Chapter 171
At the word ‘soldier,’ Park Gi-Cheol frowned and looked toward the fueling station.
Soon after, another man came out, dragging Kim Hyeong-Jun’s body. He checked Kim Hyeong-Jun’s condition by kicking him, then put a cigarette in his mouth and began to chat away.
Park Gi-Cheol bit his lower lip nervously, praying that Kim Hyeong-Jun was still alive.
At that moment, Kim Hyeong-Jun's left arm twitched. Kim Hyeong-Jun lifted his head subtly and looked at the three men, then turned his gaze toward Park Gi-Cheol. Park Gi-Cheol let out a sigh of relief as he saw him moving.
He was alive. Kim Hyeong-Jun was alive.
But what he did next surprised Park Gi-Cheol.
He… He gave Park Gi-Cheol a thumbs up, then pretended to be dead again. Park Gi-Cheol’s face went blank.
"What should we do? Shouldn’t we help him?” whispered Yoon Jeong-Ho.
"No. He’s… He’s trying to pull off something again.”
Park Gi-Cheol couldn’t help but smirk. He knew Kim Hyeong-Jun better than anyone else. It seemed clear to him that Kim Hyeong-Jun had found something the moment he'd gone inside, and figured out that there was no point in going on a rampage. So instead, he was pretending to be dead.
After throwing their cigarette butts on the ground, the soldiers looked closely at Kim Hyeong-Jun. One of the soldiers aimed their K2 rifle at his back.
Bang!
The loud gunshot rang out, and thick blood splattered from his back. The soldiers laughed when they saw the splatter of blood.
"Hey! Where is the captain now?"
“I don’t know, probably in his bedroom.”
“I’m going to claim this bastard, okay?”
“Well, I’m not going to help you. You carry him by yourself.”
"Ha! You salty bastards! If you help me move this bastard, I'll give you some of tonight’s prizes.”
"Really? You’d better keep that promise.”
The three soldiers carried Kim Hyeong-Jun and entered the complex. It seemed like they could only get these so-called prizes if they showed the captain that they’d killed a zombie.
Little did they know that they were dragging a Trojan Horse inside with their own hands.
After Yoon Jeong-Ho witnessed what had happened, he turned to Park Gi-Cheol with a restless look.
“What should we do?” he asked.
“Just wait.”
"Really?"
Yoon Jeong-Ho couldn’t believe how calm Park Gi-Cheol looked. He was surprised that the older man wasn’t panicking like he was.
Park Gi-Cheol scratched his eyebrows.
“If there's a problem, these mutants would head toward the fueling station,” he said, “The fact that these guys aren’t moving means that Kim Hyeong-Jun knows what he’s doing. When the mutants here move, we’ll move as well.”
"But… Kim Hyeong-Jun got shot. And it wasn't even a pistol; he took a round from a K2 rifle at close range…”
Yoon Jeong-Ho chewed his nails, his expression rather complicated. Park Gi-Cheol snorted.
“As long as he doesn’t get shot in the temple or something, it won’t do a thing to him. Only certain types of beings that can kill Hyeong-Jun and Mr. Lee Hyun-Deok.”
“What do you mean?”
“They can’t be killed by humans.”
“He did go down after he got shot.”
“He probably found something. He’s not someone that’ll go down to something like a K2 rifle. Even though Hyeong-Jun is rather hasty sometimes, he’s a smart guy. Trust me and wait.”
Park Gi-Cheol swept the floor lightly with his hand and took a seat. He saw that Yoon Jeong-Ho still looked nervous, and patted the ground next to him.
“You take a seat too. Don’t think about doing anything. You’ll just ruin Hyeong-Jun’s plan.”
“...”
Yoon Jeong-Ho hesitated for a moment, then sighed and sat down next to Park Gi-Cheol.
* * *
GRRR!
Pow!
I punched the zombie that was trying to bite me, then grabbed its arm and slammed it on the ground. Without the slightest hesitation, I ripped off his limbs.
Silence descended once I took care of the last zombie in the laboratory. The wriggling zombie limbs slowly began to grow still. I let out a deep breath as I wiped away the zombie bloodstains on my face.
I’d taken care of most of the zombies that had come swarming in and torn apart every zombie inside the laboratory. I wasn’t even sure how many hours had passed while I fought off the formidable zombie attack. Once I finished cleaning up Buildings A and B and the Animal Lab, I headed toward the researcher’s rest area.
When I entered, I saw Tommy and Alyosha sitting on the cots with nervous expressions. Fortunately, they’d come back to their senses. As soon as Tommy saw my face, his eyes widened, and he looked on the verge of tears.
“Thank you, Mr. Lee Hyun-Deok. I really thought I was going to die this time.”
“What happened? Why did you come all the way here when I told you to wait at Ansim Station?”
“About that…”
Tommy explained everything in detail. I sighed after hearing his side of the story and sat down helplessly. It seemed like all the Russian soldiers had been annihilated. I wasn’t sure what led them to their death; their greed, or their arrogance. But I was sure of one thing; their hasty judgment had led them to their demise.
After thinking about the Russian soldiers, I rubbed my neck and asked Tommy a question.
“Did you get anything from the documents I gave you? Was there any helpful information in there?”
“Oh yes! I was just discussing them with Alyosha since we were stuck here.”
“What were they about?”
"I would’ve been able to answer more definitively if I had samples, but just by the documents here, it seems like they’ve come up with a drug that stimulates the violent side of zombies.”
“Stimulate violence?”
“It’s difficult to clearly explain what it is, even for me.”
I looked at Tommy and tilted my head. He wet his lips before going on.
“The researchers here had arrived at the final stage of the vaccine. However, just like this person wrote in his journal, I think he and the researchers here made a wrong turn as their distrust toward humans got stronger.”
“What do you mean?”
“The researchers here were the reason zombies came to Daegu.”
I couldn't help my surprise at Tommy’s statement. When I looked at him with a puzzled face, Tommy gulped and continued to speak.
“It seemed like the researchers here were focused on combining viruses.”
“Combining viruses?”
“Just like how the north and south poles of a magnet are attracted to each other. The new zombies, simply put, are flowers full of nectar. In this analogy, the ordinary zombies would be the bees.”
“And what happens when those bees touch the flowers?”
“They’ll pollinate the flowers. In other words, they’ll spread the virus. But then, the bee would also become a flower, and another bee that was attracted to that scent would also become a flower. And this process will repeat infinitely many times as long as they are within the nectar-sensing radius or range.”
After hearing his metaphor, I recalled the new zombies I’d seen in the plaza. I remembered them gathered up in the plaza, standing motionless, as if someone had ordered them to gather.
This was why my underlings had frowned and begun to sniff the air when we first arrived. It seemed like my underlings had also sensed a strange smell emanating from the new zombies. However, my underlings stayed sane, while I couldn’t smell a thing. It seemed like this drug’s effectiveness was limited only to ordinary street zombies.
I rubbed my chin quietly as I considered my thoughts. I assumed that the range of this thing wasn’t that big. Given the number of zombies that had gathered after hearing the gunshot, the radius was probably smaller than the distance that the sound of a gunshot could travel.
I scratched my head.
"Then… How did the researchers summon the zombies here?” I asked Tommy.
“You said that the zombies that attacked Daegu came from Chilgok, Dalseong-gun, and Gyeongsan right? These three places?”
"Yes."
“There were four researchers here in total. Each person must’ve carried the virus and spread it at the borders of Chilgok, Dalseong-gun, and Gyeongsan.”
“How about the remaining one?”
“It looks like they released it within this lab. They must’ve wanted to cover up this research.”
Did that mean that they wanted to cover up their sins? Well, since there were about two thousand zombies gathered at the entrance of the lab... There would’ve been no way any survivor could get close.
After hearing all this, I realized that these so-called researchers deserved to die.
I assumed that, as the soldiers and survivors in Daegu geared up to fight each other, both sides grew lax in their vigilance toward the outer borders of the city. The zombies gathered in Dalseong-gun, Chilgok, and Gyeongsan must’ve heard the commotion caused by the divisions in Daegu, and made their way over the barbed wire fences to get to downtown Daegu.
I massaged my temples gently.
“This drug. How harmful is it to humans?” I asked.
“I’m not sure about that either. But seeing how normal me and Alyosha are… I don’t think there are any major symptoms.”
“Are you sure?”
“I cannot give you a definitive answer. It could have been harmful to humans at the time when the drug was released, but in the end, a virus that can't find itself a host just destroys itself. As long as the drug isn’t released in front of humans, it should be okay.”
I leaned my back against the wall and thought for a moment.
A human who cursed other humans. They’d sided with the zombies. I couldn’t believe a person could perform such research. I was even more surprised by the fact that they’d been able to achieve something like that scientifically.
I looked at Tommy with my eyes half-open.
“This theory you just told me… How valid is it?”
“Zombie viruses grow and multiply by feeding on the serotonin and endorphins secreted by the human body. The virus that gets to the brain first takes control of the host’s body, and lives and breathes like a living organism.”
“Are you saying that the very first virus that gets to the brain acts as the boss?”
"Yes. The virus that spreads afterward throughout the body is unable to make decisions on its own. You can think of a soldier following their commander's orders.”
“Then how are these new zombies able to move without their heads intact?”
I looked at him in puzzlement, still unable to understand how these new zombies worked. Tommy scratched his sideburns, then continued.
“They’re beings that exist beyond our conventional concepts. Every part of them lives and breathes as a separate organism. That’s what the vaccine in the journal is talking about. They’re zombies that don’t die even when they aren’t connected to their boss, the host’s head. This vaccine is not a vaccine for humans, but a vaccine for zombies to make them invincible.”
“Is there any way to kill them?”
“Burn them. There really isn’t any other way.”
I nodded. My prediction was correct. The new zombies had to be burned to death, and couldn’t be killed by guns or knives.
I slicked my bangs back.
"Up… Up until now, I thought it had something to do with human desires,” I said.
"Human desires? What’s that got to do with it?”
“I thought that being bitten by a zombie would transform most people into an ordinary street zombie, but a being with some kind of desire would transform them into a red-eyed zombie.”
I grimaced, then continued to lay out my theory. It wasn’t a scientific approach, like what the researchers did. Rather, it was purely based on what I’d heard, seen, and experienced throughout my life so far. After Tommy listened to my theory in whole, then quietly rubbed his chin and fell into deep thought.
After a moment, he nodded.
"I believe you’re right,” he said.
"Pardon?”
“What are human desires? Aren’t they wishes or dreams that humans have? Thinking about these things releases serotonin. Excessive desire means continuous oversecretion of serotonin, so it’s more than possible for the virus to mutate after too much serotonin.”
“Are you saying that I was created by this mutated virus?”
"Yes."
Basically, he was saying that I’d become a zombie capable of rational thought because I’d excessively thought about the things that made me happy. That was unexpected. I was taken aback by this rather bizarre conclusion.
Tommy crossed his arms.
“I’m amazed,” he continued. “Or perhaps, the overproduction of serotonin may have killed the virus.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, if serotonin is secreted at a level that the virus cannot handle, it’s possible that the virus, which is supposed to dominate the host, would no longer be able to survive, and in the end, destroy itself.”
“And is that possible?”
“All research begins with a question. The virus that absorbed serotonin disappears, and the remaining virus in other parts of the body survives, since they play the role of endorphins.”
I snorted. "So what, you're saying that that makes it possible to have the powers of a zombie, but still think like a human?"
Tommy nodded. “It's just a hypothesis, but it’s more than possible, since every experiment leaves all possibilities open, and success only comes after repeated failures.”
After he was done talking, Tommy looked up at the ceiling, momentarily lost in his own thoughts. After a moment, he looked at Alyosha and asked him a question. The two of them began to converse in Russian for about ten minutes. Tommy looked back at me, excitement on his face.
“Alyosha told me that the vaccine he’d developed relied on similar principles. He says that blocking off serotonin and endorphin was the first step in making the vaccine. I'm not as smart as Alyosha, but if the principles are similar, his vaccine should work.”
But then, Alyosha said something in a rather gloomy, dejected tone, one filled with futility.
“What? What did you just say?”
Tommy freaked out and looked back at me with his mouth wide open. I tilted my head.
“Why, what’s the problem?” I asked.
“The vacc… vaccine…”
"What about the vaccine?"
“He said that the vaccine’s vial broke.”
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