Zombie Apocalypse Whiteout - 10
EP10. Welcome to Zombie World (2)
“Forget the bodies for now. Let’s get inside the boat. Look at those bastards piling in.”
Jin-woo, still gripping his rifle tightly, spoke as he stared toward the west. Following his gaze, they saw the horde of zombies they’d noticed earlier, the ones numbering in the thousands, getting closer along the riverside trail.
Before they knew it, the gap had narrowed to around 600 meters. If they didn’t hide quickly, the entire mob could come swarming their way.
“They’re coming from the other side too. Goddamn it.”
The sheriff muttered, raising a hand to shield his eyes as he looked eastward down the opposite trail.
“Seriously?”
Yu-bin sighed and turned his head to three o’clock. Sure enough, there they were. Though still a ways off, another group of zombies had started to approach, one they hadn’t seen before. And they weren’t small in number either. It looked like several hundred, at least.
“Where the hell did they come from? Did they come out through a subway entrance? Or is there some tunnel that leads in from another neighborhood?”
Watching the approaching hordes, cold sweat began to trickle down Yu-bin’s back. There were far more zombies wandering nearby than there’d been when he briefly surveyed the area from a helicopter last month.
But it was too late to change the meeting point now. They had no choice but to make it work here. In the next few days, the four of them had to secure this place, zombie-infested as it was, and turn it into a safe zone where they could negotiate the deal without risking their lives.
Time until the transaction: four days. No, three and a half.
“…Hoo.”
Yu-bin let out a quiet sigh. He’d been fighting for months now, but facing zombies never got easier. Even with Tera’s serum in his veins, if he got surrounded, it was over. The serum might make him immune, but it wouldn’t stop him from being torn apart.
The only silver lining was that this would be the last deal. At least until spring, he wouldn’t have to throw himself into anything this reckless again.
“Hey, get in here.”
Min-gu’s voice came from above. He’d climbed up to the rooftop and was leaning over the railing.
“All clear.”
He wiped the blade of his machete with a tablecloth. Looked like he’d taken out a few more inside the floating café.
“Were there zombies hiding inside, bro?”
Yu-bin asked, and Min-gu gave a nonchalant nod.
“Couple in the storage room and such.”
“Let’s close the door behind us.”
Yu-bin knocked on the floating café’s metal-framed entrance. They weren’t close enough yet for the zombies on the path to spot them, but better to take every precaution.
SCREEEECH!
The sheriff flexed his thick arms and forced the heavy steel door open with a loud, grating sound.
CLANG!
As soon as the sheriff shut the door behind them, Yu-bin tossed one end of a rope to him.
Fwoop!
The sheriff quickly looped the rope around the steel frame and tied it off. While Yu-bin tightened the other end, the sheriff wound it back and forth between the posts, stretching it all the way to the farthest pillar. It was a crude barrier, but enough to stop any zombies who might try to jump across from the bridge.
“Damn it. I’m too slow.”
Yu-bin frowned at his prosthetic hand, frustrated by his sluggish knot-tying. He’d gotten used to gripping and lifting things, but this kind of intricate, delicate work still exposed its limits.
“Don’t sweat it over stuff like this. I’ll handle the grunt work.”
The sheriff reassured him, finished tying the rope himself, then gave it a firm tug to test the tension. With that, their basic fortification of the floating café was complete.
The rope served as a makeshift net, blocking the only path from the overpass. It wouldn't stop a determined horde, but it’d at least slow them down and prevent them from all rushing in at once. Still, if hundreds of zombies charged at once, a flimsy setup like this wouldn’t hold for long.
“Hurry it up. They’re almost here.”
Jin-woo, who had been keeping an eye on both sides of the trail, warned them again. The lead group of zombies approaching from nine o’clock was now within 350 meters. Any more delay, and they’d risk being spotted. The ones coming in from two o’clock were even closer.
Yu-bin gave Jin-woo’s shoulder a pat.
“It’s done. Let’s head up to the top floor.”
He lifted the icebox containing Tera’s blood.
“You don’t go first. Stay behind me.”
The sheriff, gripping his hammer tightly, stepped into the spiral staircase built into the column at the center. Min-gu had insisted the place was clear, but that kind of assurance was never good enough, especially when your friend’s life was on the line.
“Sam-suk, don’t go that way. You’ll step on the glass.”
Jin-woo called out, warning the dog. The floor of the floating café was littered with shards of broken glass. Since Sam-suk didn’t have boots or protective footwear, they’d need to thoroughly sweep the place once they had time that afternoon.
Pant pant pant!
Sam-suk, as always, moved skillfully and smartly around the obstacles. Truly a partner who’d survived countless crises alongside them.
“Nice view. Zombies everywhere,” the sheriff muttered with a sigh as he looked out toward the walkway from the rooftop on the fourth floor. There were still some blind spots, but the view was much clearer from up here than it was below. Not that there was much to see, just drab gray concrete buildings and hordes of the undead.
“There’s gotta be well over two thousand of them,” Jin-woo said, setting his magazine bag down on the rooftop. The ones from Seoul Forest had already reached the nearby area. Roughly estimating by blocks of a hundred, he figured there were at least twenty-six or twenty-seven hundred. They were now shifting course toward the pool and the square. In a few more minutes, they’d be right where the helicopter had landed earlier.
“At least they’re not overlapping. Would be better if they just moved in one big group,” he added.
The few hundred zombies that had taken over the square earlier were now advancing eastward. A thousand on this side, a few hundred over there, another few hundred at three o’clock. Just watching them for a short while was enough to cause a mental overload. The different groups seemed to be searching their respective areas with slight differences in location, timing, and range of motion.
Graaaar!
A roar burst from one of the zombie hordes marching along. Never a sound you get used to.
“…It’s gonna be a pain if they keep circling back through the same paths,” Yu-bin said, catching his breath and watching the marching dead with a worried look. Even Jin-woo couldn’t possibly take down three thousand zombies. Even with unlimited bullets, it wasn’t a matter of ammo, but endurance. They’d wear out from shooting before the zombies ran out.
“They’re really hauling ass, those bastards…” the sheriff muttered bitterly. As always, zombies were absurdly diligent and moved at a surprisingly fast pace. Their speed stayed steady at around 4.5 to 5 kilometers per hour, and they showed no hesitation. It was like they were all receiving some sort of synchronized signal, efficient and well-coordinated. Even in narrow chokepoints, they didn’t slow down or bottleneck.
“Twelve twenty-four PM… about two thousand zombies. Upper walkway… uh…” Yu-bin trailed off, jotting down notes of the horde’s movements, then turned to the others.
“Anything stand out to you?”
One of the hardest parts about observing zombie groups was how difficult it was to distinguish individuals. Once you had more than a few dozen, they all just looked the same, rotting gray flesh, blood-stained T-shirts. If multiple swarms of over two thousand passed through the area, it would be incredibly easy to confuse them.
“That kind of sharp eye is more Sam-sik’s thing,” said the sheriff. If Sam-sik hadn’t recognized his zombified ex-girlfriends back at the light rail station rooftop, who knows if he’d even be alive right now?
“Even Sam-sik would have a hard time now,” Yu-bin replied, shaking his head as he watched through binoculars. Things were completely different now from four months ago, when the wounds on their flesh were still fresh. Their clothes were torn and faded, the bloodstains caked over with layers of dirt, it was almost impossible to distinguish any original colors. They desperately needed a system of markings.
“They’re coming from over there, too,” Min-gu pointed toward the “Caterpillar” building. It was a tricky angle, barely visible from the café rooftop due to the height difference, but you could still spot a mass of dark heads moving like a murky tide.
“That group… looks like about five hundred? And they’re not the same ones that got picked up on the Growler, are they? …Actually, instead of writing it all down like this…”
Yu-bin, who had been scribbling down time, direction, and numbers, turned to a new page and began sketching a rough map of the area. It wasn’t precise in terms of scale or position, but he could at least mark the two walkways and the key buildings.
Then he drew lines to represent the zombie movement paths and numbered them. This would make things easier to remember later.
The most basic rule of survival in a zombie world was this: Avoid large hordes at all costs. To do that, you had to know when, where, and how often they moved. Yu-bin and his friends had learned the hard way what happens if you ignore that process.
“Ugh…”
The sheriff groaned, glancing sideways at Yu-bin’s impromptu map as he marked path after path.
“Seeing it all drawn out like that just makes it worse. There’s barely any gaps.”
“That’s because I haven’t added the time patterns yet. Once we observe them calmly for a day or so, the openings will start to show,” Yu-bin said in a calm voice as he finished his notes. Zombies were strong and terrifying, but they weren’t strategic. They couldn’t improvise. That meant with the right information, you could predict and manipulate their movements. The key was having enough intel.
After standing watch for another hour and a half, just past 2 PM, the zombies moving through the park and pool area finally disappeared for a brief period. True to their nature, they left behind a few stragglers here and there, but overall the area became quiet. Just in the last few hours, they had counted six separate hordes. Combined, they estimated over 4,000 zombies had passed through.
“I’ll turn on the generator and get the ice machine running,” Yu-bin said, seizing the opportunity and running toward the spiral staircase.
“Wait up! I’ll go with you, little bro,” Min-gu called out, grabbing his machete and following after him. No matter what anyone said, Yu-bin was the team’s brain. You didn’t send the brain out alone without protection, even if the area had already been cleared.
“The convenience store too… it’s all in pretty good shape,” Yu-bin said, pushing the generator inside with Min-gu. The first-floor dining area, with long counters on either side, had been well preserved. Even the shelves in the coffee house were fully stocked with beans and syrup. The small convenience store across the deck was the same. There were some bloodstains on the windows, inside and out, but other than that, there were few signs of anyone having come through. Drinks, snacks, canned goods… there was so much food.
“Well, it wouldn’t have been easy to make it here without some serious skill,” Min-gu replied.
Min-gu replied. Even starting from the nearest residential area, it would be at least 300 to 400 meters to the floating café. Sure, 300 meters might not sound like much, but in a world crawling with monsters, it would’ve been a deadly journey. And returning with a backpack full of supplies would’ve made it even more dangerous.
“Must’ve been someone like that who somehow managed to run all the way here,” Min-gu said, pointing to the decapitated zombie lying inside the restaurant. Judging by the brutal condition of the corpse, it was clearly one of the ones he had taken down earlier. The zombie still had a backpack strapped securely to its back, with chest and waist straps buckled tightly enough that it hadn’t fallen off even after turning undead.
“That's just awful,” Yu-bin muttered blankly.
Looking at the zombie’s emaciated limbs, it wasn’t hard to imagine what kind of desperation drove him. He must’ve reached the limits of hunger and thirst and staked everything on one final dash.
Brrrroom!
Past the back of the restaurant, Yu-bin placed the generator on the deck facing the Han River, filled it with engine oil and fuel, and pulled the starter cord. It was a good spot, sheltered by the eaves from the rain and open to the river breeze, which would help disperse the engine’s heat.
“You think this is safe?” Min-gu asked, concerned. He was talking about the heat and noise attracting zombies.
“The distance and height difference should be enough. At least, it worked back at the Costco rooftop... But I’m not totally sure. It was summer back then. That’s why I’m placing it somewhere with good ventilation,” Yu-bin admitted, scratching his head.
He wasn’t entirely confident. Compared to that time, this area was cooler, and the environmental factors were different. But to preserve Terra’s blood properly, they needed ice, and that meant the ice maker had to run, no matter what.
Psshhhhh!
While Yu-bin and Min-gu were downstairs making ice, on the rooftop, the sheriff and Jin-woo were each working with a helium tank, inflating balloons. Their first batch was fifty heart-shaped red balloons apiece. Once a balloon was filled, they tied it off with nylon thread and secured it to a pipe.
It was a boring and repetitive task, hundreds of times over, but no one complained. Compared to hauling around paint, thinner, and heavy containers, this was just mildly annoying, and way better.
Pant, pant!
Curious about the floating balloons bobbing in the wind, Sam-suk prowled around them with a hawk-like gaze, circling intently.
“Don’t you dare pop one, Sam-suk,” Jin-woo said as he glanced over. No matter how smart the mutt was, he was still a dog.
Whimper.
Sam-suk slunk back, looking guilty. The sheriff burst out laughing.
“Hah! Look at this guy, he really was about to do it, wasn’t he? Hold on, buddy. I’ll find you something fun to play with after we’re done.”
He gave Sam-suk a few reassuring pats. He’d only caught a glimpse while passing by, but down on the first floor near the snack stand were items like life vests and pool tubes, being a water park and all. A beach ball would be easy enough to find.
“Another horde incoming.”
Just as they finished inflating the last of the heart balloons and were taking a breather, Jin-woo glanced westward and gave the warning. The entire group wasn’t visible yet, but it looked like over five hundred of them, at least.
“This place is a damn hot spot. How many of these freakin’ groups are out there?” the sheriff grumbled again.
He couldn’t be blamed. They’d seen thousands of zombies in just the past two hours. The ones that hadn’t made it to Gangnam must still be circling the area, looking for a way through.
“You think it’s those same two-thousand-something ones making another loop?” he asked.
Watching the numbers increase again, the sheriff sounded uncertain. Jin-woo tied off the last balloon string to the pipe and replied,
“I’m not sure either. But once we use this, we’ll know for sure.”