The Second Wave
After setting up the scarecrows made from military corpses, I felt the psychological distance between me and the people on the street sharpen with painful clarity. My criminal companions remained the same, but ordinary residents began subtly avoiding me. Greetings grew awkward, eyes darted away, and casual social exchanges dwindled dramatically. Figures they don't appreciate my artistic sensibility. I scratched my head, feeling the melancholy of a lonely artist. I'd decorated the street with considerable flair, yet here I was, getting the cold shoulder. Strangely, this rejection stirred up memories of pre-apocalypse daily life and filled me with a peculiar nostalgia. I always got rejected from those scenario contests too. In a way, things were better now. At least some people actually liked the street I'd created.
I walked over to the window and gazed outside. The sky was dyed with sunset hues. Long shadows from the Corpse Crucifixes stretched across the street.
"Heehee."
"What an idiot."
Two elementary school kids, decked out in masks and gloves, were messing around in front of a tied-up zombie. The children who had once burst into tears at the sight of the street had adapted quickly. Now they were tormenting the undead. They poked its face with a tree branch. The tightly bound zombie let out a guttural krrraaak and twisted its head to avoid the stick. Sometimes it thrashed violently, jaws gaping wide as if it wanted nothing more than to devour the annoying brats.
"Graaah!"
"Run!"
The kids would shriek with laughter and scamper away, only to creep back and resume their game. I watched the scene with a warm, satisfied smile. Children were pure. And because of that purity, they adapted remarkably well to this apocalypse-ravaged world. They accepted my scarecrows without any prejudice. Is this also a form of art? How amusing.
But a child's innocence is always suppressed by adults.
"Hey! Didn't Mom tell you not to go out on the street?"
A wicked mother burst out from the villa, smacking the kids on their backs with sharp slaps before dragging them away. The children just giggled. A peaceful scene from the apocalypse. How long it would last, I couldn't say.
I sat back down in front of the computer and connected to the internet, which somehow still functioned in fits and starts. Many sites crashed without warning, but some remained operational. The shadow of the apocalypse loomed heavily over the web—filled with depressing news, proof of human madness, and endless doomsday theories. I filtered out the worthless information and scanned through the rest.
"Fires... those are seriously terrifying."
A wildfire that had been raging for days in some distant neighborhood had finally been extinguished by rain. Firefighting personnel were meaningless now. Even if firefighters remained across the country, there was no way to transport them or their equipment. Highways and national roads were all blocked. Someone had captured the state of the roads with a drone, and the footage was brutally clear: barricades built by survivors, abandoned cars strewn across lanes, massive pile-ups on expressways with no one left to clear them. Even if factories producing goods were still intact, the veins that carried those goods had been severed.
Modern society really was just a machine.
With gears falling out one by one, society was gradually grinding to a halt. Reading through various posts, I came to that realization. Neighborhoods suffering blackouts from failed electrical grids. Areas with water shortages due to broken water and sewage systems. Gas stations that had run completely dry. The infrastructure and resources that symbolized modern civilization were vanishing.
Perhaps the world we once knew had already died, and we were simply watching its corpse roll forward on sheer inertia.
"The apocalypse..."
Yet people kept living. Human adaptability was a terrifying thing. When the world became a corpse, people survived by tearing it apart and devouring the pieces. I immersed myself in this strange sentiment and continued reading people's posts. Since the apocalypse had progressed quite far, many were now sharing wisdom about repairs and recycling. I borrowed that knowledge as well—particularly the farming expertise we lacked most desperately. We had planted seeds and followed manuals, but we had no idea if we were doing it right. I searched for someone who could fill those gaps and reached out.
An expert who had farmed in the city. A professional farmer who made money from agriculture. A master of indoor cultivation.
The dealer who grew marijuana in secret inside a building was indeed an expert. He used grow lights, of course, and had even built a makeshift greenhouse. I consulted with this professional marijuana farmer.
The knowledge I traded for my minor survival tips from the marijuana dealer proved genuinely helpful. He shared practical know-how without holding back, transforming our clumsy indoor farm into something respectable. We separated the haphazardly mixed pots by seed type and installed simple devices to maintain the right temperatures for each. Watering became easier too. Even the randomly placed lights found their proper positions.
After finishing a round of reorganization, Jeon Dohyeong wiped the sweat from his forehead and glanced at me.
"Where did you get this kind of knowledge? It's incredibly detailed."
"I found a guy on messenger who grows and sells weed. Asked him about it."
"...Yeah, that makes sense. I guess he's a farmer too."
Anyway, there was no need to recruit him. We'd gotten the knowledge we needed. I changed the subject. What was the mood like these days? Did he sense any signs of an impending attack?
"People aren't coming around anymore. You don't think they're plotting something behind our backs? Forming alliances, preparing weapons, recruiting our people, luring zombies, getting ready to set fires, dumping zombie corpses into the villa's water tank, messing with power poles or gas lines—"
"Stop it with the horrible scenarios. Who would go that far?"
I blinked. Wasn't that the basics if you wanted to attack? After seeing how nomads who wandered in search of electricity operated, attacking infrastructure seemed like a valid strategy. I'd learned from that very example myself. Jeon Dohyeong let out a deep sigh and turned away.
"Let's just go to the strategy meeting. The old man apparently got some information."
"Really?"
Information, huh. The old man, who adapted more with each passing day, had been giving out small amounts of food to lone survivors in exchange for using them as informants. It seemed his efforts had borne fruit. We headed to the villa room where meetings were held. Park Yanggun and Sa Gihyeok were already waiting. The old man hadn't arrived yet.
Sa Gihyeok, fiddling with his phone, gave a slight nod. His words carried an oddly sarcastic undertone.
"You're late. Must have been quite busy."
"Can you talk nicer? It always sounds like you're mocking me."
Jeon Dohyeong, who disliked conmen, frowned deeply and grumbled. Sa Gihyeok shrugged awkwardly.
"I was just saying you worked hard..."
He quickly changed the subject and held out his phone screen toward us.
"Have you seen this? Someone recorded a zombie observation video. It's pretty scary."
"Zombies are always sca—"
I was about to dismiss it out of disinterest, but the moment I saw the CCTV footage, my eyes locked onto the screen. My mouth fell open and goosebumps erupted across my entire body.
"Uwaaaaah!"
The zombie had opened a glass door. By pulling it.
A scream escaped me involuntarily as my body jerked backward. Pulling a door open? It was utterly terrifying. Pushing doors was human instinct, yet this was a horrific act that defied that very instinct.
Zombies aren't human. They're monsters.
As I trembled, the others stared at me in bewilderment.
"...It's just opening a door. Their learning speed is insane, but is this really that shocking?"
"Do you have some kind of phobia about CCTV footage?"
"No, no. The door. The door."
Sa Gihyeok suddenly rewound the video to the part where the zombie opened the door.
"Does this scare you?"
Even watching it again gave me chills. I rubbed my arms frantically, trying to smooth down the goosebumps. The intelligence to suppress instinct and pull open a door. The reason it was lingering in the commercial district...
"They've been eating all the packaged foods and refrigerated supplies."
Most zombies stayed in large marts or shopping areas. But this zombie also needed to eat to survive. In other words, zombies that had already completed their learning phase were surviving by consuming the stockpiled food in restaurants and marts. So if the food in those commercial areas ever ran out...
It would be a wave.
The second wave was coming.
Zombies deprived of food—zombies that had learned to some degree—would surge into human territory. Of course, commercial districts had far more resources than residential areas, so the timing of the wave would be delayed somewhat. But it was inevitable.
Park Yanggun, who had been dozing off, narrowed his eyes as if he'd also sensed the threat.
"The world's a harsh place. Looks like people are gonna have to fight each other now."
Zombies swarming commercial districts. It would be far better to target residential homes than try to deal with all of them. Groups would form to plunder weaker groups. Zombies would devour the resources in shopping areas, humans would fight humans, and infrastructure would slowly crumble...
I wasn't wrong after all.
My prediction from the early days of the zombie outbreak had been correct. This was a primitive world where hunting, combat, force, and plunder were essential. Securing a villa house instead of a mart had been one step ahead in adaptation. If so, perhaps it was time to start thinking about what would happen after the city reached the end of its lifespan.
Around that time, the old man entered.
"Sorry I'm a bit late. I was cross-verifying the information as best I could."
"What information?"
Everyone looked at him. The old man sat down heavily and spoke in a subtle tone.
"It looks like they won't touch us for the time being."
Was that even possible? Their greed for food couldn't disappear overnight. Not unless food fell from the sky.
"Did they attack a mart or something?"
"No. The military is distributing combat rations."
"The military?"
I clenched my fist tightly. Hope and anxiety flashed through me simultaneously. Had the military finally begun to move? Were they taking advantage of the zombies being concentrated in commercial areas? No, that couldn't be it. If they were preparing for battle, they wouldn't be doing something like handing out rations. They would have entered combat already. Could this be an opportunity to recruit deserters? Or at least obtain real firearms?
The old man shook his head, saying he didn't know the exact details.
"I don't know the precise situation either. We'll have to see it ourselves."
"I'll go with you."
I quickly raised my hand. Information about the military was essential. How intact were they? How many infected were among them? Were there any military units nearby worth targeting? A day passed like that, and we headed to the location where the military was supposedly distributing combat rations.
Because of the terrible road conditions, the spot where the military handed out combat rations changed every day. It had to be somewhere accessible by vehicle, yet far from the zombie-infested commercial streets. By the time the old man, I, and a few others from Villa Street arrived after a difficult journey, a large crowd had already gathered, forming a long line.
Countless people swarmed the area, all having survived somehow. This wasn't just a simple supply line. An atmosphere like a marketplace had formed around those waiting for combat rations.
"Cigarettes! Anything! Trading for cola!"
"Is there an electrician here?"
"Anyone with glasses? I'll adjust them to fit your eyes as best I can!"
"Looking for people!"
This was the power of a functioning military. Its mere existence guaranteed safety and brought order. It could also become a terrifying entity.
"Combat rations aren't urgent, so let's split up for now. Get whatever you need."
"Alright."
We dispersed as well. I walked slowly through the crowd, observing the people. There were truly a lot of them. Some were promoting their own groups. I caught a glimpse of Rider Zero and even some firefighters.
"Hello. Please take my business card."
A firefighter stopped me and handed over a card. It had some strange name about a safety and security company. I stared at it blankly, and the firefighter smiled awkwardly.
"It's a company started by retired firefighter seniors and their families. If you need any heavy labor, please contact us. We're armed with fire axes and fireproof suits, so zombie cleanup is no problem."
Not active firefighters, but a related enterprise?
"...What about the current firefighters?"
The firefighter smiled bitterly.
"The ones still left are still responding to fires. If they can't control the blazes, we're all in big trouble. We supplement our food with what the company obtains. So if you have any work, please contact us. We also accept donations. The food you give us is what keeps the fire stations running."
Unlike the police, they didn't seem to have been attacked yet, so some humanity remained. I nodded vaguely and headed toward my destination.
The soldiers. The troops controlling this massive crowd. Their numbers weren't small, but they weren't particularly large either. Their atmosphere and morale were far from good.
...This isn't the military atmosphere I remember.
I quietly observed the soldiers. It wasn't the look of men exhausted from harsh training or emergency situations. Rather, it seemed as if they had experienced something far more horrific.