It was like one minute they weren’t there and the next they were. It was almost choreographed the way that the attackers had popped out in unison and surrounded the group in somewhat of an arc, leaving the group backed against the edge of the summit with no way through or around the attackers. The only way out was the steep climb down behind them, which would be an impossible escape.

No one had been expecting such an attack and no one was prepared. Earlier, they had stuffed their guns and other weapons into their backpacks so that their hands would be free for the climb. Only Jong Kook, who didn’t have a pack, had a gun handy. Before climbing Mt. Eungbong, he had shoved his K2 down the back of his pants, having nowhere else to keep it.

The attackers, brandishing their machine guns, gestured for the group to take off their packs. Everyone, stunned and seeing no choice but to comply, did as they were told and slowly raised their arm in surrender. Jong Kook raised his arms, too, but he kept his elbows tucked in close to his waist, his hands ready to reach behind him and grab his gun if given the opportunity.

The attackers stepped closer to confiscate the backpacks, still aiming their guns on the group. They were dressed in all black with what appeared to be the covers of thick textbooks taped around their arms and legs for padding. Knives were taped to the backs of their upper arms as well as to their forearms, the long blades sticking out at their elbows and their wrists. Surgical masks covered their faces. The only distinguishing feature was the difference in their headgear. Three of them wore camouflage military berets. The rest were wearing metal bowl-like helmets with attached chinstraps.

It was by then obvious to everyone in the group that the attackers were not part of the military. They were citizens that had put together this makeshift survival gear to do exactly that – survive. In a way, that made the group more fearful of these attackers. A military unit, at the very least, had proper training and a better mindset to handle the stress and dangers of this apocalyptic environment. While these ordinary citizens had survived all this time, it didn’t seem likely that they were still operating with complete sanity. It was one thing if they had been surviving on Sido like Jong Kook and the others, but they had presumably been in Seoul all this time, dealing with unimaginable horrors on a daily basis.

After the attackers donned the confiscated packs, they gestured with their guns for the group to start walking. They hadn’t yet spoken, their intentions not yet known.

CL wanted to ask why they were doing this. She wanted to tell them that they were survivors just like them, but she held her tongue. She was too worried about the type of people they had become. Perhaps they thrived on killing, seeing no difference between zombies and survivors. Or perhaps they had run out of food and were now cannibals themselves, just like the zombies.

They were marched at gunpoint toward the paved road on the other side of the summit that Jong Kook and Seungri had noticed earlier. The three attackers in military berets stayed at the head of the line, where they walked down the road sideways, keeping their eyes both on the road in front of them and on their captives behind them. The others followed in the back, marching the group down and occasionally prodding them with the barrels of their guns, still without having said a word.

Gary and Jessica were marching directly behind Jong Kook and Ji Hyo. When Gary saw the K2 sticking out of Jong Kook’s pants, he glanced over at Jessica and nodded toward the gun, trying to communicate to her a potential plan, but Jessica’s eyes widened and she immediately shook her head no, as if begging Gary to just do what they say.

The road, narrow and bordered by thick greenery on both sides, started down the western side but then curved around the mountain, descending down the north side. When they began walking around that curve, the greenery opened somewhat at their left and they could see clusters of tall buildings cutting into the horizon. As there was no sign of the fires on this end, the buildings looked quite normal. If not for the black sky, the scene could almost be described as picturesque.

As they descended further down the road, the scene before them opened out even more. They could see the shore again and the tributary that led north before disappearing into the smog.

Small ramshackle houses now lined the road and some zombies were scattered about. G-Dragon and Dara, at the head of the line, watched as one of the attackers in front of them neared a zombie and, without any hesitation, elbowed it in the head, the long blade that was sticking out of that elbow quickly piercing into and then pulling out of the zombie’s skull. The other attackers used the blades sticking out at their wrist, appearing as if they were punching the zombies. The punctures were swift and effective, but most importantly, they were quiet. Although the attackers had guns, they seemed to have learned that noise only drew more zombies their way, or at least recognized that ammo was a rarer find than melee weapons.

As that hillside road became more crammed with houses and small buildings, more zombies were visible. On the road ahead, G-Dragon could see at least six zombies staggering toward them, but the attackers in front left the road then, suddenly cutting right and leading the group down a driveway between two buildings. They climbed over the concrete barrier at the back of that driveway and ordered the group down the brush, across the railroad tracks, and back down to the shore.

By then, CL couldn’t take it anymore. She and Seungri were following just behind G-Dragon and Dara up front and she now got the attention of one of the attackers leading the group.

“Where are you taking us?” she asked.

The attacker turned toward her, walking backward up that shore while staring at CL. “To our leader,” the voice said, somewhat muffled from the surgical mask.

That same attacker then slowed down and began walking alongside the group, inspecting each captive one by one until stopping at Jong Kook. Without saying anything, the attacker walked alongside Jong Kook for a minute or so, staring at him the whole time.

Jong Kook brought his right shoulder back a bit to hide the gun jammed down the back of his pants. He knew that the K2 was the only surprise element the group had and he didn’t want it found.

“Han namja,” the attacker suddenly said.

Jong Kook knew now that he had been recognized. “Han Namja,” or One Man, was the title of his most famous song, and had endured for some time as Jong Kook’s nickname. Not knowing whether it was good or bad that the attacker had recognized him, he tried to remain unfazed, continuing to look ahead with his hands still up in the air.

The attacker then prodded him with the machine gun, poking the barrel into his side.

Jong Kook looked over just as the attacker lowered the surgical mask from her face, revealing herself to be an ahjumma, likely rural from the looks of it what with her dark, wrinkled skin – the type of skin one gets from farming every day in the sun.

“Sing,” she said. “Sing ‘Loveable.’”

Jong Kook couldn’t help but let out a desperate laugh from the absurdity of the situation. He was being marched down the shore of a zombie-ridden city by a machine gun-wielding ahjumma who was demanding that he sing what was perhaps the most cheerful and admittedly cheesiest song he had ever released.

“Sing,” the ahjumma said, prodding him with the gun again.

Jong Kook tried to swallow what little saliva was in his mouth, his throat parched. “Ohh…” he croaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Ohh, you’re loveable from head to toe. Whoa-ohh, I’m so proud to have you as my girl.” He had thought that those first lines would be enough, but when the ahjumma prodded him again, he continued singing the rest of the verse. “Waiting is fun now and even the air is sweet. I…I love you.”

The ahjumma smiled at the end of that verse and continued staring at him for a few minutes. Then she said, “Sing more.”

“I can’t,” he said. “My throat’s too dry.”

“Sing,” she said again.

Jong Kook looked over at her, seeing that her eyes were glassy, as if about to cry. He felt like he was losing his mind. He couldn’t tell if she was some maniac or just some sad lonely woman. Perhaps a bit of both, he thought, as he swallowed what remained of the saliva in his mouth and prepared to sing the second verse.

Now that they no longer had the protection of Mt. Eungbong blocking the majority of the zombies on the city streets from the shore, they encountered a number of undead stragglers that had wandered from the streets, over the railroad tracks, and down through the brush to the water; however, because most of these zombies were alone, they weren’t difficult kills.

Toward the beginning of their march, they had passed underneath a bridge with zombies atop it, but the horde was not nearly as large as the one that had been on Yongbigyo Bridge and the group managed to pass underneath without being seen. Much later, after what felt like an hour walking north up that shore, they had gone under a second bridge, again passing underneath without being seen.

After that second bridge, the attackers seemed to grow anxious. It was clear that wherever they were going, they were getting close. The ahjumma who had forced Jong Kook to sing stopped paying attention to her captives and was now whispering to the other attackers up front while pointing west, as if trying to plan the best route inland.

For a moment, Jong Kook thought about using that opportunity to grab his K2, but he kept imagining the scenario turning out horribly, with him pulling out that K2 and surprising the attackers only to have them quickly turn their guns on the group, slaughtering them all right there on the spot. Unable to imagine any positive result from him reaching for that weapon, he decided to only use it only when it was clear that the attackers wanted to do them harm. For now, they didn’t seem to want the group dead.

The ahjumma was hunching down low now and gesturing with her gun for everyone in the group to do the same. They all crouched and followed her lead as she strayed from the shore and headed up an embankment to a four-lane road running parallel to the water. She peeked up over the embankment, presumably checking for zombies both ways, and then gestured again for the group to follow.

There was a great deal of zombies shambling along that four-lane road, but not enough apparently to concern the attackers. The group was quickly ushered across the road and when everyone saw the tall white buildings with blue-tinted windows on the other side of that road, they then recognized where they were: Hanyang University.

A tall concrete wall enclosed the campus, or at least enclosed that side of the campus, but further down the road a bit, behind the scorched trees that lined the sidewalk, part of the wall had collapsed into a pile of rubble. The attackers forced the group over the rubble and onto the campus grounds.

At first, when the group saw the wall around the campus, they thought that perhaps this army of civilians had found sanctuary there, what with that wall as protection. But when they climbed over the rubble and stumbled out onto a large soccer field strewn with zombies, they soon realized that they were wrong. This place was just like every other place in Seoul – overrun by the undead.

The attackers stabbed at the zombies in their way as they urged the group across the field toward a section of campus buildings on the other side. As they neared the buildings, the ahjumma attacker reached down the front of her shirt and pulled out a whistle, which she then blew into in short bursts, presumably as some sort of signal to the rest of the army somewhere on that campus.

The fourteen captives looked around, trying to figure out to whom the ahjumma was calling, but didn’t see anything, not until they had reached the far side of the field and were urged up the grass toward the back of one of those campus buildings where they saw the rear entrance open for them.

Standing inside the doorway was another ahjumma who eyed the captives curiously as she stood aside to let them in.

G-Dragon and Dara were the first to enter. They saw that behind the ahjumma in the doorway was a piano that had likely been propped up against that back door. Seungri and CL followed behind, examining their surroundings as they walked down the hall. Jong Kook and Ji Hyo were the next to enter and had begun noticing what the others before them had – that the doors along the hall, some partially open, seemed to hold practice rooms. They appeared to be in a concert hall or music studies building of some kind.

After everyone had been marched inside, the attackers, for the first time since taking the group hostage, finally lowered their guns. They also lowered their surgical masks and took off their headgear, revealing themselves to all be rural ahjummas.

Seungri’s mouth dropped open when he saw this. “We were taken by… grandmas?” he asked.

One of the ahjummas suddenly stopped the group from going any further. “Wait here,” she said, as she ducked behind the door at the end of the hallway.

Bom, her legs tired from the climb up Mt. Eungbong and the long march down the shore, looked over to the ahjumma beside her. “Can I sit?” she asked.

“No,” the ahjumma said.

“Why?” T.O.P. asked, his deep voice layered with a sort of desperate anger. “We’ve done everything you said and haven’t given you any trouble. The least you can do is allow her to sit and rest.” He was much taller than the ahjumma and used his height now to try to intimidate her, leaning over her somewhat.

The ahjumma, though, didn’t appear intimidated at all. In somewhat of a monotone robotic voice, she said, “Everyone stands for the leader.”

T.O.P. glanced curiously at Daesung standing beside him, his eyebrow raised in bewilderment over what the ahjumma had said.

Daesung looked back at T.O.P. but could offer nothing more than a blank stare. He hadn’t been himself since their boat had sunk. The experience in the river and then being separated from the group while overwhelmed with doubts about his ability to survive, still weighed heavily on him. Only for that one moment atop Mt. Eungbong, when his half of the group had reunited with the others, did he feel somewhat normal again, but that moment was fleeting. This experience now with the ahjumma army, which seemed more and more cult-like by the minute, terrified Daesung. He couldn’t imagine – and didn’t want to imagine – the sort of person leading a group like this.