Chapter 3 Part 7

A familiar scent wafted from his body as he approached. I felt a sorrowful sensation, as if tears were about to fall.

Creeeaaak-.

The sound of the management office door opening was particularly long. It was a new building that hadn’t been built long ago, so the hinges shouldn’t have been rusty, but the creaking sound was especially grating on the ears. The hallway was as quiet as the calm before a storm.

Grrr, grrr– A faint, unpleasant sound could be heard from the end of the hallway, but that was all. As a result of checking the CCTV countless times, no zombies were visible up to the nail salon. Of course, zombies had two legs, so they could move around.

“…Are you scared?”

I was holding my breath so much that I could barely exhale, when Yoo Min-ho, who was following me, spoke playfully. Of course, I was completely scared, without any room for excuses. He, who asked me if I was scared, also looked pale, clearly nervous. He was so young, yet so full of bravado. It was hard to understand why he had insisted on following me when he was so scared.

“Shut up, and if you want to live, stick to the wall and move.”

“But Lee Chae-eun, do you even have a plan? Honestly, it’s reckless, but I don’t think it’s completely impossible to get to the convenience store. If we’re lucky, we might make it. But no matter how much I think about it, getting back to the management office seems impossible.”

“…..”

“Just looking at it now, if even one catches us, they’ll all swarm in for a group attack… Even if we’re lucky enough to hide in an empty store… will the glass wall hold?”

Every word was true. But I had decided to take the risk because I felt I had to do something rather than just sit idly in the management office and be reset. However, one thing I hadn’t anticipated was Yoo Min-ho. I didn’t expect him to voluntarily join this plan, which was practically a suicide mission. No matter how much I thought about it, it wasn’t a rational decision.

“…Turn back now. Honestly… I have no plan. This is basically a suicide mission.”

“It doesn’t seem like you’re doing this out of some petty heroism… Are you doing this because you want to die?”

“…..”

“Using zombies to commit suicide, some kind of new suicide method-“

“If you’re not going back, shut up and follow me.”

“…Yes, yes. Captain.”

With that, we walked slowly along the hallway wall. I could feel my hand trembling as I gripped the ax, and cold sweat was running down my temples. This building, the main setting of the movie, was really damn big and wide. I regretted not setting the scenario in a forest or a grassland, but then I thought that would be scary in its own way. Now, all we had to do was turn the corner of the hallway and reach the third store. The thought that we might succeed unexpectedly made my heart pound like crazy.

I stopped at the point where the wall ended and reached my hand back to prevent Yoo Min-ho from coming forward. I looked at his face to make sure, and his lips were twisted awkwardly, clearly showing his nervousness. He was gripping the pipe wrench so tightly that his hand was white, which made me feel sorry for him. I sighed involuntarily.

I made a gesture to Yoo Min-ho to cover his lips with my index finger, then turned my head back and peeked beyond the wall. At least ten, no, twenty zombies were tangled up in the narrow hallway. Whether their eyesight was poor or their motor skills had degenerated, some zombies occasionally bumped into the wall or fell over each other. They looked somewhat stupid. But knowing how agile they could become the moment they found their prey, the static actions of the zombies was rather frightening to me.

The back door of the convenience store was less than 10 meters away. It wasn’t a long distance, but thinking that we had no chance of winning if we went out like this, I rummaged through my pocket. Fortunately, something long was caught in my hand. It was the stationery cutter knife that I had used to threaten Hyeon-ho earlier, which was embarrassing to call a weapon. But now, even this was enough.

“When I throw the cutter knife, stick to the store side and run to the convenience store.”

I whispered softly in Yoo Min-ho’s ear, took a deep breath, and threw the cutter knife to the end of the hallway with all my might. Thud, thud. As soon as the sound of the cutter knife falling on the floor was heard, the zombies started to react fiercely. In this brief moment, we had to get inside the convenience store somehow. Yoo Min-ho and I held our breath as much as possible and started running towards the back door of the convenience store.

…But as always, not everything in the world goes as planned. There were also a lot of zombies in the real estate office two doors down from the convenience store. The five or six zombies inside the glass wall started growling fiercely and banging their heads against the glass when they saw us. Fortunately, they couldn’t get out yet, but that alone was enough to attract the attention of other zombies in the hallway.

Yoo Min-ho, who was following me, reflexively stopped, holding the glass door of the real estate office. This was because the back door of the office began to open as the tangled bodies of the zombies pushed against it.

“Go ahead and run!”

At his urgent voice, I looked to the other side and saw that I was about to be attacked by zombies that had already reached the back door of the convenience store. The sight of the zombies running towards us with expressionless faces was pure horror itself. My breath caught in my throat, and the sound of my heart was like thunder in my ears. …What should I do? No matter how fast I ran, it seemed impossible to reach the convenience store.

But there was no time to hesitate. I grabbed Yoo Min-ho’s wrist, who was holding the glass door, and ran towards the convenience store. I was planning to enter the store right before the convenience store. Of course, the back door might be locked, and there might be zombies inside the store, but if we stayed like this, we would both die in the hallway. There was no other choice.

Jingle, the back door of the store opened with a cheerful chime. At the same time, I shoved Yoo Min-ho into the store, quickly turned around, closed the glass door, and locked the upper lock. In an instant, zombies swarmed over the glass door. It was a dizzying moment.

But even though we had escaped into the store, we couldn’t rest easy. With this many zombies, it was only a matter of time before the glass wall shattered. I was at a loss as to what to do, when Yoo Min-ho, who had been panting with a pale face, suddenly got up and started pushing a large commercial refrigerator. It was truly an incredible display of strength.

I stared blankly as the refrigerator with a sticker that said 150 kg started to drag on the floor. I came to my senses and helped him push the refrigerator to the entrance. The heavy refrigerator scraped the entire tile floor as it moved, but that wasn’t what was important now.

Yoo Min-ho’s white face, which was panting as he moved the refrigerator, was completely red. But he didn’t stop there. Like a madman, he lifted a fryer and placed it next to the refrigerator. Only then did I realize that we had entered a franchise chicken restaurant. Fortunately, there were no people or zombies inside the chicken restaurant.

As soon as I confirmed that there was no one, my legs gave out and I collapsed on the floor. But even then, Yoo Min-ho’s rampage didn’t stop. He was in a trance, lifting a stand-type dishwasher onto the fryer, and then stacking tables and chairs on top of it. He looked half-crazy.

…I mean, he should have just stayed in the management office. Why did he follow me out here to suffer when he was so scared? Honestly, I didn’t think we could survive this zombie horde even if we piled things up like that. Soon, the glass door would break, and zombies would pour in. Of course, the refrigerator and dishwasher that Yoo Min-ho dragged over could help to some extent, but it was clear that they wouldn’t last long.

Thump, thump. The fierce pounding on the glass door made my heart race. In my panicked mind, the scene of the glass door breaking and zombies pouring into the store was repeating endlessly. I looked at the front door of the chicken restaurant, but of course, the shutter was down, so there was no way out. In other words, we were trapped like rats in a jar.

How could it end so vainly without even meeting the firefighters? I wasn’t so arrogant as to expect success on the first try, but the failure hit me hard. But it wasn’t entirely without gain. I thought that I should lower my body more next time I passed by the real estate office, as I held onto Yoo Min-ho’s hand, who was in a trance.

When Yoo Min-ho felt my touch, he stopped, and the haphazardly stacked tables and chairs fell down.