Chapter 22
Forgotten Idols
If this was his idea of avoiding her, he was doing a damn good job.
For the first week, it was as if Shin had disappeared off the face of the earth. Every afternoon at the pool, every movie night ,every shooting practice he was nowhere to be found. The only time he would surface was for the occasional meal, where he would sit at the table in silence with a permanent scowl. The mansion was too big, filled with too many nooks and crannies, to ever know where he was for sure during that time. Hana searched high and low for the boy, feeling like she was in some messed up game of hide and seek, just to say a word to him, maybe even apologize, but he was nowhere to be found.
The second week, he didn’t try to be as stealthy. He began going through the group’s normal activities like usual, speaking to everyone but Hana, Amber, and TOP. He roamed the halls like a ghost, silent but deliberate. Whenever he would pass his cousin in the halls, his eyes remained locked forward as if she didn’t even exist.
“Hey, Shin. I just want to talk to you. Shin, c’mon, please!” she would say, but he kept walking. Even when she would grab his arm to pull him back, he simply shrugged off her grip and stepped on with a steady stride.
Though, that wasn’t the only thing that was consistent those two weeks. Every night, Hana would hear loud, clumsy footsteps at the end of the hallway. They were the only sounds besides the occasional snore that filled the silent second floor. Hana would look over at her bedside clock: 3:00 a.m, every time. The footsteps would then continue and dissipate until they faltered down the staircase never to be heard again until the sun had nearly risen. With the clumsiness of the steps and their odd timing, it became apparent almost immediately to Hana who was going downstairs in the dead of night, and exactly why.
One morning in the hostile mansion, TOP gathered the group together in one of the dining rooms. They sat as if preparing for a meal, except there were no plates in sight. That could only mean one thing, and everyone knew it.
“We need to go on another run,” TOP announced, getting low hung heads and sighs in return, “We’re getting dangerously low on food and other supplies. If we leave within the next hour, we should make it to the location before noon.”
“Are you sure it’ll be safe?” asked an unfamiliar voice.
The house turned to see Donghae standing in the doorway. It was as if he were an illusion, just waiting for him to disappear the next time they blinked. The last time Donghae was with the rest of the group was when he puked all over the room during breakfast, but even then felt like lifetimes ago. Hana hadn’t seen the man in what felt like weeks. He would stay holed up in his room for days at a time, only leaving to use the bathroom and get a meal, even then he would be sure to go in the kitchen in its least inhabited hours. He was even thinner than the last time she had seen him, frail even.
“Sadly, nothing is certain, Donghae,” TOP said, “But we’ll do the best we can to make sure that everyone is safe. We just have to be careful and aware of our surroundings this time. That’s the only thing we can do, honestly. Now if no one has any other questions, let’s get going. Meet in the garage at eight, and make sure to bring a bag with personal belongings, it’ll be an overnight trip.”
With those words, the group got ready and met in the garage before the hour. As TOP and Hana finished loading the truck with artillery, Shin passed by on his way to the Jeep.
“Shin, can I talk to you for a second?” she asked in a low voice as she followed him to the car. He remained silent and opened the door, “Don’t be like this--” she said, but he slammed the door in her face mid-sentence. He looked at her dead in the eyes for the first time in weeks through the glass window, only to shake his head and turn away a few seconds later. Hana sighed and sulked on her way back to the truck.
“You ready?” TOP asked as she climbed in the passenger seat. She nodded without a word, and TOP stuck his hand out the window to signal the other car to follow him out. They drove out the garage, between the iron gates and through the fields of flowers until they were out into the real world. The dying landscapes, broken down cars on long forgotten highways, skyscrapers that were as empty as the hope of the survivors were splayed out as far as the eye could see. They drove through whatever towns they had already visited and already knew weren’t safe, until they made it to a small city. Before the apocalypse, it was probably thriving with successful businesses and bustling with life, though now the streets were only cluttered with broken glass and undead bodies.
After a while of searching through the town, and syphoning gas from abandonned cars to get them through the rest of the trip, they found what appeared to be an abandoned grocery store nestled in the woods and veered off the road to park in the lot.
“Okay everyone, let’s be as quiet as possible once we get in there. Just check your surroundings first and make sure we’re the only ones in there before we start touching anything. Amber, Hana, Shin and I can tell you from our experience how important that is,” TOP said once everyone stepped out of their cars. He handed out weapons and lead the group inside.
The trip was relatively painless. Once they cracked open the door, they only had to worry about six zombies in the whole place. Much to their gratitude, there were no other unexpected surprises. They grabbed a few carts and pushed them through the aisles, taking whatever was left in the place. Since the store was so small and inconspicuous, it seemed like it hadn’t even been touched since everything began.
Better for them.
After about an hour and a few trips to the cars later, they had successfully raided what was left of the grocery store.
“Shouldn’t we have left something behind for someone else? You know, like if some more survivors come here looking for food, there won’t be anything for them,” Henry said as he struggled with the bag on his shoulder.
Amber shrugged, “Finders keepers, losers... to be them.”
“So what now? You said this would be an overnight trip, but we already got all the food we needed and it’s not even three o’clock yet,” Kai said.
“We just keep looking. We definitely need more supplies for around the house, I’m sure if we keep driving we’ll find some things that’ll pique our interests,” TOP responded, motioning for everyone to get back in their cars.
They pulled out of the lot and hit the streets once again, the tires kicking up dust on the forgotten pavement. They drove straight for about twenty miles, seeing nothing but old restaurants and banks, but they had all the food they needed for a while and robbing a bank was pretty much useless. Though, a grand building at the edge of the city caught their attention.
“Is that a hospital?” Hana asked, appraising the structure as they drew closer.
“I think so,” he said.
“Something in there could definitely be useful.”
“For sure, we need more medical supplies in case of an emergency. And it would be good for your shoulder too since we’re running low on bandages now,” he said. He stuck his hand out of the window so that the Jeep behind him could know that he was turning into the hospital. As the two cars pulled into the lot of the enormous place, they realized that it wasn’t empty as things usually were. About 100 cars lined the spots, which made the group feel oddly eerie even if they were certain that they were all abandoned.
They parked right in front of the entrance, a move that would have gotten them towed on a good day.
“What are we doing here?” Chanyeol yelled out from the driver’s side of the Jeep.
“We’re hoping we can salvage some medical supplies in here, you can never be too prepared,” TOP replied.
The group exited their cars once again and stood in a circle, contemplating their game plan.
“I don’t think we need everyone to go in at once,” Henry admitted, “I think some people should stay and keep watch on the cars.”
“I’ll stay,” Amber volunteered.
“Me too,” said Kai.
“Alright, let’s get going. I don’t like all the cars in this lot, I doubt that all of the drivers got a chance to leave this place once things went to hell. Let’s just go in and get out as fast as we can,” TOP said as the group walked inside.
Donghae walked in the back of the group, dragging himself along just fast enough not to get left behind.
“Are you okay, Donghae? It feels like I haven’t seen you in forever,” Chanyeol said.
The singer sighed, “I’m just tired.”
“You don’t have to come inside with us if you don’t want to, I’m sure that Amber and Jongin wouldn’t mind if you stayed with them and rested.”
“It’s more of an emotional and spiritual fatigue, Yeol. I’m fine, but thanks for asking,” Donghae said softly. It was his first time outdoors in nearly a month, and the feeling of actual sunlight and fresh air on his skin made him feel brand new, but also super exposed in a way he wasn’t sure that he was comfortable with yet.
When they pushed open the automatic doors and stepped inside, the first thing they noticed was the smell. A thick, strong musk met their noses as soon as they entered. No one had ever smelled anything so foul.
“The hell is that?” Henry asked as he plugged his nose.
“It smells like something died in here,” said IU.
“Probably did,” Shin said.
They stepped over pieces of glass and overturned furniture, all the while ducking under wires and panels that had fallen from the ceiling. Their shoes were becoming damp from the half an inch of water that covered the floors, possibly due to a broken pipe somewhere. Light poured in from the shattered windows, creating interesting shadows on the ground.
There was a room up ahead, covered in large signs that read “Authorized Personnel Only”, to which they completely ignored before pushing the door open and sploshing inside. The room was covered in large boards adorned with levers and switches, and above them were monitors.
“This must have been the hospital’s security office,” TOP said. He walked over to a desk in the far corner, gingerly pushing aside a carcass that was seated in front of it, and pulled open one of the drawers, “I think I found something that might come in handy,” he said.
He reached in and dropped a hand full of walkie talkies onto the tabletop, they counted eight all together.
“Holy they actually work,” Chanyeol said as he grabbed one and heard static after turning a few knobs.
“This is a big place, I think we should split up into groups and look around,” TOP suggested.
“There’s nine of us, so three groups of two and one group of three should do,” Henry said.
“Just grab whatever you think can be useful. Bandages, antibiotics, you name it we can probably use it.”
“I’ll go with Chanyeol,” Sehun said, going to stand closer to his bandmate.
“I’ll go with Shin,” IU said nonchalantly, somehow drawing herself even closer to the boy than she already was. Eunhyuk shot daggers at the two, his fists shaking slightly by his side.
“Why don’t you be my partner, Jieun? I’m sure we can get a lot more done,” he said.
IU nearly scoffed, “No I think I’m fine where I’m at,” she said in a sweet voice but Hana and TOP understood the hidden meaning.
IU had no recollection of what she had told them that night. She went about her days as usual-- all smiles and giggles, acting as if she didn’t just admit to indirectly murdering a man. Hana doubted that Shin would ever tell her what happened, or why he was being so distant as of late, and that just made things all the more complicated.
By default, Eunhyuk begrudgingly partnered with Donghae, leaving Hana, TOP, and Henry together.
The groups grabbed 2 walkies each off the desk. Since the elevators weren’t an option, the group climbed the stairs and dispersed into the dark hospital. Chanyeol and Sehun opted to stay on the first floor, Hana’s group went to the second as did Shin and IU, and Eunhyuk and Donghae chose the third. With a head nod, and a warning to keep their walkies on, they all went their separate ways,
“We’re in the Infection Control wing right now, there’s bound to have some antibiotics here, right?” TOP whispered as the three roamed the halls.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Henry said, adjusting the strap of the bag on his shoulder.
“It looks like that bag is kind of heavy, you need some help?”
“No, no, no! I’m fine,” Henry assured as he continued to struggle with the bag. The entire day he would reach in it occasionally and pull out a clear water bottle, sipping the transparent liquid inside with an almost unnoticeable wince.
“Can I get a swig of that? I’m really dehydrated,” Hana asked as she reached for the bottle.
“No- I mean, I’ve been feeling a little under the weather lately, I wouldn’t want for you to get sick because of me,” he replied.
“Oh...okay,” Hana said.
“Here, you can have mine,” TOP said as he reached her his canteen. She muttered a surprised ‘thank you’.
Hana shook the handle of a door before forcing it open with a kick. They shined their flashlights inside the room, seeing that it was full of cabinets filled with bottled liquids and pills.
“Holy , did we just hit the jackpot?” Henry asked as he pulled open a cabinet and examined a bottle of pink pills.
“I think we did, I’m ninety percent sure these are all antibiotics.”
The three of them could barely pronounce the names of half the medicine, let alone know what they were supposed to do but they dropped nearly all of it in TOP’s small leather bag.
“We still need to find bandages and gauze, I think I saw an office back there that might have some of that stuff,” Hana said.
“Okay, let us just finish going through these cabinets and we can go look,” TOP said.
“That’s fine, you two can continue what you’re doing, I was actually thinking about checking it out alone anyways,” she said, immediately sensing the males’ uncertainty, “I’ll be right down the hall. We’ve been up here for ten minutes and haven’t seen or heard a zombie yet. It’ll be fine, plus you too have more important stuff to be looking for here anyways.”
After a moment of consideration, TOP nodded silently, “Just make sure to turn your walkie-talkie on in case you need to reach us.”
“Will do,” she said before turning away and leaving the room. Her Converse squeaked loudly on the tiled floors of the halls as she flipped on the device. She didn’t remember her footsteps being so loud when she was with the boys, but maybe it was the fact that she was alone that made her more intuned with her surroundings.
She made it to the door she had seen earlier, labeled “Office of Dr. Minah Kim”. To her surprise it was unlocked. It was nearly pitch black inside, the little light coming in due to curtain covered windows. She felt along the walls for a light switch, only to stop herself midway when she realized it was in vain. Living with lights in the mansion had surely spoiled her, and it felt like a slap in the face to come into the real world and realize everywhere else wasn’t so fortunate. Henry had explained to her a while back how the Hallyu Village had electricity-- what did he say?-- something about how they have their own independent power systems, solar energy? She had seen a few solar panels lining the properties and hills of the community but never thought much of it.
“That was probably the smartest thing to do with all that money,” she said to herself.
As she combed through drawers and closets in the office, she noticed a constant thud in one she hadn’t yet checked. Slowly, she took a few silent steps forward, listening closely only to hear nothing but the same thudding.
BOOM...BOOM...BOOM…
Without much thought, she pulled open the closet door and was immediately knocked to the floor as the air left her lungs. She was sent in a daze, feeling only heaviness on her body and squirming atop of her. She looked up, only to gaze into the grey eyes of a living carcass, which was silently trying to gnaw and claw at her to no avail, given that it was gagged and handcuffed.
“The hell?” Hana gasped as she tried to push off the body, but it was easily a solid hundred pounds heavier than she. She reached in her belt loop and pulled out the knife she had been holding, only to stab it through its head with one solid puncture until it went limp.
Breathing heavily, she rolled from under the thing, crawling away as she looked at the stilled figure on the floor beside her. It was an older woman, maybe about 50, dressed in a lab coat and appropriate hospital wear. had been covered by a bandana and her hands tied with zip ties. Her chest gleamed with a golden label on her lapel. Hana drew closer to give it a look only to see a name: Minah Kim.
Damn.
“What kind of sick bastard does this?” Hana whispered. The doctor had been stuffed, gagged and handcuffed inside the closet of her own office. She was probably bitten and was left to die alone there, “People are so ed up.” Hana drew closer, analyzing the stab wound she made. She was glad she had the knife, because if she had to use the gun, she knew TOP and Henry would have come barreling in the room with questions and “I told you so”s. Though as she looked closer, she thought something was off. Other than her bleeding head, the rest of her was clean: from what she could tell there wasn’t a knick or scratch in sight. Hana pulled back her collar and sleeves to look for bites only to find nothing but bare, white, cold skin.
“How--?” Hana began.
“Donghae, you find anything yet? I’m in the nursery if you need to find me,” said a staticky voice on the other end. She knew it immediately to be the blue haired dancer. She wondered briefly why he would be contacting her, but realized it was all a misunderstanding. Due to all of the group’s walkie-talkies being connected, Eunhyuk must have mistook Hana’s channel for Donghae’s. The two of them must have been separated to look for more supplies.
She was about to tell him that he had the wrong channel when she was suddenly cut off, “This is really getting to me, man. Like really bad. I hate that piece of . You know what, ‘hate’ isn’t enough.” he said, “Maybe...detest? No... resent? Despise? No......loath. Yeah that’s it, I loath him. I loath him, Donghae.”
Hana wanted to notify him of his mistake, but her curiosity got the best of her, so she remained quiet on the other side.
“Who does that little piece of psycho, Shin, think he is, huh? Coming in here like that, trying to take my girl, my girl, from me?” he spat venomously, the words cold and short, “That’s not going to fly around here.”
Hana slowly crawled on the floor, eyes wide as he talked. She noticed movement in the distance through the office’s window, and peeled the curtains back slightly as she sat on her knees, only to see a figure standing in a window perpendicular to hers. He seemed to be in the floor above her own, and was talking into some device as he raked his hands through his electric blue mane and leaned on the window. Eunhyuk didn’t know that he was being watched, but Hana continued to view him as he talked into the walkie-talkie.
“And on top of everything he has the nerve to rub it in my face! You haven’t been around to see it, but he sits next to her at dinner and I just know he’s holding her hand under that table,” he paused and she heard him scream on the other end followed by the sound of many thumps. Through the window, she saw him kick a wall furiously, “He’s doing it to spite me, Hae! This can’t go on any longer...he needs to go. Shin needs to go. And if I can help it, it’ll be for good.”
Upon hearing those last words, Hana accidentally pulled on the curtain too hard, nearly exposing herself. She saw Eunhyuk crane his neck to look at the window once it got his attention, and Hana flipped around and nearly dove on her so that she was sitting on the floor and out of sight, “Donghae, you there? You haven’t said anything this whole time, where are you? Donghae? Donghae--?”
Hana cut off the walkie-talkie with shaky hands and swiftly dropped it on the floor.
“No,” she whispered, running through what she had just heard in her head. Her heart was pounding against her skull and her leg wouldn’t stop shaking as she continued to process it all. The kicking, the screaming, the banter.
This man really is insane.
___________________________________
“So the registration office didn’t have anything besides pens and piles of paperwork, what should we do now?” Sehun asked his senior.
Chanyeol shrugged, “Keep looking I guess, there should be something useful in one of these rooms.”
The duo had been roaming the first floor for the past half-hour without much to show for it besides stationary. After turning down what felt like the billionth hall, they reached a large double door covered with signs that warned of biohazards; typical for a hospital. The doors were being held shut with a bloody mop that was stuck through the handles, as were many others they had passed.
“The sign back there said that this was the Intensive Care Unit...there should be some important stuff in here, right?” Sehun asked. He didn’t want for the other three groups to come down and look at them in disappointment for their unsuccessful haul.
“Yeah, at this point we should just grab anything, ‘ya know? I don’t want to hear Eunhyuk’s mouth when he sees our bags are empty,” Chanyeol replied.
He grabbed the mop and forced it from between the door handles, where it clattered against the floor loudly. When the boys pulled the doors open, they immediately stumbled back.
“This smell is worse than the last one! Ugh, what is that?!” Sehun exclaimed as he held his nose and mouth in disgust and went inside.
“It smells rotten, rancid even,” Chanyeol gagged as his nose hairs singed, “I’m going to be sick,” he said as he doubled over and emptied his already vacant stomach onto the floor of the dark room. They could barely see an inch in front of them the space was so black, “Ugh, I can’t take this, we have to leave.”
As he spoke, they noticed more than just the smell was in the room. There were pained groans and growls coming from the darkness, and what sounded like slow shuffling.
Sehun hurriedly reached for his flashlight and shined it into the space, nearly dropping it when he saw what was before them.
Less than twenty feet away (and surely closing the distance), were easily a few dozen broken, bloodied, twisted corpses. Nearly all were dressed in thin hospital gowns and barefoot with tubes and masks covering their faces. Many had what they assumed were broken bones, due to the way their limbs were curved in unnatural ways. Some even had organs spilling from their bodies that left a messy trail on the floor behind them as surgical tools protruded from it. Drawing closer, the fifty or so corpses zeroed in on the boys, limping quickly towards them as they backed away in terror.
Sehun and Chanyeol began to back pedal out of the room, immediately grabbing the doors and forcing them closed as best they could, but raw strength wasn’t enough. Out of the corner of his eye, Chanyeol saw the mop still laying on the floor about a two feet away. He quickly dipped down to grab it, leaving Sehun to hold it alone, but that second was all it took. The doors burst open, sending the two flying backwards onto their backs where they crashed to the floor. They looked up to meet the many faces of the killers hovering over them as they sat in horror, the rancid smell taunting them.
“Oh--”
“.”
_____________________________________
Drawers and cabinets were raided as Shin stuffed random things into his already full traveling bag.
They were in the anesthesiology wing, the opposite end of the 2nd floor that Hana, TOP, and Henry were and as far as humanly possible.
“I found some needles,” Shin said, “Maybe they’ll be useful at some point, who knows?”
IU had been sitting in one of the desk chairs, observing Shin as he went to work for the past several minutes. He was pretty oblivious, until he glanced over at her and saw the smirk covering her lips.
“What?” he asked, a little self-conscious, “Do I have something on my face?”
IU chuckled before slowly raising herself from her chair and strolling towards the boy. She came up behind him in a back hug, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and rubbing his chest, “Not at all. I’m just amazed by how handsome you are.”
If the room weren’t so dark, she would have seen him turn bright red. It was still surreal to him, no matter how many times they were together, that she was even interested in him, “Thanks,” he said, his voice hitching at the end, making it sound more like a question.
“You know” she began in a low voice, “the other group went in the opposite direction...and this is a really big floor. I don’t think we’ll run into them any time soon.”
“Meaning?” Shin chuckled, but he already knew.
“Meaning, I think we should take a little...break.”
That was all he needed to hear.
Shin spun around and crashed his lips onto IU’s grabbing the nape of her neck to get a better angle as she squealed. The two backed into a table, where he hoisted her up so that she was sitting and her legs could wrap around him.
“Doing it in a hospital, I guess I can check that off of my bucket list,” he said as he flung off his shirt.
“You have a bucket list?” she asked in between kisses.
“You kind of need one these days, right?”
Shin had just begun to fidget with his belt buckle when they were met by loud static and screams.
“HELP! HELP PLEASE! OH MY GOD!” a voice wailed on the other end of the walkie-talkie sitting on a nearby table.
Shin and IU made eye contact, both looking equally confused and disturbed.
“THEY’RE COMING AFTER US!” Sehun could be heard saying.
Shin rushed over to the table and pushed the button, “What’s coming after you? Whats going on, Sehun?”
“THERE’S A HERD OF DEAD ONES ON THE FIRST FLOOR COMING AFTER US RIGHT NOW, ABOUT FIFTY! EVERYONE NEEDS TO LEAVE!” Chanyeol screamed after him, “GO TO THE CARS NOW!”
Static.
“Come on,” Shin said as he grabbed IU’s hand and ran.
Hana was still seated on the floor when she heard footsteps approaching. She quickly jumped to her feet, brushing down her clothes as TOP and Henry walked in with bags thrown over their shoulders.
“You find anything?” Henry asked before looking down at the floor, “Or someone?”
TOP scoffed, “Why didn’t you tell us there was one of those things in here?”
“I handled it, didn’t I? There was no need to call you in here for something I could take care of. They were gagged with their hands tied anyways so it wasn’t much of a fight,” Hana said.
TOP bent down over the figure to get a closer look, “Huh...messed up way to go, isn’t t?”
“Humanity really did go to once the zombies took over,” Henry said as he shook his head and took another swig out of his bottle.
“HELP! HELP PLEASE! OH MY GOD!” yelled Sehun over the walkie-talkie, “THEY’RE COMING AFTER US!”
Three heads jerked up as the sound of his screams were amplified over their devices.
“What’s coming after you? Whats going on, Sehun?” Shin could be heard saying.
“THERE’S A HERD OF DEAD ONES ON THE FIRST FLOOR COMING AFTER US RIGHT NOW, ABOUT FIFTY! EVERYONE NEEDS TO LEAVE!” Chanyeol screamed, “GO TO THE CARS NOW!”
TOP rose to his feet, “Let’s get out of here.”
They ran to the hallway and towards the stairwell, but could hear the groans of the undead from the floor below.
“We can’t take the stairs, there are too many down there. We’ll walk right into them,” Hana said.
“So we’re trapped up here?” Henry asked.
“The room I was just in had a fire escape next to the window. We can climb down and make it to the car,” Hana said. She ran back to the office and the boys followed her lead. But before she could make it, the sound of growls from an adjacent hallway filled their ears. About a dozen zombies were approaching them, spilling from open rooms and offices, all dressed in lab coats and scrubs.
The trio pulled out their knives and pushed as many biters as they could against the hallway walls before stabbing them through the skull. They eventually made a clear path to the office and were able to run to the window as a few stragglers shuffled after them.
“I’ve almost got it,” Hana said as she struggled to push the window open, knuckles turning white as she strained. Eventually there was a snap, and cool air rushed in as the window was pushed up, “The fire escape is right here, come on let’s go!”
Hana crawled out the window, opting not to look down as she reached for the ladder. The drop was definitely more than the ten foot fence she was used to jumping over at home. TOP followed behind her, steadying the ladder as he saw her go down, and Henry was in the rear, fending off zombies by the door as the two made their escape.
“Henry come on!” TOP yelled as he was halfway out the window.
Henry ran to the window but in his hurry, dropped the bag from his shoulder onto the ground. With flesh-craving monsters on your trail and a lack of time, the expected thing to do in that case would have been to leave it, but instead Henry went doubling back for his heavy satchel.
“Henry what are you doing?! Leave it!” TOP yelled from the window, but the boy ran back anyways, “Henry!”
Henry dove for the bag, but before he could grab it a monster grabbed him by the arm and pushed him against a wall in the office. Henry screamed in horror, and TOP pulled the gun from his waistband, firing from the window into the room and nailing them in the head. Henry stood shocked as the bodies slouched to the ground.
“HENRY COME ON!”
He stepped over the bodies and ran to the window, following TOP and Hana down the rickety ladder until their feet met solid ground.
“What was that?” Hana asked.
“What was what?” Henry feigned cluelessness.
“Is that bag more important than your life? You almost got yourself killed up there. What’s in that bag of yours anyways?” TOP asked, reaching for the bag on Henry’s shoulder. He jerked away, “Henry what’s in the bag?”
“Medicine and stuff, you know that.”
“We put all the medicine and antibiotics in my bag.”
Henry froze in his lie, and TOP grabbed the bag from him and took a look inside. He scoffed and pulled out a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels, “You risked your life for a bottle of whiskey?!”
Henry was silent and stared at the ground.
“We need to go, we can talk about this later,” Hana insisted as they continued to run to where they had parked earlier.
Standing in front of the cars looking exhausted and scared was Amber, Kai, Donghae, Eunhyuk, Shin and IU.
“Where’s Sehun and Chanyeol?” Hana asked.
“No idea, we’ve been waiting for you guys and them for the past couple minutes,” said Amber.
Suddenly there were many horrified screams in the distance, coming from the hospital’s courtyard.
They were familiar voices.
Hana and a few others ran towards the noise, rounding a corner to the courtyard. It was a large sitting area with a garden, surrounded by a pointed iron fence . It had been closed off for construction before the apocalypse and littered with signs, wooden boards, and orange tape. It would have been a beautiful addition to the hospital on a normal afternoon, but now it was tainted with dozens of carcasses flooding from a back door and chasing after two horrified popstars. The two boys screamed as they scaled a tall gate that separated the groups, rushing anxiously to get to their roommates on the other side. A few of the undead grabbed at their feet, and they kicked at them wildly.
They eventually made it to the top of the tall metal gate, but the structure wasn’t completely stable, as it was being shaken vigorously by hungry beasts. They hung on for dear life as the structure shook.
“Hang on tight you guys!” Amber yelled.
“Hold onto the gate and climb over!” TOP said.
The two boys shifted their weight and got their feet to the other side. It was one step closer to freedom, all they had to do was jump down and they would be safe.
“On three!” Chanyeol said, “One...two...three--!” as the two were beginning to let go, the herd gave the gate the strongest shake yet. It sent vibrations up the metal all the way to their bones, and the two let go, sending them spiraling towards the ground.
Chanyeol’s grip had been tighter than Sehun’s, so when he fell he landed roughly on the grass below.
Sehun wasn’t as fortunate.
Sehun was caught off guard, and when the gate shook he let go out of shock, sending him falling in the opposite direction of Chanyeol and into the garden. As he plummeted, his right leg landed squarely onto one of the spikes on the garden’s iron fence. The black iron sliced cleanly through the thigh, impaling him as he hung off the side of the barrier.
“SEHUN!!” they all screamed as they ran towards the boy.
He was panting, looking down at his leg with eyes mirroring disbelief, “AHHHHH!!! AH, NOOOO,” he wailed as the pain set in, “GET ME OFF THIS THING, PLEASE!!!”
He was gasping, tears rolling down his face as the group surrounded him. They checked the leg, trying to see if there was any easy way of fixing this. The group was buzzing with screams and suggestions, shear panic coursing through them. They had been at it for a good 30 seconds when Sehun’s eyes rolled to the back of his head and his body went limp.
“Sehun? Sehun!” Chanyeol screeched, resisting the urge to shake the boy.
“He passed out from the pain,” TOP said, “We need to get him off this fence.”
As the clock ticked on, they came up with their solution.
“We have to pull him off,” said Hana.
“What?! Won’t that just make things worse?!” Chanyeol said.
“We’re running out of options. He’s losing blood fast, if we can get him off of this thing and stop the bleeding he might have a shot, but we have to move,” said TOP.
With a sigh, the few group members positioned themselves around his body, and on the count of three, hoisted him from the fence. The rusted metal was covered in red, the liquid oozing down in a thick coat.
“He needs to get to the car, come on.” Hana, Amber, Henry, Chanyeol, and TOP carried the boy to the vehicles, where the rest of the group attacked them with concerned questions and terrified expressions. They laid him in the bed of the truck, where many climbed in to assist. The group drove away from the hospital, leaving the herd in their rearview mirrors.
“We need something to stop the bleeding, anything. Clothes, bandages, anything!” TOP said.
Hana reached in her bag and handed him a roll of gauze. TOP gripped Sehun’s leg, his hands and arms slick with red. The area Sehun was laying in was slowly being covered in a pool of blood as he continued to bleed out. Though blood was expected, it was an unusual amount. TOP wrapped the gauze around the boy’s leg several times, but the bandages remained red. He paused, “What?”
“All this blood...I think the fence sliced through his femoral artery.”
“Femoral artery?” Kai asked, “C’mon speak a language I can understand here.”
“It supplies blood to the lower half of the body...and if that gets cut then it’s only a matter of time before…” he replied in a low voice. He didn’t need to continue for them to know the gravity of the situation.
After speeding dangerously down the road, they made it to the lot of an abandoned hotel. The truck and Jeep came to a screeching halt, sending clouds of asphalt up around them. They jumped from their vehicles and ran to assist the group in the truck bed.
“Be careful!”
“Don’t grab him there!”
“We need to hurry!”
“Make sure he’s secure!”
“There’s too much blood!”
“!”
They carefully lowered him from the truck and carried him to the entrance of the hotel. It was average size, nothing too extravagant. If you passed by it on a drive you wouldn’t even look twice it blended in so well with the metropolitan scenery.
They kicked open the automatic glass doors and moved along swiftly, shooting down any and all zombies that they saw in the lobby. They ventured down a long hallway on the first floor and picked a door at random. They forced it open after a struggle and rushed inside.
It was a suite, separated in two different sections, one with a kitchenette and sofa and another with a bedroom. They ran to the bedroom and slowly laid him down on the king sized mattress. Sehun’s unconscious body sunk into the soft white comforter and his limbs splayed out, making him resemble a star. His leg, despite all the bandages, was slowly turning the comforter red as well.
The group stood over the bed, hands covering their faces as they looked down on the boy.
“How the HELL did this happen?!” Eunhyuk screamed.
“W-w-we were running from them. Everywhere we went they were following us, s-so we tried to get away by climbing a gate and when we tried to get over it h-he fell on a fence and it went through his leg.”
“,” Eunhyuk said under his breath, shaking his hair out with his hands, “!”
“What are we going to do?!” Kai erupted, “We have to do something, we’re running out of time! HE’s running out of time!”
“We just went to a hospital, right? Don’t we have the supplies to fix this?” Amber asked.
“We have a few things, but we’re going to need more than gauze and antibiotics to help him. We need surgery, and unless one of you went to medical school in your free time, none of us are qualified to do that,” TOP said. He sat down on the bed beside him and further inspected his thigh.
“From what I saw, the fence he fell on looked pretty rusty too...he’s bound to get an infection at some point,” Hana whispered.
“Well use the antibiotics to help him before that happens!” Eunhyuk said, “Dammit, at least try!”
TOP sighed, “I was right...it went through his femoral artery,” he said, “He needs a surgeon, tools we don’t have, and years of expertise and experience. We can try to bandage him up some more to stop him from bleeding out, maybe even give him some random antibiotics to stop an infection...but if that doesn’t work…”
“If that doesn’t work…?” Chanyeol said.
“Then he’ll be dead within the next few minutes.”
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I'm back! I've been reading through some comments, and from what I gathered some of you felt like the story was starting to slow down a lot, and was losing it's momentum. I didn't want to make it boring at all for anywone (and I surely don't want to lose readers), those last few chapters without any zombies/outside action were just supposed to be to establish some characterization and the relationships between the household. There will be a mix of outside the Hallyu Village chapters and inside the Hallyu Village chapters in the future. This was a long and rough one, so I hope this makes up for the calmness of the last few lol.
Thanks for reading like always!
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