Side Story 4: Stories of Russia (4)

There were survivors.

There were people living here. I wondered what kind of people they were; whether they were people who lived for others, or people who harmed others. I swallowed and kept an eye on them.

The man holding the hunting knife pulled out his right hand, which was covered in blood, and asked a question of the woman next to him. The woman handed the rope that was slung across her shoulders to him. After the man tied the deer’s legs together with the rope, he hung the carcass on a long wooden pole.

The man holding the crossbow came down to help as well. The two men grabbed one end of the pole each and moved off, carrying the pole with the deer on their shoulders. The woman covered up the puddle of deer blood that had been splattered onto the cold earth by kicking some dirt over it.

They hunted neatly, and left no traces behind. I could tell they were being cautious of zombies. I kept my gaze on them, asking myself if it was okay for me to follow them. But then I reminded myself not to forget the reason I’d come in the first place.

Saving Kim Dae-Young was my priority, not these survivors. The part of me with a sense of humanity, the part that wanted to save people, had been left behind on Jeju Island, with the Survivor Rally Organization.

I took a deep breath and moved in the opposite direction of the survivors. I made my way around Ussuriysk, hoping that a zombie with red eyes would appear.

* * *

The pungent smell of blood still lingered in my nostrils, but I wasn’t sure if it was the smell from the deer, or if there was another victim around.

Grrr…

A couple of Russian zombies saw me and became wary. I couldn't tell if they were wary because they hadn’t met a foreign zombie before, or if it was because of my blue eyes. I only took care of the ones that make exceptionally loud throat-rending noises and went on my way, trying to find areas with a high concentration of zombies.

As I moved north, I found a large number of zombies clustered around a building that seemed to be a hospital. A cluster of zombies meant that there was a high chance that a zombie with red eyes would be around. To be frank, at this point, I didn’t even care if I came across a black creature instead; I just wanted someone to show up.

I looked at my underlings and gave them telepathic orders.

‘Wait here. Hide in the building next door.'

As one, Ji-Eun and the stage-one mutants followed my orders. However, Do Han-Sol's underling didn’t seem like it was going to move a single inch from my side. I wanted to move stealthily, but that wouldn’t be possible with this underling right next to me. I grabbed it and placed it on the first floor of the building opposite.

When I emerged from the building, though, it merely followed me out again, doing nothing to conceal itself. I wondered if I had to tie it up to a pole or something. As I thought about it, though, these underlings would follow orders no matter what, since they were bound to their master and followed the chain of command. I had no clue what would happen if they couldn’t follow the orders they were given, but I was sure that nothing good could come from it. If this underling signaled to Do Han-Sol that it couldn’t execute his orders, I knew things would get complicated.

I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I was stuck with it in the meantime. I went into the building opposite and tried to come up with something, because I didn’t want to cause any unnecessary trouble.

The golden sunset that had been blazing across the horizon was long gone before I had a chance to notice. The sky was now dark blue, indicating the start of another night. However, this was good news, since the zombies on the streets became more active at night, which in turn meant that it would be easier to find any zombies with red eyes.

Since I couldn’t think of a plan, I decided to hide in the building facing the hospital and observe what was going on through the window.

That’s when I remembered the phrase: haste makes waste. It was probably futile to wander around restlessly.

GRRR… GWAAA!

The street zombies began to act violently. They’d been shambling around slowly during the day, but now that the sun had gone down, their movements grew faster.

I enhanced my sight and hearing as I observed what was going on outside. Just like that, ten, twenty, and thirty minutes passed by. Time kept passing by, but I did not see any other beings besides the street zombies.

I took out the brochure to determine where I was. Getting my bearings using the hospital, the intersections, and the nearby shops, I figured that I was at the northern end of Ussuriysk. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like there were any zombies with red eyes around this area.

I felt bitter, thinking that I had wasted all this time to find nothing. I tugged at my hair in frustration as the tension inside me got the better of me. After calming myself down, I took out the map again and tried to determine where the largest cities close to Ussuriysk were.

There were no large cities with large numbers of people in the vicinity. Even the brochure only introduced three regions: Vladivostok, Ussuriysk, and Nakhodka. Taking the laboratory as the reference point, Ussuriysk was located to the north, and Nakhodka to the east. It was faster to go back to the laboratory than to the other regions.

I scratched my head and sighed as I pondered what we’d talked about earlier.

'Should we just tie up Kim Dae-Young and keep an eye on him until we develop the inhibitor?’

However, I knew this plan would go down the drain if either Kim Hyeong-Jun or I couldn't hold off our zombie instincts before the team could develop the inhibitor.

We had to find red-eyed zombies somehow.

Bang, bang, bang!

Just as I was thinking about what to do next, I heard explosions outside. I couldn’t help but flinch at the sudden noise. I looked out the window, wide-eyed, as the explosions faded away into the background like a gentle echo. I realized that they were gunshots coming from a distance away, and so I closed my eyes and concentrated on my hearing.

Bang, bang, bang!!!

The gunshots were coming from the south.

GRRR!!!

The zombies around the hospital filled the air with their throat-rending cries after hearing the gunfire. Soon, all of them swarmed to the south like moths attracted to fire. As I watched them go, I remembered that the survivors who had hunted down the deer were also to the south of my position. Realizing this, I couldn’t help but wonder if they were battling zombies on the very road I had passed through earlier.

I got up and gave orders to my underlings.

“Everyone, follow me.”

Now that the sound of gunfire had echoed across the area, I was certain that the red-eyed zombies in Ussuriysk would also be heading toward the source of the sound. They would surely be drawn to the commotion, and I was prepared to move on if no zombies with red eyes showed up this time.

I followed the zombie wave, moving south with my underlings.

𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

* * *

Bang, bang, bang!!

I was getting closer to the gunshots. I pushed forward as I gave orders to my underlings.

‘All of you, spread out left and right. Tell me if you find a zombie with red eyes.'

As I ruthlessly bulldozed my way through the zombies blocking my way, I noticed several survivors on the rooftop of a four-story supermarket in the distance, shooting at the zombies. They seemed trapped, as their escape route was already cut off by a swarm of zombies. Zombies had also gathered on the rooftops of the nearby buildings, waving their arms in the air.

Several zombies fell off the ledge, pushed off by other zombies, and some were breaking through the windows and making their way into the supermarket. I could hear the sound of zombies scratching and pounding against an iron door through the gunfire. It seemed like the door leading to the rooftop was the only thing separating the zombies from the survivors.

I… I felt really awful, and my heart was full of sorrow, but I couldn’t save the survivors at the moment. I was ready to give up on the survivors on the rooftop if no red-eyed zombies showed themselves, because I knew that there was no way I could go looking for a red-eyed zombie while I took care of them.

I knew that promising them safety that I could not guarantee would be a hypocritical and arrogant thing for me to do.

I leaped onto the rooftop of the two-story building on the right and looked around. I looked into every nook and cranny, trying to find a red-colored zombie. The large plaza in front of the entrance of the supermarket was full of zombies that were crawling around like cockroaches.

‘How many are there? Twelve hundred? Fourteen hundred?’

I had reached the point where I could roughly determine the number of zombies at a glance. All the zombie killing I’d done so far probably played a part in it.

For some reason, when the man on the roof saw the zombies gathered in the plaza, he stopped shooting. He merely stood on the railing that went around the rooftop and stared blankly at the zombies. It seemed like he was either out of bullets, or that he had given up on his life out of despair. A moment later, the man tossed the rifle he was carrying into the plaza.

He was done for.

He had given up on his life.

Just as I was about to take my eyes off the man, something caught my eye. I saw children clutching the man’s legs and crying. They seemed terrified to death, and were crying and begging to the man to save them and protect them until the end.

The man seemed to hesitate after seeing the children crying. Eventually, he climbed back down from the railing and held them in his arms. As I watched them, a memory flashed through my mind.

- It’s alright, Daddy’s here. It’s alright.

I remembered saying that while holding So-Yeon in my arms, trembling in fear and muttering those soulless words of reassurance when, in fact, not a single thing was alright. Back then, I’d been scared to death and had known that nothing was okay, but those were the only words I could say to her. I remember it as a moment when I couldn’t help but feel furious at how weak I was as a human being, as a father.

“Fuck…”

I gritted my teeth and cursed. Even though I had only a few shreds of humanity left within me, I couldn’t just ignore children begging for their lives. I made up my mind and waded through the zombies that filled the plaza, heading toward the supermarket. After all, if there weren’t any red-eyed zombies in Ussuriysk, there was nothing else I could do than to return to the laboratory.

I couldn’t keep on going, because I would eventually go beyond the range of Do Han-Sol’s underlings. The best thing I could do in this situation… was to save them.

Crack!

I flew off the ground, creating a pit in the old asphalt ground and sending dust and debris flying. I was on the rooftop in an instant. The man holding the children in his arms stared at me in bewilderment.

“...!”

“...!”

The other survivors on the rooftop were shouting in Russian, and I couldn’t understand them. I looked at them, my blue eyes flashing, and all of them fell silent, as if they thought that they were done for.

Fear, despair, and death.

I could just tell from their faces what was going through their minds. And yes, I knew exactly how they were feeling right now. In fact, I knew better than anyone else. That no matter how many nice and kind things I did for them, at the end of the day, I would just be a zombie to them.

Thud!!

The iron door began to warp. A hinge fell off, and zombies were going to flood the rooftop at any second. The Russian survivors that had been staring at me, quaking, looked at the iron door at once.

They were so scared that they couldn’t even take action. They looked back and forth between the iron door and me, not knowing what to do. Since speaking with them wasn’t an option, I knew I had no choice but to demonstrate my intentions to them through my actions.

I clenched my fists and headed toward the iron door. I ground my teeth and accelerated my blood flow.

Ssss–

Steam rose from my entire body, and my arm muscles clenched and relaxed repeatedly.

Clang!!!

The iron door finally flew off its hinges, and zombies with the most disgusting-looking faces came charging toward me. Most of their faces were disfigured, which made me wonder how forcefully they’d been banging their heads against the iron door as they tried to get through.

“GRRR!!!”

I roared at the approaching zombies, and the zombies that had been waiting for their feast seemed to grow hesitant.

But it was already too late.

I hadn’t meant to interrupt the feast that they’d had in mind, but I wasn’t in the good mood, and so all the zombies here were going to die for me. I mowed down the zombies like a frenzied bull.

The Russian survivors collapsed to the floor as if the last of the strength had drained out of their legs, as they watched the unbelievable scene unfolding in front of them with bewildered faces.

* * *

I wiped out the zombies that filled the stairs as if they were fish in a barrel. I was like a relentless bulldozer, squashing the zombies without the slightest hesitation.

From the fourth floor to the third, the second, and finally, the first floor.

I gave orders to my underlings as I zapped my way through the zombies that were filling up the stairs.

‘All of you, gather up here. The one that gets here first, clear out the third floor, the next one clear out the second floor, and then the next one, take care of the first floor. The fourth and fifth ones, guard the supermarket entrance. Ji-Eun, you stay with me.’

KIAAA!!!

I heard my underlings’ screams from outside. A full-scale zombie massacre began. Just as I was about to go up the stairs again, I noticed that Do Han-Sol's underling, the one that was supposed to be right behind me, was no longer with me.

I raced up the stairs, my mind filled with the worst-case scenario. At that moment, I imagined it identifying the survivors as prey and shoving them into its mouth. However, as I grabbed the handrail and used it to leap up the last few steps and reach the rooftop, I was met with an unbelievable sight.

Do Han-Sol's underling, a stage-one mutant, was holding a human figure in its left hand. It was roaring as it held onto the mysterious creature’s head. The creature was struggling and squirming, trying to get away.

Instead of falling into despair, though, I couldn’t help but smirk.

Unlike the underling in front of me, which was purple, the struggling creature was red.

It was a zombie, not a person.

There was a red-eyed zombie in Ussuriysk.