Chapter 12: Trust Me to the End
CHAPTER 12
Believe in Me to the End
As Kim Jun drove out and circled the area, Rana spoke from the passenger seat behind the acrylic barrier.
“Oppa~ Yesterday was really great.”
“...”
“You really are incredibly powerful, aren’t you? Three times in a row...”
“Don’t talk about that~”
Rana had seduced him like a temptress, and Kim Jun had matched her with the tireless vigor of a virile beast. Their private story was one the other seven top stars riding in the car would never know—something only the two of them could speak of inside the vehicle.
“...Let’s go.”
Kim Jun stepped on the accelerator with fresh energy.
The place he had chosen for today’s supply run was the west coast area, a zone he had never attempted before.
“Head west from Sosa-beol and you’ll hit the industrial complex and the shoreline.”
“Wow~ Are we going to see the ocean?”
“The drive alone takes over forty minutes. Throw in zombies along the way and it could take a lot longer.”
“Yeah, well. It’d be nice if we find something good once we reach the beach.”
Rana was treating the entire looting expedition like an RPG or a Hollywood blockbuster, her mentality unshakably bright.
Watching her hum cheerfully even while glancing at zombie corpses outside made unease stir inside Kim Jun.
She’s definitely too excited. From now on I can’t let her leave unless the situation is completely safe.
Being so terrified she became a hindrance like Gaya was one problem, but charging around completely unaware of real danger like Rana was an even bigger one.
Keeping that in mind, Kim Jun drove all the way to the west coast region.
The national highway ran straight and the pavement was solid.
Yet it didn’t feel like a drive at all.
“Ugh, shit...”
This stretch had been carved through mountains, so collisions with wild animals had always been frequent. Even in the old days Kim Jun had seen plenty of roadkill—roe deer and raccoons that had darted out. Now his nerves were razor-sharp wondering what might leap into the road.
In a world where zombies rampaged, the highway was littered with burned-out vehicles and the melted, asphalt-fused remains of what had once been people. Any glimpse of red in the distance turned out to be blood splattered across the ground like old gum.
He had endured it while hunting zombies up close, but the long-distance stench finally forced Kim Jun to stop the car midway.
He chain-smoked to mask the odor, but the revolting smell refused to fade.
Screeeech—
“Oppa?”
“Huk… huk… ugh!!!”
“Oppa! What’s wrong?”
“The smell is seriously going to kill me.”
At his words Rana cracked the window, caught a whiff of rotting corpse blood, and hastily closed it again. She snatched a mask from the dashboard and put it on.
“Eww! I didn’t even think of that. My sense of smell has never been great, so…”
They had only covered half of the twenty-five-kilometer stretch.
Now that he looked around, he noticed a convenience store and a lottery shop in the area—both reduced to nothing but ashes.
“Haah… damn it!”
It looked as if the zombies had swarmed through and then set everything ablaze. The entire neighborhood was charred rubble.
The lottery shop Kim Jun had frequented for five years, the convenience store beside it, and the fried-chicken place were all burned to the ground. Every store he used to reach in under a minute by car had been turned into wasteland. They had stopped midway with nothing to show for it when Rana suddenly looked around and shouted.
“Huh? Oppa! Over there! Look, over there!!”
“?”
Kim Jun followed her finger and saw zombies.
“Fuck. Fine. I’ll take care of them at least.”
“No, Oppa—behind them! That store!”
Three or four zombies milled about, but right behind them stood one building that had somehow escaped the flames.
“...A pharmacy?”
Now that he thought about it, they did have some basic medicine, but they needed to prepare for the worst. Even a stock of Tylenol and glucose would be a godsend.
If only they could still make calls he would have asked Mari for a professional list, but that wasn’t an option. They had to hit this place first.
“Clear those things out first…”
Kim Jun turned the car to give himself a stable firing position, then pulled three lead pellets from his pocket.
Ting!
When it came to silent, long-range kills, nothing beat the air gun.
One zombie dropped in the distance. The others reacted immediately.
When one broke into a run, Kim Jun yanked the bolt, loaded, and fired.
Ting! Clack— Ting!
Two bursts of compressed air.
The sprinting zombie took both rounds to the head, staggered, and collapsed.
Plenty of time.
Kim Jun calmly dropped all four zombies with the air gun, lit a cigarette, waited until they stopped twitching, then stepped past the bodies and headed for the pharmacy.
“Stay in the car and don’t move!”
“Huh?”
“Only come out when I say so!”
Kim Jun exited first, gun raised, and swept the interior carefully. Just to be safe he also clicked on the tactical light at his waist and probed the darkness.
Bloody handprints covered the walls. The foul stench suggested something had died and rotted inside.
“Whew…”
The supplies were all lightweight medicines, easy for one person to carry. Kim Jun started with the Tylenol, then moved on to antibiotics, antidiarrheals, ointments, masks, pain patches, glucose, saline, and every other useful drug he could find.
Glucose would be vital for the children if they fell ill, and the abundance of vitamins meant they wouldn’t have to worry about scurvy or beriberi.
He was just picking up the vitamin drinks that had been stored at room temperature since the power died days ago when—
Knock knock—
Rana was gesturing from the car, eager to help, but Kim Jun shook his head. No need for her to come out.
He finished looting the pharmacy in under thirty minutes, stripped it clean, and returned to the vehicle.
“Oppa, since it’s a pharmacy they must have those, right?”
“What?”
“Contraceptives.”
“The things you think about…”
“They’re not only for sex, you know? There’s the monthly magic to deal with too!”
Living with eight people under one roof had left them critically short on sanitary products; they had even resorted to cloth. The women would need these.
Kim Jun showed her the pack he had set aside.
Mushroom Pills for Your Safe Days!
“Oh, these!!”
Rana decided the entire looting run had been worth it just for that find.
Kim Jun slipped on one of the new masks to blunt the stench still rolling off the zombie-infested streets.
“All right! Let’s move!”
He floored the accelerator. What should have been a thirty-minute drive took two hours, and along the way he put down ten more zombies.
A little farther and they would reach the port terminal, but it only handled cargo. Kim Jun circled the district three times, searching every inch. Every shop was burned out, gas cylinders had exploded everywhere, and he finally called off the search.
He trudged to the unfinished seaside promenade and sat on a rock overlooking the water.
“Huu~”
The sea breeze finally scrubbed the nauseating zombie-blood stench from his nose. He felt human again.
He lit a cigarette. Beside the beautiful idol, a cold drink rested in his hand.
“So free… It feels liberating.”
“Right? If we’d packed sandwiches and kimbap it would be the perfect picnic.”
Exactly as she said—if not for the zombie apocalypse, it would have been an excellent date spot.
No zombies were visible in any direction, so they simply sat in comfortable silence, staring at the sea.
Since no one had fished the waters since the outbreak, small black rockfish and mackerel darted around their feet.
“Wow, seeing those makes me crave fish.”
“Fish… yeah, fish…”
“Spicy stew would be perfect. Or coat them in batter, grill them lightly, then wrap with rice and seaweed… Mmm!”
“...”
Kim Jun thought for a moment, then stood.
“We should check something.”
“Where? You’re not saying we’re heading back already?”
“There’s a raw-fish restaurant near here. They were building a tourist complex around it.”
“Um… the power and water have been out for ages. Wouldn’t all the fish in the tanks be dead?”
“We have to look.”
Kim Jun cut their peaceful moment short, climbed back into the car, and drove off.
When they reached the row of restaurants near Sosa-beol Harbor, the stench of stagnant seawater already hung thick in the air.
“Ugh…”
Between zombie bloodstains and the rotting-fish reek, his face had twisted in disgust more times today than he could count. If he hadn’t put on the mask back at the pharmacy, his nose would have been raw by now.
“I’m finding something edible here no matter what!”
He had already failed several food runs; today would not end in another total bust.
Kim Jun studied the line of restaurants, slung the gun across his back, and drew his axe. In his other hand he carried the sack of saline solution he had taken earlier. It might not be perfect preservation, but it would at least slow decay.
Bang— Bang— Crunch!
Splaaaaash—
He brought the axe down on the first visible tank. The lock shattered and water exploded outward.
Black liquid poured out along with the fish.
The first tank was a bust.
“Ugh, damn…”
He had only succeeded in spreading the fishy stench across the floor. Kim Jun moved to the second restaurant.
The place had been popular, with both cylindrical and rectangular tanks. Now they were simply loot.
Crunch! Crash!
Splaaaaash!
The cylindrical tank full of horse mackerel—empty. The next rectangular tank released rotten red snapper and black rockfish with cloudy white eyes.
The following tank held flatfish and more black rockfish… but a few were still alive.
“Oh!”
Kim Jun gratefully collected the stubborn survivors, then smashed every remaining tank in rapid succession.
He wished he had brought a cooler; sashimi was out of the question now. Still, they would be able to enjoy real fish stew or porridge instead of canned goods for a while.
Kim Jun destroyed every tank within a fifty-meter radius and filled one large sack with the freshest catch.
While wondering how best to store the fish still flopping inside the sack, something else caught his eye.
“Huh, those!?”
Burlap sacks stacked beside the restaurant—sea salt.
Salt was one of the supplies they could never have too much of. Perfect.
He considered bringing the car closer but decided the back-and-forth was too much trouble. He set the sack of fish beside a broken tank and walked over to the pile of salt.
His mind was already spinning happy thoughts of spicy fish stew tonight and maybe cracking open another bottle of soju if the mood struck.
He hoisted the forty-kilogram sack of sea salt onto his shoulder. Now he only needed to grab the fish sack and—
Crash!!!
“!?”
Graaaaawr—
A perfectly intact glass door suddenly exploded outward as a figure hurled itself at Kim Jun.
It was a zombie in a blood-soaked apron, eyes rolled completely white, mouth gaping wide.
“You son of a bitch…”
Caught completely off guard, Kim Jun was tackled.
He tried to leap backward, but the floor—slick with rotten fish water that had spilled from every tank he had smashed—betrayed him.
Slip—
“!”
Thud!!
Kim Jun crashed to the ground together with the zombie.