Walking Daddy

‘What is she holding?’

I looked closer, and saw that it was a newborn baby, not even a year old.

‘No way…’

I looked back at the trio at the pharmacy. They had dropped whatever they had obtained at the pharmacy after realizing what was going on at the apartment complex, but they hadn’t done so in order to get away. Rather, two of them had restrained the third man, who was struggling against them. His head was pressed against the ground, his face contorted in wordless agony. The other man was pressing him down to the ground, while the woman held onto his arms as she assessed the situation in the apartment complex.

I couldn’t see all the stuff they had dropped, but I was certain that I saw diapers on the ground. It was the type that So-Yeon used to use, the ones that newborns used.

Seeing the diapers, my heart skipped a beat, and I felt tears welling up inside.. Something deep down made my heart ache and my breathing become irregular.

These weren’t irrational people. They certainly weren’t idiotic. They were just people trying to save the life of a newborn.

“No, no…”

I started muttering to myself as if I was about to go insane. I couldn’t hold in my tears. Everything started to come together. It would’ve been much wiser to get diapers from a nearby convenience store or supermarket, since they could’ve gotten food as well. But if they had purposely gone to a pharmacy instead… it was clear that the newborn was sick.

They probably needed fever reducers, and it seemed like they had stashed a couple of diapers away. It wasn’t uncommon for newborns to have fevers reaching 39 to 40 degrees celsius, and not taking medicine at the right time could lead to autism. [1]

None of this zombie stuff would have mattered if my child had been going through the same thing. And although ‘they’ were slower during the day, the fact that ‘they’ were dangerous didn’t change.

I couldn’t imagine what the man on the ground was feeling. My heart was aching like it had never had before. I wanted to help them out somehow.

Drrk… thud!

I could hear the balcony window opening from afar. I quickly wiped away my tears and looked at the seventh floor of apartment 101. The woman emerged with the newborn in her arms. I could see that their front door was already half-demolished. She stood at the balcony, and after a moment of hesitation, stepped onto the railing.

A gasp inadvertently escaped my lips.. I prayed to God that she wouldn’t make the wrong move.

‘Isn’t there a way to help her? Can’t I help her somehow?’

At that moment, a thought crossed my mind.

I went straight toward my wife’s dresser in the master bedroom and came back with her hand mirror. The moon was shining brightly. And this hand mirror…would be their last hope. I used it to reflect the moonlight to let her know that I was there.

The sudden ray of light shining on her seemed to give her pause. It seemed like she was in unit 704. Without hesitation, I directed the light toward the balcony of unit 705. Her eyes also followed the light.

It wasn’t too far. Getting to unit 703 was a bit of a stretch, but unit 705 was more than possible. The woman started moving toward unit 705, looking at the ground below, the unit’s balcony, then the ground again.

It was definitely too early to give up. I clenched my fists and urged her on silently.

‘You can do it. You’ll make it!’

She took a deep breath and jumped toward the balcony.

Thud.

Clank!

“Oh Jesus Christ!”

I couldn’t hold it in.

It felt as if time had stopped. The scene in front of me went completely still, like a polaroid photo. Of all the things that could’ve happened… her ankle just had to get caught in the railing as she was making the jump.

She lost her balance and used both arms to stabilize herself. As she was flailing, the baby that was in her arms…

I watched it fall.

I could not believe what was unfolding in front of me. I couldn’t stop trembling, as though I was suffering a seizure. Feeling light-headed, I took a deep breath, wondering how long I had been holding my breath. I started breathing heavily to make up for all the air I had missed.

My heart was about to explode and I was tearing up. With bloodshot eyes, I looked at them again. The woman had collapsed to the floor, her head peeking through the railing, staring down at the ground.

She had gone as still and quiet as a tomb, as though mired in a swamp of despair and guilt. Before she even realized it, ‘they’ had made it out onto the balcony of unit 704 and were reaching out toward her, screaming and snarling. The noises drew her back to her senses and she looked ‘them’ straight in the eye.

“Ahhh!!!”

No, she hadn’t come back to her senses. Instead, she let out a scream that I never imagined any human could produce.. It was a cry that defied description. It was a cry of damnation and hatred toward ‘them’. However, it was impossible for her to kill ‘them’.

It seemed like she knew that as well. Without hesitation, she climbed back onto the railing.

“No, no!”

And at that moment, I witnessed… a person freefalling.

Splat!

The piercing sound of the impact echoed through the apartment complex, and my mind went blank. My eyes fogged up, obscuring my view. My mind was telling me to look away, to stop looking. I wondered if this was the result of an adrenaline rush, or if it was my fear overtaking me. I felt my mind becoming more and more hazy. I pressed my temples and took in deep breaths.

“Damn it…”

I couldn’t do anything to help. All I had done was sit here comfortably, presenting options to the woman. And the option I had given her had only brought her despair. I wondered who had caused her death, me or ‘them’.

I looked at my trembling hands blankly. I was nothing more than a useless, quivering person. I was nothing more than a weak and cowardly observer. All I could do was weep quietly. And through it all, I’d had my mouth covered, just in case So-Yeon woke up.

I was nothing more than a hypocrite.

* * *

It had been a while since I last dreamed.

I dreamed about the time I first met my wife. She was sitting alone in a cafe, looking outside. I sat at a table across from hers. I couldn’t help but smile as I watched her.

We locked eyes, and she began talking to me with a smile on her face. For some reason, I couldn’t understand what she was saying. I leaned toward her and her words hit me.

“Wake up, you coward.”

I woke up with a broken heart, gasping for air. A ray of sunlight was shining into the room, and I turned to see the clock. It was already past five in the afternoon.

I let out a deep sigh and rubbed my face. I wondered when I had fallen asleep. I hoped that I hadn’t fainted. But above all… why did I have such a strange dream? Was it possible that my wife had died? Was my dead wife appearing in my dreams to curse me?

I bit my lip and closed my eyes tightly.

“Daddy, I hear weird noises from outside.”

I could see that the noises were making So-Yeon restless. She was fidgeting while making a face. Her eyes were full of fear.

Grr…

That’s when I came back to my senses. I could hear ‘their’ calls. I looked out the window again to check the situation, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was in shock and I quickly shut the curtains down.

‘They’ were looking at us while calling out.

‘Why, why?’

‘Is this all a dream too?’

I slapped myself to see if it was. I could still hear ‘their’ calls, but now my cheek also stung. This was not a dream. Growing flustered, I stammered a little and asked So-Yeon, “Honey, did you make a loud noise?”

She shook her head.

“Then did you happen to throw something at the window… or do anything?”

She shook her head again.

“Then what in the world did you do to get their attention?”

As I questioned her, my expression grew frightening, pushing her to the brink of tears. I scratched my head and let out a sigh.

‘Let’s calm down. It’s not her fault. I’m not thinking straight.’

I got down to my knees and hugged So-Yeon, hoping she would know how sorry I felt.

“Daddy’s sorry.”

“But I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“Daddy knows… Daddy just woke up and wasn’t thinking straight. Daddy’s sorry.”

I pacified her and went back to the window. I cracked open the curtains to see what was going on. I noticed one of ‘them’ giving me a death stare. It was the woman who was missing a leg. It was the creature that was always waving its arms around while staring at the fifth floor balcony.

As I fixed my eyes on it, I felt chills down my spine. It had to be her. The thing that made all of ‘them’ gather here… it had to be her.

‘But why? I mean, it saw me, but it never attacked us.’

I started thinking, although my mind was not at its most rational. And right then, I remembered what I had done the night before.

The hand mirror.

It had probably given ‘them’ an inkling that there was a survivor here as well. It seemed like pure speculation… but it was the only possible reason I could think of.

I grabbed a bag and quickly stuffed it with all the food I could fit in it, along with a blanket and some clothes to change into. I wanted to put more inside, but my bag was already filled to the brim. As I was packing, I couldn’t stop thinking about ‘them’.

‘Can ‘they’ see as well?’

Until now, I had thought that they only relied on their hearing and sense of smell to hunt. But the thing that had locked eyes with me… there was no doubt that it was glaring at me. It had done so in the past, and it had done so this time as well.

So that meant that ‘their’ vision was very much working… but the ones that had gone after the sparrow clearly hadn’t been able to see. Could the virus have mutated, allowing some of them to keep their vision? Mutations seemed to explain the situation perfectly. But if so, all the information I had gotten from observing ‘them’ was useless now.

1. This is the main character\'s own opinion. There is no evidence to suggest that it would lead to the child getting autism. ☜