Walking Daddy

I awoke slowly and found myself underneath the kitchen table. As I opened my eyes and got up, a blanket slid off me. I looked at the blanket, then directed my gaze toward the couch.

I didn’t see So-Yeon. I looked around, but she wasn’t in the living room, kitchen, or bathroom either.

‘Could she have possibly gone outside?’

I opened the door to the master bedroom, the nervous anxiety of the previous night still coursing through me, hoping that she would be inside.

As I looked in, I let out a quiet sigh.

There she was, sleeping like a starfish. I sat on the edge of the bed and patted her head.

‘She was probably scared as well. Seems like she got me a blanket then went to bed herself.’

I was proud of her, but also sorry for what I put her through.

‘A father being consoled by his eight-year-old…’ Feeling pathetic, I let out another sigh.

‘Let’s get it together.’

There was no time for weakness. The creatures outside were hunting down humans. As I thought about them, I remembered the news reports concerning the virus.

- Those exposed to the virus lose their rationality and are left with only their violent tendencies…

Everything that had transpired was exactly in line with those news reports. Not only that, it was even worse. It wasn’t just ordinary violence. It was pure slaughter.

I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I could no longer act like this. I had to be stronger, for So-Yeon’s sake. The child I’d seen last night could easily have been So-Yeon… This was no time for inaction. I gave her a kiss on the forehead and left her to sleep.

I took out a notepad and began taking notes on our current situation.

- Rescue Team. Highly likely that they aren’t coming.

- 119 High chance that they have been turned into those creatures.

- Shelters. No news regarding them before electricity was cut off. No safe haven available.

- Weapons. A hammer and wrench. A knife as well.

- Food.

My mind went blank as I tried to recall what food we had, so I headed straight to the kitchen. The refrigerator had stopped working. It was the middle of summer, and it wouldn’t be long before all the frozen food spoiled. I needed to organize the food we had into different categories—perishables, and those that would keep longer.

After excluding the canned food, water, cereal, and the couple of packets of ramen we had, the remaining food would last us about two days.

“Geez… what should I do?” I bit my lip while scratching my head.

It had already been a week, but there was still no sign of any electronic signals coming back online, nor the presence of any rescue teams. Under normal circumstances, government forces would have been mobilized to bring the situation under control, but they were nowhere to be seen. That meant one of two things—either the government had no way of getting rid of ‘them’, or they lacked the necessary manpower to take back control of the city.

This left us with two options: starving to death after we ran out of food, or taking the risk to head outside to get more food.

If I’d been alone, I would’ve made a plan and taken action right away. However, having to go outside with So-Yeon made things very different. If she started acting out while out there in the city… Things could take a turn for the worse. Then again, leaving her alone would hardly make things better.

What if ‘they’ broke in and got to her while I was outside getting food? There would be no more reason to keep on living.

‘Let’s continue to observe the situation until all the food goes bad.’

That was the conclusion I came to. We would live off the perishable food while I tried to figure ‘them’ out. And I only had two days to do so. After the second day, we would have to start eating the canned food. By that time… I had to be fully prepared and ready to go outside to look for food.

* * *

After organizing the food we had, I went to take a peek through the curtains. They were still at it, doing the same old thing. The only difference was that the creature waving its arms at the entrance to the apartment building now had blood all over its mouth.

Looking at it reminded me of what had happened the night before. I couldn’t help but picture the face of the little child watching helplessly as its body was devoured.

A sudden wave of nausea rocked me as I considered that the blood on that thing’s face could be the child’s blood. I covered my mouth, trying to calm myself and banish this sudden feeling. I took a deep breath and blinked several times, preparing myself to once again confront the situation outside.

I was currently in apartment 104, in Haengdang-dong. Apartments 101 and 102 were across from us, about 200m away. However, the space between our apartments was crawling with ‘them’.

Chirp, chirp.

A sparrow heralded the coming of dawn, and the creatures all turned their attention to the sparrow. They gathered around the stump where the sparrow was, waving their arms at it.

Couldn’t they climb? Also, they seemed lethargic, unlike the night before, when they were running wildly.

Was it because it was a sparrow? Or because the sun was up? From what I’d observed, the creatures did not seem to be able to see. They probably had no way of telling how dangerous or large their prey was.

If that were the case… the only plausible theory behind their abnormal behavior was the presence of the sun. There was no other explanation. It seemed that their physical capabilities were drastically reduced during the day. One thing was for sure—they reacted to sound.

They hadn’t reacted while the sparrow had been flying around or sitting on the branch… However, as soon as it started chirping, it drew their full attention, and they all turned toward the source of the sound.

Very quickly, they all began to growl at the sparrow. This was a different sound from the one they made when they were hunting. It wasn’t the disturbing sound that sounded like a person’s throat being torn apart. It was odd, and even slightly grand.

‘Are they making this sound out of frustration? Or could there possibly be another reason?’ As they continued to make these sounds, other creatures out in the street came streaming into the apartment complex.

‘These sounds they’re making… Is this their way of communicating?’

I closed the curtains tightly, leaving only a small peephole to keep an eye on what was going on. As their numbers increased, I grew increasingly anxious.

‘If they find me, I’m dead meat.’

They began to shake the tree violently, causing the sparrow to fly away. None of them seemed to notice the sparrow’s departure, and continued to shake the tree until it toppled over. I wondered if any human being would have been physically capable of doing what they had just done. It seemed obvious that they were physically superior to human beings. However, their intelligence didn’t seem to be on par with their physical strength.

As the tree fell over, some of the creatures were crushed by it. They were still alive, though—they were still waving their arms about. I wondered how they were still alive after all that. As I continued my observation, I noticed that one of them wasn’t moving at all. Its head had been crushed, and blood was oozing out. This prompted me to come up with another theory.

I took out another notepad and started jotting down their characteristics.

- ‘They’ react to noise.

- ‘They’ have no vision.

- ‘They’ can move without their arms or legs.

- Smashing their heads kills ‘them’.

- ‘They’ seem to lack intelligence.

As I went through what I had just written, I came to the realization that these were characteristics of a zombie that appeared in movies or comics.

I looked out the window again. They seemed to have taken over the apartment complex, and were still making that strange noise.

“Zombies, huh…”

I couldn’t possibly believe that there were zombies right in front of me. However, it seemed unlikely that they would be similar to the ones in movies. At least, it didn’t seem like the best idea to consider them as such.

Of course, this was all speculation. What I needed was more information. I sat down on the windowsill and continued to observe carefully.

As I trained my eyes on them, one thought kept running through my mind.

‘There has to be a reason why they act like that. There has to be.’

* * *

After a while, I sensed someone standing behind me. I turned around to see So-Yeon walking toward me, rubbing her eyes.

She tilted her head side to side and asked, “Daddy, what are you doing?”

“Hey honey, you’re up?”

It took me a moment to realize that it was already sunset.

I patted her on the head and went to the kitchen to prepare her some food. I took out some bean sprouts, spinach, kimchi, and jangjorim. The rice cooker no longer worked, and all we had was cold rice. I took a big scoop of rice after trying a bit to see if it was still edible. ‘We probably won\'t be able to eat this rice from tomorrow onwards.’

It was likely to spoil the next day. It would be best to eat as much of it as we could now, and rely on the side dishes for sustenance afterwards.

So-Yeon began to dig into her food. I was surprised by her appetite. I couldn’t help but smile as I watched her eat. After a while, though, she started slowing down, and gave me a sidelong look.

I wondered if it was because she started thinking the rice had gone bad or something. I mean, gone rice would most definitely cause some stomach issues.

“What’s wrong, honey?” I asked with a worried expression. “Does it taste funny?”

“Daddy, aren’t you going to eat?” she asked, a blank look on her face.

She probably felt sorry that she was the only one eating. Smiling, so I picked up a spoon.

“Daddy’s going to eat too. Daddy almost forgot. I was too busy watching my cutie So-yeon eat.”

She swayed side to side, feeling a little embarrassed. After we finished our meal, I went back to observe what was going on outside.

I glanced back at So-Yeon and noticed that she was putting the dishes away in the sink. Given how short she was, it was quite a struggle for her, and she had to lift the dishes over her head in order to do so.

I quickly ran back to the kitchen and told her, “Honey, Daddy will take care of it.”

“But Mommy told me to take the dishes to the sink whenever we finished eating.”

“...”

“She said it’s harder to do the dishes when the rice starts to stick.”

She smiled up at me. At that moment, I had no clue what to say to my beaming child. When the electricity went out, so did our water supply. That meant we didn’t have to plate our food anymore. We wouldn’t need separate dishes to put food on, and washing dishes would become a luxury. Drinking water was another huge issue as well. And if something wasn’t done about this situation… it would soon become our reality.

However, what would be the right thing to say to her? Should I tell her the truth about what was really going on? Or should I compliment her for being a good girl? At that moment, I couldn’t help but think about my wife.

Yes, she nagged me all the time… but she always put family first.

‘Honey… what would you do in this situation?’

That was the one question I dearly wanted to ask my wife. I already knew that such situations would come up in the future—choosing between reality and an ideal fantasy, having to make difficult decisions, followed by moments of regret.

Especially when So-Yeon finally entered puberty…

I couldn’t help but let out a sigh as I contemplated the frustrating and hopeless future ahead of us. Almost immediately, I felt a tickle on my wrist. So-Yeon was tickling my wrist. Tickling was what I did to her when we played around, or when she was upset or feeling down. It seemed that she was doing the same thing to me now, having seen my sad expression. It almost brought me to tears.

I took her in my arms and didn’t say a word for a while. Her warmth helped to ease the worries in my heart. She looked at me, clueless, but kept on hugging me. Was she feeling the same way as I?

In the end, she was still with me, and I was still very much here with her. For So-Yeon, I had to survive no matter what.