Zombie Apocalypse Whiteout - 18
EP18 120 Kilometers (3)
“Shut the hell up, you bastards!”
The sheriff swung his hammer upward in a rising arc. Two zombies were launched backward at once, their necks snapping from the force.
CRACK! THUD!
The hammer came crashing down in quick succession, smashing the skulls of the fallen zombies with sickening thuds.
Meanwhile, four more zombies charged straight toward him. As the sheriff sidestepped to regain his stance, Min-gu leapt into the fray with one hand behind his back.
“Don’t stop, keep moving! The next wave’s yours!”
SCHHK!
His machete slashed diagonally, nearly severing the neck of the zombie lunging from the far right. Spinning on his heel, Min-gu reached behind him and drew a kukri from its sheath.
SHIK!
The face of the zombie lunging for his shoulder split clean down the middle, its lower jaw slapping against the floor.
CRACK!
Min-gu brought his machete down on the staggering zombie’s neck from behind, dropping it instantly, then slashed the central zombie’s throat with the kukri.
Ggggghkk!
Even with both its windpipe and esophagus sliced, the middle zombie still tried to claw at him, gurgling grotesquely. But Min-gu wasn’t the type to get caught by a sloppy grab.
SLASH! CRUNCH!
He crossed his machete and kukri in an X, slicing the zombie’s loosely attached head clean off. It hit the floor with a dull roll. Before that head had even landed, he rammed the machete straight into the gaping mouth of the final zombie.
SQUELCH!
Flesh and rotted gums exploded outward. The blade wasn’t sharp at the tip, but the force of his stab, combined with the zombie’s own momentum, drove it deep, right up to the vertebrae.
WHIRL!
Still skewered, the zombie was shoved into the wall. Min-gu gripped the machete handle with both hands and twisted, then pushed hard. The machete, wedged between the creature’s vertebrae, slammed down toward the wall like a guillotine.
CRACK!
Bone split with a dry crunch. Even with more than half its neck shattered, the zombie writhed, flailing to break free. Its clawed hands reached for Min-gu’s face,
He leaned back, letting the swipe pass harmlessly, then slammed the machete forward with all his strength.
SNAP!
At last, the spine gave way, nerves, muscle, and skin all shearing in a single brutal motion.
THUD!
The fourth zombie’s decapitated body collapsed limply to the floor. The entire sequence had taken less than five seconds.
SHING!
Without so much as a breath, Min-gu withdrew his machete and broke into a sprint, falling back in step with Jin-woo and Sam-suk. Ahead of them, the sheriff was already locked in battle with another three zombies, swinging his hammer like a madman.
“Outta my way, you damn freaks!”
With his Kevlar-gloved left hand, he grabbed the face of the zombie on the left. Holding the hammer short, he bashed the face of the female zombie on the right.
CRACK!
Her nose, lips, and cheekbone flattened into a single grotesque lump. As she stumbled back, the sheriff kicked the center zombie, a sleeveless thug lookalike, with his steel-toed boot.
SMACK!
The impact crumpled the zombie’s knee backward. Taking advantage of the gap, the sheriff heaved the left zombie’s face sideways and twisted into a brutal hammer swing.
SPLAT!
The creature’s skull caved in like a cracked melon, bouncing once off the wall before crumpling to the floor.
Grrrrgh!
The sleeveless zombie, knee shattered, tried to crawl back to its feet.
“Not happening, bastard.”
The sheriff kicked away its reaching hand, slammed its face into the floor, then followed with a full-force hammer strike to the exposed back of its head.
CLANG!
The back of its skull shattered into pieces. Its eyes burst from the sockets, riding a wave of greenish brain matter.
His boot was now smeared in neon gore, but the sheriff didn’t care. Without pause, he delivered one final, crushing blow to the female zombie’s face.
CRUNCH!
With a short, wet snap, her neck bent completely backward. A jagged shard of broken vertebra pierced through her skin. She froze instantly, like a machine that had lost power.
“You’re the one who butchered that beast, don’t act like you’re suddenly too delicate for this!”
With a teasing remark, Min-gu brushed past the sheriff and charged toward five more zombies barreling toward them at full speed.
Graaaargh! Grrraaaaah!
From their gaping maws burst howls so horrific they barely sounded of this world. It was baffling how they could run flat out and still scream like that the whole way.
“Damn it!”
Jin-woo cursed under his breath and clenched his teeth. With this much noise, there was no way the zombies downstairs, the 120 km/h bastards, hadn’t caught on by now. And sure enough...
GRAAAAAGH! GYAAAH!
The answering roars from outside came like a tidal wave. A moment later, the unmistakable clang of boots, or more like clawed feet, pounded up the metal stairwell. This wasn’t like before, when only a few were climbing. The sound now was on another level.
The entire bug-shaped building would be swarming with zombies in under forty seconds. If they didn’t reach the passage connected to the subway before the horde hit the second floor, they’d be pinned down and attacked from both sides.
CRACK! SLASH! CRUNCH!
But Min-gu didn’t seem to care. With that faint smile still on his face, he moved like the wind, his machete and kukri flashing with deadly precision. Wherever his machete landed, bone shattered. Whenever his kukri sliced, rotted flesh split apart and thick black blood sprayed through the air.
He fought toe-to-toe, not even fifty centimeters from the monsters, yet not once had a single zombie laid a finger on him. It was like his whole body was surrounded by a repelling magnetic field, every attack slipped past him as fluidly as water down a stream.
They’re both insane…
Trailing behind and watching the carnage unfold, Jin-woo couldn’t help but be awestruck. The sheriff’s brute strength crushed zombie after zombie, and Min-gu’s blade-work was so sharp and precise it looked almost effortless. The two of them weren’t just tough, they were something else entirely. Born different. Wired different. Not ordinary people by any measure.
Min-gu’s slaughter continued without pause.
CRACK!
His machete smashed through the temple of a blonde zombie lunging for his throat, dropping it like a puppet with its strings cut. Without missing a beat, he twisted the blade free, sliced the fingers off a zombie to his left with his kukri, and then used the rebound to slash its neck on a sharp diagonal.
SHHK!
Its head, now half-severed, lolled backward from its own weight and momentum. Min-gu twisted his body to avoid its flailing arms and brought his machete down in a vertical chop.
CHUNK!
The machete bit deep into the skull dangling by a strip of spine, shattering the jaw and severing the neck completely. The zombie’s head hit the ground, and its limp body tumbled forward under its own inertia.
As Min-gu felled yet another zombie, Jin-woo’s earpiece crackled with Yu-bin’s voice.
- KZZT! Jin-woo! I’m on my way! I’m coming, just hold out a little longer! When I give the signal, get outside! I’ll draw them away! Got it?!
Yu-bin’s urgent shout rang in his ear.
“You’re coming here?!”
Jin-woo couldn’t believe it. How was he planning to get through this hellscape? What could he possibly do to lure the zombies away, let alone escape after that? Yu-bin wasn’t a monster like the sheriff or Min-gu…
Even if he was a monster, this was too much. There were at least a thousand zombies swarming the area around the bug-building. The moment they spotted him, he’d be buried under an avalanche of teeth and claws.
- Yeah! KZZZT! I’m coming by pedal boat! Wait for my signal! I’ll be there soon! Just come out after those bastards pass! Can you see me yet?!
Yu-bin’s breathless voice broke through again.
“Ah…!”
Jin-woo finally felt a glimmer of hope, and no small amount of admiration.
The Han River. A boat.
Two natural obstacles the zombies couldn’t use, water and vessels. It was the perfect solution in an impossibly bad situation. Clearly, they hadn’t just survived by luck so far.
Now that he was paying attention, Jin-woo could hear it, faint wind and the gentle splash of water. The sloshing must’ve been from the duck boat cutting through the river. The problem was, they didn’t have the luxury of time to just sit around and wait for Yu-bin.
- I’ve got some cigarettes… KZZT! I’ll use them to start a fire… There’s a little floating café across from you, I’ll…
Yu-bin’s hurried plan tumbled out over the earpiece.
Meanwhile, zombies had started pouring through the door from the external stairs.
GRAAAAH! GAAAH!
A few that didn’t make it inside fast enough were pushed over the railing by the ones stampeding behind them.
THUD! CRASH!
It was pure hell around the stairwell, but the zombies didn’t care. They had no thoughts, no fear. Just the singular drive to bury their teeth into living flesh and rip it apart.
“Firing! Move!”
At last, Jin-woo shoved the other two aside and raised his gun. With the horde charging up from below like a tidal wave, staying silent was no longer an option.
Bang! Bang bang! Bang! Bang bang! Bang bang!
Jin-woo pulled the trigger, aiming at the zombies charging through the doorway. Clouds of dark, dried blood and greenish brain matter burst into the air as the bodies piled up, each one with a bullet hole punched clean through the forehead.
Graaaargh! Raaaagh!
More roars erupted from behind him, it meant the undead had started flooding in through the door they had passed moments ago.
Bang! Bang bang bang! Bang bang! Bang bang bang!
Jin-woo turned and opened fire again, targeting the ones pouring in through the front. Then, without hesitation, he whipped around to face the rear.
RAAAAAGHHHH!
Zombies were now filling the hallway, clambering in through the open doorway and charging up the stairs. The ones in the front had already closed the gap to within 20 meters, snarling as they came.
Ratatatat! Ratat! Rattatatatata!
Switching his rifle to full-auto, Jin-woo stitched bullets through the foreheads of the charging zombies, then sprayed into the knot of undead clambering over each other at the door.
Thwack! Splat! Thud!
As the front-runners fell with exploded skulls, their bodies rolled back into the swarm behind, tripping others and sending them tumbling down the stairs.
Clack!
Jin-woo turned his rifle sideways, ejecting the spent magazine with one hand while his other hand smoothly pulled a fresh one from his tactical vest and slammed it into place. The entire reload took less than a second and a half. He immediately resumed firing.
Rattat! Rattatatat! Rattatatatat!
Zombies trying to cross the threshold fell one after another, their brains bursting into green mist. The doorway, just wide enough for three people to squeeze through, was now blocked by a waist-high mound of corpses. The chaos had at least bought them a few precious seconds.
KZZZZT!
The earpiece in Jin-woo’s ear crackled faintly with static. Ever since the gunfire began, Yu-bin had gone silent, waiting for Jin-woo to make contact first.
“Stop shooting, we have to break through the front!”
The sheriff jogged over and tapped Jin-woo’s shoulder. He was right. Jin-woo spun toward the direction of the subway entrance. Up ahead, Min-gu was surrounded by over a dozen zombies, both his blades flashing as he carved through them in a dazzling flurry.
Crunch! Smash! Crack!
Min-gu dodged teeth and claws with fluid grace, delivering brutal counterattacks that dropped enemies with every move. Black, sticky blood splattered across his face, but unbelievably, he still wore a faint smile, as if he were enjoying this hellish situation.
“We’ve got the rear covered! It’s tight here, so me and the sheriff can hold it! Jin-woo, push forward! …Hey, you son of a, ! I’m talkin’ to you!”
The sheriff barked orders at Jin-woo while simultaneously smashing a zombie's skull with his sledgehammer. Then he kicked another in the chest to create space and swung the hammer full-force again.
“Hold them off just long enough, then catch up!”
“Got it!” Jin-woo shouted over his shoulder, raising his rifle as he charged forward. The stairwell leading to the subway entrance, now their only escape, was already teeming with zombies. These weren’t just any zombies, either. These were the 120-kilometer-per-hour monsters, lured by the cacophony of gunfire and death.
Rattatatatatata! Rattatatatat! Rattatata!
Jin-woo mowed down a dozen of them in seconds, then slammed in his third magazine and seized a moment of relative calm to press the transmit button on his radio.
“Don’t worry, Yu-bin! We’re heading for the subway station now! I’ll call again when there’s a chance!”