Welcome to Zombie World (2)
“We’ll deal with the bodies later. Let’s get inside the boat first. Those bastards are swarming in hard.”
Jinwoo, gripping his gun tightly, spoke while staring west. Following his gaze, I saw the thousand-strong zombie horde we’d spotted earlier advancing steadily along the riverside walkway.
The distance had already narrowed to roughly six hundred meters. If we didn’t hide quickly, every last one of them might come straight for us.
“More coming from that side too. Damn it.”
Sheriff placed a hand on his forehead and looked toward the eastern walkway.
“Seriously?”
Yubin sighed and turned his head toward three o’clock. It was true. Though still distant, zombie packs that hadn’t been visible moments ago were now approaching. These groups weren’t small either—at least several hundred strong.
“……Where the hell did they come from? Did they follow the subway exits? Or is there some kind of hole connecting to another neighborhood?”
While watching the massive numbers, cold sweat trickled down Yubin’s back. There were far more zombies wandering nearby than when he’d observed from the helicopter last month.
Changing the meeting location now was impossible. They had to make this work here. With only four people, they needed to clear this zombie-infested area and turn it into a safe place to negotiate the trade.
Four days remained until the transaction. ……No, three and a half.
“Huuu……”
Yubin let out a small sigh. He’d fought well for months, but facing zombies always pressed down on his chest. Even with Terra’s serum, if they got surrounded…… that would be the end. The blood of an immune person couldn’t stop them from being torn to pieces.
The only consolation was that this was the final trade. At least until spring arrived, they wouldn’t have to throw themselves into such reckless, dangerous work again.
“Hey, come on up.”
Mingu, who had already reached the rooftop, leaned over the railing and called down.
“I cleaned it out.”
Seeing him wiping the tip of his machete with a tablecloth, it seemed he’d taken care of a few inside the floating café as well.
“Were there zombies hiding, hyung?”
When Yubin asked, Mingu nodded casually.
“A few in the storage area.”
“Let’s close the door before we go in.”
Yubin knocked on the entrance to the floating café, built with thick steel frames. At this distance the zombies on the walkway probably wouldn’t notice, but a little extra insurance never hurt.
Creaaak-!
When Sheriff put his strength into his thick arms, the long-neglected iron door began to move with a loud metallic screech.
Clang-!
The moment Sheriff shut the door, Yubin tossed one end of the loosened rope to him.
Whip-!
Sheriff quickly wrapped the rope around the frame and tied a knot. While Yubin pulled it tight from the other side, Sheriff wound it several times around the farthest pillar. It was a makeshift safety measure to keep any zombies that might jump from the bridge from landing on the deck.
“Ah, damn it! I’m too slow at this.”
Frustrated by how slowly the knots were coming together, Yubin glared resentfully at his prosthetic hand. He’d thought he’d gotten used to picking things up, but complex, precise work like tying ropes always revealed its limits.
“Don’t get worked up over something like that. I can handle the heavy lifting, can’t I?”
Sheriff, who had calmed Yubin down, finished tying the rope and checked that it was pulled taut. With this, the basic preparations for staying in the floating café for over a week were complete.
By blocking the only path connecting to the overpass with this crude net, even if zombies came, they wouldn’t be able to pour through all at once. Of course, if hundreds charged at once, this flimsy barricade wouldn’t do much good.
“Hurry. They’re almost here.”
Jinwoo, who had been watching both sides of the walkway, warned them again. The front of the zombie procession coming from nine o’clock was now within three hundred fifty meters. If they wasted any more time, they might draw the horde’s attention. The group that had split off at two o’clock was even closer. Yubin tapped Jinwoo’s shoulder.
“We’re done. Let’s head to the top floor.”
Yubin picked up the cooler containing Terra’s blood.
“Don’t take the lead! Stay behind me.”
Sheriff, gripping his hammer tightly, stepped into the circular pillar surrounding the spiral staircase first. Even though the knife-wielder claimed he’d cleared everything, Sheriff never trusted anyone else’s word one hundred percent—especially when his friend’s life was on the line.
“Samsuk, don’t go that way. You’ll step on glass.”
Jinwoo warned the dog. The broken glass scattered across the entire floor of the floating café was worrying. Since Samsuk’s paws weren’t protected by safety boots or work shoes, they’d probably need to sweep thoroughly once they had time in the afternoon.
Huff huff huff-!
As always, Samsuk skillfully and intelligently stepped around the obstacles. He truly was a partner who had weathered countless crises together.
“Nice view. Zombies everywhere you look.”
Sheriff, who had climbed onto the fourth-floor rooftop, lamented as he looked toward the walkway. Though there were a few blind spots, the view was much clearer than from the lower floors. Of course, all that was visible were dreary gray concrete buildings and zombies.
“Way over two thousand.”
Jinwoo said as he set down his magazine pouch inside the rooftop. The zombies from Seoul Forest had already reached the area. Rough counting by the hundreds suggested at least twenty-six or twenty-seven hundred. They had now changed direction toward the swimming pool and plaza. In a few minutes they would reach the exact spot where the helicopter had landed earlier.
“They’re not overlapping dangerously. It’d be better if they all moved in one big clump.”
The hundreds of zombies that had occupied the plaza moments ago were now moving east. One group of a thousand here, another few hundred there, and another few hundred at three o’clock. He’d only watched for a short while, yet his mind was already starting to feel overwhelmed. Each horde seemed to be searching different areas with slight differences in timing, intervals, and movement radius.
Graaaah-!
Occasional roars erupted from within the marching zombie groups. It was never a pleasant sound.
“……If they keep coming and going at close range, this is going to be a headache.”
Yubin, finally able to catch his breath, panted as he watched the zombie march with concern. Three thousand zombies was a scale even Jinwoo couldn’t wipe out completely. Even with unlimited ammunition, it would be…… exhausting just to keep shooting.
“They’re walking their asses off, those bastards……”
Sheriff grumbled. As always, the zombies were incomprehensibly diligent, walking at a fairly fast pace. Their movement speed stayed around 4.5 to 5 kilometers per hour with no signs of hesitation. They moved in perfect unison, as if receiving signals, efficient and orderly. Even in narrow bottleneck sections, there wasn’t much congestion.
“12:24…… Roughly two thousand zombies. Upper walkway. Uh……”
The large zombie procession split into two paths and turned north along the swimming pool fence. Yubin, who had been recording their movements on paper, turned to his friends and asked.
“Any noticeable characteristics?”
The hardest part about observing zombie groups was distinguishing their faces or features. Once there were dozens or more wearing the same rotting gray skin and blood-stained short sleeves, they all started looking identical. If two or more groups of over two thousand passed through the area, the chance of making mistakes would skyrocket.
“Samsik’s the one with the good eye for that.”
Sheriff said. If Samsik hadn’t recognized his zombified ex-girlfriends on the light rail station rooftop, they might not be alive right now.
“Even Samsik would have trouble recognizing them by now.”
Yubin shook his head while observing the zombies through binoculars. Everything was different from four months ago when the wounds on their skin were still fresh. Their clothes were worn out, and layers of dust covered the bloodstains, making it nearly impossible to tell original colors. Markings were desperately needed.
“More coming from over there too.”
Mingu pointed toward Jabeolle. Though the angle from the floating café rooftop made it barely visible due to the height difference, he could see a black mass of heads swarming and moving.
“From Jabeolle too…… Uh, that’s probably around five hundred? They look different from the ones caught by the Growler. ……No, I can’t just write this down……”
While noting the new group’s timing, direction, and size, Yubin flipped to the next page and began sketching a rough map of the area. Though the scale and positions weren’t accurate, he could roughly mark the two walkways and major buildings.
Then he drew lines for the zombies’ movement directions and numbered them. This would make it much easier to remember later.
The most basic rule for surviving in the zombie world was to avoid large groups at all costs. To do that, they first needed to know what time, at what intervals, and where those groups passed. Ignoring that process always led to harsh consequences—a lesson Yubin and his friends had learned clearly through experience.
“Ugh……”
Sheriff, who had been watching Yubin draw lines all over the makeshift map, grimaced.
“It looks even creepier when you draw it like that. There’s almost no gaps.”
“That’s because it doesn’t reflect the time yet. If we watch calmly for a day or so, we’ll start seeing exploitable openings.”
Yubin answered in a calm voice as he finished his notes. Zombies were powerful and terrifying, but they weren’t strategic and had no talent for improvisation. So with a little thinking, it was possible to manipulate them to some extent. Of course, that came with the caveat that they needed sufficient information.
They stood watch like that for about an hour and a half. A little past two in the afternoon, the zombie march passing through the park and swimming pool completely disappeared for a while. Of course, a few zombies remained in the empty spaces as was their nature, but even that felt genuinely quiet. In total, six zombie groups had appeared during that time. Combined, there were at least four thousand zombies.
“I’ll turn on the generator and run the ice maker.”
With the area momentarily quiet, Yubin immediately headed for the spiral staircase.
“Hey, wait. I’ll go with you, little bro.”
Mingu grabbed his machete and followed. No matter what anyone said, Yubin was the team’s brain, and sending the brain out without protection wasn’t right. Even if the zombies had supposedly all been cleared.
“The convenience store too…… This place is pretty intact.”
Yubin said as he and Mingu carried the generator inside the building. The first-floor restaurant entrance, with long counters on both sides, looked undamaged. The coffee house’s wall cabinet, stocked with coffee beans and syrups, was untouched. The small convenience store across the deck was the same. Though there was some blood on the inside and outside of the glass windows, there were few other signs of people having passed through. Drinks, snacks, canned goods…… There was so much food, yet……
“Well, it wouldn’t have been easy to get here without decent skills.”
Mingu replied. Even starting from the nearest residential area, it was three or four hundred meters to the floating café. Three hundred meters sounded short, but in a situation where monsters were always lurking, it would have been an incredibly dangerous journey that required risking one’s life. And the return trip, carrying food, would have been even heavier and more dangerous.
“Probably some poor bastard who somehow made it this far.”
Mingu said, pointing to a decapitated zombie corpse lying inside the restaurant. Judging by the brutal handiwork, it was clearly one Mingu had killed earlier. The zombie had been wearing a backpack, with straps secured tightly around its waist and chest so it hadn’t come off even after turning.
“How awful.”
Yubin muttered hollowly. Looking at the zombie’s emaciated limbs, he could vividly imagine how much the person must have agonized before running here. Clearly…… they had finally been unable to endure the hunger and thirst any longer and gambled their life.
Vroom-!
After passing through the back of the restaurant and setting the generator down on the Han River deck, Yubin added engine oil and fuel, then started it. This spot was sheltered from rain by the eaves while the river breeze would help disperse the engine heat.
“Is this okay?”
Mingu asked. He was asking whether the generator’s heat might attract zombies.
“At this distance and height difference, it was fine at Costco…… but I’m not sure. It was summer back then. That’s why I’m putting it somewhere with good airflow.”
Yubin scratched his head, looking a bit worried. Calculating the distance from the zombies’ movement path to here, it was roughly similar to the distance from the Costco rooftop to the main road. But this wasn’t summer, when everything the sunlight touched felt scorching hot. Even so, to safely preserve Terra’s blood, they had no choice but to run the ice maker.
Whoosh-!
While Yubin and Mingu were making ice on the first floor, Sheriff and Jinwoo were on the fourth-floor rooftop, each holding a helium tank and filling balloons. The first batch was fifty red heart-shaped balloons each. Once a balloon was sufficiently filled with helium, they tied it with nylon string and attached it to a pipe.
Though it was a simple, uninteresting task that had to be repeated hundreds of times, no one complained. It was far preferable to the hassle of carrying heavy paint, thinner, and large containers.
Huff huff huff-!
Curious about the balloons floating and swaying in the wind, Samsuk circled around them with sharp, focused eyes.
“Don’t bite and pop them, Samsuk.”
Jinwoo, who had been watching the front while working on the balloons, threw out a warning just in case. No matter how smart the dog was, he was still a dog.
Grrrng-!
Samsuk made a dejected face and slowly backed away. Seeing that, Sheriff burst out laughing.
“Pfft, this little bastard was really about to pop one, wasn’t he? Hold on, buddy! Once we’re done, hyung will find you a toy to play with.”
Sheriff stroked Samsuk’s back to soothe him. Though they’d only glanced briefly while passing, the first-floor shop—fitting for a water park—had life vests and inner tubes on display. They could definitely find a beach ball or something similar.
“Another group coming over there.”
Jinwoo, who had finished inflating the heart balloons and was taking a short break, spoke while watching west. Though the entire group wasn’t visible yet, there looked to be at least five hundred of them.
“This place is a real hotspot, damn it. How many packs are roaming around here?”
Sheriff grumbled again. After seeing thousands of zombies in just two hours, it was no surprise he was fed up. It seemed the zombies that hadn’t made it to Gangnam were still circling the area, searching for a route.
“Those…… Are they the same two-thousand-plus group from earlier, coming around again?”
Watching the number of zombies steadily increase, Sheriff asked. Jinwoo answered while tying the string of the last heart balloon to the pipe.
“I’m not sure either. We’ll know for certain once we use this.”