Five Chances
Uncle Park's story had turned the air in the cramped machine room heavy. Silence stretched on as no one said a word.
"The mood's gotten way too heavy. Come on, let's talk about the plan instead."
It was Nam Jin-ju who broke the silence. She no longer eyed us with wariness or suspicion. With a serious expression, ready to explain the details of the plan, she spoke up.
"The plan sounds decent enough, but actually pulling it off is a whole different story."
She pointed to the strange piece of equipment we'd seen on the rooftop—something that looked like a harpoon gun. Similar in shape but clearly a prototype, it was covered in complicated attachments, crude yet bearing the unmistakable craftsmanship of the man called Uncle Park.
"This grappling hook gun—Uncle Park made it. Firing it once takes enormous pressure. Compressed air alone can't launch it seventy meters, so we have to use the explosive force of gunpowder as auxiliary power."
"Gunpowder… you mean extracting it from bullets?"
I asked, and Nam Jin-ju nodded.
"That's right. But the problem is the amount. To launch that heavy hook stably across seventy meters, you need the powder from a full twenty rounds of K-2 rifle ammo. Twenty rounds. We might seem to have plenty of bullets, but when you think about that sea of zombies out there, every single shot is a life. We can't just fire them off carelessly."
Twenty rounds. That was a precious resource that could save the lives of all four of us.
Yang Jin-ju picked up where Nam Jin-ju left off. Her voice was far more serious than before.
"And the bigger problem is that cylinder that gathers the powder and fires it. Uncle Park made that by hand too, so its durability is weak. Including the spare parts he left us, we only have five of them total. Which means… we only get five chances."
Five times. All our hopes and our future hanging on just five shots. The difficulty of this plan suddenly felt a lot higher.
"To succeed within five tries, we'll obviously need to maximize our accuracy, right?"
Yang Jin-ju hesitated for a moment. The look on her face said even she found what she was about to say difficult. She wet her dry lips with her tongue, then continued as if steeling herself.
"The biggest problem is that there's only one hook. Uncle Park ground that down from the tow hook of a scrapped truck—it's one of a kind. If we fire it and it sticks somewhere wrong, or flies off somewhere we can't recover it… that's the end of everything. We'd lose our way to connect the rope…"
What Yang Jin-ju said next made me start to guess at the real intent hidden underneath.
"So… before the actual launch, we need to do a test fire to measure variables like distance, direction, and wind effect."
"A test fire?"
"Yeah. Instead of the hook, we'll fire that."
Where she pointed lay a blunt metal rod, made to nearly the same weight and size as the hook.
"This is for practice. Uncle Park made this too. We fire this first, drop it somewhere near Building 108… then someone has to go out in person and find the fallen projectile. Using that point as a reference, we calculate the distance and directional error from our intended target and factor it into the next shot. We have to keep reducing the error that way."
Go out in person and find the fallen projectile. That meant risking your life to search for a single metal rod that could have landed anywhere, right in the middle of those zombies.
Before Yang Jin-ju had even finished speaking, Yeong-ju shot up from her seat.
"Don't tell me that 'someone' means the two of us? I fucking knew it!"
She spat the curse and glared at Yang Jin-ju.
"So this was it all along! The reason you handed over the combat boots and guns like you were doing us a favor! You throw just the two of us into danger as bait while you watch from somewhere safe! What's the difference between going to find that little metal rod and just going out there to die?!"
I felt the nightmare of the third survivor group coming back to life. They too had shown us every kindness at first—all so they could eventually eat us.
At our reaction, Nam Jin-ju beside her waved her hands in a fluster.
"Ah, no! That's not what we meant!"
"Then what did you mean?! How is this any different from using us as shields! Is this the deal you were talking about?"
Yeong-ju's fierce reaction froze the atmosphere in the machine room once more. I could feel the trust I'd barely managed to build up crumbling like a sandcastle under a wave of anger.
"I figured you'd say something like that."
Yang Jin-ju didn't look away from Yeong-ju's gaze. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and spoke in a quiet, firm voice.
"Don't worry. I'll go with you."
"…What?"
Not just Yeong-ju—me, and even Nam Jin-ju—all of us doubted our own ears. Nam Jin-ju grabbed Yang Jin-ju's arm in shock.
"Hey, Yang Jin-ju! Are you out of your mind right now? We don't have nearly as much experience dealing with zombies as those two, and you're saying you'll go with them? Where do you think you're going! How are you even going to get through there! You could die!"
"I know."
Yang Jin-ju quietly lowered her friend's hand as she spoke.
"But she's right too. We can't just stay somewhere safe ourselves and drive the two of them into a death trap. And more than anything… I'm the one running this plan, so I should take some responsibility, right?"
She looked back and forth between Yeong-ju and me. There was no longer any calculation or ulterior motive in her eyes.
"Three of us will go. You,"
She pointed at me.
"And you,"
She pointed at Yeong-ju.
"And me. The three of us will head near Building 108. For a recon and search team, more people just means a higher risk of being spotted, so three is the best number."
"Then what about me? You're telling me to stay here alone?"
Nam Jin-ju asked, her face crumpling. Fear of sending her friend into a death trap mixed with the anxiety of being left alone.
"You'll secure our escape route from here, and in the worst case, report the situation over the radio. If we don't make it back… you'll have to escape from here on your own. This is the best way for all of us to survive."
I could tell from her voice alone how big a decision she'd made, but that firm resolve didn't seem to reach Nam Jin-ju.
"No."
Nam Jin-ju shook her head. Her voice was trembling like a child's.
"I said no! I'm going with you too!"
"Jin-ju, don't be ridiculous. This isn't something we decide based on feelings. Someone has to stay behind and hold the rear…"
"What good is holding the rear!"
Nam Jin-ju shouted. Tears welled in her eyes.
"After you three go into that hell, I'm supposed to sit alone in this empty building clutching a radio! For who knows how many hours, not knowing if you're dead or alive, all by myself! Just like when Uncle Park disappeared! You know how terrifying that is!"
At her cry, Yang Jin-ju lost her words. Through her, I could feel vividly the sense of loss and terror the two of them must have felt after Uncle Park vanished.
"Being left alone is… scarier than going into that zombie horde! I'd rather go with you and die fighting! At least I wouldn't be alone at the end! So take me with you. Please… don't leave me alone."
Nam Jin-ju was practically begging. With even her closest friend about to leave her and head into a death trap, the fear of being left alone had overwhelmed her fear of death. She was no longer the prickly, curt survivor. She was just an ordinary, fragile twenty-year-old girl terrified of being left alone in the world. Even as Nam Jin-ju clung to her, Yang Jin-ju kept her head down and said nothing for a long while.
Arms crossed, leaning against the wall as she watched, Yeong-ju spoke up.
"Take her. All four of us. Let's go together."
"…What?"
Yang Jin-ju raised her head.
"I said all four of us go together. The kid has a point. Leaving a kid that scared alone might be even more dangerous. Who knows what she might do. And…"
Yeong-ju looked back and forth between me and Yang Jin-ju.
"We're already doing something insane. One more person isn't going to change much. If anything, we get one more person for cover, so it's not a bad thing. Right?"
Yang Jin-ju stared at each of our faces in turn for a long time. Her friend whose eyes shone with determination to walk into a death trap, the strange woman who wasn't stopping her but agreeing instead, and the crazy bastard who had caused this whole situation.
In the end, she seemed to give up, letting out a long, deep sigh.
"…Fine. You're all completely insane. All right. Four of us. We go together. But we come back together too. Not a single one left behind."
With her final words, our goal became walking into the middle of a sea of zombies to find a single small metal rod that could have fallen anywhere.
"Yeah! We definitely come back together!"
Just like Nam Jin-ju said so happily—we added the part about all of us making it back safely too.