Chapter 3. Change

Chapter 3. Change

After Jinsu left.

Seonyoung and I silently processed our grief, each lost in our own sorrow.

How much time had passed?

Seonyoung, who had been standing a little distance from the car, rushed over. Her face was streaked with tears, and her choked voice conveyed a sense of urgency.

“Team Leader. Someone’s coming.”

The parking lot entrance Seonyoung was looking at was meant for vehicles. Normally, no one would use a vehicle entrance. I wiped away the moisture blurring my vision and looked in that direction. A man was slowly walking towards us.

There was no time to grieve freely.

“Hide quietly behind here. That man’s gait is strange.”

The man was limping, as if one of his legs was injured. And then, a scent carried by the wind hit me. The metallic smell of blood. Now, I definitely recognized the scent of blood.

“H-huh… h-huh…”

“Shhh.”

I put my arm around Seonyoung’s trembling shoulders, and we crouched together behind the company car. *Calm down, don’t be nervous,* I repeated to myself.

*I’m gripping the bat too tightly. Relax.*

The man slowly walked further into the parking lot, then stopped abruptly. It wasn’t clear yet if he was a human or a Zombie. The parking lot wasn’t very bright, so I couldn’t make out his face clearly.

Thud.

He collapsed.

Should I go out and help him now?

“Could that man have been bitten too? It looks like he ran away from something…”

“He did seem to have an injury on his leg. And there was the smell of blood.”

We should observe a little longer. If it’s just another injury and not a bite, if he’s still a normal person, I hoped he could hold on just a little longer. While I wasn’t an evil person, I couldn’t risk an adventure. If this Zombie outbreak continued, I would need to act more selfishly than I ever had before.

I slowly organized my thoughts. My top priority was my own safety. If something posed a threat to me, I would either avoid it or fight to overcome it.

*Helping others… right. Don’t act on emotion. Think it through again and then decide.*

If I rushed in blindly and got into trouble, there would be no one to blame but myself. The sight of the man collapsed on the cold parking lot floor was pitiful, but I continued to watch.

“Considering how long it took for Jinsu to change, it shouldn’t take too long. My gut feeling says about ten minutes. Let’s just watch for a bit.”

“Okay…”

Seonyoung also seemed to think it was too dangerous to act now. I could feel her breathing calm down as time passed. She was probably thinking something similar to me.

Grrr…

*Ah. So he was bitten.*

This time, I checked the time on my phone. About ten minutes after he collapsed, the man transformed into a Zombie and stood up, with a guttural roar. The risen Zombie swayed slightly in place, then began to shuffle around.

He was an employee from our company. An employee who usually loved Ral and often boasted about his girlfriend.

*Hmph… It’s a shame, but…*

Memories of him flickered through my mind. We’d sometimes slack off at a PC bang after finishing work early during an off-site assignment. He wasn’t good at Planet Wars, so we played Ral together. It was impressive how this usually quiet guy would get so tough when playing games.

*He was quite a bold friend…*

He was the kind of guy who’d ask if he could invite his girlfriend when I offered to buy dinner. I was a bit flustered, but the three of us ended up having a drink together that evening before parting ways.

My thoughts started to wander again. Was I always such an overthinker?

*That’s a Zombie. Already a Zombie. Not a person.*

I was trying to mentally convince myself that ‘those things’ were no longer human.

A sound came from the parking lot elevator, and soon a very heavy-set man rushed out. At the same time, our quiet employee… no, the Zombie, also started to run. Its running speed was faster than I expected.

“Wh-what? What’s wrong with this guy? Hey! Aaaaargh!”

The heavy-set man who had just gotten off the elevator saw the Zombie charging at him and screamed in panic. That was his last sound.

Crunch. Thud.

Hearing the horrific sounds, I quietly stood up from where I was sitting. Seonyoung looked up at me from her crouched position. I put a finger to my lips, signaling her to be quiet, then crept forward.

The man and the Zombie were entangled. Instinctively, I felt this was my chance. I couldn’t just wait around until that Zombie found us. I felt a momentary pang of guilt for the heavy-set man, but I couldn’t have helped him before this.

Grip.

I gripped the baseball bat tightly, wrapping my trembling hand with the other. *I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.* I repeated the short phrase like a mantra.

Zombies don’t seem to have a keen sense of smell. But their hearing definitely seems to be active. I walked right up behind it, yet it didn’t react. Up close, I saw the Zombie savagely tearing at the fallen heavy-set man. Blood and flesh splattered everywhere, as if its goal was to rip and bite rather than chew and swallow.

*Ugh. Disgusting.*

Over the Zombie’s shoulder, a grotesque sight met my eyes. One of the heavy-set man’s ears and a cheek were already long gone.

*Ah… I should stop looking. Don’t look too closely.*

I managed to tear my gaze away from the horrifying scene. It felt like I was harming my own mental health by focusing on it. The brutal sight almost made me lose my mind for a moment, but I quickly regained my composure and stood behind the Zombie. I aimed for its head and raised the bat.

Whoosh. Thwack!

The Zombie, its head caved in, collapsed. It didn’t move.

*The head is weaker than I thought.*

Next, it was time to check on the heavy-set man. His face, collarbone, and chest were a mess. From the moment the Zombie attacked him until I dealt with it, it wasn’t a very long time. Yet, his body was far more damaged than I had imagined. Flesh was torn away, revealing white bones scattered here and there.

*Can a normal person’s bite force do this? So quickly?*

I don’t know. I put that thought aside for a moment and placed the baseball bat against the heavy-set man’s head. I wasn’t a doctor, but he was definitely dead. Since he’d been bitten by a Zombie and ended up like this, he would surely rise again after some time.

*Don’t remain a monster. Please rest in peace.*

After a brief prayer for his soul, I swung the baseball bat and struck the man’s head. I speculated that if I crushed his skull beforehand, he wouldn’t be able to rise again later.

I returned to Seonyoung, crouched down again, and held my breath. With three corpses now, by the company car and in front of the elevator, the smell of blood was overwhelming. What should we do with the Zombie corpses? Moving the Zombie corpses with just Seonyoung and me right now was impossible. It was dangerous, and even if we could move them, I didn’t know where to put them. As I pondered these things, I started worrying again about our next move. We definitely needed to get out of here.

“Seonyoung. It’s been over ten minutes now, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, about fifteen minutes.”

This parking lot was too exposed; Zombies from the sports field could rush in at any moment. We either needed to drive out or go up into the building.

*Jinsu…*

We decided to consider the company car we’d been hiding behind as Jinsu’s grave. So, I quietly stood up and approached the Zombie lying on the ground. The heavy-set man had met his end with car keys still clutched in his hand.

*Sir, I’m sorry. I’ll just borrow your car for a moment.*

Apologizing in my mind, I took the car keys from his hand. I immediately pressed a button. The black mid-size sedan right in front of us blinked its headlights. Fortunately, the car was close by.

“Seonyoung. Let’s get into that car for now.”

I quietly called out to Seonyoung, who was still crouched behind the company car. I got into the man’s car with her.

Thud.

“Phew…”

Sitting in the driver’s seat, I finally felt some of the tension release. Just how much tension had I been holding in my body? I was definitely going to be sore tomorrow.

*Tomorrow? Tomorrow… I just hope tomorrow comes.*

Seonyoung and I both sat there, soaking wet, in silence for a while. The sweat I’d shed, combined with our rain-soaked clothes, was cooling, making us feel colder and colder. Perhaps the sudden release after extreme tension made the cold feel even worse.

*Ah, I can’t afford to get a cold or body aches. Trust you, body.*

It’s still useful, though. I can’t afford to be this sick. It wasn’t just a simple wish not to be sick. In this situation, getting sick would truly be hopeless, so I was quite desperate.

How much time had passed since we got into the man’s car? Seonyoung also seemed to have calmed down a bit now. Jinsu’s death still felt unreal. And I couldn’t believe I had crushed the heads of three things that were once human. Was all of this really happening?

*I keep unconsciously thinking of them as people…*

I crushed Zombie heads. I didn’t kill people. I consciously repeated this to myself.

*Please! Get a grip.*

I kept recalling what had already happened. Thinking about what to do next would be far more helpful. I’d vowed to pull myself together countless times already, but it wasn’t easy. The faces of the dead flickered in my mind, and Jinsu’s words kept replaying.

“Team Leader. Should we turn on the heater?”

As I wiped my face in a dry wash, I heard Seonyoung’s trembling voice. We were both shivering from the cold.

“Yes, let’s. We need to warm up.”

Vroom. Vroom. Vroom.

I kept pressing the engine start button, but the engine wouldn’t turn over. Was the battery dead? I couldn’t turn on the heater. The man must have come down without realizing his car battery was dead.

“The engine won’t start. We’ll have to endure it a bit longer.”

“Okay… Still no signal either. What do we do now?”

I don’t know either. Thinking about it again, driving out would have been too dangerous anyway. It had subsided for now, but just a moment ago, another loud explosion had echoed. But we couldn’t stay in this parking lot indefinitely, especially since we couldn’t call for help.

*What was in this building again?*

It suddenly occurred to me that the building had shower facilities. If we couldn’t leave, should we go up into the building? I asked Seonyoung about the building. If my memory served me right, we could at least clean ourselves up.

“Seonyoung. Do you know what the upper floors of this parking garage building are used for?”

“Roughly. The first floor has an auditorium, like an indoor gym, and the second and third floors had shower facilities and multi-purpose rooms.”

“Then should we try going up? If we just sit here like this, we’ll both catch a cold. Let’s at least try to find a towel.”

If we could reach the rooftop, we might also be able to survey the surroundings. The loud banging sounds that had been echoing still bothered me. First, we need to deal with our wet clothes, then we can look around.