THE VARIANT: ZERO HOUR

11. THE MOTHER'S TRAGEDY

Ring! Ring! The cheerfully shrill K-Pop ringtone felt exactly like a razor blade slicing through the middle of a room that reeked of fresh blood.

"Turn it off or answer it, you bastard! It's too fucking loud!" Jinwoo yelled in a panic, his eyes glaring at the phone in Jaemin's hand. "Do you want to invite every single monster on the third floor over here?!"

"Throw the phone out the window! Right fucking now!" Min-Ji aimed her pistol directly at the device. "If you won't throw it, I will shoot the damn thing to pieces!"

"Shut the hell up, both of you! It is my mom!" Jaemin snapped. His voice trembled violently. His index finger, smeared with thick black blood, hovered hesitantly over the screen. "I have to answer it. She must be waiting for me and Jihoon!"

"Jaemin." Jihoon tugged at the edge of his older brother's shirt. The young boy's eyes sparkled with desperate hope. "Is that Mom? She is coming to get us, right?"

Jaemin swallowed hard, the lump in his throat feeling exactly like a rusty nail. He swiped the green button on the screen and pressed the phone to his ear.

"Hello? Mom?! Where are you right now? Are you safe?!" Jaemin blurted out without taking a single breath. His chest heaved. "Hello, Mom? Answer me! It's Jaemin! Jihoon and I are safe on the third floor! Do not come inside. It is incredibly dangerous down there!"

Silence.

There was no relieved sigh from his mother. There was no familiar scolding, the kind she usually gave him for taking too long to answer her calls.

"Mom? What the fuck, please answer! Is the signal bad?" Jaemin hit the speakerphone button so the audio would be clearer. "Hello?! You can hear me, right?!"

A sound finally echoed from the phone's speaker.

But it was absolutely not human.

Crunch. Slurp. Crack!

The noise sounded incredibly wet and sticky. It sounded exactly like someone viciously tearing into raw meat with their bare teeth. It was immediately followed by a thick, sickening slurping noise and the sharp snap of cartilage being violently crushed.

Jinwoo's face instantly turned deathly pale. "Jaemin. Hang up the phone. I swear to God, hang it up right now."

"No! This has to be her. She must be hiding!" Jaemin completely refused to believe it. His eyes began to burn red. He screamed directly into the phone. "Mom! Run! Throw the phone away if there are monsters near you! Fucking run!"

Grrrrrrr.

A low, incredibly harsh growl, sounding remarkably like a chainsaw running out of oil, vibrated through the speaker. The growl sounded horrifyingly close to the phone's microphone.

"Snap out of it, Jaemin!" Min-Ji stepped forward and snatched the phone violently from his hand. She stared at the screen, which was still an active call, and then glared at Jaemin with a deathly cold gaze. "Your mom is gone. The thing holding this phone right now is either the monster that just ate her, or it is your mom actively eating someone else."

"Watch your fucking mouth!" Jaemin lunged forward, aggressively snatching his phone back. "My mom is still alive! She has to be hiding out front. She just told me she was going to wait for us near the security guard post!"

"The guard post?" Jinwoo repeated the words, his eyes widening. He frantically ran toward the archive room window, its glass already completely shattered.

"Jinwoo, what the hell are you doing?!" Min-Ji demanded.

"You can see the front lobby guard post from this window!" Jinwoo stuck his head out, staring down at the massive parking lot and the hospital's main gates far below.

"Move out of the way. Let me look!" Jaemin shoved Jinwoo's shoulder roughly. He slammed both of his hands onto the glass-covered window frame. His bloodshot eyes desperately swept over the horrific scene below.

The absolute chaos outside was a hundred times worse than any of them could have ever imagined. Hundreds of the walking dead were actively roaming across the asphalt parking lot. Cars had violently crashed into one another and were actively burning.

And right there, directly next to the pillar of the main gate's security post.

Jaemin's silver eyes locked onto a single figure.

A woman was crouching with her back facing the hospital building. She was wearing a knee-length, long-sleeved maroon dress. It was the exact same dress his mother had been ironing that very morning. The woman was hunched directly over the mangled corpse of a traffic cop. Her hands were aggressively tearing open the officer's chest. Her entire face was buried deep inside his fresh, blood-soaked intestines.

On the ground, not too far from the red-dressed woman's feet, lay a woman's handbag, its contents completely spilled out. A smartphone screen glowed brightly right next to a thick puddle of blood.

"No. This is impossible," Jaemin muttered. His voice was absolutely nothing more than a hollow, broken whisper. His grip on the window frame tightened so violently that his knuckles turned stark white.

"Jaemin. Is that really your mom?" Jinwoo asked hoarsely. He stared down at the exact same horrifying spot. The young police officer swallowed hard.

"It's a lie. She was just making me egg rolls for breakfast this morning." Jaemin slowly shook his head, completely refusing to accept the reality that was actively shattering his sanity. "She was just scolding me for waking up late. Jinwoo, that is not her, right? Tell me that is not my mom!"

Jinwoo took a deep, shaky breath. He patted Jaemin's shoulder with a trembling hand. "I am so sorry, Jaemin. You have to be strong."

"Jaemin? What did Mom say? Where is she?"

Jihoon's small voice coming from behind them took Jaemin's newly collapsed world and completely pulverized it into dust. The twelve-year-old boy walked closer to the window, desperately trying to stand on his tiptoes to peek outside. "I want to see Mom! She is waiting down there, isn't she?"

"Do not look!"

Jaemin spun around violently. He immediately tackled Jihoon, hugging the young boy incredibly tight and forcefully pressing Jihoon's face directly into his chest. His hand covered his little brother's eyes with brutal possessiveness.

"Let me go! I want to see Mom!" Jihoon thrashed wildly, beating his small fists against his older brother's chest. "Why are you crying?! What happened to Mom?! Answer me!"

"Step back, Jihoon! Do not look outside!" Jaemin snapped, his voice cracking heavily amidst his own sobs. The tears finally spilled over, completely soaking his handsome face, which was already covered in dirt and dried blood. "Mom. Mom already went home without us. She is not down there."

"Liar! She just called us! Let me go!" Jihoon screamed hysterically. His own wails finally broke out. The boy continued to struggle, but Jaemin's sheer strength locked him completely in place.

Jaemin collapsed heavily to his knees on the dusty floor, still hugging his little brother incredibly tight. He buried his face deep into the crook of Jihoon's neck, weeping uncontrollably exactly like a small child. His innocence, his hope, and absolutely every last remnant of his old world had just violently died, torn apart by the teeth of the monster down below.

"I am so sorry, Jihoon. I am so sorry. I completely failed to protect her." Jaemin babbled incoherently, gripping his own shirt tightly. The physical pain in his injured left arm was absolutely nothing compared to the massive, gaping hole currently tearing through his chest.

Jinwoo looked away, quickly wiping his own burning eyes. He simply could not bear to watch his best friend shatter into a million pieces like this.

"The apocalypse does not give a single damn about your tears."

Min-Ji's sharp, entirely emotionless voice sliced cleanly through the tragic moment. The former fixer walked right past them, picked up Jaemin's dropped phone from the floor, and firmly ended the active call.

"Save your crying for later, Jaemin. Do you honestly think crying is going to magically bring your mom back to life?" Min-Ji turned around, glaring at him with absolute coldness. "You are the one and only pillar of support your little brother has left. If you shatter completely, both of you are going to die. We need to figure out a way out of here before the old man's bleeding wounds get us all surrounded."

"Have a little fucking empathy, will you?!" Jinwoo snapped at Min-Ji, his own emotions finally exploding. "His mother was literally just eaten alive by a zombie right in front of his own eyes! Just give him five damn minutes to breathe!"

"Those five damn minutes could easily be the exact reason we all get slaughtered by the walking dead, Officer," Min-Ji fired back without even blinking. She pointed directly at Minseok, who was beginning to convulse in agony as he clutched his severely injured shoulder. "Look at him. His blood is continuously dripping. The metallic stench in here already smells like a damn fish market. Sooner or later, the banging on that door is going to turn into a full-blown siege."

"MMMM! MMMMPH!" Minseok groaned loudly through the thick duct tape over his mouth. Tears mixed heavily with cold sweat, completely soaking his badly bruised face.

"Shut the hell up, you bald bastard! My best friend's mom is dead entirely because of your failed experiments!" Jinwoo viciously kicked Minseok directly in the shin. "I seriously want to put a bullet straight through your skull right now."

"I already told you not to waste your bullets on pure garbage," Min-Ji interrupted. "We have to find an escape route to the adjacent building or up to the roof. We absolutely cannot stay here."

Kzzzt. Bzzzzzt.

Their heated argument stopped in an instant.

An incredibly loud burst of static suddenly buzzed directly from Jinwoo's waist. The tactical police radio, which had been completely dead this entire time, abruptly turned itself on. It shattered the silence of the room with a highly classified military frequency.

Everyone froze completely. Even Jaemin stopped his heavy sobbing, looking up to stare blankly at the radio hooked to Jinwoo's belt.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

The highly familiar three-tone alarm, recognizable to every single citizen in the country, blared loudly from the radio's speaker. It was the National Emergency Broadcast tone.

Then, a male operator's voice began to speak. His intonation was entirely robotic, deeply cold, and completely devoid of any emotion.

"Attention. This is an emergency broadcast from the Central Military Defense Command. Repeat, this is an absolute emergency broadcast."

Jinwoo frantically unclipped the radio from his belt and cranked the volume dial up to its absolute maximum. His hands trembled violently. "Shh! Shut up. Listen to the instructions."

"To all active police units and remaining survivors tuning into this frequency. The status of the unidentified pathogen outbreak has officially reached Code Red. The outbreak absolutely cannot be contained via ground evacuation protocols."

"What the fuck. What does he mean it cannot be contained?" Jaemin whispered, his eyes widening in pure horror.

"The entire radius encompassing the Daehan Metropolitan Hospital, District 4, and all surrounding structures within a two-kilometer range, has officially been designated as a BLACK ZONE. Absolutely no rescue operations will be conducted within this area. In order to permanently prevent the pathogen from spreading into the city center, the Black Zone will be entirely sterilized."

"Sterilized?" Min-Ji narrowed her eyes sharply. Her deeply ingrained instincts as a former fixer instantly smelled a fatal threat. "What the hell does he mean by sterilized?"

"Central Command has officially deployed the Air Squadron to conduct heavy, tactical bombardment operations utilizing Napalm. The entire designated area will be completely scorched and leveled to the ground. There will be absolutely no exceptions. The launch time for the first missile strike is exactly ninety minutes from the start of this broadcast. To all uninfected survivors, evacuate the Black Zone radius immediately. Anyone remaining within the zone will be officially classified as acceptable collateral damage."

BZZZZT. KZZZT.

The radio went completely dead once again, leaving only a faint, soft static hissing into the air.

The dead silence that fell over the room right after the broadcast felt infinitely heavier and far more suffocating than the moment they had first laid eyes on the monsters.

"Bombs." Jihoon whispered, his face entirely drained of color. He hugged Jaemin's neck even tighter. "They are going to bomb us?"

"Ninety minutes," Jinwoo muttered softly. The young police officer dropped his radio completely. It clattered against the floor. His eyes stared entirely blankly at the wall. "We only have ninety minutes left. The military has completely given up on this entire place."

Min-Ji aggressively cursed using the absolute foulest street slang imaginable. She violently kicked an archive box, sending its contents flying everywhere. "The government is full of fucking bastards! They are literally going to roast us alive right alongside these monsters?!"

Jaemin looked down. He stared intently at Jihoon, who was still crying softly. The absolute terror etched onto his little brother's face forcefully awakened something deep within him. The agonizing sorrow over his mother's brutal death was slowly, methodically locked away in the darkest corner of his brain. It was entirely overwritten by the single, absolute basic instinct he had left. Survival.

He had failed to save his mother. But he swore to God, he would absolutely not let his little brother burn to death inside this godforsaken hospital.

Jaemin wiped his tears away using the back of his blood-stained hand. His bloodshot eyes now radiated the fierce, utterly savage glare of a highly dangerous, cornered predator.

"Jinwoo. Min-Ji." Jaemin stood up tall, firmly pulling Jihoon directly behind his back. His voice no longer trembled in the slightest. The young man's innocence had officially died right alongside his mother down below. "Grab your weapons. Craft some makeshift armor for your arms using the thick folders and duct tape. We are absolutely not hiding anymore."

"What the hell are you planning to do, Jaemin? There are literally hundreds of the walking dead roaming right outside that door!" Jinwoo stared at him in pure disbelief.

"I do not give a single damn if there are a thousand literal demons standing in that hallway," Jaemin growled. He tightly gripped the massive kitchen knife he had scavenged from the cafeteria earlier. "We are walking out of this room right now. Anything that blocks our path gets completely mutilated."