The characteristics of zombies, as widely known, generally went like this.
First, a person undergoing zombification loses all human reason. They become little more than a vegetable — only animal senses and instinct remain.
Second, a zombie’s eyesight degrades to the point of near-blindness. In its place, their hearing develops, giving them beast-like auditory perception.
Third, a zombie’s blood and saliva carry a powerful infectivity, transmitted through wounds or mucous membranes. Anyone bitten by a zombie will complete the zombification process within a few hours, and zombies of the same kind do not attack one another.
Everything I knew about zombie characteristics came from movies and dramas, but after observing them firsthand from within their midst, it seemed like the information wasn’t entirely wrong.
If anything, the traits portrayed in media were fairly accurate. Every single zombie swarming around looked exactly like what I’d always imagined.
Except for me, of course.
To anyone watching, I probably looked no different from the zombies standing right beside me — but fortunately, my eyesight hadn’t fully deteriorated, and I hadn’t lost my reason. My hearing did seem to have gotten a little more sensitive, but… anyway.
In that sense, I was probably in a relatively positive situation. How bleak would it have been if I’d lost the ability to think, just like all the other zombies? Just imagining it sent a chill crawling down my spine.
“Krrk….”
That’s exactly why I couldn’t help but be startled by what unfolded before my eyes. And no wonder — the third floor, which I’d assumed would be no different from the second, had a considerable number of zombies lined up in rows.
The third floor I’d climbed up to after hearing a sound was a completely different scene from the quiet second floor. Unlike the second floor, where only one or two had been wandering around, the third floor was already occupied by hunched-over zombies starting from the very entrance of the stairwell.
It was a sight that genuinely evoked the kind of zombie apocalypse you’d only ever see in a film. As I took in that vividly unfolding scene before my eyes, I let out a small involuntary gasp.
So this… this isn’t a movie set. This is actually real?
If someone had been watching me right now, I probably would’ve looked incredibly stupid. But what could I do. No matter how many times I saw it, it never stopped being shocking.
The sight of the zombies wandering around the schoolyard had been bizarre and startling enough, but seeing so many from a distance versus seeing them up close like this were two entirely different things. More than anything, what had changed between my first encounter with a zombie and now was that I was acutely, undeniably aware that I was one of them.
“…….”
Zombies don’t bite their own kind. They don’t charge at them in excitement or attack them. The reason I could stand here perfectly fine among the zombies filling this corridor — that was why.
Because I was a zombie, just like them.
And that was an absolute, unchanging fact — one I had no choice but to accept, whether I wanted to or not.
Having assessed the situation on my own, I carefully stepped forward. When I fully crossed through the stairwell and entered the corridor, the scene that spread out before me was far more harrowing than I’d anticipated. Unlike the second floor, which had merely had the occasional broken window and scattered mess, the third floor was in complete and utter chaos. Not a single classroom had been left intact.
With each slow, heavy step I took, there came the crunch, crunch of glass shards being ground underfoot — but the zombies only flinched their shoulders at the sound, still showing no signs of aggression. Thanks to that, I was able to survey the third-floor corridor in relative peace.
Carefully treading on the glass fragments scattered across the floor, I observed the surrounding zombies in detail. The sluggish zombies were distributed throughout the corridor in various forms, but the most striking one was a zombie pressed forehead-first against the wall, standing completely motionless as if in meditation.
Why is it doing that…? In the end, unable to contain my curiosity, I cautiously approached. I leaned in to sneak a look at its face, wondering if it might be someone I recognized — but just as I drew up beside it, the zombie, which had shown absolutely no movement until that point, suddenly snapped its head toward me.
I nearly stumbled backwards in surprise, but fortunately Kim Gwang-deok, who had been trailing closely behind me, was there to keep me from falling.
The zombie that had abruptly turned to fix me with a hard stare eventually turned its head again and shambled away in the opposite direction.
Should I even call that lucky.
Anyway, if there was one good thing about having become a zombie, it was that I no longer had to be frightened by each and every zombie with their horrifying appearance. Not that I was completely unafraid, either.
Unable to hide my bewilderment, I slowly continued walking. The longer I wandered through the corridor, the more apparent the difference from the second floor became — and that difference was the stench. Thick, sticky… or more precisely…
The smell of rotting blood….
The blood pooled and festering in various spots on the floor gave off a stench like a gas-filled room that hadn’t been ventilated for days on end. It was the kind of smell that made it horrifying to even imagine what kind of brutal struggle had taken place here.
I raised one arm to cover my nose and wandered through various parts of the third-floor corridor trying to locate the source of the stench, but strangely, it didn’t seem to be coming from just one place.
Sure enough, unlike the zombies I’d encountered on the second floor, every single zombie clustered here had dark, reddish blood caked into their torn clothing.
Where on earth had all that blood come from.
Even granting that zombies bite and tear at flesh when infecting people, blood usually dries quickly even if it soaks through in the process. Yet the zombies in front of me all bore bloodstains that looked fresh — as if the blood had just been smeared on moments ago.
I suddenly stopped in my tracks, struck by a sense of déjà vu flashing through my mind. And then I thought.
Could it be… are there still survivors here?
Between the zombies gathering here, unlike the quiet second floor, and the fact that the zombies’ movements were noticeably more on edge — the atmosphere felt anything but ordinary.
If there really were survivors still staying here…
“…….”
That’s when I was in the middle of entertaining that ominous possibility. Suddenly, the school bell rang out through the entire corridor. At the abrupt sound of the bell ringing throughout the school, the zombies that had been endlessly wandering the corridor all snapped their heads up.
I heard it too, of course. The familiar bell sound was coming from somewhere in the vicinity, and I was able to pinpoint its location immediately. It was the broadcasting room at the far end of the corridor.
In zombie movies, there’s always that scene, isn’t there — where zombies scattered all over come rushing toward a loud noise from all directions.
Sure enough, the moment the bell rang out through the corridor, the zombies swarmed together and charged toward the source of the sound.
I watched that for a moment before belatedly starting to move my limping leg.
Either way, I’m a zombie too… it seemed like I should just run after them.
* * *
Following the zombies as they stampeded together, I arrived at — sure enough — the broadcasting room at the far end of the third floor.
The zombies who had arrived before me were all making guttural, throat-scraping sounds in front of the tightly shut broadcasting room door. And indeed, beyond the stairwell, more zombies who had heard the bell and come running were gathered in front of the broadcasting room, just like me.
They were torn up and soaked in blood, but most of them were in the same school uniform as me. Among them, a few were in casual clothes — though they didn’t look like outsiders. Even if I couldn’t make out the details, every face felt familiar.
I dragged my limping leg forward and continued approaching the broadcasting room. I scanned the zombies’ faces one by one, wondering if Cha Do-hyun might be mixed in among them — but thankfully, Cha Do-hyun didn’t appear to be there.
Well, if Cha Do-hyun had been in the mix, I probably would’ve spotted him even without looking at his face. Cha Do-hyun was the tallest guy in our year — a total beanpole.
If he’d been here, he would’ve definitely been the one with his head sticking out above all the other zombies huddled in a circle in front of the broadcasting room door.
Picturing that, I felt tears unexpectedly prick at my eyes. At the same time, I thought — it’s a good thing it was me here and not him.
It’s because it’s me that I managed to survive among these zombies like this! If it had been Cha Do-hyun who got infected instead of me, wouldn’t he have been trembling and shaking in fear? Or maybe he would’ve ended up just like these zombies — no better than a vegetable.
‘Jae-i, get ahold of yourself. Han Jae-i—!’
And then that guy would go around crying and blubbering. The same guy who always seemed so rigid and acted so tough — breaking down in tears like a little kid. It was almost funny.
“…….”
I became conscious of Cha Do-hyun’s name tag inside my pocket, then shook my head. Either way, Cha Do-hyun was alive thanks to me, and just like always, he’d be doing fine without a care in the world.
With that quietly proud feeling swelling in my chest, I was standing tall and self-satisfied —
Thud! Craaack—
The sound that suddenly shook the corridor came like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky. It seemed like the ones gathered at the broadcasting room had finally broken the door down. At the same time, the noise-sensitive zombies reacted to the massive sound without fail and began roaring all at once.
“Krrgh… kkgh….”
“Grrlk—!”
The simultaneous wailing made it feel like my eardrums were about to shatter. The zombies grew more and more agitated by the sound of their own cries. It was clear that zombies truly did have heightened hearing — the louder the noise grew, the more of them came swarming toward the broadcasting room.
Jostled again and again by the surging crowd, I was pushed all the way to the corridor window and barely managed to grab onto the window frame.
