Dead with Me

1: You’re coming back, and It’s the end of the world

The wooden door that led to the cellar creaked open. A man climbed the ladder, his sleep-laden eyes half-closed, then stretched lethargically as he basked in the sunlight pouring through the window. The man, Yeonseung, roughly brushed back his hair that reached just long enough to cover the back of his neck, and lifted the cardigan that was draped over the chair. The thick grey cardigan was torn in several places, but Yeonseung slipped his arms through it nonchalantly. He rubbed his sleepy eyes and slowly looked around.

The five locks on the front door, no problems. Curtained windows, check. A shattered mug on the floor, clea- no… That didn’t seem right?

Yeonseung squatted down and looked at the mug that had met its fate overnight. The mug was completely shattered and beyond repair. Yun’s eyes, still glued together from sleep, looked around furiously.

«Where is Dumpling… DUMPLING COME HERE!”

No sooner had the words left his lips than he heard the sound of something scurrying towards him from the kitchen. It was a dog, too big to be a small dog, but not quite small enough to be a large dog either. Dumpling, a fluffy white dog, ran straight to Yeonseung’s door, happily wagging his tail in greeting. However, Dumpling’s father ignored him and glared at him fiercely.

“You shouldn’t break mugs! Do you know how much it would hurt if you had stepped on the broken pieces? There are not even hospitals where we could have treated you anymore.”

“Arf!”

“Show your paw. You didn’t get hurt, did you?”

“Arf Arf!”

Speaking as if he were talking to a human being, Yeonseung roughly checked the clueless Dumpling’s paw before letting go of him and worked his hands with removing the mug shards just in case his Dumpling decided to step on them.

Despite these occasional mishaps, Yeonseung couldn’t bear to hate the only family member he had. From the day he picked up the puppy, which had barely opened its eyes, from its dying mother’s side about half a year ago, it had become his family. And it will probably always be his only family.

Because most of the human race was already dead and gone from this world.

About three and a half years ago, the world was suddenly thrown into tumult and chaos by a psychotic man who was biting other people. The condition, which first appeared in Denver, Colorado, gradually spread like an epidemic and has since propagated past the United States to other parts of the world. Dubbed the ‘Denver virus’ after the city where it was first discovered, it was a deadly virus that turned people into zombies. It didn’t take long for the virus to reach South Korea, and people all around the country started turning into zombies, creatures who lost their minds and started biting, killing people, and did not die even when they were bitten. A Korean researcher was bitten on the finger by a zombie who had been imprisoned in a lab for research.

For fear of being quarantined or, worse, exterminated, the researcher kept quiet about his predicament and ended up turning into a zombie. He bit and infected the people around him, and thus the Denver virus spread to Korea.

The Korean citizen’s diligence and conscientiousness fanned the flames of the virus spread. Students went to school and office workers headed to their offices instead of quarantining instead of isolating themselves in the safer space of their own houses. Yeonseung, who was a university student at the time, had also headed to school, but he was lucky enough to survive.

After that, he travelled with soldiers before getting separated from the horde. Yeonseung then found a house in the mountains by chance. As the world was overrun by zombies, it was not just these creatures that one had to watch out for. In the early days of the outbreak, people who had just learned to survive and would do anything to were just as dangerous.

Yeonseung ran away from zombies and people alike. His own quest to survive led him up a fairly steep and treacherous mountain, where he found a small cabin. Although it was a little dilapidated, it would do well enough as a place to stay. It looked like someone’s holiday house, with minimal furniture and little to no traces that a human had lived there, but it made for a cosy home.

Repairing and securing the house was a three-way effort between the two men he had ran away together with. They built a fence around the house with materials salvaged from a factory, put up bars, and installed locks. But in the end, the only one left in that house was Yeonseung.

One of his two companions had been mauled to death by a hungry wild dog, and the other had lost his footing on a steep cliff and fallen over the edge.

He had to get used to being alone.

But other than to the loneliness that always haunted him, Yeonseung’s life was going surprisingly well. In the yard that stretched between the house and the fence, he had been growing a variety of vegetables, and a short walk away there was a small stream where he could catch fish. There was always a fresh supply of bird eggs, thanks to the abundance of animals now that humans were gone, and if one was lucky, they might even catch a rabbit or a baby boar in a trap.

Zombies, nothing more than lumps of decomposing corpses, were not immune to heat and cold. When it was too hot, flies and maggots made it hard for them to see, while the winter cold froze their joints, making it difficult to move around. After about three years, many of these walking corpses had already decomposed or rotted away. He wasn’t sure about Siberia, where it is always cold, but it wasn’t like Yeonseung was going to go there anyway.

The biggest threats he was facing now were wild dogs and humans. The dogs had become so ferocious that they would attack zombies and humans alike, forcing Yeonseung to build a fence with razor-sharp barbed wire around it. If a passing errant dog saw Dumping or Yeonseung and tried to break in, it would be stabbed by sharp thorns and run away.

After the government and the law that organised them have completely disappeared, humans have become more like a gang of thugs who have sold their ideals, morals, and everything else for the price of their lives. Now that the powerful who monopolised weapons and food had survived and settled down, they began to crave a new stimulus. Eventually, they began to hunt for people. They feared nothing and no one, with no police around to catch them, no laws to enforce order. And so they found pleasure in breaking the taboos.

That’s why Yeonseung never went down the mountain unless he had a pressing reason to. He had a comfortable place to sleep, a cute dog, and the food wasn’t so bad. Sometimes he thought about all the things he’d already lost, like his family and friends and a stable, advanced, and civilized life. But that was not something crying or whining could fix. The past three years have taught him the hard way that clinging to a past that will not come back will not help him move forward in life.

With the larger pieces out of the way, he fetched a broom to sweep up the smaller ones. As he swept the pieces with the old but still functional broom, he felt something hit his heel as he slowly backtracked. It was the doorknob of the cellar.

*Rattle*Rattle*

The iron handle dangled precariously, as if it could be pulled off at any moment. And that is one more thing to add to Yeonseung’s list of things to fix, he would be in trouble if the doorknob came off and hit his foot.

“Arf!”

“Okay, I will be right back.”

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Yeonseung turned the tap on the sink to wash Dumpling. But, unlike Yeonseung’s expectation of a gushing amount, the water only trickled out.

“Ah… It’s clogged again.”

After all, the water company employees have all become either dead or undead, so most of the houses did not have a drop of water in them. But Yeonseung’s house was one of the few in the world that had water, and it was a feat accomplished by Yeonseung and two other people who were no longer in this world.

They were able to find a pipe in a valley near the top of the mountain that connected to another, and brought it to the house. However, sometimes stones or weeds would get stuck in the mouth of the pipe in the valley and prevent the water from flowing, and they would have to go to the valley themselves to remove the debris. The trip to the valley was fast, but a little dangerous, and the trip back was much longer.

After his companion had fallen off a cliff on the way to the valley, Yeonseung always took the long way back.

He could only hope he would not encounter wild dogs or people with not so good intentions along the way. Sighing, Yeonseung took off his cardigan and slipped his arms into a sleeveless vest with many pockets. Meticulously zipping it up, he opened the top drawer of the table beside him and pulled out a small but powerful pistol. Fiddling with it, he found it to be in good working order and slipped it into the holster on his right thigh.

Yeonseung might not be the best at shooting, but at least he can do so well enough not to break his own wrist or shoot his own foot. Three years of intense fighting was enough to turn a civilian into a clumsy gunslinger. With a folding knife in his pocket, Yeonseung opened the front door. Dumpling, who was following him like a piece of gum stuck to a shoe, was stopped by a frowning Yeonseung and forced to crouch down in front of the door and stare at him with pleading eyes.

“I’ll be going now, then. Keep an eye on the house.”

“Whimper…”

Leaving the house, Yeonseung walked through the vegetable-filled yard and slipped through the thick barbed wire fence. He paused and looked around, but there was no sign of life except for a small bird. Relieved that there were no signs of wild dogs, Yeonseung cautiously headed for the valley. It was late spring and the wind carried the fragrant scent of flowers as summer approached.

As he walked swiftly and soundlessly, he started hearing the sound of trickling water. While enjoying the cool breeze, he soon reached a stream.

He climbed down a large boulder and reached for the pipe, the height of which reached around his knee. As he had expected, the mouth of the pipe was indeed tangled with weeds and stones. He pushed the weeds out with his fingers and washed his hands in the clear stream.

As he listened to the cool sound of the waterfall, a gust of wind passed through his ears. He looked up at the sky; it was so blue and untainted, seemingly oblivious to the disaster that had befallen mankind. He breathed in and felt the fresh air fill his lungs. It was a refreshing feeling that he hadn’t felt since he last walked around in Seoul breathing in fumes and fine dust.

Yeonseung smiled as the corners of his eyes, which were usually all sharp edges and raised in caution, softened. In his ears, he could hear the sound of a waterfall and the rustling of leaves in the wind. He heard the sound of leaves crunching against each other. It’s always nice to be in a forest that’s both tranquil and noisy. The slightest breeze, the refreshing sound of water, or even the rustle of grass.

‘Rustling?’

Yeonseung suddenly leaned back a little and looked around with nervous eyes. Tightening his grip on the pistol he’d drawn from his thigh, he listened closely, and through the roaring water, he could hear the sound of someone moving through the grass. Yeonseung’s pupils constricted with tension at the unnatural sound. Was it a dog? A human? A bear? With a slightly trembling hand, Yeonseung pointed the muzzle of his rifle in the direction of the grass.

A rustle, the sound of something moving through the dense, untouched grass was eerily slow. As Yeonseung swallowed hard and tensed his body, something appeared through the grass.

Bloodless white skin so pale it almost looked blue. A right eye that seemed murky and crusted, and a left eye that was out of focus with its unnaturally dilated pupil. Stiff and dishevelled hair. A slightly hunched posture.

It was a zombie.

Yeonseung’s eyes widened at the unexpected presence he had not seen much of lately. Unlike the last zombie he had seen about three months ago, which had been infested by maggots and rotting to the point of looking almost like mud, the one in front of him looked barely decomposed. Other than its clouded left eye, it almost looked like a normal human being.

Staring at Yeonseung, the zombie slowly moved its open mouth.

“…….”

*Bang*

The sound of a gunshot echoed through the silent mountains.

The bullet from the gun in his trembling hands missed the zombie and slammed into the tree beside him. Without single care for the dead tree he had shot, Yeonseung moved his shaky legs and took a step backwards. As if to chase him, the zombie stretched out a helpless hand and stuck out its right foot.

“Don’t move!”

There was no way the zombie would listen to him, so he turned and ran down the mountain. Covering in ten minutes the distance that would have taken him half an hour at his usual pace, he slammed the front door behind him, breathing heavily. He dropped his pistol to the floor and crouched down to hug his knees. Dumpling he came to sit by his master’s side, his tail wagging. Biting his lip, Yeonseung blinked rapidly as he embraced the tickling warmth.

There was no way that Yeonseung, who had managed to survive so well in the three years since the start of the outbreak, would now be afraid of a zombie, much less a single one.

“… It couldn’t be… Lee Hogyu?”

The words that came out of his mouth startled him, and he raised his head and blinked rapidly. Lee Hogyu. Hogyu. His lover. Memories of him flashed through his mind so vividly that he felt guilty for forgetting until now. The sweet Lee Hogyu, the cute Lee Hogyu, the laughing Lee Hogyu, and the Lee Hogyu who had saved Yeonseung’s life three years ago and died with a smile on his face. Memories and scenes of him filled Yeonseung’s head and spun round and round inside his mind.

Although he had the glazed look of a zombie, he could still recognize him anywhere. Even with all the blood, even with his clouded left eye, even without his smile, Yeonseung could recognise him. That zombie was definitely Lee Hogyu.

The tattered T-shirt the zombie was wearing was Hogyu’s favourite, gifted to him by Yeonseung for their 100th anniversary.

As soon as he thought about it, his nose was running and the tears that flowed down his cheeks did not stop for a long time. His memory flashed back to his boyfriend’s face three years ago, when he had singlehandedly defended against oncoming zombies, shoving Yeonseung into the helicopter, and then back to his lifeless face earlier.

“You jerk…”

His tears started falling again as he remembered that day. It was the sole reason why Yeonseung was still trudging through this cruel and horribly lonely world. Because it was a life that Lee Hogyu died saving, because he had told him to stay alive, because he was so sweet, so smart, so loved by everyone, and because he had given his life to save him, he felt he at least owed him that much.

If he had no choice but to die, then so be it, but at least he would never kill himself. That is how he had decided to live.

“……”

In fact, the zombie he met near the stream could have been someone other than Lee Hogyu. He had been surrounded by a horde of zombies three years earlier and his chances of survival were close to zero. What’s more, Korea’s four seasons do not make the most favourable environment for zombies.

In other words, it was a dozen times more likely that that zombie was someone that looked like his lover than that it was Lee Hogyu.

When he got down, Yeonseung hugged his knees and rested his chin on them. The cabin was silent, with sunlight streaming in through the shattered windows. Back against the door, Yeonseung sat there and thought for a long time. He thought, he debated, he struggled, and  then finally he came to a conclusion.

It was highly unlikely that that zombie was Lee Hogyu, and even if it was, it would be impossible for him to fall in love or be in a relationship with him.

Hogyu wouldn’t either, he was a zombie after all.

A zombie whose brain was dead but still full of only one thought: to bite humans. A decaying zombie infested with maggots even when it stands still, a zombie that is neither alive nor dead, but the person he saw in it had already diedd three years ago.

Yeonseung’s head started aching from all the uncontrollable sorrow at the thought of that bastard. It seemed to spontaneously overwhelm him no matter how much he tried to rationalise it. He had killed countless zombies by now, but the thought of blowing zombie-Lee Hogyu’s head off made his heart drop. He was worried about him and even missed him a little bit.

“I’ve gone crazy, now I’m even starting to miss a zombie.”

Yeonseung knew that no matter if he got close to zombie-Hogyu, he would be the one to get hurt. If he held out his hand, it would be bitten off. And if he called out his name, he wouldn’t even recognize it was his name being called.

That bleeding man was not his Hogyu, the man who threw his life away three years ago to save his lover, but a zombie, neither alive nor dead. He knew that all too well.

But still.

He’ll just see that zombie one more time, and then he’ll do something about it, either kill it or embrace it. That is what Yeonseung decided.

Dabbing at his tear-exhausted, stinging eyes with his sleeve, Yeonseung scrambled to his feet. He patted Dumpling, who was looking up at him with its tail wagging, and opened the front door once more. Looking out at the mountains, ever so silent despite the recent gunfire, Yeonseung blew his nose and started his journey back.

The sunlight filtering through the leaves as he walked briskly, with a slight hint of impatience to his steps. As he made his way up the familiar path, Yeonseung licked his dry lips as several thoughts assaulted his mind.

‘I wonder if he got eaten by a wild dog while wandering alone, or if he had fallen off a cliff, or maybe he dropped into a ravine and got swept away by water…….’

The more Yeonseung thought, the faster he walked. He was completely unaware that he was now completely treating the zombie as Lee Hogyu. And by the time he reached the stream, he was practically running, his trembling eyes scanned his surroundings.

His pupils darted around, and his gaze landed on a corner of the stream where only the peaceful sound of the water could be heard. Near the ravine, where the clean water flowed swiftly, stood a zombie that had not moved one step from the same spot where he left him.

He hadn’t noticed Yeonseung hiding behind the tree, and with his trademark dazed expression, seemed unwilling to move at all. his eyes were unblinking and his mouth was open in a blank, dazed stare. The zombie didn’t react at all, even when a small mountain bird perched on its head and started chirping merrily.

For a long time, Yeonseung stood there, watching it. No matter how he looked at it, it looked exactly like the person he loved so much. It had been so long since he had seen that face which he never thought he would ever see again. As it turns out, he still loved it very much. He felt tears fill his still watery eyes once again. His breath caught in his throat, and burning hot emotions flooded his chest.

He closed his eyes tightly and opened them. Tears caressed his eyelids and slid down his cheeks. As he looked ahead with clearer vision, he saw the zombie still standing in the same spot. It seemed unlikely, but could it be … it didn’t move from that spot because he had yelled at it not to come closer earlier?

Yeonseung shifted slightly. Picking up a sturdy branch from the ground, he moved slowly like a cat on the hunt, and when the zombie slowly turned its head, he struck it with the branch. As the zombie collapsed to the ground, it looked up at Yeonseung with its characteristic dazed expression, while simultaneously extending a bloodless white hand. The zombie’s hand slowly stretched out and stopped in mid-air.

Looking at the chipped and broken nails, Yeonseung quickly ripped off a piece of duct tape and stuck it over the zombie’s mouth. Even with his hand so close to the its mouth, he had this strange feeling that it would not bite him.

The zombie was surprisingly obedient. It moved slowly, following when he pushed it and going back when he pulled it. The hand in his was ice cold as they slid down the steep mountain path, and Yeonseung was inexplicably sad at the fact. The zombie’s single eye never left his face for the entire ride home, so every time he turned his head, his gaze met with a blank, unreadable eye.

The front door slammed shut with an iron clang, allowing Yeonseung to relax and flop down on the couch. The zombie was chained to a post in the house, and the strangeness of the situation brought to such a familiar space made it all feel too real. Yeonseung had thought about how he would get Hogyu here, but had no idea about what to do with him afterwards.

It was then that Dumpling, which had been crouched in the corner with its hackles raised, began to bark loudly. The dog had stood up and barked at the stranger’s arrival, and when the latter did not react, he now felt confident enough to square up with him.

“Dumpling, shhh. Stop barking.”

Yeonseung hugged Dumpling, but the dog was still quite agitated by the ominous odour of corpses. A normal zombie would have been eager to pounce at that point after the noise, but the one in front of him just kept looking at Yeonseung, giving no care to whether Dumpling was barking or not.

Eventually, Yeonseung went to the next room to bring Dumpling his favourite toy, and when he came back, his jaw dropped at the shocking scene: All the duct tape holding tying the zombie had been ripped off. The sticky tape was stuck to the corners of Dumpling’s fluffy mouth as it wagged its tail at Yeonseung. It had apparently decided that duct tapes were toys because it had one with duct tape holding it together after Dumpling broke it.

A quick inspection of the zombie’s hands and feet revealed no significant wounds, and Yeonseung, noticing his own relief, frowned and hugged Dumpling. It wasn’t the zombie that was in danger now, but Yeonseung and Dumpling.

Unfortunately, the pistol was back in the drawer, and the bat was right next to the zombie. The front door was to the zombie’s right, and if he ran, he might get caught. As Yeonseung thought about this, the zombie began to move slowly.

Flinching, Yeonseung decided to go into the basement, which was on the floor to the zombie’s left. He smiled to himself, pleased as he came up with a clever plan to lure it his way and then, once it approached, quickly open the cellar door and jump inside. He raised his left hand instead of the one holding Dumplings and waved it as if to say come here.

The zombie’s steps seemed to speed up a bit, as if the temptation had worked. Seeing that the its staggering steps were getting closer, Yeonseung quickly ran to the entrance of the basement. Pulling on the cellar door, which had been made a little heavier in case of an intruder, Yeonseung smiled unconsciously, and the sound of a rattling echoed as he tried to open it, until-

*DING*

“……”

The door handle on the cellar door broke, sending Yeonseung straight to the floor due to the recoil. The cellar door slammed shut with a loud bang. A looming shadow fell over Yeonseung as he stared resentfully at the doorknob, he should have repaired it in the morning!

The zombie, who was now close enough, stared down at him expressionlessly. He hugged his Dumpling and closed his eyes tightly as he realized that after all this time, after all he had done to survive, death would still come to claim him.

“…….”

After a while, Yeonseung suddenly thought, “Wasn’t this taking a bit too long?” and slowly opened his eyes. Awaiting him was the pale, almost blue-tinted face of a zombie hovering in front of him. He sucked in a breath and closed his eyes tightly, and a few moments later, he opened them again. The zombie was still there, facing him.

As time seemed to stand still, Yeonseung gingerly stood up, and the zombie’s single eye quickly moved to follow him. As he moved to the right, the zombie’s eye moved to the right, and as he moved to the left, the zombie ‘s head followed him to the left.

As he picked himself up and started slowly walking backwards, the zombie also followed, walking towards Yeonseung, movements slow but impatient.

“Don’t come.”

At Yeonseung’s single command, the zombie froze in place like a robot with its batteries removed, and stared at the teary eyed Yeonseung with its left eye.

After all, even as a zombie, he was still the same Lee Hogyu who had died saving his lover.