Jong Kook, having returned to his seat in the cockpit beside Lieutenant Colonel Choi, glanced back at everyone on board. Including Lieutenant Colonel Choi and Jong Kook, there were eight adults and two children on this helicopter, which was much less than what the other helicopter was carrying, largely because Jong Kook took longer on the rescue missions than the ZORT soldier had.

Kyung Eun, with her son draped across her lap, was talking with Se7en and Rina. Bom and Ji Hyo were playing with little Dream, spouting cute baby talk at him and pinching his cheeks. Luhan, meanwhile, was still battling his fear of flying but seemed a bit more at ease now that they were no longer hovering but instead resuming their journey.

Of course, their journey would resume only for as long as the fuel held out, which was exactly what Lieutenant Colonel Choi was just thinking about.

“We’re going to have to stop at that gas station you were telling me about,” he said.

“The one here on Sido?” Jong Kook asked, even though he knew that was of course what Lieutenant Colonel Choi was talking about.

“Australia is due south maybe twelve, thirteen hours over the Pacific,” Lieutenant Colonel Choi said. “We have about two hours’ worth of fuel. This is the only way.”

As Lieutenant Colonel Choi radioed the other helicopter to tell them about the needed stop, Jong Kook looked again at the passengers in the cabin behind him while trying to strategize the refueling to risk as few lives as possible.

Hyun Suk sat in the back of the other helicopter with his wife and children, talking with Daesung and the scientist about Minzy’s condition. Rain and Seohyun were seated in the middle section with the dog, Caesar, sprawled across the seat between them. Krystal, Gary, and Taeyeon sat one row up.

Seohyun leaned forward in her seat and poked Taeyeon. “Unni,” she whispered. “I thought you were going to kiss…”

“Shh!” Taeyeon said, blushing.

Usually, Seohyun was the more mature of the two, even though she was the youngest, but she was excited by the thought of something starting between her unni and Rain.

Krystal, seeing Seohyun instigate the matter, began doing the same. “Unni, wasn’t there something you wanted to tell Jihoon-ah?” she asked, teasingly.

Taeyeon hid her face in her hands.

Rain, completely unaware of what was happening, looked around at those beside him somewhat confused.

Gary glanced between Krystal at his left and Taeyeon at his right, smiled, and then turned to Rain behind him. “Ai, Jihoon-ah,” he said. “Why don’t we switch seats?”

Taeyeon clutched onto Gary’s arm with a look of shock.

“Sure,” Rain said. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I just want to sit next to my dog.”

“Oh, okay,” Rain said, as he unbuckled his belt. He switched places with Gary, politely greeting Krystal and Taeyeon as he took the seat between them.

Seohyun leaned forward again and tapped on Rain’s shoulder. “Oppa, Taeyeon-unni wants to thank you.”

“Thank me? For what?” He then looked at Taeyeon curiously.

Taeyeon didn’t look back. Her thoughts were focused on the feel of Rain’s arm next to hers. Ever since she and Gary had talked of hope, she’d felt something stirring within her, some sort of longing for a connection with someone. Holding Gary’s hand earlier and now feeling Rain’s arm brushing against hers only deepened that need.

Seeing that Taeyeon was staying quiet, Seohyun decided to speak up. “She wanted to thank you for saving me.”

“Ai, we saved each other!” Rain said, glancing back at Seohyun. “You made a lot of smart decisions. I just served as the brawn to your brain.”

Taeyeon turned to finally face Rain now. “Thank you,” she quietly said.

Rain shrugged and blushed a little.

Quickly leaning forward, Taeyeon surprised him with a small peck on his mouth. Disappointed in herself for not going for the kiss she really wanted, she then hastily took advantage of Rain’s wide-eyed confusion at that sudden peck and kissed him again, taking it slowly this time with her pursed lips cushioned against and sweeping across his mouth, her tongue just lightly pushing through until she felt him open up and reciprocate the kiss, with his lips now taking the lead.

Sudden cheers from Seohyun, Gary, and Krystal broke the intimacy and both Taeyeon and Rain then quickly parted and looked away, their faces red and their smiles wide.

“What the hell is going on up there?” Hyun Suk asked, having heard the sudden excitement.

But everyone’s attention shifted then when they felt the helicopter slow down to a hover.

“Are we stopping?” Daesung asked.

One of the ZORT soldiers in the cockpit stood and turned to everyone in the cabin. “We’re about to land to refuel both birds,” he said. “I need one, maybe two volunteers to keep the zombies at bay while I work the pump.”

Rain immediately raised his hand. As he did, he shyly looked at Taeyeon. “Do I get another kiss if I save more people?” he quietly asked.

Taeyeon in her lips, biting down to control her smile. “Just get back here safe,” she said.

The gas station and surrounding area was surprisingly quiet with only a few zombies scattered about, which Lieutenant Colonel Choi surmised were the stragglers left behind by the herd that had traveled north to Hyun Suk’s house. “Doesn’t look like refueling will be a problem,” he said.

Jong Kook peered out the cockpit windshield, suspicious of how few zombies there seemed to be out there.

“What’s wrong?” Lieutenant Colonel Choi asked.

“Just… it seems too easy,” Jong Kook said.

Lieutenant Colonel Choi shook his head. “There’s no logic in this world,” he said. “You shouldn’t think that just because this world has repeatedly beaten you in the past, it will continue to do so in the future. Life is random and anticlimactic.” He rolled his neck, gripping the back of it to massage the muscle. “No use having any expectations. If this is the way it is, then this is the way it is.”

“I didn’t think military officers were so philosophical,” Jong Kook said, smiling.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t think ballad singers were so muscular,” Lieutenant Colonel Choi replied. Just then, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Bom behind him in the cabin about to exit the helicopter. “Where are you going?” he asked.

Bom was caught off guard by her father-in-law’s apparent worry. “Just to check on Minzy,” she said. She pointed to the ZORT soldier and Rain standing just outside by the gas pump. “Look, they’re already out there. I’ll be okay.”

“I’ll see if they need help,” Jong Kook said, as he began unbuckling his belt.

Minzy opened her eyes. The world was blurry at first but soon came into focus. She could see Daesung peering over her. “Oppa,” she whispered.

“How are you feeling?” Daesung asked.

Minzy smiled. “Good,” she said, as she sat up and arched her back in a long stretch. “I feel like I’ve been sleeping for a week.”

Daesung could feel tears of happiness sting his eyes. “It’s just been a couple of hours,” he said, smiling, but he realized then that he had lost her attention. She was staring at her bandaged hand, her thoughts clearly on the memory of being bitten. “It’s okay,” he said. “You’re fine. The scientist stopped the infection.”

Minzy looked up at Daesung and then over to the scientist. “I’m… cured?” she asked.

The scientist nodded. “You woke up briefly before. Do you remember?”

Minzy shook her head.

“Well, you seem alert now,” he said, as he shone a small flashlight into her eyes to check the reaction of her pupils.

Everyone was jolted for a moment then by a quick succession of gunfire. Through the open side of the helicopter, they could see Rain standing guard just past the pump where Jong Kook and the ZORT soldier were. Rain had just shot down two of the three zombies in sight and was now aiming at that third corpse, waiting until it was close enough for a clean head shot.

Bom had been walking past the pumps to the second helicopter but stopped when she heard the shooting. Even though everything seemed to be under control with just that one zombie left in sight, she stayed in that spot looking around for a moment. Jong Kook was busy unfurling the hose from one of the pumps in an attempt to generate some slack so that it would reach the first helicopter. She watched him until she saw that he had successfully brought the hose over and had begun the refueling process. Her eyes then shifted to the ZORT soldier in front of her who had just finished refueling the second helicopter and was about to take the nozzle out when, suddenly, Bom caught sight of something moving behind him.

“Look out!” she yelled.

A zombie had crept around the back of the helicopter, sneaking up just behind the ZORT soldier. Hearing Bom shout, the ZORT soldier immediately snapped his head back to see behind him, but as he did, the soulless creature’s teeth latched onto the side of the soldier’s face, ripping his cheek right off. In the chaos of the moment, the nozzle had fallen from the soldier’s hand, the fuel now spraying everywhere.

Rain had also heard Bom and had turned around just as the zombie had bit into the soldier’s face. He tried to aim at the zombie’s head but the soldier was in the way, somewhat staggering from side to side as he held the gaping hole that stretched from his eye socket to his jawline, the blood squirting out between his fingers.

“Get down!” Rain yelled.

The soldier dropped to his knees, revealing the zombie still standing behind him. The zombie was too distracted by the chunk of flesh it was gnawing on to see Rain ahead, and when Rain fired and that bullet came speeding through its skull, it fell to its knees too, landing with a splash on the now fuel-soaked pavement.

The scientist jumped down from the helicopter with his medical kit in hand and rushed over to the soldier, who was still kneeling on the ground, trying to hold in place what was left of his face. As the scientist examined the bite and saw that the flesh had been ripped clean off with the cheekbone and the teeth on that side of the face now exposed, he shook his head and sighed, knowing that the soldier’s chances of survival were slim. Still, despite the odds, he began doing what he could for the young man, as he felt indebted to him for working all this time to protect the research without question or complaint.

By then, the other ZORT soldier, as well as Hyun Suk, had exited the helicopter and were now standing next to Bom and looking over the scientist’s shoulder.

“We gotta get him up and onto the helicopter,” the scientist said, as he began cradling the soldier’s head, lifting it just above the stream of fuel spilling past. “Grab his legs. Come on.”

They were back in the air, heading due south for Australia. A few hours had passed since leaving Sido, during which time no one had spoken much. The lone ZORT soldier sat silently in the cockpit, occasionally glancing over at the empty seat beside him where the other soldier should have been, but who was instead at the back of the helicopter, being watched over by the scientist.

The scientist had administered the injection to stop the zombie virus, but other infections would likely take hold if the soldier didn’t receive proper medical attention.

“How is he?” Minzy asked. She looked over the soldier’s bandaged face and then down at her hand, realizing just how lucky she was to not have suffered a significant bite.

The scientist reached for the soldier’s wrist to check his pulse again but didn’t feel anything. He continued checking for a moment, switching between the soldier’s wrist and neck until finally giving up. “He’s dead,” he quietly said.

Everyone lowered their heads.

Knowing that they couldn’t keep a corpse in that crammed cabin for the remaining eight or ten hours of the flight, the scientist suggested to Hyun Suk that they give the soldier a burial at sea, and both worked then to pick up the body and carefully carry it to the side of the helicopter. They had passed over Jeju island a while back and were high above the East China Sea now, into which the soldier was then dropped, his body freefalling through the air until hitting the surface of the water in a splash so loud that all could hear it over the whipping helicopter rotors.

Hours passed like minutes after that, with the scene below always the same – just endless blue ocean. Eventually, they passed the Okinawa islands and then spent another few hours flying above more ocean before seeing land again, this time to their right.

In the other helicopter, Lieutenant Colonel Choi pointed out that land to his passengers, identifying it as the Philippines. They weren’t close enough to see much of the country. It appeared to them as just a long stretch of faraway earth in the endless blue of the ocean.

Some time later, they saw more scattered land dotting the ocean surface. Everyone’s eyes were glued to the cabin windows as they flew over the Maluku islands. Considering the distance from Seoul, as the epicenter of the infection, and considering the water separating these archipelagos, it was likely that much of Indonesia was unaffected, but no one knew for sure. Ji Hyo held Dream tight against her chest as she peered down, trying to imagine the people below living normal lives. She hoped that was exactly what was happening down there – that the people of Indonesia were happy and healthy and living their lives as they always had.

They crossed over the Banda Sea and were just beginning to fly over the Timor Sea, with the northern Australia shoreline in their sights, when a sudden radio call came through to the helicopters.

“This is RAAF Base Darwin Control,” the voice said. “We have a visual bearing of your aircrafts seven miles to the north. Be advised that you are illegally entering Australian airspace and are hereby ordered to turn around. If you do not comply with this order, force will be taken. Please respond.”

Jong Kook looked up from the radio to Lieutenant Colonel Choi, waiting for him to do or say something in response to the order they just received.

Lieutenant Colonel Choi breathed in deeply and then picked up the radio receiver. “RAAF Base Darwin, this is Lieutenant Colonel Choi of the Camp Stanley Eagle One crew responding. We are flying in tail of Eagle One and are asking permission to land.” As soon as he spoke these words, he realized that even though he had identified his and the other helicopter as tails of Eagle One, meaning that they were with the plane that had left Camp Stanley, no one at the control tower knew that they were coming and would not likely take him at his word. Nervous about being denied permission to land, Lieutenant Colonel Choi told them that they weren’t infected. “I repeat, we are flying in tail of Eagle One and are not infected. Permission to land.”

A minute passed with radio silence, and then another voice came through. “This is RAAF Base Darwin Control, do you copy?”

“Roger,” Lieutenant Colonel Choi said.

“We have not been made aware of any Eagle One tail. Permission to land denied. You are ordered to turn around immediately.”