Walking Daddy

There were seven survivors being dragged along, tied up with rope. They all wore dazed expressions.

One of the survivors, who was crying, spluttered, “Why, why are we being taken as well? I thought you only needed six?”

“Hey, say one more word if you want to die.”

The leader of the dogs slapped the survivor on the head. It seemed like they always took six people at a time as food. Now that seven more survivors had been dragged out, the six survivors next to me started muttering amongst themselves. They, too, were taken aback by the fact that seven more people had been brought out, despite there already being six outside.

Suddenly, one of these six survivors, a man, grabbed onto my shirt and whispered to me, “Hey, hey. Why are you ordering everyone else out? Huh?"

“...”

“Just take us. I know six people are enough.”

He appeared to be in his fifties. The man continued speaking while keeping an eye on the dogs.

“Just take us. I beg you…!”

“…”

As I stayed silent, the man started looking around desperately. After a moment, he grabbed my hand tightly.

“Let me ask you a favor since I’m going to die anyway. My boy is over there. Please save my son. I\'ll do anything. Please? I beg you."

The man\'s face began to darken. It wasn\'t because he was angry.

He was tearing up.

He was begging me to save his son.

I took out my notepad and wrote down several words carefully so that the dogs couldn\'t see what I was writing.

- You said you’d do anything?

“Yes, yes! If you can save my son. I’ll do anything if you promise me you’ll save my son.”

- Are you willing to do anything, no matter how difficult?

The man nodded instead of answering.

I could see the firm determination in the man’s eyes. It seemed like he was even willing to give up his life if I ordered it.

I remained still. The man kept moaning at me to save his son.

At that moment, a man in his twenties, who was among the seven new arrivals, shouted.

"Father!"

The man that was holding my shirt looked at him. The leader of the dogs swung a fist into his face.

“How many times do I have to tell you to shut up!”

The man in his fifties shouted at the leader of the dogs, his eyes swirling with fury.

“Hey you son of a bitch!”

It seemed like watching his son being beaten had caused him to lose it.

The leader of the dogs snorted at the man’s insults and walked toward him. The leader offered me a slight greeting, then slapped the man in his fifties.

“Are you acting out now, now that you know you’re going to die?”

“I won’t forgive you even after I die.”

“Hahaha!!!”

The leader roared with laughter and knocked the man to the ground. He began to attack the man, kicking and stomping on him, sending dust flying everywhere.

When the man in his fifties fell to the ground, all the other survivors who were tied to him lost their balance and were dragged to the ground as well. Their brows furrowed in agitation.

As the man continued to suffer the abuse, the other survivors seemed unable to take the sight of it anymore, and cried out, letting their frustration out.

“Stop please, stop!”

“That’s enough!”

“Why do you keep on hitting us? Why, why, why?!”

Unfortunately, the man wasn’t able to fight back, since he was tied up. All he could do was cover his body with his two skinny arms. The leader of the dogs frowned at the other survivors.

“Look at these worms squirming on the ground. You worms need to be taught a lesson as well!”

He went around and began indiscriminately kicking the six survivors on the ground. As the survivors continued to scream, the man in his twenties, who was witnessing the whole thing, shouted at the top of his lungs. He was so furious, I could see the veins on his neck about to burst.

“Don’t hit them, you son of a bitch!”

“What? Did you call me a son of a bitch?”

The leader of the dogs ground his teeth and turned around after hearing the man in his twenties insult him. But then the man in his fifties, who was already a wreck, gasped violently and grabbed his ankle.

"Please, don\'t go after him. He\'s still young and feisty, you know? He doesn’t know any better.”

The leader of the dogs kicked the man in the face and spat on his face.

“Shut up. How dare you speak, when you’re nothing more than food?”

The man in his twenties continued to hurl vulgarities at the leader. The leader of the dogs walked in front of the young man and then snapped his fingers as if he had just had a realization.

“Wait a second… I shouldn’t be doing this. If this feisty son hasn’t done anything wrong… That means his father is the one to blame for his bad manners, right?”

The dog leader kicked the man in his fifties lightly to get his attention.

“Since the son hasn’t done anything wrong, it’s only right that the father gets hit instead, right?"

He made the man in his fifties stand up so that the younger survivor could see him clearly, then started pounding the older man, grinning as he did so.

In the end, the man in his twenties couldn\'t hold back his tears and begged the leader of the dogs to stop hitting him. Blood was dripping from the lips of the older man, his lips had been split.

Despite the severe beating he was taking, he looked at his son and said, “I’m alright, Hyeon-Bin. Dad’s fine.”

“What do you mean, you’re fine?! How can anything be alright when we know we’re all going to die here?!”

The son bawled, tears flowing freely down his face. The dogs grinned at each other and howled with laughter.

They were enjoying this horrific situation, treating it as entertainment.

As the man in his twenties kept going, the dog next to him kicked him in the stomach. The man in his fifties ground his teeth audibly.

His trembling hands seemed terribly pitiful. I knew he was trembling with fury, but I also knew that he would be feeling pathetic inside, because he knew he couldn’t do anything to change the situation.

I knew more than anyone how he had to be feeling right then.

I sighed and looked at Kim Hyeong-Jun, who was near the wall. He was watching the whole situation calmly. When he noticed that I was looking his way, he smacked his lips.

‘Ahjussi, do you have some sort of plan or idea in mind?\'

\'Why?\'

\'I mean, you haven’t done anything even after seeing all of this happen, so… I assumed that you had something else planned.’

I sighed and nodded.

He was right on.

I felt bad for the survivors, but I wanted to see if they had the will to survive. If they had already accepted death and lost all hope, no shelter out there would accept them.

Taking them to Shelter Hae-Young would be risky as well. I wasn’t sure what they would do to my people at Shelter Hae-Young if they weren’t willing to pull in the same direction. Leaving these people there with them would only give them more to worry about.

Seeing all that had transpired, though, I was now certain of one thing.

They all had the will to survive. And they were worth saving.

Perhaps it was harsh for me to be the judge of whether their lives were worthy or valuable… But I had to know whether these people were still alive, emotionally and rationally.

I let out a quick breath and communicated with Kim Hyeong-Jun.

‘Alright, let’s get to work.\'

‘I’ll take care of the guys standing by the wall. Ahjussi, take care of the two there.\'

As I nodded, Kim Hyeong-Jun stretched his tight shoulders.

‘Ahjussi, whenever you’re ready.\'

I nodded slightly and walked over to the leader of the dogs. He was grinning as he went back and forth between the man in his fifties and the man in his twenties.

‘Is this thing enjoying this situation? Genuinely?’

I tapped the leader on the shoulder with my finger, and he looked back at me with a bright smile.

"Ah! My apologies. You see, these ones really don’t listen. They needed some training. Will you be going straight to your dorm?”

When I nodded, he smiled broadly and spoke to the subordinate next to him.

“You, take charge of the seven people over there and bring them along with you. I\'ll take care of these six."

The subordinate tilted his head.

“Just the two of us?”

The leader looked at me, then whispered, “Can’t you see that those guys are being punished over there? Do you want to go over there and join them?”

"Oh…"

The subordinate looked over at his fellow dogs, who were under Kim Hyeong-Jun’s control, and then nodded. He gripped the rope that tied the seven people together and waited for the leader’s command.

The leader clicked his tongue and glanced at me as he took hold of the rope that tied the group of six survivors together. He flashed another dazzling smile.

“Haha, off we go, then, dong leader.”

I smiled a satisfied smile and patted his head. He looked away with a shy smile, as if surprised by my unexpected gesture.

He immediately bowed deeply from the waist and began to spout gibberish like a top-notch bootlicker.

“Dong leader! I’ll do my best to serve you from now on!”

Yes, you should be doing your best. You should always aim to do your best when you have a goal to achieve. But I knew that this guy had never ever tried his best in his lifetime. I could tell that he had lived a life full of excuses in order to survive. He’d probably survived up to this point by mocking others when they were doing their best, while employing his sneaky tricks to survive.

So… It was time for him to die for the people who had been trying their best to live.

I grab the dog leader’s head with my right hand.

He froze, unable to do anything. I could almost hear his eyes rolling, as though he was trying to pull out yet another sleazy trick from up his sleeve.

I held his head firmly in my right hand. I knew this creature wouldn’t be able to turn around or move its body. At the same time, he couldn’t get annoyed, get away, or ask me questions.

He no longer had the upper hand.

I slowly applied pressure to my grip.

“Ah… Ahhh! Ahhh!"

Only then did he realize that things were terribly wrong, and started tearing at my right arm with his hands. He tried pinching and hitting my arm. He was trying his best to escape my grasp.

He was like a cockroach that had been flipped over onto its back, trying its best to get its legs back under it in order to survive.

However, I knew that no matter how hard he tried, there was no way a human could overcome the strength of my right arm.

I watched him struggle pitifully.

‘This is what doing your best is.\'

I imagined how nice it would be if I could say this to him out loud.

“ARGHHH!!! FUCK!!! LET GO!!!”

He finally started cursing and screaming. I knew he’d be even more terrified because he wasn’t able to straighten up. I could tell that this dog was fearfully staring death in the face as it looked down at the ground. He was probably trying his best to deny reality, thinking that there was no way he would die like this, that this could not be his end.

I tightened my grip as slowly as I could, so that this dog leader would die as painfully as possible.

“ARGHHH!! ARGHHH!!!”

Crack!

At last, his skull imploded with the wet sound of a watermelon bursting. His two arms, which had been clawing at me for dear life, went limp, and his entire body twitched for a moment.

I spat on the floor, furrowing my brow as I felt warm cerebral fluid trickling down my fingertips.

All the dogs looked at me in bewilderment.

They were the definition of a brain fart.

I could tell that their minds were completely muddled. They probably couldn’t understand or accept what had just happened in front of them, despite seeing the whole thing unfold.

Before they got back to their senses, I dashed toward them and punched the dog that was holding the rope in the face. The dog’s face was crushed and he fell to the ground..

Kim Hyeong-Jun moved as though he had been waiting for this. He attacked the dogs who were standing against the wall.

We took care of all of them in an instant.

The survivors stopped crying, and all of them looked at me as though their souls had fled their bodies. I stared at the survivors, my red eyes flashing. None of them had any idea how to deal with this situation.

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

- You can relax now.

The survivors stared blankly at what I’d written. No one dared to speak. The man in his twenties looked at me.

“Who, who are you?”

As I continued to write, I tried to smile as warmly as I could to assuage their fear.

- I’m part of the rescue team.

The eyes of the young man widened in confusion.

“Rescue… rescue team?! But you’re a zombie… No matter how hard I look… But rescue… Rescue? Huh?"

His reaction was perfectly natural. A zombie saying that he was part of a rescue team was more than enough to boggle the mind.

I looked at Kim Hyeong-Jun.

\'I\'ll calm them down. You go ahead and do some scouting.\'

‘Got it.\'

Kim Hyung-jun smiled happily and leaped onto the rooftop in one go.

Only after I’d untied the ropes that were binding them did they finally realize that they had survived. They all started wailing out loud.

And I…decided to wait until they calmed down.