Chapter 7 Preparation (3)

Beep! Beep! Beep~ Beepribeep~ Beep~

The familiar military reveille melody rang by my pillow.

“Ugh… Is it already morning?”

Last night, after work, I went to a large supermarket to buy items I had always wanted and would need in the future.

However, I noticed that many people, like the store manager, showed similar symptoms, so I quickly returned to my attic room after buying only what I needed.

After arriving at my room, the tension from the day subsided, and I felt an overwhelming fatigue, eventually falling asleep.

The current time is 7:30 AM.

It was time to prepare for work to switch shifts.

“Oh! Right! Could they have already started coming in today…?”

Whoosh- Thud- Thud- Thud-

While preparing for work and taking a shower, I suddenly remembered the order I had placed without much thought yesterday.

But it was already too late to regret it.

I quickly finished my preparations to avoid being late for the shift change and went down to the convenience store.

The inside of the store, as seen from outside, felt messy and chaotic.

‘Did they already start coming in? Damn… This is bad…’

Ding-ding-

As I opened the door and entered, Choi Jin immediately stood up and approached me, looking very tense.

“Brother Taekyung, what’s all this? A ton of stuff came in last night, and I don’t even know what it is. This isn’t something we ordered, right? The distributor said they deliver the items that were prepared first from the orders we placed…”

“R-Right? Where’s the delivery list? Give it to me!”

“No way, brother! You didn’t order all this, did you? What were you thinking? Does the manager know about this?”

Since I didn’t have a valid reason for placing the order, I couldn’t give Choi Jin a clear explanation.

“I’ll handle it. From now on, I’ll take care of it, so you can go home.”

“Sigh, I don’t know what you were thinking… Then I’m not involved. I need to make sure the manager knows I’m not involved.”

Choi Jin quickly finished his preparations to leave, drew a clear line to show he was not involved, and immediately left.

“Brother, I’m leaving! I’m not involved at all!!”

“Alright, I got it.”

After Choi Jin left, I was left alone in the convenience store.

Despite the chaotic state of the store due to the unexpected early arrival of items, my mind began to clearly organize the tasks I needed to do today.

“First, I should check the order form and the delivery list, right?”

I needed to carefully inspect the order form and delivery list to see if I could cancel the order or return the items.

Moreover, since there were still many items to be delivered, I couldn’t store everything in the convenience store’s warehouse.

‘Hmm… Maybe I should split the items between the convenience store’s warehouse and the rooftop warehouse?’

There is a fairly large warehouse next to the entrance to the rooftop.

The warehouse contains various household items, materials for building maintenance, a large water tank for the building’s water supply, and a small generator to prepare for power outages, as the building is quite old and often experiences power cuts during heavy rain.

I checked the boxes stacked in the store with the delivery list and found that they were surprisingly well-organized.

It seemed Choi Jin had spent the night counting the delivered items and comparing them with the order list.

I could see that the boxes of the same type were neatly arranged.

“Still, he did check it out.”

The items listed on the delivery confirmation included bottled water, ready-to-eat rice, canned drinks, some types of canned food, instant noodles, wet wipes, and other ready-to-eat items that are usually delivered.

I decided to store as many boxes as could fit in the convenience store’s warehouse and move the rest to the rooftop warehouse.

I thought that if I stored about half in the warehouse and the other half on the rooftop, there would be some space left in the warehouse.

The thought of moving the items made me feel dizzy.

Even if I used the elevator, I would have to move them by hand from the 5th floor to the rooftop warehouse.

“Sigh… When should I move them?”

Although I was in a situation where I could only sigh, I couldn’t leave the store in this state to serve customers.

However, it was also difficult to leave the store unattended for a long time.

There is a security door at the entrance to the hallway leading to the manager’s house on the 5th floor.

Only the manager and I know the password to this door, so I decided it would be best to stack the boxes in the hallway and move them to the rooftop after work.

I divided the items into two groups: those to be stored in the convenience store’s warehouse and those to be stored in the rooftop warehouse.

Even a rough estimate showed that I would have to make several trips with the elevator.

“…This is going to be a nightmare.”

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The simple task of loading the items into the elevator and moving them to the 5th floor took about two hours, leaving me breathless and exhausted.

“Wait…! It’s almost time for the morning delivery truck. Ah! I need to hurry.”

I had no idea how many times I had gone up and down the elevator, but I was out of breath and disoriented.

Even though I had divided the items, there was not much space left in the convenience store’s warehouse, so if the morning delivery truck arrived, I would have to do this all over again.

There was still some time before the morning delivery truck arrived, so I sat behind the counter to catch my breath and pulled out my phone.

I accessed an internet forum I usually enjoy reading and found many eye-catching posts.

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When I clicked on the posts, I saw that they included photos and videos.

The people in the photos and videos were described as attacking passersby by biting and scratching, and they were unable to think or communicate normally, similar to the manager’s case.

“What? Is my guess correct? Ah… Then the items I ordered need to arrive quickly.”

I had only guessed that the manager was not one of the initial cases but one of the early infected. Now, my guess seemed more plausible.

The chill I felt when I first saw the manager’s aggressive behavior ran down my spine again.

Looking through various internet forums and social media on my smartphone, I found posts describing how people with red, bloodshot eyes and coughing had suddenly become aggressive and attacked those around them.

Reading these shocking news stories, I lost track of time and realized it was already past 10 AM, the time for the morning delivery truck.

Ding-ding-

“Hello. I’ve brought the items you ordered. Here’s the list of the items you ordered. The quantity and volume of the items are quite significant. Where should I put them?”

“Hello. The convenience store’s warehouse is full, so I need to move them to the rooftop warehouse. Please don’t bring them to the store, but rather to the front of the elevator.”

“The front of the elevator?”

“Yes, please put them in front of the elevator. I’d appreciate it.”

The delivery driver, though puzzled, moved the truck to the building entrance and unloaded the items in front of the elevator.

Whoosh- Thud- Whoosh- Thud-

The items, which filled a 5-ton wing-body truck, were being unloaded in front of the elevator by two delivery drivers, and the quantity was at least twice as much as the first delivery from the previous evening.

“Sigh… Do I have to do this again?”

I couldn’t block the hallway where the residents of the building would pass, and leaving the items unattended could lead to theft, so I had to quickly move them to the 5th floor.

2 hours later.

Since I had done this once before, I was able to move the items, which were more than twice the amount I had moved in the morning, relatively quickly.

“Ugh… This is so uncomfortable… My clothes are all wet. Come to think of it, I didn’t do any business this morning… If the manager had found out, I would have been in big trouble. Looking at it this way, it’s actually fortunate that the manager was taken away.”

Despite being drenched in sweat from moving the items, I diligently moved between the boxes to check the order list and the delivered items.

The second delivery included butane gas, canned food, ready-to-eat meals, beef jerky, canned drinks, instant noodles, butane gas, and batteries.

“Comparing it to the total order list, about 70-80% of the items have arrived?”

The items I ordered were arriving at a faster rate than expected.

To operate a convenience store as a franchise, you have to pay a commission to a large company.

However, if you operate a franchise convenience store under a large company, you can receive items at an incredibly fast rate through their well-established distribution network.

‘Come to think of it, no one came to the store this morning? The neighborhood feels a bit quiet…’

While I was closing the store to organize it in the morning, I didn’t receive any calls from people looking for me.

Moreover, the neighborhood streets felt quieter than usual.

‘It’s so cold… It feels like an icicle is piercing my chest… Ah! That’s not it.’

After the store was organized and I was ready to serve customers, I changed the sign at the door to ‘OPEN’ and started manning the cash register.

Despite my tense state, waiting for something to happen, the store was unusually quiet.

Apart from the occasional customer buying cigarettes, there was nothing to do at the store.

As the neighborhood atmosphere relaxed, so did my tension.

Ding!

Just as I was dozing off, a text message alert sounded.

It seemed that the manager’s case was one of the initial incidents, and similar accidents had been occurring repeatedly, leading to a nationwide safety advisory text message.

Not long after receiving the text, I heard screams from near the store.

Aaaah!

I felt my tension return instantly and quickly looked outside the store.

A middle-aged man was running out of a nearby apartment building, bleeding from his neck, with a woman with bloodshot eyes chasing after him.

I recognized the woman from somewhere.

I didn’t know the man being chased, but the woman chasing him was familiar.

She was one of the people who had come to check on the manager, the middle-aged woman with bloodshot eyes and a persistent cough.

I was terrified.

Afraid that she might enter the store, I quickly locked the door and pulled down all the blinds. The store’s interior would not be visible from outside.

Still feeling uneasy, I turned off the lights and peeked outside through the blinds. Soon, sirens from police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks filled the neighborhood.

The neighborhood where I had lived since I was 20, except for my time in the military, was not a great place, but it was familiar and peaceful…

“Aaaah!”

I had a premonition that it was about to turn into a living hell.