Race to the Rooftop
In just a few seconds, the street had turned into utter chaos.
Everything on the avenue was being swallowed up by the storm of them surging forward like a gale.
People who finally grasped the situation scattered and fled, but nowhere was safe.
They tripped, got trampled, torn apart, sliced open.
The once-peaceful street was drenched in blood.
Then, a woman was grabbed by the nape by an infected and slammed to the ground.
She desperately tried to shove it off, but it wouldn't budge.
By the time the number of charging infected reached two, three, then four, all that remained was the woman's pathetic thrashing as her body was ripped apart alive.
Her body shuddered violently as she let out a chilling scream, then went still.
Jaejeong felt like he was going mad.
Pleading cries for help echoed from all directions.
Miserable wails soaked in agony.
How many times in life does a person hear sounds like that?
He tried not to look back as he ran.
But if he just kept running like this, he'd end up the same way for sure.
He quickly scanned his surroundings.
Should I take a car?
An abandoned vehicle with its door open caught his eye.
This might be safer.
The moment he reached for the door handle—
Bang!
The window shattered suddenly, and the car sagged under some weight.
Jaejeong, who had shielded his face with his arms against the flying glass, looked up.
An infected that had leaped from a high floor lay sprawled across the wrecked car.
To make matters worse, people being chased by infected were flooding in from the intersection opposite.
He needed to find high ground fast.
If those things were jumping from buildings to the street below, maybe higher up was safer.
It was a pretty convincing thought.
But something felt off.
This was Seoul.
In the heart of South Korea's capital, unknown monsters were slaughtering people, yet no cops or soldiers in sight?
Is this a dream?
His efforts to avoid panic went down the drain.
His ears rang, and his breathing grew ragged.
Yeah, let's just get up high first.
Swallowing down the rising nausea, Jaejeong bolted into the building in front of him.
Inside, people were rushing out in the opposite direction.
That was fine.
No matter what, the rooftop had to be safer than out there.
Jaejeong stood in front of the elevator.
In this high-rise over ten stories tall, the elevator was descending from the eighth floor.
The screams filling the street grew closer.
Thud! Thud!
Sounds of something slamming and shaking inside the elevator reached all the way to the first floor where Jaejeong stood.
Something was definitely happening inside.
At that moment, Beom-sik burst into the building, drenched head to toe in fresh blood.
"Not a great idea."
Glancing at the elevator display numbers, Beom-sik brushed past Jaejeong and bolted up the stairs, muttering under his breath.
"Fuck…"
Jaejeong glanced up at the display again and had no choice but to follow.
Screams from living people were leaking out of the elevator.
And that wasn't the end of it.
Detective or not, mobster who thrived in street fights or not—even they had no answer for stairs spanning over ten floors.
By the eighth floor, both men's thighs were cramping to the point of spasms.
Normally, they'd pace themselves and reach the roof without much strain.
But right now, their lives were on the line.
Charging full tilt from the start until their muscles gave out had brought on the cramps.
When the hell does this roof show up?
As stale breath and curses escaped their lips, two flights of stairs appeared in succession, followed by the door to the rooftop.
Jaejeong, who arrived first unlike at the start, gripped the handle with his large hand and turned.
Click-click—
But the locked door just rattled uselessly without opening.
The infected weren't right on their heels yet.
Still, urgency clawed at them.
"Move!"
As Jaejeong pondered the handle, Beom-sik yelled, catching his breath.
He had grabbed the fire extinguisher from the eighth-floor landing.
Bang! Bang! Crack!
After a few swings, the handle snapped off completely, and the lock fell away.
Without a word on who went first, they burst onto the rooftop.
Was it the distance from the ground?
The rooftop felt eerily quiet, almost unnaturally so.
The disconnect from moments ago made it feel like a dream.
Sirens and screams sounded distant, like watching a fire across the river.
While Jaejeong poked his head over the railing, Beom-sik dragged over abandoned outdoor AC units and office furniture to barricade the door.
"Help out a little?"
"Looks done to me. What?"
Jaejeong answered without turning.
Beom-sik finished barricading and sauntered over casually.
They stood a short distance apart, peering down.
It felt awkward, like strangers on a roof each looking down for their own reasons.
Now, at last, they could take in the full scope of the disaster.
The police and military Jaejeong had hoped for weren't gone.
They were just abandoned, ownerless, scattered throughout the city.
The roads were jammed solid with cars, like Gangnam on Christmas Eve.
The difference? No drivers in the empty vehicles.
Seoul's grid-like skyline wasn't ruined or collapsed yet.
It was in the process—crumbling into ruins right before their eyes.
Even as they watched, the city was slowly losing its life.
Smoke rose here and there with explosions.
And desperate survivors fleeing the infected dominating the streets.
Bang! Bang!
Gunshots, surreal to Korean ears, faintly echoed through the high sky.
Jaejeong let out a long sigh, steadying his breath.
Not from the stairs.
Just the natural reaction to an unacceptable sight.
Beom-sik seemed the same, standing with a large, long hand pressed to his forehead.
For a while, they silently gazed at the cityscape.
His smartphone, pulled out just in case, only showed a "Base station disconnected" message floating aimlessly.
"What the fuck… is going on?"
Beom-sik said, zooming in on his phone's camera.
The infected on screen leaped at a survivor the moment it spotted one.
Then bit indiscriminately.
If there were two or more, the other would rip open the belly with its fingertips from below—an unbelievably brutal act.
Oddly, once the prey stopped breathing, they stopped attacking.
Like discarding half-eaten food scraps.
Speed, strength—humans couldn't match them physically in anything.
Even cars speeding along sidewalks ground to a halt, belching black smoke under the weight of clinging hordes.
One infected grabbing the muffler, dozens more piling on, forming a long human chain.
The car couldn't bear the weight, stopped, and the driver inside vanished under infected amid shattering glass.
They were monsters chasing bigger stimuli, louder noises.
Mid-dissection of a live human, a car sound would make them switch targets without hesitation.
Watching this, Beom-sik spoke up.
"I know it sounds insane, but… nothing else comes to mind but zombies."
"Don't worry. You're not the only one thinking that."
Jaejeong nodded in agreement.
Anyone would think the same.
Mutated people biting the living, bitten dying and rising like them—over and over.
"Seeing it from up here…"
"Feels unreal. Yeah, me too."
Jaejeong finished Beom-sik's trailing words.
Once they'd somewhat accepted the situation, practical problems started blooming in their heads.
They weren't in a position to just stand there watching others die in peace.
"Can't stay here forever… Can we jump to the next building?"
Beom-sik looked around.
The nearest was still several meters away.
Staring at the empty space below the railing—even with a plank, no way.
"Even if we did, what changes? Just swaps buildings. And stop asking me. Our paths split once we're out. Be grateful we're even together without bullshit."
"Who the hell wants to stick with a fucking cop…"
Hostility simmered between them, words inadequate to express it.
And it burned especially hot from Jaejeong.
Whatever it was, it didn't seem simple.
Not even a past hunter-prey dynamic could spawn feelings this tangled.
"Fuck… with all this shit, not one chopper in the sky."
Beom-sik spat curses at the pitch-black night sky.
"You think they'd fly? If they had the brains for choppers, they'd roll in tanks and sweep 'em clean…"
Then—
Whump-whump-whump-whump!
As if hearing them, rotor noise started somewhere in the dark sky.
Growing closer from afar, then emerging from behind the supertall building.
A man with a shoulder-mounted camera and a woman with a mic were visible inside.
Definitely from broadcasting.
A military transport chopper followed.
Rescuing survivors gathered on rooftops?
"Here! Over here!"
Jaejeong yelled, and Beom-sik jumped up and down, waving frantically like he'd been waiting.
Is it working?
The camera circling the supertall, filming the ground, swung toward their rooftop.
They flailed even harder.
Before the chopper, rescue hope was zero—so this desperation was inevitable.
"They're coming! Coming!"
Jaejeong got pumped watching it change course.
Beom-sik was just as hyped.
A minor crisis aside, they'd made it safely to the roof. If rescued now, someday they'd toast to this over drinks.
Zombies? Army would mop 'em up.
But their hopes shattered spectacularly.
The choppers, shining lights, flew right past them toward somewhere else.
Even the cameraman didn't forget to film their fleeting moment.
They'd become brief news fodder, nothing more.
Disappointment etched their faces after the frenzy.
Why the bitterness seeing the two head to Yeouido?
"Off to fetch the big shots, huh."
"Ptoo! Fuckin' dirty bastards."
Beom-sik kicked an innocent can.
The picture was clear now.
The camera wasn't for this chaos—it was to spot VIPs who had to survive, sorting them from civilians.
The trailing transport? Their private evac chopper.
Seeing Beom-sik's rage, Jaejeong tried to clear his mind.
Dwelling on the past yielded nothing—he knew that better than anyone.
"Won't solve shit anyway."
Jaejeong lit a cigarette, muttering to himself as he looked down.
The infected filling the city moved in packs.
Dozens of thousands racing between buildings and along roads.
"Following the chopper noise."
Beom-sik murmured, staring across the river at Yeouido.
Infected People