a grip on myself, and approached the front door.

"Knock knock. Anyone home?"

I knocked politely first, checking whether anyone was inside.

"If nobody answers, I'm going to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠assume the place is empty and let myself in."

Once I was sure no one was there, I raised the bat to smash the door handle—then thought better of wrecking what was about to become my house, and went looking for an open window instead.

"Oh, lucky!"

I found a veranda window that hadn't been locked, and nearly cheered.

"Whoa..."

Stepping inside, I couldn't help a sigh at the sight of the place done wall to wall in expensive furniture.

"Anyone here?"

To clear out any threat still hiding, I called out and carefully opened every door, checking the rooms one by one.

"Hm. Nothing on the first floor..."

The moment I finished the last room downstairs, a heavy thump-thump came from overhead.

"So they're on the second floor."

The owner of the house, it seemed, was upstairs. My hand tightened around the bat, and I climbed.

The thumping never stopped while I went up, which made the room easy to find.

"Someone in there?"

The thumping only sped up—thump, thump, thump, thump. No answer came.

Certain now that whatever was in there wasn't human, I swallowed once before opening the door and braced, the bat clenched hard in one hand. The latch clicked.

"Graaaah!"

The door opened and something that had once been an old man lunged out. Blood ran red down the center of his forehead. The thumping, I guessed, had been this zombie slamming his skull against the door.

"Krek!"

I'd been ready. The bat cracked into the old zombie's head.

The notification chimed, and the zombie toppled backward, brains spraying.

"Kieeeek!"

"There's another one?"

From deeper in the room, a zombie's cry was still coming.

"What?"

I'd expected another one to come charging the moment I heard it, and I'd been set just outside the door, ready to swing—but time passed, and only the wailing continued. No zombie appeared. Puzzled, I stepped inside.

"Graaaaaah!"

"Damn."

What I saw made me frown. A zombie who looked like the old woman was tied to the bed, snapping her jaws at me.

"Tsk. Looks like he was looking after his wife after she turned, until he turned himself."

The situation more or less pieced itself together. I swung the bat and put the old woman down.