The Road to the Seed Vault 2
Rustle—
A tiny, alien sound from beyond the door. At that noise my eyes, which had been drifting shut in half-sleep, snapped wide open again.
I came fully awake and glanced beside me. In the darkness on the bed, Yang Jin-ju lay sleeping soundly.
We had agreed to take turns standing watch in the suits… Damn it. I must have dozed off without realizing.
I adjusted my posture where I sat by the door in the Walker Suit, ready to block any intruder, and strained my ears outward once more.
Clink—
This time the sound of something metallic being stepped on reached me, faint but unmistakable.
…They’re here.
I moved slowly, silently, toward the sleeping Yang Jin-ju and gave her shoulder a light shake.
“Mmm…”
She stirred, then sensed my presence and her eyes flew open in startlement. Before she could cry out I covered her mouth and whispered for quiet.
“Shh! Jin-ju, it’s me. Outside… whether it’s zombies or other survivors… someone’s come.”
At my words her eyes sharpened in an instant, like a predator waking from sleep.
I pointed to the Foundation Suit and mouthed the word.
Put it on.
Then I took hold of the doorknob, eased the door open with infinite care, slipped out first, closed it behind me, and moved like a shadow.
Time to greet these uninvited guests.
The five men who had climbed to the third floor scattered and began searching the rooms one by one. Their footsteps and low voices calling to one another echoed through the dark, silent corridor.
“Hey, Park! This room’s clean! Nothing here!”
“Nothing on this side either! Fuck, are they really hiding on the top floor? Or did we get it wrong?”
The tall man in the lead seized the doorknob of room 308 at the far end of the hall. The door was locked tight.
“Here! They’re hiding in here, these bastards!”
He slammed his shoulder into the door several times, but it did not budge. Irritated, he called to the man named Park who had been following him.
“Hey, Park! Get over here and help me push! Let’s smash the damn door in!”
No answer came.
“Hey! Park! What the hell are you doing, you bastard? Answer me!”
When he spun around in annoyance, no one was there.
An empty, dark corridor. The faint voices of his comrades that had been audible only moments before had vanished without a trace. Only the thin moonlight spilling through a broken window cast an eerie glow across the dusty floor.
“…What the fuck, these bastards…”
He spat the curse, yet his own voice trembled without his noticing.
Just then the door of room 308 at his back began to open, very slowly, with a creaking sound that crawled up the spine.
Heart-stopping terror seized him. He turned his head, slowly, so slowly.
And in the pitch-black gap of the doorway he found two points of blue light looking down at him.
Meanwhile the remaining three men, still searching rooms farther down the corridor, froze at the tall man’s tearing scream.
“Was that… hyung-nim’s voice just now?”
“What the hell’s going on? Let’s go!”
The instant they started toward the sound, a massive silhouette of steel stepped into their path and blocked it.
Slice—
The man in front was cut cleanly in two at the waist. The broad, shovel-shaped energy blade in the attacker’s hand glowed blue, already waiting for the next prey.
The last two men screamed in terror and scattered in opposite directions.
But their desperate thrashing was nothing more than sport to the hunters in the dark.
The final survivor was lucky enough to reach the motel’s front entrance. He burst outside almost sobbing.
His despair did not end there.
Thud—!
Something enormous dropped from the sky and landed directly in front of him.
Only then, under the faint moonlight, could he clearly see the form of the thing that had been hunting them: a massive, muscular steel armor of mixed silver and black.
His legs gave out and he collapsed where he stood.
“Fuck… if I’d known monsters like this were here… I never would’ve come in the first place…”
Those were his last words.
The steel fist of the Walker Suit drove mercilessly into his face.
When the one-sided slaughter in the darkness was finished, an eerie silence settled once more over the Rose Motel.
Seo Yeong-chan and Yang Jin-ju had eliminated every intruder, yet they did not relax. They moved slowly and with extreme care through the entire building again, checking for any additional trespassers who might still be hiding. Floor by floor they opened every guest-room door, searching under beds and inside closets with meticulous thoroughness.
After roughly thirty minutes, once they were certain the building was completely safe, they began the most gruesome yet necessary final task.
Using the power of the suits they lifted the five unrecognizable corpses sprawled along the corridors and stairs, carried them outside one by one, and hurled them as far as possible into the darkness so the bodies would not draw zombies.
At last, every trace erased, the two returned to room 308. The room had been cleaned, yet a faint smell of blood still lingered.
Uneasy that more uninvited guests might appear, they decided to stand two-hour watches in turn that night and snatch what sleep they could.
The abandoned motel, briefly noisy with human screams and the crash of steel, sank once more into the deep, soundless stillness of death.
The tension that had lasted all night left my body feeling as heavy as lead when I woke from shallow sleep. Still, we could not afford to delay any longer.
The moment morning light appeared, Yang Jin-ju and I hurriedly packed our gear and climbed into the truck to resume the journey toward Bonghwa.
We were almost clear of the village when she spoke.
“…Oppa, over there.”
From the passenger seat Yang Jin-ju pointed toward the mountain behind the village. Along the distant ridge several figures could be seen descending toward the settlement.
…Comrades of last night’s lot, maybe.
Whether they were survivors from the previous night or their families, I could not tell. One thing was certain: the only scene waiting for them would be missing companions and the traces those companions had left behind.
Driving, I spoke to Yang Jin-ju, who had already put on her suit and taken up watch in the cargo bed.
“Jin-ju, on the way back… let’s not use this road.”
“(…Yes, Oppa. We’ll have to find another route for sure.)”
Even her voice coming from the bed behind me carried a heavy tension.
We might have created yet another invisible enemy.
I pressed the accelerator deeper, eager to put as much distance as possible between us and this ominous place.
Once more we set out on a road that seemed to have no end, leaving yesterday’s nightmare behind and aiming solely for the destination called Bonghwa.
The journey remained hard. Obstacles and zombies appeared on the road whenever we began to forget them, blocking the way. I stood watch in the cargo bed in the Walker Suit, clearing whatever barred our path, while Yang Jin-ju gripped the wheel, checking the map against the actual terrain and forcing the truck forward.
“Ah… is this not the right road? The map says it should be this way…”
Her troubled voice floated from the driver’s seat.
Looking down at the map from the cargo bed I muttered,
“Times like this… I really wish we had a navigation system. Never thought I’d miss that voice saying ‘Recalculating optimal route’ so much.”
Yang Jin-ju gave a short laugh.
“Really, Oppa…. I never knew finding the way with a map would be this hard either. Before the world ended I just took it for granted…”
For a little while we both longed for the small conveniences of the vanished civilization.
The sun gradually slanted westward, dyeing the world red. Yang Jin-ju, still at the wheel, grew more and more restless.
“Strange… according to the map there should definitely be a fork near here… why can’t I see it…”
She muttered in a flustered voice.
To calm her I called from the cargo bed,
“Don’t rush, Jin-ju. If you’re not sure, just park somewhere safe and we’ll check again when it gets light tomorrow. Better than taking a wrong turn in the dark and getting stranded.”
In the end, thirty minutes later, on a road already swallowed by complete darkness, we prepared to spend another night.
“(Tonight you sleep first, Oppa.)”
Yang Jin-ju’s voice came over the comms from the cargo bed; she had already decided to stand watch in the Foundation Suit.
“(You didn’t get proper rest yesterday.)”
I reclined the driver’s seat, pulled the blanket over myself, and felt a quiet gratitude for her consideration.
“All right. I’ll sleep first. Wake me the second anything happens.”
A full two days had passed since we left the Shelter. Feeling a faint unease at how slowly the journey was progressing, I closed my eyes and sought uncomfortable sleep inside the cold truck.