I PICKED UP A CHILD IN A DUMPSTER

Chapter 207: To the STAIRS!!!!

"(ಠ_ಠ)>⌐■-■," I said. "Okay. I believe in jinx now."

We backed away from the crack slowly, quiet, and made our way back toward the hole we’d come in through.

Then we both stopped there and just stared.

Outside, at the edge of the broken road we’d jumped across twice now, stood many of them.

Not dozens. Hundreds, packed along the far edge in a group that stretched as far as I could see in either direction, all of them throwing themselves at the gap one after another.

Some made the jump.

Most didn’t, dropping into the void below without slowing the ones behind them down even slightly.

I looked at Jisoo. She looked back at me.

"So," I said. "What should we call them? Like as a species name. I feel like we should—"

"ಠ益ಠ. Si Hon. Not the time."

"Yeah, yeah."

Another explosion went off behind us, deeper in the camp, the sound rolling through the broken building and rattling more dust from the ceiling.

We both turned and walked toward the center of the room instinctively, like standing in the middle of two bad options somehow felt safer than picking one.

"So," Jisoo said. "We regressing?"

"No." I looked at her like she’d suggested something genuinely insane.... No, it’s actually insane. "What— no. I can’t just casually decide that. It’s scary. It probably hurts to get bitten."

"ಠ_ಠ. Didn’t you already die seventy five times. I watched you get gouged out and you didn’t even react."

I put both hands up in front of my face defensively. "That’s because I was tired. I physically couldn’t make a face at that point."

"Then what about," she cleared her throat, and her voice dropped into a flat, unimpressed mimicry, "’man, just get this over with already, I’m tired,’ while having that completely serious expression. That one. I remember that one specifically."

"No— I meant it like ’get this over with since I’m tired’ while screaming internally. There’s a difference. The face doesn’t show the screaming."

"What about all the deaths where you didn’t even flinch."

"That’s just my natural poker face, Jisoo. That’s just how my insanity presents."

She stared at me for a long moment. "ಠᴥಠ. You’re a fraud."

"Yes, yes. Can we go now."

She grabbed my hand without waiting for a real answer and pulled me toward the hole that looked out over the survivor camp.

We checked.

They were already moving toward us, drawn by the explosions, the closest ones maybe two buildings away and closing fast.

Then, slow enough that I knew she was doing it on purpose, she pulled me toward the other side.

The one with the cracked road.

Hundreds of them piling up at the edge, already running, already closer than they’d been thirty seconds ago, probably drawn in by the explosion.

We stood there. Just stood there, like idiots, looking at both directions at once.

I started scanning. Properly scanning this time— every wall, every gap, every shadowed corner of the room we were standing in, looking for anything that can make us escape.

Fate, as usual, decided to make it worse before making it better.

One of the zombies from the road side reached the hole first, standing right at the broken concrete edge, looking directly at us.

Then another joined it.

Then a third.

And from the other side, one of the camp zombies cleared the gap in a 4 jump and landed inside the building, and this one was different— still mostly human in shape, but its throat had swollen into something huge and distended, a massive lump pressing against the skin like it was about to either speak or burst.

It opened its mouth.

It screamed.

I felt that one in my teeth.

Then, completely unbothered, Jisoo tapped my shoulder and pointed.

I followed her finger. A stairwell, tucked into the back corner of the room, half-hidden behind a collapsed section of ceiling tile, going up into the dark.

Neither of us said anything.

We just ran.

Immediately after reaching the stair I grabbed the loose rubble at the base of the stairwell and threw it behind us, hard, catching one of the zombies in the shoulder and getting another—

I didn’t stick around to check the damage, of course because I’m not dumb, I just locked onto Jisoo’s hand and pulled her up the stairs with me.

A thud sounded right behind us a second later. I glanced back— one of them had lunged for the spot we were just standing and hit nothing but the wall, sprawling across the landing we’d already cleared.

The second floor went by in a blur of office wreckage— overturned chairs, dead monitors, scattered desks, the husk of some workplace that had stopped mattering the moment all this started.

I didn’t slow down for any of it.

Jisoo was breathing hard behind me by the third floor, her steps starting to lag, and I stopped on the landing between four and five, reached back, and put an arm around her waist to take some of the weight off her legs.

She shoved my arm off immediately. "Dude. No. I can do it. ಠ⁠_⁠ಠ"

"ಠ⁠_⁠ಠ..." I just nodded and kept climbing.

5th floor. 6th 7th. By the 8th, the stairwell ahead of us was blocked solid— chairs, tables, anything that could be dragged and stacked, piled into a wall across the landing like someone had been here before us and run out of places to go.

Then the sound came from below. Close. Too close.

I turned and met the first one as it cleared the last few steps, immediately I jump and lunged toward it, planting my foot and driving a kick straight into its head, the impact sending it backward into the ones climbing behind it. "Jisoo— back to 7!!!!!!!!!!"

She nodded, fully spent, and we went back down together— me in front this time, meeting every single one of them on the way, throwing punches that connected with a wet, heavy sound each time, shoving bodies sideways into the railing and seeing them fall down, kicking one clean off the steps entirely.

I didn’t stop moving. I mean... I Couldn’t. Every second I spent not hitting something was a second they gained on Jisoo behind me.

We hit the 7th floor door and went through it together, and I spun and slammed my back against it the instant we cleared the frame, full weight braced against the metal while the first impact landed from the other side almost immediately.

The 7th floor was empty.

Not abandoned type of empty, actually just... you know what? Just real empty, bare concrete floor stretching out under exposed ceiling beams and a forest of support pillars, floor-to-ceiling windows running along every wall letting in flat grey light from a sky that had gone heavy and dark with clouds pressing low, the kind of sky that hadn’t decided yet whether it was going to rain.

No furniture. No walls dividing anything. Just open space and concrete and the wind moving faintly through somewhere.

I straightened up, breathing hard for the first time, both hands on my knees while still holding the door behind me. "What time is it," I said, looking up at Jisoo, who was leaning against a pillar with her hands on her thighs.

"6:58am," she said.

"Shit." I looked at the sky through the windows, dark and getting darker. "It’s still so early...?"

Thud!

The door behind me took another hit, my back absorbing the shock of it without much effort. I planted my feet and held it. "Rest," I said. "Just a minute. Then we move again."

Jisoo nodded, sliding down to sit with her back against the pillar, chest still rising and falling fast.

A few minutes passed like that— me against the door, her recovering against the pillar, the sky outside getting heavier by the second.

Then Jisoo went limp.

Not slumped, her whole posture changed all at once, shoulders dropping, head tilting, and when she lifted her face back up her expression was completely different.

Confused.

Blinking slowly like she was surfacing from somewhere very far away. She looked around the bare concrete floor, then at me, then back around again like none of it made sense.

"...W-wah?" she said, voice small. "W-wasn’t I sleeping? Where— where are we? ( •᷄⌓•᷅ )"

I stared at her.

"Jisoo." My voice came out flat. "ಠ⁠_⁠｣⁠ಠ What the fuck are you pulling this time."