Hiding the House in the Apocalypse

29. cold wave

When the system collapses, it means we lose access to the services we take so much for granted.

Weather forecasting is one of them.

They are always criticized for getting the forecast wrong, but who else can analyze and judge the weather other than them?

The last 3 days have been warm.

It was a perfect spring, both seasonal and calendar.

The world changed in one day.

The north wind that blew through the night without warning began to freeze everything.

The outside thermometer read 32 degrees below zero.

The air-raid shelter became a giant refrigerator.

The water in the toilet seat in the middle of the first-floor air-raid shelter was frozen solid.

If Duchamp, who made a name for himself with his toilet exhibition, saw this, would he give it the title Frozen Fountain?

I waited for the sun to rise and went outside.

It was so cold, but not a single snow fell.

The sky was absurdly clear and the air was sadly clear.

“······after.”

What should I do?

There is not much left in the storage battery.

Due to the season, the first spring was over, and the temperature has been rising lately, so there were several opportunities to turn on the generator, but I did not turn it on.

Since the oil in the reservoir fell below half, it had to go into saving mode, and it seemed that spring had arrived, so I didn’t start it, but the cold came.

There was a need to run the generator even in broad daylight.

The benefit of running a generator is that it can prevent freezing of pipes and reduce the chance of getting frostbite, as well as reducing the risk of freezing to death by 99%.

However, if the generator is operated at full capacity in broad daylight, smoke will inevitably be generated.

You won’t be able to see very far because it is equipped with a smoke reduction facility.

At night, it is almost indistinguishable unless the moonlight is very bright.

But now it is daytime. It also has very good atmospheric conditions.

If a faint wisp of smoke rises towards the sky from this desolate, deserted land, it will appear larger than I imagined.

The options are simple.

Should I choose to hide and face the cold, or run the generator with the risk of being discovered by a hostile entity I don’t know.

The option of lighting a fire inside an air-raid shelter was not considered. Because that’s another expression of suicide.

“…”

The first option I chose was to face the cold.

Without electricity, I thought of overcoming the cold with cold protection equipment and my own heat like a primitive man.

However, primitive people did not survive the winter bare-chested.

They had a fire.

I have a small fire called a hot pack, but the temperature of the campfire is 1300 degrees, while the temperature of the hot pack is 40 degrees….

Beep- beep- beep-

The storage battery is discharged.

The temperature of the hot water mat in the heating tent cooled down very quickly, and the scourge of cold hit my heart every moment.

I tried to survive by drinking alcohol, but drinking alcohol only makes my blood circulate faster. Drinking some alcohol does not ignite the furnace inside to fight the cold.

Even before the war, there were many people who froze to death after drinking alcohol.

“……f*ck.”

Wiping my nose, I unknowingly spat out swear words.

It freezes to death like this.

Monsters, nabals, and predators, I freeze to death before that.

around 11 am.

In the end, I decided to turn on the alternator.

That’s the only survival conclusion I can think of.

But I won’t do it out of the ordinary.

I opened the door to the shelter and headed for the field across the realm, facing the knife-like cold.

Last year, weeds that grew indiscriminately grew profusely, and now you can see fields that have withered like dried radish.

I threw a piece of rag dipped in the synthetic oil I received from Ji Young-hee and lit it with a match.

The fire was extinguished several times because of the strong wind.

When do people swear?

Everyone has their own reasons, but in my case, it’s when my body is having a hard time.

“f*ck! f*ck! Did you make this into oil?”

I repeated the same action while spitting out a curse word that came out spontaneously.

When the feeling in my hands and feet was almost fading, the field caught fire.

The fire that burned fiercely with the wind threatened to consume even me, but I stood there for a while and lit the wildly fluctuating fire.

By the time we returned to the shelter, the fire had grown and burned the fields.

Watching black smoke billow endlessly into the sky, I turned on the generator.

Weiying—

I climbed the ladder to the first floor watching my greatest fortune beat like a heart.

Although the shelter was still an ice valley itself, it already felt warmer.

The heating facility I mainly use is a heating tent and a hot water mat, a set that can extract the highest efficiency at the lowest cost.

But there is one more.

Chii Iik-

Radiators installed here and there received hot water heated and rotated by a boiler with plenty of electricity from a generator, and it emitted fine steam throughout the room to deliver warmth to my room.

This is the true heating facility that I, Park Gyu, hid.

Luxurious heating that warms the entire air, not just the floor.

It’s a secret weapon that only works on special days like Christmas or New Year’s Day.

The fact that this radiator is working properly means that the plumbing system has withstood this fierce cold wave, not just the air warming up.

I took off my parka and watched the thermometer go up.

The temperature rises.

started preparing the meal.

I want to eat curry all of a sudden.

My kitchen is next to the toilet.

People are always surprised why the toilet is in the middle, but it can’t be helped.

It was installed in the middle for optimal design of water supply and sewage pipes.

If I was in the mood, I could decorate the 3 rooms, 2 bathrooms, and even the walls in the middle like an apartment.

But I’m going to use it alone anyway, so what does the location matter?

Crucially, a ventilation duct is located above the toilet.

It is said that the smell can be removed the fastest without installing a separate vent.

Tak- Tak- Tak-

Cut the half-frozen carrots, onions, and potatoes into bite-size pieces.

Water was boiling in the Chinese pot on the induction stove opposite, and next to it was an unwrapped Japanese solid curry waiting for the moment to be added like a kamikaze.

Naturally, the temperature inside the shelter rose rapidly.

Despite the cold outside temperature of minus 28 degrees Celsius, the thermometer gradually rose and approached 15 degrees Celsius.

This is truly a spring day.

You can turn off the generator as it is, but the accumulator isn’t fully charged yet.

I took the risk and turned it on, so I have to pick up the mulberries.

The long-awaited hot water was received in a bathtub with wheels under the shower next to the toilet.

After properly washing and shaving, I went into the bathtub.

“······Wow.”

It feels like coming alive.

I am already alive, but it feels like a new life is dwelling in my body.

The hot body in the bathtub had the power to melt not only the frozen body but also the mind.

I relaxed as I watched the thick steam escape through the ventilation duct above the toilet.

Who can afford these luxuries in this time of destruction?

I let the long-awaited, satisfying time pass as I felt a warm smile encroaching on my lips.

In the kitchen, the curry was being boiled down to add flavor.

Yes, there should be days like this.

I checked my surroundings before the sun went down.

The fields to the west were burnt black, emitting white smoke.

There are no people around and the air is still cold.

The outside temperature is minus 28 degrees.

Even zombies freeze to death.

*

Following yesterday and today, I asked the sniper how he was doing.

“Oh, it’s cold. Too cold. f*cking Korea!”

The sniper mother and daughter probably don’t have to worry.

Even on a cold day like this, posting on the bulletin board all the time is proof that it’s worth living.

In fact, yesterday and today, not many posts were posted on the community.

There are a few posts that say they will freeze to death, but that’s all.

Few of us perishers will ever freeze to death.

However, it would not have been so easy to type on the keyboard in the bitter cold that turned the shelter into a refrigerator.

Because no one wants to cut off their fingers after getting frostbite in the community.

After filling my stomach with the curry I made yesterday, I went on a morning reconnaissance.

The air is still cold, but 18 degrees below zero.

Definitely better than yesterday.

The air was still clear and there was no snow.

Blowing white breath, I looked toward the golf course.

Very subtle changes were detected.

There is an invisible black dot under the hill of the golf course that slopes loosely toward this side.

It looked like a human, but it didn’t even move.

I packed my weapons, left the air-raid shelter, and approached cautiously.

As expected, he was frozen to death.

Ironically, he was looking in the direction of my air-raid shelter.

He retrieved the firearm he was carrying.

K-2. It was a domestic rifle and the magazine was full of bullets.

There were condoms, cold medicine and, for some reason, a mosquito repellent in my pocket, but I took all of them.

The clothes are the same size as mine, and the parka I was wearing was also tempted to pack an expensive imported parka, but I let it go.

After I packed my things, I thought about what to do with this corpse.

To burn or to bury?

Neither is willing.

The fire is noticeable and the burial takes the trouble of shoveling through the frozen ground.

It would be better to throw it out of sight.

When the days get better later, I’ll have to decide whether to go to the store or put on makeup.

I grabbed the corpse’s feet and climbed the mound.

I’ve never played golf and I’m not interested, so I don’t know, but this golf course was called a country club.

Unlike public golf courses that anyone can play, it seems that only members with expensive memberships were allowed to enter.

I once heard from old man Kim that memberships here were traded for around 1.8 billion won.

Well, there were a lot of expensive cars in and out.

If you look at the golf course with a body exhausted from working on the air defense shelter, you can often see a cute cart going over that hill with an outbreak.

I thought about it every time.

What lies beyond that mound?

What kind of other world is unfolding at the country club, which costs 1.8 billion won in membership?

After the war started, I passed an empty golf course and crossed a hill.

there was nothing.

Only the short-cut and burnt grass, garbage from unknown sources, and collapsed bungalows were the only vague hints that the place was once a gathering place for the upper class of Korea.

Crossing that hill again.

Holding the feet of someone I don’t know.

My intention is to throw this corpse over this mound.

If you just clean it there right now, you won’t be able to see it from my air-raid shelter.

That means not just for aesthetic reasons, but also that wild animals that would pounce on this corpse would not obstruct my vision.

“Whoa.”

I climbed the ridge of the mound with the feeling of reaching the top of the mountain.

I closed my mouth.

It had to be.

There are more bodies.

One dozen of them.

all froze to death

Some had guns, but others appeared to be civilians.

The man I brought with me didn’t even wear a military uniform.

Are you a refugee?

Or are you a pioneer?

I would like to believe that they are looters, but the proportion of the elderly, children, and women was high.

Their corpses, frozen in dots, formed a straight line, and creepily, the straight line pointed to my air-raid shelter area.

“…”

I paused for a moment, lost in thought.

The man I brought with me was also looking at my shelter.

Could it be that he came here after seeing the smoke I smoked?

In the cold of over 30 degrees below zero?

There must have been smoke from the fields, but why did they come this way?

Can my smoke be seen that far?

Did the smoke emitted by my generator look more beautiful than the black and red smoke reminiscent of wild, devilish fields?

I looked back at the corpses with an inexplicable annoyance.

“Why the hell did you come…”

I wished I had the ability to talk to the dead.

I wanted to hold onto that spirit and ask why it kept coming to me on this cold day.

I wanted to ask why he made such a good feeling so dirty.

My anger was not connected with fire.

He left the golf course, leaving unfinished guests alone.

There are unseen footprints in my territory.

I remembered the armed corpses on the golf course.

They all froze to death miserably, but they were well armed.

7 automatic rifles.

I couldn’t pack everything, so I only packed ammunition and left out balls.

Maybe that wasn’t all.

There was another gang and found my shelter they couldn’t reach.

“…”

Feeling his blood run cold, he put down his captured gun and slowly approached the shelter.

From the middle, the footprints disappeared, leaving traces of dragging, like crawling.

There was an abandoned firearm next to the 4th dummy shelter.

The crawling marks became increasingly disordered and shallow.

The marks continued all the way to my main air-raid shelter.

In the well-camouflaged and covered entrance of my main air-raid shelter, a man was lying on his knees.

No signs of life were shown.

Judging by the goblin’s needles sticking to his clothes like tumors, it seems that he has come over the mountain.

Is that why you and I diverged?

It seemed that I had reached the entrance of my territory by relying on vague impulses and instincts without any special awareness that my main air defense shelter would be here.

Looking at the face of the man who looked only in his early twenties, I unknowingly spat out a cold word.

“Hole in one.”

It seems that the people who did not know the name of the sky and the earth were not the only ones who made this cold wave freeze.

*

Defender : What are you so depressed about?

Defender : The cold wave protected you?

SKELTON: (Skelton smiles) Really?

Defender : Shall we join?

It was when I was about to type “YES!”

“…”

My joy subsided coldly.

Because I realized halfway through that what I was seeing was a dream.

10 days have passed since I lost contact with Defender.

People complained that even the defenders of the world could not overcome this destruction.

“…”

When I opened my eyes, what greeted me was the familiar darkness.

It’s pitch-black darkness where you can’t see anything.

Without thinking, like a blind man, he memorized the location of an object and groped his hand to turn on the computer.

no reason.

I just want to see people

I want to pour something out.

Even if no one responds to my words, I want to see them alive and moving.

there was a message

Message from Defender: Skelton, did you miss me? Are you sure it’s not frozen to death?

A few simple sentences can cause a stir in a person’s emotions.

“……f*ck.”

I feel something hot burning and running down my cheeks.

It’s happy, but it’s also frustrating.

I never thought that Park Gyu would shed tears when he saw a guy like that.

However, the heat flowing down my cheek is not a dream, but a reality.

cracking

I typed with my frozen fingers.

SKELTON: Long time no see.

Message from Defender: Is that all? Anything else to say? did you wait for me yes?

“under.”

Why is this guy so thick?

is there something

A novel expression that can express the joy of reunion without hurting my pride?

Ah, the sentence I saw somewhere flashed through my mind as if I had seen it in a dream.

knock knock-

“like.”

I sent a reply with a finger blowing.

SKELTON: (Non-Skelton) Ta, you didn’t really want to see it?

A message from Defender: Wow…

A message from Defender: I’ve felt it before, aren’t you really bad at the Internet?

SKELTON: !