The Fugitives
Do you know when a person gets the most pissed off? It's when they're interrupted right in the middle of satisfying a craving.
"Don't open the door until I get back."
I scooped Lee Soyeon up in my arms, set her down, and pulled back on the anti-stab vest I'd left by the entrance. Zombies? Don't make me laugh. There was no way the ones around here would suddenly come charging in. Something else was out there.
Crossbow in hand, I headed outside. Of all things, someone had entered another man's territory? People from that school, maybe? With their leader gone, it was entirely possible. The sound had definitely come from outside. Had they come this way on purpose? Because they'd seen the candlelight from our place?
I deliberately crouched low on the stairs and listened. Footsteps, urgent ones, echoing from below.
"The door's locked!"
"Should we just smash it?"
Two voices. I checked the crossbow and moved slowly toward the hallway window.
"Guaaaah!"
A single zombie came tearing toward them like a mad thing, and their footsteps veered the other way. Of course—by the time they broke the glass, the zombie would already be on them. The ones around here were pure beasts.
Anyway, once I'd confirmed both people and zombies, it was time to deal with them. Especially the bastards who'd interrupted me at such an important moment. A little special education was in order.
I took the stairs down to the first floor, and already screams were rising from behind. Zombies absolutely could not be allowed to multiply. The thought barely formed before I was sprinting.
Right in front of me, a zombie was tearing into someone. One of them had already been bitten. Perfect. While the thing was focused that way, I put a bolt through its skull and blew the head clean off.
"Ugh..."
The one being chewed on looked up at me, face twisted in pain.
"Tough luck."
"Save... me!"
But the crossbow had nothing to say. It only fired. What else was I supposed to do with someone already bitten? I watched him collapse, then moved to chase the remaining one.
But he wasn't nearby?
"Fast little runner, aren't you."
Still, I couldn't just leave him alone when I had no idea what kind of threat he might be. I swept the area with the night-vision goggles until something shifted behind a pillar at the far end of the new villa's parking lot.
"Hey!"
The moment I shouted, a strangely thin voice answered.
"Eek! Please spare me!"
A man... probably. He'd been trying to run, tripped, and now he was screaming for his life?
"Shut up!"
Was he out of his mind? When I leveled the crossbow at him he looked ready to have a full-blown seizure. It would have been convenient if he'd just turned into a zombie. No—I needed to know where he'd come from and why. Information mattered.
"Hey. Get over here."
I herded him inside the first-floor entrance of the villa.
"Where'd you come from, and what the hell are you?"
"I... I... Aaaah, my name is An Suhyeon."
He stammered and sniveled. A grown man sniveling over something like this.
"Where from?"
"Th-that way."
His finger pointed past the villa wall. So, looking beyond it, that was the opposite direction from the road to the school? Wait. Could it be?
"You from the civil defense side?"
"Yes! Yes, that's right. The place went crazy and I got driven out."
"Why?"
Right then An Suhyeon coughed.
"Cough... C-can I have some water? I know it's shameless, but I haven't eaten and I'm dying here."
"Wait."
Well, information had value. I had no taste for torture and no skill at it either. If I could buy answers with food I could spare, I'd do it all day.
When I went upstairs, Lee Soyeon was already out, looking uneasy.
"What's going on?"
"Those civil defense people I mentioned earlier ran this way. I'll keep them from coming up here, so don't worry."
I grabbed a water bottle and an energy bar and went back down. I handed the food to the trembling bastard.
"Thank you. Really, thank you so much. Giving me water like this!"
He clutched the bottle and started guzzling like a madman. I waited patiently. His face looked younger than I'd expected—around my age, the kind you saw everywhere in the neighborhood. Smaller build than mine, soft-looking features.
While I looked him over he demolished the energy bar too, then let out a long breath.
"I never thought I'd meet a savior here. Earlier I thought I heard another voice upstairs."
"Don't concern yourself with that. Don't even think about it."
"Yes. Yes."
In a lawless apocalypse, a woman—especially a beauty on Lee Soyeon's level—sitting alone? That made her potential prey. Even a sniveling coward like this one was no different.
"So what happened on the civil defense side?"
"One of our own turned into a zombie and headed straight for the food storage."
"Ah... but you could just take it down, right?"
"It's too violent, too terrifying. Nobody has proper gear—who's going to volunteer for that?"
Even so, one zombie? If it was still turning it might be as strong as that teacher had been, but once the change finished there was no intelligence left.
"You're not cowards. You held out fine for six months."
"Yes. And if blood splattered in the food storage, who knows what could happen."
"Then just string a line across the entrance. From what I know you're set up near a supermarket—there's no way you don't have something that simple."
"Even if you say that to me, everyone just started fighting and it all fell apart."
Unbelievable. They'd claimed to be different from the school side, yet they'd already collapsed?
"How many people, and how many actually escaped?"
I glanced outside. Two corpses to clean up tomorrow.
"Around ten or so. I don't know exactly either. Even the ones who ran are probably still nearby. They'll come after the food somehow."
"That so?"
Food didn't interest me. What I wanted was zombie cleanup and women. And after that, the road toward Yongsan.
"How many zombies? You must have cleared the area around you."
"Nothing near the supermarket, but I heard the military was fighting earlier. No news since, so I don't know. Some people fled toward the army too."
Same story as the school side. That much I could trust.
"So the ones who ran are just watching from nearby?"
"...Probably?"
I made him an offer.
"Introduce me. I want to go past this area myself."
"Right now?"
"It's not even midnight yet. And I've got this."
I tapped the night-vision goggles. From everything so far, night was actually better for dealing with zombies. In daylight the bastards could spot you from a distance and come sprinting. Night was perfect for handling ambushes.
"Hey. Get on."
Strike while the iron's hot. I hitched a cart to the electric bike and told him to ride in it. First we'd meet them. And I needed to get this guy away from here.
"Isn't a bike hard work? I'll just sit on the seat."
"It's electric, so it's fine. And the seat's got zombie blood on it—no."
"Oh, I see! Thank you."
He hopped right up.
"Just give me good directions."
"Yes. But you've got two crossbows?"
"No guns, and gunshots just draw more zombies. These are better."
"You've got a bat on your belt too—that's incredible. Is that some special forces uniform?"
The guy either had no sense of atmosphere or was just excited. Hmm. There was always one kid like this in every school.
For the first time I headed not toward the school but the middle road that led to the supermarket side.
"Um... hyung-nim!"
"Who the hell is your hyung-nim?"
"I just don't know your name..."
Come to think of it, I hadn't given it.
"Jin Dohyuk. An Suhyeon. This the right way?"
"Yes. But be careful. Zombies wander the roads. Huh? Why are you turning the light off?"
"Shh."
I'd caught the presence of a zombie. In the faint light I'd glimpsed something like a human arm across the way at a house.
"Kyaaaaah!"
Sure enough one came charging like a lunatic, but it was fine. In the dark the thing would stop after a few steps. So if we just stayed quiet... then a scream erupted behind me.
"Waaaaah!"
"Hey!"
I tried to stop him, but it was already too late. I locked straight into a grapple with the charging thing. Bare-handed, the zombie had the overwhelming edge. Same as last time—I blocked with the arm guards and drove the knife home.
"This isn't even déjà vu. Hey!"
It could have been easy, and this idiot had ruined it.
"Zombies judge by sight! At night they're actually easier to take down!"
"I'm sorry. I-I didn't know that."
Didn't know? For a second I wondered if my predecessor had been the weird one, but I couldn't keep standing around.
"Wait here."
From here on I needed the night-vision. With freer vision I listened carefully along the road.
"Ah...."
"Uu...."
A few more sounds. I tracked them. One was slamming its head against a wall at a shop entrance. Hunt the ones I can see first. Crossbow up, I closed in on its head in quick strides. In daylight it would have been pure danger, but night made it safe. Their eyes still worked like human ones. I got within a few steps and fired.
A nasty wet sound, and the first one dropped. Noise rose above my head. Plenty of them. I kicked open the entrance where the thing had been and found a half-eaten corpse crawling with flies. The moment I climbed another floor, a human presence made me jump.
"Shit!"
A zombie was planted dead center on the stairs like a ghost. My startled shout made it turn and start moving toward me.
"Gya... go..."
Its gaze locked on me as it came down slowly, then its face twisted savage.
"Kr..."
"First strike!"
I took its head off with the baseball bat. The pattern was familiar now—lucky for me. The second I stepped outside again the zombie noises were louder than before. A few came jogging toward me from somewhere beyond the commercial building. Still checking the area, were they? Then I'd use the night eyes and cull them. I was closing carefully when—
"Uuuu!"
A zombie suddenly sat up from under a car. Lying under there? What kind of zombie—
Only one thing to do. I aimed the crossbow and blew its head off. Then the two that came running at the sound got the same treatment in rapid fire. One took the bolt in the shoulder, though, so it wasn't a clean finish.
"Tch!"
The force of the bolt had torn the shoulder, but zombies don't care about arms. As it charged happily I ran, dropped behind a vehicle, and waited with the crossbow pointed up.
"Kyauuu! Kyau!"
It came around the car, head swiveling, hunting for me. Yeah—that was the magic of limited vision. I put a bolt through it and finally brought silence back to the place.
"Let's go!"
"My god. That's amazing. How do you kill them all like that?"
"Good gear."
What else was there to it? Anyway, the cleanup here was barely finished. I used the electric bike to head for the place he indicated. Along the way I took down two or three more, and just like at the school we gradually reached a zone with no zombies.
"Here! People should be around this area."
"Who's there!"
Noise came from the roof of a commercial building. I looked up. Through the night-vision I saw men with slings and slingshots, and a few women.
"Oh-ho."
Shall I check the faces first? With the feeling of greeting new prey, I put An Suhyeon in front and headed up toward the barricaded commercial building.