Even Zombies Have Fandoms

Chapter 15

“Why did this have to happen when we came here on vacation…”

Junwoo muttered, burying his face in his hands due to the hopeless situation. Hearing those words, Seokjae thought somewhat coldly.

‘It’s fortunate that it happened during a season when there are many such people.’

Junghae City was a city by the sea, and it was currently summer when there were many vacationers. While the concentrated crowd in one place was one of the causes that rapidly worsened the situation, there was also a helpful aspect. The fact that among the vacationers, there were many tourists from overseas.

Seokjae thought this was the reason the government hadn’t done anything so far.

‘If it weren’t for that, they would have wiped us out already.’

If they had given up on the survivors, all that remained was indiscriminate slaughter. Like culling animals infected with avian influenza or swine fever.

Sacrificing the minority for the majority was common. But there were too many foreigners in Junghae City to make such a decision unilaterally. Killing foreign nationals without giving other countries a chance to rescue their citizens would be tantamount to turning the whole world into an enemy. So they couldn’t make a decision easily.

‘Thanks to that, our lifespan has been extended.’

But even this grace period could end at any time. So they had to move towards the outskirts as quickly as possible. If disposal was decided, it was obvious that the city center where the incident occurred would be the place to receive the most intense attack.

‘Well, there’s no certainty of being rescued even if we reach the outskirts.’

While Kyungho and Junwoo seemed to think they could surely be rescued if they just reached the blockade line, Seokjae was skeptical.

‘If we go there recklessly, we’re more likely to be shot than rescued. They could just say the cause of death was virus infection.’

However, Seokjae had no intention of telling them his thoughts. It was better to struggle than to fall into despair and wait for death without doing anything.

“Junwoo…”

“Ah.”

At that moment, Kyungho called his friend in a dejected voice. Junwoo then realized that he had been pushing Kyungho too hard. Kyungho had probably just wanted to say something positive.

“Anyway! So we’re moving into the city, like we’ve been doing so far?”

Junwoo tried to lead the conversation with an exaggerated voice to change the atmosphere.

“You haven’t forgotten what happened last time, right? We should think that there’s no one to trust now, whether inside or outside.”

“Then what about you and Seokjae hyung?”

Having spent years together, Kyungho, noticing that Junwoo felt sorry, playfully caught onto his words.

“Yah, of course we’re the exception.”

Junwoo, who briefly had an incredulous expression, reacted as Kyungho intended.

“Ouch!”

With a sharp sound, Kyungho was hit with a forehead flick. He made a crying face and covered his instantly reddened forehead with his hand.

“Why are you hitting me?”

“Because you’re saying ungrateful things. How many years have you and I known each other, and how many times has hyung saved us? You don’t even trust us?”

“I was just joking because you seemed depressed… that’s too much…”

“Who’s depressed? I was just organizing my thoughts for a moment earlier.”

Seokjae closely observed the two who had recovered their spirits on their own.

‘I guess they’ll be fine if I leave them alone.’

And after being certain that there was no need for him to step in, he turned his attention to the phone he had been fiddling with all this time.

When he pressed the home button, a simple default background appeared. Seokjae quickly swiped through the screens. Apps installed without consistency appeared in order. When he clicked on the clock app, alarm records that had already served their purpose popped up.

[August 13

7:23 PM]

The most recently set and terminated alarm. It wasn’t an alarm set to ring periodically. It was scheduled to ring on that day, at that time. It was too awkward a time for the phone’s owner to have just happened to have an appointment then and set it in advance.

‘I wasn’t crazy after all.’

Recalling what happened today, the corners of his mouth twitched.

‘I just went to make sure what I saw was real.’

The entire time he was walking towards the building, Seokjae had suspected that he might be starting to lose his mind. When considering everything, that was the most probable explanation.

But what he saw there surprisingly gave strength to the thought he had dismissed as the most implausible.

As soon as Seokjae arrived at the building, he dealt with all the zombies on the first floor. And he thought how foolish he had been to wonder if it might be that person.

‘I felt sorry towards that person…’

Because the zombies there didn’t resemble that person in any way.

It was at the moment when he was feeling somewhat gloomy, wondering if he had really seen a hallucination of that person. He discovered an elevator stopped on the first floor and a clean cell phone without any blood stains.

These two things led to the suspicion that it might not have been his imagination that the number of zombies on the first floor felt significantly less than what he had seen at the mart. While Seokjae scoffed at himself, saying it was nonsense, he recalled the possibility he had buried and headed to the emergency stairs to check the fourth floor.

And at the sight he saw, he almost burst into laughter. Because he found hand marks that were too clear to have been made by zombies rolling down. Moreover, these marks were heading towards the upper floors.

Following those traces up to the fourth floor, he could see that the emergency exit, which he had definitely left open, was tightly closed. It was even very clean. If it had been accidentally pushed closed by zombies, the door should have been covered in bloodstains.

At that moment, Seokjae felt an emotion that could be described as pleasant for the first time in a long while. To think that there really was someone helping them from behind. As his deductions continued to be correct, he was so delighted that he found himself talking to himself without realizing it.

He saw marks continuing to the fifth floor and, on a hunch, checked the glass door before leaving the building. And he was able to discover a figure standing behind him.

‘Looks like they’re hiding because they don’t want to be noticed.’

That life form, perhaps not wanting Seokjae to notice its presence, hurriedly flattened itself on the floor. Although he wanted desperately to turn around and confirm, he left the building pretending not to know, fearing that the seemingly timid subject might run away.

If it didn’t follow, he was planning to go catch it, but surprisingly, it followed him diligently.

‘It followed well. It could even jump over walls.’

Even though he deliberately chose rough paths, the unknown subject, while a bit slower, kept up well.

‘Not attacked by zombies either. No, do they not even recognize it?’

He deliberately threw cans around to attract zombies’ attention, but the result was as he thought. The zombies just ran towards the direction of the sound, not even turning their heads towards where it was. At least, it meant it wasn’t an ordinary person.

But its actions were too human-like to be considered an intelligent mutant zombie. Especially if it could climb stairs and open doors, it should be able to hunt humans easily. But this being was rather scared of humans and hid, even going so far as to save them from danger.

The reason for tailing him also didn’t seem to be to harm him. There had been plenty of opportunities, but it didn’t do anything until they reached the shelter.

‘If it’s neither human nor zombie, what could it be…’

As the outlandish thought he had while looking for possibilities other than his own insanity was gradually becoming reality, Seokjae couldn’t help but hope.

‘It might really be that person.’

He didn’t know how it happened, but at least they hadn’t become an ordinary zombie. And even in that state, they were still saving people.

‘…Thank goodness.’

Seokjae covered his eyes with both hands and exhaled deeply. Although he hadn’t properly confirmed if it was that person, he was already half convinced. There couldn’t be another being in the same city, with a similar face and the same personality. …In fact, he just wanted to believe so.

‘This isn’t all a dream, is it?’

Suddenly anxious at the enormous stroke of luck, Seokjae gripped the phone tightly. The firmness felt in his hand reassured him that all this was real.

‘If only I could, I’d like to meet face to face and talk right away.’

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like they would meet easily. Maybe they had developed wariness towards humans due to the change that had happened to them. If he tried to catch such a subject recklessly and lost them, they might never show themselves again.

Above all, zombies were everywhere now. Seokjae was at too much of a disadvantage to chase after a fleeing subject.

For a perfect capture without a single failure, he needed to understand the subject’s habits first. To do that, he first needed to find out where they were staying.