Screams from the Heights
While everyone else was glued to the news, Han Jaejeong slipped outside and headed for the smoking booth.
He'd never cared much for the news to begin with.
Back at the station, he'd only pretended to watch it to dodge the team leader's nagging.
Truth be told, he couldn't give less of a shit about whatever was happening in Japan.
A pile of construction materials was stacked on the bench next to the smoking booth.
They were probably planning to build a covered rest area around it.
Jaejeong passed the bench and stepped into the booth, flapping his sweat-soaked T-shirt as he pulled out a cigarette and lit up.
Just as the flame touched the tip, his pocket buzzed.
It was the team leader.
Jaejeong had gone off to fetch his clothes hours ago, and now the boss was checking in.
"Yeah."
[Where the hell are you?]
"At the hospital."
[Hospital? What the fuck for?]
"Stopped by the laundry, and my aunt was collapsed on the floor."
[What? And? Is she okay?]
"Yeah, she's fine now. Why'd you call?"
Jaejeong spat the words bluntly into the receiver.
That's when it happened.
"Argh!"
A raw scream pierced through the high-rise windows.
[Can't I just call?]
"No, it's not that. If there's nothing important, I'm hanging u—"
"Kyaaak!"
Another scream, this one a woman's shrill cry.
Then came a jumble of frantic shouts—indistinct but urgent.
Panic, anxiety, terror.
Jaejeong frowned at the voices thick with all three emotions at once.
[What a mouth you've got. Oh, right—those Gangnam gambling den assholes showed up. You said that prick listens to you, huh? They're filing in like it's a damn buffet... You listening?]
That's when it hit.
Crash!
The high-rise window shattered entirely, raining shards down onto the pavement below.
But it wasn't just glass plummeting.
Thud!
Screeech—screeech—
A body crashed onto a parked van amid the debris.
The vehicle crumpled instantly.
Shattered glass scattered with blaring alarms.
The impact shook the ground.
[Hey, Han Jaejeong! Hello? What was that noise? Jaejeong!]
Stunned by the sudden horror, Jaejeong shoved his phone into his pocket without hanging up.
But soon enough, he realized this was just the beginning.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
More shapes tumbled from the building one after another.
Like rain—simultaneous, erratic—smashing into the earth.
They were unmistakably human.
Jaejeong couldn't believe his eyes.
The fallen ones snapped their necks on impact, limbs twisting unnaturally.
Some heads burst on collision, blood and flesh spraying everywhere.
He couldn't even count how many.
It all happened in seconds.
Startled by the noise, security guards and medical staff burst out of the ER.
Jaejeong, breathing hard, locked eyes with a nurse who'd just run out.
"B-behind, behind—!"
She could barely get the words out.
Her eyes, wide as saucers, pointed past him.
Crunch!
A chill crawled up his spine.
A grotesque sound he'd never heard before echoed in sequence.
Jaejeong turned slowly.
Past the screaming faces, he saw the van—its windows smashed, body caved in.
And atop it, something was moving.
Grind, grind!
They were the people who'd fallen from the window.
Limbs mangled, heads lolled backward, flesh sloughing off—people he'd thought dead.
Now rising, joints popping grotesquely, as if nothing had happened.
A sight from no hell imaginable.
Their faces were blackened with rot.
Some stood on shattered shinbones that had ripped through their skin.
These weren't human.
He couldn't name what they were, but they sure as hell weren't people.
No way in fuck they were.
Everyone on scene thought the same.
Thump, thump.
Jaejeong's heart pounded like it would explode.
Rawrgh!
A guttural roar made something in his chest drop.
"Wh-what?"
The guard in front of the wrecked van backed away, babbling.
"What the—argh! Help!"
The monster—a woman now—leaped from the van and tackled him.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Crunch!
Chomp, chomp.
Bones cracking, flesh tearing—accompanied by a fountain of blood from the guard's throat.
Incredible speed.
Too fast to believe.
A broken body moving like that? Surviving a high fall to fight? Jaejeong couldn't wrap his head around it.
Then the slaughter began.
The monsters charged down the sloped parking lot and streets, or into the lit ER.
Others stayed, devouring the living and spraying blood everywhere.
Jaejeong stared at the steaming crimson pools on the asphalt, mind reeling.
Rawrgh!
A roar nearby—he whipped around.
Something charged him.
A nurse by her scrubs, but black drool from her mouth marked her as one of them.
Jaejeong sidestepped.
She slammed into the railing behind him and plummeted.
Dozens of meters down—then a car exploded below.
That's when—
Bang!
The ER doors ripped off as a monstrous guard flew meters through the air, smashing into the ground.
"What the fuck did this bastard eat...?"
It was Lee Beom-sik who'd launched him.
Power belying his slender legs.
He reared for another blow but froze, sensing something off.
"...What? Why's its face like that?"
Now taking in the chaos, but two monsters lunged from both sides before he could think.
A normal person would've frozen.
Not Beom-sik.
He spun a roundhouse into the left one, then a side kick into the right.
The patient-gowned man tumbled end over end; the woman shattered a sedan windshield, crashing into the driver's seat.
Solid hits.
But Beom-sik's face twisted.
They were rising again.
Insanely fast.
Glass shards embedded deep in the woman's neck and body—no sign of pain.
The man, spine folded backward in a limbo pose, charged.
Beom-sik's eyes widened at the impossibility.
Can a human not feel pain in that state? Stand after a clean kick like that? No fucking way.
His thoughts blurred.
Sounds stretched slow, like warped tape; he couldn't react to the charging foes.
They're coming.
Right in his face.
A sewer-rotten maw gaping wide.
Then—
Thwack!
The monsters slammed into the ground.
Jaejeong emerged from the construction materials, pipe in hand, smashing their napes.
Three or four down in one swing.
But predictably, they stirred.
"The head! Hit the head!"
Snapping to, Beom-sik snatched the pipe and bashed their skulls.
Splat! Splat!
Bone and flesh sprayed black ichor.
Only then did the monsters still.
"Kyaaak!"
Now from inside the hospital.
A blood-drenched nurse screamed down the hall linking to the main building.
Jaejeong dashed in first to assess.
What the hell is this noise?
Not admin.
Not the ER.
From the dark end of the corridor.
People.
Dozens—hundreds—stampeding.
But their appearance...
Run.
Or die.
Nothing else mattered.
"Run!"
Jaejeong shouted, blowing past Beom-sik.
"My guys are still..."
"Run, asshole! Unless you wanna die!"
"Fuck! What the hell are those?!"
Hearing the roars filling the hall, Beom-sik followed down the slope.
Ear-splitting screams echoed from the receding ER and hospital—but nothing to be done.
Stay, and they'd be bones.
Out the back on a narrow road, Jaejeong sprinted blindly ahead.
The street bustled normally—people oblivious.
Except sirens blaring, ambulances racing to the hospital.
He knew sending them there was suicide, but how to stop them?
"Hey!"
Beom-sik yelled at Jaejeong pulling ahead.
"What'd that fucker eat to run like that? Hey!"
Slowing, Jaejeong caught his breath and turned.
"You just called me 'hey,' didn't you?"
"Where the hell you running to?!"
"Why? Gonna follow? To a place you hate."
Jaejeong smirked oddly; Beom-sik scowled.
"People on the street... they don't know shit."
"So?"
"So what? Warn 'em to run!"
Beom-sik eyed the peaceful walkers.
"You do it. Problem solved."
"You're the cop."
"What the—"
Jaejeong closed in, glaring coldly.
"Don't play fake hero. You're the most dangerous type—hands dirty with shit and blood till you need 'justice.' Got it? If you're gonna do it, do it yourself."
He turned away icily.
Beom-sik wiped sweat from his face.
Didn't expect that seriousness.
Just meant try something.
Cops were wired different.
He stared at Jaejeong's retreating back.
Punch him out?
No.
Wrong time for fights.
Reality felt distant.
Like stepping off a thrill ride.
He pondered.
No clue how the monsters spawned.
News mentioned Japan—that's it.
One certainty: get attacked, turn.
They hadn't hit the streets yet—hospital still full of survivors.
ER alone had dozens.
His brothers' faces flashed.
Thugs called punks these days, but he cherished them.
They looked up to him; he figured they did too.
Yeah.
Head back.
Fled in panic, but couldn't abandon them.
Needed to see those things again.
Couldn't believe it otherwise.
Resolved, he turned toward the hospital, lighting a smoke—
Then footsteps closed in fast amid the din.
Instinctively, he dodged.
It was Jaejeong, streaking past.
Even while pulling away, he yelled back.
"What're you standing around for? Run! Run!"
A weird disconnect hit Beom-sik.
Jaejeong's gaze seemed fixed beyond him.
Slowly, he turned.
And regretted not moving instantly.
The intersection's streetlight drowned in a rippling mass.
Shimmering haze—human wave.
Irregular ranks charging fiercely.
Front line stumbled—next trampled before faces hit pavement.
Dust clouded the asphalt like a stadium.
Two layers, three, four...
Numbers defying imagination.
A human tsunami.
Trees engulfed, hundreds piling over.
Unreal.
The wave bore down; Beom-sik's chest tightened.
Legs moved on instinct, survival overriding thought.
Tat-tat!
Chasing Jaejeong, Beom-sik accelerated.
Infected People