120 Kilometers (5)
The rapid thud of footsteps echoed through the station. Sheriff and Mingu were closing in fast. Roughly thirty meters behind them, dozens of zombies gave chase at a terrifying sprint.
“Graaaah—! Kwaaaah—! Graaak—!”
Their howls filled the entire building. Jinwoo flicked his eyes toward the sound for a single heartbeat, then locked his aim forward again and resumed precise fire.
Bang—! Bang bang—! Bang—!
He would have liked to lay down covering fire for his friends, but he didn’t have that luxury. With only a handful of rounds left, every shot had to count. He needed to drop as many of these subway zombies as possible before the magazine ran dry.
Rat-tat-tat—! Bang—! Click—!
The chilling sound of the final round leaving the chamber rang in his ears. And still, far too many zombies remained.
Jinwoo slapped the K-2 into its three-point sling, drew the Glock 19 from his thigh holster, and flicked off the safety. He locked both hands into a Weaver grip and squeezed the trigger at the nearest suited zombie, aiming for the crown of its skull.
Bang!
The lighter report of the pistol cracked out. Smoke curled from the muzzle as the suited zombie collapsed in a heap.
“Not like last time, you bastards.”
Jinwoo swung the barrel sideways and dropped the second and third targets with quiet mutters.
Bang. Bang—!
Small holes punched through the zombies’ faces. Their legs folded and they dropped. This was nothing like that night of pouring rain when he had abandoned his K-2 and fled while blindly firing a pistol he had barely even practiced with. He had put thousands of rounds through handguns since then. The RMR red-dot sight mounted on the slide made aiming almost effortless.
Bang—! Bang—! Bang—!
Jinwoo stayed ice-calm, picking off the oncoming dead one precise headshot at a time. The 9mm Parabellum rounds weren’t as powerful as the K-2’s 5.56, but they still struck true and stopped the creatures cold.
Thump—! Crunch—! Thud—! Crash—!
The zombies he targeted toppled across the smooth subway floor, foreheads or eye sockets punched open.
Eight…
He counted silently with every trigger pull. The Glock 19 held fifteen rounds. Seven remained. The approaching horde was easily twice that number, but once he trimmed seven more, he had absolute faith that Sheriff and Mingu would handle the rest.
“Haa… haa… Hey, what the hell? Why are you carrying that thing?”
Sheriff finally reached him, chest heaving, eyes wide. He had never seen Jinwoo set aside the K-2 he treated like an extension of his own body in favor of a stubby pistol.
“Fuck, you’re out of ammo, aren’t you?”
Sheriff answered his own question, already shrugging off his pack.
Bang bang—! Bang—! Bang—!
Jinwoo had no time to reply. He kept swinging the muzzle, dropping each new threat with mechanical efficiency. Every zombie that fell meant one less round in the gun. The moment the final bullet left the barrel and the slide locked back with a loud click—
“Here!”
Sheriff thrust a freshly loaded Glock in front of his face. It had come from the front pocket of his own pack.
“Give me that one and take this!”
Before Jinwoo could protest, Sheriff snatched the still-smoking pistol from his hand with a kevlar-gloved grip.
“Good work, Sheriff!”
Jinwoo immediately began firing again, voice bright with genuine praise.
Bang bang—! Bang—! Bang bang—!
Even the gunshots seemed to carry a rhythm of pure joy. Watching a zombie’s head snap back mid-leap over the turnstile, Jinwoo felt a smile tug at his lips. A fully loaded spare pistol at a moment this desperate—what greater gift could there be?
“Bullshit. Like this is the time for compliments,” Sheriff grumbled, already pulling a spare magazine from his pack and reloading the empty Glock for him. The fact that he could even perform this supporting role was proof that all those shooting drills had not been wasted. Without them he wouldn’t have been able to reload the pistol at all.
“Here—your pistol’s loaded and I left one extra mag on top of my pack!”
Sheriff set the weapon and spare magazine on his own bag, then grabbed his sledgehammer again. Behind them, the blade-wielding man was already locked in brutal combat with the horde. The number of zombies that had followed them had grown beyond what two hands could count.
“Blade guy! Shift left! I’ll take half—Raaah!”
Before he even finished speaking, Sheriff leapt to Mingu’s side and swung the hammer in a full-power arc. He hadn’t worried whether the other man had heard him. The instant the words “shift left” left his mouth, he had seen Mingu’s center of gravity already flowing that direction. It was the kind of body language only people at a certain level could read.
“Instead of helping, why don’t you just hand me a cigarette? I heard you guys have some in your pack!”
Mingu shouted back while carving off a zombie’s arm with his kukri, using the momentum to decapitate another with his machete.
Crunch—!
Sheriff shattered three sets of ribs at once, dropping the trio in a single swing, and roared back even louder.
“I came because I was worried you’d die if I didn’t, you idiot—Haaah!”
He seized the face of a Caucasian zombie lunging at his throat, then twisted its neck sideways with a sickening crack.
The creature’s spine bent at an unnatural angle. Unable to resist Sheriff’s raw power, it was hurled into the wall.
Boom—!
Sheriff slammed its temple against the curved concrete with everything he had, then kicked both feet upward.
Crack—!
The off-balance zombie let out a strange gurgle as it sailed through the air and crashed down. In the few seconds he had bought himself, Sheriff gripped the hammer with both hands again and turned to face the next wave—zombies in shorts and one with its shirt torn completely off.
“Haaah!”
The ear-splitting kiai accompanied a hammer strike that glanced off a zombie’s skull, then obliterated its collarbone and shoulder in one devastating blow.
Thud—!
Multiple joints snapped at once. The shorts-wearing zombie dropped to its knees. The moment it tried to push itself up from the floor, Sheriff had already taken two long strides and was driving his boot into the bare-chested zombie’s sternum.
Crack!
The creature’s torso bent like a bow. Sheriff planted his kicking foot, then whipped the hammer in a diagonal arc.
Wham—!
The monstrous impact caved in the zombie’s skull. It slammed into the opposite wall and collapsed.
“Ugh, why are there so many? It’s pissing me off!”
Sheriff shattered the jaw of the shorts-wearing zombie with an uppercut and shook his head in disgust. No matter how many he crushed or decapitated, the horde kept pouring in. Even the blade-wielding man beside him was beginning to breathe hard.
“Clear! Path is open!”
Jinwoo’s voice rang out from behind. Sheriff grabbed the collar of a leaping zombie, hurled it aside, and obeyed without hesitation. Mingu split the lead creature’s face in two with his machete, then spun and sprinted after them.
Bang, bang—! Bang—! Bang—! Bang, bang—!
Jinwoo poured 9mm rounds into the space they had just vacated.
Graaak—! Thump—! Thud thud—! Thump—!
Zombies that had been sprinting madly suddenly jerked backward and collapsed. After clearing every pursuer within thirty meters, Jinwoo ran alongside Sheriff toward the subway station proper.
Huff huff huff—!
Samsuk-i galloped happily at his side. Ahead, Mingu was already leaping over the fare gates.
Tap—!
Without slowing, Sheriff reached down and snatched up the pack he had left on the floor. The emergency supplies inside had suddenly become critically important.
Graaak—!
Just as they reached the gates, another zombie burst up the stairs connected to Ttukseom Park, mouth gaping wide.
Bang!
Jinwoo aimed and fired in less than a second. The round struck a little right of the intended spot between the eyes, but the 9mm Parabellum still punched through the socket and pulverized the brain.
“Which way?”
Mingu, already inside the station, pointed at the twin staircases leading to the platforms. The layout of a subway still felt alien and complicated to him.
“Doesn’t matter, blade guy! They all lead to the same place!”
Sheriff, having cleared the gates, gestured toward the right-hand stairs. Jinwoo had no objection. There was a chance one platform might be packed with zombies, but right now they needed to choose and move.
Rapid footsteps pounded up the stairs. Mingu took the lead. He wasn’t carrying a pack, so he was lighter on his feet, but he also wanted to be the first to spot any massive threat above and shout a warning.
“All the way to the end! The very end!”
Jinwoo, pausing once midway, shouted to Mingu. If they could reach the far end of the platform, they would still have the option of jumping down onto the tracks and fleeing if things went south.
Graaaah—!
The moment Jinwoo turned, he saw the zombies that had caught up stepping onto the first landing. Three of them. He drew a deep breath, gripped the pistol with both hands, and fired.
Bang—! Bang, bang—! Bang—!
Rounds slammed into their skulls. The third shot went slightly wide, blowing off half the creature’s face; he had to fire one more to finish it. Just as he thought—the Glock was not a K-2.
“Hurry! It’s clear over here!”
Sheriff’s excited voice rang out from the platform.
Why?
Even hearing the good news, Jinwoo found it hard to believe. The massed roars he and Mingu had heard only minutes earlier had clearly belonged to several hundred zombies. So where had they all gone? He had burned through more than two hundred and forty rounds, true, but at least half of those had been spent on the uninvited guests that had chased them all the way from the 120-kilometer mark.
Still, it was an enormous stroke of luck. Jinwoo spun and sprinted up the stairs two at a time. If they could buy themselves even twenty stable seconds on the platform, he could pull the ten spare K-2 magazines from his pack and reload.
Rapid footsteps—!
Sheriff, who had been waiting, broke into a run again the moment Jinwoo reached the top. The sight of an empty platform had never looked so beautiful.
“Haa… haa… Watch—watch the rear for me. Haa…!”
The instant they reached the very end of the platform, Jinwoo yanked his pack off with lightning speed.
“Nothing’s—haa—coming! Haa—! Take your time!”
Sheriff leaned on his hammer, bent at the waist, gasping. Just as he said, no more zombies were visible behind them. Yet Jinwoo’s hands still moved with frantic urgency as he unzipped the pack. Hundreds of zombies could still come pouring down the nearest staircase at any second.
Clack—!
He pulled out every magazine he could grab and immediately reloaded the K-2 first.
Click—!
The solid metallic sound of the magazine locking home instantly eased the pounding in his chest. His breathing grew calmer. At last… it felt like he had reclaimed the strength he had momentarily lost.
“Haaa… haaa…!”
While catching his breath, Jinwoo filled the empty pouches of his tactical vest with magazines, then stuffed the remaining three into the cargo pockets of his trousers. The realization that he now had no more spare ammunition drew a bitter smile from him. To burn through nearly two hundred and fifty rounds in such a short time…
“Here. This is yours, Sheriff.”
Jinwoo took a spare pistol magazine from the front pocket of his own pack, reloaded the Glock, and handed it back. He didn’t even want to imagine how much harder the fight would have been without those forty-five extra rounds.
“Haa… haa… Just keep it. If I tried running around with a pistol I’d probably just shoot my own foot anyway.”
Sheriff waved the weapon away. He had only packed it because Yubin had insisted, but the idea of setting down his hammer to wield a handgun was almost unimaginable to him.
“You can drink some water and rest now. I’ll keep watch.”
Jinwoo wiped the sweat from his face and stood. The situation was still far from safe, but quenching their thirst was an absolute necessity.
“Haa… Fuck. Haa… All this bullshit just to find one shield.”
Sheriff pulled a water bottle from his pack, gulped down two huge swallows, then passed the PET bottle to Mingu. Mingu wet his mouth and handed it on to Jinwoo.
“Doesn’t this feel off to you?”
Sheriff asked while unzipping his Gore-Tex jacket and fanning out his sweat-soaked hoodie. Jinwoo, eyes fixed forward while he drank, answered.
“What does?”
“What else? The zombies. When we first heard them charging up the stairs I thought we were totally screwed, but there weren’t nearly as many as I expected.”
Sheriff tilted his head.
“You’re right…”
Jinwoo only now realized the truth in his friend’s words. They had certainly killed hundreds with gunfire, hammer blows, and blades to reach this point, yet for a horde that had supposedly numbered over a thousand, the breakthrough had been strangely easy.
Graaaak—! Graaah—!
The distinctive moans still echoed without pause, proving that plenty of zombies remained in the area. So… why had they given up the chase so easily? They had finally encountered living humans with warm blood—something they should have pursued to the death.
Jinwoo narrowed his eyes and scanned their surroundings.
“…What the hell is going on?”