Zombie Apocalypse Whiteout - 11
EP 11. Welcome to Zombie World (3)
"Looks like it's quiet for now. Should we go set that up while we’ve got the chance?"
Yu-bin looked out at the heart-shaped balloons and the dozens of gold foil number "3" balloons swaying in the breeze.
His G-Shock read 3:30 PM.
The stream of zombies had tapered off for a little while now. It was calm enough to almost be called peaceful. As always, a few stragglers wandered around in twos and threes, but they weren’t a big deal, Jin-woo didn’t even need to step in. Moments like this, where they could actually move around comfortably in a world full of zombies, were rare.
"Yeah, let’s go now and put that up before it gets any later. We’ll grab the bike, too," the sheriff said, stretching with a loud groan. He slung on his personal backpack and picked up his hammer. The season had turned to late autumn, and the shadows had already grown long. In just a little while, it would be dark, and outdoor work would be out of the question.
“Bike?” Min-gu asked, puzzled.
Yu-bin nodded.
“There’s a rental station right next to the subway entrance. I saw it before.”
Using bikes would dramatically boost their travel speed. Of course, it would be useless if they got surrounded by a horde, but the potential benefits made it worth trying.
“Keep watch for us, bro,” Yu-bin said, handing Min-gu a walkie-talkie as he clipped one onto his own backpack strap.
“…Watch?”
Min-gu, who had been about to join them with his machete, blinked in disbelief as he found himself stuck with the walkie-talkie instead.
“Yeah. And if it doesn’t work, just fire a shot in the air.”
Yu-bin smiled. The odds of the walkie-talkie failing were slim, but it never hurt to have a backup plan.
“…You’re the only one who’d ever ask me to be a lookout,” Min-gu muttered after a moment of stunned silence. He accepted the task eventually. He’d always been the one at the front, slashing a path with two blades like a vanguard. This was the exact opposite of what he was used to, but if this sharp little guy had asked him, it had to be for a reason.
“You’ve never worked a labor crew. If we’re not in sync, it slows everything down way too much.”
Yu-bin responded casually as he grabbed the bundle of strings connected to the balloons.
“Careful. Those barbed hooks’ll stab right through if you’re not paying attention,” the sheriff warned.
Sharp, three-pronged fishing hooks hung from the ends of the strings, deadly enough to pierce skin without much force.
“Come on, do you think Yu-bin’s like us?” Jin-woo said, nudging the sheriff with a chuckle. “He’s the most careful out of all of us. No need to worry.”
The sheriff pointed at Yu-bin’s calf.
“That same careful guy got his leg shredded by a tripwire once, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. I really thought I was going to die that time. Blood pouring out, no meds, and the pain was off the charts…”
Yu-bin grimaced at the memory. That night had been terrifying, even more so because of the reckless sheriff and Sam-sik, who made the following day a whole new ordeal.
“Good thing you guys found those meds. If I hadn’t taken them, I might’ve lost the leg altogether. Heh… Anyway, look. You just slot the hooks through the back of this, and you’re good.”
With a self-deprecating chuckle, Yu-bin demonstrated how to hook the barbs through the back of a life jacket he’d picked up from the first-floor snack stand. Holding the jacket from the front kept the balloons secure and protected him from getting pricked.
“Damn, you’re clever,” the sheriff said, impressed as he copied Yu-bin’s setup. Just one life vest neatly held nearly 50 fishing hooks and balloons.
“Sam-suk, let’s go,” Jin-woo called once his friends were ready. He slung his toolbag across his chest and headed down the stairs.
“Let’s toss a few of these into our packs,” Yu-bin said after they reached the first-floor deck. He grabbed several folded emergency blankets from the counter display.
“What for?” the sheriff asked, grabbing a few as well out of habit.
Yu-bin gave the cluster of floating balloons a gentle shake.
“I think they’ll be handy when we hang these up. You should take three or four too.”
Originally, the plan was to use plastic sheets and tape, but now that they’d found these blankets lying around, this seemed easier and faster.
“We’ll be back soon, bro,” Yu-bin said, waving toward Min-gu on the rooftop. He and the others had crossed the floating bridge and climbed up the riverbank, the balloons bobbing around them. The sight looked so peaceful, like kids heading out on a school trip.
“If you go that way, you’ll run right into some monsters,” Min-gu called down from the fourth-floor railing. He raised four fingers and pointed at the upper trail of the park. Just above the split-level walkway, four zombies were shambling about.
Jin-woo and the big guy could probably handle them without issue, but it never hurt to double-check. That was the lookout’s job, after all.
“I’ll take care of it,” Min-gu said.
Jin-woo raised the butt of the K2 rifle tightly to his shoulder and began climbing the stairs with long strides. In truth, he had already gotten a rough idea of the zombies' positions before leaving the floating café. It would’ve been careless to head out with his friends without at least that much preparation.
Shhk!
As soon as he reached a height where the park and swimming pool came into view, he raised his rifle and placed his finger on the trigger. There were thirteen zombies wandering around that area. They weren’t anyone he had a personal grudge against, but leaving them alone would only endanger him and his friends.
“All of them?” Jin-woo glanced back at Yu-bin and asked for confirmation. Logically, it made sense to kill them all, but Yu-bin had a habit of occasionally making strange yet surprisingly effective decisions.
“Yeah.”
Yu-bin nodded.
Even if they went through the trouble of clearing these out, another horde passing through would eventually leave behind stragglers in similar numbers anyway. Still, the priority now was to create a stable environment to work in.
Bang! Tatatat! Bang bang! Bang-taang!
Jin-woo smoothly swung the muzzle and squeezed the trigger.
Splat! Thunk! Thud!
Zombies with their skulls blown apart collapsed lifelessly. Even while climbing stairs, Jin-woo’s bullets struck their targets with uncanny precision, piercing zombie skulls like guided missiles. One shot per head. Even those charging in madly at the sound of gunfire took a bullet clean through the forehead.
Tatang!
With the final two shots, the last zombies, about 100 meters away and mid-charge, crumpled to the ground, and just like that, it was over. That easy.
“Holy shit… damn, that’s insane. I can’t hit ‘em like that no matter what I do.”
The sheriff, walking toward the centipede-shaped building, muttered in awe, mouth hanging open. He had always thought he was way more athletic than Jin-woo, but when it came to shooting, there was just no comparison. Even when he took his time to carefully aim, he couldn’t come close to Jin-woo’s level.
Sure, he could hit a stationary target well enough, but that wasn’t good enough in a world where the zombies sprinted at you. If you didn’t take them down in one shot, you’d waste precious seconds, and that was all it took to get surrounded.
“Well, some people are good at baseball, others at soccer. But hey, Sheriff, you’re amazing in close combat.”
Yu-bin offered a simple explanation. Still, the sheriff shook his head with a sigh.
“No, I mean, you’re right, but... when I’m around that guy, I feel like I’ve lost all my ‘tough guy’ appeal.”
Pfft!
Yu-bin laughed.
“Come on, who’s calling you weak? That’s ridiculous.”
If it weren’t for the sheriff’s insane combat prowess, they wouldn’t have survived that brutal summer. Even if Sam-sik figured out the zombies’ movement patterns, it was the sheriff who actually fought and carved paths for them. Without his hammer, they couldn’t have even dreamed of raiding a convenience store, let alone meeting Jenny or reaching Sangbong Station, or the luck of rescuing Terra.
“Let’s put the first one up here.”
Yu-bin set down the life vest adorned with balloons and pointed to the chain-link fence surrounding the swimming pool. The path narrowed suddenly there, making it the perfect spot for stringing up traps. The natural bottleneck also helped keep large numbers of zombies from piling in at once.
“Can you pull this forward a bit, Sheriff? Use that hammer.”
Yu-bin tugged on the fence while making his request. Most people would have to unscrew bolts and sweat through the job, but the self-proclaimed “weakling” sheriff could do it with brute force alone.
The sheriff hooked the hammer head onto the fence and asked,
“How far? Should I pull the whole thing forward?”
“Not that much. Just a bit, around fifteen degrees….”
“Got it. Step back. …Hup!”
While Yu-bin was still explaining the angle with his hands, the sheriff yanked the hammer handle forward with a grunt.
Craack!
The bolts snapped and flew off as the two-meter-long fence bent like paper. All from one pull of the arm…
“Keh, real weakling, huh.”
Yu-bin teased and then pulled out the foil mat.
“We’ll thread this with string and hang the balloons from it. About fifteen per mat, any more and the foil might tear. We’ll stagger the height so the pressure spreads out.”
Yu-bin held up the mat against the bent fence to demonstrate what he meant. The method was simple.
Punch a few holes along the top and bottom of the mat, run clothesline through in a crisscross pattern, then tie both ends to the fence parallel to the road. That way, the foil mat hangs tightly like a banner.
Then, they took the fishing hooks tied to balloon strings and spaced them out on the mat, loosely embedding just one of the three-pronged barbs into the foil, leaving the other two pointing outward toward the road. That was it. Set and ready. Ridiculously simple.
Huff huff huff!
While Jin-woo stood at the corner watching for threats and covering Yu-bin and the sheriff, Sam-sook busied herself marking territory with her urine. Everyone had a job to do.
“Think they’ll fall for it?”
The sheriff, chin resting on his hand as if admiring a painting, looked over the trap and asked. Yu-bin nodded confidently.
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure they will.”
Zombies tend to stubbornly stick to paths they've once designated as their route. What Yu-bin was banking on was their simplicity and their dullness to outside stimuli. In that narrow bottleneck, they'd inevitably bump into one another and brush against the mylar mat. At that moment, the fishing hooks threaded into the mat would pierce through their skin and lodge firmly. Thanks to the section of fence the sheriff had bent inward, the chances of contact had increased even more.
After that, the zombies could be identified by the color and shape of the balloons trailing from them. It was a method that would never work on people, but with zombies, it worked like a charm.
"This is definitely easier than rigging up buckets of paint," the sheriff said, satisfied, as they finished setting up the second trap.
Back when they used to distinguish zombie hordes using dozens of cans of paint and thinner from Costco, plus a bathtub for mixing, it was a complicated, exhausting process. This method was far simpler and required barely any effort.
Of course, helium balloons don’t float forever. But if the inside is coated properly, they’ll last about three days. That’s plenty of time to track zombie movement patterns in the area. After that, there won’t be any need to keep identifying them, after all, they were only planning to stay here for eight days before moving on.
“Alright, perfect.”
Yu-bin clapped his hands once, satisfied, after setting up four foil mat ‘signboards’ spaced about ten meters apart. Now, any zombies passing through this area first would be parading around with red heart-shaped balloons for the next three days.
“Min-gu, can you see us?” Yu-bin asked, testing the radio.
Bzzt. Yeah. I can see the ones with the balloons.
There was a slight delay before Min-gu responded. The man was sharp as a blade in action, but when it came to tech, he was always just a little off, an odd mix of killer instincts and clumsiness.
“No zombies heading our way?”
None.
Min-gu’s reply was short and to the point. Maybe God took all the kindness out of him and poured it into raw athleticism instead.
“Got it. We’re heading toward the Jabeolle. Keep watch.”
Bzzt, that area’s a blind spot. I can’t see it.
“Oh, right. We’ll cover that side then. You just keep your eyes on the rest.”
Finishing the exchange, Yu-bin grabbed a life vest with a gold “3” balloon tied to it and advanced westward.
“That car’s still there!”
The sheriff’s voice rang out with something like nostalgia as they arrived under Cheongdam Bridge. He was staring at the plaza in front of the Jabeolle building, where a charred black Corolla still sat.
“Yeah, that fire broke out the day we all met, right?”
Jin-woo walked closer to the car, his voice carrying a hint of sentiment. The burned shell of the vehicle still bore the bullet holes from when those men in black uniforms had opened fire. No one came to clean up in a world overrun by zombies. Still, stumbling upon such a relic from the past stirred something in him.
“I took Jenny for a drive in this thing,” the sheriff said, running a gloved hand along the shattered windshield and the roof riddled with bullet holes.
“Really? Just the two of you?” Jin-woo let out a quiet sigh of envy. “Man, I’ve never even done that once…”
Saying ‘you can still do it’ wasn’t going to help. On Big Island, there were no cars, no roads to drive them on, either. Sure, there were motorboats, but they weren’t cozy or romantic like cars.
“Hey! You geezers done reminiscing? We’ve still got balloons left. Either finish putting them up or grab a bike and go play somewhere!”
Yu-bin snapped as he turned back, eyes scanning the surroundings. With all the piers, subway entrances, the Jabeolle, containers, and bathroom buildings, there were way too many visual obstructions in this unfamiliar place. They needed to stay alert. Sure, he had Jin-woo and the sheriff with him, but that didn’t mean they could let their guard down.
“Yu-bin’s always so cold-hearted,” the sheriff muttered, reluctantly leaving the Corolla behind.
“Think he lost his sentimental side when the zombie apocalypse hit,” Jin-woo agreed. “Man, when I first saw your face through my scope, I cried like crazy.”
Still chatting as they walked, the group reached the staircase connected to the Jabeolle, and there, they found another relic from that day. The corpses of the Shadow Shield operatives Jin-woo had killed.
“Ugh… they’re still here.”
The sheriff grimaced.
Skitter-skitter!
Startled by their footsteps, cockroaches scurried out from under the corpses. The bodies, now in an advanced state of decay and clearly home to the insects, still lay exactly where they had fallen.
“All three went down from headshots, right?” the sheriff asked, sighing.
“Nope. That one got hit in the heart,” Jin-woo said, pointing at one of the corpses while keeping watch ahead.
“Oh, right. Guess that sounds familiar.”
The sheriff nodded faintly. The skull was nearly down to the bone, but the front teeth were all smashed in, definitely the squad leader who had beaten him mercilessly.
“Why’d you shoot him in the heart? Couldn’t get the angle for a headshot?”
The sheriff asked casually, and Jin-woo, the one with the "living emotions," replied without a flicker of hesitation.
“Did it on purpose. So he’d die a little more painfully.”