EPZ 29

Chapter: 29

I couldn’t remember what state of mind I’d been in when we arrived at the farm.

Peggy and Ryan’s health bars, which had been dropping so fast it felt like they’d hit 0% at any moment, had thankfully stopped around the 30% mark. Still, it was obvious that something had happened.

Screeeech!

The vehicle that had sped all the way to the farm skidded to a halt in a cloud of sand. Before it had even fully stopped, Jigu threw the door open and ran straight into the farm.

His vision had already been stained red the moment he stepped inside the house. The red was far denser than when he’d left the farm earlier, sending a chilling shiver down his spine.

There was something inside the farm.

That was what his detection skill was warning him of.

‘Don’t tell me….’

Staring at the bloodstains splattered across the floor and the furniture strewn in disarray, Jigu pulled a gun from his inventory. The cold metal clung stickily to his sweat-soaked palm.

Thump, thump!

His heart was pounding like it had gone mad.

‘No. That’s not my heartbeat.’

Swallowing hard, Jigu steadied his breathing and strained his ears toward the darkness.

Thump, thump.

A dull sound, like something pounding, was coming from the end of the hallway. Fixing his gaze into the dark, Jigu slipped his finger inside the trigger guard and began to move forward, one cautious step at a time.

‘There’s something there.’

The closer he got to the hallway, the more the red effect crept and thickened.

Jigu knew this feeling all too well.

A pitch-dark corridor. A door at the end of it. And inside that half-open door—

There was a zombie.

Zombies chased the living. That meant there was a high chance Peggy and Ryan were inside. And, of course, the zombie as well.

[Party Members]

• Peggy Rive
  Health 32% / Infection Rate 0%

• Ryan Rive
  Health 43% / Infection Rate 0%

Their health had dropped significantly, but seeing that their infection rates were still at 0%, it looked like they’d managed to hide successfully.

‘Where’s Morton? And Beth?’

All sorts of thoughts tangled in his head. Clenching his teeth, Jigu forced himself to focus and raised the gun to his chest. Dealing with the zombie came first.

Thump, thump!

The closer he got to the end of the hallway, the clearer the sound became. Unlike the lightless corridor, sunlight streamed brightly into the room through a small window.

After waiting a moment for his eyes, already accustomed to the dark, to adjust to the light, Jigu frowned.

Through his hazy vision, he could see stairs directly opposite the door. They looked like stairs leading up to the attic.

As he slowly raised his head along the steeply slanted steps, he saw another door at the top.

And in front of it, a small, crouched figure.

Thump, thump.

The door at the top of the stairs. Someone was sitting collapsed in front of it, their body tightly hunched, pounding on the door again and again.

Slender legs that looked like a child’s, white pajamas soaked in blood, and pale wheat-colored hair tangled into a mess.

The moment Jigu realized who the small figure was, he sucked in a breath and swallowed a stifled groan.

‘Beth….’

Just then, Beth noticed Jigu’s presence and creaked her head around toward the stairs below.

The light pouring in from the window illuminated her gray eyes, filmed over with a cloudy haze. The faint blue eyes that used to shimmer shyly were nowhere to be seen.

“Hraaagh!”

Beth threw her head back and let out a shrill scream, her mouth, stained a dark red, yawning wide as she staggered to her feet. One of her slender legs was twisted at an unnatural angle, pale bone jutting out as if it had struck something hard.

From between torn strips of flesh, red blood spurted intermittently, the only proof that she had been alive—human—just moments ago.

But now—

‘She’s just a zombie.’

Clenching his lips tightly, Jigu aimed the gun at Beth’s forehead as she launched herself down the stairs. Piercing her brain in a single shot would be the right thing to do for her.

But Calif’s hand was faster.

His face hardened with icy resolve as Calif reached out toward the falling Beth.

“Don’t!”

At that moment, the attic door burst open.

The one who appeared was Morton. Letting out a hoarse cry, Morton hurled himself toward Beth as she tumbled down the stairs.

Bang! Crash—thud! Boom!

The old man’s massive body tangled with the child’s, and they rolled down the narrow staircase together. Despite what must have been excruciating pain, Morton only curled his body tightly around hers, shielding the child with himself.

Boom!

Morton and Beth finally came to a stop after slamming into the wall at the end of the corridor.

“Hngh….”

In the suffocating silence, only Beth’s thin, pitiful moans echoed through the air.

“Beth…!”

Morton fumbled at the child’s deeply indented forehead, his face helpless, as though the sound were his granddaughter’s cry of pain.

After watching the two of them for a long while, Jigu slowly put the gun back into his inventory.

His mouth tasted bitter, as if he had swallowed something foul.

The commotion at Morton’s farm came to a temporary end when they locked Beth—now turned into a zombie—inside Morton’s room.

Peggy and Ryan, who had been hiding in the attic with Morton, thankfully showed no serious injuries, though they looked utterly exhausted and shaken.

“When was the child bitten?”

Calif’s low voice broke the heavy silence.

“……She wasn’t bitten. Just scratched a little.”

As he answered with a sigh, deep shadows formed in the wrinkles on Morton’s face. He looked so frail it seemed like he might stop breathing at any moment.

“It’s my fault. If only I hadn’t clung to hope about my son….”

It had been an ordinary day. Except that the long drought had dried up the farm’s well, forcing him to fetch water from the village’s communal well.

The tragedy happened during the short time Morton was away.

‘Grandpa… Dad tried to bite me….’

He could feel the child’s heart pounding wildly against his chest as he held her. While he was gone, Beth—who missed her father—had gone into the barn.

The very barn where he had locked up his son after he turned into a zombie.

He had told Beth that her dad was just a little sick, that he’d get better soon.

That her dad still loved her.

Even though Morton himself didn’t believe it, he had lied to the child that way.

By the time Morton returned to the farm, it was already too late.

Seeing Beth, his son had broken free of the ropes binding him and lunged at her. Faced with that desperate moment, Morton had shot his own son in the forehead.

Looking at his son, whom he had killed with his own hands, and the child with nothing more than a fingernail-sized scratch on her leg, Morton could only stand there in shock.

He had ruined everything.

“What do you plan to do about the child?”

“……”

Morton buried his face in his wrinkled hands, his shoulders trembling in small, broken shakes. His large frame looked shrunken, like a balloon that had lost all its air.

“Beth is my granddaughter.”

From beyond the tightly shut door of Morton’s room came a clatter, clatter—Beth, tied to the bed, thrashing around.

Between the dull thuds, her thin moans reached Morton’s chest like blades stabbing into his heart.

Beth was no longer human. But to Morton, she was still the small child he loved, the one he believed he had to protect.

“I can’t let that child go.”

It might be repeating the same mistake all over again. No—he knew for certain that it was. Even so, Morton couldn’t let go of that small child.

The old man’s face, soaked in regret, looked unbearably weary.

“Morton. Come with us.”

Jigu knew all too well what it felt like to live alone in a place where the only things to rely on were zombies.

True, Morton had the dog Sam, but living with a zombie granddaughter would surely be a living hell.

He would chew over his regrets again and again, wearing himself down bit by bit. Morton would slowly be consumed that way.

Thump, thump.

Morton’s gaze drifted toward where the faint sounds were coming from. The agony he felt was laid bare in his weathered blue eyes.

The depth of that pain, that regret, was something Jigu couldn’t even begin to imagine. That was why he didn’t want to leave Morton behind alone.

“I can’t do that.”

Morton simply shook his head. After quietly looking down at the small hand clutching his clothes, he gave a faint smile and gently patted Jigu’s head, just as he would Beth’s.

“This is my home, and my family is here. I can’t leave them behind.”

“But—!”

“There is one thing I’d like to ask, though.”

“…What is it?”

“Will you take Sam with you?”

“Woof!”

Hearing his name, Sam barked loudly once, flicking out his pink tongue. His clear brown eyes were fixed on Morton.

“…Alright.”

After staring at Morton’s face reflected in those eyes for a long while, Jigu finally nodded heavily.