The Good Days Are Gone

I looked at the app screen again. The area where I stood glowed a vivid yellow.

So the good days are gone.

From now on, even a simple walk down the road would mean constantly glancing over my shoulder, never knowing when a zombie might lunge at me. The safest option was to stop going outside altogether — but I couldn't put a stop to stockpiling food. Being scared of zombies was no reason to starve to death.

At the very least, I needed to hold enough food to last until May. If the May that everyone was so optimistic about actually arrived, doors might open — ways to get food beyond mere self-sufficiency. But there was always the chance of some unforeseen variable, which meant I needed to stockpile even more than that. What I had on hand fell hopelessly short.

Time to give up on arrowroot.

To reduce the risk from zombies, I had to cut my time out in the open to an absolute minimum. Arrowroot's starch yield was low to begin with, and with the ground starting to freeze, digging it up was getting harder too. The calories earned per hour of labor were poor — not a good option in my current situation.

Fishing is too dangerous.

Fishing was more efficient than digging arrowroot, but it had one fatal flaw. To catch a fish, you had to focus on the bite — and if a zombie appeared and lunged at you in that exact moment, it was all over.

So the conclusion I reached was this: Hunting it is.

The entire landscape was buried under white snow, which meant the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠animals' camouflage had been rendered useless. In other words, hunting had just gotten easier than before. If I sliced the meat thin and air-dried it in the freezing wind, it would become jerky that kept for a very long time. And while hunting, I'd keep an arrow nocked and watch every direction at once — so even if a zombie appeared out of nowhere, I could react fast.

"Catch me a pheasant, catch me a water deer... and catch me a zombie, too."

I was starting the hunt right now. There was no time to waste. Everyone else would be thinking much the same as me — they'd all be throwing themselves into hunting. A competition over who could claim the most of a limited set of resources had already begun.

First things first — eat.

A full stomach was a prerequisite for trudging through snowfields all day after game. Not much time had passed since I'd killed the fire in the stove, so the water in the pot was still hot. I dunked an instant rice pack into it as a double boiler and used my portable burner to grill a half-dried cherry salmon. Paired with the napa cabbage kimchi Jin-beom had brought over, it made for a hearty, filling lunch.

Then I filled my portable thermos with hot water. When you were active in the cold, even an occasional sip of hot water helped hold your core temperature.

Let's move out.

I gathered my bow and arrows. I also took the timber axe-knife, buckling its dedicated sheath and belt at my waist. And with an expression far heavier than yesterday's, I stepped out through the gate.

Trudge, trudge—

Someone in a school uniform was walking alone down an empty road. It was Kang Min-chae, a high school senior this year.

"The CSAT was over and everything, and this is what I get..."

Right up until the zombie outbreak, her mood had been excellent. She'd done better on the real thing than on any of her practice mocks.

"I was gonna lose the weight and buy a whole closet full of pretty clothes..."

Kang Min-chae had always been slim. But after moving up to her senior year, she'd eaten faithfully to keep her strength up for exam prep, and had filled out a little. Now, after days of barely eating, her face had gone drawn and hollowed.

I was planning to diet anyway, but NOT like this!

After ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the CSAT, her routine had been simple: show up to school for roll call, gossip with her friends during self-study period, and head home before lunch. The day the zombie crisis broke was no different.

She'd finished fourth period and gotten in a taxi to go home. While riding, she'd checked her group chat, where strange messages kept flooding in — claims that zombies had appeared. At first she assumed it was her friends' childish pranking.

Then she heard the other taxi drivers' voices crackling through the radio in the cab, and her blood ran cold. Incheon and western Seoul had been turned into zombie hives. Only then did Kang Min-chae understand that the group chat messages were no joke.

She shouted at the driver. "Mister, get us out of here — head east!"

Truthfully, the words weren't necessary. The driver was already flooring the accelerator, driving hard for the east. His home was in Hanam, on Seoul's eastern edge.

And so she ended up riding to Hanam for free.

But following a stranger into his home was out of the question.

From that moment on, she was alone.

And she lived through several turbulent days straight out of a movie or a drama.

"Okay, so where am I supposed to go now?"

Kang Min-chae had always lived alone in a detached house in Gangnam. Her parents had died in a car accident when she was young, and her uncle had become her legal guardian — but his family lived in the United States. So she'd been on her own. The housekeepers her uncle hired for her were not her family.

"Where even is this?"

Her phone battery was dead. She looked around and spotted a road sign nearby.

Her eyes went round as saucers.

"I WALKED to Chuncheon?"

Public transit had been paralyzed for a long time. There was no government hand guiding the evacuation, either — every soldier and every cop was dedicated to sealing off the big cities.

So she'd drifted eastward with no destination in mind. Occasionally she'd come across bicycles abandoned on the road, but she couldn't ride one.

Nobody ever taught me how.

Vroom— A car approached and stopped beside her. She glanced into it. A young man sat alone in the driver's seat, his eyes fixed on her.

She frowned faintly and murmured to herself, Ugh, here we go again.

"Where are you headed?" the man asked.

She didn't answer. She just kept walking, eyes fixed ahead. The man's words grew shorter.

"I said, where are you going?"

She kept ignoring him.

"I'll take you for free, so get in. Hey! Are you deaf? Can't you hear a person talking?"

She snapped back at him. "I'm not getting in!"

The man got out of the car. Kang Min-chae started to run.

She was a good runner, but she was wearing dress shoes and couldn't hit full speed. The man caught up to her in the end, seized her by the hair.

Kyaa—!

She screamed, but there was no one around to help her. Dragging her by her hair, the man began pulling her toward his car. She resisted with everything she had, but it was hopeless.

"Wait! Just wait! I'll come along quietly, okay? Just let go of my hair!"

"Should've said that from the start."

The man released her hair obediently. He was confident he could catch her again if she ran.

But Kang Min-chae's hand had already darted into her padded jacket pocket and come back out with something: a self-defense spray.

Tsss—

"Agh! Wh-what the hell!"

While the man clutched his sprayed eyes, she took off running again — but he was after her in moments.

"You little witch! You're DEAD when I catch you!"

That was when it happened.

Rumble— A cargo truck barreling down the road braked to a halt nearby. Kang Min-chae screamed toward it.

"Help me, please!"

A middle-aged man and woman climbed down from the cab. The man had a wooden club in his hand. The man chasing her took one look at them and stopped running. He glared at her for a few seconds, then turned back toward his own car.

The woman came over to her. "Are you all right?"

Kang Min-chae barely held back her tears and nodded.

"Oh, dear. Did you get separated from your family in all this chaos?"

At those words, a single tear rolled down Kang Min-chae's cheek. Her parents — lost thirteen years ago — had come to mind.

"Want to come with us?"

Creak— The cargo door swung open. Another woman riding inside had opened it.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, worry written all over her face, and the man with the club answered.

"Nothing serious."

Now Kang Min-chae could see the people inside the cargo bed. About ten of them, small children mixed in among them. With the group's help, she climbed up into the truck.

The woman inside greeted her warmly. "A new member of the family — welcome! So glad to have you!"

"Hello."

"Oh my, aren't you pretty! You could be a celebrity."

"Thank you."

Kang Min-chae asked her, "So... where are we headed, exactly?"

The woman gave a rueful smile. "Who knows how far we'll get? Well — as far as we go, we go!"

Three days had passed since all of Deoksu-ri turned into a yellow zone. The moment I opened my eyes, I grabbed my phone and pulled up the app first thing. The red ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠territory centered on Inje-eup was spreading little by little.

It'll be red out here before long too.

I crawled out of my sleeping bag. Lately I'd been sleeping in the car again. With the stove fire out overnight, the heated floor of the cottage turned into a solid slab of ice — the car was warmer, and safer from zombies besides.

The only reason I'm alive is those heat packs.

Thanks to the military-grade heat packs that fisherman had abandoned, I wasn't suffering too badly. Without them, every single day would've been brutal winter training.

People assumed I'd never served because I had no parents, but I hadn't been exempt — I wasn't supporting my grandmother as a sole dependent, so there was no exemption in my case. I'd served in a GOP unit, guarding the frontier.

Should I start the engine once?

God, I wanted to turn the ignition and blast the SUV's heater. But I had to conserve every drop of fuel, so I held it in.

It's only going to get colder from here. Endure.

This was barely the front doorstep of winter. Everything had to be rationed to the limit.

I got out of the car and stepped into the yard. I'd love to park inside the gate, but it was too narrow. The drying net was strung up, jerky hanging from it. Over the past three days I'd taken eight pheasants and five feral pigeons. If I'd managed a big one like a water deer, even better — water deer are famously bad-tasting, but right now quantity mattered more than flavor.

I looked at the mirror hanging on the wall. My face was gaunt and drawn. Shivering in the cold, eating less, laboring hard — no wonder my body was running down. I was exhausted, but I couldn't afford a single day of rest. I had to keep moving and catch one more animal, whatever it took.

The image flashed through my head: running out of food and crawling to the Deoksu-ri Village Chief to beg.

I'd rather die than let it come to that!

Thwip—

The arrow flew straight and struck the target. I broke into a satisfied grin.

Lucky day!

I'd bagged two mountain hares today. But following the rabbits' trail had led me a long way from home. I checked my location on the map app — I'd gotten considerably close to Inje-eup.

Whoa, you idiot!

I had walked right up to the boundary where the red zone met the yellow.

Time to head back, fast!

Then something entered my field of vision. Big-bodied — but not the water deer I wanted.

Oh, you have got to be kidding me.

A zombie. One of them was walking slowly across the snowfield.

I dropped into a low crouch at once. This was my first time seeing a zombie with my own eyes. My whole body prickled, every hair standing on end.

Roughly twenty meters away, and the wind direction meant it couldn't catch my scent.

I wrestled with the decision. Shoot it, or just run?

Running was by no means guaranteed safe. It might hear my footsteps and follow. And if I ran straight into another zombie mid-flight, I'd be zombie sandwich.

Is attack the best defense here?

I nocked an arrow. Right now, while the zombie hadn't yet sensed me — that was the optimal moment to eliminate it. In my first-ever encounter with a zombie, I chose hunting over fleeing.

Ba-dum, ba-dum—

My heart felt like it would burst. This was a different universe from aiming at wild animals.

Stay calm. I am Kim Hyungwoo, divine archer of Chestnut Valley!

Channeling every ounce of desperate resolve, I drew and loosed at the zombie.

Thwip—

The arrow streaked straight and nailed the zombie right in the head. It turned toward me — and my heart dropped like a stone for an instant. Then relief washed over me. Its movements had become extremely slow. My arrow had damaged its brain.

It was approaching at a slower pace than a toddler toddling across a room.

Now comes the real part.

I had to sever its neck. I drew the timber axe-knife from my belt and approached the zombie with exaggerated care, minding every step so I wouldn't slip on the snow. As the distance closed, a foul stench rolled over me — the reek of a rotting corpse. It must have turned quite a while ago. Odds were it had wandered here from somewhere far away.

When I stood right in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠front of it, I brought the blade down on its neck like I was felling timber. The sensation of its vertebrae parting traveled up through the handle and into my hand.

Thud—

The zombie's head dropped into the snowfield. The body lost its balance and began to topple — toward me. I leapt back fast.

Crash—

I did it!

I was about to head straight home when it hit me.

Oh!

There was something very important I'd forgotten. I pulled out my phone and opened the app, framed the fallen zombie's head and body in a single shot, and pressed send. The photo, along with my current location, went to the administrator. In under a minute, the color of my position on the map turned red.

Quick, aren't we.

I hurried home.