End of the World

Chapter 17

Nayeon drives slowly the closer she gets to the city. It's raining again today but she knows the city is swarmed with the army of undead and the less noise they make, the less attention they'll draw.

"This is where my parents used to live." Aera points out a huge mansion in a quiet street.

Nayeon hops down out of the car, positioning the bat in her hands carefully. "Where are they now?"

"They went to the States on a business trip." Aera replies, falling into a stride with the older girl as they walk towards the house. "You probably know them."

Chaeyoung shakes her head. "How would we know if you don't tell us their names?" She mumbles from the left of Nayeon.

"Mr and Mrs. Kun Hee." Aera responds, stepping forward to the familiar place she calls home.

Dahyun gasps. "The Kun Hees?" She swivels her head around to the newcomer's side and squints her eyes at her. "As in the billionaire hoteliers? Why didn't you tell us this before?"

Aera waves her hand dismissively in the air between them. "It's not relevant in a zombie apocalypse."

Dahyun furrows her eyebrows slightly wary of the new girl. There's something odd about her, she's not sure what.

The group slides to a stop in front of the door, glad they haven't run into an undead yet.

They have no problem entering the house and retrieving a pistol and a shotgun from the safe because the visual recognition system allows Aera easy access.

"Dahyun, you should take the pistol." Nayeon suggests, "And Aera is probably better at handling the shotgun."

"Why do I get nothing?" Chaeyoung frowns.

"Because babies aren't allowed to handle guns." Nayeon replies with a shrug of her shoulders and pats her cheeks.

Meanwhile Team Jeongyeon breaks into an apartment, and shudders when they see a lurker crouching over in the corridor, ripping some unfortunate soul limb from limb.

Momo clutches Jeongyeon's jacket and suppresses a whimper when the undead proceeds to rip his stomach open and pull out the intestines.

"We can't take the lift, he's blocking it." Sang-hoon takes a tentative step backwards and points to the stairs. "We should go this way."

"There are no lights in the stairs." Sana says through clenched teeth. Sang-hoon seems like sweet guy, but he often says stupid things. "It's literal suicide to go through them."

It's silent for a while, except for the soft mewling noises the zombie is making while he feasts on the insides of the dead person.

"We'll have to finish him off." Momo is surprisingly the one to break the silence. "But we should do it quietly, that way we won't draw more undead towards us."

Jeongyeon's eyebrow quirks up because Momo seems to use more than one brain cell when she wants to. "Attack him from behind?"

"I'll throw my jacket over him." Sana suggests, "And you stab him." She tells Sang-hoon.

"We'll keep guard." Jeongyeon agrees.

They execute the plan almost to perfection but Sang-hoon ruins it because he's frozen in terror and instead of stabbing the zombie he just lifts knife midair and stares.

"Ughh men I swear." Momo grumbles and grabs the knife from his hand.

Just when the undead is about to release himself from Sana's hold, she plunges the knife through the jacket right inside his brain.

Sang-hoon kneels over and vomits when his slimy blood splatters all over the cemented floor.

The three girls walk towards the lift, and stop, regarding Sang-hoon with questioning eyes.

"You're not staying there all day are you?" Jeongyeon queries through pitiful eyes.

"No." He looks around the dark corridor with a wide eyed gaze. "I'll go with you."

Momo pats his back soothingly when he steps into the lift and takes cover in between them.

Nayeon stops the car in front of the JYP studios.

"What are you doing?" Chaeyoung hisses when Nayeon takes her seat belt off.

It's not raining anymore and a hoard of zombies are swarming the parking lot.

Nayeon turns off the engine and tells Aera to take control of the wheel. "I need to get something from our van."

"Is she out of her mind?" Dahyun feels uneasy as Nayeon crouches and hides behind the vehicles, carefully making her way towards their van.

She sees a zombie snapping her head towards the car Nayeon is hiding behind, when she accidentally steps on a plastic bottle and it crushes under her foot making a crumbling noise.

Nayeon stills as the zombie approaches the vehicle. She wipes the bead of sweat above her eyebrow and times her action.

Just as the undead rounds the corner, Nayeon pops into the car and makes her way out through the other side of the door, landing on the ground with a soft thud.

The lurker plants her face on the window of the car and lets out a hungry growl when she finds no one inside it.

Nayeon crawls slowly towards the gray van.

There's another zombie right next to it. She has to retrieve the item from the van without attacking him, because even if she made the slightest of noise she'll draw about twenty undead towards herself.

"Oh shit." Dahyun remarks, her eyes growing, her heart racing in her chest when Nayeon opens the door and the alarm in the grey van goes off echoing through the empty parking lot loudly.

The zombies, hungry for flesh turn their head in the direction of the van and Nayeon bites her lips when she hears their footsteps dragging and inching towards her.