Marauder of the Apocalypse-Chapter 54: Education

The video call suddenly cut off. The screen showed a family photo as its background - a father, who seemed to be already dead, and the mother with their two children. They were wearing strange headbands at what looked like an amusement park, holding balloons and such.

A peaceful past that would never return. A photo that could end up being their memorial portrait. The children's mother gripped her phone tightly.

"..."

Without a word, she abruptly stood up and strode away. She was probably going to look for her children.

There was no reason to stop her. The man also silently watched her go. Only after several seconds passed and the door closed did he slowly speak.

"Her mind must have left. With her children in danger and no one helping."

It was natural. This wasn't something people could help with. A school occupied by zombie hordes, streets where zombies could gather at any time, a rescue operation with no benefit. Unless it was donating to the school or contributing tuition, risking one's life wasn't easy.

The villa district wasn't that tightly bonded a group to begin with.

I extrapolated the mother's resentment and individual actions to everyone else.

"Anyone's mind would easily leave. We're just people who barely knew each other's faces before, gathered only because we lived on the same street."

"That's right. Not family, friends, relatives, or colleagues - we're nothing to each other."

The man's eyes grew distant. He seemed resigned, or perhaps suspicions planted long ago were finally blooming.

Though he'd managed to keep the villa district going somehow, he seemed to have realized the true nature of the villa district survivor group.

"We were just people forced together by the pressure of disaster. Maybe it wouldn't be strange if it all fell apart tomorrow."

"Of course. Betrayal could happen anytime."

People gathered only for the benefit of survival could easily turn away the moment this group stopped providing benefits or better benefits were offered elsewhere. Starting with me.

I pointed toward the farm villa.

"We're barely holding together because the farm is running and resources are adequate. But if anything runs short, or if a stronger group comes offering to absorb us..."

"We'll become turncoats. Vicious ones at that."

The man looked down at his hands. The hands that had caught and hanged traitors while fighting apartment residents.

The warning of losing one's life conversely made traitors more vicious. If they wiped everyone out, they wouldn't have to fear revenge.

"Virus attacks, fires, internal attacks... It would be fatal."

"That might not be far off."

I fell into thought briefly.

Summer was here. Zombies. Monsoons and typhoons. Heat. A crumbling city. Depleting resources. Every day would be a struggle to survive, and there was no telling how people's minds would snap under extreme circumstances.

Someone might steal the street's resources and flee, or leak information about the indoor farm and join another group. Push people to extremes and they'd spew all kinds of venom.

Of course hardship could bring people closer together, but well... Counting on such hope alone seemed foolish.

'A small elite group of marauders really is best.'

Friendship forged through crime. Just enough people needed for raiding. A history that left nowhere to run even if they betrayed us. Wasn't this the ideal apocalyptic organization?

I lifted my head slightly to look at the man. Though not a marauder companion, he showed decent potential. If I could recruit him too...

The man whose goal of organizing and maintaining the villa district had been shaken stared at the ground with lost eyes, and I watched those eyes carefully.

'Is it still too early?'

It didn't seem the right time for recruitment. It would only be possible after some catalyst shook his mind even more.

Plus he was paranoid and probably suspicious of my background too. For example, how my name at Hope Church differed from my current one, or the murder that happened in my villa.

I cleanly put it aside for later and stood up.

"I'll head back to the farm."

"I'll go with you. I need to work too."

So the man and I returned to the farm villa. The people there looked at us worriedly, seemingly searching for someone who wasn't there.

"Where's the children's mother?"

"She went to meet her children who escaped."

"Oh dear."

People sighed and exchanged various words. But no one dared offer to help or provide support.

That's how tenuous their bonds were. A distance between people who would help with small things but not risk danger. Ambiguous ties and sense of fellowship.

So while now was a good time for betrayal, I decided to quietly hold back and watch the timing a bit longer.

---

It was nearly sunset. Work was roughly finished. We'd tended the farm, replaced broken windows with intact ones, and dried rice that had gotten wet in the rain.

We'd moved piles of garbage elsewhere for hygiene, searched for edible plants among street weeds, and kept busy driving away zombies.

There was truly endless work. With modern society's division of labor collapsed, everything we used to ignore became a task.

"Still no contact from the children's mother? She's still not back."

"Better not call and risk making noise."

In the street where crosses cast shadows in the sunset.

People heading home one by one fiddled with their phones while chatting. As neighbors and fellow survivors, they seemed somewhat worried.

Sa Gi-hyeok, who had been looking gloomy, suddenly spoke:

"If she hasn't returned by now, isn't she probably dead?"

"Don't say such awful things."

"Ah. Maybe she went to heaven?"

People grimaced and smacked Sa Gi-hyeok. Realizing he'd misspoken, he awkwardly took the hits.

I swung my hammer through the air, lost in other thoughts.

'Weapons. We're most lacking in weapons.'

Things like hammers were all our firepower. The gun I had only had a bullet or two left. We were short on guns, bullets, bows, and arrows.

Without force we could do nothing, couldn't even survive. We'd become weak prey for others to hunt.

That's when a shout came from beyond the street.

"Zombies coming!"

Three figures were visible at the end of the sunset - the mother and her two small children. And behind them, pursuing zombies. Kraaah, eerie screams rang out one after another.

People ran to their homes without looking back, and I sprinted too. No one made a sound.

They couldn't celebrate the return or curse. This wasn't the situation for that.

Park Yang-gun and Do-hyung crowded onto Peace Villa's stairs, scrambling up frantically. Do-hyung spoke between heavy breaths:

"Still, glad they made it ba-"

"Shut up and think about driving away zombies! Shoot slingshots or pour boiling water!"

I suddenly slowed my steps slightly. The noise through the stair windows seemed a bit quieter. Glancing back at the street, I saw some zombies turning away at the sight of the crosses.

'What's this? Are the scarecrows working? Just from pouring paraffin?'

Or was it something else? Other zombies were still charging forward. The ones turning away were zombies with oozing burns or hardened paraffin pieces still stuck to them.

Only those who had entered the villa district before and gotten hurt were turning back from memory.

So people managed to escape with surprisingly little damage. Including the children and their mother.

Later, when everyone had holed up in their homes to catch their breath, messages started appearing in the group chat. Asking if everyone got in okay, how the kids were, why didn't you warn us before bringing zombies...

The children's mother apologized, the children posted photos like showing off trophies, and the flood of messages ended warmly with everyone saying it was fortunate after all.

I quietly watched the chat before asking a question:

"What happened at the school? What about the people who joined the rescue?"

After the mother said she didn't know, the children rapidly posted replies.

The adults who came were surrounded and killed after closing the school gate and retreating, they said they had moved slowly while hiding in various parts of the building, there was a really evil zombie.

I tapped my desk steadily.

"The police and archers died?"

Did that mean their equipment was just lying in the street? The weapons we needed most urgently?

My thoughts deepened. Should I recklessly go out to the street to farm weapons? With that zombie wandering around out there?

Benefits and drawbacks clashed fiercely in my mind. Weapons were top priority resources, but the street was dangerous... All sorts of reasons, rebuttals, and counter-rebuttals arose.

I quietly looked toward the window. It had become evening already. The somehow still-functioning electricity lit up the night street, and occasionally I heard the sound of villa district people pouring boiling water.

How long could we defend with just boiling water? Once electricity and gas were cut, we'd only have tools and weak slingshots.

My thoughts narrowed to one conclusion.

"Dangerous or not, I have to go."

The street was obviously dangerous. But we'd have to go out there eventually. When food ran out, when we needed antibiotics for injuries, when water was cut off...

The future situation would be no different from now. We had to go to the street to get scarce resources. Right now weapons were just what we lacked.

Plus having weapons would make getting other resources easier going forward.

I changed clothes. Black clothes and a black mask I'd been saving, leather gloves meant for winter. Taking advantage of the blackout, I'd bring back just weapons while making as little noise as possible.