Uncanny Valley Broadcast
Instead of heading home, the thought came to me: Zombie. You have to live long and healthy out on the streets too. We couldn’t let the zombie that had stained its hands with blood for our sake starve to death. I left the college girl’s doorstopper exactly as I’d found it, carelessly propped open, and hurried over to the couple’s house. Jeon Dohyeong had already opened the door and was waiting, so the zombie never got its hands on me. The moment the door shut, I dropped to the floor. It was exhausting for no good reason. My stamina and mental strength felt drained. Still, the sense of accomplishment was solid.
“I’ve got three houses now.”
“...Three?”
When Jeon Dohyeong asked with that gloomy face, I held up three fingers and folded them down one by one. “This couple’s place, that college girl’s place, and mine.”
“Ah. Right. You said you killed the couple here.”
Jeon Dohyeong’s voice was low and heavy. He lay sprawled like a man dead drunk, fingers trembling hard. He flinched, then forced the words out.
“Is this really the right thing? Even if it’s the apocalypse… wouldn’t it be better to team up with other people and cooperate? Grow crops together, build barricades, that kind of stuff?”
I glanced at him. Had this latest act shaken him? I’d heard that killing with your own hands hits harder mentally than shooting from a distance or getting someone else to do it. I realized he stood at a crossroads. Would he shatter like a pot thrown to the ground, or would he be ground against a whetstone, worn down, and reborn as a keen blade? A sigh slipped out inside me. And this was what passed for a marauder. If the core group had been big enough, I would have cut him loose, but he still had some use. Even simple labor would lighten the load.
“Think of it as practice. Once zombies number in the millions or tens of millions, you’ll have to kill people to survive anyway.”
“...”
“Or tell yourself I killed them. Or that we already killed a cop with the taser. Or that the zombie did it. Or that the chairman’s to blame for everything.”
I rattled off every excuse he might need for self-justification. A vicious electricity thief like him would patch himself up one way or another—by shifting blame or swallowing reality. I had no more mental energy to waste on the guy, so I turned my attention elsewhere.
Beyond the front door came the sound of the zombie pacing, then descending the stairs, followed by another neighbor’s scream upon running into it.
“Whoa! Zombie!”
“Kraaak!”
“Die—ugh!”
A brutal chorus. I pictured the scene: the zombie drenched in the college girl’s blood, humans swinging weapons in the narrow stairwell where their blows lacked power. Soon only the zombie’s wet, gurgling moans leaked through the door. I was impressed. The results exceeded expectations.
“Two kills? Buy-one-get-one-free? Was that a convenience-store zombie?”
Looked like another house was about to open up. I hadn’t even dreamed of a one-plus-one deal, but this zombie had excellent customer service.
Jeon Dohyeong let out a hollow laugh.
“You’re actually insane.”
“No. I’m perfectly normal. But to survive you have to get tough, so I’m forcing myself. Adapting faster than everyone else is an advantage, right?”
My mind was extremely healthy. Truly.
“If this is normal… yeah, I’m still better than this guy…”
Around the time Jeon Dohyeong finished his half-hearted self-rationalization, I snapped back to reality. This was no time for that. Disinfection! The professor had said hygiene and quarantine were paramount. No matter how well I covered myself with masks, long clothes, gloves, and hats, caution was still required.
“Spray the disinfectant, quick!”
We hosed ourselves down with the quarantine spray. They said it was bad for the skin, but this body had hugged a zombie. Better than catching the virus.
Modern buildings are impregnable fortresses. Reinforced concrete and steel front doors. Only skilled thieves could breach those defenses, and zombies were no thieves; they could not trespass. No matter how badly the outside world collapsed, hiding quietly inside meant no problems at all.
Since I used to hole up at home and never take a single step outside while writing scenarios, this reclusive lifestyle felt natural. Of course the police had visited the villa because of the zombies and deaths, but they sensed something off and simply moved on. At the time the police had said:
With that relief, we returned to the now-empty neighboring and downstairs units that had become mine. One or two peaceful days drifted by. Jeon Dohyeong, used to camping, couldn’t sit still and paced the house, but he never stepped outside. There was plenty to keep him busy anyway.
“…Is this how you’re supposed to do it? It feels off.”
“Uh…”
The hydroponic setup I’d cobbled together from PET bottles. I’d crammed in onions, green onions, and lettuce looted from the houses, but something felt wrong.
“We’re not even using nutrient solution or soil. Are these things actually going to grow? This can’t be right, can it?”
“Well… if they die, we throw them out. If they live, we eat them.”
We had more than enough food for now. This was just an experiment. Only the crops that survived harsh conditions would earn the right to be eaten by me. The PET bottles filled with that hope were placed on the sunlit floor.
Occasionally the lunatics of the apocalypse appeared.
“Smash it all!”
A gang of juvenile delinquents on electric scooters, shattering windows with slingshots.
“Judgment has come! Only those with faith shall receive salvation—”
A cult banging on doors, shouting about judgment and salvation.
“We must discover the antibody as soon as possible! We are all infected—we have to find those who carry it!”
Strange people spraying mist, trying to infect others with the virus.
I watched them all from the window. A bitter feeling seeped into my chest.
If this were the old days, I would have agonized over how to put these people into a scenario.
Now I observed them only to understand the apocalypse. Realizing that the aspiring scenario writer I used to be was dead, and only the marauder of the apocalypse remained, left me depressed.
Of course, the world was full of people far more miserable than me.
“Have you seen this person?”
People carrying flyers with photos, searching for the missing.
Parents clutching the corpse of a zombie shot by police in a moment of panic, wailing.
People wandering the streets, certain they were infected.
So the virus spread, and that day finally arrived. The day the virus diagnostic kit was developed. The day the nuclear power plant shut down and rolling blackouts began. The day the government moved. The twenty-fourth day since the zombie outbreak. The government’s broadcast went out.
“Is this right?”
“It looks right.”
In my spotless house—where the college girl next door and the couple downstairs were dead and therefore no longer an issue—we sat in our cozy nest and stared blankly at the TV. The government had announced it would air something, so we had it on, but the footage was… off. It wasn’t a press conference or an emergency broadcast. It felt like a clumsy public-service ad or a children’s cartoon. Characters standing boldly at the bottom of the uncanny valley giggled while explaining I-Virus countermeasures.
—The I-Kit has been developed!
—Wow! That’s really joyful news! Shall we all get tested?
The awkward, almost-human character demonstrated how to use the kit—shoving a long cotton swab deep into the nose, squeezing its eyes shut, coughing and gagging.
An absurd murmur slipped out of me. “What the hell am I watching?”
“This is the government announcement? …Wow. We’re completely screwed.”
The screen switched. When the grotesque character made a tearful face at a positive result, its friends bolted two meters away. Then it showed the proper countermeasures.
—Infected individuals must report to the government! Don’t worry too much! The government’s safety quarantine is trustworthy!
—That’s right! In the isolation facility they eat well and sleep well!
Suddenly the screen crackled with static. Real footage flashed by: a container isolation center fitted with bars and wire mesh. Zombies packed shoulder-to-shoulder like a rush-hour subway, howling. Sprinklers sprayed water. Dry kibble resembling dog food was shoved through the bars. It looked less like quarantine and more like livestock farming.
Only then did I understand. This was an accident. There was no way they intended to air this. The PD or staff must have gone insane—whether from a twisted sense of justice, because the world was ending anyway, or because they believed they were already infected. One thing was certain: no sane person would do this.
The screen flipped back to the unpleasant cartoon characters. The figures who had waved at their friend being dragged away by soldiers in full MOPP-4 gear now turned and whispered among themselves.
—But what if there’s no I-Kit? What if we can’t get tested but think we’re infected?
—Then do this! Stay inside and report to the government!
They displayed a number.
—Contact this number and the government will call you regularly! If they can’t reach you, they’ll assume symptoms have appeared and come take you to an isolation facility!
Honestly, using healthy soldiers in hazmat suits for quarantine seemed reasonable. But those deranged characters and the horrific footage made it impossible to trust.
The character winked.
—Of course there are rules you must follow!
The protagonist character tied up his friend and hurled him onto the bed.
—Wouldn’t it be sad if you suddenly turned into a zombie and hurt your family? Wear a mask and tie your wrists and ankles tight!
Saying such insane things… My brain was overloading. Thoughts refused to connect. Only shock and disbelief ruled my mind.
Then the character put on glasses. A blackboard appeared in the background, listing quarantine measures.
—The most important thing is not to get infected in the first place! Minimize going outside! The government—
Work-from-home, online lectures, limiting restaurants and all face-to-face or external activities.
—If you must go out, wear a mask! Disinfect your hands!
Measures for a virus still spread only by droplets.
—Uhehe. Then I can just play games at home! Awesome!
…Wait. What if the electricity or water gets cut off?
When the idiot-smiling male character shook with anxiety, the protagonist laughed.
—No! The government is working hard to maintain infrastructure and critical facilities! The water supply will provide clean, sterilized water, and electricity will be fine except for scheduled rolling blackouts!
Static again. The screen switched to real footage of military units moving toward what looked like national critical infrastructure—power plants, gas, water, isolation centers, pharmaceutical companies.
Then, bang—the character popped back on screen.
—The government is doing its best to maintain society! Safe administration, safe quarantine! But the most important thing is the cooperation of the citizens! Until vaccines and cures are developed, everyone endure at hoooome!
The voice stretched unnaturally long. The character began turning into a zombie and reached toward the screen.
Several more images flashed by: a character playing games and slaughtering his entire family, an infected person tied to a bed smashing his head through a window and leaping out, isolation patients treated like animals.
The screen cut to black.
A flustered announcer rushed to smooth things over.
—There has been a broadcast accident. An incorrect video was transmitted. We apologize. Ah, we will now connect to the government statement. Connecting to the scene—connecting.
For a moment it felt as if silence had fallen across the entire world. They had probably planned a friendly public-service ad as a soft introduction before a national address or press conference… but one mad PD had ruined everything.
I let out a bitter laugh. Wow… is this what talent looks like? No matter how hard I tried to grow tougher, I felt an insurmountable wall. That level of madness. Faithfully following in the footsteps of Immortal Company’s chairman, planting distrust in a government that had been handling things reasonably—all with a single video. A true lunatic accelerating the apocalypse. His caliber was on a completely different level from mine, a survivor scrambling just to stay alive.
And that realization brought me relief.
The eroded social norms that made crime easier, the spreading cults, the people spraying virus mist, the lunatic who had just terrorized a government broadcast. The world’s going to end because of people like that.
On the twenty-fourth day since the zombie outbreak, I continued my daily life in my warm house, the government’s press conference had become a complete disaster, and society began to collapse in earnest. It was as if the darkness brought by the rolling blackouts had finally settled over the world.