Jong Kook stayed at the back of the auditorium while the rest of his group brushed past him to welcome Taeyeon and to talk casually with the ahjummas. He could see that this was the start of a unified group, the size of which had him worried. He took a headcount, trying to gauge how many, exactly, they totaled now.

Originally, they had left as seven couples. It would’ve been difficult to find a vessel large enough to hold that original group, as the inlet they were traveling was much narrower and shallower than the Han and, therefore, didn’t see many big boats. Jong Kook had already assumed that they would have to look for fishing boats instead. Trying to find four or five fishing boats to hold the fourteen people in their group would have been hard enough, but now, with the addition of Taeyeon and the twelve ahjummas, finding enough fishing boats to hold them all – twenty-seven in total – would be practically impossible.

Seeing the worry on Jong Kook’s face, one of the ahjummas left the others and joined him at the back of the auditorium. “No need to worry, Han Namja,” she said, lowering her surgical mask. “We will be an asset to your group. We will protect all of Kid Leader’s young friends.” She looked back at everyone talking in the center of the auditorium, smiled, and then returned her attention to Jong Kook. “They are the young ones, the future. We must protect them all.”

Jong Kook nodded and smiled at the old woman. “Of course,” he said. “We will all protect each other.”

“Then why you worry?” she asked.

Jong Kook sighed. “We were going to follow the shore and find boats, but there are too many of us now for that.” He stared blankly off toward the corner. “I just need to come up with a new plan… something…” At a loss for what to do, he thought back on the conversation he’d had last night and began reconsidering Thunder’s suggestion to find a truck. Originally, he had been worried about a pileup or a zombie horde on the road and how well a truck would fare against those obstacles, but now it seemed as though they had no other choice.

“What are you thinking?” the ahjumma asked.

He bit his lip as he continued to consider the truck option. “Maybe… maybe a box truck, one big enough to hold everyone, big enough to get through whatever might be in our way.”

The ahjumma nodded. “We’ve been scavenging this area for months,” she said. “I know exactly where you can find a truck like that.”

When everyone was ready, they headed out the rear of the music hall and onto the large soccer field, where a multitude of zombies were wandering. The bloodthirsty dead, upon seeing the twenty-seven survivors, immediately began shambling toward them.

Jong Kook and Ji Hyo, at the head of the line, started targeting the zombies in front, being careful to only shoot when necessary. Just before leaving, they had talked about not using their guns at all so as not to draw any zombies their way, but the risk of being bitten seemed too great if they relied solely on their knives and other melee weapons. Ultimately, they decided it wasn’t worth the risk and that they would use the guns instead, but sparingly so.

While they worked to clear a path across the soccer field, the others fended off the zombies coming at them from the sides. The ahjummas were seeing most of this action, as they were standing around the group like a barrier protecting the idols. They shot off a few rounds at a time, making sure, just like Jong Kook and Ji Hyo were, to not spray the bullets excessively.

They hurried across the soccer field and then stumbled through the collapsed portion of the wall separating the campus from the four-lane road on the other side. More zombies were out on this road and, having heard the gunshots, were already heading in the direction of the survivors by the time everyone climbed over the rubble.

“Watch out!” Bom screamed, as she grabbed T.O.P.’s arm and pulled him closer inside the group.

T.O.P. hadn’t seen the zombie that had been nearly upon him. As soon as he jumped back, an ahjumma stepped forward and stabbed the zombie with the knife jutting out at her wrist. The blood squirted up in her face and, momentarily blinded, she almost didn’t see the second zombie that had emerged just then, not until Seungri stepped out of the group and swung his hammer at it so forcefully that the claw end of it got lodged in the zombie’s skull. When he tried to yank it out of the zombie’s head, he saw that it was stuck and tried then to use his body as leverage and pull with all his might. Meanwhile, the group was continuing to move across the road, down the embankment, and out of sight.

“Seungri-yah!” CL yelled, as she ran back to pull him away from the zombie corpse. She grabbed him by the arm, glancing between him and the group already heading over the embankment. “Come on, let’s go! Leave the stupid hammer!”

Seungri gave one last heave and nearly fell back when the hammer came loose. “I got it,” he said.

“Who cares? Let’s just go!” CL yelled.

They ran to rejoin the others and were at the tail end of the group now, following directly behind Daesung and Minzy. The ahjummas were up ahead, straddling the idols at each side, with six to the left of the group and the other six to the right. They were running fast with the others while being careful to keep watch around them.

After they made it down the embankment and across some fields to the shore, the ahjummas pointed to the pedestrian bridge that led over a small waterway to a tip of the city that was sectioned off as an industrial area. The ahjummas had been to the industrial area to scavenge once before, a month or so earlier, and had seen big trucks parked in rows along the warehouses and manufacturing plants.

Everyone ran quickly and quietly across the pedestrian bridge. They could clearly see the industrial section past the marshy banks on the other side and were all praying that they’d find a working truck there, as that was the only way they’d be able to make it through the dense city streets north, which the ahjummas had described as being filled with nothing but zombies and fires.

After reaching the end of the bridge and climbing up the bank, they found themselves facing a concrete barrier that supported a railway. Jong Kook immediately kneeled before the wall and held out his hands with his palms facing up to help lift each person over.

Ji Hyo was the first to go, stepping carefully on his hands and desperately gripping the wall as he lifted her to the top. She managed to get her body up the wall and then, once up there, stood atop the railroad tracks on the other side.

“What do you see?” Jong Kook asked, as he stood then and looked up at Ji Hyo, who now peered back down at him and the rest of the group.

“Nothing,” she said. She glanced behind her again to the industrial area beyond the railroad tracks. Even though it was early morning, the sun was hidden within the black smog of the city, just as it had been yesterday. She couldn’t see far into the distance. All that she could see was a few rusty train cars on the tracks and, through the gap between those cars, some sort of warehouse in the background.

Jong Kook helped Taeyeon next who, although more petite than Ji Hyo, weighed much more because of her textbook armor and backpack full of guns.

“Sorry,” she said, as she stepped on his hands and heard him groan.

“It’s okay,” he said, as he lifted her up and then braced his hands for the next person.

Taeyeon joined Ji Hyo on the tracks and squeezed between the train cars to peer into the distance, seeing what appeared to be a long red brick warehouse that spanned nearly the entire length of the industrial area.

“Any zombies?” Ji Hyo asked. She was standing behind Taeyeon between the two train cars and couldn’t see anything from her vantage point.

“Not yet,” Taeyeon said.

Jessica and Krystal appeared behind them at that moment, having been the next two that Jong Kook had helped over the wall. He then helped the 2ne1 girls and the ahjummas one by one until only the boys were left on the banks below, all of whom paused for a moment, trying to figure out the best way to get the last person up.

“I can probably take that wall by myself,” Jong Kook said, urging Gary, Thunder, and the Big Bang boys to go first.

“You sure, hyung?” Gary asked.

Jong Kook eyed the wall and then looked behind him at the unleveled ground that dropped down into the water. He was a bit concerned about not being able to get a running start.

“I’m the tallest, Jong Kook hyung,” T.O.P. said. “If I go last, you can probably reach down and pull me up.”

Jong Kook bit his lip, thinking about that for a moment.

G-Dragon glanced over at Jong Kook. “He’s right. You’re probably the only one with the strength to pull Tabi up.”

“You saying I’m fat?” T.O.P. asked.

“Erm, yep,” G-Dragon said, flashing him a sneaky smile. He knew how self-conscious T.O.P. was and enjoyed teasing him.

T.O.P. arched his eyebrow at G-Dragon. “You just wait, Jiyong-ah.”

G-Dragon laughed. “For what?”

“Can you two stop?” Daesung asked. “Let’s just do this quick.”

Jong Kook nodded then and bent down to lift each of them up the wall until only he and T.O.P. remained.

“Okay,” T.O.P. said, kneeling down so that Jong Kook could step on his hands. “Just make sure you pull me up, hyung. I don’t want to be left here.”

Jong Kook easily scaled the wall with the help of T.O.P.’s push up and, once atop it, saw everyone gathered on the tracks around him. He turned then and peered back down over the wall. “Just jump up as high as you can and grab onto my arms,” he said, calling down to T.O.P. below.

T.O.P. nodded, breathed in deeply, and then jumped up the wall, just barely catching Jong Kook’s hand above.

Jong Kook had T.O.P. by the wrist and now grabbed his other hand, too. “Use your legs,” he said, as he tried to pull him up. He saw T.O.P. trying to heed his instructions and climb the wall vertically, but his legs kept sliding out from underneath him, leaving Jong Kook to hold the entirety of his weight. “Yaaah!” Jong Kook yelled, as the veins protruded from his biceps with that last pull of T.O.P.’s body up the wall.

T.O.P. fell over the side onto the railroad tracks and lay there for a moment, trying to catch his breath. Jong Kook collapsed beside him, doing the same.

G-Dragon stood over T.O.P., shaking his head at him. “If you weren’t such a fattie, Tabi…”

“I’m going to kill you,” T.O.P. said, forgetting his exhaustion now as he leapt to his feet and chased G-Dragon down the track.

“Stop!” Bom yelled, running after them.

G-Dragon and T.O.P. ran down to where the last of the train cars was parked but skidded to a stop upon seeing several grotesque zombies standing no more than a meter in front of them, all of which appeared as though they had just emerged out of a toxic spill – their faces were partially melted, the flesh from their arms was dripping off their bones, and a noxious fume that smelled like sulfur mixed with ammonia was emanating from their bodies.

“!” G-Dragon yelled, as he stumbled back from the zombies. He and T.O.P. turned to run away then and nearly collided with Bom at that moment.

Bom stood frozen at the sight of the zombies and was about to scream, but T.O.P. quickly covered with his hand, worried about drawing more zombies their way, and pulled her along as they all ran back to the group.

“Go, go!” they yelled, seeing everyone else still gathered ahead between the wall and the train cars.

“Zombies?” Dara asked.

G-Dragon nodded as he crashed into the group and quickly caught his breath. “Freaking ugly ones. Maybe three or four. Maybe more.”

“Okay, let’s just stay calm,” Taeyeon said. “Don’t panic.” She looked past G-Dragon then to the tracks beyond, trying to survey how dangerous the situation was. When she saw the group of mutilated dead shuffling toward them, joined by even more zombies coming up from behind, she tried to heed her own words and not panic as she gestured for everyone to squeeze between the train cars and head toward the warehouse. “Stay together,” she said.

Jong Kook helped her, pushing the ahjummas and everyone else forward through the cars, hoping that they’d find a way into the warehouse and out of sight of the zombies headed their way.

Thunder and Krystal were the first to emerge on the other side of the train cars. They both looked off to the right to see where the zombies were coming from and noticed a truck lying on its side just down the way, having apparently crashed into and punctured a massive storage tank, which allowed the tank’s toxic contents to ooze out and form a gooey neon green swamp that more zombies were wading through in their attempts to reach the survivors.

“Come on,” Thunder said, grabbing Krystal’s arm as they headed toward the warehouse in front of them. But both he and Krystal stopped then when they saw the words, Do Not Enter, smeared across the building door in what appeared to be blood.

“Is that paint or… or…?” she asked, pointing to the door.

Thunder looked back at the zombies crawling out of the toxic sludge at his right and then turned to look at his left, seeing nothing but shadowy darkness that way. By then, the rest of the group had joined them and were all wondering why Thunder and Krystal had stopped.

“What’s wrong? Let’s go!” CL yelled.

Thunder moved out of the way so that CL and the others could see the warning written on the door.

“That wasn’t there a month ago,” one of the ahjummas said, pointing to the bloody scrawl. “Someone must have come here since…”

“We should just try to take those zombies out,” Thunder said. “I’m not going to be forced into that warehouse when we have all these guns.”

“But the noise,” Minzy muttered. “More will come.”

“Let’s just go that way,” Daesung said, pointing left.

Everyone stared in that direction, seeing only some flickering lights from the string of lampposts that lined the length of the long warehouse. There seemed to be nothing in that direction.

“Where did you see the trucks?” Jong Kook asked, looking at the ahjummas.

One of the ahjummas pointed left toward the darkness. “Far back in that direction,” she said. But then she looked again at the warehouse door. “But the keys to the trucks are in there,” she said.