Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 23



Only Krnovel

20. Injection

Is there anyone in this world who likes zombies?

there is.

They are scientists.

Monsters cannot be captured alive in any way and do not leave behind corpses, making them impossible for analysis and research as humans would like to boast about, whereas zombies do leave behind corpses.

At this point, when half the world has collapsed, no one has a problem with sawing or shooting zombies, but surprisingly, in the early stages of the apocalypse, there were people who were concerned about the human rights of zombies.

It may be a consequential story, but isn’t it true that they did such things because they were worried about their own future as zombies rather than because they were worried about the zombies themselves?

The most cited research paper on how mutations affect the brains of dead humans, by Professor J. Katterer, involved subjects who were once such zombie human rights activists.

In my case, zombies are,

Bam!

It’s something annoying.

Especially when I meet you now, when I’m tired, I really want to close my eyes like my colleagues who left before me.

“Kurrrrrr!!”

Bam!

But the reason I swing my axe so fiercely and fight off the bastards is not because I’m afraid of dying, but because I have so much to lose.

My bunker. I’d rather see the world end than see someone else inhabit my shelter, where I’ve poured my blood and sweat.

With this mindset, I tenaciously fought off the zombies and reached the safe zone.

“······after.”

I took a deep breath and checked the wound.

There is a saying that if you are bitten by a zombie, you will become a zombie, but that is nonsense.

The mutation that causes zombies only affects the brains of dead humans.

The general consensus in academic circles is that if you try to infiltrate the human brain, which is capable of advanced mental functions, you will die like a monster that invaded Earth.

A minority opinion cites the fact that zombies often appear in places where there is no necromancer type as a counterexample, but that is not because they have contracted a disease that turns them into zombies, but because they have a mutation factor embedded somewhere in their body, and when they die, that factor mutates their dead brain, turning them into zombies.

But there is always that chance.

I felt and moved around from head to toe, but there was not a single scratch.

My means of transportation, a luggage bike, is also in good condition.

The Defender siblings’ gift is also safe.

I popped a piece of chocolate into my mouth to replenish my calories and energy.

“······ha.”

They say it’s hard to go out of the house.

But looking back, I thought it might be better for my mental health than just staying at home.

But that was before I checked out the community.

So, that was my naive thought before I learned of the atrocities the Defender siblings committed on the bulletin board.

Unaware of the miserable future that lay ahead, I felt the sweetness of the chocolate spread pleasantly through my tired body and mind, and took in the surrounding scenery, looking at the mountains and terrain rising in the dim light.

I have a rough idea of ​​the location.

It is a place I have seen and remembered with my own eyes over and over again.

But something unexpected happened.

The lights came on in the abandoned apartment.

This is where the woman who fed the cat lived alone.

There probably won’t be anyone living there since she died.

Did a new resident move in?

That apartment is about 6km away in a straight line, so it’s not too far from my area.

However, the actual distance is quite far, as there are low mountains and streams in the middle and the roads are not main roads but rather winding branch lines, and there is no means of transportation that crosses the rough terrain.

It doesn’t have any particular strategic value, but the fact that people have entered my area of ​​influence is intriguing.

*

When asked what makes people tick, most people would say food, but for me, it’s curiosity.

I’m not a lazy person, but I think he moves completely differently when he’s curious and when he’s not.

The most notable difference is the ability to take action.

My decision to not return home and go straight to an abandoned apartment was largely due to my personality, which cannot be cured by medicine.

At the entrance to the apartment, a flag was fluttering indicating their affiliation.

As expected, he is a pioneer.

I checked the amount of bullets remaining.

There is plenty of pistol ammunition, but not much rifle ammunition.

My physical condition isn’t the best either.

The fatigue from long periods of movement and combat did not subside.

What this means is that at a critical moment, there is a possibility that my body may not move as I want it to.

The reason I, who usually avoids combat, brought up combat was because of my antipathy toward the group known as the Pioneers.

The red-panted gang may be particularly vicious, but my previous experience with Lieutenant Choi’s gang showed me their true nature.

A legal plunderer recognized by the state.

Perhaps that legitimacy gave them excessive stubbornness and cruelty.

It’s not a place that has much to do with my area, but it’s nerve-wracking to know that there are pioneers nearby.

I approached the apartment with the intention of doing at least a light reconnaissance.

“!”

There is something.

In the dark.

Is it because of fatigue that even your senses have become dull?

I couldn’t even hear breathing.

I looked into the darkness, reproaching myself.

A person, or something similar, was sitting motionless.

Looking closely, he is an old man.

An old woman, not to mention seventy, but closer to eighty, was sitting on a cold rock, looking like an old industrial product, and glaring at me.

“grandma?”

The old woman said nothing and seemed unwilling to say anything.

When I call her, she just smacks her lips, revealing her toothless mouth, and continues to give me meaningless looks.

A sudden scream erupted from above.

“Hey you motherfucker! Hey! Hey! You motherfucker!”

“What is it?”

It’s an apartment.

The sounds of an argument were heard in the open hallway of the corridor-style apartment.

Under the pale lamplight, two old men were arguing, grabbing each other by the collar.

A spectacle as horrifying as one might expect to see in a subway station or a square where elderly people gather was unfolding in the ruins of a post-apocalyptic city.

I went into the apartment because I couldn’t expect an answer from the old woman.

The fight was taking place on the third floor.

Two old men were grabbing each other by the collars between the two open rooms, while other old men were watching the fight with their arms linked or clicking their tongues.

There were about ten people there, but judging from the noise I heard from other floors while going up, I guessed there were quite a few people there.

But they are all old people.

At least among those gathered at the scene there was not a single young person.

Since there seemed to be no one with a gun or anyone to fight, I boldly revealed myself.

As soon as I appeared, the eyes of the old people all turned to me.

The old people who had been fighting in front also let go of their collars and looked at me.

A sudden silence fell on the apartment hallway.

As I was thinking about what to ask first, an old man approached me.

“I’m sorry for making such a loud fight.”

He’s one of the old men who were fighting.

I don’t know how to read faces, but I think he must have lived a very smart life when he was young.

“Are you a pioneer?”

Neither positive nor negative.

He tried to grab my hand, but I waved it away, clearly expressing my refusal.

The old man continued speaking, awkwardly wiggling his fingers that had let go of my hand.

“No, listen to me. The pioneer who came with us before gave us a room assignment, but this guy says his room is cold and doesn’t have heating, so he took someone else’s room and acts like he owns it.”

The old man standing behind suddenly became angry and raised his voice.

“What the hell is going on? Room 302 is mine. I won it by drawing lots! Look at that! Young gentleman! This kid is lying! He’s lying!”

I guess they thought I was in cahoots with the person who brought them here.

He wasn’t wearing anything like a military uniform, but he was wearing pants that looked like a military uniform, he was carrying a gun, and most importantly, he was young.

There used to be a saying that youth was a privilege, and here it was indeed so, and there was even a sense that it was connected to a kind of power.

“They came from somewhere else. It’s not my place.”

I looked around briefly and looked back at the old people.

“What are you doing here?”

I think I know the reason.

It’s a problem that you don’t have to think about too deeply.

“What the hell, what the hell. I came here because the country sent me. I didn’t come here because the shitty Republic of Korea sent me here. The country is ruined like this because the fucking citizens choose the wrong politicians.”

The foul-mouthed old man standing behind spoke with a curse in his voice.

He looked at me intently and spoke as if giving me an order.

“When is the next distribution? My stomach is about to explode. I came here because they said they’d give me rice, but they’re giving me junk nutrition bars. I can’t eat that anymore.”

It seemed like the old man had a personality that invited fights.

Even though we only spoke for a very short time, the sharp edges of his personality were clearly revealed.

If our old man Kim were here, he would probably look like this.

I quickly turned around as I saw the hanged body of an old man grumbling and the grumbling face overlap.

“That’s not my concern.”

“Fuck. Then what are you here for? Did you come here to play?”

“yes?”

“If you’re not going to give me food, then get out of here, you little punk!”

“there.”

I looked back at the old man.

He looked at him and spoke clearly.

“Watch what you say.”

When our eyes met, the old man’s head shook as if he had been shocked, he averted his gaze, and soon ran into the open room as if he was running away.

The old man who had been struggling with him snorted in amusement and chased after him.

“I told you, that’s my apartment!”

There was a grumbling sound as if they were struggling again, but that only served to tire me out more.

“······after.”

Feeling no need to stay any longer, I headed towards the stairs.

An old man chased me.

He was wearing a cheap hiking vest over a shirt that looked like it had been washed for a while, and the vest had a shiny badge on it.

I looked closely at the badge, wondering if this person was in charge.

“?”

The old man tried to grab my hand.

Why on earth are there so many people here who like holding hands?

I shook his hand away with a hint of annoyance and looked down at him.

“What is it?”

“Look, young gentleman.”

“yes.”

“Me. When I was young.”

When I heard that, I thought about cutting the old man off.

Because what comes next is so obvious.

“I’ve worked for my country my whole life. I’ve dedicated my youth to the development of the Republic of Korea, day and night. I’ve never once failed to pay taxes, I’ve just followed orders without speculating, and I’ve lived quietly. What’s going on here? Why are you sending me to this place?”

“well.”

“I paid so much into national pension, but I haven’t received a single penny.”

“Me too.”

“Go and tell the captain. It’s true that we here are old, but we don’t deserve to be treated like this.”

“If we ever meet, I’ll let you know.”

The old man kept bowing his head to me and expressing his gratitude.

Meanwhile, an old woman came up to me and stared at me intently.

I apologize in advance.

“I’m sorry, but I’m busy.”

“No. Please take this.”

The old woman handed me something.

It’s a food I can’t eat, made by solidifying dog food and unidentified meat.

“I will only accept your heart.”

“Take it first.”

The old woman suddenly spoke in a forceful tone.

“Take it!”

When I forcefully accept it, I see, as expected, someone’s contact information and a request to call them are written on the back of the dog food box.

Why are all the people here like that?

It may seem a bit presumptuous for a young person like me to judge an older person, but these old people here are strange.

Well, they seemed like people who wouldn’t be loved.

As I left the apartment, feeling more exhausted than when I had fought the zombie horde, I noticed an old woman sitting alone.

Suddenly, an old woman who always stood guard in front of the International Residence, whom I would never see again, passed by before my eyes.

I figured there were some things I didn’t need anyway, so I approached her and handed her a nutrition bar.

“Eat this.”

Only then did the old woman move as if she were alive.

Her hand, which was in her pocket, was holding a prayer bead.

“Thank you. Thank you. Namu Amitabha Buddha. Namu Amitabha Buddha.”

“Why are you alone in a place like this?”

“Because I didn’t get the shot.”

“yes?”

“They won’t let me in because I didn’t get the shot.”

The old woman was mumbling about with cockroach-colored food in her mouth.

“What kind of injection?”

“Zombie injection.”

“Zombie injection?”

“I heard there’s an injection that will prevent you from turning into a zombie if you get it.”

There is no such thing.

If you don’t want to die and become a zombie, you have to wash. You have to wash your clothes to remove the mutation factor.

“What did you ride here? Did you walk here?”

“I took a car. I got on a bus. The driver and the manager were passing by, saw this apartment, and said it was a good place, so they suddenly dropped me off here.”

“okay.”

The flow is as expected.

I decided to go back because I didn’t have time to really feel any emotion.

“······If you get that shot, you’ll die.”

An old woman muttered behind him.

“That’s poison. Your head will fall out. You’ll die with water flowing out of every hole in your body. Everyone else died in the place I was before······.”

Whether it was because she was getting nutrients or because her emotions were stimulated, the old woman swayed back and forth while reciting the mantra, unlike before.

“Namu Amitabha Buddha, Namu Amitabha Buddha.”

*

It was a week later that I visited the apartment again.

The apartment, where foul language could be heard from afar, was now immersed in peaceful silence.

I found new tire tracks on the road covered in dirt and dust.

The waving flag was gone, and of course the old woman guarding the entrance was no longer there.

There was a pungent smell, along with a large pit at the back.

I think this pit is where the black smoke came from that made me come back here.

As I got closer, I saw a mess of carbonized wood and white ash, and here and there I could see some charred bones.

It’s a human skull.

I felt a presence behind me.

A zombie stood there, squirming.

The thing she’s holding in her hand is a prayer bead. She’s an old woman sitting in front of an apartment, chanting a prayer.

There was a gunshot hole between the old woman’s eyebrows, along with dried blood.

The sight was so gruesome, and the thought of having to lay this corpse down again with my own hands made me blurt out words I didn’t mean.

“······Should I have just gotten a shot?”

The wandering old man joined the other old people.

I set fire to a piece of paper with contact information that another old man had given me the other day and threw it on the old woman’s body.

Coincidentally, the flames spread to the old prayer beads the old man was holding tightly.

“Namu Amitabha Buddha.”

I climbed the apartment stairs, praying for the deceased’s soul to rest in peace.

I did this in the hopes that I might find survivors or other clues, but it didn’t yield much results.

Finally, I went up to the rooftop and saw the autumn land, still bathed in fresh sunlight.

I see things moving.

They are people.

In the uninhabited plain, groups of people were moving east and south, each waving their flags.

The number was quite significant at first glance.

The Defender’s words suddenly came to mind

You can’t hide forever.

I was confident, but seeing that crowd made me realize how weak my confidence was.

Still, they say that nothing in this world is meaningless.

I don’t entirely agree with that statement, but the old woman chanting the mantra inspired me.

thud!

I cleared away a piece of debris from a collapsed bunker.

Beyond the debris, the underground passage leading to my main bunker revealed a secret darkness.

If you can’t hide forever, you might as well hide it well.

The reason the people who dropped off the elderly chose that apartment as a nursing home with a high turnover rate was because, even to them, the exterior of the apartment was quite unsightly.

I plan to build a camouflage house on the site of this collapsed bunker.

I’m talking about a corner of the house that’s so filthy that even zombies would crawl through it.