Chapter 34

The doctor was still trembling as he recalled that horrifying scene.

“Those bastards eventually came into the hospital, but there were too many zombies in front of the fire shutter, so they couldn’t make it to us. They went back to the window and knocked on it, but there were too many zombies nearby, so they left. When I peeked out again later, they had left these letters written in blood.”

“Why didn’t you run away immediately? Staying here is dangerous.” Yohan asked. He had been listening quietly up until now.

“They had cut off the man’s legs and left them in front of the window. Zombies were constantly attracted over. We just—we just couldn’t go outside…breaking the window would just be suicide since the sound would attract all the zombies nearby. However, thankfully, the zombies started leaving yesterday. We were going to prepare today and then leave this place.”

‘It was because of the zombie wave.’ Yohan thought. All the zombies here probably ended up at the mall. Yohan looked at the zombie outside the window. Just as the doctor had stated, it was missing its lower torso and had been beaten savagely before turning undead. Two of its fingers were cut off.

The other members of the recon team had grim looks on their faces after hearing the survivor’s story. Even Sweeper had a disgusted look on his face, despite having already experienced much hardship himself.

This was probably because this was their first time encountering a true enemy. People often thought that anarchy would reign supreme in an apocalypse, but most people were raised to be civil and cooperative. Truth be told, it was rare for people to become such brutes within the first six months of apocalypse unless they were already criminals or were forced by some extreme circumstances. Their moral constraints were what led people to believe that the military or government was still operational and would someday resolve this calamity. When that faint hope disappeared was when true chaos would ensue.

Yohan focused, elevating his survival instincts and awareness. The bikers had blood marks under their eyes. He made a mental note to eliminate each and every one of those bastards. Yohan held the doctor’s hand reassuringly before turning to speak to Gap Soo.

“We’ll help you.”

“Excuse me?”

“But, I do have one condition.”

“Wh—what are you going to help us with? And what condition?”

“We’ll clear out all the zombies in the hospital and we’ll deliver supplies to you regularly. Additionally, we’ll protect you from those bastards.” Yohan deliberately pulled out his rifle and took out a magazine to show it was filled with ammo. He then handed Gap Soo a walkie-talkie. Gap Soo’s eyes widened.

“We’re about 15 minutes away from here. We have a lot of supplies and plenty of weapons. You can call us during an emergency and we’ll come right away to help.”

“Really?” Gap Soo’s expression was still doubtful, but he was no longer responding with hostility. Still, he wanted to know why Yohan would help them this much. “First, tell us what you expect from us.”

It was a good attitude to have. There was nothing more suspicious than a good deed done for no reason. Yohan did have a clear reason why he was offering protection.

“Please partner up with our camp.”

The survivors didn’t quite understand, so Yohan had to explain his idea slowly. Internally, Yohan thought that it might be a good idea to create a pamphlet.

“You don’t need to move away from here, just follow our rules and cooperate with us. For example, you must follow our survival rules and regulations, accept any survivors we might bring to you, and agree to move people around temporarily if their skills would benefit other camps. There’s a few things you must agree to do, but it’s nothing extreme. Our goal is to gather and connect all of the survivor camps and try to keep as many survivors safe as possible.”

What Yohan offered was a sweet deal. An unbelievable deal. Something too good to be true, like a poisoned apple. Even so, it was difficult to resist taking a bite out of a juicy apple when it was dangled in front of them.

“I understand that you don’t trust me, but you have to.”

Gap Soo didn’t know if Yohan was an angel or a devil. He closed his eyes tightly.

“What do we need to do?”

Yohan’s eyes lit up. They had taken the bait, now all he had to do was reel them in.

“First, let’s clear out the zombies together. Once we finished that, as a sign of our partnership, we’ll take one person back to our camp. Doctor?” Yohan looked over to the doctor. He was still holding his hand.

“That’s…” The doctor had a troubled look on his face. The other survivors also expressed their disapproval. Gap Soo stepped forward.

“That’s difficult for us. We’re worried about sending one of our comrades alone to an unknown place. And this person is a doctor. If he’s not here, we’d start feeling anxious.”

“We do regret making you worry, but we have a lot of elders at our camp, among many other people. However, we’ll stop by almost every day. The nurse can help out here in an emergency. If someone here needs a doctor, we’ll make sure they’ll be able to see him right away.”

“Still, we can’t send our comrade to a place we don’t know since we don’t fully know your intentions…”

“Mr. Shin Gap Soo,” Yohan interjected coldly, making Gap Soo flinch.”If we had any malicious intent and only wanted a doctor, then it would’ve been easier for us to just kill all of you and kidnap the doctor.”

“How could you say such a thing…”

“I said it to prove a point. I understand where you’re coming from, but you don’t have to worry. Right now we can afford to have this debate, but eventually we’ll reach a point where you’ll have to make a life-or-death decision.” Yohan paused. “Don’t pick incorrectly and regret it when that time comes.”

If they weren’t going to cooperate, then Yohan wasn’t going to help. Gap Soo’s face turned sour, but the doctor stepped up.

“I’ll go with you.”

“D—doctor!”

“Don’t worry Hyun Soo’s father. Nurse Jung is a veteran nurse with lots of surgery room experience. Nurse Jung, please take care of them while I’m gone.”

“…Yes doctor.”

Hearing that the nurse had surgery room experience made Yohan lick his lips. He didn’t know what her expertise was, but nurses were required for a proper surgical procedure. He honestly wanted to take both of them, but knew that proposal would never be accepted.

“To help foster community between the partnered camps, we’ll exchange people often. This won’t be a permanent parting.”

“Well, there’s nothing left here. Couldn’t you just take us back to your camp as well? We won’t be a burden…” Gap Soo offered an alternative solution. It was an understandable suggestion for someone to make, not knowing anything about zombie waves. Yohan shook his head bitterly. If they could avoid zombie waves, he would take as many people as possible back to their camp.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t accept more people into our camp. We actually have to bring some of our camp members here. We don’t have space because we’ve been collecting supplies.” Yohan came up with a reasonable sounding excuse. He decided to explain about zombie waves and his golden survival rules at a later date. The survivors still looked doubtful. Yohan sensed that he needed to do more in order to convince them.

“Saeri, open the door. It’s noisy outside.” He commanded. The survivors looked shocked. They could still hear the zombies on the other side of the door. Before anyone could stop her, Saeri opened the heavy steel door. As soon as the door fully opened, the sound of undead howls filled the cafeteria.

“Make a circle around the entrance!”

The recon team quickly took their positions. They formed a semicircle around the entrance and started killing off the zombies as they rushed in. The survivors jaws dropped as they watched countless zombies hit the floor.

“Th—that…”

Even the young and slender Saeri was able to skillfully crush zombie heads. She was better than Gap Soo, who was their best zombie fighter. The horde that they had fled from earlier were soon all dead on the ground. Yohan wiped the blood from his knife and spun around. The survivors flinched.

“We’ll start clearing out the zombies. If something happens, or if you see someone approaching, use the walkie-talkie and let us know right away. Always keep one person at the window on lookout. Press this button and, after you hear the beep, wait two seconds and then start talking. There will be other people listening, so call out my name so that others won’t get confused.”

Gap Soo nodded his head numbly. He had a blank look on his face, which was understandable. It must have been the first time he’d watched trained survivors fight zombies. In this hellscape where a simple touch could turn people into zombies, people would normally cower, even if they were facing slow moving zombies that only knew how to bite. Training someone to fight instead of cowering seemed like a simple concept, but it was a difficult barrier to overcome.

“Let’s begin. Don’t walk into dark places. It’s okay to take your time.”

Before they began in earnest, Yohan reviewed a map of the hospital that he saw earlier when they first entered.

“We’re going to take every left turn. Close any doors that can be closed. Since there’s a lot of entrances into the hospital, we’ll need to block them from the inside and then take care of the zombies that came in. After that, we’ll assume a defensive formation and lure in the zombies.”

“It’s the same thing we did at the mall.” Saeri mumbled. Yohan was impressed and gave her a proud look. Finally, she was pulling her own weight. In another two weeks or so, she would be able to exceed expectations. Saeri didn’t like the way Yohan was looking at her.

“Don’t look at me like a dog you just potty trained!” She grumbled.

“Wow, you’re pretty sharp sometimes.”

“…”

Before Saeri could talk back, Yohan began outlining his plan.

“Just like Saeri said, whenever we set out to secure a new shelter in the future, we’ll use the same procedure. Find the entrance and block it. Find a safe place, either somewhere high or somewhere spacious. Assume our cardinal directions defensive formation. Lure in the zombies and kill them. Clean up the corpses after we’ve completely cleared them out. Remember this procedure well. Even if I’m not here, it’ll be the same. And remember, safety before speed.”

The recon team moved through the first floor and locked the door there. After barricading the emergency exits, they lowered the fire shutter and blocked off the annex and the main building.

“Okay, it’s locked now!”

“Great, let’s move.”

“Wow, there’s a lot of zombies in the annex.” Sweeper noted, looking at the zombies.

“Leave that place alone. There’s nothing for us there.” Yohan pulled Sweeper back and opened the emergency exit that was next to a fire shutter. “I told you to be careful, not play around.”

“Bro, you’re too serious.”

Yohan had confirmed that the annex was unnecessary when reviewing the hospital directory. Before securing a camp, one must memorize the building’s layout first. It was the most basic of basic tactics.