Ep. 7 — Corpses on the Run (5)

Thwack— thwack—!

The boy brought the trophy down on the man's head, again and again.

But the man made no sound at all. With every blow, he merely swayed like laundry hanging on a clothesline.

After a while, the boy flung the blood-soaked trophy aside.

Clang—

Then he simply slumped to the ground, boneless.

Blood filled the silence where sound used to be.

"Jae-gyeom, check the man's condition."

At Cha Si-eon's order, Gwak Jae-gyeom snapped back to his senses and moved.

"He's dead."

"Seal it immediately."

The calm in Cha Si-eon's voice was almost enough to make me lose my mind.

"Hyung, give me a hand."

Jae-gyeom spread out a foil blanket as he spoke, and I helped him seal the corpse that had appeared out of nowhere.

"You're using this to get Ha Yu-ju out?"

"No. We cannot strip a civilian of a survival method they secured by their own hand."

"Then…"

"Forget it."

A tired voice cut in between me and Cha Si-eon.

"I can't even drag that bastard anywhere on my own. So do whatever you want with him."

The one who said it was the boy who'd killed the man.

He sat slumped in the pool of blood, head hanging, looking like he never wanted to do anything again.

"Jang Han-bin."

At Cha Si-eon's call, the boy glanced up at us.

"If you give up your escape, what you did becomes retaliatory murder."

The boy — Jang Han-bin — gave a hollow laugh. A reaction that said he couldn't care less.

But Cha Si-eon pressed on regardless.

"I will support your escape. In exchange, share the corpse you secured so that our agent can escape alongside you."

He meant to get both of them out — Ha Yu-ju and Jang Han-bin.

This man really is heavy, in more ways than one.

Both of them, though? No — actually, it might be possible.

I thought of the envelope I'd set down beside the desk. The black plastic bag containing a piece of the first victim.

I fetched it and handed it to Jae-gyeom.

"This is what, ten kilos?"

"And the man?"

"Ninety at the low end."

A hundred kilos, all told.

"I'm forty-six," Ha Yu-ju said in a cracked voice.

That left fifty-four. Too much for me, but that Han-bin kid could probably manage it.

Which left the question of whether he was willing.

And this guy wouldn't even say yes or no.

"Jang Han-bin, was it?"

At my question, he slowly turned to look at me.

"How old are you?"

"Second-year high school."

"You're really not coming out?"

"I said drop it. If you want that thing, just use it."

Han-bin spoke with total indifference.

We'd be grateful if he let us have it, sure — but we couldn't just snatch it and run, leaving a kid who was still in high school behind.

"What are you going to do here alone? Is there anyone outside looking for you?"

"No."

"Then come with me. I'll buy you food."

Han-bin shot back something cynical, then frowned.

What, were you expecting me to say something like "won't your parents worry"? Sorry, but I'm an editor who's read every single trainwreck plotline there is. Won't your parents be worried, I don't have parents, though — followed by heavy silence and a solemn mood. There was no way I was stepping on that tired old landmine.

"Come on. I'll buy you whatever you want to eat."

At my coaxing, Han-bin hesitated.

Right — he doesn't want to be left alone here either. Whether he was being stubborn because he didn't trust us, or because he was simply too exhausted, I couldn't tell.

Certain that he was wavering, I held out my hand — a gesture meant to say, come on, get up.

"Don't touch me!"

Han-bin shrieked in horror.

I flinched and pulled my hand back, and Han-bin swallowed hard, looking just as startled.

But it didn't last.

He started glaring at me like he was trying to hide something.

"Don't… touch me."

Wild eyes, blazing past ferocity into outright killing intent.

Only then did it truly register with me: this kid had just killed a person.

This wasn't ordinary teenage rebellion. This was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the wildness a human being reclaimed from a pool of blood the moment they stepped past the line.

Feeling threatened, I started to back away — and that's when I saw Han-bin's hands.

Dried blood caked on them.

And they were trembling. Violently. Like he was about to freeze to death.

…God, this is rough.

I licked my dry lips and swept my eyes across the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠floor.

The trophy Han-bin had thrown. Thankfully, it had landed a good distance away.

If he went for it, could Jae-gyeom get behind cover before Han-bin picked it up?

Trusting my reflexes, I spoke again.

"Okay, I won't touch you. Look — just hang in there a little longer. I know you're exhausted, but you've held on this far. It'd be a waste to stop now."

"I said enough—!"

"The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠situation was a disaster. That's not the same as it being your fault."

"…!"

"So let's get out of here. There's no reason to stay in this disaster any longer than we have to."

Han-bin's eyes wavered hard.

Seventeen. Second-year of high school. Still a child, really — not enough life experience to properly process what he'd been through.

Granted, I've never killed anyone myself. Never been the victim of anything criminal either. So I don't know exactly what this kid is feeling right now.

But I could tell he was struggling.

And that he was still at an age where he needed help.

By the time Han-bin's turmoil had settled, I asked again.

"What do you want to eat when we're out?"

Han-bin glared at me sourly — and then muttered, barely audible:

"…Hamburgers."

An excellent choice.

As I hauled our gear, I asked in a low voice, quiet enough that the others couldn't hear.

"Did you know Jang Han-bin was alive?"

"What makes you think that?"

"Earlier. You said we can't strip a civilian of a survival method they secured themselves."

"That's correct."

"Then it doesn't add up. You told me even an arrest target's rights as a citizen are protected until conviction."

At the very start, Cha Si-eon had told us to use the corpse the man had hidden to get Ha Yu-ju out. Wasn't that seizing a civilian's survival method? Yet Cha Si-eon had sent us off without a flicker of hesitation, and had me release Han-bin.

And when Han-bin went to kill the man, he'd told me — don't do anything, just stay put.

The circumstantial evidence was piling up everywhere.

But Cha Si-eon answered with perfect composure.

"I was briefly confused. I will be more careful going forward."

There it is.

A lie with zero sincerity in it, but I decided to let it go. The others were presumably doing the same.

After that brief exchange, I stepped outside to where the stadium was.

The light pouring from the floodlight towers was blinding. It illuminated only the pitch — which made the state of the Running Corpses prowling across it painfully easy to see.

They looked like something straight out of a Korean zombie film. Clothes anyone might wear. Bodies missing pieces here and there. Clouded pupils. And blood.

It was a harrowing sight.

I forced my eyes into a squint and approached the pitch. The Running Corpses only roamed within the white lines, and for some reason they didn't seem to register anything beyond them. That's why they hadn't reacted ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠even when we walked right past.

"Hippo, Han-bin. You two rest up for now. Stay back to back, watch each other's surroundings, and if anyone comes near or anything happens, yell immediately."

Jae-gyeom gave Ha Yu-ju and Han-bin his instructions. Both of them were in bad shape and needed to rest, even briefly.

In the meantime, he and I went around gathering up every wheeled bench and portable goalpost we could find, dragged them over, and chained them together like train cars using nylon rope we'd found inside. Then we roughly arranged the whole thing near the pitch.

And the next thing to do was…

"Go get 'em, Seo Do-woon!"

I gave Gwak Jae-gyeom's cheer a gloomy nod.

Gore is… really, really not my thing…

With a heavy heart, I steeled myself and stepped inside the white line.

Skraa—! Kraak—!

Instantly, the Running Corpses came charging at me like madmen.

Watching bleeding zombies sprint straight at me made my heart freeze solid. And worse—

"Man, they're fast!"

"You're fine, just hold on! Only the fast ones are fast!"

"The fastest one's the only one that'll actually bite me…!"

"Hyung! Hyung! Try Sara-noona's ring!"

I thrust my ringed hand out toward the zombies barreling at me.

Ten meters. Five. Three. One—

Whoosh—!

Gwak Jae-gyeom yanked me backward by the collar, and thanks to him I crossed back over the line a hair before I got bitten.

The zombies that had been charging with white eyes stopped dead, as if by magic.

"No wonder people fail this."

At Jae-gyeom's remark, I clutched my pounding chest and nodded.

Wow. I just experienced a zombie movie's first-person survivor perspective for real. My heart nearly fell out of my chest…

And those zombies really did run — the name Running Corpses was no joke. Nearly the same speed as a living person, and a few of them were freakishly fast, athlete-level fast.

That said—

"The ring doesn't work."

"Yeah… I guess it's too borderline to count as a Special Zone entity."

The ring Baek Sa-ra had given me — made from part of a certain named Hazard Entity. I'd secretly gotten my hopes up after watching it pull off a Moses-parting-the-sea act once, but sadly, this cheat key didn't work here.

But that was fine.

"The eight up front, right? The really fast zombies."

Click— clack—

Jae-gyeom swapped in a fresh magazine. Then he opened fire on the eight he'd tagged earlier.

BANG BANG BANG BANG—!

As the live-loaded gun roared, the legs of the unusually fast zombies burst apart along with everything else.

Right. It's fine even if the cheat key doesn't work — because among my possessions, I have a gun owner named Gwak Jae-gyeom. Yes.

"Okay. Clear."

"Conserve your ammo."

"Old habit."

This stadium, crawling with absurdly fast zombies, was a regulation international football pitch. From the edge of the field to the center circle: about thirty-five meters at minimum. From there to the goal: another fifty.

That's the shortest distance Ha Yu-ju and Jang Han-bin would have to run, carrying a hundred kilos of organic matter.

Why couldn't someone else carry it for them?

Because no.

If the ruling got distorted because it passed through our hands, it would all be for nothing.

But we couldn't just tell Ha Yu-ju and Han-bin to suck it up and run, either. So we decided to adjust the environment instead — setting up cover on the pitch, herding the Running Corpses to one side, and pre-emptively wrecking the fast ones among them.

We repeated the process a handful of times. By the end, the Running Corpses were all bunched up on one side of the field, and the conspicuously fast ones among them were now Corpses That Can't Run.

Still, there were so many corpses that we weren't anywhere near safe yet.

"Should we keep going?"

"Do you have the ammo?"

"Cutting it close. Man, I should've carried around a maniac's machete like Sara-noona."

While Jae-gyeom grumbled to himself, absorbed in flattening the pitch, Cha Si-eon cut in.

"Jae-gyeom, stop there and move to the operation."

"Now? It still feels shaky."

"Yu-ju's condition is worsening."

At the news that Yu-ju was deteriorating, Jae-gyeom turned on the spot instantly.

"Hippo! We're moving out now — can you handle it?"

Ha Yu-ju, who'd been sitting on the ground, lifted her head.

"Sorry. I don't think I can move well."

Contrary to her level voice, her face was flushed deep red.

It had been an hour since her wrist was severed, and she was burning up with fever — it was a wonder she was still conscious at all.