Chapter 87
The survivors shed tears and began to calm themselves down.
I led the survivors to Konkuk University Hospital just in case an unexpected zombie wave came.
The man in his fifties held his son in his arms and wiped the tears from his eyes. The son, in his twenties, patted his father on the back and smiled awkwardly, as though embarrassed by the whole situation. I didn't want to interrupt their father-and-son moment, but I knew better than to forget why I was here.
I wrote a short sentence in my notepad and showed it to the man in his fifties.
- Is there a Kim Ga-Bin here?
“Ga-Bin? Oh, Ga-Bin should be…”
The man in his fifties looked around and then called out one of the survivors.
“Hey Ga-Bin! Can you come here for a second?”
As the man in his fifties called for Ga-Bin, a woman who seemed to be in her thirties stood up, wiping away her tears. I looked at the woman and tilted my head.
‘Kim Ga-Bin was a woman?'
I’d assumed that she was a man, given the way Kim Beom-Jin had been talking about her. I walked toward her and showed her my notepad.
- Is your name Kim Ga-Bin?
"Yes… That’s me."
Kim Ga-Bin answered while she wiped her tears with her hand. I tried to lay the situation out for her as calmly as possible, so she would not be overwhelmed.
- I just need to check a couple of things with you, so I’d appreciate it if you could cooperate.
"Oh… Yes…"
- Do you have a brother?
“Brother? Yes, I do.”
- Can I know your brother’s name?
"It’s Kim… Beom-Jin.”
Kim Ga-Bin looked at me nervously, but I let out a sigh of relief and smiled lightly.
I’d finally found her.
Kim Ga-Bin was alive.
With a deep breath, I released my pent-up worries and wrote down some words on my notepad.
- Your brother, Kim Beom-Jin, has been desperately looking for you.
“... Huh?”
- I’m here because Kim Beom-Jin asked me to find you.
Her eyes widened as she read what I’d written down and quickly covered her mouth with her hands in surprise. Soon after, tears of relief trickled out the corners of her round eyes and rolled down her face. The survivors around us looked back and forth between me and Kim Ga-Bin.
"Ga-Bin, what's wrong, what's going on?"
“My brother is alive.”
"What?"
“He’s been looking for me all this while…”
Kim Ga-Bin collapsed to the floor, bawling out tears of joy. It was as though the floodgates had been thrown open.
The two of them had probably been unaware if the other was alive or not. It wasn’t that Kim Beom-Jin had been looking for her that made her happy; Kim Ga-Bin couldn’t hide her joy at the knowledge that her brother had been alive this whole time.
Looking at her caused my heart to grow sad for some reason. It was said that emotions were often passed from a person to those around them. I supposed that this was no different. Her actions had clearly touched me as well.
As I scratched the tip of my nose in sorrow, the other survivors came up to me and started asking if their families were alive or dead.
I… I couldn't answer all their questions. So instead, I opened my notepad.
- There is a shelter nearby. Your family may be there but… Don’t bet on it.
Given the current situation, it was the best answer I could give them.
* * *
With the hopes of the survivors buoyed by the fact that they might be able to meet their families again, I went through the entire hospital to get the medicines Kim Beom-Jin had asked me to get.
I stuffed my bag full of medicine until it was about to burst, then took several plastic bags that were in the hospital and filled them up with plenty of clean gauze and disposable syringes.
When I’d gotten everything Kim Beom-Jin wanted, I returned to the central hall where the survivors were. Kim Hyeong-Jun had returned, and was communicating with them.
The more time Kim Hyeong-Jun spent with me, the more he came to resemble me.
He’d picked up my habit of having a notepad and pen on him at all times.
He was able to communicate smoothly through sign language when he was with Park Gi-Cheol, but whenever he met other people, he couldn’t communicate unless he had a notepad as well. Perhaps, it was only natural that he would carry one as well.
Kim Hyeong-Jun was smiling as he held the notepad and pen in his hands, communicating with them. It seemed like Kim Hyeong-Jun was better at talking to strangers than I was. As I watched him, I thought that it would be better to leave the job of reassuring survivors to him.
I walked toward him, both hands full of stuff. Kim Hyeong-Jun took a while to get up, as if he hadn’t been aware of my presence.
'What, did you already pack everything, ahjussi?'
'I went and got everything while you were goofing around.'
I answered him with an annoyed look, and Kim Hyeong-Jun smiled weakly and scratched his head. He laughed.
'I'm not good at finding things. Instead, I was reassuring the survivors.'
'Okay, okay. Good job.'
I gave him a forced chuckle. Kim Hyeong-Jun took the black bag from my right hand.
'I'll carry this. Are we going to head out right away?'
‘Yeah, that would probably be best. The sun will set if we wait around any longer.'
Kim Hyeong-Jun nodded vigorously then went to the survivors. He then took out his notepad and told everyone that it was time to move.
The survivors seemed to grow nervous at the fact that they were going to go outside. Seeing their anxiousness, Kim Hyeong-Jun smiled warmly and wrote down a few words. Every single survivor looked at me after reading what he had written down.
I looked at Kim Hyeong-Jun, wondering what he had written down. He looked back at me with a smirk.
'What did you tell them?'
‘I told them you’re the leader, ahjussi. I told them nothing bad will happen as long as you’re here.'
‘Oh I see, passing the buck to me as well huh?'
I snorted and shook my head. At the same time, though, it felt reassuring as well, because it meant that I could help everyone feel reassured.
We lined up the survivors into three lines and recalled our underlings that were on guard duty.
I placed some of my blue-colored underlings in between the survivors and surrounded them with the rest of my underlings, along with Kim Hyeong-Jun’s underlings. I assumed that this would hide the survivors’ smell.
After all the preparations, I looked at Kim Hyeong-Jun.
‘Ready?'
'Of course.'
‘Alright, let’s go.'
We headed toward the rear exit of the hospital.
* * *
When we emerged onto the main street, I noticed some zombies walking around.
Kim Hyeong-Jun and I sharpened our senses and dealt with them.
I’d ordered my underlings to deal with all the zombies that approached the survivors, but they were hard-pressed to deal with zombies who jumped down from the buildings, so we had to keep a close eye on the survivors to make sure they were keeping up with us.
We crossed the main street and went through a food street, then came upon a rather clean road. It seemed like this was the route that the dogs used the most, out of all the other narrow alleys around.
I looked at Kim Hyeong-Jun.
'We’ll get to Seongsu Station if we keep going straight.'
‘We’re still in Hwayang-dong? I can’t tell where the boundary between Seongsu-dong and Hwayang-dong is.'
‘A main road will show up if we keep going this way. Once we cross that, we’ll be in Seongsu-dong.'
Kim Hyeong-Jun nodded and heightened his senses, keeping an even closer lookout. It wasn’t easy to guess where zombies would pop out from, with all the narrow alleys around us.
Honestly, zombies didn’t pose a threat to us, so it would’ve been safer to walk along the main road. But we didn't do so because of the dong leader of Hwayang-dong.
We would be easily spotted by scouts if we walked along the wide main road.
I knew that we would not be able to protect the survivors if the dong leader of Hwayang-dong attacked us in an open space.
'Let's just quietly leave Hwayang-dong like this.'
I gestured for the survivors to move closer. Even when I’d been cleaning up zombies in Haengdang-dong and Majang-dong, these narrow alleys had been the hardest to clear out, because it was impossible to tell where and how the zombies were hiding. Some of them came out of the sewers, others jumped up after pretending to be dead, and a lot of them hid behind obstacles, so I hadn’t been able to notice them right away.
There weren't that many zombies when we first entered the food street, but quickly, more and more zombies began to approach us. It seemed like we were no longer on the safe path that the dogs used. The survivors had begun to sweat more, and thus the sweet smell of flesh began to get stronger.
I could only imagine how strong the smell of the survivors would be for the street zombies, as it was almost the only thing I could smell as well. More and more aggressive zombies gathered as they smelled the sweat of the survivors.
Kim Hyeong-Jun and I made our way forward as we took care of more than forty zombies.
As we kept on going, we finally came to the Dongil-ro and Seongsu Intersection, which was the boundary between Hwayang-dong and Seongsu-dong.
I let out a tense, nervous breath.
'We’ll be in Seongsu-dong once we cross this road.'
'Why did it feel like such a long time for us to get here? It definitely didn’t feel like it took this long when we first came here.’
Grumbling, Kim Hyeong-Jun let out a sigh of relief as well.
I patted Kim Hyeong-Jun on the back and told him that we only had to push on a little bit more. I turned to look at the survivors, and noticed that they were encouraging each other while they watched Kim Hyeong-Jun and me.
Everyone was doing their best.
I looked at the survivors and smiled gently. I wanted to say the following words to them:
'Everyone, there’s just a little bit more to go. Keep it up, please.'
I assumed that the survivors had been starving for a long time. Their limbs were bony and I could see shadows underneath their cheekbones. However, they were offering thin smiles of support and encouragement to each other, as if they were finally feeling safe.
I wanted nothing to happen from that moment until we got to our destination. I just wanted to get to our destination safely and soundly. I knew it was going to be hard on them, but I hoped that they could all rely on each other as they followed me.
I looked straight ahead again and set a vigorous pace.
Just then, Kim Hyeong-Jun stepped in front of me and started looking around warily.
I looked around as well, my red eyes glowing in response to Kim Hyeong-Jun's sudden reaction.
I couldn’t tell why he was acting this way all of a sudden. I wondered if something had appeared.
Kim Hyeong-Jun swallowed and gave me a cautious glance.
‘Ahjussi, you didn't feel it?'
I tilted my head. Kim Hyeong-Jun sniffed, then spoke.
‘There’s something strange with the air. There’s a different smell mixed into it.'
I sharpened my sense of smell.
A strange scent tickled the tip of the nose, drifting along with the cool autumn breeze.
I raised my right hand and ordered everyone to stop.
This smell… I could tell there was something off about this smell.
The smell of survivors was sweet to zombies but this smell… No matter how much I tried to think of something else, I just knew that it was the smell of perfume.
I looked at Kim Hyeong-Jun.
‘Wait here for a minute. I'll check the surroundings and come back.'
'Okay.'
Kim Hyeong-Jun looked at the survivors and pointed to a convenience store right in front of them. The survivors crept into the convenience store.
I ascended to the rooftop of the building on my left and looked around, squinting.
The smell of perfume, with the world in this state? Were there any perfume stores nearby?
No, that wasn’t right.
I hadn’t smelled this on the way to Konkuk University Hospital.
The senses of zombies with glowing red eyes grew more sensitive as they got stronger. The more they focused, the sharper their senses were, and right now, I could smell people from one hundred meters away. I knew I was correct in thinking that I smelled pungent perfume.
After a moment, the cool autumn breeze tickled my nose again, bringing the strong scent of perfume with it. I looked in the direction from which the wind was blowing.
My eyes landed on a man and a woman holding iron pipes. They were moving slowly as they looked into nearby stores.
‘Survivors?'
Out of all places…?
They didn’t seem like dogs, nor did they look like survivors that had been captured by dogs.
I couldn’t help but wonder where they come from.
I crouched at their unexpected appearance and kept my gaze on them. They began to converse.
“They don’t have them either?”
"No. Someone’s already gone through this place."
"Ha… What do we do now? We’re out of the food we brought as well.”
“Let’s hide first. The sun’s going to set soon.”
“You want to sleep here? You know it's too dangerous. You never know when and where zombies will appear…”
“Then what? How are we supposed to get back to the shelter?”
I furrowed my brow as I listened to their conversation.
'Shelter?'
I was positive that they’d said the word ‘shelter’.
I was also positive that they weren’t people from Shelter Silence, since Shelter Silence strictly monitored their people and restricted them from going out. The way they were speaking, it seemed like these two could enter and exit their shelter easily.
‘Wait, does that mean there’s another shelter around here?’
I smacked my lips and paid close attention to their conversation.
The man holding the iron pipe sighed and slicked his hair back.
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