THE VARIANT: ZERO HOUR

9. THE UNINVITED GUEST FROM THE FOURTH FLOOR

"Liar."

The one word from Min-Ji was ice cold, freezing the air in the Archive Room. The barrel of her Glock 19 was locked dead straight, just an inch from the forehead of the woman who had just crashed through their window.

The woman, whose white office blouse was now stained a deep crimson, trembled violently. Her hair was a mess, riddled with shards of glass. She was sobbing, raising her shaking, blood-covered hands in front of her face.

"I-I swear! I’m a doctor on duty from the fourth floor. I-I just slipped and fell trying to escape from the balcony upstairs. They broke down my door. Please, don't kill me," the woman pleaded, her voice shattered by heart-wrenching cries.

Jaemin, still standing guard over Jihoon behind him, watched her with uncertainty. His mind was racing. On one hand, his survival instinct was screaming that something was wrong. On the other hand, seeing the woman begging for her life reminded him of his own mother, who had probably begged just like this before turning into one of the monsters outside.

"Min-Ji, wtf. Back off the trigger," Jinwoo said, stepping forward to position himself between the muzzle of Min-Ji's pistol and the woman. The young cop held up a hand, trying to de-escalate. "She can still talk straight, for fuck's sake. Her eyes are still black. She's human."

Min-Ji let out a harsh snort, her gaze burning into Jinwoo. "Are you blind, Officer?! Look at her shirt. Look at all that blood! You think she got a holy blessing on her way down from the fourth floor?! She was bitten or scratched, you asshole!"

"It could be from the broken glass when she fell, right?" Jinwoo argued stubbornly, the part of him that was a lawman still refusing to execute a civilian who was crying for help. "Besides, if you shoot her now, the sound of your gun will invite the whole hungry fan club in through that broken window. Then we're the ones who are screwed!"

"I'd rather risk the noise than sleep in a cramped room with a ticking time bomb," Min-Ji shot back without blinking. Her finger tightened on the trigger. "Move, Jinwoo. Or this bullet goes through your chest before it gets to her head."

"Enough, goddammit!" Jaemin's voice finally cut through the deadly argument.

He walked closer, ignoring the throbbing pain in his left arm. He crouched in front of the woman, looking directly into the doctor’s eyes. She stared back at him with a look of utter desperation, begging for mercy.

"Take off your shirt," Jaemin commanded, his voice firm.

"W-what?"

"I said take off your shirt, wtf! We need to check for bite marks," Jaemin repeated, his tone leaving no room for refusal. "If you're clean, you can hide in the corner. If there's a single bite mark, I'll throw you out that window myself."

Sobbing uncontrollably, the woman removed her tattered blouse with trembling hands, leaving her in a black tank top. Under the dim light, Jaemin and Jinwoo meticulously checked her arms, neck, and shoulders.

There were plenty of red scratches and dark bruises, but strangely, no crescent-shaped tear in the flesh from a human bite. The blood staining her shirt seemed to have come from a long gash on her calf, likely from the shattered window.

Jinwoo let out a breath of relief. He turned to Min-Ji with a triumphant look. "See? No bite marks. She's clear, Ms. Psycho. Lower your weapon. Have a heart."

Min-Ji clicked her tongue loudly, her expression one of pure disgust. She reluctantly lowered her pistol but didn't holster it.

"You two are so fucking naive. Playing hero in a world like this will only get you killed," Min-Ji spat with cynicism. She walked back to her corner, leaning against a metal shelf while keeping a predatory watch on the woman. "Whatever. But when she turns, I'll be the one saying 'I told you so' over your dead bodies."

Jaemin rubbed the back of his neck roughly. He pointed to the corner of the room farthest from Jihoon, near a pile of empty cardboard boxes. "You sit over there. Don't move, and don't make a sound. We're waiting for nightfall."

The woman nodded quickly and hobbled over to the designated corner. She curled up, hugging her knees, her shoulders still shaking from her sobs.

At the other end of the room, Minseok, still tied to the metal shelving unit, could only watch in silence. The mouth of the man who created the virus was covered with a fresh strip of black duct tape that Jinwoo had applied a few minutes earlier to muffle his whining.

[3 Hours Later]

Afternoon began to fade. The sunlight filtering through the broken window dimmed, painting the room in a bloody orange hue. An evening breeze drifted through the gaping hole in the glass, carrying with it the putrid stench of the dead from outside the hospital.

Three hours passed in nerve-shredding tension.

Jaemin sat with his legs stretched out, watching Jihoon chew on a piece of leftover bread from the cafeteria. At least his brother's fever had gone down significantly after drinking the water. That was the only good thing that had happened all day. Jinwoo had dozed off sitting up, his head resting on his knees, while Min-Ji remained awake, endlessly flipping her folding knife open and shut.

But slowly, the silence began to feel wrong.

From the corner where the doctor was isolated, a heavy, strained breathing could be heard. Wheeze… wheeze… The sound was ragged, like someone having a severe asthma attack, but the rhythm was off.

Jaemin narrowed his eyes, peering through the gloom. "Ma'am? You okay over there?" he asked quietly.

There was no answer. The woman just curled up tighter, her body now shivering violently. The chattering of her teeth was clearly audible.

Jinwoo, woken by the sound, rubbed his eyes. "What's with her, Jaem? Is she cold?"

"S-so cold… so very cold," the woman mumbled, her voice turning raspy and deep, as if her vocal cords had been scrubbed with sandpaper.

Min-Ji was on her feet in an instant. Her pistol was raised again. "What did I tell you, you bastards! All of you, back up!"

Jaemin and Jinwoo scrambled to their feet. Jaemin quickly pulled Jihoon behind him.

The woman slowly lifted her head. The moment her face was hit by the last of the orange light from the window, it felt as if the air was violently ripped from Jaemin's lungs.

Her face was corpse-pale, like she'd been floating in water for a week. The veins around her neck and temples bulged, turning a dark black, like the roots of a poisonous tree. But the most terrifying part was her nose.

Drip… drip…

Thick, black bloodnot redpoured from both her nostrils. A severe nosebleed. The blood dripped down her chin and onto her tank top.

"Wtf… her blood is black, Jaem," Jinwoo whispered, taking an involuntary step back. His hand fumbled for the grip of his revolver. The raw paranoia of their new reality slapped the naive cop across the face.

"H-help me… it's hot… my stomach is on fire." The woman groaned, completely contradicting her earlier complaint of being cold. Her body temperature was clearly plummeting on the outside while her internal organs were being burned alive by the mutating virus.

"She wasn't bitten, damn it! I checked her myself!" Jaemin yelled in frustration, trying to find a logical reason for the nightmare unfolding before his eyes.

"A bite isn't the only way to get infected, you idiot!" Min-Ji barked, her eyes locked on her target. "It can be a deep scratch, infected fluids in an open wound, or blood splashing in your eye! That fucking virus is incubating in her brain!"

Suddenly, the woman fell silent. The nosebleed stopped. Her head hung limply, her gaze fixed on the floor.

"M-Ma'am?" Jinwoo called out hesitantly.

Then it happened. Faster than the blink of an eye.

CRACK!

The bones in the woman's neck snapped audibly. The muscles around her eyes twitched wildly at an abnormal speed. When she looked up at them, the whites of her eyes had completely vanished, replaced by an ocean of pure, empty black that radiated nothing but predatory instinct.

"Graaaarrrgh!"

It wasn't a cry that came from her mouth anymore, but the savage roar of a starving animal.

In a split second, the woman who had seemed so weak and helpless launched forward like a released spring. Her leg muscles slammed against the archive floor with a loud thud. But her target wasn't Jaemin or Jinwoo, the ones holding weapons.

The monster's animal instinct chose the weakest prey, the one who couldn't run.

She leaped ten feet across the room, launching herself directly at the shelving unit where Kim Minseok was tied up!

"MMMPHHH! MMMMMPPHHH!" Minseok shrieked behind his gag, his eyes bulging as he watched the monster fly toward him.

CRUNCH!

"Son of a bitch!" Jaemin cursed.

The woman's sharp teeth sank deep, ripping through flesh, muscle, and striking bone with a wet tearing sound that was enough to make your stomach turn. A fresh spray of blood erupted into the air, splattering the wall and the medical records behind them. The apocal

ypse had just broken into the only safe place they had.