Neither of Us Would Admit We Were Scared
I had ended up inside a zombie apocalypse novel. The movie was incredibly scary. If you only looked at the plot, there wasn’t much to it. The main character and their group returned to their old school that was scheduled for demolition to relive old memories. The early atmosphere was bright as hell, full of jokes about how they used to rule the place back in high school. The banter with the security guard who had retired a few days earlier and was now doing volunteer work was funny too. But everything began to shift little by little once the guard left for the day.
Subtle changes in the school’s scenery that you wouldn’t notice unless you paid close attention. A gradually thickening ominous mood and background score. If the school had been filthy it might have been one thing, but aside from dust it was oddly clean, which only amplified the sense of wrongness. From the moment the film truly began until the very end, I had to keep my eyes glued to the laptop screen, trembling the whole time.
Honestly, I could have just closed my eyes or run away. I could have said the movie was too scary and suggested we take a break. But there was a reason I couldn’t do that. A person has their pride. There was no way I could sit there shaking like a leaf in front of that bastard Noh Changhun. So the entire time I forced myself to stare at the laptop like nothing was wrong. I kept shoving water or snacks into my mouth to break the immersion. Of course it was still terrifying, so I did end up grabbing his arm. But other than that I managed to finish the movie without showing much reaction.
Finally, as the end credits rolled, I spoke up to keep my fear from showing. “…It was good!”
“…Yeah.”
“…”
“…”
A long silence settled over us. That was when I instinctively realized it. This bastard was clearly scared out of his mind too. He was just forcing a poker face, but the cold sweat and goosebumps were obvious. And since he seemed to have noticed I was scared as well, he kept his expression locked in place without saying a word.
I thought for a moment. If I hadn’t been scared myself I would have teased him mercilessly. But since I was terrified too, the correct move was to keep up just enough bravado and call it a draw. So I’d strike a pose and suggest the next movie.
“Shall we watch the next one…?”
“S…sure.”
“Dude, why are you stuttering?”
“I’m not scared.”
“…”
“…”
Noh Changhun hurriedly wiped away his cold sweat. I narrowed my eyes and stared at him. If he was going to play it like this, I had no choice but to mess with him.
“You were scared shitless. Just sit there. I’ll pick the movie.”
“Fine. Well, let’s watch the next scariest one then.”
“Yeah, yeah. There are plenty more here anyway.”
“We’ve got time. If we use our vacation days we can screw around all day.”
“They give us vacation?”
“If you grind one person nonstop, efficiency drops.”
“Hmm, hmm.”
The image of Kang Siwoo smiling brightly flashed through my mind. He was probably still running the campus by working everyone else to the bone. Seriously, if I ever got the chance I’d love to smack him a few times, but it was a shame. Still, he wasn’t that bad of a guy… I could let him off with one hit.
“…Whoa?!”
I stood up to adjust the laptop, but my legs suddenly refused to obey. The reason was obvious. I hadn’t realized my legs had gone weak from fear and tried to move anyway. Luckily Noh Changhun, who was already standing, caught my arm so I avoided looking completely pathetic.
“You idiot. You were scared.”
“I wasn’t scared! You’re the one who was sweating buckets, you bastard!”
“Whose legs gave out again?”
“What, you bastard? You wanna go? You wanna throw hands? Huh?!”
I didn’t need a mirror to know my face had turned bright red with embarrassment. So I deliberately raised my voice and headbutted his chest a few times. Noh Changhun cleared his throat and crossed his arms. It was obviously an attempt to calm himself down. Silence stretched between us for a while.
“…”
“…”
“…Dumbass.”
That was really all that came out. If we were scared we could have just said so, but neither of us wanted to admit it, so here we were. Noh Changhun must have found the whole thing embarrassing too, because he let out a small laugh. He opened his drink, chugged the whole bottle in one go, and spoke.
“I’m heading to the bathroom. You coming?”
“Of course I have to go?”
I looked at the pile of trash beside me. Noh Changhun saw it and chuckled. Honestly, it was understandable. We’d eaten and drunk so much trying to ease the tension that only trash remained. And after drinking that much, I was starting to need to pee. I closed the laptop and was about to head out when I realized something.
“Hey, Changhun.”
“What.”
“How do I get to the bathroom here?”
“You dig a hole and go. What else?”
“Ugh.”
“…What did you expect?”
“At least I thought we could use an actual bathroom inside the building.”
“Well, yeah.”
Noh Changhun nodded. At least he hadn’t forgotten the settings he himself had written; that was a relief. On campus, important people got to use proper bathrooms with water tanks. Everyone else probably handled things exactly as he’d described.
After a moment, Noh Changhun began explaining.
“I wanted to do the same here, but there are too many people and we can’t spare the manpower.”
“Ah?”
“Plus cleaning the septic tank is a whole job by itself.”
“That makes sense.”
“So we dug a big pit and installed toilets in it. Basically a makeshift latrine.”
“I get it.”
Honestly, I could understand. Even if it was a military base, the situation wasn’t exactly luxurious. I knew that being able to watch a movie like this was already a huge luxury. Still, I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed that I wasn’t getting any special treatment. Since I couldn’t show it, I just told him to lead the way.
Fortunately, the makeshift bathroom was far more proper than I’d imagined. I’d pictured nothing but a random tent, but it was built with actual bricks, which was reassuring.
“If you want to wash your hands, use the groundwater pump over there.”
“Wait, there’s a groundwater pump too?”
“We installed it urgently a few days ago. Just in case.”
“Wow, the facilities are decent. We’ve been hauling water from the river this whole time.”
“That place is in the mountains.”
“Tsk.”
“Just keep watch. Last time a zombie that was hiding pretty well managed to bite someone.”
I didn’t think it was necessary, but I obediently stood guard as Noh Changhun asked. After he finished, I gave him a stern warning not to peek. Thankfully nothing happened while I was peeing, and we washed our hands together at the pump afterward.
After that, it didn’t feel like a zombie apocalypse at all. It felt more like… you know. Like we’d come on a school retreat or something. When it was this peaceful, it was extremely peaceful.
“Hey, Changhun.”
“What.”
“Want to do a bonfire later?”
“Did you come here to play?”
“But the vibe is nice. Come on, let’s gather some wood.”
Noh Changhun gave me a look that said I was pathetic, then suddenly his expression hardened. I ignored it. It wasn’t like he only made that face once in a while. He looked at me like I was pathetic whenever he was bored, so brushing it off was easy.
“This place just happens to be occupied by a relatively moderate faction.”
“A relatively moderate faction?”
“Remember what I told you about what happened in Jangyu?”
With his face still stiff, Noh Changhun set the mood. He moved to a corner and stuck close to me. It was clear something serious was coming. I searched my memory. He had definitely mentioned it back in Gimhae.
“It was roughly copied from real-life Gimhae, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And if the setting wasn’t clearly defined, it changed to whatever seemed plausible.”
There had been a time we had to cross a bridge in Jangyu. That bridge had been very different from what Noh Changhun remembered. Fortunately it was still wide enough to push a bicycle across… but I wondered if the warning he was about to give was about something else. Be careful because there might be information different from what I knew in the novel. Was that the level of it?
“Right? That’s what I thought.”
“No.”
“Then what’s so important that you’re clinging to me like this?”
“You know cannibalism, right?”
“…?”
I knew cannibalism as members of the same species eating each other. So, humans eating humans. For a second I thought he meant zombies, but there would be no reason to set the mood like this if that was the case. The word cannibalism naturally came to mind.
“No way…”
“We probably won’t run into it much… but I did mention it in a few lines.”
“…”
I almost asked why he was only telling me now, but stopped myself. Noh Changhun had never planned to depict cannibalism properly in the novel from the start. Still, he must have thought it would break plausibility if cannibalism didn’t occur in a situation like this, so he had written a few lines about it. And since our goal was to reach the novel’s completion, we just needed to build up strength in Busan and head up to Gyeonggi Province. There had been no need for me to know about it before.
Of course I understood what Noh Changhun was worried about. He was warning me to watch out for the evil forces that had been deliberately ignored in the original work. And the very first of those were cannibals.
Noh Changhun scanned our surroundings, then frowned and spoke.
“In the original work, other forces never attacked. Why do you think that was?”
“Because of the zombies?”
“Yes, because of the zombies. But the story’s been twisted pretty badly now.”
It was true. Baron, who should have held out much longer, had been taken out way too early by us. The butterfly had already flapped its wings; a storm was inevitable. On top of that, we had to consider that the cult in Busan’s Nam-gu would grow even larger. So it wasn’t strange for Noh Changhun to speak this seriously.
I let out a long, slow sigh.
“In the original work, we didn’t have a war, right?”
“It didn’t happen because Kang Siwoo coordinated things well. The fact that only forces willing to listen remained also played a part.”
“But now you’re saying a war might actually happen?”
“Probably.”
“And some of the things we’re talking about right now aren’t being filtered?”
Noh Changhun nodded. I quietly closed my eyes. It already felt like my head was going to explode.