Bang Bang Bang Bang! (2)
Bang bang bang bang—!
Crash—!
The moment they entered Sangbong Station, the Sheriff smashed the glass of the fire safety cabinet and pulled out an oxygen tank first.
“Where…?”
The Sheriff opened the valve on the tank and pressed the mask to his face to test if it worked.
Hisss—!
When he turned the mask valve and inhaled, clean air without any stench poured out.
“Good, it passes!”
Satisfied, the Sheriff slung the oxygen tank on his back and tucked the mask between the straps of his backpack.
“Why are you lugging that heavy thing around already? We only have to walk one stop before we’re back outside. You can grab one at Sagajeong Station and it won’t be too late.”
At Jinwoo’s question, the Sheriff snorted in disbelief.
“This is heavy? Who was the bastard that told me to carry a refrigerator up to the roof? And listen, kid, it’s called being prepared for the worst. It’s always better to have things ready in advance. What if the tanks at Sagajeong Station are busted and don’t work? Then what? We can’t come all the way back here for them.”
“Crazy… There are oxygen tanks scattered all over every subway station. How the hell would they all be defective? …Ugh, whatever. Forget it. Just keep moving.”
Jinwoo clicked his tongue but didn’t argue further, letting the Sheriff do as he pleased. After all, a single oxygen tank wouldn’t be any burden to this guy.
Thud—! Splash—!
The sound of two friends and Samsuk-i stepping on gravel echoed through the underground tracks. The journey to Myeonmok Station went smoothly. The air inside the tunnel was still terrible, but it was only one stop—roughly a kilometer—so a little patience was enough to endure it.
Besides, they were retracing a path they had walked just a few hours earlier, so there was little chance of running into wandering zombies. They reached Myeonmok Station in under twenty minutes.
“Alright, time for the mirrors to do their job?”
The Sheriff climbed onto the platform, brushing the black dust from his nose as he muttered jokingly. It wasn’t anything grand, but Jinwoo felt a small thrill at the thought of using the plan he had prepared.
“Exit 3, right?”
The Sheriff asked for confirmation. Jinwoo nodded.
“Yeah, the side with the park.”
The two men passed through the turnstiles and headed toward Exit 3, ears perked. The zombies’ roars still weren’t loud.
“Let’s see… Mirror, mirror. Are there a lot of zombies outside right now?”
The Sheriff and Jinwoo lowered their postures and carefully approached the exit stairs, eyes raised.
Whoosh—!
When they reached the angle where the third-floor hospital windows came into view, the mirrors they had set up earlier—and the street reflected in them—came into sight.
“Whoa, a shitload of zombies are passing through over there!”
The Sheriff whispered, pointing at the large mirror on the right. Following his finger, Jinwoo saw a horde of zombies filling the road and approaching. At least several hundred strong.
“We’ll have to wait a bit.”
The Sheriff stood with his hammer as a cane and gestured for Samsuk-i to stay still. The two men stared at the mirrors without moving, waiting quietly.
“Huh, this is actually pretty convenient. Damn, you really came up with a good idea.”
The Sheriff looked at Jinwoo with approval. Thanks to the reflective mirrors attached to the entrance, they could even see the tail end of the marching zombie horde leaving the area.
“I think we can head out now.”
After about twenty minutes, Jinwoo, who had been staring at the mirrors from a step closer, spoke up. Of course, a dozen or so zombies were still visible in the mirrors from various angles, but that was just the usual constant they had to deal with. If they tried to avoid every single small fry, they would never reach Gunja Station today.
“I’ll go up first, shooting as I go.”
Jinwoo switched his MP5 to semi-auto. The mirrors had reduced the threat of zombies suddenly charging from close range, so he figured there was no need to waste precious ammo on three-round bursts.
‘Two in the park, three in the left alley, two at twelve o’clock, one at three, six at five…’
Jinwoo confirmed the zombies’ positions through their reflections in the mirrors and quickly sprinted up the stairs. The moment he reached the surface, he spun around and began taking out the closest zombies in the park.
Thud—! Thud—!
Two zombies wandering near the clock tower collapsed helplessly as Jinwoo pulled the trigger. He immediately swung the barrel toward the three zombies rushing from the left alley and drilled holes through their heads.
Thud! Thud! Boom—! Thud! Thud—! Boom—!
While the distinctive crack of the MP5 echoed softly, the zombies in the alley, the ones at the market entrance, and even those standing with their backs turned at twelve o’clock all dropped, brains splattering.
“Come up, Sheriff! Let’s go!”
After waving to the Sheriff waiting below, Jinwoo turned toward six o’clock and advanced steadily, continuing to fire.
Thud—! Boom—!
Every time the muzzle flashed, zombies on the road leading to Sagajeong Station dropped like extras in a rehearsed scene. The sound carried clearly all the way to the bridge 1.3 kilometers away.
＊＊＊
When the gunfire rang out, Cho Cheol-woong’s team had just been about to pull out the rubber boat they had hidden under the bridge.
“Hup!”
The moment the first shot hissed through the air, all five special forces soldiers dropped flat. After hearing a few more shots, they realized the sound was coming from quite a distance. The lack of any whistling rounds heading their way confirmed it wasn’t aimed at them.
“MP5! Three o’clock! Distance over one kilometer!”
Master Sergeant Hong shouted, eyes sharp like the veteran he was. Cho Cheol-woong nodded.
“Hmm.”
Questions and hypotheses flashed through his mind in an instant.
Who the hell was shooting? Were they with the Han River forces from earlier? Or Kim’s men?
He didn’t think the intruders who had slipped into Children’s Grand Park could have reached this far already. The timing was too tight. The lack of any radio reports supported that conclusion. If those guys had moved, the lookouts left on the apartment rooftops in Seongsu-dong would have radioed in first.
Thud—! Thud—!
Even as Cho Cheol-woong pondered, the mysterious gunfire continued. What was strange was that it was all single shots. That meant… one person was firing. And if they were in combat with zombies, who the hell would use an MP5 on semi-auto in such a tense situation?
‘Who else… Obviously a marksman.’
The answer came before the question even fully formed. Without hesitation, Cho Cheol-woong sprang to his feet.
“We’re pursuing.”
As he gave the order, he sprinted up the slope and vaulted over the low fence leading toward Myeonmok-dong. He could smell it. The scent of something big happening… His instincts screamed that he had to track down that gunfire fast. While he had been stuck in Taereung shoveling mud, something dynamic had clearly been unfolding nearby.
Thud—! Boom—!
Fortunately, the gunfire was still ongoing. With this much of a lead, there was no way he would lose the strange MP5 shooter.
“Moving south from one o’clock! You two, circle around to the right! Master Sergeant Hong, Sergeant Park, follow me! We’ll surround them at the next intersection!”
Cho Cheol-woong barked orders to his men and sprinted at full speed, MP5 in hand.
“Only engage zombies. Until further orders, no preemptive or return fire toward tangos! Remember that!”
Master Sergeant Hong reiterated the rules of engagement just before the team split up. Since they didn’t know the identity or numbers of the MP5 shooter yet, caution was only natural.
Tap tap tap tap—!
The sound of the special forces soldiers splitting into two groups and running echoed loudly. But the distance to the target was still over a kilometer, so there was no worry of their footsteps giving them away.
“Huh!”
Cho Cheol-woong’s eyes narrowed as he ran, using the stalled cars for cover. For a brief moment, he caught a glimpse of a man crossing the intersection in profile. Though it was only for an instant before the figure disappeared behind a bus, shoulders that solid and massive weren’t something you saw every day.
“Got you…”
Cho Cheol-woong clenched his teeth to keep from smiling. To think he would run into that big guy who had glared at him during last month’s negotiation. The world… really was both wide and small.
＊＊＊
“What the hell’s wrong with you?”
The Sheriff muttered to himself in confusion as he walked alongside Samsuk-i.
“Hey, move! Don’t just stand there.”
“Huh?”
Jinwoo, who had been walking ahead while taking out zombies, turned to look at Samsuk-i.
Woof—!
Samsuk-i had stopped dead, growling low toward the right. It was the exact posture and behavior he used when warning that someone smelling of gunpowder was nearby.
“Really? There’s someone over there?”
Woof—!
Samsuk-i turned slightly to the left and barked once more, as if saying they were coming from that direction too… Then he grabbed Jinwoo’s clothes and pulled him backward.
“Got it, let’s hide. Sheriff, turn back! Stay low!”
Jinwoo, understanding Samsuk-i’s message, pushed the Sheriff’s back.
“What? Is this mutt actually smelling something?”
The Sheriff looked doubtful but hunched over and matched Jinwoo’s pace as they ran.
“In there!”
Still hidden among the cars, Jinwoo pointed at the Korean medicine clinic building on the right as they retreated toward Exit 3 of Myeonmok Station. From the rooftop there, they could make full use of the mirrors they had set up.
Tap tap tap—! Tap—!
The Sheriff sprinted up the narrow stairs in an instant and swung his hammer down on the rooftop door handle with all his strength.
Crunch—!
The locked padlock shattered easily. The Sheriff and Jinwoo hid behind the concrete railing on the roof, breathing heavily after holding their breath.
“Hah, hah… But what exactly… are we running from right now?”
The Sheriff asked. Jinwoo pointed at his MP5.
“Humans… hah…! who smell like gunpowder. Hah…!”
“Why would people like that be here? How many are there?”
“Hell if I know… I don’t either…!”
Jinwoo shook his head and peeked over the edge. The street was still quiet, and nothing seemed visible yet, but Samsuk-i’s nose was an extremely reliable sensor. There was no way this smart dog would act up for nothing.
“Just wait for now. Until they make a mistake…”
Jinwoo glanced at the Sheriff and gestured for him to stay lower. The Sheriff, lying flat on the ground, shrugged.
“What kind of mistake?”
“Revealing their position. We don’t know how many there are, but if they want to stay around here, they’ll have to shoot eventually because of the wandering zombies.”
Jinwoo set down his MP5 and pulled the K2 from his back. In a tense situation like this, the familiar K2 felt the most reliable.
“Where did they go?”
Cho Cheol-woong frowned as he changed direction toward the right alley. They should have passed this point by now, but the targets had suddenly vanished.
“Looks like they’re hiding.”
Master Sergeant Hong, pressed close beside him, said. If they couldn’t be seen from either the side or the front, there was only one answer.
“How did they know we were coming?”
Cho Cheol-woong looked incredulous. But he knew he had to accept the situation.
“How many of them are there?”
At Hong’s question, Cho Cheol-woong shook his head.
“I don’t know. All I saw was one big guy.”
“Is it definitely that one-armed group?”
“Shoulders like that aren’t common. You can trust it.”
Cho Cheol-woong replied confidently and pressed against the wall, peeking toward the main road. Nothing moved on the four-lane road leading to Myeonmok Station. Everything was frozen like a still life.
‘Where are you… Where are you hiding?’
Cho Cheol-woong narrowed his eyes and calmly scanned the buildings on both sides of the road. They couldn’t have gotten far in this time, so they had to be hiding somewhere nearby with that big guy and his companions.
“Should we contact base and request backup?”
Master Sergeant Hong fiddled with his radio. To properly surround them, his suggestion was correct. Five men alone probably wouldn’t have enough firepower. But Cho Cheol-woong wanted to test the enemy’s nerve and try a bit of psychological warfare first.
Click—!
Cho Cheol-woong removed the suppressor from his MP5 and swapped the subsonic rounds for regular 9mm. He aimed the muzzle skyward and pulled the trigger hard.
Tat-tat-tat-tat—!
Five rounds fired in full auto echoed long and loud. Cho Cheol-woong waited for the sound to fade before shouting toward nine o’clock.
“You’re surrounded! Come out of that building and respond to our call! This is your final warning shot!”
“What the fuck.”
The Sheriff’s eyes widened in surprise at the sudden gunfire.
“They want us to come out? Did they see us sneak in here?”
“Crazy… They’re just bluffing. Can’t you tell it’s a lie just by listening?”
“But they definitely know we’re here.”
“Well… they heard the gunshots, so of course they know. Sheriff, give me that hand mirror I gave you earlier.”
Jinwoo remained calm and held out his hand to the Sheriff. The Sheriff pulled the mirror from his jacket pocket and handed it over, grumbling in frustration.
“You should’ve put the suppressor on, you idiot.”
“It puts stress on the gun and causes fouling, so I can’t shoot as much as I have been. And without subsonic ammo, it doesn’t do much good anyway.”
While replying to the Sheriff, Jinwoo adjusted the angle of the hand mirror so he could see the mirrors attached across from the station entrance.
“Damn… It’s that guy again.”
Jinwoo clicked his tongue after confirming Cho Cheol-woong’s face. Even though only a quarter of the man’s face was visible at the edge of the mirror, the strong impression of that scar couldn’t be hidden.
“If you keep pushing like this, there’s a limit to my mercy…”
Jinwoo muttered quietly, glaring at Cho Cheol-woong in the hand mirror. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since he had made the big decision to spare him yesterday, and here the man was again, blocking his path and threatening him. This was truly an unbearable provocation. He could kill him right now easily enough, but the problem was the size of the enemy force.
How many special forces soldiers were deployed around here right now?
That was what made Jinwoo hesitate. The situation was very different from yesterday, when he had been able to look down on the enemy’s numbers from above. If there were ten or more men armed with heavy weapons spread out in a wide encirclement, victory wouldn’t be guaranteed.
“As expected…”
Pressed against the wall of the building across the road, Cho Cheol-woong smiled in satisfaction. He had wanted to see how they would respond, and the targets hadn’t recklessly returned fire and revealed their position. This level was worth dealing with.
“You’re the blood sellers, aren’t you!”
Cho Cheol-woong shouted.
“I’m not your enemy! I want to propose a better deal! And I have information I want to share! Do you know that the person you were supposed to trade with is lying in ambush?”
“What’s he saying? Ambush? What the hell is he talking about?”
The Sheriff grumbled irritably. Jinwoo replied coolly.
“He’s just trying to rattle us. Soon there’ll be more gunfire from another direction, and while we’re distracted, their forces will close the distance.”
“So what are we gonna do? Shoot them?”
“Ah, that would be simple enough… But honestly, the best outcome is warning them off without a fight. Since we don’t know their numbers…”
Even as he answered, Jinwoo’s eyes stayed fixed on the hand mirror. And a moment later… tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat—! Tat-tat-tat-tat—!
As Jinwoo had predicted, the sound of suppressive fire erupted from the side. Almost simultaneously, Cho Cheol-woong’s team stepped out from the clothing store where they had been hiding. The exact moment Jinwoo had been waiting for had arrived.
Click—!
Jinwoo quickly rose and pulled the trigger toward the position he had confirmed through the mirror.
Bang bang bang bang—!