Big Man. (1)
"B-Boo Sang…-goo, sir?"
"Are you really going to help us?"
"Yes. You must be thirsty. Drink slowly."
"Then…."
The survivors, who had been eyeing each other with furrowed brows, finally tipped their heads back and gulped down the bottled water. Their throats must have been scorched — several of them broke into coughing fits as they drank.
Watching them gulp the water down in frantic swallows, Sang-goo asked, "Tell me your conditions. I can't just move you blindly."
It was honey to their ears. Even his intimidating looks were starting to seem almost handsome now.
"Well… almost all of us have frostbite. This friend here has a dislocated shoulder… and this one's calf is rotting."
The one who spoke was a middle-aged man.
"And yourself, sir?"
At the word sir, a sliver of the fear drained from the man's face.
"Aside from frostbite on my feet, I'm relatively all right."
"There are a few clean pairs of socks in the bag. There are heat packs too, but warming the body too quickly only does more damage. Wipe everything down with antiseptic wipes, then change into the socks first. I'll give you painkillers after treatment."
"Ah… th-thank you."
The middle-aged man pulled his aching body upright. Limping, he took the bag Sang-goo offered him and opened it — then, before tending to himself, checked the feet of the people beside him first.
Having confirmed as much, Sang-goo moved on to the dislocation patient.
"Hnnngh…."
A man in his late twenties, his face a tangle of a thousand desperate thoughts. Watching the tears stream endlessly down his cheeks, Sang-goo let out a weary breath.
"How long has it been like this?"
"I'm… sorry?"
The sweet stench rising off the man made Sang-goo's head ache, but he never once looked away. He simply gazed into the patient's face with burning intensity and gave a small nod of encouragement. Of course, he meant nothing by it. To the patient, though, that stare was nothing short of terrifying.
"Uh… uuum…."
"I need to at least do emergency treatment. How long ago did the shoulder come out?"
"Th-that is… two days? Around that, I think."
"Let me see it first."
Sang-goo carefully peeled off the man's shirt.
The left shoulder hung slack. A bruise, black as pitch, had spread across part of the trapezius, and the whole area was swollen badly.
If I force it back into place, I'll damage the nerves and blood vessels.
There was nothing to be done. The best he could manage here was to minimize the pain and get the man moving toward somewhere safe.
Sang-goo moved the man's arm. Pained moans slipped out. It was a shame, but it had to be done. Even by force, he had to get the arm into the most stable position possible.
"This should do."
Once he'd found the least painful position, he strapped the arm snug against the torso with a sling.
"This is the best we can do for now. I'm going to apply a cold compress — let me know the moment you can feel it in your fingertips."
He wrapped ice in cloth and laid it over the trapezius and shoulder. The man managed a weary nod.
That taken care of, Sang-goo moved on.
The last patient — the one with the rotting calf — was a woman in her late twenties.
"Sir…."
The gaunt woman was on the verge of tears. Sang-goo met her sorrowful gaze with a level expression, then turned his eyes to the wound.
Even at a glance, her right calf was a different size entirely. It was so swollen the jeans around it looked ready to burst.
"Were you bitten?"
"No, no. Not by a zombie… I was running, and I got scraped somewhere…."
"Let me take a look."
Sang-goo produced a pair of medical shears — to cut below the hem of her pants and expose the wound.
"What if it's… what if it's really bad? What if I have to amputate my leg…?"
"There's no way to know until I look."
He was sorry, but his tone was firm. This wasn't a hospital. It wasn't a safe place, obviously enough. It wasn't that he was blind to her fear — but there was no time to soothe and comfort with every treatment. Looters or zombies could attack at any moment.
"Please… I'm begging you."
She bit down hard on her lower lip and stretched out the swollen leg. Sang-goo shifted his gaze.
"Is she a friend of yours?"
"Ah… yes."
"Give her a hand."
The woman beside her — about the same age — caught his meaning at once. She clasped her trembling friend's hand tightly in both of hers.
Rip— rip—
Sang-goo cut away the bottom of the trouser leg.
"…."
The wound gleamed in the light of the lantern strapped to his head. The calf, swollen like a balloon, looked seriously bad. The one mercy was that the infection didn't seem to have climbed past the knee or down below the ankle.
"I'll make an incision, drain the pus, and flush it out. I'm sorry, but don't expect anesthesia."
Sang-goo washed his gloved hands once more with antiseptic solution, then lifted a sterilized scalpel.
"So… you're going to cut it and stitch it?"
Her lips quivered violently at the thought of living flesh being torn open and sewn with no anesthetic at all.
"No. If I stitch it now, the pus will just build up again. After flushing it out, I need to remove as much of the pus and necrotic tissue as possible… and I won't know what I'm dealing with until I open it up. So bear with it. Your friend will help."
It was his way of saying there was no more time to waste.
The woman gritted her teeth and looked away. Squeezing her friend's hand once more, she screwed her eyes shut.
Sang-goo laid his hand on the wound. She shuddered at the touch of the cold rubber glove — and the colder his hand felt, the faster his movements became.
Swick—
He raised the scalpel and split the wound open.
With a wet squeeelch, blood and pus burst forth — splattering across Sang-goo's face and glasses.
The stench of rotten eggs and spoiled meat crawled up his nose and gnawed at his brain. Around him, people gagged and retched at the sight, but Sang-goo's expression never changed as he kept working. Every second he delayed meant deeper agony for the patient who had mustered the courage to entrust him with her leg.
Glug glug glug—
After squeezing out every drop of pus he could, he poured sterile saline over the wound in a generous flood. As he rinsed the interior thoroughly, glimpses of healthy red flesh began to show through.
The patient clung to her writhing body, fighting to endure the pain. This was treatment that split living flesh open and stirred around inside it. It would have been agony enough to break most grown men — Sang-goo himself included. The fact that she bore it said a great deal about her.
"Almost done."
Thank goodness for small mercies.
The leg had swollen tight with pus, but luckily the necrotic tissue was limited to part of the outer skin from the original injury.
Sang-goo rolled up a small piece of gauze and packed it deep into the wound — a temporary measure to keep the pus from pooling again. Then, over the skin he couldn't stitch, he laid clean gauze and finished up, securing it firmly so it wouldn't slip off the flesh while leaving just enough room to breathe, keeping the compression minimal.
His hands were so quick, so clean, and so precise that even the ones who had first eyed him in terror were now quietly exhaling in relief.
"Whew… whew… it's done, right? Thank you so mu— ah! I'm sorry."
The patient's face flushed crimson. The fear she'd worn at the start was nowhere to be found — replaced by mortification that her own rotten filth had splattered across Sang-goo's face. She knew gratitude, and she felt shame for it.
And because of that, a smile touched Sang-goo's lips as well.
"You bore it well. Normally you'd need antibiotics, but from the looks of it… you've been skipping meals pretty regularly, haven't you."
Unfortunately, there were no antibiotic injections. This was the third rescue group since they'd set out, and the medicine left was all they had. He had capsules — antibiotics and anti-inflammatories in reserve — but force-feeding harsh drugs into stomachs that had gone days without food would raise a typhoon in their guts.
"This is the first water I've had in two days. It's been even longer since I ate anything."
"Then for now, have some of this."
What Sang-goo pulled out were two plastic bottles. The stuff inside looked something like sikhye, sweet rice punch — but it had been made more like a mild, sugar-adjusted rice water so it wouldn't upset empty stomachs.
"Thank you. Really… hnn…."
"Thank you!!"
Starting with the middle-aged man, they began to break down one by one, sobbing. Sang-goo, long used to this, poured the drink into paper cups without a flicker of expression, only after making sure they each had a share and were settling their stomachs.
"There's a government-run camp in Yeongdo District. The rest of your treatment can be finished there. Of course, the choice is yours."
With that, Sang-goo peeled off his gloves. He picked up his medic box, then set a little food, water, and a GPS unit with a button down on the floor. After that, he pulled on his leather gloves and rose to his feet.
"S-sir?"
He's leaving now?!
Only the middle-aged man had voiced it, but every face in the room was saying the same thing.
"When someone presses the button, we'll take that as consent and send people. You'll be moved by tomorrow morning at the latest, so hang on just a little longer."
Sang-goo had come alone, on a motorcycle. Beyond that, walking these people out was simply beyond him. Escorting six — not one or two — all the way to the Yeongdo camp was no small task. Darkness would fall in a couple of hours, and then the variants would start prowling along with the ordinary zombies.
"Ahh…."
"Then, um…."
As Sang-goo packed up his things, their faces darkened. I want to go with you. Is he just going to abandon us again, like this? Tears welled up in their eyes.
"I'm leaving painkillers. You only need to hold out until tomorrow morning. A rescue team will come from Yeongdo — until then, stay inside if you can."
They stared at him with stricken, helpless faces. Sang-goo forced himself to look away from those sorrowful eyes and hefted the hulking figure — the one who'd been unconscious from the start — up onto his shoulder.
"Th-that bastard! That bastard's scum! He's the one who— hkk…!"
"That son of a bitch is a devil! That fucking bastard… hnngh…!"
The ones who had been docile this whole time burst out in fury, one after another. No prizes for guessing what kind of filth he'd put them through.
"I'll put this one to good use. You — just survive tonight."
His kindness ended there.
Sang-goo left them and walked out of the building.
"Uuuugh…."
The hulk woke to a chill that seemed to burrow clear into his bones. He was sitting in a chair, bound tight from head to toe, in the middle of a building whose floor he couldn't even guess at.
"Huh…? Where am I?"
The last thing he remembered was a sharp sting at his neck, and then blackness. Now he came to, stripped to the waist and tied to a chair.
"Awake?"
A heavy, low voice. The voice of the axe murderer he'd heard earlier.
The hulk very nearly wet himself on the spot.
"P-please let me go! Please, I'm begging you!!"
Bound to the chair, he squirmed and whimpered his pleas. But Sang-goo's expression remained as flat as it had been the first time they'd met.
"I met the people in the basement."
"Ah…."
Something must have stung, because the words died in his throat.
"You don't think I'm going to let you live, do you?"
"You… fuck… you fucking bastard!!"
He spat curses in his indignation, but cursing changed nothing. Sang-goo paid his swearing no more mind than the wind. He drew a single cigarette from his pocket and waved it in front of the man's eyes.
"Enough of that. Have a smoke."
The hulk, who had been blustering a moment before, looked at Sang-goo — and suddenly burst into tears.
"If you don't want it, say so."
"W-wait! Wait a second! Give it! Give it to me, please!"
Sang-goo set the cigarette between the man's lips.
"One question."
"Huh? Yes!! Yes, anything!"
"Ever heard of the Tooth Fairy? The Tooth Monster. Anything along those lines."
"Huh…?"
"Names might differ. Anyway — corpses that were found missing only their teeth. You ever seen anything like that?"
"Uh…."
The man's face was blank — clearly the first he'd heard of it. Sang-goo decided not to press further.
Tch— tch—
Sang-goo even lit it for him. And that was all.
Leaving the man puffing desperately at the filter, Sang-goo silently turned and walked away.
"Wait… you're just leaving? You're just leaving?! Ah, damn it. The cigarette! Hey! Excuse me!"
The cigarette he'd been handed so gratefully dropped from his lips.
"Tooth fairy or whatever it was — aren't you going to ask me anything else? I'll cooperate! With anything!"
So he wants me to freeze to death here? Starve?
The man rolled his head and darted his eyes around like a madman — and only then did he notice that something was very, very wrong.
"What the…."
Red blood was seeping slowly from his bare feet, spreading little by little across the cold concrete floor. And beyond that — dozens of strands of razor wire laid out in a circle a meter from his body.
Unidentifiable traps clinging to the pillars and walls. And a recording camera, too.
"Fuck…!! You son of a bitch!!"
He had no idea what the man meant to catch. But one thing was certain.
Right now, he was the bait.
Little by little, the light began to fade toward nightfall.