Marauder of the Apocalypse-Chapter 42: Military

After making the scarecrows, I distinctly felt the psychological distance grow between me and the street's residents. My criminal companions remained the same, but ordinary people subtly avoided me.

Casual greetings became awkward, they avoided eye contact, and social conversation drastically decreased.

'They really don't appreciate my aesthetic.'

I scratched my head, feeling like a lonely artist. The street was decorated quite stylishly, yet people turned away.

This rejection reminded me of life before the apocalypse, bringing up oddly nostalgic feelings.

'I always got rejected whenever I entered screenplay contests.'

In a way, now was better than then. At least some people appreciated my decorated street. I walked to the window and looked out.

The setting sun painted the sky. Shadows of corpse crucifixes stretched long across the street.

"Hehe."

"What an idiot."

Two elementary school kids, armed with masks and gloves, were playing pranks in front of the tied-up zombie. The children who initially cried seeing the street quickly adapted to their environment and now tormented the zombie.

They poked its face with sticks.

The tightly bound zombie cried "kreeek" while turning its head to avoid the sticks, sometimes jerking its body and opening its mouth wide, as if wanting to kill the annoying children.

"Kraah!"

"Run away!"

The kids ran away giggling, only to return and continue teasing the zombie.

I watched contentedly. Children were pure. Their purity helped them adapt well to this apocalyptic world, and they accepted my scarecrows without prejudice.

'Is this a kind of art too? It's entertaining.'

But children's innocence was always suppressed by adults.

"Kids! Mama told you not to go out in the street!"

A mean mother burst out of the villa, smacking the children's backs and dragging them away. The children just laughed. A peaceful apocalyptic scene.

Though who knew how long it would last.

I sat back at my computer and connected to the internet, which somehow still worked. Many sites crashed randomly, but they functioned somewhat.

The shadow of the apocalypse clearly loomed over the internet - depressing news, mad ravings, and doomsday theories.

I filtered out worthless information while checking various updates.

"Fire... really scary."

A forest fire that had spread for days in some distant neighborhood was finally extinguished. By rain.

Firefighting personnel were meaningless. Though some remained nationwide, there was no way to move the personnel and equipment. All highways and national roads were blocked.

Someone's drone footage clearly showed the state of the roads.

Barricades made by survivors, abandoned cars in the middle of the road, chain collision sites on highways, roads still blocked because no one could clear them.

Even with intact factories producing goods, the blood vessels for moving those goods were clogged.

'Modern society really was just a machine.'

As gears fell out one by one, society gradually ground to a halt.

I realized this fact reading various posts.

Neighborhoods with blackouts from electrical failures, neighborhoods with water supply issues from broken waterworks, gas stations running dry...

The infrastructure and resources that symbolized modern society were gradually disappearing.

Perhaps the world we knew was already dead, its corpse rolling forward purely from inertia.

"Apocalypse..."

Yet people lived on. Human adaptability was terrifying. When the world became a corpse, they survived by feeding on its remains.

Lost in strange emotions, I read people's posts. With the apocalypse well underway, people shared wisdom about repairs and recycling.

I too borrowed human wisdom. The farming knowledge we desperately lacked. We planted seeds and managed them according to manuals, but couldn't tell if we were doing it right.

I contacted someone who could supplement that knowledge.

An expert in urban farming. A professional farmer who made money from agriculture. A master of indoor farming.

Selling marijuana. Grown by me. Quality guaranteed. Price in food.

I consulted the criminal's messenger who secretly grew marijuana in buildings. They naturally used plant growth lights and even made makeshift greenhouses.

The marijuana dealer's knowledge, exchanged for my minor survival tips, proved genuinely helpful. They freely shared practical know-how that transformed our amateur indoor farm into something proper.

We separated randomly mixed planters by seed type and easily installed devices to maintain appropriate temperatures for each. Watering became simpler too.

Even the haphazardly arranged lights found proper positions.

Do-hyung wiped sweat from his forehead after finishing one round of organization and glanced at me.

"Where'd you get this detailed knowledge?" he asked.

"Found someone selling homegrown weed on messenger. Asked them."

"...Right. They're farmers too I guess."

Anyway, not someone we needed to recruit. Getting their knowledge was enough.

I changed the subject. How was the mood lately? Any signs of attacks?

"People stopped coming by. Think they're plotting behind our backs? Making alliances, preparing weapons, recruiting our people, luring zombies, getting ready to set fires, trying to put zombie corpses in the villa water tanks, power poles or gas lines-"

"Stop with the horrible stuff. Who'd go that far?"

I blinked. Wasn't this basic for attacks?

Looking at the electrical nomads' case, couldn't they target infrastructure? I'd learned from seeing that myself.

Do-hyung sighed deeply and turned away.

"Let's go to the strategy meeting. The man says he got some information."

"Really?"

Information. Apparently the increasingly adapted man had been using food handouts to turn individual survivors into informants. Must have gotten results.

We went to the villa room where meetings were held. Park Yang-gun and Gi-hyeok were already waiting. The man hadn't arrived yet.

Gi-hyeok, fiddling with his phone, nodded slightly. His words felt strangely mocking:

"You're late. Must have been busy."

"Talk nicer. Always feels like you're making fun of people."

Do-hyung, who hated con men, grumbled with deeply furrowed brows. Gi-hyeok shrank his shoulders awkwardly.

"I just meant you worked hard..."

He quickly changed the subject, showing us his phone screen.

"Did you see this? Someone's zombie observation video. Pretty scary."

"Zombies are always scar-"

I started to dismiss it disinterestedly, but my eyes fixed on the CCTV footage. My jaw dropped as goosebumps covered my body.

"Ahhh!"

The zombie pulled open a glass door. To pull it open. A scream escaped as I instinctively backed away.

Pulling open doors? This was terrifying. Pushing was human instinct - this horrifically reversed that instinct.

'Zombies aren't human. They're monsters.'

As I trembled, everyone looked at me strangely.

"It's just opening a door. They've always learned fast, why's this so shocking?"

"Do you have some phobia of CCTV footage?"

"No, no. The door, the door."

Gi-hyeok suddenly rewound the video to the zombie opening the door.

"Are you scared?"

It was chilling even watching again. I frantically rubbed my goosebump-covered arms. The intelligence to suppress instinct and pull open doors.

The reason they stayed in commercial areas with that intelligence...

"They must have eaten all the packaged food and refrigerated supplies."

Most zombies stayed in large marts and shopping areas. But these zombies needed food to survive too. In other words, the already-learned zombies were living off food stockpiled in restaurants and marts.

So if those commercial areas ran out of food...

A wave. The second wave was coming. When food ran out, the somewhat-learned zombies would surge into human territories.

Of course, commercial resources far exceeded homes, so the wave would be somewhat delayed.

Though differently from me, Park Yang-gun seemed to notice the threat too. His drowsy nodding stopped as he narrowed his eyes.

"World's getting rougher. This means people will have to fight each other."

Zombies crowded the shopping districts. Rather than facing all those zombies, it was better to target homes. Or form groups to raid weaker groups.

Zombies consuming commercial resources, people fighting people, infrastructure slowly breaking down...

'I wasn't wrong after all.'

My early predictions when the zombie outbreak started were correct. This was a primitive world requiring hunting, combat, force, and plunder. Securing villa homes before marts showed early adaptation.

Then shouldn't we think about what comes after the city's lifespan ends?

That's when the man arrived.

"Sorry I'm late. Was cross-checking information."

"What information?"

Everyone looked at him. Dropping heavily into a seat, he spoke in an odd voice:

"Looks like we won't be targeted for a while."

How was that possible? Food cravings couldn't vanish overnight. Not unless food fell from the sky.

"Did they raid a mart or something?"

"No. Soldiers are distributing combat rations."

"Soldiers?"

I clenched my fists. Hope and anxiety flashed simultaneously. Was the military finally moving? Were they targeting this time when zombies concentrated in commercial areas? No, no. Then they wouldn't waste time distributing rations. They'd be engaging in combat.

Could this be a chance to recruit deserters? At least get real guns?

The man shook his head, saying he wasn't sure of the situation.

"I don't know the details either. Need to see for ourselves."

"I'll come too."

I quickly raised my hand. Military intelligence was essential. How intact were they, how many infected, any military bases worth targeting nearby.

---

A day passed, and we went to where soldiers were supposedly distributing combat rations.

Given the terrible road conditions, the distribution points changed daily. Places accessible by car. And separated from zombies' commercial areas.

By the time I arrived with the man and some villa residents, many people had gathered, forming long lines.

Who knew where they'd all survived, but countless people crowded around.

This wasn't just a supply line. A marketplace atmosphere formed around those waiting for ration distribution.

"Cigarettes! Any kind! Trade for cola!"

"Any electrical technicians here?"

"Anyone with glasses? I'll adjust them as best I can if they fit my eyes!"

"Looking for someone!"

This was the power of a functioning military. Their mere presence guaranteed safety and brought order.

Or they could become terrifying entities.

"Combat rations aren't urgent, so let's split up. Get what we need."

"Right."

We dispersed too.

I walked slowly, observing people. There really were many. Some promoted their groups. I glimpsed RiderZero and even firefighters.

"Hello. Please take my card."

A firefighter stopped me, offering a business card. Some security company name was written on it? I stared at him blankly and he smiled awkwardly.

"It's a company made by retired firefighter seniors and firefighters' families. Contact us if you need muscle. We're armed with fire axes and fireproof gear, so zombie cleanup's no problem."

Not real firefighters but an affiliated company?

"What about active firefighters?"

The firefighter smiled bitterly.

"The remaining ones still fight fires. It'd be disastrous if they couldn't. We supplement food with what we get from jobs. So please contact us if you need anything. We accept donations too. The food you provide helps keep fire stations running."

Unlike police, they seemed to retain human hearts, having avoided being raided.

I nodded vaguely and headed to my destination.

The soldiers.

The soldiers controlling this crowd. Their numbers weren't small but weren't large either, and their mood and morale seemed poor.

'This isn't the military atmosphere I know.'

I quietly observed the soldiers.

This wasn't the atmosphere of soldiers enduring harsh training or emergencies. Rather, they seemed to have experienced something even more terrible.