Dealing with the Traitor
At first, I didn't pay it much mind.
"What the hell? It's just a zombie."
Zombies that popped up now and then from who knows where. That was all.
I readied my crossbow to put it down, of course—but a strange feeling crept over me.
"…"
Something was off. Had I seen this one before?
"Kyaaaaagh!"
My instincts already treated it as a zombie, so the moment it reacted I blew its head clean off. The bolt's blade punched through, and the thing collapsed in a spray of blood.
Yet my gut still felt wrong. Something inside kept sounding an alarm.
Why?
I walked back over to the fallen zombie and looked closer.
I'd seen this somewhere. Those jeans, that gray T-shirt… wait.
And right then Woohee's face flashed through my mind. She'd been wearing exactly these clothes, hadn't she?
"Woohee?"
I examined the corpse carefully. No matter how I looked at it, the only conclusion I could reach was that this was her. If it wasn't, something else was going on.
I sprinted straight for where Woohee should have been. Vaulting the wall and kicking the door open, I was met by nothing but silence.
"…"
Just in case, I searched every corner. The only sound was the distant breathing of some zombie lurking somewhere out of sight.
I returned to the dead one and lit it up with the camera flash for a better look. I studied the face the bolt had torn open—veins standing out, features crushed—and through the ruin I could still make out the impression of the Woohee I knew.
"Why the hell…"
I couldn't know the reason. Had she lost control of herself, or…?
As my eyes moved, something unusual caught them: dark handprints around her neck, thick as kiss marks.
Someone had strangled her? She'd been murdered?
A single name flickered through my mind.
An Suhyeon.
A guy who until now had never even come near this area had been here.
Compared to Woohee, of course, I trusted An Suhyeon. He'd told me the truth and followed my lead well enough.
"I want to believe it wasn't him…"
But this was the time to stay sharp. Die here and nothing would come of any of it.
Right. An Suhyeon. If it was you, you'd have something to say.
I headed for his base without a second thought, and the absurdity of it almost made me laugh. Woohee might have simply lost her temper and turned on her own. So why was I so sure An Suhyeon had done it?
A feeling?
Or was I just on edge?
In the end it all came down to missing information. That restless feeling was still chewing at me when I reached the outskirts of An Suhyeon's hideout.
The sound of shattering glass hit my ears, and someone came tumbling down.
"…?"
I gunned the electric bike and closed in. A figure staggered to its feet.
"You okay?"
"D-Dohyuk-ssi…"
That voice belonged to Gim Daejin!
"What the hell happened?!"
"A-An Suhyeon went c-crazy…"
Right then another person smashed through a window and fell. This one landed wrong; after a few spasms it stopped moving altogether.
No time to stand there staring. I raised the crossbow and peered inside—then rapid footsteps hammered toward me.
In that instant Gang Haseong's transformation flashed through my head, and I loosed the bolt. Timed to the target's speed, the crossbow made only a soft noise in the dark.
A heartbeat of silence that made my chest tighten.
Then something hit the ground.
"Kiaaaaah!"
A scream that nearly split my eardrums tore through the place—but whatever it was kept charging without hesitation.
"Hey… An Suhyeon…"
Backlit by the bike's headlamp, the figure emerging from the darkness was An Suhyeon—the first man who'd survived alongside me in this place.
And now he had turned.
"J-J-Jin Dohyuk…"
Mid-transformation into a zombie, just like Gang Haseong. The most dangerous stage of all: a beast's strength paired with a human's mind.
"I-I-I-If only you weren't here…"
Blood streamed from his fingers as he fixed on me again.
"You son of a bitch!"
It was pure reflex. The moment his eyes locked on mine, the same crushing pressure I'd felt with Gang Haseong forced my hands up. The crossbow fired once more.
What I saw was an arrow that missed its zeroed point like garbage, and An Suhyeon's face twisting in a snarl. He thrust out a palm missing its index and ring fingers, aimed straight at my body.
A hard, muffled impact slammed into my side, and the distance between us suddenly widened. A delayed shockwave of pain followed.
"Hhhk…"
My vision swam for a second; then I saw something black racing out of the dark and seizing my throat.
"You too, you too, you too…! Turn into a zombie already!"
Something sharp was raking at my stab-proof gear, as if trying to infect me through sheer force.
An Suhyeon… you? Not content with betrayal, now this?
Rage flooded my skull as my left hand shot toward him. The armor still refused to tear easily. Then his hand clamped onto my collar.
With a sharp riip, the fabric tore free.
"Die! I'll… I'll take everything! Me!"
In that same moment something was yanked hard off my back. What else could it be but the crossbow? While he still had human intelligence, he was trying to finish me.
His hand was already sliding under the helmet. But don't worry. I hadn't come prepared with only one or two weapons for moments like this.
"An Suhyeon!"
He still hadn't come to his senses. I had something far stronger than a crossbow.
I drew the Desert Eagle clean, and our eyes met.
A split-second of stillness.
My finger was already on the trigger when he tried to twist away. The gunshot that followed was beyond imagination—it left my ears ringing—and in that instant An Suhyeon and I stared each other down across the line of death.
"Hiiik!"
An Suhyeon clutched the side of his neck and staggered back, writhing.
I leveled the gun to fire again—only for something to grab my leg from the side and yank.
"No… Gim Daejin!"
What had once been Gim Daejin was moving. Right. The people this bastard had just killed were turning into zombies.
"I-I-I-I'll take everything from you! I'm the king!!"
The mocking howl of a beast that had abandoned being human faded into the distance.
But which way was he going? Not toward his own base, and not toward the school either.
Was he heading the way I'd come?
Was he an idiot? Once the zombification finished…
If he wanted to waste his own time, I was more than happy to let him.
"Daejin, sorry about this."
I caved in the head with my custom bat and swung onto the electric bike.
All I had to do was run…
Even as I tore away in a hurry, my thoughts kept churning.
If I just waited, he'd become one more ordinary zombie. That would be enough. That was the way to cut the risk. And yet… his words kept looping in my head.
Die! I'll… I'll take everything! Me!
Take everything? Looking at those handprints on Woohee's corpse, it had to have been him. He'd tried to claim my woman, failed, and killed her.
The reason was to steal what I had. What I had?
Right then Lee Soyeon's face rose in my mind.
"Huh?"
Come to think of it, among that whole pack only An Suhyeon knew where Soyeon was. Of course he did—that was where we'd first met.
"Fuck!"
I opened the throttle harder than I ever had and raced for Lee Soyeon's house.
Yeah. His next target was her.
Lee Soyeon. Letting some half-turned bastard get his hands on her?
"An Suhyeon…"
Fury boiling through every vein, I tore through the night streets.
He had always been envious. Before the zombie outbreak and after it. He had always been at the bottom, always ordered around by others.
People called him kind, but the truth was closer to castration—his desires locked away so deep he could never show them.
I want a woman too. I want to do whatever I want. I wanted to lead and give orders like everyone else, looking cool while I did it.
Then, in the middle of this zombie hell, someone appeared who restored the manhood that had been cut out of him.
Jin Dohyuk. The man who had remade the loser into a real male again.
He had recovered his masculinity—but the side effects came with it.
Woohee, Soyeon… I want those positions for myself.
The instincts he had reclaimed now drove him to bite the hand that had saved him.
I hesitated before, but not anymore.
Woohee's offer had failed, yet cornered like this, none of that mattered.
I'm out of time.
With the zombification advancing, he had almost none left.
I'll take everything that man owns.
He wanted to finish by claiming Lee Soyeon one last time and making her his.
Everything would go exactly as he decided.
"Stronger, stronger, stronger. I-I-I-I am! Stronger! Stronger!"
Finish it fast, before reason vanished completely. An Suhyeon arrived in front of Lee Soyeon's house and looked up.
Fourth floor.
Breaking the door would take too long. So…?
He tensed both legs, vaulted the railing, and caught hold.
"Heeheehee! Heeheehee!"
Climbing for the ultimate woman, he reached the fourth floor with ease.
"I'll… I'll… take her. One last time…"
He tried the balcony door. Locked.
"Hwaah hwaah hwaah!"
He smashed through the balcony and the Semi-Zombie forced his way inside.
Silence greeted him.
Where are you? Where are you?
Straight from the balcony he tried Lee Soyeon's bedroom door. Closed.
"This little thing!"
He shattered the wooden door with raw strength and searched for his prey—but she was nowhere in sight.
"…"
Nothing but a faint candle.
"Hiding… hiding… are you?"
She had hidden in advance. Impatience drove him to the next door.
He wrecked the bathroom. Only the largest room remained. And from inside came the sound of breathing.
"Heeh… Soyeon… Soyeon… I'm here."
"…Who is it?"
A small voice, steady, without a trace of fear. That composure made An Suhyeon's lower body surge with heat.
"I-I-I-I from now on… you…"
"You know better than to lay hands on a woman who already has an owner, don't you?"
"O-O-O-Owner? You won't be s-s-seeing that guy anymore, will you? Doesn't matter. C-C-Come out right now…!"
An Suhyeon began smashing the door in earnest. At last the fruit he meant to pluck appeared in the dark.
That slender body, the glimpse of her face—it stoked his excitement higher.
He had to pin her down this instant.
Just as An Suhyeon lunged, the front door suddenly burst open.
In that flash, the memory of gunfire exploded through his mind.
Take her hostage and rape her right in front of him!
He reached for Lee Soyeon—only to grab a thick pile of blankets.
"Wh-wh-what?"
He flung the blankets aside, but Soyeon had already slipped past him and was sprinting for the entrance.
Move! Move!
An Suhyeon ran too—far enough that catching her should have been easy.
Almost…
His hand was about to close on her shoulder when she was yanked forward faster than he expected.
Jin Dohyuk had succeeded in pulling Lee Soyeon to his side. But An Suhyeon's eyes were already on the gun. While Dohyuk was exposed protecting her, An Suhyeon rolled and kicked the weapon from his hand.
"Ugh!"
"D-D-Die…!"
He scrambled on top to finish it and began crushing the helmet.
"Kyaaaaagh!"
After several choking impacts, a fierce blow cracked against his own skull.
"Ah…"
Lee Soyeon had bravely brought the candlestick down on his head.
"Heh heh heh… too late. Once I kill this bastard, you…"
"Don't even dream of touching my woman."
Click.
Another ominous sound reached his ears.
There had only been one gun. Yet from Dohyuk's waist a short double-barreled shotgun now rose into view.
"…!"
Something he had never imagined pressed flush against his torso.
"Ah…"
It was coming. Whatever would blow his body apart.
Hold on. No pain, so just hold on and kill him.
He clenched his teeth and poured every ounce of strength into enduring—then every bit of power drained from his body at once.
He had trusted his zombified flesh to tank it, but the sensation vanished completely.
The double-barreled shotgun roared, and An Suhyeon felt his body drop endlessly toward the floor.
His mind was clear, yet his body no longer obeyed.
"Uu… aaaaaah!"
His torso refused to move, as if severed. While he howled with only his upper half left, a darkness rose.
In that darkness a man stood, pure rage made flesh.
"An Suhyeon."
"I-I'm sorry. I must've gone crazy for a second! Okay?"
"You're sorry?"
"Yes. Please spare me. I think I can control it. I'm not even st-st-stuttering right now…"
Pathetic as it was, An Suhyeon begged for his life with everything he had. Survive first. Above all, the zombification seemed to have paused for the moment.
Live. Just beg once. If I live…
He could try again later.
"We've been through this together! I gave you information, I helped you! This time I just lost it for a second! Please… I'll be useful!"
He groveled. Jin Dohyuk set the sawed-off shotgun down.
"True, you did help me a lot."
"Right? I was so loyal! Just this once, please! I'll work hard. I'll be loyal like a dog."
"Then bark for me. I do think it'd be a waste to kill you. Show me the price of that loyalty."
The man's tone made An Suhyeon prick up his ears. Was he actually going to spare him? The voice was almost gentle.
Fuck, after everything I've been through…
Nothing to lose by trying. An Suhyeon barked like a dog right there.
"Ahahaha!"
Jin Dohyuk laughed. An Suhyeon laughed along, awkward.
"How was that? Pretty loyal, right?"
"Nice little show at the end. Pathetic. Really pathetic."
The man had already picked up the Desert Eagle that had fallen to the floor.
"I'd love to blow your limbs off one by one before I kill you, but I can't waste the bullets."
"What? What are you talking about…? Weren't you going to spare me?"
"I only thought about it. Did you really think I'd let you walk after that insane shit? Who the hell gave you the right to interpret things so conveniently? I decide."
"…"
An Suhyeon's face crumpled into pure despair.
"You son of a—!"
But what waited for the man who could no longer move was a single round from the Desert Eagle, aimed straight at his skull.
An Suhyeon's consciousness no longer existed in this place.