We Were Not the Last Survivors
Kim Jun glanced around the area before stepping out the door, leaving Mari in the car.
He always checked the surroundings of the house before opening the door, then climbed into the camper and started the engine.
This was an unscheduled, sudden looting run, and he was bringing along Mari, who had no experience with it.
“There are two hospitals. Which one should we hit first?”
“Hmm.”
Kim Jun explained it more clearly.
“Last time I went looting in the town center with Eun Ji, right? There’s a big five-story surgical clinic there.”
“Five stories? Is the whole building a hospital?”
“No. First floor’s an optician, second floor rents out free medical equipment, then there’s a gym above that…”
It was the kind of local clinic you’d find in a typical rural town, tucked inside a building near the station or bus terminal.
“Plus all the private clinics are clustered around the traditional market. If we’re looking for a surgical one specifically…”
“What about the other hospital?”
“It’s a nursing home. Nothing around it, just stuck in the middle of rice paddies. If there are zombies, they’re probably the patients.”
“Hmmm.”
If they went to the private clinic, they’d have to fight zombies the entire way there. It was five stories tall with no working elevator, so they’d have to clear the building floor by floor, grab what they needed, and get out.
The nursing hospital would also be complicated inside, but since it was isolated, they could take their time clearing the road on the way there and loot more safely.
[Fight through a ton of zombies all the way to the town center, loot the private clinic quickly, and return.] versus [It’ll take longer, but clear the isolated nursing hospital, loot it, and come back.]
“The nursing hospital seems better. Those places usually stock a lot of specialized medicine and antibiotics.”
“Got it. Then that’s where we’re going.”
Kim Jun turned the wheel and headed toward the nursing hospital.
The highway he hadn’t taken in a while eventually led to a rural national road. He’d cleared most of the zombies along it already, so there wasn’t much to see.
A few zombies appeared here and there, but they were far away. To Kim Jun they felt more like animals on a safari as he drove past.
Mari, sitting in the passenger seat, on the other hand, was seeing the outside world for the first time since that tragedy. She bit her lip at the horrific sight.
She had first come to Sosa-beol for a shoot. Right before rehearsal, people who had come to watch suddenly started biting each other.
They charged at the staff. Everyone tried to escape in a panic, but the filming crew and audience who couldn’t reach the shelter ended up killing and being killed by one another. And they were still out there, hungrily searching for more humans.
Mari spoke in a low voice.
“It really is horrific.”
“That’s exactly how I felt at first too.”
Kim Jun had already done this kind of unknown looting run several times by now. He had grown numb to it. The awareness that these things had once been human had faded.
He had to kill zombies to survive. And outside of the idols in the shelter and himself, he hadn’t found any other living humans.
As they passed under the overpass and sped down the country road, Kim Jun spotted a white building in the distance and the sign that read Yesol Nursing Hospital. He slowed to a stop.
“Gotta take care of those first.”
“Right here?!”
With zombies shuffling around dozens of meters away, Kim Jun pulled out his gun. Mari quickly covered her ears and mouth, trying not to get shaken by the hunting scene her colleagues had warned her about.
Ting—
A cheerful pneumatic rifle shot rang out. Blood sprayed from a zombie’s head thirty meters away, and it staggered.
Click— Ting!
Watching a human-shaped zombie collapse from a headshot right in front of her, Mari steeled her heart.
It took Kim Jun thirty minutes to finish off the zombies. He checked their motionless bodies through his scope, then started the car again.
Mari breathed a sigh of relief that the zombie hunt was over. Kim Jun drove past the corpses and arrived at the nursing hospital.
“Oppa, there are zombies over there…”
“Yeah, I see them.”
Spotting zombies crawling slowly near the hospital, Kim Jun raised his gun again.
It was a modest hospital with about a hundred beds, but zombies were scattered across the parking lot. Kim Jun aimed his rifle and spoke to Mari.
“Watch the rearview and side mirrors. Tell me immediately if you see any zombies nearby!”
“Ah, yes!”
Just like before, Kim Jun slowly picked off the zombies from a distance with precise shots.
He was low on revolver rounds, but he had more than enough lead pellets for the air gun to drop every zombie in sight.
Ting—
“Graaah!”
Occasionally a zombie that took a hit would thrash and start running, but in the crowded parking lot they never made it close before dropping one by one.
“Hoo…”
Kim Jun painstakingly cleared out the remaining zombies. Once he confirmed none were moving, he prepared to get out.
“Mari. Open the rear door and grab the jerrycans and hose.”
“Ah, yes!”
Even though they were here for medicine and surgical tools, Kim Jun first took the jerrycans and coiled hose and approached the hospital parking lot.
He pulled out his hatchet and forcibly pried open the fuel caps of the long-abandoned cars.
Crunch— Crack—
These vehicles had no owners left to complain.
He opened the fuel doors, inserted the hose, and siphoned the gasoline into the jerrycans.
He filled the one labeled ‘D’ with diesel and the one labeled ‘Gas’ with gasoline, scraping every last drop from the tanks.
Once both jerrycans were full, he could have gathered more if he had time, but the parking lot was littered with zombie corpses. The stench was terrible, and there was no telling when more might appear.
Kim Jun had Mari help load the fuel into the car, then finally headed into the hospital.
“Um, how do we get inside?”
“There’s always a way.”
Kim Jun glanced at the front entrance, then headed toward a first-floor window in the pitch-dark building.
He opened one of the windows, put a whistle to his lips, and blew hard.
WRY!!!!!!!
The sound of zombies reacting to the whistle echoed from inside. Kim Jun lured them over, then hurled a plastic drink bottle filled with lighter fluid into the building.
Crash!
The bottle shattered inside the hospital and gasoline splashed across the floor. Kim Jun tore down a curtain, lit it with a lighter, and watched the zombies rushing toward the window.
When they got close, he tossed the burning curtain in.
Whoosh—
Flames erupted inside the hospital. There were no working sprinklers. The zombies that charged straight in were hit by the fire head-on.
It wasn’t just one or two. Several zombies burned right before her eyes. Even with a mask on, Mari turned her head away from the acrid smoke.
If you burned them with lighter fluid like this, the flames died down quickly once the fuel was gone, so there was no risk of a massive fire.
Kim Jun moved to the main entrance. With the aggro pulled to one spot, he swapped his air gun for the shotgun and fired at the flaming zombies.
Bang— Click— Bang!
Burning zombies were torn apart by slug bullets and collapsed. After entering the hospital, Kim Jun took Mari and searched every corner.
Since it was a nursing hospital, the first floor had therapy rooms for physical training and rehabilitation, but they skipped those.
The administrative offices wouldn’t have anything useful either, so they moved on and searched for the pharmacy.
“Ah, over there.”
“Hm?”
The place Mari pointed to was an outpatient examination room.
Unfortunately, the door was ominously locked.
Kim Jun fired a shot into the wooden door, then kicked it open. Fortunately, although blood was smeared everywhere, the room had no zombies inside.
There were old traces of someone who had stripped off their clothes in a hurry to escape when the outbreak began. It felt too unpleasant to rummage through.
“Ah, these!”
Mari immediately opened the glass cabinet and began collecting the tools inside.
Scalpels, stainless steel cups, trays, scissors, silk ties, and more were neatly arranged.
She also packed a stethoscope and disinfectant cotton swabs that had likely been in regular use until a few months ago.
“Can you actually perform surgery?”
“During my internship I did an appendectomy and suturing.”
“So you can cut and stitch at least.”
Since she was a licensed doctor, she could probably treat something like cellulitis if they made it back.
“Looks like we’ll have to go up to the second floor for the medicine.”
“That’s right. The nurses’ station! There should be a dispensary right next to it.”
In the end, they only grabbed basic medical tools here. They would have to head upstairs for proper looting.
Kim Jun left the examination room, checked the surroundings, and headed for the stairs to the second floor.
Every time they climbed the escalator-like stairs, they heard zombie moans. The two of them moved cautiously, watching every direction.
Kim Jun quickly reached the top, pressed his back against a pillar, and fired at the first zombie he saw.
Bang! Bang!
He cleared the nearby zombies first. In the second-floor hallway where more could appear at any moment, every nerve in Kim Jun’s body was on edge.
Mari held her cane ready to help him, scanning the area. Kim Jun quickly reloaded.
Just ten meters ahead were the nurses’ station and dispensary, but four or five zombies blocked the narrow corridor in front of them.
Nurse zombies and elderly patients in hospital gowns were shambling toward them from all sides.
Kim Jun blew the head off one zombie that was starting to break into a run, then fired the shotgun in rapid succession.
While Kim Jun handled the zombies, Mari couldn’t approach the dispensary. She stood back-to-back with him, gripping her cane tightly in case any zombies tried to ambush them from behind.
That was when it happened.
A door at the end of the hallway opened, and a human hand emerged.
“Whoa!”
“Over here! Here!”
“!!!”
It wasn’t the grotesque groan of a zombie. It was clearly human speech.
Mari reflexively called out to Kim Jun.
“Oppa!”
“The fuck? Can’t you see I’m killing zombies right now?!”
“There are people!!!”
“What?!”
He had already taken out the running zombies. The rest were the painfully slow ones that moved at barely one kilometer per hour.
Kim Jun aimed his gun in that direction and ran over. The people opened the swing door wide so the two of them could enter.
“Huff… huff…”
“There really were people here!”
This was a special ward inside the nursing hospital reserved for wealthy patients.
Inside the spacious room, the living people they had finally met after nearly three months looked like a doctor.
“Aigoo! I don’t even know how long it’s been since I saw another living person instead of those monsters!”
“Exactly! It’s truly wonderful to meet you!”
Two middle-aged men who appeared to be in their early to mid-forties.
One wore a blood-stained lab coat and looked like a doctor. The other appeared to be a security guard.
Their voices were certainly welcoming, but Kim Jun raised his gun.
“Ah, um… the gun…”
“Then why don’t you put down that kitchen knife and metal pipe you’re holding too.”
They also had weapons for survival. At Kim Jun’s signal, they slowly lowered their blades and pipes first. Only then did he gradually lower his gun barrel.
It took five minutes for the standoff to end. Only then did they exchange proper greetings and look around.
They must have been surviving here for a long time. A diesel generator was running, and the room was stocked with countless water bottles, hospital-style canned goods, and juice cartons in the refrigerator.
“Aigoo! So nice to meet other people! Let’s have some water and talk.”
When the doctor offered a bottle of water, Kim Jun reached out but politely declined.
“We brought our own. Mari, you want some first?”
He pulled a canteen from his belt and handed it to her. Mari drank while expressing gratitude to the two men.
“How long have you two been here…?”
“We hid here the moment people started tearing each other apart. We couldn’t go outside. This is how it’s been.”
“Hoo, it’s fortunate we met other survivors like this.”
Kim Jun nodded at their words and sighed as he watched the walking zombies approaching from outside.
At that moment, Mari approached the doctor and said,
“We need medicine right now. Can we get some supplies?”
“Uh, um? Medicine? Is there a patient?”
“Yes. We have a patient with cellulitis, and there’s a risk of MRSA infection, so we need related antibiotics!”
“Ah, in that case… yes, of course. Antibiotics…”
Just then, the security guard looked out the window and his face hardened.
“Even if we give you some, it’ll be a problem. Can you even get back?”
“What?”
The guard gestured outside.
When Kim Jun looked out the window, he saw more zombies swarming in after the ones he had already killed.
In particular, zombies wearing blue prisoner uniforms had appeared and were tearing through the area.
“Damn it! First a patient, now criminal zombies?”
There was a detention center near the nursing hospital in Sosa-beol. It looked like the prisoners who had been released had turned into zombies.
This was a miscalculation.
He had chosen the nursing hospital over the town clinic because the road here had far fewer zombies. He never imagined zombies from the detention center ten kilometers away would make it this far.
“Looks like at least ten of them…”
“How are we supposed to break through that?”
“Well, since we’re talking about it, I need to snipe them from here anyway.”
“Oh, I see?”
Meanwhile, Mari asked the doctor for the necessary medicine, but his hesitant attitude was frustrating her.
In this situation, Kim Jun called Mari over and whispered quietly.
‘Just grab the medicine and let’s find a way to get out immediately.’
‘Ah, yes. These people probably…’
‘They turned this place into their shelter. What does that have to do with us?’
‘Right?’
‘Just in case, don’t accept water or anything they offer. Watch their movements carefully. Don’t let them get close to me. They’ll get in the way.’
‘Yes. I’ll block them.’
It was unlikely they would stab him in the back inside this small hospital room, but since they were strangers aside from their common enemy the zombies, this level of caution was necessary.
Mari listened to Kim Jun, then ran back to the doctor and said,
“Doctor! We’ll just take the gram-negative antibiotics, so please just tell us where they are!”
“Ha, well…”
The doctor looked troubled. Beside Kim Jun, the security guard watched him snipe zombies from the window.
Something felt off to Kim Jun, so he spoke to the guard.
“Don’t come near me. The gunshot noise and all, it’s distracting while I’m shooting.”
“Ah, aah! Sorry! I’ll step back, so please take care of those things! We’ll tell you where the medicine is!”
The guard and doctor said they would show Mari the location of the dispensary outside and led her toward an emergency exit map away from the door.
Kim Jun aimed at the head of one zombie, loaded a round, and slowly pulled the trigger.
Bang!
He accurately pierced the forehead of one of the prisoner zombies and dropped it. Then he aimed at another zombie approaching his camper.
That was when it happened.
The doctor, who had offered to show Mari the way to the dispensary in the hallway, suddenly slapped her across the face. Two men charged at Kim Jun from behind as he turned to see what the noise was.
BAAAAM!
Crash!!!!
“!?”
Kim Jun, who had been leaning out the window aiming at a zombie approaching the car, suddenly jolted. His body slammed into the window frame and he lost his balance.
“Ack!?”
An ambush he never saw coming.
And just like that, Kim Jun fell from the window.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!”
Mari screamed at the scene unfolding before her eyes and collapsed on the spot.
The two men who had thrown Kim Jun out the window turned to look at Mari with cold smiles.
“Ha, that bastard was overthinking everything.”
“But we still got a girl out of it, right? Ha, how long has it been since we saw a pretty little thing like this?”
Zombies outside. And the fall of Kim Jun, who had been traveling with her.
The first people they had met were not saviors. They were demons wearing the mask of humanity, their goodwill long gone.