Gatekeeper of Salvation (1)
BEEP-BEEP— BLARE— BEEP—
“KRIEEEK!”
Several cars accelerated as if their engines had snapped, horns blaring in a continuous roar. On the street, where the salt wind off Yeongjongdo cut through everything, every zombie within earshot began chasing the vehicles at once. The horde had finally mastered the ancient art of stampeding.
“Hm. We can start moving in soon.”
Yeonggam-nim exhaled a breath that reeked of tar and cheap tobacco. Kang San screwed up his face and covered his nose and mouth with his forearm, ignoring the old veteran’s evident amusement as he peered through the shattered entrance.
The darkness beyond had swallowed the daylight whole, pressing against the broken doorway in perfect silence.
“What? Now that we’re actually going in, are your knees already knocking?”
“I’m no superhuman like you, Yeonggam-nim. Of course I’m scared.”
Kang San forced an awkward smile through his answer. He knew the ridiculous question was only a joke meant to ease the tension in his shoulders.
He took a deep breath and checked his revolver again, its bright barrel catching what little light reached them. The magazine was packed with brass cartridges, and his pulse hammered unpleasantly in his chest. He would probably have to use the gun. Even so, he hoped today was not the day.
“Phew—”
Yeonggam-nim took a long pull down to the filter of his cigarette and flicked the butt onto the ground with a weary sigh.
“...Yeonggam-nim.”
“Mm? I’ll put up with your nagging for one day. As if we don’t have enough else to worry about.”
“At least step on it, will you?”
“Fine, fine. That’s why I like you. A decent lad who nags is still better than a bastard.”
Yeonggam-nim ground the cigarette beneath his heel and walked quietly toward the entrance. Kang San followed in silence, keeping watch on their surroundings. By now, their formation had become so familiar it felt almost natural.
“Looking back, maybe I said too much about how decent this group seemed when I first joined.”
“Ha! Someone had to point it out.”
“You sound like a public-service announcement...”
Chuckling under his breath, Yeonggam-nim tossed his smartphone through the entrance.
It struck the floor with a clatter, and its pale light came to rest at the center of the store.
“Huh. Still working. Maybe I was right to buy Korean-made instead of imports.”
“Foreign goods are just as good these days.”
“Oh, come on. I saw it on the news. They can’t even honor their warranties properly!”
Their mundane bickering faded as the appointed time drew near. The smartphone began to vibrate, then let loose an alarm that shook the store’s interior.
BEEEEEEP— BEEEEEEEEP—
The alarm had clearly been designed to be as deafening as possible. The two men lifted their feet and stepped cautiously into the darkness. Glass crunched beneath their shoes as they made their way toward the phone’s harsh, dancing light.
Yeonggam-nim retrieved the silent device and squinted around the store.
“Not a single one? Hm... Is it because this is the first floor?”
“We don’t know, Yeonggam-nim. We’re outdoor specialists, not building specialists.”
“Kwahaha! That’s true enough.”
Yeonggam-nim guffawed and gave Kang San’s shoulder a light shove. Kang San returned the smile, bringing back the day they had first met: his nearly suicidal escape from the library. He had found the weapon he wanted on a dead police officer, but that had not improved his circumstances in the slightest.
A gun was merely a tool for firing bullets, and every shot produced an infernal racket. The real problem was that the noise of a zombie dying was enough to send the others into a frenzy. When it came to killing them, a firearm was a miserable tool.
Even so, Kang San could not abandon it and simply return to the library.
“I drove Ayoung away so cruelly...”
In a situation like this, useless pride was enough to keep his feet rooted to the ground. His younger sister was the only family he had left.
After enduring his self-imposed pilgrimage through hell, he had met Yeonggam-nim almost by miracle. He was certain the two of them could have sold their story as a book. In a dying world, the only ally who shared his reason for walking was a man searching for his own lost family.
“Remember one thing. A job for “Mother” is a forage, not a farm run. The moment anything looks even slightly dangerous, turn around and call the search off. Don’t look back.”
“I’ve heard that exact speech twenty times today.”
“Oi! Every word from an elder becomes your flesh and blood!”
Their laughter echoed across the cavernous store, quickly swallowed by the darkness. A steady buzz rose from a rotting carcass nearby, accompanied by the frantic flutter of flies.
“Damn flies. They ought to be laying their eggs on the zombies, not this!”
Yeonggam-nim glared at the sodden remains of spoiled food scattered across the floor. Even so, Lotte Mart had one undeniable advantage: the first floor had been packed with food from the very beginning.
Their most important objective was to determine whether any edible food existed inside at all.
“We should head for the dry goods or the canned-food section.”
“Indeed.”
They moved farther inside, their shoes crunching through black blood and shattered glass.
“Always watch the floor as you move. You don’t want some head-only vermin sinking its teeth into your ankle before you notice it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Their meticulous search inevitably slowed. Though as steady as turtles, they checked every shelf and corner without skipping a thing, and by the end both their faces were beaded with sweat.
“...Something about this feels wrong.”
“Should we turn back?”
Kang San asked without hesitation. Up to now, neither Yeonggam-nim’s instincts nor his long years of experience had ever led them into a loss.
Yeonggam-nim deliberated for a moment, then gave a small shake of his head.
“Hm. No. If we give up here too, we’ll have trouble supplying the group as soon as tomorrow.”
“...You’ve grown quite fond of the group.”
“Heh. As if you haven’t? You and that younger sister of yours who used to sing—you sobbed until you had no dignity left.”
Kang San’s face turned crimson. Unable to answer, he stammered through a reply as he remembered reuniting with his sister and then crying like a child.
“Still, I’m glad. In the end, we really did find each other.”
“Your family will survive too.”
“......They have to.”
The mood grew heavier as they searched the canned-goods aisle. Yeonggam-nim found plenty of cans with plenty of shelf life remaining.
Watching the cans vanish, Kang San’s face filled with open wonder.
“Wow... I still can’t believe it. You’re actually Awakened.”
“Ah, this is just a bonus feature. Want me to show you some real magic?”
Yeonggam-nim’s face brightened again. With a self-satisfied flourish, he raised one hand.
“Don’t. No matter how many times I see it, it looks like a street performance.”
“Tch. Cocky little whelp.”
As the mood loosened, Kang San’s thoughts returned to what had happened in the library. Yoon Ayoung had been a Pre-infected girl who insisted that she was Awakened. Everything she had said had been true.
“Thank God. I really am glad I didn’t turn her away back then.”
Admittedly, he had harbored some resentment toward her and had not taken everything she said at face value. He had nearly been talked around by Lee Gyeongmin. Even so, he had been the one person willing to defend her anyway.
Seong Gaeul had called her strange because of her eyes, but Seong Gaeul rarely thought highly of anyone. Put the two of them together, though, and they might make an unexpectedly good team.
“By the way, what was that Awakened girl’s ability again?”
The question came so abruptly that Kang San’s thoughts snapped back to the present.
“Her ability? Didn’t I tell you what she used to do?”
“This young man, how many disasters have we been through together? One glance is enough to show that we understand each other. That is what they call ‘kindred spirits.’ Do young people even know a simple word like that these days?”
“That isn’t difficult, Yeonggam-nim. Young people know plenty of simple words these days.”
Kang San lightly teased the old veteran as he tossed a can across the aisle. Yeonggam-nim caught it nimbly, and it vanished into his inventory with a soft snap.
“According to her, she can sense danger.”
“Oh, that’s an excellent ability. Did she have a class? Ah, a Second Awakening, was it?”
“Yeonggam-nim, I’m not Awakened. I don’t know what those terms mean.”
Kang San knew they were supposed to search the building as quietly as possible, making no sound at all. But when the darkness was so complete that not even the next step was visible, even silence could drive a person mad. Far too few people could withstand that kind of pressure.
“Anyone who reacts to voices would already have bolted at the sound of the alarm.”
It was know-how: the ability to endure the darkness, learned automatically through countless experiences.
“What a shame. If she had reached her Second Awakening, she would have been invaluable to the group.”
“Well... yeah.”
Kang San’s eyes lingered on some unseen distance in the darkness.
Yeonggam-nim cut through the mood before it could grow heavy again.
“Young whelp, greed is already glittering in both your eyes. Come on. You act as though you’ll die without your younger sister, and yet you still have the nerve to covet that little Awakened.”
“Don’t puff yourself up like a pedant and take me the wrong way. I’m telling you not to worry. The moment the group saw that little Awakened’s abilities, they began clamoring for ‘Mother’ to buy her. You’ve at least secured one connection to a girl younger than you.”
“...It’s deeply embarrassing for an older brother like me to even hear that.”
As they talked, Kang San glanced at the now-empty canned-food aisle and smiled wryly.
Yeonggam-nim patted his shoulder with a sharp tok-tok.
“You’re good at everything, young man. That’s the problem. Don’t think about tomorrow; think only about today. There’s a line from a movie, isn’t there?”
“You saw that too?”
“Hah! I’m an early adopter too, you know!”
“That movie is more than ten years old.”
“...Fine. I’m good at talking back, at least. Ugh.”
“...Is anyone there? Aaaah— Help me—”
A faint voice drifted through the darkness, thin and unmistakably childlike. Kang San’s eyes went blurry as he stared into the black. His mind automatically supplied an image of a small child curled up in a corner, trembling and crying.
“A child. Crying. I have to save them.”
Perhaps it was the most natural response any adult could make, because Kang San’s body had already taken a step forward before he could think twice.
Yeonggam-nim seized his arm and yanked him backward.
Fresh irritation flared in Kang San at the man blocking him.
“There’s a child over there! We have to save them right now!”
He kicked and struggled, but he could not break free of Yeonggam-nim’s grip. The instant his left hand tightened around the revolver, Yeonggam-nim spoke quietly.
“It’s a mutant.”
“......Ah.”
That demon-voiced horror and its brood.
A sickening shas-sa-sa-sak crawled across the ceiling as sharp claws scraped across the tiles. The urgency in Kang San’s eyes sharpened.
“Aaaah! I’m hungry! I’m sooo hungry!”
“Damn it!”
Even after Yeonggam-nim’s warning, doubt gnawed at him. What if, against all odds, it really was a child who had survived until now?
“Couldn’t we at least check?”
“We’ll go mad at this rate. You’re getting smarter by the second. Now you’re a properly skilled angler.”
Yeonggam-nim rolled up his sleeves and raised both hands toward the ceiling.
Red light blazed across Yeonggam-nim’s entire body.
A roaring torrent of flame exploded from his hands and swept all the way to the ceiling.
Along the long trail of fire, the creatures silently surrounding them flickered into view.
“KRIEEEK!”
White mutants clung to the ceiling like bats. There were easily more than forty of them.
“With this many, even I can’t manage. We’re ending the search.”
Kang San bit down hard on his lip. His senses returned in a rush, accompanied by the iron taste of blood.
He kicked a display shelf to create a distraction. Its wheels rattled across the floor, and one of the white mutants twitched in response.
A flash of white light strobed through the store, and the moving display itself crumbled into dust. A white mutant crouched atop a smaller rack and released a grotesque shriek.
“KRIEEEEK!”
The remaining mutants on the ceiling pushed through the flames and advanced toward them. Yeonggam-nim clicked his tongue and raised one hand into the air.
“...We’re short!”
A smartphone shot out of Yeonggam-nim’s inventory, spinning through the air with an ear-splitting burst of music.
Another flash burst through the darkness. The smartphone fell silent behind them as Yeonggam-nim caught Kang San and swept him into a princess carry.
The sight was deeply undignified, but neither man had time to care. Kang San bit down on his flashlight and gripped his revolver with both hands, just as he always did.
PWAAAAAAK—
His revolver jerked in his hands, and each muzzle flash strobed the ceiling. Behind them, the mutants pursued with a staccato of cracking ceiling tiles.
“Yeonggam-nim! It’s been ages since you put on a proper display.”
“Carrying a grown man around like a princess is already a display.”
“Got something to say? You were a civilian once, weren’t you?”
“...Fine. I suppose being cocky is better than whining.”
KRIEEEK!
The store shuddered. Yeonggam-nim charged in a straight line, smashing every obstacle in his path as one howl after another rang through the aisles.
“Ah...”
The Lotte Mart they had struggled so hard to search was now thoroughly ruined. Even all the canned food they had gathered would not feed the large group for a single day. The operation had consumed fuel, manpower, and time. Their reward was pitifully small, and all they had to show for it was running for their lives.
The revolver trembled violently in Kang San’s grip.
“Grrrr—”
Yeonggam-nim looked at him with an unusually serious expression.
“Kang San. There is no trial you cannot overcome. Just don’t let one that is too heavy break you. That thing? Think of it as a monster that wandered onto the wrong boss stage lately.”
“...You really do know lines like that?”
Kang San’s voice trembled. The warm reassurance loosened something clenched inside his chest.
“Then aren’t I an early adopter?”
Yeonggam-nim’s cheerful grin reappeared as brilliant sunlight came into view outside.
Shas-sa-sa-sak—
The mutants pursued with desperate frenzy, but they could never catch an Awakened whose only concern was running away. The two men smashed through the half-broken glass and escaped.
Through the gaps between the shattered panes, the mutants could be seen writhing in rage on the ceiling.
A mart.
The sort of human convenience facility where people had once wandered around in slippers.
“KRIEEEEK!”
Now it was the lair of mad monsters, a place they had to risk their lives just to enter.
“...It’s like a nest.”
A nest.
“I’m worried about you! You’ll die if you go out there!”
The desperate cry echoed in Kang San’s mind, drawing a bitter smile to his lips.
“Seong Gaeul...”
I have no right to say that after leaving you all, but please... stay safe.