Chapter 17

“Subway.”

“Sub… sturgeon.”

“Clumsy.”

Clumsy?

Yu-su rubbed his eyes and pushed himself half upright, glaring over his shoulder at Muwon. “I’m not clumsy.”

Muwon regarded him without the slightest hint of remorse. “Why not? It’s a word, isn’t it?”

“I don’t want to play anymore. Look, the sun’s coming up.”

They had spent the entire night on a rooftop forty stories above the ground, without a single wall to shield them from the wind. No matter how taut their nerves had been, there was no resisting the cold and exhaustion forever.

Once they had slipped into a state that was neither fully awake nor truly asleep, they had resorted to word-chain games to pass the time and keep each other conscious. By then, they were clinging to one another far more comfortably than they had at the beginning.

The day before, it had felt as though two rigid geometric shapes were being forced together at all the wrong angles. Now, they seemed to have softened and melted, fitting loosely against each other as though they had fused into a single form.

Yu-su stared blankly at the rising sun for a while before shaking his head. “I need to stand up.”

“All right.” Muwon shifted behind him. “I’ll hold you.”

During the coldest hours before dawn, getting up merely to stretch would have wasted too much energy, so they had remained still. Now, however, they needed to move.

Yu-su wriggled and maneuvered his body until he managed to peel himself away from Muwon, who had seemed almost fused to his back. Even though he rose slowly, his body had been hunched in the same position for more than twelve hours, and his joints and muscles protested with a chorus of creaks and pops. Ignoring their complaints, Yu-su gripped Muwon’s shoulder with one hand and carefully rotated his opposite arm.

After taking turns stretching, the two of them finally surveyed their surroundings properly.

The Hyeonmyeong Construction headquarters was one of the tallest buildings in the area. Once daylight spread across the city, the rooftops of the neighboring buildings came clearly into view.

“There are fewer people than I expected…”

CRASH!

Before Yu-su could finish, a deafening noise erupted from the building beside them, and blood-soaked survivors spilled through the rooftop door.

“Watch out! Hurry!”

Amid the frantic shouts, several people threw their weight against the door to force it shut while someone else secured the locking mechanism.

Yu-su watched them struggle, his unfinished thought changing course. “I thought there wasn’t anyone over there, but they’re only reaching the roof now.”

“Yeah.” Muwon narrowed his eyes at the neighboring building. “Looks like they had a hell of a time too.”

Several of the survivors began hurling objects over the edge. They appeared to be creating noise below in an attempt to lure the zombies away from the rooftop entrance. Once the tense, cooperative effort was complete, the man pressing his ear against the door finally nodded. The others collapsed where they stood, sprawling flat across the rooftop, while two people who appeared relatively unharmed moved among them with bottles of water.

At last, they exchanged high-fives.

Their laughter could not possibly have carried across the distance between the buildings, yet Yu-su almost felt as though he could hear it drifting through the air. His expression softened without his realizing it.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “They must’ve been through hell.”

“Well, they survived. That’s what matters.” Muwon pointed toward another rooftop. “There are people on that building too.”

While one group appeared close and cooperative, the survivors on the rooftop opposite them kept their distance from one another, watching each other with open suspicion. Farther away, the people on two neighboring buildings seemed to be communicating by holding handwritten messages over their railings.

“Still, quite a few made it up,” Yu-su said.

“Yeah. More than I expected.”

“There’ll probably be even more by lunchtime, right?”

“Probably.”

Yu-su studied the few buildings whose rooftops remained empty, then sat down again. Muwon gestured with his chin.

“Jeong Yu-su. Look over there.”

“Hmm?”

Yu-su turned in the direction Muwon had indicated and saw someone on the neighboring building waving. When he looked more closely, he recognized a barista from a café near the office, one he had visited often.

He raised a hand and returned the greeting with a small wave.

“You know them?” Muwon asked.

“More or less. A little.”

Seeing that others had fought to survive and finally reached the relative safety of the rooftops eased something inside him, even if only slightly.

Sunlight poured across the city in dazzling sheets. The sky stretched deep and blue overhead, while soft white clouds drifted lazily through the air.

“Let’s hold on a little longer,” Yu-su said. “Just until nightfall.”

“Yeah.”

The two met each other’s gaze across the narrow space between them. The camaraderie forged over the past few days, mingled with the fragile hope of rescue, shimmered between them with a quiet trace of relief.

Yet that relief proved short-lived.

“It’s late.”

The last of the winter sunlight had vanished in the blink of an eye. By six, the horizon had already begun bleeding into twilight, and now it was seven-thirty.

The siren had announced that rescue would arrive at seven.

“Jeong Yu-su.” Muwon’s voice cut through his spiraling thoughts. “Calm down.”

A warm palm closed over the hand Yu-su had been clenching and unclenching in agitation. Only then did he lift his head and look at Do Muwon.

“Do I really look that nervous?”

“You look nervous as hell.”

Yu-su had tried to suppress his emotions and keep them from showing, but his anxiety had grown too overwhelming to conceal. More than anything, he was desperate to reach a safe shelter and learn whether his siblings were all right, and that desperation only sharpened his impatience.

Lowering his gaze, he muttered, “I’m worried they might not come. We’re stuck on the rooftop, so we can’t even go anywhere else.”

“Just wait.” Muwon gave his hand a firm squeeze. “Since when has help from above ever arrived on time?”

Yu-su had no answer.

Restlessness had begun spreading among the survivors gathered on the surrounding buildings. People paced across the rooftops without pause, and every so often, a hysterical shout tore through the night.

Every passing minute stretched into hours.

Seven Forty.

Seven Fifty.

Eight o’clock.

Nine had already passed, and just as despair began settling over the rooftops, someone cried out.

“Over there…!”

At last, lights appeared in the distant sky, emerging from somewhere beyond the horizon.

Helicopters.

—“This is the rescue team. We will conduct rescue operations in sequence, beginning with the hospital and the school. Citizens, please remain calm and wait. Anyone trapped inside a building who cannot reach the rooftop should remain where they are until rescue reinforcements arrive in three days. I repeat. We will conduct rescue operations in sequence…”

There were only five helicopters in total. Just as the announcement had promised, they descended first upon the rooftop of a general hospital in the distance. Soldiers poured out after they landed, and soon afterward, the silhouettes of patients and medical personnel could be seen climbing aboard.

“Thank God.”

Yu-su’s younger twin siblings had been in and out of hospitals so often that it had become routine. Watching the helicopters head there first brought him a small measure of relief.

The helicopters’ searchlights crossed and recrossed overhead, glittering across a Seoul sky devoid of even a single star. As Yu-su kept his head tilted back, following the aircraft with his eyes, Do Muwon slipped an arm around his narrow shoulders.

“Let’s wait like this a little longer.”

“Yeah.”

But there were only five helicopters.

There were dozens of buildings. Hundreds.

The survivors from a single building often had to be divided across several trips, and the cycle of carrying them away, returning, and loading the next group moved with agonizing slowness.

Naturally, hope began curdling into a different kind of fear.

What if they don’t take me today?

“They’re getting closer,” Muwon said.

Yu-su fixed his gaze on the approaching aircraft. “It’ll be our turn soon.”

By the time the helicopters reached the nearby buildings, midnight was already approaching. After one or two more buildings at most, their turn would surely come.

Anticipation blazed in Yu-su’s eyes as he watched a helicopter rise from the rooftop directly across from them.

“Ugh…”

The sweeping rescue light struck him head-on. Yu-su squinted and raised a hand to shield his eyes.

“What the…?” Do Muwon frowned, caught in the same blinding glare.

“Ahhh!”

A scream rang out from somewhere nearby.

Then came a violent, unsteady whirring.

WHOOSH!

The helicopter in the air suddenly lurched sideways.

“The helicopter…” Yu-su’s voice tightened. “Why is it doing that?”

Muwon stared up at the listing aircraft. “That doesn’t look good.”

The words had barely left his mouth when the helicopter abruptly surged upward, twisting through the air along a grotesquely warped trajectory.

CRASH!

It slammed head-on into another helicopter that had just lifted off from a nearby building.

The sight was too unbelievable even for a movie. Mangled by the collision, one of the helicopters spun away, veering wildly off course.

Do Muwon and Yu-su had no time to absorb the shock.

The crippled aircraft was plummeting straight toward them.

“Do Muwon! Move!”