Chapter 12

Walk with Me

Chapter 12: Fever

Jongin's heart sank to the pit of his stomach when he witnessed Minseok leaving them behind for dead, their last glimmer of hope shut behind a hoard of blood-thirsty biters. How much could he take before his will would say "enough"? If surviving this post-apocalyptic world for a year now wasn't enough to crush his determination to live, killing Zitao and being betrayed by his best friend were.

His conscience drowned out the buzzing roar of the undead, his body immobilized by shock. He had seen it with his own two eyes yet he couldn't believe that this was how things were going to end, after all this time. A maddened smirk twisted his lips as he considered the irony of it all, of how murdering his best friend had led to another leaving him to die. Was revenge what Minseok had wanted? To avenge Zitao? Why? Why?

", Jongin, not now, don't do this!" Kyungsoo screamed into Jongin's face, the back of his hand coming hard across the other male's cheek to snap him out of his daze.

But try as Kyungsoo might to shake or literally beat the consciousness into Jongin again, the latter was too far gone to salvage and all the former had left were Chanyeol, Sehun, and an injured Baekhyun. He grabbed Jongin by the arm and tugged him into the office they had come from, ushering Chanyeol and Sehun in just as quickly. The only chance they had at survival was barricading themselves in the office and waiting for the hoard to disperse.

There was a bark. Then, another louder than the first.

Kyungsoo couldn't see where Coco was through the thickening downpour of the sprinklers but he heard him, and so did the biters. One by one, then three by threes, the undead creatures followed the dog's thundering barks as if they were spellbound. Kyungsoo couldn't bear to hear the sound of Coco's dying whimper when he shut the door.

Staggering with grief, Kyungsoo rammed his shoulder into a file cabinet to skid it across the floor and in front of the locked door. "Chanyeol," he panted.

"I got it," the taller male helped barricade their tiny sanctuary and moved the principal's desk and the couch between them and the biters, too. The combined weight wouldn't deter a ravenous hoard of biters from steamrolling through, but it was more than enough defense to handle a few scattered ones.

Kyungsoo exhaled loudly and slumped against the wall, the ball of his palm pushed into his closed eye socket as if he was trying desperately to stop the tears. They fell anyways. Coco, no matter if it was "just a dog" in anybody else's eyes, had been all Kyungsoo had left of his family and friends. The two had started off on the wrong foot in the beginning, as Coco, a puppy then, had refused to be caught whenever Kyungsoo lost grip of the leash. A few years down the road and one zombie apocalypse later, Kyungsoo found no use for a leash when he accepted that Coco was a runner. It tore his heart to think that, for Kyungsoo, Coco had stopped running from the biters only when it mattered the most.

However, unlike Jongin, Kyungsoo refused to grieve. He wasn't going to waste Coco's sacrifice by wallowing in depression, even if a very human part of him disagreed. They had to keep moving.

The group faced a dilemma cooped in a school office surrounded by biters, and to make it worse, Jongin's sanity had logged out and Baekhyun was bitten. It was difficult not to notice the latter screaming in pain.

"Kyungsoo, Baekhyun's hurt badly. He's bitten," Sehun blubbered, trying to help Chanyeol move Baekhyun onto the floor so he could keep his leg hoisted above his heart's level, if only to slow the bleeding.

Kyungsoo grabbed the supply bag slung over his shoulder and pulled out a roll of bandages he used as a tourniquet. "We need to amputate."

"Whoa, what the !" Chanyeol stopped Kyungsoo from reaching for the rusty machete they still had on hand. "He looks fine, we just need to stop the bleeding. How the hell do you know if it's contagious?"

"I just know," Kyungsoo grabbed the handle of the machete. "It's either this or we put him down in the next twenty-four hours with a bullet to his head. He'll turn if you keep stalling this!"

"What the hell, you guys!" Baekhyun wailed, squeezing his ruptured ankle in pain and groaning. "I'm right here! D-Don't talk about cutting off my leg or shooting me, s-seriously. I feel fine, j-just please make the bleeding stop, oh god. Please... please! Chanyeol, don't let them cut off my leg, oh god!"

"Sehun, Jongin, hold him down!" Kyungsoo barked at the two, more so to Jongin who stood dumbly in the corner with a zoned-out gaze and a tilted head. "Jongin!"

"No," Chanyeol shook his head. "I'm not letting you ing chop off his leg because you just know this thing has a contagious bite. I'm not chancing it."

Sehun and Kyungsoo glanced at each other before the latter wordlessly proceeded to wrap up the gushing wound with their last roll of bandages, finishing the treatment with an antibiotic shot to lessen the pain. It was pointless, in Kyungsoo's opinion, to argue with a couple of idiots who knew next to nothing about their enemy (Chanyeol had been crazy enough to keep one on a leash). All he knew was that the moment Baekhyun turned, just like his younger sister, he would put him down to save everyone else trapped in the same room as an infected human. This didn't make their situation any safer than they were thrown to the biters outside.

Once the fire alarm and sprinkler system stopped, it took nearly half a day for the biters inside the school to become dormant and some to leave the vicinity searching for movement outside. There were still too many lurking on the first floor so the group kept quiet as possible.

Within a few hours, Baekhyun had spiked a fever. He tried to laugh it off, blaming his faulty immune system and the sprinkler system, but Kyungsoo was more cautious than ever. It was only a matter of time before Chanyeol would get bitten too.

It was why he couldn't sleep, but since he already had one problem on his hands, Sehun collected the job of tending after Jongin who was still traumatized after that incident.

Jongin hadn't said a word since Minseok had abandoned the group but with Sehun beside him, he was slowly, but surely, losing his numbness and developing some common sense again.

"," Jongin uttered his first word in thirteen hours. ". Why did he do that?"

Sehun had almost fallen asleep next to Jongin but lazily opened his eyes again at the sound of Jongin's voice. "He was just scared," he answered in the most truthful, reflective way he knew how. "He thought he could make it out by himself, and he did. Who knows, maybe if we had charged to that door together, some of us wouldn't have been alive." He glanced warily at Baekhyun who was still breathing heavily and going pale. "Not all of us are brave like you, Jongin," Sehun pouted.

"It's not about being brave. It's about being a ing human being. It means protecting the people you ing care about, no matter what. I'm not proud for what I did to Zitao, but I cared about him, and I saw him go wrong in a lot of ways. I protected him, no matter what," Jongin huffed. "Even that... dog was a lot more human than that coward."

"I wonder how Kyungsoo's holding up after Coco..." Sehun trailed off and stared at Kyungsoo who was perched on top of the principal's desk, watching Baekhyun like a hawk.

Jongin sighed and pressed the side of Sehun's head to his shoulder so he could rest his own on top of the other male's. Fatigue was belatedly catching up to him. "You would worry about everyone else," Jongin snorted softly, his eyes closed. "That's what I like about you, Sehun. That's why I'm going to protect you. I promised you that, didn't I?"

"I'll protect you too, Jongin."

"Oh?" Jongin hummed as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He barely heard Sehun mumble something before he was whisked away by his fatigue, and he still wondered what it was his friend had said, even in his sleep.

At the same time, at least a fourth of a mile away from the school, Minseok had miraculously managed to lose the trail of biters following him and made it to an emptier part of the city.

He panted and slowed down, feeling like his lungs had caught on fire after sprinting non-stop from the school. It hurt less, obviously, to push the guilt-tripping thought that he had left his friends for dead and to consider the fact that morale didn't apply anymore. It was a human-eat-human world now. It was a cowardly perspective he had but cowards often survived longer. 'Keep telling yourself that, Kim Minseok,' Minseok chanted to himself. 'It's better this way. It's better to be cautious, to look after yourself, and only yourself. Who knows, Jongin might have killed you, too. Just like Zitao. See? Even Jongin thinks people are dispensable. Yeah, just keep telling yourself that. It's not your fault.'

It wasn't long before he reached a gas station and a convenience store that he hoped would have some food inside. In his rush to escape, he hadn't thought of stealing supplies.

He stepped inside the broken frame of the sliding doors, just before he saw a glimpse of someone standing a distance behind him. His heart almost lurched out of his throat but his fight-or-flight response kicked in a few seconds too late as a tranquilizer dart perfectly aligned with his neck. He fell into the heaps of broken glass, feeling nothing at all but the beating of his heart echoing in his ears. The concoction pumped into his system wasn't a tranquilizer but a paralyzing agent because Minseok was still widely awake to see who it was that had shot him.

He was a blonde boy with dark roots growing out but Minseok couldn't see the rest of his face hidden beneath the cough mask he wore. The stranger held the tranquilizer gun so he must have shot him.

The other assailant...

Minseok's jaw twitched to form the words his body refused to comply with. "Zi..." he stuttered. "Z-Zi... tao..."

They took him, leaving behind nothing but Minseok's navy blue snapback on the ground.

☣ ☣ ☣

Author's Note: Long time no see, guys! I just had to leave an author's note because some of your guys' responses to the last chapter were so hilarious! Just wanted to let all of my readers know that I enjoy reading your comments so much and that I want to thank you all for following "Walk with Me" until now! I know half of you are new and the other half are readers that have followed this fic since 2013~ Please keep leaving comments because, sometimes, I check the stories you've written and read them, too! I've been thinking of advertising some of your guys' stories by using some of my karma points. If you're interested, just keep leaving comments~ THAT BEING SAID, MINSEOK IS A LITTLE , ISN'T HE? XD

 

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Lei_udown #1
I always come back here whenever I can because I'm hoping there would be an update, even if it's been years since the last one. Still my favorite exo zombie apocalypse fic. Thank you for this author-nim.
Wiiinka
#2
Chapter 14: This still the best zombie fic I ever read and I'm still in love with sekai, the characters, crying over Coco and Baek, with you write
PenguinLOvers772
#3
Chapter 14: Hello~ I've been reading this story n waiting for an update. I wonder if you're doing alright. Really hope to hear from u soon. This story is amazing n i really like the way u describe the dystopian apocalypse world. Fighting!
Wiiinka
#4
Chapter 14: I read again and it is still my fave fic ( ´∀`)ノ~ ♡
Wiiinka
#5
Chapter 1: Oh i'm reading this again because it's too good for read only once
Wiiinka
#6
Chapter 14: I'll read it in loop until the new update ??
This plot, this writing, this chatacters, this Jongin and rip forever for Coco
This is genius, brilliant and I love each line and word
TEN_Net
#7
Hi there, just passing by .. This is still one of my fav fics, hope you get the inspiration again to finish it . it feels like a waste if it will not. .
myworldsekai
#8
Chapter 14: i wish you'd update
LITTLEST_FINGER #9
Chapter 1: Wow its soooo gooood <33
Baozisaur #10
Chapter 12: Despite this fic being sekai, i was secretly rooting for kaisoo. Like seriously, a badboy kai + a sassy intelligent soo is daebak!! Im a kaisoo trash btw hahaha