Prototype. (4)
“It seems there's a Zombie Lord left inside.”
―Sang-goo! We're coming in too!
It was Baek's team on the other end, who had already heard the broad strokes of the situation after giving Sang-goo emergency treatment. They had been waiting on tenterhooks for the terminal's door to open at any moment, and now their patience was wearing thin. They'd thought the operation was nearly over. It was that roar they'd heard crackling through the radio that had them all on pins and needles.
“Just in case, I'll lure them toward the terminal. Please stand by.”
―Okay! Just open the door from your side! We've got four No. 7 machine guns, so let's turn them into rag soup!
Outside, a fishing boat and a small warship were lying in wait. Rescuing Colonel Oh, their patient, was important, yes — but they were also standing by to load up the supplies sitting in the Hangar 8 cargo bay. If a large group was going to come in and haul everything out safely, they had to eliminate not just the common infected but the mutants and, above all, the Zombie Lord.
“S-Sang-goo….”
The noise must have jolted the man awake. Colonel Oh had some color back in his face, but he still needed rest — and knowing how precarious the situation was, he only seemed more sorry, and more grateful.
“I just….”
“Rest. That's an order.”
No words were needed. Sang-goo placed a loaded pistol against the colonel's chest, then hastily threw together a wall of stacked crates around him. He splashed alcohol across the floor, erasing every trace of scent he could. That was the best he could do for now. There was no time to spare.
He unscrewed the suppressor from his rifle and slipped out through Hangar 2's door. With the gate hanging wide open, every second he got clear was another second of life for Colonel Oh.
Tok-tok-tok-tok—
Right on cue, Little Dog came bounding up, as if it had been waiting for just this moment. Five normal zombies trailed behind it — where they'd come from, who could say.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
With loud single shots, Sang-goo blew each one's skull off in turn.
“Stay close.”
He bolted for the terminal.
―KwaAAAAAK!!
Dududududu—
The Zombie Lord's roar and the thunder of its feet hammering steel plating rang out deafeningly. Bang! Bang! Bang! If even one of them slipped past and reached Colonel Oh, it would be over. Without pause, Sang-goo strung them up on his gunfire like beads on a wire.
Beep— beep—
Little, running point, sounded an alarm. Now the zombies were after Little as well as Sang-goo. Some of them came bursting out from the terminal direction and hurled themselves at the little machine.
Pababak—!
Little Dog had been through several close calls with him already. Without needing an order, it nimbly dodged and scampered away.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Even a beat behind, Sang-goo neatly removed every one of their heads.
Kiiing—
Little nodded its thanks and resumed running.
―Keooooooo!!
―KwaAAAAAK!!
'This is maddening.'
The carrier's interior was metal from wall to wall, and the roars of the belatedly appearing Zombie Lord and its mutants were so powerful his ears went numb. On top of that came the sickening stench rolling in with them. They were close now.
―Sang-goo! How's it going in there? Sang-goo!
Sang-goo ran until his thighs felt ready to split — and even as he ran, he could feel it.
'Cold air.'
The cold air of a winter sea was bleeding in. Only a few more doors, and he'd reach the cargo terminal he'd been longing for.
The air seemed to clear, so Sang-goo tore off his helmet and flung it aside.
“Hooah…!”
With the cumbersome helmet gone, he felt like he could breathe again — like he might actually live. The cold air, thick with salt, flowed past his nose and seemed to scour his lungs clean. His exhausted lungs drank in the natural air like an old friend's greeting, and his body answered with a fresh surge of explosive stamina.
Dududududu—!!
By then, their footsteps were closing in fast.
'Not here. Not yet.'
Even in a cramped space, this wouldn't do. Fighting them here and now would be a mistake; what mattered was opening the terminal's exit as fast as possible. He'd been told the massive gate took over three minutes to open fully.
Ping— ping—
Making do, Sang-goo tossed out two landmines. These, too, were zombie-response mines built by House of Lion — a gift sent over by old Hwang Sang-chul. The round mines, which had tumbled across the deck, righted themselves like roly-poly toys and stood at the ready for the incoming horde.
Dududududu—
The closer the tremors in the floor grew, the more silently the two mines waited. Then—
KRA-BOOM!
The lead zombies collapsed in a heap. The blast had shattered everything below the knees of the three or four closest to the mines. In the narrow corridor, once the front-runners went down, those pressing in behind them lost their balance and toppled as well.
And next—
Tu-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta—!!
He emptied a full magazine. But the horde came on without end. He was tempted to keep at it, but Sang-goo turned and ran with cold discipline. He finished reloading on the move, and as the smell of gunpowder faded, the scent of the sea grew stronger and stronger.
Past the final corridor, a wide open space opened up.
'We made it!'
The imposing metal gate loomed ahead. The floor was flooded knee-deep, with several multi-person boats and a mini-submarine moored in a corner. It was a cavernous space, built to admit everything from massive container ships to mid-sized warships.
All that remained was to open that colossal floodgate.
―Beep!
As if it had read his mind, Little Dog signaled. Over by the pier-like dock area stood a bank of console-type equipment — tablets, keyboards, the works. That had to be it. Sang-goo sprinted over.
'Power. Power!'
Little had already switched the machines on. As luck would have it, the loading finished the instant Sang-goo arrived, and he pressed his tablet to the console. The passcode entered itself, and then—
WEEEENG—! WEEEENG—!
Red warning lamps flared and alarms blared from every direction. Then, at last—
Grgrgrgr—!
He heard the great locks of the floodgate disengaging, one by one. The timer said three minutes, exactly as he'd been told. In three minutes, Baek would bring the fishing boat and the small warship inside. All he had to do was hold out until then—
―KeowaAAAAAAK!!
Right on that timing, the horde arrived. His blood was up now; the roar threatened to split his eardrums.
“Filthy bastards. That's quite a crowd. Two minutes fifty. That's all I need to hold.”
Sang-goo pushed ahead of the little machine, worried that Little Dog — who had helped him in so many ways today — might get hurt. Little pressed itself flat against the ground and quietly backed away.
Sang-goo pulled the four remaining mines from his tactical vest and scattered them in a wide fan across the floor. Then he faced the horde. Roughly a thousand strong.
Yet not a single one lunged at him. No matter what he did, normal zombies simply could not perceive his existence.
Had the Zombie Lord registered something was off about Sang-goo, then? Strange presences flickered among the horde. They crouched low and glared from within the mass of normal zombies — but Sang-goo's senses winnowed them out with precision.
'Five of them, then.'
He'd never fought five at once before. And today, one of them might be a Zombie Lord. It would be a hard fight — but there was nowhere left to retreat. Sang-goo fixed his aim on where they were hiding and waited, breath held. As long as they didn't charge, every extra second was a gain. So he waited, sweeping his gaze across the horde.
They were definitely hidden in there, within the bobbing, never-still tide of zombie heads. Facing an opponent they'd rarely met, they were probably still deliberating how to respond.
“Hoo… hoo… a thousand of them are in position.”
―Just a little more! Hold on a little longer, Sang-goo! We're coming in now!
“Understood.”
What Charles had told him months ago drifted back to mind. More than one nation had suffered through the epidemics that tormented humanity in five-to-six-year cycles. After COVID, AI technology leapt forward by leaps and bounds, and the governments of various countries, together with the major pharmaceutical companies, developed what they called cellular regeneration vaccines. The high-grade vaccines, he'd heard, were distributed preferentially to senior officers, while the standard ones went mostly to civilians. Whether the virus came first, or whether the vaccine was what turned everyone into carriers, nobody knew. No clear causal link had been found yet — but the emergence of Zombie Lords and mutants made him suspicious. Everything Sang-goo had witnessed over the past several months pointed the same way. The mutants — especially anything Zombie Lord-tier — had all been wearing military uniforms. Occasionally they fought and devoured each other, but he doubted he'd be that lucky today. The fact that they'd been locked inside this carrier until now meant the pecking order among them had already been settled.
WEEEENG— WEEEENG—
Grgrgrgrgr—
The steel gate's locks came undone one after another. Unable to wait any longer—
―KwaAAAAAAK!!
—the Zombie Lord finally screamed.
―Keuk!
―Kyaaak!
Four mutants leapt like lightning — each clutching two normal zombies, one in every hand. They hurled the bodies toward the mines laid in a fan across the floor.
KRA-BOOM! KRA-BOOM!
Bang! Bang!
Right on that timing, Sang-goo blew off two of the mutants' heads. But the remaining two were already inside his five-step radius.
Bang!
Half of the nearest one's face went flying.
Chomp!
The next one clamped its teeth onto Sang-goo's shoulder. The thick protective suit kept the fangs from sinking in on the first bite, buying him a beat of time.
Pukok!
He drove the greatsword through the thing's temple, then ripped it out and severed its windpipe in one smooth motion.
Shkk—!
The last one came at him even with half its face gone, and he plunged the greatsword deep into its eye before tearing it free.
Puhwaaak—!
Four mutants down. One minute left on the clock.
―KwaAAAAAK!!
His subordinates slaughtered in an instant — the Zombie Lord roared in fury.
Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-BANG—!!
Sang-goo dumped an entire magazine in the thing's direction.
'Slippery little bastard.'
But of course. The creature had used the surrounding zombies as meat shields and ducked away in a flash. Fine by him — if it wouldn't come out, the advantage was his. Sang-goo reloaded quickly and was just bringing his sights back up when—
―Keooooooo!!
The creature changed its order. Its doomed underlings couldn't perceive Sang-goo at all, so it commanded them to swarm his rear. More precisely — at Little Dog, huddled low behind him.
The zombies came stampeding in droves. They were nothing but robots, he told himself. That was what his head said, anyway.
'Damn it!'
Maybe it was his nature — the kind that couldn't live with itself if a debt of help went unpaid. His body simply moved before his mind could argue.
Sang-goo scooped up Little Dog and hurled it toward the slowly opening steel gate.
Splash—
The little machine hit the water. Clever as ever, it didn't panic for a second — he could see it paddling furiously. The problem was that the thousand-strong horde began hurling itself into the sea after it, one and all. Naturally, that meant they swept right past Sang-goo entirely.
'Here it comes!'
And in that gap, the Zombie Lord closed the distance — stealthy and fast.
Ta-ta-ta-ta-BANG—!!
Sang-goo raked the thing's head with full-auto fire. But all that flew were the useless skulls of ordinary zombies.
―KwaAAK!
A zombie in a general's uniform, about 175 centimeters tall, was suddenly within arm's reach.
Puk—!
He'd expected a bite, a rake of claws. Instead, for some reason, the thing threw its entire body into a full-force shoulder charge.
“Ugh!”
Against the creature alone, he could have parried and flipped it. But dozens of normal zombies piled in right behind it, one after another. At the Lord's command they had shoved its back and clambered up over it — and Sang-goo was knocked off his feet in the same avalanche.
―KwaAAK!
Worse, the momentum refused to die. Swept along in a tide of a thousand bodies, both Sang-goo and the Lord began tumbling across the deck — until at last, together, they plunged into the icy-cold seawater.
Glug— Sang-goo sank fast. A cold so fierce it felt like his heart itself was freezing seized his whole body in an instant. He had to get out, fast — but the Zombie Lord and several normal zombies were pinning him down.
“Kkuhk!”
Sang-goo drew his greatsword and stabbed wildly — again and again into the faces of the zombies pressing down on him from above, like a man gone mad.
Around that time, up on the surface, the floodgate finished opening, and boat after boat bristling with forward-mounted machine guns came streaming in.
“Sang-goo! Sang—?!”
“W-We can't see him!! We can't see Sang-goo!”
A thousand zombies thrashed across the surface of the water. It was possible — just possible — that Boo Sang-goo was somewhere in that churning mass. Baek, who had been about to hose down the moment he arrived, had no choice but to hold his fire for one agonizing beat.