Red Dot - 19

Chapter 19

Bang-!

A sudden loud noise from the door interrupted the two people.

“Sh1t!”

It was the voice of the man in his 50s who had gone out with a cigarette earlier. He didn’t swear out of anger but rather because he was too shocked and nervous to control his emotions.

Junseong sensed something was wrong from the man’s voice and quickly stepped out of the tent.

When he saw the man who had entered the shelter, Junseong froze on the spot.

The man stretched out his right arm as if asking them to look at it. There was a deep, clear wound on his forearm that wasn’t there before. A chunk of flesh had been torn out, and bl00d was pouring down from the wound, so much that the stench of bl00d was thick in the air. His sleeve was soaked in bl00d, turning half of it red.

The man anxiously scanned the pale faces of the people who had come out of the tents and shouted.

“Quick! Do something, hurry!”

“Aaaah!”

The last person to come out of the tent, a heavily pregnant young woman, screamed in terror.

“I-It’s an infected person!”

“What the hell are you saying?!”

The man yelled angrily at being called infected and looked around the shelter in confusion. As soon as Jiwoo made eye contact with him, he immediately ducked back into his tent and zipped it shut.

“I’m not infected!”

But no matter how anyone looked at it, the man had clearly been bitten. There was no way he had bitten his own arm, and the fact that the whites of his eyes were turning red rapidly indicated that he was already showing symptoms of the zombie virus.

The man shouted in denial.

“Those damn zombies only bit me a little, just a little! If I get treated quickly, I won’t be infected!”

“What are you talking about?! Everyone who gets bitten gets infected!”

A young woman, who was holding onto the pregnant woman while slowly backing away, screamed furiously.

“You’re infected! If you’re infected, get out!”

“No, I’m not!”

The man hung his head low and shook it violently as if denying reality.

“No! No! No! No! No! No!”

He felt a strange sensation as if his bl00d was solidifying, and at the same time, heat rushed to his eyes. His vision turned red as his tear glands filled with warmth.

When he suddenly raised his head, thick streams of bl00d-red tears flowed from his eyes.

“I’m not infected!”

But despite his words, the abnormal symptoms appearing on his body were undeniable signs of infection.

‘What the hell is going on?’

Junseong looked at the man, feeling confused.

‘That man was fine until the moment we left the shelter. There was no way he could’ve been bitten by a zombie.’

At least in the dream, that was true. Every time Junseong found this shelter, that man was always clean and unharmed. Even after spending a long time here, he never turned into a zombie.

‘I followed the dream exactly. Nothing changed. So why……?’

Graaah-!

Everyone in the shelter froze.

The sound had come from a distance, but it was unmistakably the roar of a zombie.

That meant zombies had appeared in the once-safe tunnel.

The man, with bl00d dripping from his eyes, pointed at the shelter’s door.

“T-Those zombies broke through the shattered glass and swarmed in! It’s their fault! I-It’s not my fault!”

He sobbed uncontrollably, his tears mixing with bl00d, making it impossible to tell them apart. Then he rushed toward Cheolho, the closest person to him, and grabbed him desperately.

“Station worker! Please save me! Fix this, quickly! If you’re a station worker, act like one and protect your passengers!”

“Hiiik!”

Cheolho was so terrified when he saw the man’s bl00d-filled eyes that his legs gave out, and he collapsed onto the floor. His entire body shook as he tried to scoot away on his hands and bottom.

Junseong bit his lip as he looked at the clearly infected man.

It didn’t take long for Junseong to process the situation.

‘Since he’s bleeding from his eyes, he’ll die within five minutes.’

The problem was that if his brain remained intact, he would turn into a zombie in less than a minute after death.

That had to be prevented.

Junseong stepped out of the tent and looked at Chaeyi, who stood there with a tense expression. Her clenched fists trembled as if she was fighting off fear, and she bit her lower lip so hard that it looked like it might start bleeding.

‘Not Chaeyi.’

At the very least, he wouldn’t let his little sister die. He had protected her in the dream, so letting her die in reality would make everything meaningless.

As long as she was here, he wouldn’t allow a single zombie to exist in this place.

Ignoring the terrified screams behind him, Junseong ran back into the tent. He quickly put on his outerwear and grabbed his backpack and machete. Hanseo, who had followed him inside, asked with a serious face.

“What are you planning?”

“I’m going to get him out.”

Hanseo blocked the tent entrance with his body.

“Then why are you packing?”

“If what he said is true, zombies are swarming outside. The shelter might become dangerous, so I have to lure them away.”

The problem was that in a long, single-path tunnel, luring them away meant the bait might never return.

Whether dead or alive.

“Move.”

When Junseong tried to push Hanseo aside, Hanseo narrowed his eyes.

“Do you want to die?”

His voice dropped to a chilling tone.

“Zombies will chase you at terrifying speed, no matter if their legs break or their feet shatter.”

“I know.”

“Then what about you?”

“……”

“If you get tired, they’ll catch you and eat you. This isn’t like when we ran into the subway.”

“I know.”

Junseong already understood what Hanseo was trying to say.

When they ran into the subway, they had obstacles like corners, stairs, and gates to use, and they could change directions. That’s why even though zombies were fast, they had been able to escape.

But the subway tunnel with train tracks was different.

Only moving forward.

If they could only go straight in the same direction, it was obvious that they would soon be caught and eaten by the zombies.

Everyone knew that, but sometimes, you had no choice.

“I’m still going.”

“Junseong.”

“I’m going, but I’m not going to die.”

He felt uneasy because he had never taken this exact route in his dreams before. But it wasn’t like there was no way to survive while luring the zombies away.

Hanseo stared at Junseong and asked,

“Are you sure there’s a way not to die?”

“Yeah.”

Only after hearing Junseong’s answer did Hanseo smile.

“Then I’ll go too.”

“No.”

Junseong rejected the idea immediately.

But Hanseo acted like he didn’t even hear him.

He barely had any luggage, just a wooden stick, so he simply grabbed his outerwear, put it on, and opened the tent entrance.

“If we’re not going together, I’ll assume you’re going to die and stop you.”

“Are you a kid? Throwing a tantrum like this.”

“Who says only kids can throw tantrums?”

Junseong hesitated while looking at Hanseo, but he didn’t have time to argue. The man who had been bitten by a zombie was gasping for air, showing even worse signs of infection.

‘Honestly, it’d be hard to drag him out by myself anyway.’

Getting bitten by someone who wasn’t fully turned into a zombie yet just hurt—it didn’t cause an infection. But that fact wouldn’t be discovered until later. For now, people still thought that an infected person was no different from a zombie. If they got bitten, they assumed they’d be infected too.

That meant no one would step up to help move the man outside. Especially since they could hear the sounds of zombies outside.

Junseong looked at Hanseo, who was acting completely relaxed, as if he could leave at any moment.

“He might go berserk. You could get bitten.”

“Looking at his condition, yeah, that seems likely.”

The infected man, furious at being treated like a monster, already had a horribly distorted face—so much so that anyone who saw him would think he had already turned into a zombie.

“If he’s not fully turned yet, getting bitten won’t infect us. That’s why we have to get him out while he’s still human.”

“You won’t get infected if he’s still alive?”

Hanseo apparently didn’t know that. Since the zombie virus had only started spreading half a day ago, it was natural that very few people had figured it out yet.

“Believe me or don’t, it’s up to you. If you can’t trust me, back out now.”

“I believe you.”

Hanseo answered so casually, as if it was the easiest thing in the world. He sounded so sure that Junseong actually considered asking again, just to double-check.

“But wouldn’t it be easier to just kill him?”

It was a lighthearted suggestion, as if saying that would be the simpler option.

Junseong assumed Hanseo meant killing the man after he fully turned into a zombie.

“There’s a pregnant woman here. We can’t keep a zombie corpse in the shelter.”

Chaeyi, who had been standing outside her tent at a distance, looked at Junseong. She seemed startled to see that he was dressed to go out, wearing his backpack as if he was about to leave any second.

Even with all the chaos in the shelter because of the infected man, she still had to talk to her younger sibling. Holding Soyeon’s hand tightly, Chaeyi stood frozen.

“Oppa, where are you going?”

Chaeyi looked back and forth between the infected man and Junseong with worried eyes.

“I don’t have time for a long explanation, so I’ll keep it short.”

“Oppa…”

“If I don’t come back within an hour, don’t leave. Stay here no matter what. You all need to ration your food carefully—it has to last a week.”

Since he spoke so quickly, Chaeyi and Soyeon’s faces filled with anxiety.

“A week? What do you mean, Oppa?”

“After a week, a fat, bald man will come looking for you. Ask him to take you with him.”

“A man? Who is he? Take us where?”

“He’s going to the hospital we planned to go to. I’ll go there too.”

“We should go together! What are you talking about?!”

Chaeyi raised her voice in frustration, and Junseong looked at her apologetically.

He understood her confusion, but there was no time to explain everything. The infected man wouldn’t stay human much longer.

“See you later.”

He didn’t know if “later” would mean an hour from now or a week later.

Junseong gently patted Chaeyi and Soyeon’s heads before giving Hanseo a signal.

Then, Junseong and Hanseo stepped toward the man, whose eyes were now completely covered with a cloudy film.