Chapter 23: Plus
“Ugh...”
Chaeyeon kept her eyes shut, wrestling with the decision for a long while before she finally lifted her head with resolve.
No matter how long they waited, the zombies beyond the door showed no sign of thinning out. Only one option remained.
“Looks like we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way.”
“...Old-fashioned? What the hell does that mean?”
Soeun stared at her with the hollow, worn-out look of someone who had been starving for far too long. Chaeyeon sprang to her feet and walked straight toward the windows as she answered.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? When a building’s entrances and exits are blocked, you use the windows. Everyone, get over here and help me tear down these curtains.”
At her words, Hyunmin forced the exhaustion from his body and followed her toward the windows.
“You’re talking about a fisherman’s knot, right? I can roughly tie one of those... but will the length even be enough?”
“Even if it’s a little short, that doesn’t matter. As long as the knot holds properly.”
“If that thing snaps even a little, we’re all dead. Are we really doing this?”
Chaeyeon turned and fixed Haejun with a look.
“That’s why we’re going to go down one at a time, carefully and slowly. I know my life is precious too, you know.”
...And the girl who supposedly knows that is the same one who just pulled that stunt earlier?
Haejun opened his mouth to snap back, then thought better of it and stayed quiet.
A short while later they had torn down every last curtain in the science lab and knotted them together. The result was a rope far longer than any of them had expected.
Still, the group stared at it with uneasy faces.
“Is the length... going to reach the ground?”
“We didn’t measure exactly, so I can’t be sure, but it should probably reach around the first-floor ceiling.”
“That’s enough, isn’t it? Once you’re down you can just grab the end and jump the rest of the way.”
Chaeyeon spoke as if it were nothing. The people listening could not take it nearly so calmly.
“What if you twist an ankle landing? The second you hit the ground and run into those monsters, you’re dead.”
“If you sprain your ankle because you weren’t careful, that’s not my fault, is it?”
“.....”
Haejun had been hoping they would just stay quietly barricaded in the science lab. He kept throwing up objections, but Chaeyeon’s sharp, expressionless replies finally forced him to shut his mouth.
Truthfully, Hyunmin and Yunho were just as anxious as he was. After watching Haejun get shut down, though, they quietly fell in line with whatever Chaeyeon decided.
“I get that you’re all scared of heights, but it’s not like we have another option.”
“She’s right. Honestly, I’m at my limit too. Whatever it takes, we have to get out of here before it gets dark.”
Several hours had already passed since noon. If they delayed any longer they would not only have spent the entire day starving—they would have to try escaping through pitch-black darkness where they could not see a single step ahead.
Soeun knew that as well as anyone. The curtain rope still made her uneasy, but she forced the feeling down and sided with Chaeyeon.
Once the decision was made, Chaeyeon moved immediately.
She chose the most suitable window in the science lab, looped the end of the rope around a protruding marble corner of the sill, and secured it. For extra insurance she jammed a long metal ruler between the marble and the rope, then tossed the free end out the window.
The rope slithered downward and came to rest almost exactly where Hyunmin had guessed—barely reaching the edge of a first-floor window.
Everyone stared down at it with pale faces.
Chaeyeon pointed with one finger and gave them a single warning.
“I’m only explaining this once, so listen carefully. See that railing at the end of the window down there? Once you reach the end of the rope, step onto that railing and then climb the rest of the way down.”
“...Easy for you to say. Can anyone even keep their balance on that?”
It was the third time Haejun had needled her. Chaeyeon’s eyes finally flashed open wide and locked onto him. He flinched and hastily added,
“N-no, I’m not complaining. I’m just worried. One mistake and you’re dead.”
“That’s why I am going down first and showing you exactly how it’s done. All you have to do is copy me. Got it?”
Her tone and wording were perfectly polite. The look in her eyes, however, was enough to make a zombie turn and run.
No one dared make another sound. They simply watched as Chaeyeon nimbly climbed onto the windowsill and took hold of the rope. Soeun muttered under her breath,
There it is. That temper of hers.
Most of the time Chaeyeon seemed perfectly mild-mannered. Once a line was crossed, though, even Soeun could not rein her in.
The middle of the descent went fine. Up to the middle, at least.
Chaeyeon’s demonstration was flawless. Thanks to her, both Haejun and Hyunmin managed to reach the ground outside the school building without any real injuries.
The constant zombie noises from every direction and the swaying rope had probably shaved ten years off both their lives, but results were results—they decided to let it slide.
The next person in line was not so lucky.
Unable to endure the terror, he hesitated for only a moment. The result was catastrophic.
“U-uaaaaaaah!”
Through the second-floor window Yunho locked eyes with a zombie staring straight back at him. He failed to hold back the scream. When the corpse’s hands lunged toward him he thrashed wildly and lost his grip on the rope.
Shaken balance, bad posture, and a two-story drop all combined. There was no way the landing could go well. The poor first-year’s body never stood a chance.
Thud—
Whether it was good luck or bad, he at least avoided landing on his head. His left shoulder and arm, however, hit the asphalt cleanly and snapped.
“Aaaaaagh! My aaaaarm! My aaaaarm!”
If things had stopped there they might still have been able to cover for him. But the scream of pure, never-before-experienced agony that tore out of Yunho’s throat pushed the situation past the point of no return.
Kkeok— kkeogeogeogeok—
Kkeugagagagak—
There was not a single zombie on the school grounds that failed to hear that scream. Moments later every kind of savage howl rose up, and the sound of countless undead feet flooded the campus.
One female student corpse even smashed through a second-floor window and leapt out, drawn by the prey’s cry. Everyone was on the verge of losing their minds when Chaeyeon bit down hard on her lip and shouted,
“Kang Soeun!!! Get down here right now!!!”
Any ordinary person would have frozen solid and stayed locked inside the science lab. Chaeyeon and Soeun, however, reached the exact same conclusion in the same instant.
If either of them hesitated even one second and they got separated, the situation would only get worse!
Soeun understood immediately that this was the moment to gamble her life.
Without another thought she vaulted over the windowsill, seized the rope, and began sliding down.
On the ground Chaeyeon was desperately trying to keep the thrashing human and the corpses apart. She shouted again,
“Watch the second-floor windows!!!”
At that exact moment another zombie that had been waiting on the second floor spotted Soeun outside the window and charged at her like a mad thing.
Broken glass scraped its flesh and blood sprayed outward. Soeun saw the teeth and clawed hands stretching straight for her neck and shoulders.
Hup!
In the split second before those two things could seize her, her brain—sensing mortal danger—moved her body on pure instinct.
A high-school girl’s light frame, yet strength that did not match it at all, yanked Soeun’s body upward along the rope in a single explosive motion. The pose looked almost like a gymnastics routine.
She twisted clear of the zombie’s body-check, let out the breath that had been locked in her chest by pure terror, smoothly righted herself, and continued the descent.
There was no time to step carefully onto the railing the way Chaeyeon had instructed. Soeun simply grabbed the end of the rope and jumped.
What greeted her on the ground was not Chaeyeon but a swarm of corpses.
“Kyaaaaaaaah!”
Several zombies at the front of the pack were already charging, shrieking loud enough to split eardrums. Chaeyeon’s group had no choice but to start running without waiting for Soeun.
“Kang Soeun!!! The gym! Head for the gym!!!”
Soeun kicked off the ground and followed the voice. Another thin cry reached her ears from below.
“Noona... please save me...”
She almost turned her head. In the end she locked her gaze forward and sprinted with everything she had.
Behind her the chorus of undead howls soon drowned out even Yunho’s despairing sobs. Still, she was certain she had heard it clearly—
his final, quiet call for his mother.
The wet, brutal sounds of something being torn apart and eaten followed. Soeun shut everything else out and focused solely on running. Before long the entrance to the gymnasium came into view.
Chaeyeon had already unlocked the heavy padlock with lightning speed. Haejun, half out of his mind with terror, was trying to slam the door shut; she slapped him across the face without mercy, then locked eyes with the approaching Soeun.
She stood holding the door wide open, face deathly pale, waiting in silence. Something rose hot in Soeun’s throat, but there was no time to show it.
Right behind her the clacking of teeth kept drawing closer to the gym. When only a few meters remained, Hyunmin shoved something into Chaeyeon’s hand.
At the same instant a single shout cracked across Soeun’s ears.
“Duck your head!!!”
A plastic chair whistled past her flying hair and smashed squarely into the skull of the zombie that had been about to sink its teeth into her pale nape. The corpse toppled backward and became an instant obstacle for the rest of the pack.
That tiny window of time—only a few seconds—was enough. Soeun shot past Chaeyeon through the entrance. The gymnasium door slammed shut with a heavy crash.
Chaeyeon immediately jammed a nearby mop handle through the handles to bar the door, then finally released the breath she had been holding under pure tension.
“.....”
“.....”
For several seconds the two of them simply stared at each other.
Then, seeing the identical cold-sweat-soaked mess they had both become, they let out a single, empty little laugh.