The White Porter and the Wizard's Gun (8)
The soldiers, their faces drained of all color, hurriedly swung the flashlight beam away.
“S-sorry! We’re sorry!”
It was only natural to obey the orders of the man who was their sole hope of survival, but even without that, his appearance alone made it feel impossible to refuse him. Especially if you ran into him alone on a pitch-black road at night—you’d have no choice!
His shoulders were impossibly wide and packed with muscle, his frame enormous. A prickly, ill-tempered buzz cut, and thick, fiercely arched caterpillar eyebrows. When the flashlight had caught him earlier, they had seen it clearly. Just a graze from one of those massive fists would shatter bone.
“Aww, fuck! My eyes still hurt… Anyway, just hang in there! I’ll definitely come save you!”
The man muttered curses under his breath but still gave them another firm promise of rescue.
Crash—! Clang—!
The sound of zombies that had been wandering the stairs smashing through the billiard hall’s glass windows and leaping down echoed through the night. From behind the building, more zombies poured out in a swarm, rushing straight toward the truck.
“Watch out! Zombies—!”
Second Lieutenant Seong cried out desperately, stretching his hand over the railing. At that moment, from the darkness-shrouded passenger seat of the truck, the wizard’s gun spat fire once again.
Bang—! Bang-bang—! Bang—!
One zombie’s head exploded before it could even touch the ground. The other three had their skulls blown apart the instant they landed, tumbling backward. That was the limit of what the soldiers on the rooftop could accurately track with their eyes. After that, it was pure chaos—a dizzying storm of gunfire, shattering glass, zombie roars, and the sweeping beams of flashlight attachments.
Bang-bang—! Ratatat—! Bang—! Bang-bang—! Groooaaar—! Crash—! Bang—!
No one could tell exactly what was happening, but the gun muzzle kept swinging in every direction, spitting flames. Zombie corpses sprayed green brain matter in every direction before collapsing to the pavement. And the truck sped away, leaving behind the red afterimage of its taillights.
Vroooom—! Groooaaar! Graaak!
A long column of zombies chased after the truck as it raced toward the Neungdong Intersection. At the same time, dozens more poured in from the front, blocking the road ahead.
Well over a hundred zombies against a single Porter. To any outside observer, the situation looked utterly hopeless. But the soldiers who had witnessed their performance so far now believed without a doubt that their side would win…
“Throw another cigarette and hug the right side, Sheriff!”
Jinwoo shouted as he gunned down the zombies closing in from the left, clearing a path.
“Okay! Okay!”
The Sheriff lit a cigarette, tossed it out, then squinted with one eye and grumbled.
“…Aww, fuck. My eyes still feel weird because of those bastards…”
The retina that had taken the full brunt of the flashlight barrage still had white spots dancing across it. He wanted to rub his eyes, but the goggles made that impossible.
“They did it because they like you, man. What else?”
Jinwoo replied dryly, his eyes fixed on the front-right quadrant—the cluster of pushed-aside cars and the yellowish, dried-out grassy slope. According to the information Mingu had relayed over the radio, there were still no zombie hordes moving in this direction from Gunja Station. That meant it was finally time to use the traps they had laid and wipe out the remaining zombies in one go.
Jinwoo spotted a metal trash can beneath a black Avante and pressed the K-2’s stock firmly against his shoulder. Inside the mesh trash bin were wads of toilet paper soaked in lighter fluid and over a hundred disposable gas lighters he had grabbed by the box from the supermarket checkout. This was the stash Cho Cheol-woong had hidden here earlier while puffing on a cigarette.
Bang—! Bang-bang—! Bang-bang—!
The instant Jinwoo’s five rounds punched through the trash can, the lighter fluid ignited the soaked paper. Small flames erupted immediately, fueled further by the gas bursting from the shattered lighters.
“Did you hit it?”
The Sheriff asked the obvious while swerving slightly to avoid a zombie.
Boom—! Boom-boom—! Boom—!
The heated lighters exploded, giving Jinwoo a definitive answer.
Whoosh—!
Bright, fierce flames surged up from beneath the car. Before the fire could die down, Jinwoo unleashed a barrage at the Avante’s fuel tank.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat—! Rat-tat-tat-tat—! Rat-tat-tat-tat—!
Oil poured from the undercarriage of the car, now riddled like a honeycomb. After confirming the result, Jinwoo swapped magazines and shouted at the Sheriff.
“Go!”
Screeeech—! Vrooooom—!
The Sheriff yanked the wheel left and slammed the accelerator. The tires screamed in protest. The moment their truck reached the center of the lane, the oil leaking from the Avante met the burning trash can.
“Whoosh—!”
The flames greedily devoured the oil and spread rapidly, engulfing the Avante’s underbody. When it combined with the fuel already leaking from the other cars Cho Cheol-woong had shot up earlier, a truly massive blaze erupted like an explosion.
“Whoa!”
The Sheriff let out a pure, childlike cry of wonder as they sped past the burning vehicles. But the ones who loved that fire even more than he did were the zombies chasing the truck.
Groooaaak—! Groooaaah—!
Dozens of zombies changed direction and charged straight into the roaring flames. Even the ones leaping to block the truck’s path hesitated and turned toward the fire. Seizing the opening, the Sheriff pushed all the way to the center of the intersection and executed a surprisingly stylish U-turn.
Screeeeech—!
The instant the Porter stopped with a squeal of brakes, Jinwoo raised his rifle and pulled the trigger on the clustered zombies.
Bang—! Bang-bang! Bang-bang—! Ratatat—! Bang—! Bang-bang—!
With every shot, the number of zombies dancing in the flames decreased by one. And with every kill, the soldiers on the billiard hall rooftop drew one step closer to freedom.
Bang—! Ratatat—! Bang-bang—!
Vrooooooom—!
The engine roared violently. The Genesis Coupe carrying Cho Cheol-woong and Staff Sergeant Choi had just made a left turn at Seongsu Intersection, where Achasan-ro met the same road.
“Slow down!”
Cho Cheol-woong, wearing night-vision goggles and staring into the rear, shouted. The tunnel-vision effect of the NVGs combined with the thick cigarette smoke made it impossible to judge distance accurately, but he had the distinct feeling they had pulled too far ahead of the zombies. They still had half the distance left to their destination. If they left the horde here, the return trip would become a nightmare.
Screeeech—!
Staff Sergeant Choi hit the brakes the moment the order came, bleeding off speed.
“Damn it… More than half of them have fallen behind.”
Cho Cheol-woong lifted the goggles onto his helmet, switched on the light attached to his MP5, and swept the beam behind them. He clicked his tongue in irritation. Not only had the number of pursuing zombies dropped noticeably, but the distance between them had grown far too wide.
Even the closest ones were now over a hundred meters back. At this rate, it would be no different from scattering a few straggling zombies for the soldiers who would later drive the truck up to Konkuk University. Every single one they had lost would need to be recovered.
“Should we reverse?”
Staff Sergeant Choi asked, tense from the commander’s anger. In truth, they had only been driving at thirty-four or thirty-six kilometers per hour, so they hadn’t been going that fast.
It was just… these zombie bastards were ridiculously difficult to handle. Luring them with a car full of cigarette smoke and dragging them far away was proving far harder than expected. The slightest increase in speed and they fell behind. The moment you let your guard down, they slammed into the vehicle. And you also had to watch out for ones suddenly bursting out from the front…
The big guy had advised them to drive in wide zigzags using the entire road, but it wasn’t nearly as easy as it sounded. Cho hated to admit it, but he lacked the knack for it. This kind of thing wasn’t part of Special Forces training.
And then there was this darkness… This darkness was a formidable enemy too. While the car was moving forward, there was no rear-facing light at all. They had to rely purely on instinct to maintain distance from the horde.
Even focusing solely on the rear wasn’t the end of their problems. Whenever he glanced into the pitch-black rearview mirror, zombies hiding between buildings would suddenly leap out without warning, making his heart nearly stop.
“No, wait. We seem to be running low on cigarettes. Let’s replenish them first.”
Cho Cheol-woong opened the passenger door, stepped out with a plastic bag full of cigarettes, and walked toward the trunk.
Clunk—!
He lifted the trunk lid secured by a hook. A thick cloud of smoke billowed out along with a flurry of cigarette ash.
“Cough—!”
Cho Cheol-woong coughed lightly and waved the ash away with his hand. The pungent, bitter smell of tobacco was so strong it felt like it was choking him. He had always prided himself on being a heavy smoker, but this was too much even for him.
Just as he had feared, more than seventy percent of the cigarettes in the bucket had already burned away. Only the last few stubs in the corner were still spitting out tiny flames. No wonder the distant zombies had lost interest and fallen behind.
Kwaaak—!
The few zombies at the very front had already closed the distance to within forty meters. He wished these bastards would take their sweet time…
Tat-tat—! Tat-tat-tat—! Tat-tat-tat—! Ratatat—!
Cho Cheol-woong fired three-round bursts from his MP5, dropping the nearest zombies first. Then he dumped the entire contents of the plastic bag into the trunk. While he piled the cigarettes high again as an offering for the zombies and quickly doused them with lighter fluid to set them ablaze, Staff Sergeant Choi provided covering fire.
Ratatat—! Ratatat—! Ratatat—! Ratatat—! Ratatat—!
Staff Sergeant Choi emptied an entire magazine in seconds, swiftly swapped it for a fresh one, and pulled the trigger again. But even so, it barely made a dent.
The corpses of zombies with their heads blown off were trampled by the ones still charging. Immediately afterward, hundreds of the creatures came rushing forward in a line, jaws gaping wide. Even if nearly half had been lost, thousands still remained. The firepower of one or two MP5s was nowhere near enough to handle them.
Groooooaaar—!
As the number of zombies within sixty meters swelled into the hundreds and their unified roars echoed across the area, a heavy, bone-chilling pressure crushed down on Staff Sergeant Choi.
“Major, sir!”
Choi shouted urgently while spraying MP5 fire in every direction. Luring the zombies was important, but this had already exceeded the danger threshold. If those hundreds of zombies reached them in five seconds, whether there were cigarettes or not would no longer matter.
“Move out!”
Cho Cheol-woong quickly secured the trunk hook, fired one last burst of covering fire toward the rear, then sprinted for the passenger seat. Staff Sergeant Choi kept firing while backpedaling until his magazine ran dry, then slammed the driver’s door shut.
Groooaaak—! Kraaaaah—!
In the brief moment it took to shift into drive and stomp the accelerator, zombies hurled themselves at the car, clinging to every surface. The rear window had shattered long ago, leaving plenty of handholds and plenty of gaps to crawl through.
Ratatat—! Ratatat—! Ratatat—! Ratatat—!
Cho Cheol-woong lay across the passenger seat and fired three-round bursts out the back. If there was one good thing about fighting zombies, it was that they didn’t take hostages. You didn’t need to distinguish between friend and foe—just shoot every moving target.
Groooooaaak—!
One zombie had latched onto the driver’s side window frame, dragging its legs and desperately trying to shove its head inside.
“…You son of a bitch!”
Staff Sergeant Choi slammed his protected left elbow into the creature’s face, then quickly reached with his right hand to draw the pistol from his thigh holster.
Bang—! Bang—! Bang—!
He thrust the muzzle out the window and fired three rounds into its face. Only then did the clinging zombie fall away.
“Haaaaah…!”
Staff Sergeant Choi let out a long sigh and gripped the steering wheel. He eased the pressure on the accelerator he had been jamming down. He knew they needed to control their speed, but when zombies were this close on their tail, his foot instinctively pressed harder.
“Are you all right, sir?”
Choi asked, glancing sideways to confirm their speed had dropped to thirty-three kilometers per hour. Cho Cheol-woong, who had just finished loading a fresh magazine, gave a small nod.
“Mm. You?”
“It was close, but… we got through it somehow.”
Staff Sergeant Choi lifted the pistol still in his hand. He hadn’t even had time to holster it after firing. Of course, that was still far less urgent than Cho Cheol-woong, who had eliminated every zombie that had attacked from behind.
“What about the ones that fell behind midway?”
At Staff Sergeant Choi’s question, Cho Cheol-woong answered without hesitation.
“We’ll make another pass later.”
It meant they would first drag the current group of zombies far away and shake them off, then repeat the process once more to lure back the ones that had strayed.
“Understood.”
It wasn’t exactly an appealing mission, but Staff Sergeant Choi accepted it immediately. They couldn’t ask the nearly empty truck to dodge zombies and run around forever. It was only right that they handled it themselves.
“Do you think… those guys are doing okay?”
Staff Sergeant Choi asked, glancing nervously behind them with a tense expression. Just luring the zombies with cigarette smoke was already this difficult and nerve-wracking. He couldn’t help but worry about how much harder it must be to wipe out all the remaining zombies in the area and carry out a rescue operation. No matter how good a marksman he was, that big guy looked like he had only just passed twenty…
“We should try making contact now.”
Hearing Staff Sergeant Choi’s words, Cho Cheol-woong pressed the transmit button on the radio. If things sounded bad, he planned to order Master Sergeant Hong to provide flank support immediately.
“This is Gen-Coup. How’s it going on your end, Truck?”
— Incoming Transmission —
—Ssssssh…! It’s going great! We’re almost… Bang—! Bang—! Ratatat—! …done! How about you guys? Sssshhh…!
The big guy answered energetically. Although the constant gunfire over the radio made his words hard to catch clearly, his bright tone alone conveyed that there were no major problems.
“What did you say? Speak louder! I couldn’t hear you!”
Cho Cheol-woong asked again for confirmation. The Sheriff then bellowed so loudly it felt like his ears would burst.
—Ssssssh…! We’ve almost wiped out all the zombies now! Bang—! Bang—! Bang—! We’re starting the rescue…! Ssssh!
“Starting the rescue? Already?”
Staff Sergeant Choi’s eyes widened in shock as he gripped the steering wheel. They hadn’t even finished half of their own mission yet, but those guys had already completed the far more difficult task… It was almost impossible to believe. They weren’t zombie trainers—what kind of terrifying ability was this…?
—Sssshhh…! I was actually about to radio you too… Bang—! Bang-bang—!
While Cho Cheol-woong and Staff Sergeant Choi were still reeling from the shock, the Sheriff dropped an even more chilling line.
—Ssssh! You guys shake those bastards off quickly and get off to the side! There’s another thousand zombies coming up from the Gunja Station area. Ssssssh…!