The Variants at the Airport (2)
Sang-goo recovered the drone and stuffed it into his backpack.
“Let's go.”
He and Little Dog pushed through the brush and made their way toward the wreck of the armored vehicle. Up close, the aftermath of the explosion was even more gruesome — thick armor plating bent like taffy, the surrounding concrete scorched black.
Between the collapsed wall and the vehicle's undercarriage, a gap just wide enough for a body caught his eye.
“Follow me.”
Sang-goo dropped flat to the ground. Little tilted its head in confusion, but Sang-goo was already moving. There was only one reason he didn't send the machine ahead to scout first: there needed to be a decent number of zombies in there. If he barged in ahead of it and the things came swarming, that would be its own brand of headache.
The reek of fuel and rot assailed his nose. Shattered glass and spent shell casings littered the floor.
Scrape. Rustle.
He inched forward on his belly, pushing himself along bit by bit. The rasp of his backpack against the ceiling was irritating, but not enough to draw a reaction from the things below. He'd crawled perhaps five meters when light finally appeared at the far end.
Sang-goo slid out through the gap and rose to his feet.
“Whew…”
The moment he lifted his head, brushing off the dust, his breath caught in his throat.
Seeing it through a drone's feed and seeing it with his own two eyes were different universes entirely.
The overwhelming stench. And the sound.
—Grrrr… grrrulk… uhhhhh…
The breathing and moaning of some ten thousand zombies mingled into a single roar, vibrating the whole space like the machinery of some colossal factory. They stood packed solid barely ten meters ahead — soldiers in uniform, flight crew in their airline outfits, travelers with luggage still slung over their shoulders. Unable to find prey, they seemed half-dormant, swaying listlessly in place. They were stacked like bean sprouts in a crowded tray; there wasn't room to set down a single foot.
Can we… actually get through this?
Sang-goo had just taken a careful step when—
Pat-pat-pat-pat—
Little came out behind him, froze at the sight of the overwhelming horde, and hesitated. Apparently seeing them face-to-face was a different matter than watching from above; the machine looked genuinely rattled.
“Come here.”
Little bolted over as if it had been waiting for the call. And then—
Tang!—
Rushing too fast, it stepped on a scrap of metal.
That noise was what finally woke them.
—Grrrulk…
The nearest zombie, dressed in a mechanic's coveralls, whipped its head around. Its clouded eyes fixed on the metal fragment beside Sang-goo's leg, then on Little at his side. Not a human. Not meat, either. But unlike us, it moves.
—Groaaarhk!!
The moment that one reacted, the zombies around it reacted too. In an instant, dozens of gazes locked onto Little Dog. The things that treated Sang-goo like an invisible man began radiating murderous hostility toward the robot dog.
—Kyaaaargh!
—Gwooaaaah!
The zombie at the front lunged for Little Dog. Sang-goo clicked his tongue and kicked the charging thing's knee.
Crack—!
Its leg buckled backward and it toppled like a bowling pin, dragging down the ones behind it. But the commotion only drew more of them in. Hands reached out from every direction — and their target wasn't Sang-goo. It was Little at his side.
Little tried to switch into combat mode, but Sang-goo stopped it.
“Stay still.”
By now everyone knew the things were drawn to gunpowder. Even for Sang-goo, a densely packed wall of zombies would kill his mobility. He drew the axe from his belt.
Whoosh— thwack!
He crushed the skull of the first thing to reach for him, then rode the recoil into a swing that took the head off the one beside it. Three or four zombies became rotting meat in the space of a breath, but they kept coming like a wave. As long as Little Dog stayed on the ground, this racket would never end.
“What a pain in the ass.”
With the arm opposite the axe, Sang-goo snatched Little Dog up.
Whoosh.
The fully armed, twenty-kilogram steel dog landed in his embrace.
“Behave yourself.”
Whether or not Little understood, it folded its legs and clung flat against his chest. And then something remarkable happened. The moment Little Dog vanished into his arms and its footsteps fell silent, the zombies' gazes began wandering the empty air.
Grrr…
The target that had been right in front of them was gone. With Sang-goo standing directly before them, they looked around blindly, unable to see him. The invisible-man mode had kicked back in.
“Insufferable bastards.”
Axe in one hand, steel dog cradled in the other, Sang-goo started walking. It was like pushing through a market street on a festival day.
Move, damn it.
He shouldered zombies aside as he advanced. Squish. The feel of rotting flesh against his shoulder and underfoot was revolting. Dark crimson drool leaking from their mouths soaked into his clothing. The one mercy was the helmet's filter, steadily feeding him fresh air.
“Check the map.”
The location Director Woo had passed on was, naturally, already shared with Little. Nestled against his chest, the machine rotated its lens and guided the way ahead. A map bloomed across his helmet's visor. They had to cross the runway.
Sang-goo waded through the sea of zombies like a swimmer. About ten minutes passed. He was roughly halfway across when—
BAM! Thwack!
Dull, wet detonations rang out. Not the footfalls of an ordinary zombie. Something was punching its way through masses of flesh, bursting them apart.
Sang-goo's feet stopped. At the same instant, every one of his senses screamed a warning.
Here we go.
There was no way a place like this would be variant-free. However the factions inside had splintered over the long months, he couldn't sense a Zombie Lord's presence — but that meant little for the lesser things.
—Grruooooh!!
A monstrous howl erupted from far beyond the horde. Like the Red Sea parting, the packed wall of zombies began shoving apart to either side. No — they weren't being pushed. They were being flung. Something was bulling its way through by raw force.
Sang-goo didn't move. There was nowhere to run, and if he bolted carelessly, the jostling might rattle Little Dog into drawing aggro all over again.
Thud. Thud. Thud!
The ground shook. The thing was coming at a run. Sang-goo secured Little Dog more tightly against his chest and closed his right hand around the axe.
Twenty meters out. Zombies launched skyward like extras in a cartoon, swatted aside midair.
Ten meters out. At last he could see its shape.
It was enormous. Two meters tall at minimum, every muscle and slab of fat bloated abnormally until the skin had split open. Its arms were long and massive as a gorilla's — each swing sent ordinary zombies flying like rag dolls.
Every flavor of freak shows up eventually, don't they.
There was no intelligence in it. Just a pure lump of rage, desperate to smash whatever irritated its eyes. Drunk with excitement at catching the scent of human flesh after so long, it was charging dead-on for Sang-goo's position.
Five meters out. Its hideous face came into view, jaw shattered, mouth flapping loose as it shrieked — and it raised its fist.
Sang-goo still didn't move. He didn't even take a deep breath.
Three meters.
The instant the thing was on top of him, Sang-goo's right arm whipped out like a lash.
Shhhrrrrak—!
The axe left his hand and carved through the air.
Crunchaaack—!
A sickening sound of splitting. The blade struck square between the thing's brows — no, it didn't merely strike; it cleaved the skull in half and sank deep into the brainpan. The charging colossus froze in place, a dead stop that defied the law of inertia. Without even a scream, it dropped to its knees where it stood, and its great bulk pitched forward and hit the ground with a crash. Nearby zombies squirmed beneath its corpse.
Sang-goo approached with a blank face, planted his foot on the axe handle jutting from its head, and wrenched it free.
Squelch!
Black blood and brain matter sprayed out.
“Disgusting thing.”
He wiped the gore from the blade on the corpse's clothing. And that was when his senses screamed again.
This time — two of them.
Sang-goo raised his head slowly. Beyond the fallen brute, far off across the field, he could see shapes crouched atop a fuel truck and an airplane's wing. Their presence was nothing like the ordinary zombies'. They didn't shriek. They didn't charge. They simply watched their kin's death with cold eyes.
Well, well. Look at these bastards.
Sang-goo's eyes narrowed. The thing he'd just killed had been a strong-but-stupid brute. These two were different. The moment their gazes had met, they'd put distance between themselves and him — instinctively, or perhaps intelligently, they had assessed him as dangerous. Driven half-mad by the scent of human flesh after so long, and yet cunning enough to hold themselves back.
These ones are a different breed.
He briefly considered pulling the rifle off his back, then abandoned the idea. Zombie walls on every side; no clean angle to fire from, and the smell of gunpowder might draw out still more variants lurking somewhere unseen. The two watchers knew it too — he could tell they were waiting. Waiting for him to slip up, or to wear himself out.
Sang-goo ignored them and started walking again. What mattered now wasn't the hunt. It was the bunker.
A short while later, he reached the coordinates marked on the map — a secluded spot beside a hangar, set apart from the main apron. There, jutting up from the ground, stood a concrete structure. Crude, shaped like a subway ventilation shaft, but the entrance looked to be a steel manhole wide enough to swallow a passenger car.
“Found it.”
Shouldering aside the zombies shuffling around the area, Sang-goo approached the entrance. Beside the steel door sat a dust-caked plastic box the size of a tablet. He flipped the lid: a security panel inside. Mercifully, a red LED was still blinking faintly.
Sang-goo stowed the axe and drew the Phoenix card from his pocket.
Beep.
The moment he touched the card to the reader, a crisp chime sounded and an input field appeared. Without hesitation, he punched in the password.
Hiiiiis— VRRRRUMM!
With a vibration that rolled through the earth, the massive steel door began splitting down the middle.
Screeeee!
The noise was more than enough to seize the attention of every zombie in the vicinity — and even the variants watching from afar.
“Get in!”
Before the door had finished opening, Sang-goo tossed Little through the gap and slid in after it.
Vrrrrrum—
The door swung fully open. He spotted the close button on the wall and slammed it immediately. The steel panels rushed shut — he could see the zombies sprinting toward them now — but the instant he leveled his rifle, they melted back into the horde like frightened ghosts.
And then—
VRRRUM— clunk.
Perfectly sealed. The noise and stench of the outside world were severed in an instant. Only then did Sang-goo let out a long breath.
“Whew… let's see just how impressive this thing is.”
Bright lights flickered on, and the interior of the bunker came into view.