Walking Daddy

Something fell on top of the mutant’s head. It dropped so fast that nobody could tell what it was. Park Gi-Cheol covered his face with his hands and coughed constantly. Thick dust flew everywhere. Through the dust, a human figure could be seen.

Park Gi-Cheol, the guard leader, and the group leader—who was frowning—saw a pair of glowing red eyes piercing through the dust.

The mutant took a while to get back to its senses.

Kiaaa…

The sound drew the attention of the glowing red eyes. There was the sound of a watermelon cracking, and several round marbles rolled toward the trio. The rolling marbles came to a halt as they reached Park Gi-Cheol’s feet. He looked down subconsciously.

His jaws dropped to the ground. The marbles were the mutant’s eyes. A bunch of unfocused eyes rolled and came to a rest at Park Gi-Cheol’s feet after the mutant’s head had been smashed in.

The figure with glowing red eyes began to walk toward him through the dust.

The glowing red eyes in front of Park Gi-Cheol belonged to So-Yeon’s father.

* * *

“You, you!”

Park Gi-Cheol’s eyes widened after he saw me. He was clearly startled. The guard leader behind Park Gi-Cheol braced their K2 on their shoulder and pointed their gun at me.

Park Gi-Cheol gasped and placed his hand on the muzzle.

“What are you doing!!!”

“Huh, what?”

“He’s on our side!”

“What? It’s a zombie…?”

The guard leader spluttered, taken aback by the statement. The guard leader was having a hard time comprehending what was going on. They looked back and forth between me and Park Gi-Cheol, not knowing what to do. The group leader, who was on the ground, spoke up.

“Don’t shoot. He’s the man… that Gi-Cheol ahjussi was talking… about…!”

The group leader coughed out a mouthful of blood and fell back onto the ground before she could finish her sentence. Park Gi-Cheol examined her, instructing her to calm down.

“Don’t move. You have to rest for now.”

“Ahjussi…”

“Soldiers without a commander are mere remnants to be swept away. There’s no tomorrow if you don’t make it alive.”

The group leader wiped off the blood around her mouth and looked me straight in the face. Her eyes were a mix of suspicion, distrust, and caution. However, she knew she couldn’t do anything at the moment, so she seemed to make a decision to wait for the situation to develop further.

KIAAA!!!

The mutants that had made their way to the second defense line howled in our direction. It seemed they had noticed that one of their comrades had been killed.

Without a moment’s thought, I clenched my fist and prepared to spring toward them. But then Park Gi-Cheol grabbed my arm.

“What are you trying to do? You think you can take on them by yourself?”

I replied with a sharp nod and charged toward them.

For some reason, I felt sorrow toward the mutants.

‘You guys seem more human than some others I know.’

The enemy leaders that had led the attack with their three thousand underlings had been tripping over themselves to kill each other. They had no sense of camaraderie. But these mutants, who were charging me now that they’d figured out I’d killed one of their own, seemed more human than them.

I wouldn’t have been able to save Park Gi-Cheol if they hadn’t made it past the second defense line.

I had been fighting the zombies on the other side of the wall, but then I heard shooting from within the shelter. When I saw mutants on top of the second defense line, I entered the shelter without hesitation. I was well aware that the survivors could’ve shot me thinking I was an intruder, but I assumed that they were out of ammunition since they weren’t shooting at the mutant.

Everything was just the way I had predicted it.

Swoosh–

The mutant’s long arms swept above my head. Thick blood was dripping from the flesh hanging from it. I grabbed onto one of the loose flaps of fresh and vaulted off the ground, aiming for the top of its head.

I grabbed its two long arms and swung them like a long jump rope, wrapping them around the mutant’s neck and using them to choke it. Using my momentum, I slammed it onto its back.

I smashed my right foot into its face. Its arms and legs went limp and dropped to the ground.

KIAAA!!!

The remaining mutant ran toward me, howling away. As I glared at it with my glowing red eyes, the mutant that was dashing toward me suddenly stopped in its tracks. Its eyeballs began to roam around the area, as if they had lost focus.

‘Is it thinking? That can’t be. No way.’

As I ran toward it, I saw it hesitate for a moment, before laying flat on the ground and gathering its arms and legs around itself, trying to curl up.

‘Is it getting defensive?’

I put all my strength in my right leg and kicked it as if I was kicking a soccer ball. With a crack, the mutant went flying. I was certain I heard its bones crack.

GRRR!!!

It wailed and uncurled itself. I wondered why it was suddenly acting in this way. I couldn’t help but be suspicious.

“They can learn,” came Park Gi-Cheol’s voice from behind me.

I whipped around, and Park Gi-Cheol continued to yell in a high-pitched voice, “There’s no time to lose! You have to kill it before it realizes what you’re up to!”

‘The capacity to learn, huh?’

I twitched my eyebrows and looked at the mutant once again.

The mutant was writhing on the floor in agony, but it quickly found its feet again and stood staring at me. Its eyes, which had been drifting all over the place, finally locked on me.

‘Is it actually thinking? Did it curl up because that defensive stance worked in the past? Did it realize that it shouldn’t be attacking thoughtlessly after seeing its fellow zombie mutants go down?’

From the look on its face, I could only think of it as a being that was thinking of its next move. As I came to this conclusion, it only reinforced the feeling in me that I couldn’t let it live.

If it had learning abilities, it meant it gained experience, and experience was closely tied to combat ability. I couldn’t even fathom what would happen in the future if these mutants were able to improve their physical capabilities in the manner that the zombies with glowing red eyes could.

I sprung from the ground and charged toward it. It lay on the ground and began to wave its long arms and legs about it.

Observing its movements made me more certain that what Park Gi-Cheol had said was true.

It most certainly had the capacity to learn. It was executing a strategy knowing that it had an advantage in terms of reach. I could tell that it was trying to keep me away and not allow me to get close. But there was one thing that the mutant had forgotten.

No plan could survive in the face of overwhelming power.

I grabbed onto its arms, which were flying about it like whips, and pulled as hard as I could. The mutant was pulled toward me as if I were a magnet and the mutant was made of iron filings.

“GRRR!!!”

I let out a battle cry and then started spinning.

The mutant wailed in agony as its arm was unable to withstand the centrifugal force. I heard its muscles tear and rip apart and its joints being dislocated.

I spun more and more quickly until it was difficult even for me to keep balance. The mutant’s arms were torn off, and its body flew into the wall.

I massaged my temples to relieve my dizziness and blinked to clear my vision.

The mutant’s body was lying in a heap, twitching.

I put all my strength in my legs and ran toward the mutant right away. I did not want to give it time to get up. The mutant’s eyes were still unfocused.

Crack!

I kicked it in the eyes with my right foot. The mutant’s head exploded, leaving a large crack in the wall. I sighed deeply and turned around, staring into the faces of the survivors who had watched me fight the mutants. All of them were staring at me, utterly dumbfounded.

I wondered what was going through their minds at that moment. Perhaps they were trying to process whether I was an enemy or an ally.

- Exterminated.

At that moment, I heard a message from my underlings inside my mind. It was a signal from the second company. It seemed like they had taken care of the zombie that had popped my eardrums.

I let out a breath and gave orders to second company.

‘Listen up, second company. Go back to Shelter Seoul Forest and help the first company out. One of you, retrieve the enemy leader’s head and wait for me there.’

I didn’t hear an answer. I smacked my lips and rephrased my order.

‘Who killed the enemy leader?’

- GRR!!!

‘You, get the enemy leader’s head and wait for me. Everyone else, get over here as soon as possible and help the first company.’

- GRR!!!

I realized that, with five hundred of them around, it was difficult for them to decide which of the five hundred should follow the order. Once I received their acknowledgment, I hurried to the second defense line.

The survivors moved out of my way, letting out startled gasps or whimpering. They couldn’t attack me, but at the same time, they couldn’t cheer me on. To them, I wasn’t an enemy, but they couldn’t see me as someone on the same side as them.

I wondered why I was risking my life for them. Perhaps I was feeling guilty, or at least feeling responsible, since I was the one who had attacked the Majang-dong leader.

No, the reason wasn’t that simple.

I knew that the gang members, along with the Majang-dong leader, were beings that had to die. As long as there were beings like them in this world, there would be no peace or safety.

I only did what I had to do, and I had to be prepared for the consequences.

I realized that nothing could be more shameless than sitting around and hoping that the world would become a better place. I was going to fight for my family and fight for my alliance.

The reason I had felt something toward Shelter Seoul Forest wasn’t that I saw them as part of a buffer zone, a breakwater, or I felt petty toward the survivors. It was because this was where Kim Hyeong-Jun’s family was.

Kim Hyeong-Jun had joined me in the battle for Majang-dong for the sake of me and my family. He hadn’t participated because he wanted something from me. He came because we had formed an alliance, and he knew that I could be in trouble. That a wrong decision from me could put my family in Shelter Hae-Young under peril.

I knew that I would have no right to live as a human being if I knew all this and still chose to ignore Kim Hyeong-Jun’s family.

I didn’t care if others judged me or called me stupid. I was planning to make it through this rough world in my own way. I was going to fight for a better tomorrow.

I reached the second defense line, and going up, I took a look at the whole situation. I saw an endless stream of red zombies.

It seemed like my underlings were being pushed back. I wondered if I had wasted too much time taking care of the mutant. The moment I’d left the battlefield, things had taken a turn for the worse. I knew that my underlings would be wiped out if I didn’t do anything immediately.

I knew that, even with the reinforcements from second company, the situation wouldn’t change much. I was more than aware that the enemy leader that had attacked my eardrums wouldn’t have gone down without a fight.

I frowned.

‘If I don’t get rid of the enemy leader, it’ll just be a war of attrition.’

I knew it would be disadvantageous for me if this war of attrition ground on.

I had to think.

I needed to come up with a magic bullet to turn the situation on its head.

My eyes fell on the molotov cocktails rolling about on the floor. Zombies didn’t feel any pain, but that didn’t necessarily mean that they had resistance toward fire.

I wasn’t even hoping to kill them. As long as I got them to stop in their tracks, we would gain the upper hand.

I quickly took out my notepad and wrote down some words.

- How many Molotov cocktails are left?

I showed my notepad to the survivor standing next to me. He spluttered, eyes going wide. Clearly, a zombie trying to communicate with him was just too much to take in.

I clicked my tongue and went over to Park Gi-Cheol. He and the group leader were heading back to the barracks.

As I grabbed his shoulder, he jumped and looked at me.

“Are you alright? Are you hurt anywhere?”

I was thankful that he was looking out for me, but there wasn’t any time for that.

I wrote down a few words and showed them to Park Gi-Cheol.

“Molotov cocktails?”

As I nodded, Park Gi-Cheol turned to the guard leader next to him.

“How many more Molotov cocktails do we have left?”

“...”

The guard leader seemed hesitant to answer. Park Gi-Cheol grabbed the guard leader by their collar and shook them.

“How many are there, damn it!”

“There are still some left in the storage room.”

“Take them all out.”

“Huh? Wait, you don’t have the authorization to request things from the storage room…”

“Can’t you understand him? He says he needs them right now! Do you want everyone here to die?”

Park Gi-Cheol shouted, pointing at me. The guard leader frowned and bit their lower lip.

The group leader spoke, taking ragged breaths as she did so.

“Open the storage room.”

“Group leader!”

The guard leader objected, clearly believing that the group leader had made the wrong decision. The group leader ground her teeth in anger.

“Didn’t you hear Park Gi-Cheol? Are you planning to let everyone here die?”

“Well… No…”

“Then open the storage room.”

“...Got it.”

The group leader entered the barracks, guided by the medics. The guard leader glared at Park Gi-Cheol.

“I’ll see you at the next meeting. You won’t be able to get away with what you did today. You’ll be held responsible for whatever happens today.”

Park Gi-Cheol snorted and snatched the keys hanging on the side of the guard leader’s clothes.

“Meeting? Screw your meeting, man. We’ll die before the next meeting if we don’t do anything right now.”