THE VARIANT: ZERO HOUR

8. THE CAFETERIA BUTCHER

 

"GRAAAAAARRGHH!"

The zombie nurse’s hoarse scream exploded directly in Jaemin’s face. There was zero space between them. The stench of its breath, a foul mix of rotting flesh and rubbing alcohol, assaulted his nostrils, making Jaemin want to puke on the spot.

Inside this two-by-two-foot zinc duct, there was no room to dodge. No room to run.

"Shoot, Jinwoo! Fucking shoot!" Jaemin shrieked in panic, his hands braced against the nurse's shoulders as it crawled toward him like a giant centipede. Its black fingernails clawed at his arms.

"I can't, wtf! If this revolver goes off in a narrow pipe, it'll blow out our eardrums and the whole damn hospital will know we're here!" Jinwoo shot back from behind, his voice tight with his own panic. The cramped space made his gun completely useless. "Move aside a little, Jaem! Let me stab it in the eye with my knife!"

"How the hell am I supposed to move, you asshole?! This is a pipe, not a freeway!"

The mutant nurse snapped its dislocated jaw, its teeth nearly tearing off Jaemin's nose. Adrenaline flooded his brain. In the darkness, lit only by the beam of Jinwoo's phone, Jaemin's right hand scrambled desperately along the floor of the vent.

His fingers brushed against a metal bracket, broken and sharp at the edge. Without a second thought, Jaemin wrenched it loose, breaking free a three-hand-span length of rusted iron pipe.

"Eat this, you crawling hag!"

SHUNK! CRAAACK!

Jaemin jammed the iron pipe straight into the nurse's wide-open mouth. The force of the thrust was so great that the pipe’s end pierced the roof of its mouth, destroyed the brain stem, and tore through the back of the zombie's neck.

The monster convulsed violently for three seconds. Thick, black blood with an overwhelmingly foul stench sprayed from its mouth, drenching Jaemin's face, neck, and shirt.

"Ugh, disgusting! WTF, it reeks!" Jaemin spat repeatedly, shoving the corpse off him until it collapsed onto the metal floor.

"You're insane, Jaem. Brutal af," Jinwoo gulped, shining the light on the corpse, its head impaled by the pipe. "I'm revoking your civilian status. You're a certified psychopath."

"Shut up, Officer. Help me push this carcass aside!" Jaemin wiped the black blood from his face with his dirty sleeve. "Hurry up, my brother is waiting for water."

Together, they struggled to crawl past the dead nurse. About forty feet later, Jinwoo tapped Jaemin's calf. "Stop, Jaem. My light's catching a ventilation grille below you. We're here."

Jaemin peered down through the metal slats. Sure enough, below them was a scene of round tables, overturned plastic chairs, and a giant, unlit vending machine. The third-floor cafeteria.

"I'm kicking the cover open. Hold my legs so I don't make a sound when I drop," Jaemin whispered.

With two soft kicks, the vent cover gave way. Jaemin dangled for a moment before dropping to the cafeteria floor. Tap. His landing was silent and smooth. Jinwoo followed, landing right beside him.

The cafeteria was dim, lit only by the moonlight filtering through a large glass window at the far end of the room. But the sight within made their skin crawl.

There were about ten zombies in the cafeteria. But they weren't moving. They stood frozen in the corners of the room, shoulders slumped, heads bowed low, occasionally letting out a long, wheezing breath. They were in a passive "sleeping" phase. Like bloody wax figures in a museum from hell.

Jinwoo tapped Jaemin's shoulder and used real-deal police hand signals. He pointed toward the kitchen pantry behind the cashier's counter, then pointed at scattered bottles of mineral water. Jaemin nodded.

They began to creep forward. The silence in the room was a heavy weight on the soul. The sound of Jaemin's sneaker soles, sticky with blood, felt like a ticking time bomb. It took the courage of a god to walk past these sleeping statues of death.

One yard. Five yards. Ten yards.

They made it behind the cashier's counter. Jaemin immediately pulled a cloth backpack from his back pocket. With impossibly slow movements, he stuffed it with six large bottles of mineral water and a few sealed packages of leftover sandwiches.

"Got it, Jinwoo. This should be enough for two days," Jaemin whispered, as soft as a breath of wind.

Jinwoo, who stood with his back to Jaemin as a lookout, gave a satisfied nod. "Okay, copy that. Let's head back to the vent. Slow and steady. I've got your six."

Jinwoo started walking backward, aiming his revolver toward the center of the cafeteria with the tactical flair of an action movie cop. His eyes were glued to the motionless zombies. He was trying so hard to look cool, he wasn't watching where he was going.

The heel of Jinwoo’s combat boot snagged on a metal lunch tray lying on the tile floor.

CLANG! CLATTER!

The sound of metal on ceramic echoed through the cafeteria, shattering the absolute silence like a thunderclap in broad daylight.

Jaemin froze. He turned slowly toward Jinwoo, his stare so vacant and lethal that if looks could kill, Jinwoo would have dropped dead right there.

"You dumbass," Jaemin whispered, his eyes wide.

Jinwoo winced, his face as pale as a sheet. "My bad, wtf."

Beyond the counter, the ten bowed zombie heads snapped up in unison. The sound of their cracking neck bones was a deathly chorus. Their milky white eyes locked onto the cashier's counter.

"GRAAAAAARRRGH!"

In a split second, all ten of the undead broke into a dead sprint, charging the counter.

"Run, you idiot!" Jaemin yelled. He hastily threw the backpack over his shoulders and snatched a large meat cleaver from a kitchen rack.

Jinwoo knew he couldn't shoot, or hundreds of zombies from the lower floors would swarm their position. In a panic, he grabbed the long aluminum handle of a mop leaning in the corner.

Three zombies vaulted over the cashier's counter like deranged parkour athletes.

"Come on, you pigs!" Jinwoo swung the mop handle like a baseball bat, sweeping the legs out from under two of the zombies, sending them crashing into a glass display case.

A male zombie in a suit lunged, tackling Jaemin head-on. The monster's weight sent Jaemin flying backward. CRACK! His back slammed hard against a stainless-steel kitchen table.

"Ughk!" Jaemin coughed, a sharp pain shooting up his spine.

The zombie crawled on top of him, clawing at his chest. Its yellowed teeth snapped wildly, trying to rip off his nose. Pinning the monster's neck with his left hand, Jaemin raised the meat cleaver in his right.

CRAAACK!

The massive kitchen knife split the monster's forehead wide open. Blood sprayed everywhere. Jaemin kicked the corpse off his body and scrambled to his feet.

Beside him, Jinwoo was being overwhelmed. His mop handle had broken in two. A zombie in a chef's uniform was about to bite his shoulder.

"Duck, Jinwoo!"

Jinwoo dropped instinctively. Jaemin leaped onto the counter, swinging the meat cleaver in a downward arc like a market executioner. SPLAT! The chef zombie's head split into two perfect halves.

"Seven more! Go right, back to the vent!" Jinwoo shouted, now using the sharp, broken end of the aluminum mop handle as a spear.

A brutal street-fight choreography erupted. Their teamwork was insane. Jinwoo stabbed a zombie in the chest that was trying to ambush Jaemin from a blind spot, pinning it to the wall. Jaemin came in from the side and hacked its neck clean off. A bromance forged in the heart of the apocalypse.

But Jaemin let his guard down. From behind, a large female zombie smashed him with a portable gas canister. Jaemin staggered, his head spinning, fresh blood trickling from his temple.

"Jaemin!" Jinwoo kicked the female zombie in the chest, then drove the sharp aluminum pipe straight into her eye.

"I'm good, I'm good! Let's go, the table!" Jaemin pointed to the round table directly under the open ventilation shaft.

They sprinted, leaping onto the tabletop. The ten zombies were now a pile of minced meat on the floor, but the commotion was starting to attract pounding from the cafeteria's main entrance. The glass doors were beginning to crack under the pressure from the horde outside.

"You go first, Jaem!" Jinwoo gave Jaemin a boost from below.

Jaemin jumped, his hands catching the lip of the zinc duct. He hauled himself up with the last of his strength, his biceps screaming in protest. The moment he was inside, he reached back down. "Give me your hand, you asshole! Now!"

Jinwoo leaped, grabbing Jaemin's hand just as the cafeteria's glass doors shattered and hundreds of zombies flooded the room. Jaemin pulled Jinwoo into the vent with all his might, then kicked the metal cover shut.

They both lay flat inside the dark tunnel, gasping for air, their chests heaving violently. Their clothes were soaked with sweat and monster blood.

"Holy shit!" Jinwoo let out a strangled laugh, his breath coming in ragged bursts. "I... I almost died... because I kicked a fucking lunch tray, wtf."

"If we survive this apocalypse, you're paying my hospital bills for life," Jaemin cursed, closing his eyes against the throbbing in his head. "Let's go back. Jihoon needs this water."

[Return to the Archive Room]

"Easy does it," Min-Ji's voice greeted them from below as Jaemin opened the ventilation grille above the Archive Room. She helped steady Jaemin and Jinwoo's legs as they climbed back down into the stuffy space.

As soon as his feet hit the floor, Jaemin tore open his backpack and pulled out a cold bottle of mineral water. He rushed to Jihoon's side, who was still only half-conscious on a pile of jackets.

"Ji, wake up, kiddo. Big bro brought you water. Come on, drink," Jaemin cradled his brother's head, twisted off the cap, and brought the bottle to Jihoon's lips.

Jihoon's eyes fluttered open. The moment the cold water touched his chapped lips, the boy began to drink greedily. He swallowed it down like a man dying of thirst in the desert, forcing Jaemin to pull the bottle back slightly so he wouldn't choke.

"Slow down, Ji. There's plenty more," Jaemin said softly, stroking his brother's sweat-drenched hair. The fever on Jihoon's forehead seemed to have lessened slightly now that he was hydrated. A small bit of relief settled in Jaemin's heart. His bloody battle hadn't been for nothing.

Jinwoo sat leaning against the wall, chugging his own bottle of water. "Damn... this cheap bottled water tastes better than expensive soju."

Min-Ji crossed her arms, staring at the two blood-soaked men before her. "Took you two long enough. I thought I was going to have to dump this old man's corpse by myself. I can smell your blood from here."

"Don't start, lady. The mission was a success, wasn't it?" Jinwoo smirked, tossing an unopened bottle of water to Min-Ji, which she caught effortlessly.

They were just about to let out a collective sigh of relief and enjoy a moment of peace when it was all shattered again.

CRASH! TINKLE!

The sound of the Archive Room's window shattering filled the air. Sharp shards of glass sprayed into the room.

Jaemin instinctively shielded Jihoon's body. Min-Ji immediately drew her Glock, and Jinwoo jumped to his feet, empty-handed, his revolver left on a table.

From the floor above, a body fell through their window, tearing the frame from its hinges before crashing hard onto the Archive Room floor. The body rolled and slammed into a metal shelf, denting it.

It was a woman in a torn office blouse, covered in claw marks and drenched in blood. She groaned in pain on the floor of broken glass, looking up at Jaemin, Jinwoo, and Min-Ji with desperate, human eyes.

"P-please, help me. I haven't been bitten," the woman whimpered, coughing up blood.

Min-Ji aimed her pistol squarely at the woman's forehead. Her eyes narrowed, radiating a cold, killing intent. "Liar."