Chapter 13: Going Home

My respected professor said this: To stop destruction, extreme measures would be needed. Obviously this meant that to survive the apocalypse, people needed to become extreme too.

I decided to follow that teaching.

To survive an apocalypse where hope was hard to find, you needed talent, luck, and willpower beyond others.

Since I was just an aspiring screenplay writer with no survival talent, and my luck was bad enough to get caught by police on day one, I had to force myself to develop ruthlessness at least.

‘Need time to get a temporary base.’

After studying while roaming in the camper van, I lifted my head. The van was becoming less efficient with roads constantly jammed from ongoing accidents.

Above all, travel had become dangerous with zombies increasingly visible on the roads.

It was time for a temporary base. Weren’t nomads supposed to move in search of grazing land for their herds? Better to minimize going out and hold up in a safe building until resources ran low.

That safe building would obviously be someone else’s home.

“Do-hyung. Let’s rob a house.”

“…Which house?”

Do-hyung answered with a determined voice. After meeting the professor, he seemed to have done some thinking and fully embraced the marauder mindset. No hesitation or uncertainty.

“An old house. One with an outdated door lock.”

I quietly held up the taser. A taser that could be used as a stun gun with the cartridge removed. Blue lightning flashed when I pulled the trigger.

“I found out old-style door locks open when you shock them with electricity.”

“So where’s a house like that? Most door locks are new models these days.”

I closed my eyes. A certain building came to mind. The villa where I lived, an old building without an elevator, worn stairs and outdated door locks.

Time to return to where I first killed someone.

“I’ll give you the address.”

Day 20 of the zombie outbreak.

With over 100,000 symptomatic zombies and over 700,000 infected, I headed to where my life had twisted.

Obviously not to my own home. Going straight there would get me reported to police immediately by my expert snitch of a neighbor. Claiming the murderer who sprayed soap water had returned.

I’d go back to my place after dealing with the snitch.

Instead, I chose a definitely empty apartment on the third floor first. The home of the young couple I’d accidentally killed. The apartment right below mine.

Zzzzt-

The taser flashed. The old door lock couldn’t resist the mighty power of lightning. It just quietly opened the door.

“…”

“…”

The door creaked open in silence.

The home where the young couple had lived gave off a desolate, abandoned feeling. Understandable since no one had been there for three weeks.

Dust lay like carpeting, the place looked like the apocalypse had already passed through, dusty wedding photos covered in grime.

As we carefully looked around, Do-hyung pointed at a photo and whispered quietly:

“Won’t these people come back? Though it does look empty…”

“No. They can’t come back.”

How could dead people return? If they did, I might burst into tears. This wasn’t a zombie apocalypse where corpses came back to life.

“How do you know that?”

“Because I killed them.”

“…What?”

Do-hyung, who’d been whispering since we were in someone else’s home, raised his voice. Backing several steps away from me, his eyes went wide like someone who’d realized something.

“No way… Back in the mountains, after killing someone…?”

“Something like that. They were zombies.”

I mumbled vaguely. Let’s just say they were zombies. They died from soap water meant to kill zombies, so surely they must have been zombies. Like how failing a test any human could pass meant you weren’t human?

Anyway, this was a world where killing a few people had become light. Do-hyung sighed deeply while adjusting his mask like wiping his face.

“Going full throttle since the start of this…”

“Have to do that much to survive. More importantly, let’s check resources first.”

A home for a couple. Hard to guess how much food or other things they’d have.

We methodically checked resources while searching rooms and the veranda. One bag of rice, lots of kimchi and side dishes in the fridge, some ramen and canned tuna and spam. Even masks, maybe prepared for yellow dust or pollen.

“Ugh!”

We also found a rice cooker and soup pot covered in mold from being left empty, but overall it wasn’t bad. The amount would last two weeks if we rationed it, which was important.

There was even a useful leather jacket.

Around then we set down our heavy bags. The bags filled with various equipment made clanging sounds as they fell. The first thing we took out looked like a spray bottle.

“Disinfect first.”

Spraying disinfectant until the place was almost soaked. Then we acted like preparing for disaster.

Storing as much water as possible, turning on the news, making items we’d thought about.

We cut up the leather jacket from the house and added nails, making something like a spiked dog collar. Using zombies’ habit of going for the neck – if they bit the neck, they’d bite nails.

Next we cut plastic bottles and shaped them into hydroponic planters for growing lettuce.

News played in the background of our tedious work.

I-virus detected at all 64 sewage treatment plants nationwide…

“Are test kits out? Are stocks rising?!”

Do-hyung looked up from cutting bottles with kitchen scissors, but no. News about using cultivation methods to detect the virus, not test kits.

The screen kept showing a world in chaos facing an unimaginable disaster like the zombie outbreak. Zombies, zombies, zombies…

Reference footage of students or internet broadcasters filming short zombie videos, ongoing conflicts between human rights groups and citizen groups starting to sense danger, chaotic political, diplomatic and economic news.

Suddenly the screen changed to a funeral hall filled with wailing.

People who died in various accidents, people killed by zombie attacks, people who died after becoming zombies. No space to store bodies, corpses in body bags strewn like trash.

And people afraid their bereaved families might suddenly turn into zombies.

“…”

“…”

We stopped cutting bottles and just watched the screen.

Fear, distrust and conflict seemed to be spreading through society in earnest. Though still not enough.

‘Just the counted zombies are 100,000. Each person must have at least 10 family members, friends and acquaintances, so that’s a million people involved.’

A million people who’d oppose killing zombies. Plus people were afraid they might already be infected themselves.

Hard to argue for extreme measures when you might become a zombie tomorrow. Maybe the military would only move once the majority started believing in doomsday theories that we were doomed at this rate.

Though even the military was in chaos…

We consider a unit annihilated at 20% casualties. But not a few units already have over 20% showing symptoms.

The military eroding from the virus. The military’s closed environment and group living seemed especially serious.

“We’re really going to collapse…”

Do-hyung said dejectedly. I spoke casually while fitting cut bottles together:

“How many times do I have to say the world’s ending?”

“Still hard to believe. Is this possible? In this day and age?”

As if denying Do-hyung’s doubts, a zombie’s “Kreeeek!” cry rang out from outside. Going to the window out of curiosity, we saw a zombie wandering around.

A passerby saw the zombie from afar and naturally turned away.

‘…Could we use that zombie?’

I fell into brief thought. An extension of thoughts that started when returning to this villa.

A villa building with 4 floors above ground, 1 semi-basement, two households per floor. Should we enter at night, kill all residents and take over? Use zombies for that?

Or somehow unite the villa residents into a group? Use them as workers for indoor farming?

Of course there was only one answer.

‘What group? They might be infected.’

Safety first. Just cleanly take resources. They wouldn’t be talent worth risking recruitment either.

Setting down scissors and bottles, I picked up my phone. While choosing noise to attract the zombie’s attention.

“Do-hyung, let’s use that zombie.”

“How?”

“We need to take this villa. Let’s clear out one more home first.”

I explained briefly, and so we left the apartment.

‘Male, around 30?’

We observed the zombie from inside the wide open building entrance. The zombie wandered past the entrance aimlessly, like a stray dog just walking around with no stimulus.

After finding a loud alarm sound, I held my finger over the play button.

“Ready?”

“I’m ready but… We only have one cartridge left, are we really using it here?”

Do-hyung waved the taser with its loaded cartridge. The cartridge with electrode needles was single-use. After using it this time, we could only use it as a stun gun.

But I dismissed the concern casually.

“Why save it? If we run low we can just rob more police.”

Using it as a master key was enough.

I pressed play immediately and put on leather gloves stolen from the couple’s home. The unpleasant beeping alarm blasted loudly.

“Grrrr.”

The zombie’s head whipped toward us as it passed the entrance. Its expression gradually twisted as it crouched slightly like someone about to run.

“Kraaaagh!”

The zombie charged with mouth wide open. And the moment it stepped on the stairs, Do-hyung fired the taser. Pop like a balloon bursting and zzzzt of current flowing.

That was it. The zombie crashed down.

“I’ll drag it, you keep pulling the trigger.”

“Okay.”

After turning off the alarm volume, I dragged the zombie up while worrying if its teeth had broken.

To the fourth floor where the female college student who reported me lived. Toward one of the culprits who twisted my life from day 1 of the outbreak by immediately calling police from next door.

Holding the zombie from behind, I gestured to Do-hyung with my chin. Time to open the door.

Though his hands shook, Do-hyung moved with gritted teeth. He removed the electrodes to recover the cartridge, then shocked the door lock with electricity.

Click-

The lock opened.

“Grrrk, kreeeek!”

Without even checking inside, I shoved in the struggling zombie. Immediately slammed the door shut. My heart pounded hard. In this building where I’d accidentally killed someone, I finally deliberately killed someone.

Not as an ordinary person frantically dealing with situations I got caught up in, but actively as a marauder of the apocalypse.

I leaned my head against the entrance like that day I’d overheard the neighbor woman calling police.

Sounds came through.

Bang crash, angry zombie destroying something. Aagh, woman’s scream, faint lecture sounds like she was watching online classes. Thud thud thud, footsteps approaching the entrance.

“…”

I signaled Do-hyung with my eyes. Block the door tight. Use your weight to keep it from opening.

Drenched in cold sweat, Do-hyung moved like a lifeless doll and leaned against the door beside me.

Bang! The door shook.

“Help! Someone call police! Zombie! Aaaagh!”

I blocked the door with every ounce of strength until my joints went stiff. Biting my tongue to hold back laughter that threatened to burst out.

The past situation had reversed. Back then I’d begged her not to call police, to please open the door.

The door shook several times, then silence fell.

Thump, sound of someone collapsing. Crunch, sound of flesh being chewed. I slowly pulled away from the door. My body temperature seemed to rise after being chilled by the cold entrance door.

‘One cleared. Seven homes left?’

My home, the student’s home, the couple’s home were mine now. Once I dealt with the rest, one villa, the resources of 10 homes would be in my hands.

I suddenly felt light.

Day 20 of the zombie outbreak.

I’d changed from a passive human tossed around by disaster to an active survivor, succeeded in revenge, and made progress securing a base. Everything was going well.