Gary had fled the concert area and had run so far and so fast that he now had to stop and rest. He crouched down low in that row of cots, hoping to stay out of sight as he tried to catch his breath. All around him, the sounds of gunfire and screaming continued. He covered his ears, unable to take anymore.

Just then, he looked up to see Se7en jogging toward him with his gun raised. Still in that crouched position, Gary yelled out to him. “No, don’t! I’m not bit!”

But his words were cut off by the noise of the gunshot as Se7en fired.

Gary scanned his body for a bullet hole and saw nothing, but then he heard a noise behind him and turned to see a zombie that had fallen to its knees from the bullet that Se7en had fired into its head. Gary now looked up at Se7en with wide eyes.

“Come on,” Se7en said, gesturing them him up. 

Rina had been running up and down each row, plowing through zombies with her assault rifle as she riddled their heads with bullets. She hadn’t seen one survivor yet, not until she reached the row where Se7en was now helping Gary up to his feet.

Although they were both soldiers, Rina hadn’t met Se7en before that day he had brought Hyun Suk to the armory so that Hyun Suk could reclaim his katana. She wanted to ask Se7en now what had happened to that man, if he had ever found his family, but there was no time for such talk. Instead, she simply nodded toward Se7en and then gave Gary the extra pistol that she had pocketed.

“I don’t know how to use this,” Gary said.

“You’ll figure it out,” Rina said.

Suddenly, Gary heard barking. He looked all around him and then yelled out for Caesar, and soon, that dog came running toward him, the leash still attached to the collar around its neck. Gary kneeled down, quickly embraced the dog, and then reached for its leash, the end of which was damp with blood. Gary could only surmise that something bad had happened to Caesar’s owner, Jason.

Their small group, with Caesar in tow, then began heading toward the southern end of the field, not knowing the horror they would find there.

The Super Junior boys, with Heechul gone, were now down to five members: Donghae, Siwon, Ryeowook, Eunhyuk, and Kyuhyun. They hadn’t seen Heechul die, but, like everyone else at the concert, they had heard his awful scream and knew that he was gone.

While the others had run aimlessly from the concert area, Donghae had directed the boys to run for the southern entrance to the interior of the stadium, the same entrance they had passed through when they first arrived. They had stayed close to each other, separating only when they needed to dodge a zombie in their path, and now, nearing the end of the field, they could see the tunnel entrance ahead that led to the dark passageways inside, which, if the boys survived, would eventually lead them back outside onto the Seoul streets.

“We’re almost there,” Donghae sputtered, pointing ahead to the tunnel.

But just as they made it out of the main field area, they saw Suho and Kai run out of that tunnel toward them. The Super Junior boys were as surprised to see their SM dongsaengs as Suho and Kai were to see them. But that surprise soon turned to alarm.

“Run!” Suho yelled. “Go back!”

Following Suho and Kai were Baekhyun, Chanyeol, and Sehun, all of whom had turned into zombies after having been bitten and near death for so long on the road.

Suho and Kai both stopped and bent over when they reached the Super Junior members, trying to catch their breaths. “They turned,” Kai muttered. “They turned into those things.” Both so exhausted from running, the two EXO boys then collapsed on the ground and held their hands over their hearts to try to calm the pounding in their chests.

Donghae, Siwon, Ryeowook, Eunhyuk, and Kyuhyun all looked ahead at the three approaching EXO zombies with tearful eyes. Eunhyuk, who always cried easily, was now sobbing profusely.

Ryeowook soon realized that his favorite dongsaeng, D.O. was not there. He turned to Suho and Kai, both of whom were still lying on the ground trying to catch their breaths, and asked about D.O.

“Baekhyun ate him,” Suho mumbled. “He... he ate his arm…”

Ryeowook’s mouth dropped in shock and he then looked back at the EXO zombies. The Baekhyun zombie’s mouth and shirt were covered in blood. D.O.’s blood, Ryeowook thought. And then he saw D.O. staggering out from the tunnel behind the three EXO zombies. His left arm had been nearly bitten off entirely, hanging on by a thread, and he seemed to be limping on an injured ankle.

D.O. saw the Super Junior boys and tried to scream for help, but all that came out was a hoarse, pathetic shriek, and he then collapsed on the ground, unconscious.

The Baekhyun, Chanyeol, and Sehun zombies were getting closer every second, and the Super Junior boys didn’t know what to do. They could run, as Suho had initially yelled for them to do, but Suho and Kai didn’t seem to be in any shape to run anymore, and the Super Junior boys couldn’t leave them behind.

“We need to kill them,” Siwon quietly said, as he stared at the approaching zombies. He turned now to Donghae and the others, searching their faces for their reaction.

Although the five Super Junior members outnumbered the three EXO zombies, they had no weapons, no plan, and not enough time to mentally prepare for this showdown. All were disheartened to have to fight their dongsaengs and were having trouble mustering the courage to kill them, particularly as they had nothing but their fists to kill them with.

But there was no time to hesitate. The three zombies were upon them. 

Se7en, Rina, Gary, and the dog, Caesar, had made it to the end of the row at that southern part of the field and were finally out in the open, no longer surrounded by cots. But the quick glimpse of the tunnel ahead was cut short by what they saw on the grass in front of them. They all skidded to a stop, looking down upon the horror with wide eyes.

Six bodies were sprawled across the red-stained grass. They were so mutilated that they were nearly unrecognizable. Faces were smashed in. Insides were pulled out. All around the bodies were puddles of blood and brains with fragments of bone floating in that sticky, clumpy mess.

“What… what happened here?” Gary asked.

Suho, Kai, and Donghae didn’t look up. They were standing there just like Se7en, Rina, and Gary were – all staring down at the ground in shock. At their feet was Ryeowook, who was sitting beside the bodies, crying. Behind them, Siwon, who had taken off shirt, was now using that shirt to wrap around his bloody hand.

“What happened to your hand?” Rina asked Siwon.

Siwon, his bare chest streaked with red from the blood that had seeped through his shirt, held up his now bandaged hand as he walked over to Se7en, Rina, and Gary. “I was bit,” he said.

Gary blinked hard and shook his head as he continued to stare at the bodies. But the scene was so horrific that he felt himself become sick at that moment and he quickly pushed Se7en and Rina aside so that he could run behind them and vomit.

As Gary stood hunched over and heaving, Se7en and Rina listened to Siwon try to explain what happened.

Siwon gestured to the three bodies on the left, their heads smashed. “Our dongsaengs,” he mumbled. “Baekhyun, Chanyeol, Sehun… they just…”

Donghae, still standing beside Suho and Kai, looked up at that moment. “They attacked us,” he said. “We weren’t ready, not for that, not for them.”

Siwon looked down at the fourth body. “Kyuhyun-ah…” he said. “That EXO maknae, Sehun, went right for him, just dug his teeth right into our maknae’s chest.”

“Stop talking,” Ryeowook said, still sitting there beside the bodies, crying over their loss. “Just stop.” He stood up now and breathed in deep. “I don’t want to relive it.”

Caesar ran around the SM bloodbath and sat on its hind legs beside Ryeowook’s feet, looking up at him. Just yesterday, Ryeowook had been so frightened by the appearance of that pit bull that he had jumped back onto the stage, but now, he reached down and embraced Caesar, as if needing comfort so desperately that he had forgotten how much he had once feared that dog.

Se7en pointed to the last two bodies and whispered to Siwon. “Who… which ones are…?”

“Eunhyuk and D.O.,” Siwon said. “Eunhyuk-ah… he was the first to go down, and then–”

“Stop,” Ryeowook said again. “Please Siwon-ah, stop.”

Siwon nodded and then looked down at his bandaged hand. The Baekhyun zombie had been the most vicious of the three, having already tasted D.O.’s blood before the encounter with the Super Junior members. He had gone straight for Siwon during the attack. Siwon had instinctively held out his hand to stop him, and that was when the Baekhyun zombie chomped down right into the flesh between Siwon’s thumb and index finger. “I’m going to be like them soon,” Siwon now said, looking at the bodies.

Gary rejoined them and they all stood there in silence for a moment, not saying anything. But then Rina spotted some zombies creeping around them and fired, shooting each of them once in the head. The noise startled everyone and they seemed to snap out of their shock.

“We need to go,” Donghae said, walking over to Siwon. “We need to get out of here.”

Rina nodded and pointed to the tunnel. “When you get inside, turn left and follow that passageway to the second hallway on the right. That second hallway will take you to the main entrance.”

“You’re not coming?” Gary asked.

Rina shook her head and looked at Se7en. “We can’t abandon our duties,” she said.

“We need to do what we can to help here,” Se7en added. As badly as he wanted to leave the stadium, he knew that he and Rina had to stay to kill off what zombies they could and protect those still alive. He wondered now if his YG family was okay.