The sound wasn't the mindless scratching of the horde below. It was a rhythmic, heavy thud-drag-thud. Something with weight and a sense of direction was moving across the thin aluminum roof of the truck.
Han-su stared at the ceiling. The rivets were groaning. Under the dim, flickering light of Ji-young's LED flashlight, he saw the metal begin to bow inward. A sharp, triangular dent appeared, then another. It looked like someone was punching the truck from the outside with a sledgehammer.
"Is it... is it one of them?" Ji-young whispered, her voice trembling. She had pulled her knees to her chest, her small frame shaking.
"It's heavier," Han-su muttered. He gripped the professional-grade crossbow he'd scavenged. His palms were sweaty, making the carbon-fiber grip feel slick. "Mr. Kim, get the flashlight. Keep it steady on that dent."
"I... I can't," Mr. Kim stammered, his eyes darting toward the rolling door. "We should just drive. Just start the engine and go!"
"We don't have enough fuel to clear the block, and if that thing is on the roof when we move, it'll smash the windshield the moment I hit the brakes," Han-su snapped. "Hold the light. Now."
Reluctantly, Mr. Kim took the light. The beam danced across the ceiling, highlighting the jagged deformities in the metal.
SCREEECH.
The sound of metal being peeled back made them all flinch. A jagged hole, no bigger than a fist, appeared in the roof. A hand—pale, bloated, and missing two fingers—thrust through the opening. It didn't reach for them; it grabbed the edge of the metal and began to pull, widening the gap with terrifying, inhuman strength.
There was no "Strength Stat" here. This was simply the raw, unrestrained power of a human body whose brain no longer cared about tearing its own ligaments or breaking its own bones.
"Ji-young, move to the back!" Han-su ordered.
He raised the crossbow. He had never fired one before, but he'd seen enough movies to know the basics. Pull the string, lock the bolt, aim, fire. The problem was the tension. This was a 150-lb draw weight hunting bow. His arms, already fatigued from the day's labor, screamed as he leveled the weapon.
The hole was now large enough for a head to look through. A face appeared—or what used to be a face. It was a man in a firefighter's uniform, his heavy coat shredded. One side of his head was crushed, likely from a fall, but the eyes were wide, milky, and locked onto Han-su.
The zombie let out a wet, guttural hiss. It didn't wait. It threw its weight against the hole, the aluminum shrieking as it gave way.
THWACK.
Han-su pulled the trigger. The bolt vanished into the darkness of the hole. A second later, the firefighter-zombie jerked back. The bolt had caught it in the shoulder, pinning a piece of its heavy canvas coat to the roof frame.
"Damn it," Han-su cursed. He reached for another bolt. "Aim for the head, aim for the head..."
The creature was frantic now. It didn't feel the bolt in its shoulder. It began to thrash, using its own pinned body as a lever to tear more of the roof open. Dust and bits of insulation rained down on the survivors.
"It's coming in!" Mr. Kim screamed, dropping the light.
The cargo hold went dark.
"Pick it up!" Han-su roared, fumbling with the second bolt in the pitch black. He heard the sound of the firefighter dropping—a heavy, metallic clack as it landed on the crates of packages.
He didn't wait for the light. He lunged forward with his "primary" weapon—the heavy carbon-steel frying pan. He swung blindly into the dark where he heard the breathing.
CLANG.
He hit something hard. The vibration nearly dislocated his wrist. The flashlight rolled across the floor, its beam sweeping across the interior like a searchlight. It caught the firefighter-zombie mid-lunge. The creature was pinned to a crate by the first bolt, but it was reaching for Han-su's throat with its free hand.
Han-su dropped the pan and grabbed the Japanese chef knife he'd unpacked earlier. It was a Gyuto—sharp enough to slice through bone.
He didn't think about the man the zombie used to be. He didn't think about the family that firefighter might have had. He drove the blade upward, through the soft tissue under the chin, aiming for the brain stem.
The creature stiffened. The frantic scratching stopped. The weight of the body slumped against Han-su, pinning him against the wall of the truck.
Silence returned to the hold, broken only by the heavy, ragged sobbing of Mr. Kim.
Han-su pushed the cold, heavy corpse off him. He was covered in a mixture of blackish blood and insulation dust. He looked up at the hole in the roof. Rain was starting to fall, a cold Seoul drizzle that hissed against the metal.
"We can't wait for morning," Han-su said, wiping the blade on the zombie's uniform. "The rain will mask our sound, but it'll also make the siphoning harder. We move now."