Police, Thieves, and Zombies
A field sown with police, thieves, and zombies—or cabbages, lettuce, green onions, potatoes, whatever the hell it was. The streetlights were far away, so the only light cutting through the thick darkness was from the farming shed up ahead.
“…”
“…”
We instinctively backed away, phones in hand. Reporting it would make noise. What if the zombie heard and came closer?
The farming shed glowed under the white beam of an electric lantern. It looked like the farmer had finished his day’s work and sat down to drink makgeolli—bowls of half-eaten food, several bottles, and scattered brass dishes littered the place.
A zombie dressed in farmer’s clothes shuffled around. Every so often it would plunge its head into a bowl, eating with wet, gurgling sounds and drooling.
“Let’s report it.”
We retreated farther before pulling out our phones. I held up an old model with the SIM card removed. Emergency calls still worked without one. 119, 112, that kind of thing.
“Wait a second.”
Jeon Dohyeong tapped at his screen. The white glow turned his masked face into something ghostly. I caught the sheen of cold sweat and the way his eyes trembled.
He finished setting up the audio file.
“Ready.”
“Good.”
I held my breath and dialed. 112. Speakerphone on, the ringtone droning. I held the receiver of my phone right up to the speaker on his.
The call connected.
- This is Emergency Report 112.
At the same time, Jeon Dohyeong played the file. A woman’s voice poured from the speaker.
The operator tried to respond—
- Caller, please calm down and evacuate first—
—but I slammed the phone to the ground and immediately ended the call.
The disconnected screen stared back at me. I let out a long breath as I picked it up. Jeon Dohyeong did the same.
It felt like pulling a prank call on a government office on April Fools’. The thrill of doing something bad mixed with nerves, leaving me both tense and strangely excited.
“We’re really doing this,” Jeon Dohyeong muttered, sounding half out of it.
I glanced at him and gave him a light shove.
“One last equipment check.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
We pulled on work gloves and flexed our hands, practicing the chokehold we’d learned online. One arm slides into the crook of the other, the free hand pressing down on the back of the head. Solid technique. While the cops were busy with the zombie, we’d sneak up from behind and lock it in.
Jeon Dohyeong suddenly spoke, gripping the hand axe I’d passed him.
“Wouldn’t it be better to just kill them? Subduing them like this feels like it’s going to fail.”
I shook my head. He was short and clearly didn’t trust himself in close quarters, but killing police wasn’t smart.
“No. Keeping them alive is better than killing them. It’s more efficient.”
“I don’t get it…”
Jeon Dohyeong’s leg was shaking when it suddenly stopped. His voice cracked.
“Uh… uh.”
“What is it?”
I looked at his face but couldn’t read much through the dark and the mask. All I saw was his hand pointing.
“Zombies. Zombies.”
Not from the shed. Close to us.
I whipped my head around. Heavy footsteps. The wet, gurgling moans only zombies made. Not one. Shapes—too dark to tell if they were people or shadows—were writhing across the wide field, coming straight at us.
“Ah.”
My mind spun, piecing it together. The farmer and villagers must have been infected together. They turned while eating dinner in the shed. One ran into the field and the rest followed. They heard the report, saw the phone light, and came running.
We were fucked.
I trembled as I spoke.
“How long until the police get here?”
“Even if they rush, it’ll be at least ten minutes…”
And there were at least five zombies. On open ground.
I heard Jeon Dohyeong grind his teeth. He spun to run and I grabbed his wrist, whispering.
“Quiet. They haven’t spotted us yet.”
He froze. The zombies really were shuffling slowly, just like I said. Quiet withdrawal was the correct move. No—luring them was still necessary.
I turned on the old phone. The light drew them. The zombies that had been wandering aimlessly now marched in a straight line toward us.
“Why the hell did you turn that on?” Jeon Dohyeong hissed, voice thick with suppressed rage.
I ignored him and quickly set an alarm. One minute, though in practice it would be less than sixty seconds. Jeon Dohyeong let out a short, impressed breath when he saw the screen. I hurled the phone as far as I could.
The zombies changed direction, chasing the light.
“When the alarm goes off, we pull back.”
“Got it.”
We counted. One second. Two. My heart hammered like it was trying to break out of my chest. Sweat slicked the inside of my gloves. We barely breathed.
Gurgle— One of the zombies from behind drew close.
I turned to stone, even stopping my lungs. The animalistic moan. The irregular footsteps. It passed right beside us.
My head went blank. The moment my hand instinctively closed around the hammer—
Thud.
Thankfully the deep darkness and the phone’s light saved us. The zombie shuffled past without noticing.
My breath came out rough. Too rough.
The zombie turned.
Framed in the lantern’s white light like a halo, face half-shadowed, it crouched.
We staggered backward.
Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep—!
The phone screamed its ugly alarm. A sonic assault on the brain.
“Kraaaagh!”
“Kueeeek!”
The zombies lost it. The ones heading for the phone broke into a sprint. The one that had been suspicious of us roared and spun around. In seconds they were all clustered around the device, smashing it—stomping, kicking, even picking it up and throwing it, then chasing it again. Their entire focus locked on the noisy little rectangle.
Suddenly the strength left my body. Tension bled out and exhaustion flooded in.
“…”
“…”
We moved away from the horde in silence, careful not to make a sound. When we’d put some distance between us, Jeon Dohyeong spoke.
“Hey. The plan’s screwed.”
I glanced back. Thanks to throwing the phone near the shed, the faint light let me count them.
One, two, three, four, five.
Zombies in village clothes, farmer clothes, and the one that had been eating from the bowls. Five total.
Even if four cops showed up it would be dicey.
I wanted their gear, but this was too dangerous.
They looked older, but they were still zombies.
My hesitation lasted only a second.
“Yeah, let’s pull out—”
That was when it happened.
Whoosh. Thump.
Beep-beep-beep-beeeeep—
A phone landed right in front of my feet. Screen webbed with cracks. The alarm warped and grotesque, like a broken speaker.
The cursed thing the zombies had kicked, smashed, and thrown had come back to us.
I lifted my head with trembling hands.
“Kuaaaaah!”
“Kueeek!”
Five zombies charged like wild boars.
In that instant, Jeon Dohyeong and I thought the exact same thing.
Without a word we both spun and sprinted.
Behind us came the crunch of the phone being pulverized. The alarm cut off.
The zombies kept chasing, howling those awful screams. Five sets of footsteps thundered like tanks.
Huff. Huff.
Breath scraped in my throat. My heartbeat roared in my ears.
Luckily the night was dark and the field had no lights, so they hadn’t caught us yet. But that was only a matter of time.
Those farmer zombies chased us like they’d caught crop thieves, relentless. I didn’t know whether they were following the sound of our footsteps or our ragged breathing, and I had no energy to think about it.
“Shouldn’t the police be here by now?”
“There!”
Jeon Dohyeong suddenly leapt.
I instinctively searched the darkness for light. A police car parked in the distance, blue and red lights flashing. Two figures approaching, flashlight beams cutting white lines through the night.
Strength I didn’t know I had surged up.
We ran toward them, waving our arms wildly.
“Here! Over here!”
“Help us!”
Maybe they couldn’t hear. No reaction.
I clenched my teeth and dug into the ground, sprinting with everything I had until I could hear their voices.
The zombies’ footsteps grew fainter. A man and a woman’s voices drifted over, hazy.
I smiled.
Not because it was good news that the government was failing. Because the people who would save us had finally arrived.
Jeon Dohyeong and I screamed at the top of our lungs. Even with burning lungs, our voices carried.
“Here! Zombies behind us!”
“Hurry!”
The flashlight swung toward us. The two officers immediately drew their weapons. The woman leveled a loaded taser. The older-looking man jingled two pairs of handcuffs.
“Evacuate behind us first—”
The exhausted voice cut off. The flashlight shook.
The officers’ eyes widened when they saw what was behind us. A scream tore out of one of them.
“There’s more than one!”
They must have counted all five.
We ducked behind them and watched the professionals go to work.
The zombies charged like madmen. The distance closed fast.
The officers had clearly been through this before. They didn’t waste time calling for backup. They acted.
Bang—!
The taser fired without warning. A sound like a bursting balloon, electrodes slamming into a zombie. The creature collapsed, paralyzed.
“Shit!”
The man glared at us like he wanted to kill us, then drew his pistol and pulled the trigger.
Gunshots cracked through the night. One rubber bullet, two less-lethal rounds, two live rounds. They stitched across the zombies.
One went down instantly. The other three kept coming, limping, bleeding, but still moving.
“Kraaaagh!”
The zombies’ screams sounded almost like human shrieks.
“Batons out!”
The man slung his pistol on its tether and snapped open a collapsible baton. The woman kept the taser firing with one hand while drawing her own baton with the other.
Then they collided.
Swinging batons met zombies that felt no pain and kept rushing forward like berserkers.
“…”
I took several steps back and gripped my hammer. The red rubber of the work gloves squeaked.
Greed for their gear and fear of the zombies froze me in place.
Fear won.
In that short span of time, both officers were on the ground.
The flashlight rolled, painting the blood-soaked field in sweeping arcs. A pistol and bulletproof vest lay slick with zombie blood. The creatures turned toward us.
“Gurgle.”
As if venting their rage on the cop who had shot at them, the zombies slowly rose again. The one that had been tasered recovered and began dragging the wired gun behind it as it approached.
Running was the only option left.
“Run!”
Jeon Dohyeong and I sprinted.
My steps felt heavy. Regret pressed down on my shoulders like a physical weight.
I hadn’t planned to kill the police. At worst I was going to infect them with the virus and send them back.
Instead they had died a whole month early in the hands of zombies.
Their unexpected deaths didn’t feel like someone else’s problem.
Another zombie victory.
A world where people died meaninglessly.
A world where even a single piece of supplies was hard to come by.
This was the apocalypse.