When the others saw the zombies out the window, there was this quick moment of desperation, almost like surrender, their minds and bodies so tired and pained by the sight that they just averted their eyes and let their shoulders fall in defeat.

Bom began crying and then collapsed against T.O.P.’s chest. “Nooo…” she said, her voice muffled against T.O.P.’s shirt. “No more.”

G-Dragon lost it and suddenly unleashed a barrage of curses in his drunkeness, only stopping when he caught sight of Kyung Eun holding her hands over her little boy’s ears. G-Dragon turned away then and kicked at the floor before collapsing in the corner. “Forget it,” he muttered, dropping his head in his lap. “I’m done.”

Everyone stared at him for a moment, surprised that he had so openly given up. But then their attention turned to Thunder, who had just run to the other end of the room.

“Where are you going?” Dara asked, her eyes wide as she watched him leave.

Thunder returned with the sticks that he, Daesung, and Minzy had sharpened that day and then began doling them out to the group.

They all looked down at the sticks he had given them and then up at the horde on the beach out back, realizing that there was no way they’d be able to defend this home.

“It’s hopeless,” Kyung Eun said, picking up her boy and crying.

“Don’t say that,” Gary said. “I’m alive right now because I didn’t give up hope.”

Jae Suk breathed in deeply and turned to Jong Kook, hoping that he would know what to do. Everyone else at that moment did the same, growing more anxious with each second that passed.

“We can’t win this,” Jong Kook said, not once taking his eyes from the window where he watched the seemingly endless horde of zombies empty out onto the beach. He didn’t understand where they had all come from. He tried to make sense of it but couldn’t. “We… we have to abandon this place,” he said.

“How are we going to get to the boat?” Bom asked, her lower lip quivering as she tried to control her tears.

Jong Kook shook his head, still staring out the window. “We can’t,” he quietly said. “We’ll never get past them.” He shook himself out of his stare now and looked at those gathered around him. “We’ll have to make a run for the truck instead.”

“Can’t we stay?” Daesung asked. “They can’t get in here, right?”

Minzy put her arm around Daesung, feeling suddenly sober from the shock. “They’ll get in,” she said gravely. “They’ll find a way. And even if they don’t, we’ll be surrounded.”

Jong Kook looked over at G-Dragon in the corner. “How drunk are you?” he asked.

G-Dragon still had his head down and didn’t answer.

“Yah!” Jong Kook yelled. “You’re the only one who has driven that truck. Can you drive it now or not?”

G-Dragon wanted to tell Jong Kook to forget it, that it was hopeless just like Kyung Eun had said, but then he noticed Dara’s beautiful face – so beautiful, but so sad – and he knew he couldn’t give up. “I can drive,” he said. “I’ve driven drunker than this before.”

“Good,” Jong Kook said. “Well, not good that you’ve driven drunk or anything, but, ah, forget it. We don’t have to time to talk anymore. We have to do this fast.” He looked outside again, seeing that the zombies were still only on the one side of the house. At least they weren’t surrounded just yet. Thinking quickly, he began ordering the others as to how to proceed. “Ji Yong-ah, you go for the passenger side door and then scoot over to the driver’s seat.” He looked at the 2ne1 girls. “You four squeeze inside the backseat. It’ll be tight but just push yourselves in.” He then turned to Ji Hyo beside him and Kyung Eun nearby. “You two, you hold onto those kids and sit up front next to Ji Yong.” He breathed in deeply now. “The rest of us will have to sit in the back.”

Those planning to ride in the back of the truck – Jong Kook, Jae Suk, Gary, T.O.P., Daesung, Seungri, and Thunder – grabbed what weapons they had and now led the way to the front door. Gary clutched onto Caesar’s leash and breathed in deeply, wondering how the seven of them, eight with the dog, were going to fit in the back of that truck.

Jong Kook looked back at everyone gathered in the entranceway of that house. “You ready?” he asked. He didn’t wait for them to respond. He slowly opened the front door and looked outside. There was nothing directly in front of the house or to the right where the road ended at the parking area. But when he looked left, he saw the zombies walking toward the house, most shuffling off down the far side of the house, following the other zombies to the beach.

Jong Kook breathed in deeply and then turned right toward the wooden gate, which he opened now and ushered everyone through. G-Dragon rushed toward the truck and scooted over to the driver’s seat where he then jammed the keys in the ignition and revved up the gas. The 2ne1 girls climbed into the backseat, trying to squeeze their legs and arms inside as Ji Hyo and Kyung Eun, holding the children, climbed up front with G-Dragon. The rest of them jumped in the back, trying to find space around the jugs of water, lumber, and tools to crouch down low. It was tight back there and they knew they’d be vulnerable to attack.

G-Dragon shifted into reverse and ripped back up the driveway, the truck swinging around and then facing the road ahead. With the house and sea now at their left, they looked forward down the road, seeing that most of the horde had already wandered down the side of the house and out back to the beach, with only fifty or so still left on the road. Those zombies had been following the others but, now that they saw the truck ahead, they changed direction and continued on down the road toward them.

G-Dragon idled there for a moment, revving the pedal.

“How are we going to get past them, Ji Yong-ah?” Dara asked, her face filled with fright as she stared at the zombies ahead.

Feeling brave from the soju, G-Dragon suddenly slammed his foot down on the gas pedal and headed straight for the middle of that zombie herd.

“Oh my god!” CL screamed, squeezing her eyes shut.

Those in the back of the truck had been focused on trying to stay away from the edges, but G-Dragon’s sudden propulsion forward caught them off guard and they fell on top of each other, losing the security of their crouched positions.  

The truck barreled right into the center of the herd, taking down a few zombies in front, but rolling over those bodies slowed the truck down and the herd soon encircled them. G-Dragon kept pushing forward, running over the ones in front. The boys in the back, meanwhile, tried to regain their footing and keep away from the decaying dead surrounding them.

Caesar barked loudly at the zombies and Gary had to restrain him, afraid that if the dog bit one of them, he might get infected. As he held the dog back, he used the last bullet in his gun to take out the zombie closest to him and then reached for one of the sickles on the floor to slice through the heads of those trying to crawl onto the back. T.O.P. saw this and, realizing that he had the only gun left, decided to save it and use one of the axes instead. He stood up now on one side of that truck, swinging that ax and beheading as many zombies as he could. Jong Kook positioned himself against the other side, jamming the trekking pole into each zombie’s skull one by one down the line as the truck continued through the herd, nearly reaching the end now.

Jae Suk was trying to fight the zombies off with the shovel, but the truck sped up now that they were nearly free of the herd, causing Jae Suk to almost fall over the side. The last remnants of the herd latched onto him with their cold white corpse hands, trying to pull him over. Daesung, Thunder, and Seungri all jumped to Jae Suk’s rescue and grabbed onto his legs to yank him back into the truck before he could be harmed. But although Jae Suk was okay physically, the feeling of those dead hands on him stayed with him for a few moments, messing him up mentally. Jong Kook, seeing his old friend so shaken, sat down and put his arm around him as the two looked back down the road at the zombies they had escaped, seeing the dust from the truck’s rip down the road swirl up around those flesh-eaters like a dense fog.

They were fortunate that they had encountered only the tail end of the horde, as the rest of the zombies were already on the beach trying to find a way into the house. But now that the group was past that horde and out on that open road, they didn’t know what to do. G-Dragon looked over at Ji Hyo and Kyung Eun sitting in the front row with him, the baby and toddler on their laps, and then turned back to look at the 2ne1 girls squished into the backseat. None of their faces expressed any hint of hope despite having just escaped from that horde because they knew that they were out there on that road again, the comforts of a home just a silly dream – a seemingly unfathomable possibility in this new world. G-Dragon bit down hard on his lip, angry at himself for ever thinking that they could have some sort of normal life on that island… not unless they had an arsenal of heavy artillery at their disposal.

When he reached the end of the dirt road at that T-junction, he stopped and pulled up the brake.

“Why are you stopping?” Ji Hyo asked, alarmed.

“I don’t know where to go,” he said. “What do we do now?”

“Just go!” Dara yelled from the backseat. “Just keep going!”

G-Dragon released the brake and then yanked the wheel right, going back down the road the scavenger group had traveled earlier, but this time taking it further south than they had before, past the houses they had scavenged. For a while, there was nothing but farmland on either side, but then the road veered around a luxury hotel and the road split. “Which way should I go?” G-Dragon asked.

“Left,” Ji Hyo said, seeing that the road heading left was much broader.

“No, go straight,” Kyung Eun said, thinking they should stay the course.

“Aish,” G-Dragon mumbled, as he continued on straight down that narrow island road.

For a while, there was nothing again – only farmland. But as they continued on, they saw a house, and then another, and another, and soon, they found themselves in the middle of a congested village. There was no main road anymore; instead, the road had become somewhat of a maze path with myriad options to turn and no hint as to where those choices might lead.

They had expected to find zombies here, considering that this small enclave likely housed the majority of the island’s population, but they didn’t see any. There was no movement anywhere but for tree branches swaying with the wind and the occasional clump of dirt drifting across the road as they sped on through. It was like a ghost town.

As they all looked around at their surroundings, they realized that the island’s three hundred or so inhabitants must have comprised that swarm of undead that had attacked their home.

But were there no survivors?

After turning randomly on those narrow roads encircling that cluster of homes, G-Dragon found himself at yet another T-junction, though this time the road that extended in either direction was broad and seemed to be more of a main street. “Which way?” he asked.

Ji Hyo and Kyung Eun shrugged, both of their faces blank. The 2ne1 girls in the backseat had no suggestions to offer either.

G-Dragon yanked the truck left, his decision to turn that way more an act of apathy than anything else. He no longer cared anymore. They were stuck on these roads without direction or hope. There was nothing left for them.

The two-lane road they were now on was paved and clean, providing the guys in the back a less bumpy ride. No one knew where it led, not until they traveled a bit farther down and saw that, up ahead, it became a low-level bridge that spanned across the blue sea between Sido and the much larger island to its east, Sindo.

G-Dragon stopped at the start of the bridge, just where the land ended and the water began, and got out of the truck. The salty breeze whipped about his hair and he squinted as he walked to the back of the truck to talk with Jong Kook.

Jong Kook and Jae Suk were standing up in the back, peering over the top of the cab and looking at the inlet in front of them and Sindo just beyond that. The evening sun that peeked just above the rolling hills of Sindo reflected across the water’s surface. Jong Kook looked down upon that reflection, soaking in the tranquility of the moderate waves lapping against the stone abutment of the bridge. They had been safe on the water once before, he thought. He looked over to the right now, seeing an array of blue fishing boats anchored to the shore.

The girls now got out of the cab, too, and gathered near the back of the truck.

“Are we going to try that island?” Minzy asked, pointing over the bridge.

“No,” Jong Kook said. “There will just be more zombies there.”

“We have to try,” Jae Suk quietly said.

Jong Kook jumped out of the back and stood near Ji Hyo. He looked down at Dream in her arms, wondering what kind of future that little baby would have. Would Dream ever be able to let down his defenses? To relax? To enjoy life? Every time Jong Kook and the others had tried to do so, they had suffered for it. “There’s no point in trying anymore,” Jong Kook said.

Everyone stared at him in shock. All this time, since the beginning, Jong Kook had been their fearless leader. They knew that he must’ve struggled at some point, but he had never shown any weakness, not to the larger group. To them, he was the one man they could always rely on to take charge, to tell them what to do, to instill courage and hope even in the most devastating of situations. If he was now giving up, what did that mean?

Jong Kook breathed in deeply and looked around at all of them. “Since this whole thing started, where was the one place we had felt safe?” he asked them.

Everyone stared back with confused faces. Some of them had never felt safe and wondered if this was a trick question.

“The water,” Jong Kook said. “We were safe on Hyun Suk-ssi’s boat.” He didn’t receive the reaction he had expected, seeing that their faces were still filled with worry, skepticism even. “We don’t have weapons to survive here on land,” he said, trying to get them to understand their situation. “We have one gun and a bunch of random tools. But we can survive out there on the water. We’ll need to stop at ports for gas and there will likely be danger there, but we’ve done that before and we can do it again.”

“But what kind of life is that?” Ji Hyo asked.

Jong Kook wondered if she was now thinking about Dream, just as he had earlier. “It’s the only life for us now, Ji Hyo-yah.”

Jae Suk tried to absorb the implications of what Jong Kook had said. There was logic in Jong Kook’s words, but little hope. Jae Suk looked over at Kyung Eun and their little boy, seeing their sad faces. He needed to believe that there was someplace for them to settle, someplace where they could truly be happy. “We can stay on the sea, but not forever,” Jae Suk said. “We can’t give up hope that there is land out there completely unaffected by the zombies.”

Jong Kook blinked hard. He wanted to tell Jae Suk that if he needed that faith to survive, then he should hold onto it. But Jong Kook had learned time and time again that hope was pointless, maybe even dangerous. They couldn’t keep thinking that there was this better place, this haven. They needed to accept the reality of their situation – that life would continue to be hard every single day and that their future was bleak. But he didn’t have the heart to say any of this and so, instead, he gestured over to the blue fishing boats at the shoreline. “We’ll take the tools and the jugs of water over to those boats,” he said. “No use for the lumber anymore. We’ll leave that behind.”

T.O.P. grabbed one of the jugs of water from the back of the truck and began walking down to the shoreline. “If we take these boats, we’ll be separated,” T.O.P. said, calling back to Jong Kook. “They’re not much bigger than canoes. You can fit three, maybe four people in each.”

“I wasn’t thinking that we’d use those permanently,” Jong Kook answered as he tried to collect the axes and sickles from the truck. “I was thinking that we could use them to travel up around the island back to Hyun Suk-ssi’s boat.”

The others now also helped to bring the supplies down to the shore, all except for Gary, who had walked Caesar onto the bridge to survey their surroundings. He was feeling some strange sense of resignment, as though he was no longer in charge of his life but was instead governed by whatever fate had prescribed for him.

As he stood on that bridge that spanned the inlet between the two islands and looked out over the water south of him, he noticed something out there rocking in the waves – a lone rowboat seemingly adrift, with two young females lying inside. He wondered if they were dead. But at that moment, one of the girls extended her arm out over the side of the boat, letting her hand skim the surface of the water as she continued to lay there with the other girl.

In a flash, Gary ran down to the shore where the others were and hopped into one of the fishing boats that Thunder had just loaded with the jugs of water.

“Ai, Gary-ah!” Thunder yelled, as Gary nearly knocked him over trying to get into the boat.

“Come on!” Gary yelled. “There are two girls out there in the boat!”

Thunder immediately dropped what he was doing and jumped into the boat with Gary and Caesar. The two boys then finagled with the outboard motor, trying to figure out how to get it started.

The others now hurried over. Dara yelled at her brother. “Can’t you wait? What you are doing?”

“There are people in that boat over there!” Thunder yelled back, pointing down the inlet to where Gary had spotted the rowboat from the bridge.

The others all squinted, seeing a boat far away but unable to see anyone inside.

“Are you sure you saw people in there?” Bom asked. “Real people and not just zombies?”

Thunder realized at that moment that the boat wouldn’t start because the kill switch was engaged, and so he now disengaged that switch and got the motor running, the air instantly filled with the noise of the engine that then roared even louder as the boys sped off, leaving those on shore momentarily frozen in their confusion over what had just happened.

The fishing boat skipped atop the waves in its zip across the water, the boys focusing their sights solely on the rowboat ahead of them, each getting anxious as they got closer. The noise of their approaching boat must have startled the girls because, just then, Gary and Thunder saw them suddenly sit up in that rowboat with scared faces.

Thunder eased off the gas and took his hand off the tiller, and as their boat drifted closer and he got a better look at the girls, he realized that he knew them. Gary also realized this and now sat in near paralysis, unable to move or speak or do anything other than just stare at the beautiful sisters and wonder if perhaps fate had not intended for him and Thunder to live in eternal lonliness after all.