No Time for Denial
There are five stages to accepting death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. But perhaps because it was an apocalypse where death had become commonplace, the group of hikers skipped the first stage entirely. They didn’t waste time on pointless denial. They moved straight into anger and bargaining—calling for rescue, searching for escape routes, threatening me.
I paced the rooftop in slow circles, gazing down. Several bodies already lay sprawled on the ground. People who had tried scaling the wall with bare hands only to slip and fall. Others crushed under bricks I’d hurled. A few who had knotted blankets into a makeshift rope and been struck by the ladder I threw down as they descended. They littered the pavement like discarded trash. I wondered idly if enough of them piled up, they might cushion a fall.
“I’d like to clear those away…” I muttered.
Jeon Dohyeong, arriving for his shift, shook his head. “You’d get shot the moment you got close.”
“True enough.”
They had one pistol between them. They’d already fired it into the sky as a warning. Going down to tidy corpses might just turn me into one. The only real answer was to keep throwing from the rooftop—whack-a-mole style, killing anyone who poked their head out.
I gave Jeon Dohyeong a light tap and yawned widely. “Stayed up all night. I’m sleepy. Watch carefully. If anyone shows up claiming they’ll rescue them, yell.”
“Got it. But… what about Mr. Park Yanggun’s family? He was desperate to save them. Should we tie them up in the room?”
“That’s…”
Park Yanggun’s family was definitely a problem. This wasn’t a real prison. If they cleared the junk piled against the door, it would open easily. I doubted he could control them. The commotion had already started.
When Jeon Dohyeong and I approached the railing and looked down, we saw Park Yanggun’s ex-wife storming out, face twisted with rage.
“How could you do this? Is this why you took us in? So you could kill people and steal from them?”
“Stop! Hey, just calm down!”
Park Yanggun tried to grab her while she shook him off. At the same time, the people locked inside shouted through the windows.
“Save us!”
“Just open the door!”
Their voices still carried strength. Were they not even hot? Did they still have water?
As his ex-wife drew closer, I picked up a brick and hurled it hard at the ground. It slammed into a car with a loud bang. Silence fell.
Park Yanggun strode over and seized her hand. “Let’s not do anything dangerous. We have a daughter, remember?”
“…You’ve changed. I understood the stealing—called it a sickness. But it was never this bad. You weren’t truly evil.”
She stared at him as if trying to bore holes through his skull. Park Yanggun turned his head, avoiding her eyes. He seemed to mutter something, but from the rooftop his voice didn’t carry. All I heard was her near-scream.
“Those were the people who helped us when we thought we’d die without you! When we thought we’d die together with our daughter!”
“We’re divorced! How am I supposed to stay by your side?”
“You’re the one who demanded the divorce! Said it was embarrassing for the child! Isn’t this more embarrassing?”
“This is normal in the city! You’ve only lived in the mountains so you don’t know how the world works!”
The argument was rapidly descending into childishness. Just then Jeon Dohyeong tapped my arm and pointed across the street.
“Zombies incoming.”
“They really are. …Zombies are coming! Back off! If you want to die, come inside quickly! I’ll kill you myself!”
Park Yanggun’s ex-wife jerked her head up. I waved the brick at her.
“No, you idiot!”
Park Yanggun panicked, grabbed her, and dragged her back into the villa. As if filling the empty street, awakened zombies poured in like a tide.
I scratched my head. Returning to my comfortable house to sleep felt awkward now. I glanced down at the torn tent. The body inside had fallen into eternal sleep. I’d rest there.
“Let’s throw these corpses outside. And strip the clothes—tear them off. We’ll need rags to wipe up blood.”
“Uh… you’re really sleeping here?”
“Going back feels pointless, and we should stay close in case something urgent happens.”
We hurled the bodies far from the rooftop, cleaned the tent with the torn clothing, and I drifted into a shallow sleep inside the sweltering tent.
“Wake up. People who look like firefighters are here. Hey? Wake up!”
Slap!
A sharp sting completely banished the drowsiness. My cheek burned. I blinked in confusion, rubbing it.
What the—?
Jeon Dohyeong pointed urgently beyond the rooftop railing. “People who look like firefighters seem to have come to rescue them.”
“Uh… wait. Did someone just hit me?”
“I did. The situation was urgent and you wouldn’t wake up. They’re almost at the villa!”
“Really…?”
Well, hitting me to wake me up was the right call. My cheek still hurt like hell, though.
I rose with difficulty. It was bright daylight, and the heat had kept me from sleeping properly. My body felt drained of all strength. After struggling into my clothes and gathering my weapons, I felt weighed down.
I trudged to the railing and looked down. Fully armed firefighters were advancing while mowing down zombies. Thick protective gear, sturdy helmets, fire axes that cleaved people apart. They looked more effective at killing zombies than soldiers.
“Stay calm! Don’t lose your footing!”
One axe swing dropped a zombie. Their attacks bounced off the thick fireproof suits. When a wave surged, the firefighters used cars as barriers to keep from being overrun and kept swinging their axes. The red blades glistened with fresh blood.
They maintained decent formation and had clearly learned tactics through experience. Firefighters were every bit as dangerous as police.
I couldn’t picture how to take them down. Fireproof suits—Molotovs probably won’t work. Would a pistol even penetrate? And they’re firefighters. Don’t they treat gunshot wounds themselves?
Human tanks. Melee was out of the question. Maybe that power was exactly how they’d survived this long against both zombies and people.
Jeon Dohyeong stared blankly before suddenly tapping me. “What are you going to do? These… hikers? It looks like they’re the ones who called them.”
“…We’ll talk.”
I wasn’t scared. Look at those zombies—they’d charged eagerly but were now retreating. I avoided them because they were filthy. There was no point fighting fully armed cowards. If they fought fair, without armor, only with weapons, maybe then.
“Stay here and guard the roof.”
I stretched deeply, opened the rooftop door, and went inside. The shaded interior was slightly cooler. Suddenly the hiking club president’s voice drifted from beyond the entrance.
“Let’s meet outside somewhere.”
The firefighters they’d requested for rescue had arrived, and his tone was smug. I smiled awkwardly, sat down on the stairs to the second floor, and waited for them to come up.
Muffled voices and heavy footsteps approached.
“This the right address? Let’s finish quick, grab the food, and leave. Can’t stand wearing this in the heat.”
“Yes, senior. But if they’re being held captive, the one holding them…”
The firefighters climbing the stairs with axes in hand stopped. Our eyes met through the transparent visor of a fire helmet. The aura was chilling—axes and suits smeared with zombie blood, the sheer number of them filling the stairwell. The pressure was intense.
I pulled out my pistol as if greeting old friends and shook it. “I’m the one holding them captive. What brings you here?”
“…”
The narrow stairwell of an old villa. Firefighters bulked up by their gear could only ascend one at a time. The environment favored me. Of course, if they fought with everything they had, I’d lose—but I needed to show I wasn’t an easy target. When power is too unbalanced, conversation becomes impossible.
The lead firefighter stared hard at my pistol, then slowly adjusted his grip on the axe.
“The people locked up there requested us. Asked us to rescue them.”
“You came all this way on a hot day for nothing. So, are you really going to rescue them? Think it over carefully.”
I swung the pistol playfully toward the entrance where the captives were held, then pointed at myself with my other hand.
“Fight a perfectly healthy person like me to save people who are already dead men walking. Or let the dead stay dead and avoid making unnecessary enemies. You know which choice makes sense, right?”
It was simple cost-benefit analysis. To me, those locked inside were already corpses. Stepping up to save them would mean conflict with an armed survivor. Even firefighters whose job was saving lives had been worn down by the apocalypse; they should be capable of that much calculation.
The firefighter offered no moral lecture. After a long silence, he sighed.
“Look, we need to eat and survive too. We’ll just open the door. After that, it’s your problem.”
“That won’t work. How about this instead?”
I leaned forward and wiggled the pistol. “Work with me. Kill those bastards and I’ll give you nearly all the resources. I’ll only take a small share.”
“This line of work falls apart without trust. Attacking your own client makes you a looter, doesn’t it?”
What trust? The reward was simply too low. Even Rider Zero had openly said she couldn’t run a business if she sold information, yet she did it anyway. In the first place, this wasn’t a world where trust or business lasted long.
“Looter—you put it perfectly. Why side with the looters? This area was ours originally. Those people invaded and settled in. So.”
I met his eyes seriously. “Just kill them. I want nothing else. Take all their supplies—wild greens, spears, hiking clothes, everything.”
“What the hell are you talking about? When did we invade?!”
Apparently eavesdropping from beyond the entrance, one of the hikers shouted. I couldn’t let that stand. I turned and shouted back.
“What’s a guy who brought every weapon imaginable—spears, pistols—complaining about? If you wanted to talk, you should’ve come unarmed. The moment you showed up armed, it became a threat.”
“How are we supposed to move without weapons?!”
“Then you shouldn’t have moved at all. Zombies or you people—anyone who comes looking is a risk factor. There’s barely any water left in the tank anyway. Why should we share it?”
There was no clear right or wrong. The simple victim-perpetrator dynamic of confinement had twisted into a messy survival contest. Good and evil had no place here.
The firefighter tapped his helmet as if his head ached, then began discussing with his team.
“What do we do? This got complicated.”
“Killing people is…”
I waited patiently. They wouldn’t decide to kill me here.
Their discussion grew heated. Some argued killing was irreversible. Others said requests were rare, scavenging couldn’t sustain them, and they couldn’t pass up this chance. They seemed split between abandoning the request and eliminating the hikers.
I chimed in at appropriate moments. Zombies were once people too, yet you’ve already spilled blood. Some wander searching for family turned zombie. Everyone carries a zombie in their heart. Loot them and you’ll get a mountain of supplies.
They shot me murderous looks, but in the end—whether for the families they had to feed or the immediate gnawing hunger—they chose to kill the hikers.
That was what we actually exchanged. Out loud, we said something else to reassure the hikers.
“Still, a request is a request. If you fight us, you’ll definitely die too. Just step aside.”
“No, wait… Instead, those people have to leave. They can’t stay here.”
“That’s your problem.”
I pretended to back down while the firefighters skillfully cleared the junk. The entrance opened immediately. A hiker with a spear burst out, eyes gleaming.
“Thank you! You can collect the payment from the president. And you—you!”
I hid behind the firefighters and smirked. He shouldn’t be pointing that spear at me.
Thud. A fire axe split the hiker’s skull. The motion was mechanical, identical to how they killed zombies. The sudden ambush continued. Any counterattack from the hikers was easily blocked. The difference in experience was obvious. They had made killing zombies their main job; you could feel the accumulated know-how from fighting weapon-wielding undead.
Even the closed entrance doors didn’t slow them. When hikers in other units realized what was happening and locked their doors, the firefighters—who were experts at breaching—practically smashed them open. In the end, every hiker was eliminated except the club president with the pistol, whom they left locked on the fourth floor to die.
“There’s this much food?”
The firefighters gathered the hikers’ bags and checked inside. Their pupils trembled nonstop.
“All this from one looting run…”
People who had somehow survived as moral rescuers had just tasted the sweetness of plunder. One fight had netted them enough supplies to last for days. Even the firefighters who had faintly clung to duty and ethics now focused on the flowing blood less than on the food.
I watched their backs with trembling hands.
What is this?
In a fight without guns, no one could beat these people. They looked like they were about to become looters themselves.