Pet Zombie
"Uuugh…"
In this world, keeping one or two pet zombies wasn't actually all that strange. The one I'd seen in Daldongne today could have counted as a pet zombie, in a way. Not that I had any intention of taking one myself.
Some people tore off a zombie's lower jaw, tied a rope or cord around its neck, and dragged it around. Raising one in a cabinet was nothing compared to that. The human rights commission would have had a fit if they'd heard about it—but those people had already taken a sledgehammer from the government after suggesting, before the outbreak even hit, that zombies might have human rights too. Their authority had been slashed to almost nothing.
From what I'd heard, they were only allowed to speak up for ordinary citizens with clean records now. Then again, looking at the state of things, there was no shortage of scenes that would have sent the human rights commission foaming at the mouth even without zombies in the picture.
"Alright."
Leaving Baeksooni for later, I opened the door to the subway car that served as my hideout with practiced ease. When I'd first made this place my base, the door had been a nightmare to open, so I'd driven a steel pipe into it and used that as a handle to yank it free. Otherwise I'd have been stuck wedging myself into the gap and prying it open with my body—a humiliation I could do without.
A low hum filled the car the moment I stepped inside—the rechargeable solar generator right by the door—and the soft yellow glow of the little bulbs hanging from the ceiling washed over the compartment. Every window was covered with blackout curtains I'd hauled here with considerable effort, so there was no risk of light leaking out. From outside, it just looked like another abandoned train car.
"Haa… I'm fucking exhausted."
I pulled off the stifling helmet, loosened the axe strapped to my left arm, and hung it on a nail driven into the wall. I shrugged off my coat, tossed it aside, and sank onto the thick mattress spread across the floor. How happy had I been the day I first found this subway?
I'd gone looking for anything useful, only to find a collapsed building sign blocking the station entrance. After somehow getting a rope, tying it on, and hauling the thing over, I'd walked straight into a field of zombies. Luckily they'd all been the slow kind, so I'd lured them out one by one and barely managed to clear the place. Of the subway cars, only two were left; the rest had been buried under the collapsed ground. I'd torn out all the seats to make the space livable—and then raiders had come sneaking in. Damn it. Looking back, it had been a hell of a lot of work.
"If only I still had my left arm…"
The words had stopped being a real complaint a long time ago. They were just a habit now. The phase of pouring out resentment was long past; these days I just accepted it. Or rather, I'd more or less given up.
Glare and curse all I wanted—no hand was going to suddenly sprout from the smooth stump of my left forearm.
Clack—thud.
I stood, hooked my right hand over one of the subway hand straps I hadn't removed, bent my legs, and hung my full weight from that single arm. I'd cleared out every seat, but I'd deliberately left these. They seemed useful somehow.
The straps attached to the handles were surprisingly tough and durable, which was why I still used them to secure my axe. And the leftovers? Well.
"Hup…!"
They made perfect workout gear for downtime.
In a world where zombies ran and the mad ones called mutants ran rampant, the most important thing wasn't the guts to stand and fight them. People with that kind of guts had already died ages ago. What kept you clinging to life in a world this brutal was pure stamina and strength. I hadn't been able to run ten kilometers chased by the fast ones for no reason. Of course I rested whenever the pursuit seemed to break off, but still… endurance for long runs and the muscle to swing a heavy axe weren't free cheats the world handed out. Honestly, I just really wanted a status window.
"Khrrgh… Status windooww…!!"
With a shout of effort, I hauled myself up on my right arm alone and did a pull-up on the subway strap. The battle cry was a little weird, but yelling that word somehow always gave me a boost of strength.
"Fuck, give me a status window too… a gallery, a cheat, somethinggg!"
It was so unfair. Wasn't this the kind of thing that always showed up in web novels? If this had been a gate-hunter apocalypse where zombies poured out of gates, I'd have been grateful. Who wanted to read a low-powered apocalypse where you got nothing?
"Apocalypses don't even make sense in the first placeee!"
Three separate zombie outbreaks. The world collapsing. The military getting completely wrecked. None of it made any sense, did it? Some people spun conspiracy theories about government experiments. I almost wished that were true.
"Huu… huu…"
Fifteen reps, three sets—the routine I always stuck to. And after dumping out a full load of complaints about the world and my place in it, collapsing onto the mattress under the wave of existential emptiness that followed was also part of the routine.
"Might as well get organized."
I picked up my bag, stood, and walked into the forward car. The compartment I lived in was the one they called the tail car. Only two cars were left of the whole train, but both were far too large for one person to use as living space alone. After turning the problem over and over in my head, I'd finally figured out what to do with the front car.
Creeeak. Thud.
Whooosh…
I'd managed to carpet half of one car in automated Smart Farms.
It was about a year after the second zombie outbreak.
Just as the scars left by loss and plague had begun to heal, a sudden craze for survival prep swept the country.
"Just fill this with water and the system analyzes the nutritional status of your garden and crops in real time! The bio-automation unit below waters everything for you—and even without sunlight, UV lamps supply exactly the right amount of light!"
"The Smart Farm that manages your crops automatically! Even if disaster strikes, just plant the seeds, connect water and a generator, and you're done!"
"And for water—fill this cylindrical purifier that comes free with every Smart Farm, and sixty-eight filter layers catch harmful microbes, muddy water, even parasites, leaving it crystal clean!"
"This product is available for only—"
The second zombie outbreak had hit less than three years after the first. Public anxiety was already raw, trust in the government was in the dirt, and every pharmaceutical company suspected of triggering the disaster—along with the corporations covering for them—had banded together to stall any real punishment. That was when another company rolled out products under the banner of "safe survival prep." They soothed civilian nerves and became a full-blown trend at the same time.
Everyone bought one and stuck it in their house; some people even claimed they'd gotten bunkers. How long those bunkers would actually hold out was anyone's guess, but odds were good someone was still living in one even now.
Hmmmm…
The Smart Farms filling half this car were things I'd scavenged myself—lugged back on foot from surrounding buildings and from Daldongne, which had been dying then and was already dead now. The fact that any of them still worked at all was a miracle. I still remembered being impressed by how cleverly the company had designed the wiring to let you extend the power lines.
"Let's see… Today it's potatoes and lettuce."
I approached a farm whose lamp had gone dark, opened the acrylic cover wrapped around it, and dug into the soil. Potatoes clustered thick along the roots; I pulled those free along with the lettuce growing beside them and dropped everything into a basket in the corner. I poured water from my bag into the reservoirs that had run low or empty. That finished the day's chores… well, not entirely. But nothing urgent remained. At most I needed to check that no wires had come loose, and glance at the filtration unit set under the open ceiling to catch rainwater. It hadn't rained, so the water in the filter was more or less useless anyway.
Back in the living car, I left the door cracked open, brought over the steel plate I used for cooking, and lit a fire on it. I hung a mess tin from the wire strung across the ceiling, mashed some tomatoes into it, added the sliced potatoes and a little water, and set it to boil.
In the corner of the plate I set more potatoes, rolling them now and then so they'd cook evenly, and finished by gently stirring the contents of the mess tin with a disposable spoon that had long since stopped being disposable.
"It's ready… Baeksooni, come out."
Clunk. Clack.
Through the faintly open gap, the cabinet holding Baeksooni shuddered at my voice. With a low gwoo, the white zombie pushed the cabinet open herself and climbed out. The lock had broken ages ago. All it took was a little shove, and Baeksooni, who had been inside, slowly set her feet on the ground.
Skin so pale it was nearly pure white. Pretty, curly white hair. Bloodstained white pajamas. The zombie padded barefoot toward the doorway.
"Gwooo… urr…"
Something that might have been drool or blood ran from the corner of her mouth as she lurched closer. Baeksooni sat down awkwardly with the passenger door between us.
The question of whether a zombie could really manage that much had evaporated long ago; by now it was just familiar. At first she had only growled and refused to leave the cabinet, and I had kept the car door shut tight, fully armed, watching her every move…
"Eat the potato. Here."
At some point we'd grown close enough, familiar enough, that only the slightly open car door stood between us. I tossed one of the roasted potatoes I'd set aside through the gap.
"Krr… haeup… hap…"
Baeksooni only ever ate one or two potatoes a day. For a creature that spent all day in a cabinet and made noise whenever someone approached—basically a living alarm—she was either a bargain or an expensive pet, depending on how you looked at it.
I watched her for a moment, then started spooning up the tomato-potato soup I'd made.
"Haa… ssip. Hot."
"Krrh… huu…"
And that was how another day ended for one peculiar zombie and one survivor.