DS Chapter 28

‘I love you so much, Logan. I don’t want to leave you. I want to be with you for a long, long time.’

Sometimes I’m scared. Scared that I’ll drag you into the fires of hell with me.

For a moment, my head spun. The sound of my heartbeat echoed in my ears.

Not yet. It’s not time yet.

I shook my head roughly. Logan turned to look at me with a puzzled expression.

“What’s wrong? Feeling dizzy?”

“No, I’m fine. I think there’s a bug in the car.”

I quickly smiled at him as he looked at me.

I’m fine. Really. I’m still a perfectly normal person.

Even as he was running away, carrying all my dangers with him, I trembled with icy fear.

I was standing on the edge of a cliff. No matter how solid the ground beneath my feet was, it was still a cliff where one step forward would mean the end of everything.

That’s why I was scared he’d discover my dark thoughts, and my heart shrank at the thought of him abandoning me.

‘Don’t leave me, Logan. If you leave, I won’t last a single day. I’ll become a zombie. I’ll meet a horrible death. So even if I act a little strange⋯⋯ please don’t leave me.’

Now I understand. Why I was so calm about accepting death back at the lab.

The thought of Logan leaving me was more terrifying than death itself. I couldn’t bear the thought of that profound sense of loss and emptiness.

That’s why I chose death over being abandoned at the lab. And now, I’m desperately clinging to him, ignoring that decision.

‘⋯How selfish of me.’

* * *

On the way to the West.

We occasionally encountered groups of refugees. Some were living in tents near the walls, and there were also armed groups that looked dangerous.

They weren’t particularly friendly to us, and they were on guard, probably fearing that we would steal their supplies. In a world that had become a lawless zone, it was unimaginable that anyone would be casually taking a bus trip.

But that was only for a day or two. The farther we got from the East, the fewer people we saw.

Instead, we started encountering more zombies. Every time we saw one wandering aimlessly on the empty road, I could really feel that we were entering a danger zone.

“Shouldn’t we kill that one?”

“Why bother? We need to conserve ammo.”

“Hmm.”

At this point, I felt like we had gotten far enough. No one would be coming after us here.

From then on, we slowed the speed of the vehicle.

When we entered a small town, we found an abandoned house and stopped the car.

After taking out a zombie that popped out of the bushes, we entered the house.

“Do you think that zombie was coming after you or me?”

“I’m not sure, maybe I should have killed it first to check.”

Since we shot it before it got close, we never found out which one of us it was targeting.

But I clearly saw that the zombie was heading toward Logan.

The moment the zombie charged, my pupils dilated, the hairs on my body stood up, and my senses sharpened, and I realized instantly. At the same time, a surge of anger boiled up inside me.

“How dare it touch him?”

The vivid rage I feel when something of mine is taken away. I ignored the feeling I had just moments ago and lied to him.

“I think it was coming after me. It definitely looked straight at me and ran towards me.”

“Good thing you killed it early. Get behind me. It might be inside the house too.”

I was lucky that Logan believed me.

I hid behind him and followed him into the house. As I clung to his broad back, breathing in his scent, I felt an indescribable joy and sense of stability.

I wished the hot summer would come soon. His scent would become even stronger then. I thought these strange things as I buried my nose in his back.

“Kylie, not here. And we already did that this morning.”

Logan turned around with a troubled expression.

Apparently, I had unknowingly clung to him, panting. I was just trying to smell him.

“Ahem, that was a mistake. I just wanted to smell you. Why are you so sensitive? Isn’t it what you wanted too?”

“….”

He shook his head, looking around the living room. I also scanned the area to see if there was anything else we needed to take.

There were no zombies inside the house. Instead, in the master bedroom, we found the body of the homeowner, who had shot himself in the head with a pistol. It had been dead for a while, and flies were swarming around the decaying body, emitting a terrible stench.

“Ugh.”

I quickly shut the master bedroom door. Logan called out to me from the kitchen.

“Isn’t this good enough?”

A sleek marble sink appeared. The countertop, the drawers, and the sink could be removed and installed in our bus.

“Let’s check the backyard for a water tank. If it’s the right size, we could hang it on top of the bus.”

“Can you install a water tank? I thought you only did vehicle maintenance?”

“I learned while working.”

It seems they really put me to good use there. Extracting antibodies, fixing cars, doing odd jobs, and even going out with the search teams to hunt zombies.

‘At this rate, it doesn’t seem like they’re running away because of me.’

That’s how much I felt like I was contributing.

Logan, the immune one, and me, half-zombie. Maybe the two of us are the strongest in this zombie world? Feeling a pointless sense of pride, I even checked the backyard.

The water tank in the backyard was too big to fit in our car. Instead, I found a red bicycle leaning against the fence, a rusted baseball bat, and a trampoline covered in fallen leaves.

It seemed like a house where a child had lived, but where had the child gone? It was something we couldn’t know.

“Let’s check another house.”

“Yeah, a cabin might have an emergency water tank.”

We found a water tank of the right size in the third cabin we checked.

Logan used a cutter, welder, and electric drill to install a sink inside the car and hung the water tank on the roof. Thanks to the small generator we brought that ran on gasoline, we could use electricity freely.

Logan looked incredibly handsome while focused on his work. He had unzipped his work jacket to his chest, rolled up his sleeves, and draped a towel around his neck.

His tanned skin and firm muscles were tantalizing. And it wasn’t just for show—he was good at his work.

Turning a school bus into a camper. It felt like we’d become the perfect survivors of this era.

‘Maybe living like this forever wouldn’t be so bad.’

Becoming hippies who live in harmony with nature, letting go of material desires and ambition. Thinking that we’re not running away from the world but carving out our own lives made my chest swell with pride.

It’s all about perspective, they say. As long as I’m okay, there shouldn’t be any problems.

‘Though that’s the hardest part.’

My mouth suddenly felt bitter.

“Kylie, pass me the drill.”

“Okay!”

I lingered around Logan, only moving quickly when he asked for tools.

Before I knew it, the sun was setting.

The absence of zombie noises made the place feel eerily quiet. The sound of the wind whistling through the trees added to the desolate atmosphere.

“Logan, when are you done? Is it finished?”

“Almost. Why?”

He was sweating a lot from the work. I watched the droplets of sweat roll down his jawline and sniffed, my mouth watering.

“Hurry up and come down.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Hungry? Well… I’m just a bit bored and lonely.”

Logan peeked under the car, his eyes narrowing. He didn’t seem to believe me.

I pouted and climbed back into the car.

Does he think I’m a full-on zombie? I can handle being accused of being in heat, but being treated like a zombie is unbearable.

What about being treated like a zombie in heat? Hmm, I’ll have to think about that.

Logan, who had finished installing the water tank, wiped his sweat with a towel and came down. What a waste.

“Ugh…!”

I immediately clung to him as he stepped down. My pupils dilated, and my senses sharpened. I bit into the pulsing vein on the back of his neck.

I barely held back, not wanting to go that far yet.

Logan carried me into the bus, my arms wrapped around him.

While he closed the bus door and took off his pants, I hung onto him, frantically licking the sweat and faint traces of blood on the back of his neck.

“It hurts, Kylie.”

“Sorry, sorry. It was a mistake. I meant to lick but accidentally scratched.”

A disgusting lie. Lately, I’ve been hurting him on purpose, pretending it’s an accident.

A little scratch from my nails is fine, right? It’s like getting a paper cut—it doesn’t threaten your life. It just stings a bit.

Making excuses like that, I kept craving his blood.

“I get it, so let go for a second. Let me take off my clothes.”

“Okay.”

I let go of him with a dazed expression, like I’d already reached my peak.