“These are your bunks,” Yunho informs them. “Numbers 1, 2 and 3.”

 

It’s a tight fit, this ship. They are settled at the end of a long hallway full of bunks. There are three to four beds stacked one on top of another and they all seem to be occupied.

 

Luhan picks Jongin up and settles him in one of the middle bunks, Soojung taking a lower bunk while Kyungsoo stands there, probably not knowing what to do.

 

“Who’s in charge?” Minseok asks.

 

“This is a Navy ship, so they are in charge. Everything goes through them,” Yunho tells him. “These are all mostly survivors.” Yunho indicates the crowded hallway to prove it.

 

“Babe,” Luhan says, asking Minseok to take it elsewhere with a nod of his head.

 

Yunho leads him towards the command center as he informs him of what’s going on.

 

“We lost the president, the VP is M.I.A, and half of congress is dead,” he says bluntly.

 

“So, there’s no command?”

 

“The military have filled the position but they have been as crippled by this as everyone.”

 

They enter a large room acting as a command post where people are running around frantically. He hears the wildest things as they walk towards the front.

 

“What do you mean we lost Boston?”

 

“Have all the children been infected?”

 

“The central government has fallen as of 9am Eastern standard time.”

 

Bewildered, Minseok continues scanning the room. There are screens counting infected and dead and maps showing the beginnings of complete devastation. This is so messed up.

 

“That’s Huang Zitao,” Yunho says, directing him to a young, dark-haired individual talking to a group of people. “He’s a leading virologist out of Harvard and he’s leading our scientific team.”

 

Minseok looks at the man and only sees a skinny boy that seems to still be wet behind the ears.

 

“So, what’s our next move?”

 

Yunho tells him they had received communication from an army base in South Korea that could be a clue. “It’s the earliest missive that mentions the word ‘zombie’. We have been unable to communicate with them. We’re sending Dr. Huang in to see what he can find out. If he can find the origin, he might find a way to treat or cure this thing.”

 

“He’s a kid,” Minseok says, expressionless.

 

“He’s our greatest chance.”

 

Jesus Christ.

 

“Commander on deck!” A soldier shouts, and everyone stops what they are doing to stand and salute.

 

“At ease,” the commander says at once.

 

“Commander,” Yunho greets him once he’s joined their group.

 

“Mr. Undersecretary,” the commander greets back before looking at Minseok directly. “Your secretary here tells me you were one of his best investigators back in the day. We want to send you with Dr. Huang and a team to get to the bottom of this thing.”

 

Minseok looks at Yunho feeling confused. “Is that why you brought me here?”

 

Yunho takes a deep breath before answering. “I wanted you to see where we are right now. We’re going to need all the help we can get. You’re one of our foremost investigators, Minseok, and you’re one hell of a soldier.”

 

“I’m no soldier, nor am I an investigator anymore,” Minseok says. “I can’t leave my family.”

 

“You’re one of the few we can trust to take this doctor out there,” the commander informs him. “We all know Dr. Huang wouldn’t last a night out in this turmoil.”

 

“You’ve worked for us enough to know how to deal with politics as well as the medical side of this endeavour,” Yunho adds.

 

“I left the job because it was killing me, consuming me inside out. My family is all that matters now.” And it’s true. Minseok quit that life the minute he handed over his paperwork and everyone’s been happy ever since. Especially him.

 

“Minseok, you’re–” Yunho tries to say before Minseok interrupts him.

 

“Don’t say ‘our only hope’, you bastard,” Minseok replies angrily. How dare he use his love of Star Wars to convince him. “I can’t leave my family. I’m sorry.”

 

Yunho takes a deep breath and puts his hand on Minseok’s shoulder. “You’d be doing this for your family.”

 

“What?”

 

“Take a look around, Mr. Kim,” the commander says. “There is no room on this ship for non-essential personnel. You want to help your family? Help us see this through.” The commander leaves him with those words as he goes do whatever the hell he does.

 

“Please, Minseok. You are one of the few who can do this,” Yunho finishes. 

 

“Is that why you got my brother to call me? Was he ever on this ship? Or did you just find him to get me to come here?” Minseok asks, wanting nothing more than to hit something.

 

“Is that who you think I am?” Yunho says, disappointed all over his tone. “No, I didn’t ask him to do anything, he volunteered. And it was truly by chance that we met. It was in New York, right after we picked up a high ranking official from your brother’s hospital.”

 

Minseok deflates, lowering his head and taking a minute. He feels like a fool now. 

 

“Sorry,” he tells Yunho. “I didn’t mean to imply–”

 

“No worries, my friend. Just tell me you can do this. Do it for your family.”

 

Closing his eyes, he can already see Luhan’s face when he tells him he’ll be leaving in the middle of a world crisis.

 

“Fine,” he says, resignedly. “Just promise me you’ll make sure they’re safe.”

 

“I will.”

 

Minseok turns around and leaves.

 

--

 

The first thing Minseok does when he’s able to talk to Luhan alone is tell him everything he learned at the command center, including the commander’s offer.

 

“You don’t work for them anymore,” Luhan says angrily. “They can’t ask you to do this, can they?”

 

Instead of answering a question which Luhan already knows the answer to, he pulls him in for a hug and rests his chin on Luhan’s shoulder. They stay like that for a few moments, just breathing and swaying.

 

“I have to go, Lu,” Minseok whispers.

 

“I will never forgive you if you die. You know that, right?”

 

“Mhm,” Minseok replies. “I know.”

 

He pulls back and kisses Luhan once, twice, three times, unwilling to let go. There are tears in Luhan’s eyes that Minseok knows he’s reluctant to let loose. However, their time is coming to an end and Minseok needs to leave.

 

“You need to know that I’m doing this because I want to. I’m doing it to keep you safe, Lu,” Misneok tells him. “There’s no space on this ship for anyone other than the absolutely necessary and even then it’s too much.”

 

“I know. I know. You’ve always been a self-sacrificing fool.”

 

Minseok smiles as he pulls out a sat phone and hands it to Luhan, knowing this will be their only form of communication for the foreseeable future.

 

“I’ll call you once a day. As long as we get to talk, you’ll know everything’s ok.”

 

Luhan nods, taking the phone from Minseok. He then Minseok’s cheek and pulls him into another hug. “Go be a hero. We’ll be waiting here for you.” 

 

“I love you so much.”

 

“I love you, too.”

 

--

 

“But I don’t want you to go,” Jongin says and it absolutely breaks Minseok’s heart. 

 

He has to take a second before answering. “I don’t want to go either, but I promise I’ll be back soon, ok? Be a good boy for Daddy, baby.”

 

“Not a baby,” he mumbles but hugs Minseok tight anyway.

 

“I love you, kiddo.”

 

“I love you, Papa.”

 

Minseok turns around and goes over to where Soojung is sleeping. He doesn’t want to wake her, knowing that she needs to rest and avoid any triggers right now – the Albuterol they have will only last so much – so he whispers he loves her in her ear and promises he’ll return as fast as he can.

 

Then he kneels by the bottom bunk and grabs Kyungsoo’s hand. “How are you doing, bud?”

 

Kyungsoo shrugs as he tries to hold back tears. 

 

“Can you promise me one thing?” Minseok asks and the boy nods obediently. “Take care of everyone, ok? I know you’re good at that.”

 

“Ok,” Kyungsoo answers.

 

Minseok ruffles the boy’s hair and gives him a hug. He chuckles when Kyungsoo hugs him back just as tight.

 

“Alright, Kim,” Luhan says as he straightens Minseok’s jacket. “Go get ‘em.”

 

“, I love you,” Minseok mumbles into Luhan’s mouth. Luhan kisses him back fiercely but they separate quickly.

 

He looks back three times in the short walk from the bunks into a main hallway.

 

--

 

The flight to South Korea is not as terrible as he’d thought, it’s only insanely long. They departed from the East Coast, just off New York, so it’ll take them more than usual to get where they need to go.

 

“Nervous?” He asks Zitao, the almighty virologist.

 

“A bit,” he answers, fidgeting.

 

“Look, this is how it goes,” Minseok begins. “Those guys?” He says, pointing at the two Navy SEALs with them. “They’re here to keep you safe. We have no clue what we’re walking into so we follow them. They move, you move. If things go to , focus on them, follow where they go and we’ll be alright. Got it?”

 

Zitao nods and looks a little less like he’s gonna hurl.

 

“If you see anything at all that might be of importance, call it out and we’ll make it happen.”

 

“I will.”

 

“So, you think we’re gonna find anything?” The SEAL commander asks Zitao. 

 

“Yeah, I do,” he answers confidently. “You see, Mother Nature is like a natural born serial killer, and like all serial killers, she wants to be caught. What good are all those crimes if no one takes credit? So she leaves crumbs. The thing is taking those crumbs and identifying them for what they are: clues. Most of the time, the thing that you thought was the biggest strength, is actually the biggest weakness. And she loves disguising her weaknesses as strengths.”

 

The commander looks unconvinced but stays shut.

 

“That sounds like a pile of horse-,” the other soldier says. “But I’ll leave the science to all y’all.”

 

Minseok is not a fan of that kind of science, like everything is a mystery with a clear solution, but he is not a virologist. Mentally agreeing with the soldier about leaving the science to the scientists, he settles in for a long nap.

 

--

 

“We’re two minutes out,” the pilot calls. “Most of the base is dark so we’re going in blind. We’re running on fumes which means we’ve got no choice. Buckle up.”

 

Minseok has lost track of the hours as they moved through time zones. All he knows is that outside is dark and that they’re about to enter the unknown. He uses the time he has left to send a prayer to whoever is listening.

 

After the longest two minutes of his life, they land without issues. Everyone quickly gets on their feet and gets ready to disembark. 

 

“Keep your finger off the trigger,” Minseok warns Zitao as he hands him a gun. “Look alive.”

 

As the back door opens slowly, they immediately hear the infected growling in the distance. The two SEALs are the first off the ramp with Minseok and Zitao following closely behind.

 

They advance cautiously, not knowing what is out there. It all happens so fast. One second they are alone in the dark, and the next they are being tackled by infected people. Two of them lunge at one of the soldiers, taking him down quickly, which makes the commander start shooting at everything that moves. Zitao, probably scared of the fighting, turns back towards the inside of the plane.

 

“Wait, get back here,” Minseok warns, but to no effect. 

 

Zitao, in his hurry, then promptly slips on the floor and falls face first into the ground, making his gun go off with a loud bang that reverberates throughout the plane.

 

Minseok approaches the still form, kneeling to see the damage. He lets out a deep breath when he realizes Zitao is dead. The bullet went right through his skull. 

 

So much for their greatest hope.

 

They’re saved from certain death by a group of soldiers from the base showing up and shooting up the infected with deadly accuracy. Minseok didn’t even hear them coming, the soldiers being extremely quiet in the endeavour and, strangely enough, using silencers on their guns.

 

“Friendly! Friendly!” the leader calls, not wanting to get shot. “Keep it down. No noise.”

 

“What is this?” another soldier asks, pointing at the body of their virologist on the ground. It’s too dark to see ranks or last names on their uniforms so it’s impossible to tell who is who.

 

“He slipped. He’s dead,” Minseok informs them.

 

“Well, then,” the leader says. “That’s that. Let’s get out of here.”

 

The soldiers then recount ammo and reload, skillfully exiting the plane towards the main building. Minseok follows wordlessly behind, making sure the pilot of the plane is in sight and safe.

 

Once inside, the soldier, a captain named Speke according to his name tape and rank, confronts Minseok angrily, muttering about putting his men at risk.

 

“What are y’all doing here, anyway?”

 

“That man that shot himself back there is a virologist, a scientist,” Minseok tells them.

 

“Yeah? What the hell has that got to do with anything?” Captain Speke asks, already deflating. The rest of the soldiers all follow his lead and relax, lowering their weapons and finding seats all over the spartan room.

 

“He was supposed to be our best hope for fighting this thing.”

 

The other soldier, a corporal named Ford, huffs, no humour in his tone. “Well, ain’t that a .”

 

Affronted at the comment, Minseok frowns and looks at the soldier dead on. “That guy came here out of his own free will because he wanted to help, wanted to get to the bottom of this.” Minseok runs his hand through his hair as he lets out a deep breath. “He didn’t have to come here. None of us did.”

 

“ happens. Too bad for him.”

 

Wanting to move on from the conversation, Minseok shakes his head and looks at the captain.

 

“We need to refuel. How do we do that?”

 

The captain, though now that he can see the pinstripes clearly, Minseok knows this isn’t just some random captain. He’s a Ranger. A skilled one at that.

 

“We do it silently and only when I say we can,” the captain informs him.

 

Pieces start converging in Minseok’s head. It was the gunshots that attracted an impossible number of infected back in the plane. It was the staircase door that had them running for their lives back at Kyungsoo’s building.

 

“Are they drawn to noise?” Minseok asks.

 

“Yeah, like moths to a flame. Body shots are useless but head shots seem to do the trick. When in doubt, burn them.”

 

“You fought any of them yet?” a sergeant asks from behind the captain.

 

“Yeah,” Minseok answers.

 

“Where?” The captain adds.

 

“Philly, Newark.”

 

The captain looks up at that, worry marring his features. “Philly? Is it bad?”

 

“What about Tucson?” the sergeant asks.

 

“San Diego?”

 

“Orlando?”

 

Minseok lifts up his hands to stop them. There are no placating words he can think of. No way to ensure these men that their cities and families are ok.

 

“I’m not gonna lie to you guys, there aren’t many places doing ok,” he says.

 

The men all look troubled but not defeated. There is just no way to confirm anything at this moment and they know it. They are far away from their country, all they can do is wait.

 

“If that guy was a virologist,” the sergeant says, “then what do you do?”

 

“I was told there was a message out of this installation containing the word ‘zombie’ eleven days ago,” he tells them.

 

“That’s right,” the captain says. “Though it wasn’t a message, it was an email. Glad they’re taking the time to read those,” he says darkly, moving into a deeper part of the installation beckoning Minseok to follow him.

 

They stop in front of what seem like prisoner cells. All that is left is charred remains of several soldiers around the metal frame of an old timey bed, body included.

 

“This is where they were. 15 or 16 guys here, all of them bitten by this one dude they were trying to handcuff to the bed,” the captain adds.

 

“The colonel said he was the first one,” the sergeant mentions. 

 

“Where’s the colonel?” Minseok asks. Maybe this colonel has some answers.

 

“Oh, right there,” he says, pointing at one of the many burned bodies.

 

Damn it. Minseok sighs and looks back at the ranger. “Do you know what bit this man? Who bit him?”

 

“He was the base doctor,” the captain informs him. “But he had been out in the field for days checking with the locals. He came back sick and started biting our people.”

 

Minseok walks into the cell, trying not to step on any remains, to see if there’s anything at all that might help him figure out what the hell is going on. He notices the filing cabinets where records are kept are burned to a crisp. There’s nothing here.

 

“So, there’s no way to figure out the origin,” Minseok says, mostly to himself.

 

“Shame you had to fly all the way here to figure that out,” the captain says, not unkindly. Minseok is thinking the same thing.

 

“How did you all make it?”

 

The sergeant his gun and says, “ammunition.” Minseok notices the man has been keeping weight off his left leg, limping slightly as he moves.

 

“That how you hurt your leg?”

 

“No, it’s been bugging me a while now.”

 

“This lucky son of a stands right in the mix while six or seven men turn around him. He walked away just like that. Unbelievable,” the captain recounts.

 

“They just couldn’t mess with my pretty ,” the sergeant replies.

 

Strange that they didn’t jump right in to bite him, Minseok thinks. Wanting to know more about the behaviour of these infected people, he asks, “the ones I saw turned in less than fifteen seconds. Was it like that here?”

 

“These turned in minutes, no longer than ten.”

 

So perhaps it’s advancing, becoming stronger. Ten minutes to fifteen seconds is a hell of a mutation. Minseok’s seen diseases mutate and change over time, but never this fast and never this deadly.

 

“Sir, they are eating me! Help!” a man shouts mockingly from the cell at the end of the hall, laughing as if it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. It’s the only cell occupied and Minseok is surprised there are any prisoners still here.

 

“Who’s that?” He asks the captain.

 

“Don’t mind him,” the captain replies. “C.I.A. that got caught selling weapons to North Korea.”

 

“Turning in 10 minutes? Yeah, a virus my ,” the man continues. 

 

“You CIA?” Minseok asks as he approaches the man’s cell.

 

“Not anymore. And who might you be?”

 

Minseok enters the cell and sits down at the small table inside, the man shackled to it across from him. He looks like hell, Minseok thinks; dirty, smelly, torn clothes that hang off a thin body. But what’s most surprising of all is the fact that the man seems to have no teeth. None.

 

“U.N.”

 

“Oh, my! We’re saved! Did you hear that, boys? The U.N. has arrived!”

 

Ignoring the mocking, Minseok continues. “Why did you sell guns to the North?”

 

“Why? Jealous?”

 

“Are they surviving this?”

 

The man smiles, his toothless smile a parody of his own child’s. God, he misses his family.

 

“Maybe.”

 

“With your guns?”

 

Te ugly smile comes back, followed by a mocking chuckle. “Not exactly.”

 

“How then?” Interrogating subjects is something Minseok is used to. Just keep moving and don’t let yourself get distracted by non answers or non sequiturs.

 

“I’ll give you one guess,” he replies and smiles wide. The gums inside his mouth are still swollen, cavities where the teeth used to be filled up with blood.

 

Minseok falls silent. No way.

 

“They took the most prominent danger,” the man continues. “Remove the teeth, remove the threat.”

 

“Bull,” he calls. There’s no way they removed an entire population’s teeth, that’s insane. But...

 

“The greatest feat in the history of humanity,” the man remarks. “You just have to focus on effective and immediate actions. Now, why do you have to burn them to make sure they’re dead? Why do they seem dead but continue walking around? Why biting? Why are some countries better than others? Why is Israel winning? How is Israel winning?” 

 

Minseok is not sure where this rambling is going, but he listens attentively. Rumors usually come from specks of real fact. So he pays attention and he remembers. 

 

“They sealed off their entire country days before the infected attacked. How?” The man asks.

 

“Israel has been building walls for thousands of years,” Minseok tells him, knowing the man will continue his diatribe anyway. These kinds of people just want to be heard, no matter how crazy what they are saying might sound.

 

“Right, but finish them all just in time for this?” 

 

It could be something. But how did they do it? How did they know?

 

“Jurgen Warmbrunn. That’s the man in Jerusalem you want to see,” he finishes.

 

With that piece of information, Minseok is off. There’s no time to waste and he has no other leads. If it’s a futile endeavour then he’s ed. Getting back stateside is going to be a from the Middle East, but he can’t dismiss a lead just because it came from a toothless war criminal arrested at the North Korean border. 

 

Jesus, he’s ed.

 

Once he exits the cell and heads back to the room he was in, he tells the pilot to get ready.

 

“We’re going to Jerusalem,” he informs everyone.