Zombie Apocalypse Whiteout - 14
EP14. Welcome to Zombie World (6)
“It’s fine.”
Min-gu offered again, his expression generous like he was doing a good deed.
Fine? What’s fine about this? I’m not fine!
Yu-bin wanted to protest immediately, but of course, they weren’t close enough for him to actually say that out loud.
“You want an arm too, don’t you?”
When Yu-bin kept hesitating, Min-gu grabbed his wrist and guided it to his side. Normally, he hated being touched by other men, but this cunning guy was a different story. He knew exactly how much Yu-bin must long to regrow and reattach his missing arm.
It was impossible now, but if the world ever went back to how it used to be, maybe even that would become possible. That curly-haired foreigner had said as much. After his own side had been fully restored, Min-gu found himself more inclined to believe him.
The JL guys were seriously skilled. If things went well, maybe this cunning guy wouldn’t have to graft on someone else’s arm after all.
“It doesn’t hurt at all where it was reattached.”
He pulled Yu-bin’s hand to press gently on the healed area as he explained. Yu-bin, careful not to irritate the scar, had been keeping his touch light, but now looked surprised.
“R-Really?”
“Yeah. Feels just like my original skin.”
Min-gu nodded, exhaling cigarette smoke. Having been stabbed and cut so many times before, he knew better than anyone how unbelievable this was.
A human body doesn’t heal this perfectly or this quickly. Even if it looks fine on the surface, there’s usually pain when pressing on the deeper tissue. But these JL guys had pulled off a complete reattachment, no lingering pain, no hidden damage. Just lab-grown muscle that functioned like the real thing.
“Wow, that’s amazing. Mine still throbs sometimes… especially when it’s cold out.”
Yu-bin gestured to his calf, the one that had been slashed open by the laser wire, then pulled his hand back.
“Alright, now it’s your turn. Put on the jacket. I did what you asked, didn’t I?”
“Hmph. This punk…”
Min-gu gave a crooked smile, half amused. The kid had used his kindness like a bargaining chip, twisting it into a deal. He wasn’t just cunning, he had guts too, considering his situation.
Come to think of it, the first time they met last spring, this very kid had stepped forward to play mediator. Looking back, Min-gu was glad he hadn’t gutted him back at that BBQ joint in front of the barracks. If he had, things would’ve turned out very differently.
“What’s so cold about this weather, anyway?”
In the end, Min-gu gave in and shrugged the padded jacket over his suit. It was more hassle than he liked, but rejecting this cunning guy’s thoughtful gesture felt awkward somehow.
‘Huh?’
Warm.
In less than five seconds, warmth spread across his shoulders and back. The cold wind that had been relentlessly cutting through his suit coat stopped dead. And it was lightweight.
Are jackets like this really this warm? He used to think these things were only worn by fishmongers.
Staring down at the jacket, Min-gu slowly exhaled another long stream of smoke. Ever since he’d gotten older and more powerful, he’d never worn anything so unfashionable. For the sake of appearances, he stuck to leather jackets, trench coats, and long wool coats in winter. And truthfully, he’d never been cold, he always rode in the back seat of a luxury car, hardly spent any time outdoors.
“Feels pretty warm, doesn’t it?”
Yu-bin asked. Admitting it now would make him look like a fool. So Min-gu muttered with a scowl:
“I’m just humoring you. I don’t get cold.”
“I’m taking the first watch, so go get some sleep.”
Yu-bin checked his wristwatch without waiting for a response. It was already past 8 p.m. If they were going to start moving again at dawn, they needed to take turns resting.
“You’re second, Jin-woo goes after you. I’ll wake you up at eleven.”
“You’re on watch tomorrow. Stop running around so much, especially when you’re the weakest one here.”
Min-gu took the final drag from his cigarette and spoke firmly. Then, not giving Yu-bin a chance to respond, he flicked the butt into the Han River and headed down the stairs.
Flick!
In the distance, toward the east near the soccer field, a small light shone. It caught his eye. It was the lantern Yu-bin had set up before sunset, during his last round of preparations. According to him, if any enemies were lying in wait nearby, they’d be drawn toward that light instead. It also helped make the dim glow from the cruise ship less conspicuous.
Whether that theory was true or not, the kid was certainly meticulous.
“Here.”
Jin-woo brought over an air mattress he’d inflated using a foot pump he’d found at the snack bar. Next to him, the sheriff was pumping air into a fourth mattress with tremendous force.
Fwoosh! Fwoosh!
With each stomp of his foot, the flat, long mattress puffed up quickly. These inflatable toys, meant to float on water, were going to serve as their beds for the night. The season where you could sleep anywhere with just a layer of styrofoam beneath you was over. Next time, it’d be cold enough that they’d need to bring sleeping bags.
“Let’s go!”
The sheriff, who had inflated the air mattress in an instant, jumped to his feet and took the lead. Their sleeping spot was directly below where Yu-bin was keeping watch, on the third floor, in what used to be a fried chicken restaurant.
“Ugh, the smell… fuck.”
As soon as he opened the door to the third floor, the sheriff wrinkled his nose. The stench of rotting chicken from the freezer was overwhelming. They’d sprayed bleach, deodorizers, and coffee grounds all over the place and kept the windows wide open during the day to air it out, but months of embedded stench couldn’t be scrubbed away so easily.
“Should we just sleep on the second floor instead…?”
Jin-woo hesitated. He could endure extreme conditions as well as anyone, but this was something else entirely. It felt like if he fell asleep here, he might never wake up again.
“What kind of men whine about a little smell like girls…”
Min-gu, who had been nudging Jin-woo forward, also came to a halt as soon as he stepped inside. This wasn’t just a bad smell, it felt like some kind of toxic gas was choking him. The harsh bleach odor made his throat feel like it had been punched through.
Sniff! Sniff!
Sam-suk began sneezing and thrashing her head in clear discomfort. Min-gu didn’t miss the opportunity and tugged on Jin-woo’s sleeve.
“Let’s go down to the second floor. The dog can’t even complain, don’t make her suffer.”
“Yeah, guess we should. Sheriff, let’s head down.”
Jin-woo didn’t argue and accepted the suggestion. The three men, with their mattresses tucked under their arms, filed out again. From the floor above, Yu-bin called down, confused.
“What’s up? Why are you coming back down?”
“The smell’s fucking unbearable! We’re crashing on the second floor instead!”
The sheriff shook his head in disgust. It meant their sleeping quarters would be farther from the lookout point, but there was no helping it.
“You opened the windows earlier, didn’t you?”
“Doesn’t matter. Just go in and take a whiff yourself. Gag!”
The sheriff dry-heaved a couple of times before heading down the spiral stairs. Jin-woo pointed to the radio clipped to his tactical vest.
“If anything happens, wake us up over the radio. Or blow the whistle. Got it?”
“Well… honestly, not much is likely to happen.”
Yu-bin replied calmly. The only way onto the floating café was the narrow floating dock below, and the steel gate connecting that to the shore was securely locked. The only other potential entry was if a zombie drifted down the Han River, grabbed onto a duck boat, and somehow managed to climb up. That was about as likely as throwing a bullet by hand and piercing a zombie’s skull.
And even if that did happen, the second the rope got cut and the intruder came aboard, the glass bottles hanging from it would rattle like crazy and give a clear warning. So aside from the psychological discomfort of being two floors away from his friends, nothing had really changed.
“Phew, this is better.”
The sheriff exhaled softly as he stepped into the second-floor upscale restaurant, guided by the dim red flashlight. Sure, there was still a hint of mold, but compared to the hell of rotting chicken upstairs, it was practically luxurious.
“Alright!”
The three men laid down their weapons and flopped onto their air mattresses near the entrance.
“Come on, Sam-suk. You lie here too.”
When Jin-woo patted the mat next to him, Sam-suk curled up and lay down as close to him as possible.
Whooosh…
Cold wind kept blowing through broken windows. Every time it swept past, their foreheads chilled. There were so many broken panes, it was hard to even know where to start patching things up. The only light came from a single red flashlight, dimmed low. It wouldn’t cast far but gave just enough visibility up close.
Ten minutes passed as they all lay side-by-side, facing the wind. The sheriff, lying with his backpack as a pillow and hood pulled over his head, voiced a doubtful thought.
“...Are we sure this is actually better than just sleeping outside?”
“Probably?”
Jin-woo muttered, arms folded, nodding slightly.
“We should bring sleeping bags next time. Think a department store would have any?”
Holding Sam-suk helped a bit with the cold, but it was still freezing.
“Is it safe to use a sleeping bag, though? What if we get tangled in the zipper when something goes down? Could be fucked… No, wait, screw this!”
The sheriff suddenly sat up and started grabbing tables, dragging them around to surround their mats. He was trying to build a low barricade.
Seeing this, Jin-woo and Min-gu silently got up to help.
“Way better, right? It’s definitely warmer in here now!”
Once their little table wall was complete, the sheriff boasted as he flopped back onto his mattress. Jin-woo and Min-gu returned to their spots without comment. They didn’t really believe such a flimsy wall could block the wind anyway.
Another ten minutes passed.
“…Still the same, fuck.”
“Stop trying to use your brain, will you?”
Min-gu muttered in a tone somewhere between advice and an insult.
The sheriff didn’t argue. He just shut his mouth.
Thump, thump..
Next to him, Jin-woo was already fast asleep, his breathing slow and steady, like someone dozing on a luxury hotel bed. The sheriff looked over at him and thought.
How cold must those mountains in Gangwon-do have been, if even this numb guy couldn’t get any sleep there...?
“Hmm-hmm... hmmm...”
Left alone on the rooftop of the third floor, Yu-bin had pulled a chair right up to the railing and was quietly humming as he looked around. The whole time, his hands kept busy near his waist, tying and untying knots.
Swish, swish
It was just a repetitive practice of tying a simple, basic knot and then undoing it again, but it was important to Yu-bin. Coordinating his natural hand and his prosthetic was trickier than it seemed. The sharp sensation from his real right hand often interfered with the feel of the left.
“Lulu-lu... lururuu...”
Sometimes, when his left hand didn’t move the way he wanted, frustration would bubble up. But Yu-bin soothed himself with the quiet humming and kept repeating the simple movements. Alex once said that how functional a prosthetic arm becomes depends entirely on how skilled the user is. So for now, all he could do was keep practicing. He believed this training might one day save his life.
Honestly... just having such a high-end prosthetic was a stroke of incredible luck. Of course, it would’ve been far better if he hadn’t lost the arm at all. But this was a world where you had to focus on what you still had, not on what you’d lost.
Beep
He checked his watch. 9:46 PM.
It had already been an hour and a half since he started his night watch. Yu-bin rubbed at the fatigue gathering around his eyes. Just another hour and a half, and he could switch with Min-gu and finally call it a day.
The riverside around the Han River was now blanketed in a darkness so thick, it was impossible to see anything at all. He had to squint in the dim moonlight just to barely make out vague shapes.
“Haah...”
A breath escaped from Yu-bin’s lips, forming a pale mist in the cold air. As he gazed silently at the lifeless cityscape, a deep loneliness settled in. It wasn’t just fear or eeriness, it was something stranger, harder to define.
Was Jenny asleep by now?
Yu-bin thought of Jenny. When his mood dipped, thinking of her helped keep the sadness from taking over. Last night, he’d secretly given her one of his T-shirts. Jenny had asked for something that smelled like him, saying it helped her sleep better. At the welfare center, they used to fall asleep facing each other...
Splish, splash
The gentle lapping of water echoed in his ears. The river flowed, and the wind blew. That was all. The vibrant cityscape he remembered, the lights, the energy, was long gone. Now, the only things that moved were the zombies. They never stopped. Day or night, they marched on.
GRAAAHH!
A distant zombie roar rang out. He couldn’t see them clearly, but he knew they were the ones with the gold sun balloons. The timing matched. That was one predictable thing about zombies, they moved like clockwork.
Step, step…
Another thirty minutes passed. A shadow slowly approached from the floating bridge connecting the riverside path to the café. A zombie.
Grahk! Kagh! Gaaaahk!
The zombie made strange, choppy noises as it stumbled forward, finally stopping right at the edge of the bridge. Yu-bin had no idea why it chose to come this way instead of wandering around the vast Ttukseom park or plaza.
Maybe it was unusually sensitive to heat and had sensed the warmth from the generator running behind the café. Or maybe it was just dumb luck. Either way, the point was this, there was a zombie standing right outside their hideout.
“Seriously...”
Yu-bin sighed as he stared through the night vision scope. Watching a zombie from this safe distance brought on a strange, detached feeling. The longer he observed, the more the creature’s individuality came into focus, something he never noticed in the chaos of a real fight.
It was a male zombie, probably around the same age as Yu-bin. Even though it was a mess now, the clothes and hairstyle gave him a sense of that. The oversized headphones hanging around its neck caught his attention.
What was it listening to when it died? And why are those things still hanging on after all this time...?
Clack, clack
The headphone zombie began shuffling back and forth like a hamster on a wheel, pacing between the steps of the riverside path and the bridge. Maybe it had decided this was its new territory. Stupid bastard.
“Stop that and go.”
After watching it for a while, Yu-bin lowered the scope and muttered indifferently,
“If you’re still here by morning, I’m gonna have to kill you.”