Chapter 204
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 204
Chapter Title: Twelve Cell Phones
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A friend of Kim Soohan, dressed as a zombie, lay on the floor.
His padded jacket was torn to shreds, and his side and arm, seemingly devoured by zombies, revealed exposed bone. Part of an archery arrow was attached to his closed left eyelid, looking so convincingly like it had pierced through that even he got the chills looking at it.
The role of a zombie shot by Go Joowon's arrow.
‘No way they won’t find me.’
Unlike his other friends, who would be swarming in a horde somewhere. He never thought he'd get this role just for being the right height. This was something worth bragging about to Kim Soohan and his friends, wasn't it? The zombie grinned foolishly.
“We'll begin filming!”
He wiped the silly grin off his face at the assistant director's voice. A part-time job was still a job. It was time for him to become a zombie with a brain turned to mush.
“Ready, action!”
Thwack!
With the sound, Im Jangwoo looked back. A zombie was right behind him. A cold sweat ran down his back. His heart dropped and his head spun, but with the approaching horde of zombies, there was no time to stand around dazed.
“Let’s go.”
“Yes!”
During their escape, Im Jangwoo and the couple had learned that the zombies were sensitive to sound. The roar of a car engine, the screams of people—a loud noise always drew a swarm of them.
‘Mister, behind you!’
The voice had been loud enough to reach him all the way down here. There were bound to be zombies inside the hospital, not just outside. The child wouldn't be safe either.
Worrying about the child, Im Jangwoo swung the broom he was holding and struck down a lunging zombie.
A blow to the brain, and they stop moving. Aiming for the zombie’s head was an instinctive attack from Im Jangwoo, who remembered seeing a zombie lie completely still, as if truly dead.
Pushing his concern for the child aside for later, Im Jangwoo ran with the couple toward an area with fewer zombies. They fought their way through the zombies toward the entrance. While staying alert, Im Jangwoo glanced up at the third floor where the child had been standing.
The child who had fired the arrow must have known to hide, as he was nowhere to be seen.
Im Jangwoo and the couple hurried inside. They quickly searched for an enclosed space.
Entering the nearest room on the first floor, the three realized there were no zombies. The couple collapsed to the floor in exhaustion, but Im Jangwoo pulled the string of tension he was about to release taut once more.
“I’m going up to the third floor. You two should stay here.”
He wasn't sure how long they could last in an office with no bathroom and no water, but...
Im Jangwoo swallowed his words.
The couple seemed to understand his unspoken thought and their expressions grew anxious.
The day his wife was being discharged. They never imagined such a disaster would strike. Would it have been better if they had left the hospital a little sooner? If it weren't for the detective they met in the parking lot, they would have surely become monsters.
“...Detective!”
The couple hesitantly called out to the detective. Unarmed and without a gun, Im Jangwoo was just a slightly stronger civilian in front of the zombies, but his title of ‘detective’ instilled in the couple a sense of infinite trust.
“That child... it might already be too late for him. So...”
Im Jangwoo’s expression turned cold as he looked at the couple, who had already become different kinds of monsters.
He had to hold out at least until the fellow detectives and police officers he had contacted earlier arrived, but that didn't mean he planned to hide alone in a corner. He didn't care if the couple wouldn't help. But he had no intention of letting them stop him from acting. Besides, hadn't the child saved them?
The couple lowered their heads under Im Jangwoo’s cold gaze. If the child hadn't saved them, Im Jangwoo would have been attacked, and if Im Jangwoo had been attacked, the couple would have died too.
“Stay here and hide quietly. I’m going up.”
“Where are you going?”
“To the third floor...?”
At the sound of a cheerful child’s voice, the three adults with serious expressions turned around in surprise. They saw a child locking the door, though they hadn't seen him open it and come in.
“Mister. What are you doing not locking the door? They’ll get in right away.”
The mouths of the couple and Im Jangwoo fell open at how natural he seemed.
“The door alone looks weak, so we should barricade it with furniture. Ah, there’s no bathroom here.”
The child, who looked to be in middle school, chattered on, nagging them. Anyone watching would think he’d been living here for days. The adults just stared blankly, listening to him.
“The water and electricity are still on, so it would be better to go to a hospital room upstairs than stay here. The rooms have their own bathrooms. We’ll have to find food separately, though.”
Having regained some of his composure, Im Jangwoo observed the child.
The child—no, the middle schooler—had a bow slung over one shoulder, a type rarely seen in daily life. On his other shoulder, he carried a black bag and a quiver filled with what looked like arrows.
Dressed in what appeared to be layered, slightly thick clothing and equipped with gear that the adults had only seen on professional archers on television, the boy looked out of place among the three plainly dressed adults.
The only thing they had in common was the bloodstains splattered on all their clothes.
Im Jangwoo, who had been blinking dumbly, opened his mouth.
“You... how did you get from the third floor all the way down here?”
That was his biggest question. While the hospital interior with its many rooms might have been easier to navigate than the exposed outdoors, it was still impossible to know when a zombie might jump out from any given room.
At that question, Go Joowon smiled brightly. Ahem. After a slight cough, he took the bag with the rest of the arrows from his shoulder and unzipped it. Then he unfurled it wide open.
“This humble servant has twelve cell phones!”
An array of colorful cell phones was inside.
A phone with a transparent case, one with a character case, another with no case at all... a single glance was enough to tell they didn't belong to the boy. The strange thing was that every single one was wrapped in white bandages.
Theft?
The thought came to Im Jangwoo reflexively, but he quickly shook his head. This damned occupational hazard of his kept popping up.
“...There are thirteen, though?”
His wife nudged him in the side for his pointless comment. Go Joowon smiled broadly.
“One of them is mine. It’s hard to shoot my bow while carrying it. And I might drop it while running away.”
“Right, okay. But what are you going to do with the phones all of a sudden?”
“I’ll explain on the way.”
“On the way?”
Go Joowon shrugged at the adults' question.
“It’s safer to be in a group than alone. No one’s been bitten by a zombie, right? Then keep your mouths shut and follow me quietly.”
The adults nodded, swayed by his strange charisma.
“Cut! OK!”
* * *
“Ready, action!”
Go Joowon came out of the office and scanned his surroundings. There were no zombies, but he didn't know where one might pop out. Go Joowon turned on the phone he was holding. He covered the speaker with his finger to muffle the power-on sound.
After confirming it was fully on, Go Joowon threw the phone with all his might in the direction opposite the stairs. The arm strength he’d built from drawing his bowstring at full stretch also gave him a powerful throw.
The adults’ eyes followed the phone as it flew in an arc. The phone, flying far into the distance, landed with a soft thud. Only then did the adults realize the purpose of the bandages. For such a powerful throw, it hadn't made a loud noise.
“But what’s that supposed to do?”
“Keep your mouth shut.”
The husband clamped his mouth shut under his wife's fierce glare. She worried he might have overheard their earlier conversation. She must not have been in her right mind then. To a child this young, we... a shadow crossed the wife's face, and the husband, as if pricked by guilt, stared at the floor.
“I’m starting. Head straight for the stairs.”
Go Joowon picked up his own phone.
These were the phones confiscated along with his own, which he found in the nurse's station. He had also collected phones left by their owners in the hallways, picking only the unlocked ones to register their numbers. Go Joowon looked at the name that appeared in his contacts.
[Yellow Pickled Radish Case]
Hence, the names were like this.
Go Joowon had changed the settings on all the phones from the shelter. He had set the ringtone volume to medium while covering the speaker. If he set it to maximum, he couldn't predict how many zombies from how far away would swarm in.
After that, he had turned them all off, locked or not, fearing they might ring at a bad time. He only turned them on right before use. He felt truly sorry for the phone owners and the people who had been calling them.
The phone with the yellow pickled radish case.
Remembering the pile of missed calls, Go Joowon clenched and unclenched his fist a few times before pressing the call button.
Zombies and blood.
A desperate apocalypse where not a single human voice could be heard.
-Baby lion, doo doo doo doo doo doo! Cute little, doo doo doo doo doo doo! In the jungle, doo doo doo doo doo doo! Baby lion!
A cute children's song filled the blood-stained hallway.
The expression of the wife, who had been hospitalized for a matter related to the obstetrics and gynecology ward, crumbled. The husband bit his lip hard.
For the first time since meeting the adults, Go Joowon’s face hardened. When he had been testing the volume, he had turned it on and off so quickly that he hadn't paid close attention to what song it was.
The only one who remained unshaken was the detective, Im Jangwoo, who had faced all sorts of cruel and unforgivable crimes.
“Kid. Let’s go up.”
“...Yes.”
“Let’s go.”
As the zombies swarmed toward the phone, Im Jangwoo led the way up the stairs. The couple and Go Joowon followed behind him. From behind them, they could hear the ringtone that children would love. Now, that phone would be trampled by zombie feet and would never ring again.
Second floor.
At Im Jangwoo’s signal, Go Joowon turned on a phone and handed it to him. Im Jangwoo threw it with all his strength.
-I can't leave you behind. I turn back one more time
This time, it was a ballad.
“What floor do we need to get to?”
“The fourth floor.”
Everyone nodded at Go Joowon’s words. Thinking it was easier to avoid the zombies than they had expected, they all moved on.
They climbed past the third floor and reached the fourth. When Im Jangwoo gestured, Go Joowon smiled.
“It’s okay. I’ve got something prepared here.”
“What?”
Go Joowon held up his phone.
[4th Floor In Front of Right Staircase]
When Go Joowon pressed a button, music started playing from the staircase on the opposite side from where they were. The sound-sensitive zombies shrieked and swarmed toward the noise.
Im Jangwoo and the couple stared at the phone with blank expressions. Unlike before, it wasn't the call button.
“What is that?”
“A Bluetooth speaker.”
It was the music play button.
As a song by Red Crown flowed from the distance, the adults’ jaws dropped.
“If I throw them on the floor, a phone gets destroyed every time we go up a floor. Eventually, I'd run out. So I was thinking of attaching the phones to the ceiling. But then I realized someone else could call them.”
The modern middle schooler, Go Joowon, smiled brightly.
“So I looked for something only I could operate, and I found this. I didn't have time to stick it to the ceiling, so I put it high up on the wall.”
High on the wall, out of reach of the zombies who couldn't think to use a chair as a stepping stool. A small Bluetooth speaker, fixed to the wall with tape, was playing.
The three dumbfounded adults and the brightly smiling modern kid were captured in a single frame.
“Cut! OK!”
Director Choi Daeman's voice echoed.
Kim Jongho, relaxing from the tension, shook his head.
“A Bluetooth speaker... The speaker company hit the jackpot. By the way, Seojun. Isn't that song by Red Crown? From the same agency as you.”
Kim Jongho asked casually, his ears still catching the song flowing from the polar bear speaker, but Seojun, feeling a pang of guilt, flinched and quickly pressed the pause button. Along with the music, the staff who had been excitedly preparing for the next shot moved on with disappointed faces.
“Ahaha. It just sort of happened that way.”
Seojun said with an awkward laugh.
‘If it had affected my acting, I would have refused.’
Director Choi Daeman, who was fine with any popular new song, had told Seojun to pick one from the top ten on a music site.
Then he got a call from Seo Eunchan.
It wouldn't be strange at all for a middle schooler like Go Joowon to listen to the popular group ‘Red Crown.’ Seojun had given a subtle nod at Seo Eunchan's reasoning and looked at the top of the list.
1. Midnight - Red Crown
He was going to pick the number one song anyway, but he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that he had just done his uncle a favor. Seojun scratched his cheek.
Kim Jongho, who had heard the story, laughed and searched the music site. Seojun might feel awkward about it, but if it had been him, he would have chosen the Red Crown song too.
1. Midnight - Red Crown
Red Crown’s ‘Midnight’ was still number one.
“But does it really need promotion when it’s been number one for four weeks?”
“Right? That's what I thought, but I don't think my uncle felt the same way.”
Seojun tilted his head, recalling his uncle giggling on the other end of the phone.
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