Zombie Day 2
As night fell, the plummeting temperature sent shivers through every inch of her body. Chae-rim, hugging her own arms, was rubbing her chilled skin when she lifted her head.
The music room had already grown dark, but with the sun completely down, it was nothing short of pitch-black darkness. Without eyes adjusted to the dark and what little moonlight filtered through the windows, she wouldn’t have been able to make out even the shapes of things.
From outside the window frame came the sound of water droplets falling. She turned her head and saw droplets that had run down the outer wall catching the light as they hung there. The way they dangled precariously and then dropped — tuk — was like watching shards of jewels glinting.
Beyond the window frame, where droplets kept gathering and falling in a repeated cycle, was a black sky thick with misty clouds. The sky that had been stained a vivid yellow had somehow shifted to a dark bluish hue, as if that had never been, and the yellow dust rain that had been pouring down hard enough to pierce the earth had also stopped completely at some point.
“Is it okay for us to just keep staying in the music room like this?”
Chae-rim, who had been quietly staring at that sight, opened her mouth carefully.
Perhaps because it had gotten dark, or perhaps because the rain that had been making such noise had stopped, the sounds of the zombies had grown considerably quieter. The noise from the floor below, which had been pounding especially loudly, had also disappeared without a trace.
It wasn’t long after Chae-rim’s question that the others, who had been silent, began to speak up one by one.
“Who knows. At this point, is there even anywhere else we can go besides here.”
The first to speak was Lee Min-jae, who was sitting not far from Chae-rim. He had his injured hand raised to eye level, inspecting its condition.
Thanks to having quickly tied off the hem of his shirt early on to stop the bleeding, fortunately no more blood was coming from the wound. But the stiff, darkened mark where blood had congealed on the white fabric was still clearly visible.
Chae-rim, watching him in silence, added another question.
“Shouldn’t we look for a chance to escape? There’s no guarantee this place will be safe until rescue comes.”
“But there’s no guarantee we can get out of here safely either. If you think about it purely in terms of probability, the chances of getting bitten out there are probably higher.”
“But what if the zombies figure out where we are at any moment? This is the fifth floor, and if they swarm us all at once, we’re done — all of us, right here.”
“Haah… you’re not wrong about that either.”
Lee Min-jae, who had been quietly listening to Chae-rim’s words, ruffled his own hair as if it was giving him a headache.
Either way, there was no method that guaranteed 100% safe survival. And with good reason — there didn’t seem to be a single absolute safe zone anywhere in this school.
If only they could contact someone outside…. Just as that thought crossed his mind, Lee Min-jae slapped his own knee as if something had occurred to him.
“Come to think of it, Cha Do-hyun’s father is a sitting assemblyman, isn’t he.”
“What? Really? A member of the National Assembly?”
“Yeah…. Or maybe not? I feel like I heard that somewhere before.”
The uncertainty trailing at the end of his words made every gaze in the music room turn toward Cha Do-hyun all at once.
Whether he’d sensed the sudden hush that fell over the room, Cha Do-hyun — who had been lying across three desk chairs pushed together — slowly raised his upper body. His face emerged over the long desk, expression heavy with irritation. Then he said a single word.
“What.”
Seeing that reaction, Kim Jae-yun added with a look of surprise.
“So it’s actually true. How did I not know this whole time?”
“Because I never said anything.”
“Wow, most kids at our school brag about money like it’s a sport every chance they get. Unexpected.”
“Because it’s not money worth bragging about. That’s why I didn’t, Jae-yun.”
Cha Do-hyun fired back at Kim Jae-yun’s throwaway comment, then collapsed back down onto the chairs as if his head were too heavy.
Kim Jae-yun told him Jae-yun is hurt, and more precisely what he said was “Jae-yun is huwt.” — but Cha Do-hyun wrinkled his nose as if that alone was revolting.
As they traded a few words back and forth in that combative way, Chae-rim, listening in, blurted something out as if in a daze.
“Th-then, can’t we be a little hopeful about being rescued from here?”
Lee Min-jae looked cautiously toward Cha Do-hyun, as if he’d been thinking the same thing as Chae-rim.
“Right. I mean, even in the absolute worst-case scenario, even if the government decides to shut down this school and bury it — if they know Do-hyun is a survivor, surely….”
But even as Chae-rim finished speaking, Cha Do-hyun showed no reaction whatsoever. He simply stared at the ceiling, as though he were turning something over quietly in his mind.
Just as Chae-rim was about to open her mouth and try speaking to him again —
Thud thud!
The sudden sound from outside made a silence fall like everything had stopped all at once. They were holding their breath, only guessing whether it was a zombie that had found them or whether they’d heard wrong, when the sound came from the thick music room door again.
Rattle rattle —
This time it wasn’t just a knock — it was the sound of someone grabbing the handle and shaking it. Chae-rim and Lee Min-jae, who had been sitting on the floor, both shot to their feet at the same time.
Kim Jae-yun picked up the sharpened bamboo spear he’d been resting on the desk, rose from his chair, and said in a low voice:
“Han Chae-rim. You should drop that hope of yours.”
Then he strode up to the door and jerked his chin at the two of them, who were completely frozen, and pointed toward the back door. The plan was to draw the attention to one door if things went south and escape through the back.
Chae-rim, understanding what Kim Jae-yun had in mind, grabbed Lee Min-jae’s arm and hurried toward the back door.
And while Kim Jae-yun was holding that tense standoff — from beyond the door, which they’d expected to bang even harder again, someone’s voice came through. More precisely, a man’s voice spewing crude language like he was begging for his life.
“Open up right now, you bastards—!”
“…Hong Seok-hui?”
The first to react to the familiar name that had come out of Kim Jae-yun’s mouth was none other than Han Chae-rim.
Chae-rim, who had been waiting alongside Lee Min-jae at the back door, made a puzzled face and moved toward the front door. The closer she got to the front door, the more clearly the all-too-familiar voice came through. As did the sound of fingernails clawing desperately against the music room door.
“Who’s Hong Seok-hui?”
Lee Min-jae, who had been watching the strange development from behind, asked belatedly. Chae-rim turned to him and answered.
“There’s this guy. Goes by Hong-the-trash, in class 2 — absolute human garbage.”
“His name is Hong-the-trash?”
“No. His real name is Hong Seok-hui. But everyone calls him Hong-the-trash. It’s the nickname he hates the most.”
Chae-rim finished her explanation, and just having to say his name seemed to make her skin crawl — her expression twisted with visible distaste. Lee Min-jae, who had come to stand beside her, asked again.
“He’s the one out there yelling at us to open the door right now?”
“Looks like it.”
The one who answered Lee Min-jae’s words was Cha Do-hyun, who had been observing the situation from behind Kim Jae-yun.
The sound of fingernails pathetically clawing at the door from earlier had been setting him on edge. It was like a foul-tempered cat raking its claws across sandpaper with reckless abandon.
Chae-rim, who had been listening quietly, crossed her arms and said:
“Let’s not open it. Do we have to?”
Kim Jae-yun also glanced back as if he agreed with Chae-rim.
“I’m in. That bastard deserves to get torn apart by zombies.”
Lee Min-jae cut in with a voice that was genuinely taken aback.
“I-is he really that bad? But still, if he’s a survivor….”
“Yeah. He’s really that bad. I can’t believe he hasn’t been wiped out yet.”
Kim Jae-yun cut off Lee Min-jae’s words with his answer. Even so, Lee Min-jae, still caught in confusion, shifted his gaze away from the two with their firm opinions and toward Cha Do-hyun, who was just standing there quietly. But Cha Do-hyun was staring at the closed door with full concentration, as if he had zero interest in their conversation.
More precisely — he was concentrating on the sounds from beyond the closed door.
“I know you’re all in there. Open up, unless you want to all die together…!”
The voice on the other side of the door wasn’t screaming at the top of his lungs yet, but it was unmistakably soaked in terror. The pitch kept rising, and the unsteadily trembling voice came through in full — like a ticking time bomb, strings pulled taut, scratching at his vocal cords.
It was then that Cha Do-hyun, who had been quietly listening to the ticking sound, opened his mouth.
“If we don’t let him in, he’s going to draw all the zombies here.”
At those slowly delivered words, Kim Jae-yun and Han Chae-rim, who had been mid-argument, turned to look at Cha Do-hyun. He continued without caring about the gazes now fixed on him.
“He’s going to blow himself up and take us with him.”
At those death-knell words, the three gazes that had been fixed on Cha Do-hyun slowly drifted back to the closed door.
Holding their breath and just watching, they could feel the voice — more agitated now than at first — flowing into the quiet interior of the music room. The pounding sound coming from somewhere, like an auditory hallucination, needlessly stoked their fear as well.
In that unfamiliar stillness, Chae-rim, after a moment of silence, swallowed drily and spoke.
“So if we don’t open it, he’s going to lead the zombies here? On purpose? So we all die together?”
“That’s probably what he intended from the start. I don’t know how he knew we were in here, but looking at the situation right now, that’s it. There are probably already zombies following that noise.”
Chae-rim couldn’t find any words to respond to Cha Do-hyun delivering the facts so evenly. And with good reason — because the voice coming from outside the door was already soaked in madness.
If things continued this way, the zombies who’d heard the noise would certainly swarm up to the fifth floor. Chae-rim looked around the inside of the music room and asked.
“Can’t we block the door with desks and chairs? If we close it off, surely….”
“If he can’t get in through the door, he’ll climb in through a window. And more than that, being trapped in here, we won’t last long ourselves. There’s no water, no food here.”
“…….”
“If we leave him out there like that, the fifth floor will be overrun with zombies in no time.”
In the end, either way, staying here meant they were facing death. It was only a matter of how much longer they could hold out.
Given that logic, as Cha Do-hyun said — rather than leaving Hong Seok-hui making noise in the fifth-floor hallway, it might be better to bring him inside and deal with him here, even if that meant finishing him off. Kim Jae-yun, who had been alternating between listening to their exchange, suddenly grabbed the music room door handle and said:
“So we open it?”
Seeing this, Lee Min-jae grabbed Kim Jae-yun in a panic.
“W-w-wait, wait wait. You’re really opening it? What if he’s been bitten by a zombie?”
“Then I’ll just stab him with the spear. We outnumber him.”
“N-no no no wait, Kim Jae-yun… eek!”
Kim Jae-yun, unfazed by Lee Min-jae’s fussing, readied himself to pull on the handle. When the rattling made Lee Min-jae let out a small shriek, Kim Jae-yun exhaled sharply.
“What a fuss.”
Even so, his gaze was still on Cha Do-hyun, who was watching the door. It was as if he was waiting for one last word of permission. Cha Do-hyun responded to Kim Jae-yun as if in answer.
“Open it.”
At the low-dropped permission, the firmly shut music room door rattled open — and the scene outside was revealed.
