Chapter 23: CUT. Can I Stop the Camera? (2)
by fnovelpia
Squelch, squelch…
Sounds of wet footsteps.
They got closer, then stopped in front of the door.
Someone was standing in front of the flimsy door.
“Who’s there?”
Yuna Yeon asked cautiously. No reply came.
The club president, dressed in a rubber fish-man suit, wobbled over and turned the doorknob.
The feeble door swung open.
“I’m sorry, but we’re closed for the… huh?”
The club president’s sentence abruptly stopped.
A man standing in front of the door was looking down at her.
It was too dark to see clearly, but the man was soaked.
Water dripped from the hem of his coat.
Intestines fell from his torn abdomen.
The man, with the ferocity of a bull, charged at the club president.
The club president fell backward.
“Argh…! What the hell is this person…!!”
The man, or rather, the creature, had no reasoning.
A soaked body.
Skin blackened by fire.
An abdomen ripped open with intestines spilling out.
It was a zombie from the video.
It seemed to have escaped from a house engulfed in flames, dipped into a lake, and then made its way here.
But that’s physically impossible.
To move from the forests of 1980s America to a Korean college campus of the 2020s, one would have to leap through not just space but also time.
He pinched his cheek, wondering if it was a nightmare.
It hurt.
This is not a dream.
It’s reality.
The zombie, in a frenzy, bit the fallen club president.
Yuna Yeon rushed like lightning and kicked the zombie’s head hard.
Its neck snapped off, and the head flew away.
But the madness didn’t stop there.
The headless zombie got up.
Now it charged at Yuna Yeon.
“Ugh!”
Yuna Yeon was pushed back and hit the wall.
As if seeking revenge for its lost head, the headless zombie started strangling Yuna Yeon.
Seeing this cleared the fog in his head.
His thoughts became clear.
In this chaotic world, he felt like he had found something he was supposed to do.
He charged at the zombie gripping Yuna Yeon’s neck.
He threw his small body with all his might, tackling it like in rugby.
Thud-
The headless zombie lost its balance.
Its falling body hit a bookshelf.
The bookshelf fell over.
B-grade movie DVDs poured out.
The zombie, buried under DVDs, didn’t move again.
The cramped room turned into a mess in an instant.
Yuna Yeon approached me.
“Yeoreum, are you okay?!”
“…I’m fine.”
“Let me see…!”
Eyes and hands scanned his body thoroughly.
But there was nothing lecherous about it.
It was a touch filled with unbearable worry and sincerity.
Relieved to see that Yeoreum was alright, Yuna Yeon sighed.
Then, she picked up the zombie’s head lying on the floor.
“Yeoreum, look… It’s Mr. Smith’s face.”
The homeowner from the movie.
Mr. Smith, who was devoured by his resurrected daughter.
How could this happen…
Meanwhile, the club president was convulsing on the floor.
Foam at her mouth.
“I’ve been bitten…! Kill me before I turn into a zombie! Hurryyyy!!”
“You were wearing a rubber suit, so the teeth probably didn’t reach your skin.”
The club president hurriedly took off her rubber suit to check the bitten area.
There were no teeth marks.
She then stopped convulsing and wiped the foam from her mouth.
“Phew, that was close! I almost ended up eating my juniors.”
…
Looking at Mr. Smith’s head that popped out of the movie, Yeoreum wondered.
What could this be?
No matter how much he thought about it, it didn’t make sense…
The idea that the souls of a 1980s American and a 2020s Korean could switch is already nonsensical.
Considering causality or realism in this situation might be foolish.
But how would these two women take it?
“Yeoreum. There seems to be something about your videotape…”
Yuna Yeon realized it right away.
“Ah, I see! Something like the ‘Necronomicon,’ right?! Such a cliché.”
The club president seemed to feel no incongruity.
Familiar with horror movies, both quickly grasped and accepted the situation.
Yeoreum crossed his arms.
“Still, I don’t get it. In the movie, Smith died with his family.”
“No, he didn’t die. He was devoured by his resurrected daughter and buried in a burning house…”
That he didn’t die and crossed over to our world is unbelievable.
Yuna Yeon continued,
“The videotape must have summoned this… Like Joo-Yi senior said, it’s like a ‘Necronomicon’, a magical tool for summoning evil spirits.”
“……”
“To think such a situation would happen to me. It’s good that I’ve been watching horror movies all the time…!”
Yuna Yeon seemed oddly excited.
The club president was no different.
Eagerly holding a camcorder, she filmed the remains of Mr. Smith.
“Filming the dead is boring. There must be more outside. Shall we go?”
“No, Joo-Yi senior. The standard thing to do here is to send a distress signal.”
Yuna Yeon took out her phone from her pocket.
“Ah… It’s broken……”
It seems the phone broke when the zombie pushed her, and she hit the wall.
Yeoreum had left his phone at home.
He didn’t really know how to use it anyway.
The club president also shook her head.
“I don’t have a phone. Getting lost is more thrilling without a phone.”
Asking for help was impossible in this situation.
If they ran into another zombie, they would have to fend for themselves.
They first peeked out the window.
There were no zombie shadows outside the building.
They opened the room and checked the corridor.
At both ends of the dark corridor, beings stood still as statues.
It was the zombie mom (Mrs. Smith) and the zombie daughter (the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Smith).
“Good composition.”
The club president captured the scene in the corridor through her camcorder lens.
The two zombies didn’t charge; they just stood there as if waiting for prey.
They closed the room door again.
“What should we do…? Both passageways are blocked…”
“We have to break through.”
Yeoreum said.
There was no other way.
Besides, the zombies weren’t that strong.
Having been burned and fallen into a lake, their physical durability was on the level of brittle straw.
They could be easily defeated.
Suddenly, the club president put on her fish-man mask.
“Right, what we need is quick action!”
“Put down the camcorder and talk, Joo-Yi senior…”
“We can handle this. This is a perfect opportunity to legally commit murder!”
…Murder?
Yeoreum’s ears perked up.
His murderer’s ego stirred.
He had considered himself a murderer, but always failed to kill due to compassion.
He couldn’t even harm a single puppy.
But zombies don’t require compassion.
They’re just soulless bodies. No different from cutting meat.
As the club president said, this is a perfect opportunity.
Hope blossomed in his heart.
A flower of slaughter bloomed.
Yeoreum picked up a mop handle from the corner of the study room.
“…I’ll do it.”
He stepped into the corridor for his first murder.
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t murder… but it didn’t matter.
Yeoreum had been waiting for this moment.
The shadow of the mom zombie stretched out on the opposite side.
As Yeoreum approached with the mop handle, the mom zombie charged.
He gripped the mop handle tightly.
It was time to regain his dignity as a murderer.
“Die!”
He thrust the mop handle straight.
The end of the stick aimed for the zombie’s burnt heart, piercing through what was left of its life force.
But the end didn’t reach.
Thud-
Before Yeoreum’s attack could land, Yuna Yeon, standing behind, delivered a roundhouse kick to the zombie.
Limbs flew off.
The mom zombie fell surprisingly easily.
Anger surged in a moment.
He glared at Yuna Yeon.
“What are you doing?”
“I, I just didn’t want Yeoreum to get hurt…”
Yuna Yeon made an excuse with a sad face.
Before he could retort, the zombie daughter, standing on the opposite side of the corridor, approached.
“Grooo… Groooo…”
A being that became a zombie 10 years after death.
Its appearance was horrifying, like a crude mix of emaciated branches and charcoal.
Yeoreum gripped the mop handle.
Since he didn’t kill the mom zombie, he must properly kill this one.
Just extend his arm and pierce with the end of the handle.
It’s as simple as swatting a fly with a fly swatter.
“……”
But he hesitated.
It was because the zombie was small.
Its small stature.
The only part that indicated it once was a child.
A child.
Yes, this zombie was once a child.
The daughter zombie came right up to his face.
This time, Yuna Yeon didn’t kick it away.
After being scolded by Yeoreum just moments ago, she was feeling dejected.
Yeoreum sweated coldly.
He hesitated until the very end.
“Ugh, this is frustrating!”
Unable to stand it any longer, the club president stepped forward.
She snatched the mop handle from Yeoreum’s hands and stabbed the daughter zombie’s chest with the end.
When she pulled out the handle, black blood gushed out.
She stabbed the eye sockets next.
The daughter zombie fell.
With that, the short massacre was over.
The zombie family was all dead.
“If you hesitate in front of a burnt-black zombie, what would the audience think?”
The club president said to Yeoreum.
She had been filming the entire process with her camcorder.
The small body of the fallen daughter zombie crumbled.
It broke into pieces and quickly turned into ash.
As the night wind blew, the ashes faintly dispersed.
The hands of Yeoreum, who ended up killing nothing, trembled thinly.
Hope leaked through the gaps between his fingers.
His empty hands were filled only with void.
But that was only for a moment.
Warmth filled his empty hands.
Slender, soft fingers intertwined with his.
It was Yuna Yeon’s hand.
“……”
The blue moonlight drew the shadows of the two.
“Perfect, perfecttttt!!”
The club president screamed with a frenzy of excitement.
“This is the best! It’s my masterpiece!!”
She was excited, watching the footage on the camcorder.
The scene of killing the zombie family was captured perfectly.
Yeoreum shook his head.
“We don’t have time to watch that. If there are more zombies, we have to deal with them before they are discovered seen by other people.”
“Right! We should handle it!”
The club president switched the camcorder to recording mode.
“This is an opportunity! To create my graduation project, and to make a name for myself in the film industry!!”
“…”
“Let’s film the zombies. We’ll make a movie and submit it as a graduation project, and even enter it into the Korean Horror Film Festival!”
In the mess that was the study room, the club president spun around like dancing a waltz.
“No CG or makeup needed! We have real zombies! We’ll shoot the most realistic horror movie in the world. We’ll become famous producers!!”
“You’re quite ambitious, Joo-Yi senior…”
“Imagine! The spotlight and praise that will be poured on us! Yuna Yeon, Yeoreum, and Jung Joo-Yi! We’ll be the dream team!!”
The club president passed the camcorder to Yuna Yeon.
“Now, cameraman. Film it well. This will be an impromptu yet crucial scene.”
The club president jumped high and landed on Mr. Smith’s head.
The head split open, and brain matter splattered everywhere.
“Ha-ha! We’re just getting started!!”
Covered in pinkish brain matter, the club president pulled something out of her pocket.
It was a phone.
She took a selfie with a V sign.
“Joo-Yi senior… I thought you said you didn’t have a phone…?”
“What~? Who doesn’t have a phone these days??”
The club president cheekily replied.
Yeoreum sighed.
As if the mysterious videotape wasn’t troubling enough…
Now he’s caught up with a lunatic.
Through the study room window, faint sunlight came through.
Dawn was breaking.
Yeoreum looked at the rising sun and thought.
Nothing was going right.
The situation was nonsensical and a mess.
But his heart was filled with warmth.
Having a friend by his side to hold his hand – that seemed enough.
The clear morning air filled the study room.
Beyond the window embracing the brightening sky, something was flying.
It was a red balloon.
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