The Landlord Couple
So-hye, An Ga-hee, and I climbed the stairs together, only to find ourselves blocked almost immediately.
"Huh."
A barricade had been thrown up halfway up the stairs leading to the fourth floor.
"Back on the rooftop you bitched about not wanting any barricades, not wanting to stand watch…"
"Weren't you the same, An Ga-hee?"
She scowled at my jab.
"…Sorry for being a selfish bitch, okay!"
"As long as you get it now. More importantly, step back a little."
Clearing the obstacle wasn't hard. It was a crude pile of furniture they'd dragged over, nothing more.
I was lifting things off the desk one by one when a roar exploded from right above us, accompanied by a heavy crash.
"Hey, you sons of bitches! What the fuck are you doing!"
I dumped everything still on the desk in a heap. The moment most of it was clear, Kang Tae-ik appeared in front of me clutching a kitchen knife, jabbing a finger and bellowing.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, you bastard!"
"Trying to get up to the fourth floor. Is that a problem?"
"Is it a problem? Fuck you! Didn't you hear the screaming just now? How am I supposed to know if that was you or some other asshole!? And why the hell are you trying to come up to the fourth floor, huh?"
Veins stood out on his face as he snarled.
"An Ga-hee says she has business up there."
"An Ga-hee?"
I casually stepped aside. Kang Tae-ik's eyes widened a fraction.
"Miss me? Long time no see."
"Wow, you fucking slut. You've been holed up in your place like a rat this whole time and now you suddenly drag a guy along? Huh? Is this what I think it is?"
"Think whatever you want."
He started waving the kitchen knife around in the air. He clearly meant it as a threat, but the motion was clumsy as hell.
So much for being a gangster. Guess he was never the type to get his own hands dirty.
"Get the fuck out of here, you bastards. One more step up these stairs and I'll stab you dead on the spot. Got it!?"
"One step."
Out of pure curiosity I climbed one more stair, then lifted my head and locked eyes with Kang Tae-ik.
"Go ahead and stab me."
His eyes blazed. He tilted his chin high, flared his nostrils, and pressed himself tight against the desk.
"You son of a bitch!"
Kang Tae-ik lunged his upper body forward and thrust. I simply shifted sideways and the attack sailed past.
Whoosh!
It was fast and rough, fueled by pure rage—and that made it completely predictable.
Anger clouds judgment.
That had been the whole point.
See? Even now he was swinging with those big, telegraphed motions. That kind of shit didn't help him at all. It only made him more dangerous—to himself.
Crunch—
Just like this.
"Gyaaaaah!"
The kitchen knife clattered from Kang Tae-ik's hand. I'd grabbed his wrist and twisted.
"Hhk— you, you bastard!"
He tried to swing with his free arm, but I was faster.
Crack!
"Gyaaaaah!"
The hatchet I'd been holding in my other hand buried itself in his shoulder. The incoming hand dropped limply. A few more chops and the arm hung useless.
"Alright, alright. Talking like this is pretty rude. Come on out and let's have a proper conversation."
"No— no, no, no!"
I yanked hard on the arm I'd already broken. His body, draped over the desk, came sliding off and tumbled down the stairs. An Ga-hee and So-hye scrambled out of the way on either side.
"Khahk! Gghhhk…"
Kang Tae-ik sprawled pitifully at the bottom. I walked down, crouched in front of him, grabbed a fistful of hair, and hauled his head up.
"Hik— hiik…"
His face had gone paper-white. He slowly shook his head like he couldn't believe what was happening. Tears and snot streamed down; spit dripped from his trembling chin.
"Kang Tae-ik."
"Y-yes, yes, yes!"
The second our eyes met he looked away.
"I heard you used to be a gangster. How are you this shit at using a knife?"
It was genuine curiosity.
His exposed arms were covered in tattoos, yet he was this clumsy? I'd actually been a little tense earlier. Felt like an idiot now.
"Th-that's… I, I did join an organization, but… the first time a turf war broke out… I hid under a table… and pissed myself… so they kicked me out right away…"
"Pffft!"
That laugh wasn't mine. I glanced back. An Ga-hee had a hand over her mouth, snickering.
"Wow, fuck. You put on such a tough-guy act in front of me and it turns out you were a gangster washout? Unbelievable. Just fucking unbelievable."
Kang Tae-ik's face flushed scarlet. I smirked at the way he was panting and raised the hatchet. His eyes snapped straight to it.
"From now on I'm going to ask you some questions. If your answer is even a second late, I bring this down. Understood?"
"Y-yes!"
"Why did you loot every unit on the second floor?"
"F-food, and… other stuff we needed. I figured they were all empty houses to begin with…"
"Why did you think that?"
"A few days ago I saw you and that woman over there leave together. That sealed it for me. I'd already confirmed none of the college kids who lived on the second floor ever came back…"
So he wasn't a complete idiot.
"I heard you used a master key and master passwords to clean out the second floor. That true?"
"Y-yes…"
"You couldn't have planned for a situation like this. Why make those in the first place?"
"Every time someone came to look at a place it was a pain in the ass asking for cooperation, so I just made them… Even if they came bitching later, once I stepped in they'd back off on their own…"
"Is that really all?"
I toyed with the hatchet and asked again. Kang Tae-ik gave a tiny shake of his head.
"S-sometimes I snuck into empty units and stole stuff."
"Wow, you piece of trash!"
"But only little things…"
A landlord doing that? So the ones who already have everything really do take more?
"I heard you deal with other studios around here. True?"
"Huh? Uh, y-yes…"
"Which building, and who were you trying to deal with?"
"Hosu Villa, about an eight-minute walk from here… We never even exchanged names so I don't know much. Just that he was a really fat bastard."
"Fat?"
One face suddenly floated up. A guy from the group chat that no longer even loaded.
"Glasses, face covered in acne?"
"Y-yeah, yeah! That's him!"
Park Chang-ho.
That incel bastard was there. And he'd been trying to buy An Ga-hee. I still couldn't be completely sure, but the odds were good enough.
"Wow, fuck. I almost got sold to a guy like that? That gives me actual chills…"
An Ga-hee's voice trembled.
"How did the deal with that guy start?"
"R-rumors are everywhere around here. The fat guy living at Hosu Villa buys a woman's night for food… So I went and made the deal myself…"
"And that's why you tried to sell An Ga-hee? Handing her over completely would get you way more food than just one night?"
"Y-yes…"
Kang Tae-ik snuck a glance at me and nodded. His face was growing paler by the second. The way his breathing was speeding up, he'd lost a lot of blood.
Left like this he might bleed out, but I was going to kill him anyway, so I didn't care.
"Rumors mean there are a fair number of survivors nearby, right? And you can contact them to some degree?"
"Th-there are quite a few survivors, I think. B-but I can't contact them… We never actually traded numbers…"
"Do you know which buildings around here still have survivors?"
"Th-that far… I don't really… I can't remember… Maybe there were, maybe there weren't…"
Kang Tae-ik was shaking hard. From the look of him he wasn't lying.
I'll have to move assuming there are survivors nearby.
I'd gotten everything useful out of him. Further interrogation wouldn't gain me anything.
"Good work."
"Y-yes? Th-then I…"
"An Ga-hee?"
I stood and stepped back. When I held out the axe I'd had at my waist, she took it with a curl of her lips.
"Wh-what the hell is this!? Y-you said if I talked you'd let me live!"
"I never said that. I just asked questions. You just answered. Did I make any promises beforehand?"
"Th-that's…"
"Hey. Stop thrashing and die quietly. What kind of man argues over something this small, huh?"
At An Ga-hee's sneer Kang Tae-ik bit down hard on his lip. Color flooded his face for a second and blood gushed out.
"Y-you fucking bitch…!"
"What are you gonna do if you glare at me like that? What can you even do, you bastard? Huh? Besides this shit right now, what the fuck can you do?"
"Fucking whore… I should've just killed you back then… But no, your face was decent so I figured I'd fuck you first… Fuck…"
"You pathetic piece of shit. I'd rather bite my tongue off and die than get raped by you."
Her hand went straight for Kang Tae-ik's crotch.
"Tiny dick and you still dared."
"Y-you fucking bi—"
—Squelch!
A sound that should never come from down there. Something bursting.
"Gyaaaaaaah!"
He thrashed wildly. An Ga-hee's shoulders shook with laughter, then she started bringing the axe down on his groin over and over.
Crack! Crack!
"You fucking bastard! How dare you! Try to sell me! To a piece of shit like that! You son of a bitch! Die! Die! Just fucking die!!!"
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Kang Tae-ik convulsed in agony. The back of his head, his hands, his feet kept slamming into the wall and floor, filling the stairwell with noise.
"Ugh…"
Even for someone as far from normal as me, that was hard to watch as a fellow man. So-hye seemed to feel the same; she pressed herself against me and buried her face in my chest.
Warmth followed right after.
"Hoo… hoo…"
An Ga-hee walked over with a satisfied smile, wiping sweat from her forehead like a farmer who'd just finished the harvest.
"Feel better?"
"My insides feel clean. Let's go up already. Jo Hee-ran. Gotta kill that bitch too."
"Fine by me."
But An Ga-hee's wish didn't come true.
We went through the only open door on the fourth floor. Jo Hee-ran wasn't there. A window stood wide open; looking down past it, I saw the corpse of a middle-aged woman in a flower-print dress.
Jo Hee-ran.
Kraaaaaah—
Three zombies were latched onto her body, crunching and chewing. By tomorrow there wouldn't be a single trace left that Jo Hee-ran had ever existed in this world.
"What a waste."
An Ga-hee meant it.
After the way she'd killed Kang Tae-ik, I wondered how she would have done Jo Hee-ran.
I was curious. And at the same time, I wasn't.