Chapter 32
Cough, cough!
‘Goodness gracious!’
My throat was burning and my entire body was resisting the water. All the water I drank drained back out through my nose and mouth.
Lee Jeong-Uk frowned as he watched all the water streaming out. “I mean, you could just say you don’t like it if you don’t.”
“Grr…”
I rubbed my neck with my left hand to soothe the pain as I passed the water bottle back to Lee Jeong-Uk. I got up and headed outside for some fresh air. I felt the morning sun and the cool breeze.
I took in deep breaths as though trying to clear my lungs of cigarette smoke.
‘Oh wait, what about the red leader’s dead body? If Lee Jeong-Uk brought me back, what did he do with the leader’s dead body?’
I immediately went over the wall and headed toward the place where I had passed out. Its body was nowhere to be seen. I only saw blood stains on the ground.
‘Darn it, there’s still something I need to retrieve.’
It was the map it had been holding. That was what I needed. If I had the map, it would be easy to understand the current situation within Seoul. The map was not only important for me, but for the survivors as well, since it probably had important information marked on it.
I looked around frantically, like a person who had lost their wallet, trying my best to find it.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Lee Jeong-Uk’s voice came from behind me, startling me.
I flinched at his sudden appearance, as if I had been caught red-handed for doing something wrong. But then, I realized I had done nothing wrong, and tried to find out from him where the dead body was.
After using my best sign language, Lee Jeong-Uk finally figured out what I was asking. “Where did the dead body go?”
I growled in acknowledgment.
“It’s in the garbage dump behind the school. I moved all the dead bodies lying around over there.”
My eyes widened with hope, and I hurried over to the garbage dump. There were piles of dead bodies lying around, yet to be burned. I figured it would’ve been difficult to burn any of the zombie bodies during the night. They either had to wait until I awoke or the sun came up.
Lee Jeong-Uk followed me. He covered his nose and said, “If we don’t burn these dead bodies fast, we might have to deal with who knows what kind of diseases. And with this hot weather, we shouldn’t delay any longer.”
He sounded like he was just making an excuse to get rid of the smell, but he was right. His judgment was sound.
But I needed that map no matter what. It was essential for us to get our hands on the map. I went through the piled-up bodies in order to find the leader. I looked around everywhere. Lee Jeong-Uk studied me for a while, then smacked his lips and asked, “Are you looking for something?”
I didn’t spare the time to answer his question, but kept on digging through the dead bodies. I went through the dead bodies, hoping that I would chance upon the leader’s body.
As I went through the pile of dead bodies, the reality of what I had done the day before hit me. Many of the dead bodies were torn apart, and others had crushed heads that were barely attached to their bodies. I saw another one with its arms twisted abnormally, and others that had their tongues and eyes sticking out.
I couldn’t believe I did all of that. I was shocked by the fact that I could be that violent. I tried my best to clamp down on my disgust and contain the vomit that was trying to make its way up.
After a while, I finally grabbed a dead body that only had half of its skull. It was missing its brain. I dragged it out from the pile and looked at its face. It was impossible to identify it since its face was so damaged. However, it was wearing the same clothes as the leader, and my gut told me that I was holding onto the right dead body.
Lee Jeong-Uk frowned as he stared at the body I was holding up. “That one didn’t have a brain to begin with,” he commented. “I think some rats ate it.”
His statement caused me a moment’s hesitation.
‘What if he knew that I was actually the one who ate the brain, and not some rats?’
I shook my head to clear my mind of these meaningless thoughts. I started rummaging through its clothing. I went through every pocket, top and bottom, hoping that it still had the map with it.
Crumple.
I felt something that seemed like paper in its thigh pocket. I quickly took it out and realized it was the map I was looking for. I felt like a treasure hunter who had found the gold he had dreamed about his whole life.
‘The map! I finally found you!’
Immediately, I opened it. It was a large map of Seoul, one meter wide and eighty centimeters tall. Noticing my sudden joy, Lee Jeong-Uk moved next to me.
“Is this a map of Seoul?” he exclaimed in surprise.
I growled in approval.
“What are these signs?”
I couldn’t answer his question. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t know either. I shook my head, and Lee Jeong-Uk supported me as I got to my feet. He glanced at the map I was holding.
“Let’s go back inside and figure it out. It smells awful here.”
I nodded in agreement and followed him back to the classroom.
* * *
When we came back with a map, all the survivors gathered around us. We didn’t even have to invite them.
We first noticed areas colored green, orange, and red, as well as places marked with the strange scissors sign. Above these areas, there was a small skull mark, along with multiple shield marks.
We got together to decipher the meaning behind the marks. From our speculations, we derived a few conclusions.
The skulls meant zombies, while the shields meant survivors. We guessed that the shields represented large numbers of survivors. We concluded that the mark indicated that whoever was there had adequate defenses and were living in groups.
The real problem was the colors. We had no clue what they meant. However, Lee Jeong-Hyuk provided the solution. “Since this is a map that the zombies were carrying around, wouldn’t it make sense to think it was showing the zombie’s status?”
“What do you mean by ‘zombie’s status’?” Lee Jeong-Uk asked, inviting his brother to elaborate.
Lee Jeong-Hyuk shrugged and answered, “Hmm… this was a map that the opposing zombie leader was holding, right? So I’m assuming it could show some sort of hierarchy. Don’t you think so?”
“So the colors represent who’s higher up in their ladder?”
“Yeah. Just like how So-Yeon’s father was absurdly strong compared to the other, I bet there’s some sort of hierarchy among zombie leaders.”
He had a point. Everyone seemed to agree with what Lee Jeong-Hyuk was saying. However, he let out an abrupt sigh and rubbed his chin.
“Darn it, there are only three green areas. And all of them are outside of Seoul.”
“I guess the one that attacked us was one of the weakest ones.”
“Wait, that doesn’t explain how it made it all the way here. There are only orange and red areas around us.”
“Well, I’m not sure. Maybe it got caught in the currents of the Han River and was swept down?”
“You actually think that many underlings could ride the current all the way here?”
Lee Jeong-Hyuk smiled uncomfortably and scratched his neck after Lee Jeong-Uk scolded him. I could tell from his smile that he was slightly annoyed that he hadn’t been allowed to even make a joke.
After a moment, Lee Jeong-Hyuk smacked his lips and continued, “Or they could’ve been trying to get to Gangnam. There aren’t any markings in Gangnam.”
He was right. The green, orange, and red markings were only in the Gangbuk area. It seemed as though they hadn't been able to survey the Gangnam area yet.
Everyone was anxious. No one could figure out what the marks on the map truly meant. However, I had a suspicion that I knew their intention for coming all the way here. I remembered what the zombie with the glowing red eyes had said to me.
- ‘The next time you see my gang, run for your goddamn life. The other ones aren’t gentlemen like me. You got it?’
That meant it had comrades. And the fact that he said that they weren't gentlemen probably meant that there were a lot more zombies that were stronger than it.
It had probably come here under orders from a zombie that was higher up in the ladder. And it had come all the way here without knowing this place was Haengdang-dong, a place marked with scissors.
I assumed that it was just a leader with a small handful of underlings that got played by someone higher up. It should have known its place.
I didn’t know how many zombies the ones controlling Gangbuk had, but it was clear that they had not been able to find a way across the bridges spanning the Han River yet. Judging by the map, though, they seemed to have taken over the Gangbuk area for sure.
After a moment, Lee Jeong-Uk, still full of questions, spoke up. “Well, we can come back to this later. What about this ‘X’ mark? The areas marked with an ‘X’ don’t have a skull mark or a shield mark.”
Lee Jeong-Uk rubbed his neck, offering a gesture of agreement. “About that… I also don’t know.”
All the other survivors had tilted their heads to one side or the other, and were rubbing their chins continually. No one seemed daring enough to speak up.
For some reason, though, I felt like I knew what the ‘X’ meant.
* * *
I remembered what the zombie with the glowing red eyes had asked me.
- I’m asking you a question, you bastard. Are we in Haengdang-dong?
Its voice had been agitated, and it sounded all worked up. Despite that, its eyes had been full of fear, and locked onto the place marked with an ‘X’, which was Haengdang-dong.
‘Why was it so scared? Why in the world would a zombie leader with more than three hundred underlings be so scared?’
Looking back at that situation, I might have known the answer to that question from the beginning. In fact, it was rather simple, if one considered the situation from the point of view of the other zombie leader.
The mark represented the creature that I feared, the creature that I was also afraid of. The creature I had tried my best to avoid. The creature that could not be communicated with.
The zombie leader with the red glow had also known of the black creature’s existence. When taking that into consideration, it was very possible that the location marked with the ‘X’ was the black creature’s territory.
It was a warning: “Do not enter, no trespassing allowed.” It was a place that they wanted to erase from the map.
After the world had fallen, Haengdang-dong, one of the most representative residential areas in Gangbuk, Seoul, was now a place feared by everyone and everything.
I drew the black creature on a wooden plank and showed it to Lee Jeong-Uk. After seeing what I had drawn, Lee Jeong-Uk gasped in surprise and passed my opinion on to the other survivors.
“He’s saying that the X marks means the black creature’s territory.”
Lee Jeong-Hyuk’s eyes went wide, clearly not wanting to believe what he had heard. “The bla-black creature?”
Even Lee Jeong-Hyuk knew how powerful the black creature was, even though he had never seen it with his own eyes.
The survivors from high school were all shocked. They gasped, explaining that they too had seen the black creature before. They would have known about it, since the two men on lookout duty that night had been bitten by it and died.
“Are there more black creatures?” Lee Jeong-Uk asked me, his face grim.
I wasn’t sure how to answer his question, so I shrugged and offered him a neutral expression. Being honest was the best answer I could give him. He watched my response, his expression remaining grim.
After a moment, he rubbed his chin and took a closer look at the map. He remained silent for a while, as though contemplating something. After a few minutes, Lee Jeong-Uk tilted his head and pointed to one part of the map. He directed a question to everyone around him. “Look here. Isn’t this also a shield mark?”
There really was a small shield mark at the tip of this finger. But I wasn’t sure if it was a shield. It was a very odd drawing. What made things worse was that the part he was pointing at had gotten wet earlier. It made it even harder to determine what exactly the mark was.
Lee Jeong-Hyuk held the map right up his face. After a moment, he shook his head, still unable to quite figure out what it was. “I think it’s safe to say it’s a shield?”
“If that’s true, doesn’t that mean there are people at a shelter in Haengdang-dong as well? This is Wangsimni Station.”
“Hyung, you actually think there are people at a subway station?”
“Hey, take a closer look at the map. The shield drawing here; isn’t this where the supermarket is?”
I was surprised to see the place Lee Jeong-Uk was pointing out. The construction site where I had taken care of the black creature was less than three minutes away by foot from that location. I also knew the supermarket he was talking about. It had a big letter ‘e’ on it. [1]
I had glimpsed the supermarket next to Wangsimni Station when I had been running away from the black creature. However, at that time, I hadn’t been in the best situation to be checking for survivors.
After a moment, Lee Jeong-Uk faced me and asked, “So-Yeon’s dad, what do you think?”
I shook my head, prompting Lee Jeong-Uk to chuckle. “I mean, a supermarket would have plenty of food. It probably even has other things we could make use of. How about we go together?”
I didn’t go along with his suggestion right away. A supermarket was a dream for any survivor. However, when I used the term ‘survivors’, that also meant criminals, and not just ordinary people like us, since we were living in an era where people weren’t classified as civilized or criminals, but dead or alive.
I picked up the pen I had put down and scribbled some letters on my palm.
- Me, first.
Lee Jeong-Uk scratched his sideburns and said hesitantly, “You want to go first, and then we can go together?”
I nodded twice.
Lee Jeong-Uk agreed silently. I knew better than anyone that it would be much easier and more efficient to bring him along to confirm the existence of a shelter. With him around, I wouldn’t have to struggle to explain the situation to the others later on. However, it came with a cost. I could not guarantee his life. That was the last thing I wanted.
I knew it would be better for me and my underlings to head out during the night to check if the place was safe or not. That way, there was less risk to Lee Jeong-Uk’s life.
I assumed Lee Jeong-Uk knew this as well, since he didn’t contradict my suggestion. After a moment, he got to his feet. “Alrighty everyone, let’s get moving. We can’t stay here forever. We have to get back to the apartment.”
Everyone in the classroom got up and prepared to leave. With that, I ordered my underlings to gather on the field. A moment later, all my underlings and the nine survivors were present on the field.
I lined up my underlings around the survivors. But then I realized something strange.
I had more underlings than I remembered.
1. There is a big supermarket in Korea called e-mart. The e-mart logo is a big ‘e’. ☜
New n𝙤vel chapters are published on fre(e)webnov(l).com