Why Are You Here?
— Target followed. Entering the direction of the Gahyeon Hanbit Riverview Edu Town apartment complex.
— Passing Gahyeon Hanbit Riverview Edu Town now. Passing the main gate of the Gahyeon The First Golden State apartment complex.
The group sped past another apartment complex with a long, nonsensical name, much like the Edu Town apartments. Zombies from inside both complexes and along the roadside lunged at them, but the group showed off driving skills honed by their reckless run, weaving through the danger with impressive agility.
“Lucky bastards. If this were Seoul—no, even just Bucheon—they’d be zombie feed by now...”
It was all thanks to population density. In a city center where people were packed tight and roads were a tangled mess, pulling a stunt like that would get you surrounded by thousands of zombies popping out from every direction. You wouldn’t even get the chance to show off your fancy driving. Could they just push through? Even a large truck had a limit of a few hundred. Once those zombie corpses piled up under the car, becoming a massive biological barricade, forward movement would become impossible at some point. Besides, the city roads were already littered with abandoned vehicles, making it an environment where driving properly was difficult to begin with.
— Drone Number 02. Signal weakening. Return protocol will activate in 30 seconds.
“Already? What a shame...”
Jun-ho felt the regret, too. The signal range for the relay stations and the repeaters installed at the Hanalreum Nursing Home was limited to two or three kilometers. They had installed amplifiers at the communication relay station, but with so many mountains and high-rise buildings, amplifying the signal beyond five kilometers was practically impossible.
“Still, it’s amazing that it reaches that far. It covers all of Gahyeon-ri.”
“That’s true. But boss, can’t we install a repeater at the Edu Town apartment safehouse? If we put one there, we could fly the drones all the way to near the Mokuri subway station.”
“We can’t, because that would require entering the apartment complex. An opportunity will come around winter, so we’ll do it then.”
“Got it. Oh? But those punks aren’t going to Mokuri?”
Yoon Yeong-su tilted his head, watching the video the drone was sending back. The punks on the screen had turned off the national highway onto a side path and were heading somewhere other than Mokuri.
“If they go that way...”
“Pyeongnae-Hopyeong and Cheonmasan Station are there.”
Jun-ho, who knew why they were heading in that direction, continued.
“They’re going to recruit more members. Those guys, they kept uploading videos to social media and YouTube channels until the internet went down.”
“Ah... they did that too? Well, they’re the same trashy punks, so of course they would.”
The ‘that’ Yoon Yeong-su referred to was this: shortly after the apocalypse broke out, gangs, bullies, and groups of delinquent youths would film where they were staying or what they were doing and upload it to recruit members. And those videos were all filled with content about brutally killing zombies or attacking other survivors, capturing them and committing all sorts of cruel, perverted acts. In a word, it was a vlog for bastards who left everything to their instincts and desires.
“But do people really gather after watching that?”
“They do. Quite a lot, too. Because in a situation like this, humans want to belong to a group—a strong one at that.”
“Ah...”
In an apocalypse where living alone was nearly impossible, even older adults slowly lost their minds to terror and fear. It went without saying for the 10s and 20s generation. Even teenagers who wouldn’t have given such people a second glance in normal times were turning to them, driven by a craving for survival and the ‘food’ those bastards flaunted in every video.
“That’s why the Eoktens started with about 40 people and grew to over 70 in half a year. And that’s even after dozens died or turned into zombies during that time.”
“Wow... they really are insane bastards.”
“Anyway, these guys will come back the way they came, so the apartment CCTV...”
“I’ve already set that electric car and the license plate as top-priority monitoring targets. Akina will let us know if they’re caught on any camera.”
“Good. Then I’ll go get ready.”
Jun-ho nodded at the incredibly reliable Yoon Yeong-su and left the control room.
“How many more of these human-trash-in-training will they round up...?”
As Jun-ho muttered to himself, the image of another group led by MZ-generation gangsters he had seen in Bucheon during this period in his previous life surfaced in his mind. Those guys, who had raided a police station on the night the apocalypse broke out and armed themselves with guns, were the main culprits who turned the area around Bucheon Station into a living hell in just half a year.
“Please, just don’t go near Bucheon Station, Hyun-woo...”
I hope Hyun-woo... the younger brother’s best friend, whom I couldn’t find a way to bring into the fold because his parents weren’t just ordinary civil servants, but a Navy officer and a high-ranking official at the Bucheon Police Station—
“Hang in there for a year and a half, no, just one year.”
Jun-ho moved on, praying that he would keep hiding in his home in the Jung-dong apartment and survive, and survive again, on the supplies he had sent.
*
*
*
September 20, 2024, 18:10, Bucheon, Gyeonggi-do.
“This is insane. Wow...”
Choi Hyun-woo’s jaw dropped as he operated the PTZ camera in the basement of the house.
Boom...! Boom-boom!
The roar from the situation reflected on the camera reached even this basement, which had nearly perfect soundproofing. The six-lane road leading toward the Bucheon Sports Complex, about 400 meters from the house, was no different from a battlefield. Several attack helicopters were hovering, firing rockets and machine guns like crazy. The target was the wide intersection where the Bucheon Sports Complex was located. It wasn’t a residential area, but since it was a place with heavy vehicle traffic, the intersection was a den of monsters, filled with all sorts of cars, countless zombies that had emerged from them, and the corpses of victims. The attack helicopters were clearing that very spot with missiles, rockets, and machine guns.
“Sigh, will that even work?”
When he first saw the military units, Choi Hyun-woo had been overjoyed. No matter what, they were the elite forces defending the capital region, so he had no doubt they would resolve this situation to some extent. But that was a completely wrong assumption.
- The military isn’t much help unless they’re special forces. Mechanized units? They can’t do anything.
- To clear out the zombies on the streets, they’d have to enter the city, but the very act of those noisy tanks and armored vehicles getting there is a series of continuous hurdles.
- Even if they arrive luckily, in a place with high population density like Bucheon, the ones in all the buildings and alleys will jump out all at once.
- You can assume that the ones within a 200–300 meter radius will swarm you. It’s several times more than the year-end peak at the Sinjung-dong food alley.
- Can they defeat that with tanks and armored vehicles that can only move on big roads? They can’t. They come running from all directions, not just one, so there’s no way. They even jump down from buildings.
- Above all, survivors are still in various parts of the city, so they can’t attack just anywhere recklessly.
“So, you can think of it as thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of suicide terrorists coexisting in the same space as the citizens...”
Choi Hyun-woo shivered, muttering the contents of the notebook Jun-ho had left behind. It was exactly as written. Choi Hyun-woo was a Marine veteran himself, and because his father was a captain of a Navy frigate, he knew the power of various cannons and missiles very well. If zombies were gathered in a specific spot? You could just fire self-propelled artillery or missiles. But the problem was that countless people were still alive somewhere in that area. Could the ROK military, whose mission was to protect the state and its people, fire cannons and drop missiles on residential and commercial districts, regardless of whether citizens died or not, just to get rid of zombies? It was an impossible scenario.
According to a post he had briefly seen before the internet and wireless communication networks went down, one commander had ordered and executed an indiscriminate attack somewhere in Gangbuk, Seoul, only to be shot in the back of the head by his subordinate officer. Because the families of not a few soldiers in that unit lived there. Honestly, that post seemed like a fabrication, but there was no law saying a similar incident couldn’t actually happen. Anyway, almost every situation in Bucheon was unfolding according to Jun-ho’s Golden Rule, and Choi Hyun-woo had come to believe in Jun-ho and the notebook he left behind even more. So, he...
“Mom... I’m sorry.”
He had no choice but to give up on going to his family home near Jung-dong Station, the Hansung Apartment in the city village. Choi Hyun-woo had searched every single route from here to there without exception. But every one of them was swarming with hundreds or thousands of zombies. Or, survivors had set up barricades with all sorts of items, starting with furniture. So, even if he wanted to go, he couldn’t. And going to the six-lane road where the attack helicopters were currently pouring out futile attacks? That was no different from suicide.
Tat-tat-tat-tat...!
Meanwhile, the sound of the attack helicopter’s propellers, leaving after coolly pouring out everything, faded away, and the Sports Complex intersection looked like a living hell with flames, debris, and flesh.
“Damn it... how are they going to clear that and enter? You idiots.”
The brigade commanders or division commanders were probably raising a toast to a successful operation. But now that he knew that the attack was completely meaningless—that it was actually an act that further isolated the people who had survived in the city—Choi Hyun-woo cursed the incompetent government and military leadership, turning the PTZ camera back to its 360-degree surveillance mode.
But then.
“Huh?”
On the six-lane road where the helicopters had been hovering and pouring out attacks just a moment ago—specifically, toward the alley leading to this house—a human figure appeared. And it wasn’t just one; there were two. Choi Hyun-woo frowned as he watched them, carrying large and small bags, their attire clearly showing they had been struggling outside for at least three or four days.
“Oh, damn. Don’t tell me they’re coming this way? What should I do...?”
Even though it was a house at the very end of the alley that clearly looked like an abandoned house where no one had lived for years, just in case, Choi Hyun-woo prayed that the two survivors who had suddenly appeared would slip away to where other houses were. But unfortunately, they were crouching low and approaching this house cautiously.
“Haa, guys, please. But wait a second... those people, how did they get here?”
He hadn’t been able to leave even one kilometer from this house, so what on earth did that duo do to get here? Choi Hyun-woo, who had developed pure curiosity amidst his annoyance and anxiety, focused his gaze on the two people. Before long, the taller one in the lead seemed to have checked the surroundings and confirmed it was safe. He took off the hat he had pulled down low, lowered his mask, took a small water bottle out of his bag, and drank.
“...Huh?”
Choi Hyun-woo’s eyes widened as he saw the face clearly revealed on the monitor. Because the man in his mid-to-late 30s with signs of hair loss was someone he knew, even if they weren’t very close.
“Isn’t that the mixed martial arts gym coach? No, why is he here... Eek!?”
Choi Hyun-woo’s eyes grew even wider as he saw the person next to him, who had received the water bottle handed over by the coach of the mixed martial arts gym that the Jun-ho and Jun-hyuk brothers had attended, and lowered the towel that had been covering their face to drink.
“Why are you coming out of there...”
Even though her face was incredibly dirty, she couldn’t hide her beauty.
“Ah-reum?”
She was Choi Hyun-woo’s college junior and Han Ah-reum, who had worked part-time at a fitness center in Sang-dong, Bucheon, until the apocalypse broke out. And that fitness center was the very place Jun-ho had attended for half a year, training his body like a human weapon.