Pretending to Be Dead
Han Jaejeong froze just as he was about to chew out the Squad Leader.
From somewhere in the silent, deathly quiet station interior came a familiar sound.
Hahk!Ak!Aaak!
A grotesque voice bursting out in spasmodic bursts like a seizure.
Beneath the massive electronic display board announcing real-time train schedules, a firmly shut steel door shuddered intermittently.
The double sliding door was wide enough for a car to pass through easily.
If a door that size was shaking like that, at least several dozen infected must be shoving against it.
If he was really unlucky, it could be hundreds—or more.
"What say you we do?"
At Kang Youngman's question, Jaejeong's eyes darted around busily.
He needed to grasp the building's layout first.
As in most train stations, there were escalators and stairs leading down to the underground platform.
The only unusual feature was the central staircase heading up to the second floor.
Following that staircase with his gaze, past the platform and tracks, he spotted an overpass connecting to the opposite station building.
A little farther beyond that was the depot.
That's where the group needed to go.
Going down to the underground here wouldn't help—there'd be no one to drive the train over or staff to assist with boarding.
Somehow, they had to reach the depot and board a train, which meant crossing that overpass first.
Because the ground path to the depot connected through there.
It was then.
Bam!Bam!Kwaang!
With a few impacts, the shuddering steel door tore away like a piece of paper.
Black silhouettes began pouring endlessly into the station.
"Up to the second floor—run!"
Jaejeong bounded up the stairs two, three steps at a time, the group's desperate sprint echoing behind him.
Lee Yeon-hui was falling behind, gasping for breath even climbing one step at a time.
Her boyfriend, Jo Min-gyu, was pushing her from behind to help her go faster, but it was still too much for her.
Unthinkingly, Lee Yeon-hui glanced back.
The zombies swarming toward the stairs had multiplied until the floor tiles were completely hidden.
They used each other's bodies as makeshift stairs, advancing rapidly.
"Don't look back—eyes forward!"
Jo Min-gyu yanked Lee Yeon-hui, who couldn't tear her gaze from the zombies, and yelled.
Truth be told, he was just as terrified.
The zombies were climbing the stairs incomparably faster than before.
To be precise, they weren't climbing—they were stumbling, falling, and getting back up repeatedly.
But he couldn't abandon Lee Yeon-hui.
If he let go, there'd be no one else to look after her.
While the stragglers hurried up the stairs, something else was unfolding above.
Jaejeong and Anna reached the second floor first, followed by Second and Youngest.
All four gazes dropped to the floor.
Rifles, magazines, helmets, and the like were scattered everywhere, suggesting a brutal fight between soldiers and zombies had taken place here.
As Jaejeong reached for a rifle on the floor—
Zombies burst from every office lining the passage to the overpass.
Kraaak!
Aaaak!
These bastards were relentless.
After climbing those long stairs, they didn't even pause to catch their breath.
The moment bewilderment in Jaejeong's mind turned to rage, a heavy sledgehammer traced a parabola through the air.
It smashed a half-detached ceiling light and embedded straight into a zombie's skull.
Thud!
The charging zombie crumpled like a gopher vanishing into its hole.
Enraged by its friend's death, another lunged at Jaejeong's nape.
Jaejeong swung the sledgehammer upward like a golf club—it had dropped to the floor after crushing the first head.
It was a strike with a high chance of missing unless the zombie's momentum and the required force synced perfectly.
Crack!
The result was a perfect hit.
The weighted hammer crushed the zombie's jaw and face mercilessly as it rose.
Beside him, Anna yanked her dagger from another zombie's head and staggered back a few steps from the impact vibrating right next to her.
Standing too close, she'd get smashed by that massive hammer eventually.
As they caught their breath briefly—
More zombies than ever scuttled out from everywhere like cockroaches.
With their numbers clearly swelled, Jaejeong slung the sledgehammer on his back and grabbed a rolling rifle from the floor.
The situation was too urgent for thought or calculation.
He had to strike with whatever came to hand.
Bang! Bang!
Two dropped in an instant.
Tatang! Bang! Bang!
Gunfire echoed from behind the group as well.
Youngman and Jo Min-gyu were shooting at zombies that had already climbed more than halfway up the stairs.
No need to conserve ammo now.
The group's goal wasn't to hold here—it was to board a train and escape.
So they couldn't afford to pick and choose means to reach it, nor were they in a position to.
With continuous passages of moderate width, clearing everything with melee weapons one by one was impossible.
Jaejeong and Anna glanced back.
Youngman and Jo Min-gyu, in the midst of reloading, turned around.
There was some distance, but nothing they could do to help.
With the front path cleared, the rear had to keep up on their own.
From now on, survival was each person's responsibility.
As if to prove it, zombies kept appearing.
Jaejeong methodically picked off every one emerging ahead with precise shots.
Gunfire deafening enough to split eardrums reverberated off the walls.
Irregular bursts of shots, zombies' roars from all directions, and the ever-tightening noose of death's terror.
By this point, anyone would be panting, half in panic—but they were holding it together.
Second and Youngest checked the fallen zombies for any that might rise.
Anna scanned for any strays Jaejeong missed.
Moments later.
Turning a corner, the overpass stretched out before Jaejeong.
"What the hell is this? Was it always like this?"
"No."
Shaking his head, Jaejeong's eyes took in sandbag barricades strewn across the overpass.
It meant a fierce defensive battle had happened here.
Unlike the areas they'd passed, corpses lay piled high as proof.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group arrived one by one from behind.
"Let's move—fast."
Judging even this moment too precious to waste, Jaejeong broke into a near-run.
The overpass was longer than expected, and the corpse-strewn path would take time.
The group hopped across like stepping stones, finding clear patches of ground amid the bodies.
About halfway across.
Anna, walking between Jaejeong and Second, halted abruptly.
She turned back to a passed corpse with a puzzled look.
"Miss, what's wrong?"
Second asked, face tense with unease.
But Anna didn't answer right away.
If she wasn't mistaken, most of the corpses lying here were twitching ever so slightly.
Others might miss it, but Anna was hypersensitive to even the tiniest tremors or changes.
By the time that faint motion rippled outward like waves, a gasp escaped Anna's lips.
"Look down! These things aren't dead!"
Jaejeong, leading the charge, whipped around.
In that instant, the corpses rose as if on cue.
If the group wasn't hallucinating, the zombies had been playing dead all along.
Some stood fully; others lifted only their torsos to grab at ankles.
Bang! Bang! Taang!
Starting with Jaejeong blowing off the head of one clutching at his feet, a battlefield erupted.
"Let go! Get off me, you fucking shits!"
From behind Second and Youngest, the Squad Leader screamed in frenzy, smashing a zombie's head with his rifle butt.
In the rear, Youngman positioned Minyoung behind him and planted bullets in charging heads.
Lee Yeon-hui hurled her dagger and snatched a rifle from behind a sandbag.
Watching the others shoot up close, she figured she could do it too.
Kwajik!
As she charged with rifle raised, a biting sound made her glance sideways.
Jo Min-gyu, running beside her, grimaced in agony.
At his feet, a torso-only zombie gnawed viciously into his ankle.
Bang!
Her rifle muzzle flashed simultaneously.
Blood gushed from Jo Min-gyu's throat like a faucet turned on full blast.
Lee Yeon-hui's eyes held no hesitation or regret as she pulled the trigger.
"Guhk! Kuhk!"
With a hole in his throat, Jo Min-gyu could only blink in shock, unable to speak.
Lee Yeon-hui shoved him toward the zombies and bolted forward.
Truth be told, the situation ahead was no different.
With zombies rising simultaneously everywhere, they couldn't react to every one.
As one behind Anna lunged, jaws wide for her pale nape—
Jaejeong, having just fired point-blank, charged in and body-slammed it away in brutal close quarters.
The zombie, flung like it'd been hit by a car, slammed into the wall; Second finished it with a rifle butt swing.
Perfect teamwork—but no time for encouragement or praise.
New zombies kept emerging because they couldn't stop moving forward.
The silver lining: not every corpse pulled this trick.
They rose sporadically from scattered spots.
Everyone was too busy slaying foes in front to check on comrades.
"Aak!"
Youngest whipped around at the scream.
A zombie was biting the finger of Work Leader's sidekick, Jeong Sang-ho.
Bang!
Sang-ho collapsed, brains splattering.
White smoke rose from Second's muzzle over Youngest's shoulder.
Second and Youngest locked eyes briefly, but no words passed.
Nothing to say beyond killing every infected in sight.
But then...
Youngest's eyes bulged as he turned.
His heart pounded wildly, surging up his throat like it would burst through the roof of his mouth.
Looking down at the throbbing pain racing up his leg from his ankle, Youngest despaired.
A zombie's jaws were sunk into his leg.
"No!"
Bang!
Despite Second's anguished shout, Youngest dropped like a sack of meat, head holed.
Jaejeong's rifle.
Second and Anna couldn't even reach out to the falling Youngest.
The relentless urgency allowed no emotional waver.
No time for it.
Moments later.
Jaejeong, Anna, and Second—having cleared ahead—turned back from the overpass end.
The Squad Leader fought desperately behind; Youngman, Minyoung, and Lee Yeon-hui followed.
Seeing them, Jaejeong clapped Second's shoulder.
"Cover them till they cross."
"Got it."
As Second shouldered his rifle to check for unrisen threats—
Jaejeong and Anna scouted the path ahead for surprises.
They stopped at a fork.
Right led to an outdoor passage with the depot visible; left to stairs climbing higher.
Either way meant opening a door, but the problem was zombies packing the outside.
Drawn by the gunfire, no doubt.
"What do we do?"
Anna asked with anxious eyes, sensing the dire crisis.
But Jaejeong just panted roughly, no quick solution forthcoming.
The right path was out first.
Too many zombies outside—even a machine gun wouldn't get them through.
That left only the mysterious left stairs.
"For now... left. Right's suicide—dead the second we step out."
"Yeah. Soon as everyone's here, we go up."
As Jaejeong nodded—
Anna's gaze, mid-sentence, shifted past his face.
A stainless steel shutter blocked the way, shuddering violently from endless zombie pressure, on the verge of ripping free.
People joked that nine out of ten ominous feelings came true.
Would Anna's prove the same?
The rattling shutter finally collapsed with a crash.
Infected People