Zombie Apocalypse Whiteout - 9
EP 9. Welcome to Zombie World (1)
GRAAARGH! GRWAAAH!
Zombies roared from all directions, their howls clashing and overlapping in a deafening chorus. And then came the nightmare, they surged into view in clusters, sprinting in from every corner.
Three by the bridge pillar, two more in the filthy, sludge-filled pool, four on the walking path, and another three in the park. There wasn’t a single direction that wasn’t swarming with the undead. Every one of them came charging forward, jaws gaping wide, crazed and ravenous.
For an ordinary person, this would’ve been the moment their legs gave out from sheer terror. But Jin-woo and Chris didn’t retreat, they pushed forward to meet the threat head-on.
T-tak! Tat-tat-tak!
Chris, crouched low and circling to the left, opened fire first. His muzzle flashed as he let off tight bursts.
Thwack! Thwack!
The two lead zombies crumpled to the ground with their heads blown open. Without missing a beat, Chris pivoted and unleashed another volley at the incoming horde.
Tat-tat-tat-tat! Tak-tak-tak!
His HK416 spat out 5.56mm NATO rounds in rapid succession. With each harsh report, another zombie’s skull burst open, greenish brain matter splattering across the plaza as their bodies collapsed.
Bang! Bang-bang! Ratatat! Bang-bang!
On the right side, Jin-woo advanced steadily, landing clean headshots on every charging zombie. As always, one bullet per head. Never a miss.
Bang! Bang! Tat-tat-tat! Tak-tak!
With both Chris and Jin-woo pressing forward on their respective sides, the number of corpses piling up across the plaza grew quickly. Chris couldn’t match Jin-woo’s pinpoint precision, but his speed and accuracy, shaped by years in Delta Team, were still more than reliable.
Bang! Bang-bang! Bang!
Having cleared his side, Jin-woo turned his body and began supporting Chris on the left. He couldn’t hear the grisly pops of exploding skulls over the helicopter’s rotor noise, but the splatter of brains told him everything he needed to know.
“Clear!”
“Clear on this side too!”
Having each advanced about fifty meters in opposite directions, Chris and Jin-woo called out the all-clear. Dozens of zombie corpses now lay sprawled across the overgrown plaza tiles. There was still a horde of thousands advancing from the west, about two kilometers away, but at least for now, the area around the helicopter was secure.
“I’ll take the rear.”
Min-gu grabbed the bag with his machete and headed down the steps leading to the Han River walkway. Five zombies were scrambling up the path toward him from both directions, but he didn’t look the slightest bit rattled.
Shriiing.
As Min-gu drew his blade and stepped forward to meet them, the sheriff and Yu-bin focused entirely on unloading the rest of the supplies.
Thud!
The sheriff dropped a heavy generator onto the ground and casually shouted a warning.
“Hey, don’t overdo it! If you get hurt, you’re just making life harder for us!”
“Don’t worry about me.”
Min-gu replied with a cold smirk as he raised the machete above his head.
“That guy, seriously... always showing off.”
Shaking his head, the sheriff muttered under his breath as he hauled out another gear bag. But in truth, he wasn’t all that worried. That knife-wielding man could handle this kind of thing without breaking a sweat. And besides, he was a Phylaxis subject. Even if a zombie bit him, he wouldn’t get infected. He couldn’t pass his antibodies on to anyone else, but still.
GRAAAH!
Two zombies lunged toward Min-gu from either side. He met their charge with a gaze cold as ice and spun with lightning speed.
Crack!
The machete slammed into the right zombie’s skull, bending its neck sharply backward. In one fluid motion, Min-gu reached behind him with his left hand and pulled a kukri from its sheath.
Slash!
The silver blade arced through the air, and the left zombie’s neck split open, sending its head lolling to the side. As Min-gu twisted and yanked the machete free from the other one’s skull, he spun again, finishing the job and severing the lolling head clean off.
Thump
The two headless bodies collapsed and tumbled down the steps. A moment later, three more zombies took their place, scrambling up the stairs.
Crack! Slash! Wham!
Min-gu moved nimbly between them, blades flashing as he cut down one after another. While he was busy dispatching the fresh wave, Yu-bin and the sheriff worked quickly to unload the rest of the gear. Tools, a portable generator, a cooler, there was a lot to carry, and most of it was bulky.
“We’re good! Thanks, Paul!”
Yu-bin gave Paul a quick hug after unloading the final bag with the sheriff. Then, grabbing a Growler unit, he sprinted off. He felt a deep, unspoken gratitude for the silver-haired old man, thanks to him, they were able to move around this freely.
WEE-OO! WEE-OO!
Yu-bin moved far from the helicopter, holding the Growler high over his head and sweeping it in a wide arc. This high-performance microphone, designed solely to capture and analyze zombie howls, estimated the likelihood and size of nearby hordes based on direction and volume.
“Nine o’clock, over a thousand zombies. There's a 96 percent probability.”
As Yu-bin read off the monitor, Jin-woo nodded, his rifle still trained forward.
“That’s the one the sheriff said was giving him a bad feeling earlier.”
“And at twelve o’clock, about 70 percent, likely under a hundred. No need to worry about that two o’clock group of 300 either!”
The closer and larger the group, the higher the probability reading. If even a 100-zombie group scored over 70 percent, it meant they were already very close.
“Looks like they're gathering near that oval-shaped building... Might be better to take care of that today while we can. What about the floating café?”
Jin-woo gestured behind them to a boat-shaped floating structure on the river, once a restaurant and tea house. The third floor of that café was where today’s negotiations were scheduled to take place.
“Not getting a strong signal, maybe ten zombies max in there.”
Yu-bin checked the monitor and answered. That was a manageable number. Jin-woo turned to Chris and pointed toward the floating café with his left index finger.
“Chris, right bridge! C4!”
He was asking Chris to blow up the right-side bridge that connected the café to the riverbank. Jin-woo mimicked a small explosion with his hand as he spoke, and Chris, already understanding the plan, took off down the stairs.
“I got cover!”
Jin-woo volunteered to provide cover and followed after him. Zombie corpses, beheaded by Min-gu, were strewn across the stairs. Min-gu had switched with them and was now positioned near the helicopter, standing guard. As Chris set up the plastic explosives at the joint between the bridge and the concrete embankment, he glanced toward the floating café and asked with a serious face:
“Are you sure it’s the right place, bro? That building doesn’t look like a solid fortress!”
His expression clearly questioned whether that place was really safe enough to hole up in for a week while fending off hordes of zombies.
“Ah...”
Jin-woo instinctively raised his hand halfway as his mouth hung open.
‘It’s fine, Chris. Don’t worry. As long as we block off the two bridges, the zombies can’t charge in. It’s floating on water, so the other sides are naturally protected. There’s even a convenience store inside for easy food access, and if things really go bad, we can escape on one of the duck boats tied up out back. Yu-bin wouldn’t have chosen this place unless he’d thought it through.’
...is what he wanted to say. But that would be too complicated.
So instead, he pointed at the café’s bridge and the river behind it, then gave Chris a confident thumbs-up.
“Yes! Okay! Good! Good! Safe!”
Reassured by Jin-woo’s certainty, Chris didn’t argue further. He hooked up the detonator and backed away.
BOOM! BOOM-BOOM!
As soon as he pressed the trigger, the far end of the makeshift bridge blew apart. The right bridge lifted briefly into the air before crashing into the Han River with a splash.
FWOOOSH! GLOOP-GLOOP!
The debris sank slowly, leaving bubbles on the surface. Now, the only way in or out of the café was the remaining left bridge.
“Good! Good!”
Jin-woo patted Chris’s shoulder in praise. Clean execution, minimal noise, and exactly the amount of destruction needed. Truly, an elite ex-Delta operator was something else.
SCCRRAAAHH!
Sensing the heat from the explosion, the zombies inside the café began screaming and charging out like lunatics.
CRASH!
The first to appear broke through a third-floor window and hurled itself outside.
BANG!
Jin-woo shot it through the head before it even touched the ground, then swung his rifle toward the café entrance. Zombies in light summer clothes were pouring out at full speed from both entrances.
BANG! BANG-BANG! BANG! BANG!
Jin-woo kept pulling the trigger, switching angles as needed. Every time his K-2 rifle roared, more zombies collapsed on the café’s deck, their brains blown apart.
BANG!
One last zombie burst out from the convenience store inside, only to be dropped with a clean headshot. That marked the end of the initial sweep. It was so clean that Chris hadn’t even needed to fire a shot.
“They’re coming from two o’clock! The chopper needs to leave now! Chris, lift off!”
Yu-bin shouted from his lookout post. A tail section of the large zombie horde had broken off and was sprinting in their direction. There were only about twenty of them, but engaging even a small group like that could attract the attention of the rest, over a thousand strong. They had to disappear before that happened.
“Good luck, bro! See you next Friday!”
Chris bumped fists with Jin-woo, pulled him into a light hug, and said his farewell.
“Roger that! See you, bro!”
Jin-woo nodded in return. After months of repetition, at least that short farewell now came out as naturally as if he were a Korean-American from California.
WHUP-WHUP-WHUP-WHUP!
The helicopter waiting behind them roared back to life, lifting off with Chris on board.
“Damn, you’ve gone full American, huh?”
The sheriff came up and gave Jin-woo a pat on the shoulder.
“Let’s go too, bro!”
Whoooosh
A chilly late-autumn wind, heavy with the stench of zombies, blew across their faces.
“Urgh!”
Despite holding a large duffel bag and a sledgehammer in one hand, the sheriff hoisted a generator weighing over 80 kilograms onto his shoulder without so much as a wobble.
“Hey! Let me help with that, Sheriff! That thing's way too heavy!”
“Nah, nah, I’m good! You just grab the ice machine.”
The sheriff, looking completely unfazed, quickened his pace and jogged down the stairs leading to the riverbank. Watching him with concern, Yu-bin heard Min-gu speak.
“Don’t worry. Just look at those shoulders.”
Min-gu nodded toward the sheriff’s broad, V-shaped back, then picked up two large duffel bags, clearly to help lighten Yu-bin’s load.
Tatata!
With each of them carrying heavy gear, they sprinted under Jin-woo’s cover.
Srrrrk!
Once on the deck of the floating café, Min-gu dropped his bags, drew his machete, and began striding across the pontoon bridge.
“Min-gu, where are you going?”
Yu-bin called out.
Min-gu, standing on the café’s deck, pointed toward the building.
“Good work. I’ll scout ahead, so take a breather.”
He said it like he was being arrogant, but it was clear what he meant, he’d handle the risky interior sweep himself. The closed rooms, storerooms, even the bathrooms… Even though Jin-woo had cleared a group earlier, there was still a decent chance more zombies could be hiding inside.
“Damn, I swear they’ve gotten even nastier since the last time I saw them.”
The sheriff wrinkled his nose as he shoved a few zombie corpses aside on the café’s deck. Yu-bin silently agreed.
Even with Kevlar gloves, handling corpses, especially ones that had decayed in grotesque ways over months, wasn’t something you ever got used to. And there were dozens of them to move.
Still, they had no choice. If they didn’t clear out the bodies now, they’d have to live with them for the next few days. If nothing else, they had to make sure no one tripped over a corpse in the dark.
“Yu-bin, should we just… toss these into the Han River? Kinda feels wrong, doesn’t it? They’ll just float around nearby.”
Dragging a corpse by the leg toward the edge of the floating café, the sheriff looked uneasy. The point of cleaning up the bodies was to erase any trace of activity. A bunch of bloated corpses drifting in the area would draw the wrong kind of attention.
“Maybe they’ll drift all the way out to Incheon?”
Yu-bin let go of the body and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm as he looked westward down the river. The Han flowed straight into the Yellow Sea. In theory, tossing them here should send them on a smooth ride all the way to the ocean. Once they hit open water, a few dozen corpses would vanish like specks of dust.
“If that were true, that thing wouldn’t still be floating there.”
Jin-woo pointed with his chin toward the broken jet ski bobbing near the duck boat dock. It was the same one he’d ridden the day they’d found their friends getting attacked in the swarm.
Thunk!
Each time the jet ski bumped into the duck boat, it made a soft noise. The rope tethering it must’ve gotten snagged somewhere.
Crash! Clatter!
From the second floor of the floating café, the sounds of a brawl erupted. But no one looked worried about Min-gu. They all knew just how fast and deadly he was in close quarters.
“Maybe we should just tie something heavy to them and sink them all at once…”
Glancing toward the noise, then back at the corpses, Yu-bin muttered something that sounded like a line straight out of a Yakuza movie. Not that long ago, he’d been such a naive kid…