BOYS OF THE
APOCALYPSE
WORD COUNT 4.4k
OVERVIEW two unlikely souls find each other at the end of the world.
FOR lexiiii minha princessa i really hope you like this!
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DAY 37 AFTER THE DISASTER. min yoongi, from daegu, straps his stolen machete onto his back and crushes a still-growling head under the heel of his steelcaps, cringing at the noise. surrounded by five decapitated bodies, all in various states of decay, he stands in the middle of a nearly-full shopping center.
to think, he just wanted to go grocery shopping, and ended up murdering five people — well. not people, exactly. yoongi whistles a tune as he picks his shopping basket back up, knowing this can attract crawlers, but he's ready for them. he barricaded the front door and knows the back exit is locked, the key on a chain around his neck, so he casually picks up more canned goods from the shelves.
"oh, cookie dough," yoongi says quietly, grabbing a packet of the uncooked stuff, for when he's on the road, along with some beef jerky and a couple of cans of soda from the refrigerator. he grabs a few frozen pizzas and realises he might need a cart if he wants to get the five litre bottles of drinking water.
there's lots of abandoned carts around, so he places his food in and sprays oil on the wheels so they don't squeak and attract unwanted attention. with a bandana keeping the stench of decaying undead bodies away from his nose, he wheels his 'purchases' to the back entrance, his vehicle waiting outside.
pulling his pistol from the holster on his calf, he reloads it before unlocking the door, not knowing what awaits outside. since the disaster, nothing can ever be predicted anymore, leaving yoongi on edge and alert at every second. he carefully opens the door, gun in hand, pushing the cart slowly. his van is parked six feet away from the door, so he does a quick 360 turn to check for crawlers, before running over and opening the door. the supplies are quickly loaded in, and just as yoongi's lugging the five litre water bottles in, a distinct harrowing groan noise can be heard. yoongi's head whips up, hand on his gun, and he sees two crawlers shambling towards his van.
quick as a flash, he pulls the bottles in, slams the door shut and jumps into the driver's seat, shoving the key into the exhaust and pressing down on the gas. the crawlers thud against the passenger door, but he reverses away and out of the parking lot, the sharp metal extension he rigged to the front of his truck cutting off one of the undead's legs as he drives off.
still on edge, yoongi pulls off his hat and bandana, breathing deeply. thirty seven days and those things still spook the hell out of him; he had a panic attack the first time he killed one, the distinct terror of everyone i know is gone and i just killed a man setting in as he barricaded himself in someone's suburban house, rocking back and forth in an attempt to console himself.
daegu went down a week after the factory explosion in seoul. no one really knows what caused the explosion, or the dead to start rising from their graves, but yoongi had been away for a few days, and when he came back, he slept for maybe ten hours and woke up to sirens. everyone except him had been either evacuated or killed — well, he thinks it's everyone. it's been a month and the only 'people' he's seen are decaying.
yoongi managed living in a house for maybe a week, slowly getting hungrier as food either rotted or ran out, so he eventually went to his apartment block, armed with a handgun stolen from the house, and found his trusty house on wheels, a ford transit van. since then he's more or less found himself being a nomad in this infected town, fighting off corpses and going on supply runs, whilst driving around to a different place each two days. he's learnt how to use weapons he never would've thought to use before, being the un-athletic type, and he's learnt survival instincts from books he stole from the local library.
yoongi parks his van in the middle of the big park that was a wildlife preserve type thing, climbing into the back of the van so he can start organising his new supplies, and eating; he's starved, having not eaten for a day.
his supplies are grouped into four boxes: food (divide into perishable and nonperishable), liquids, clothes and ammo/weapons. yoongi restocks his ammunition belt with shotgun shells, despite not using the gun much, reloads his pistol, and removes his police-stolen kevlar body armour because hopefully he won't need it again today. finally, he downs a bottle of water and swallows down half a pack of beef jerky and a packet of saltine crackers.
yoongi's routine in the evening consists of eating whatever he has, making sure everything's where it needs to be, checking the perimeter for crawlers out of the windows he covered with blackout curtains, and then using his radio and walkie talkie to check if anyone's out there. usually the answer is no, but there's always hope.
he flicks through radio stations on the talkie, headphones in, and he speaks in a hushed voice. "this is min yoongi of daegu. is there anyone there? can anybody hear me? i repeat, can anybody hear me?"
it's awfully quiet, and yoongi almost feels like it's going to be the same as every other night, but then a voice comes through, crackly. "yes, yes! this is kim seokjin, do you copy?"
"i copy!" yoongi says, heart jumping in his chest. "i copy, yes. kim seokjin, where are you? over."
"i—" static frazzles the signal, but the unknown man repeats himself. "i repeat, i'm in apartment complex five, block two, gyeon street. where are you? over."
"i'm in daegu nature reserve park," yoongi replies, his heart beating faster; someone else is alive and human, someone else is here. "do you have transport or something? over."
"no, i'm stranded here," seokjin sounds shaky, worried. "could you get here at all? i don't know how much longer i can stay here, over."
yoongi quickly scrawls down the address, thinking up strategies in his head. "what floor are you on? over."
"third. i can get down to the parking lot via the fire escape. i-i have a gun, but not much ammo, over."
yoongi gets into the driver's seat. he doesn't like being mobile when it gets dark, but it has to be done in this situation. "i'll be there soon, seokjin. have you been bitten or hurt? over."
"i haven't been bitten, no. i have a few scrapes but they're not bad," seokjin inhales sharply, sounding nervous. "radio me once you're outside, please? over."
"i will, don't worry. hold tight. over and out."
the engine starting up is loud, but there's car alarms going off in the distance anyway, louder than the van. yoongi keeps the headlights dimmed as he drives out of the reserve, knowing exactly where seokjin is, it being where his friends used to live. crawlers haven't exactly swarmed that place yet, but attention is bound to be drawn by yoongi's van. the young apocalypse survivor drives over bodies that make disgusting noises under his wheels, finding the apartment complex easily. once he gets to the parking lot, he gets in the back and reequips his armour and weapons.
"seokjin," yoongi picks the talkie up, driving close to the fire escape. "seokjin, i'm outside, do you copy?"
yoongi climbs up onto the roof of the transit, leaving his door open and keeping his wits about him. a head pokes out of the third floor window, and yoongi's heart beats fast. "yoongi," the same voice comes through the talkie. "what should i do? over."
"gather anything you think is essential," yoongi says, looking around with his gun held out in front of him. "then climb down the fire escape. i'll help you onto the roof. hurry, though, it's getting dark. over."
a few minutes later, and kim seokjin's making his way down the metal stairs, a backpack on his back. from what yoongi can make out, he's blonde and lean, and definitely nervous, if his haste hints at anything. once he's on the bottom level of the fire escape, yoongi half-asses a smile.
"come on down, quick," he says quietly, and seokjin gently jumps down onto the roof. "good. climb in after me, stay quiet."
once they're inside the van, seokjin looks like he can actually breathe again. he's attractive, with blonde hair and roots beginning to grow in, a few day's worth of stubble appearing, his clothes a bit ripped and dirty. there's a few cuts and bruises on his face, but he's no worse for wear than yoongi; he's alive, and that's what counts.
"fuck, thank you," seokjin finally says, looking like he might cry. "i — i didn't know how much longer i could stand in there. thought i'd go insane." he wipes sweat from his forehead as yoongi smiles a bit.
"it's alright. i thought i was the only one left in daegu," yoongi says with a shaky laugh, the first in weeks. "are you hungry? i've got food and water and whatever in the back, please, help yourself. i'm gonna get us out of here."
"thank you, so much." seokjin climbs into the back, whilst yoongi hits the gas, getting the hell out of the apartment block. yoongi decides to go to a pretty reserved campsite where he used to work, with a gate that he knows how to program to open and close. thankfully the electricity didn't turn off with the factory explosion.
"where are we heading?" seokjin asks, climbing back into the front, his long unkempt and shaggy hair tied back with one of yoongi's bandanas, and a cheap energy bar in his hand; yoongi only gets them because they're good as a last resource, and they don't go off easily.
"the camp site. you know it?" he asks, brushing his hair away. his hair's unkempt and shoulder length, and he keeps it tied most of the time. seokjin nods, munching on the bar.
"yeah. isn't it locked though?"
"i used to work there, security code never changes," yoongi explains, turning a hard left when he sees five crawlers. "fuck — guess we're taking a detour. be warned, i'm a dangerous driver."
they sit in silent fear as yoongi checks the rearview mirrors, and thankfully the crawlers aren't following them. seokjin's the one who breaks the silence, voice a bit shaky. "h-how long have you been roughing it for?"
"three weeks, more or less," yoongi says, spotting the steeper road that leads up to the campsite. "don't really keep track of time. you?"
"haven't left my apartment. food started running out and i managed to find my roommate's old radio walkies in the cupboard. saw it in some zombie film, thought i'd try it out. thought i was going crazy when i heard your voice," seokjin says, staring ahead as the campsite gate becomes visible. "thank you, again. think you saved my life."
"don't say that just yet," yoongi says, breaking by the gate and opening the door. "keep the engine warm, i'm gonna open the gate. step on it when i tell you, okay?"
seokjin nods, shifting over to the drivers seat whilst yoongi runs to the office. the glass isn't bulletproof, so yoongi smashes the end of his machete into it and jumps over the counter, finding the operation board. he punches in the code — 2468, always — and opens the gate. "jin, go!"
his van is quickly driven into the campsite, and he sets the gate to close, jumping out and running after it, keeping his weapon to hand. seokjin brakes once the gate's fully closed, opening the window. "we should scout for crawlers," he says, the slang term for the undead beings being widely recognised. yoongi nods.
"good thinking. get out, i'll sort you out with weapons. can you fire a gun?" seokjin nods. "good."
yoongi opens the back doors of the van, his ammunition box in light of the campsite's many street lamps. he looks through the weapons, taking a few out for seokjin. "this is a simple handgun, fires one at a time, police issue, yadda yadda. make sure you have the safety off," yoongi hands him a holster with said gun. "that goes around your thigh. this," he takes out a thirty centimeter blade with a ten centimetre handle, being about the size of someone's arm. "is a machete identical to mine. with crawlers, stabbing them means getting up close, but it's better than a gunshot — those attract more."
seokjin nods, weighing the knife in his hand, turning it over. "okay, i hear you," yoongi passes him a few loads of ammo, which he places in the pocket of the denim jacket he's wearing. "let's go?"
yoongi hums in agreement, taking a scrunchie from his wrist and tying his hair up. "put that bandana over your mouth and nose. crawlers stink, dude." they both do this, and with weapons in hand, they move.
the park's fairly small in perimeter, and they only find four zombies and a crawling half a body without any legs, which seokjin stabs through the head with the machete. they check in the closed areas, seokjin nearly shrieking when they find a decaying dead crawler in the supply closet. yoongi shoots it with the one silenced pistol he has, just to make sure, and pulls it out.
"there's bows and arrows in here, and crossbows, if i remember right," he tells seokjin, pulling a flashlight from his pocket. he shines it around, finding a glint of metal. "ah! bingo."
he tosses seokjin a bow and a sheath of arrows, taking the other bow and the one crossbow for himself, along with the remaining arrows. "hunting knives too. this is perfect," he takes the box labeled 'knives & fencing swords', grinning. "think we're done for crawlers. let's get this shit back to the van and eat some dinner, hm? there's cooking stoves and all in here."
they find a cart-like thing to transport everything, passing by the cafeteria to grab pots, pans and camping stoves so they can have an actual hot meal. seokjin marvels at the amount of food that hasn't gone off, grabbing stuff. "teabags, coffee, beans — this is good. there's rice too! and i bet there's meat in that freezer. how long has it been since you've had meat?"
"unless you count beef jerky, a while," yoongi chuckles. "but calm down. we might be here for a while yet. get the teabags, coffee and a bag of rice, alright? rationing, seokjin, it's a good skill to have."
seokjin nods. "you some kinda survivalist or something?" he asks as they walk back, making yoongi chuckle.
"read a ton of books on how to survive in the first few weeks of this. i'm also a bit of a movie nut, so i guess watching old zombie films does count for something," he pulls off his bandana as the van comes into sight. "i was just an average-ass pizza delivery boy before this."
seokjin laughs slightly. "i was a supply teacher. and where do we end up when the world goes to shit?"
"daegu campsite, my friend," yoongi says, with a small smile. "alright, what do you want for dinner?"
they end up with an improvised but still hot and delicious meal of rice and kidney beans, accompanied by a slice of beef jerky each and a can of pepsi, lukewarm. yoongi's stomach is celebrating at the feeling of warm food finally occupying it, the pair being silent except for appreciative noises and groans.
"god, that was good," seokjin says, finishing the last of his soda. "hey, are there showers around here?"
"oh my god, i haven't showered in ages," yoongi groans, running a hand through his matted, greasy hair. "they've got showers, definitely. i've got clothes of all sizes, but choose things that are easy to move in and that aren't loose. if they're loose, crawlers can grab you easily. get it?"
"yeah, got it." seokjin gets up and rifles through the clothes, passing yoongi a few bathroom items they'll need to shower with, and yoongi gets himself a clean outfit.
they end up sleeping back to back on yoongi's pallet bed he shoved in the back of the truck, two veritable strangers who need each other to survive. they fall asleep to the beat of each other's hearts and the rhythm of each other's breaths.
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DAY 103 AFTER THE DISASTER. min yoongi and kim seokjin sit on the room of the house they're occupying for the week, sharing saltine crackers and water, occasionally picking off crawlers who wander too close.
"okay, i've got one: favourite song before the world ended?" seokjin asks, pointing at yoongi with a half eaten cracker. yoongi laughs.
"bohemian rhapsody. queen, man, you can never go wrong," yoongi chuckles out, drinking a few gulps of water. it's hot, up to the thirties, so sweat stains their chests and armpits, both of them being in loose tanktops, keys to the van tied around their neck.
it's been two months since the two boys of the apocalypse met, and things haven't gotten much better with two heads working together. while yoongi likes to think of them using the 'great minds think alike' phrase, seokjin prefers the german: 'two fools, one thought'. it's probably more accurate.
a pile of dead crawlers sits in the driveway, which they'll burn in the dead of night after they go inside. they're moving out tomorrow, so they're staying up all night to pack up and get everything in the van. they've decided to try and get to the outskirts of town, bit by bit. tomorrow, though, they need to made a shopping run.
"shit, i know that guy," yoongi says suddenly, squinting at a crawler that's ambling down the street. he's got a toupee that's falling off and is wearing an old grey suit, looking fresher; he's probably a freshie as opposed to a gravecrawler. "that's my old AP history teacher from college. mr han. fucking hated that guy."
seokjin laughs, whilst yoongi takes the assault rifle they bagged from a hunting range out of the holster slung across his back. "careful, min," seokjin warns. "don't attract more of them."
yoongi grabs a silencer from the ammo bag to his left, attaching it to the gun. "way ahead of ya, jinie." he places the gun on his shoulder to aim it, and focuses the target on the history teacher's head. one shot and the crawler collapses to the ground, making yoongi grin.
"alright rambo, enough of that. conserve ammo," seokjin says, so yoongi puts the gun back in the holster. "let's get inside. 's too hot, and it's like what, six? let's get some dinner on."
they drop themselves down to the back porch that leads into a closed-off back garden, which is the safest entrance to the house. they enter through the back door into a house which is all boarded up windows and doors, the windows blacked out so the crawlers can't see the light they make.
seokjin heads to the kitchen, which is where they're keeping food that has to be eaten in quick time. there's loads of food from the campsite which they've been keeping in two small freezers in a trailer that seokjin helped yoongi attach to the back of his van, so seokjin takes out a packet of chicken breasts to have with boiled potatoes and big slices of fried bread. they eat one big meal everyday, and only eat when they're hungry.
"yoon, wanna peel me some big potatoes?" seokjin asks once yoongi emerges from the bathroom, changing the bandages on a wound he got from climbing over a fence with barbed wire on the top. the younger hums in agreement, but instead of doing this, he goes behind seokjin and hugs him, inhaling the smell of sweat and the soap that seokjin picked up in bulk from the walmart they raided.
"hey," seokjin laughs, chopping up the chicken as a pan heats up on the stove. "you okay?"
they've developed some sort of relationship out of this partnership, one of mutual respect and support, one that seokjin thinks would count as boyfriends if the world hadn't completely ended a few months ago. yoongi hums into seokjin's shoulder. "'m a bit tired. i'll be alright. we'll camp out in 7/11 tomorrow, alright? i know how to barricade it."
"sure," seokjin nods, chopping an onion which he then chucks into the pan, along with the chicken. it sizzles pleasantly and jin smiles, liking his cooking despite not seasoning it as much as he'd like. "potatoes, please?"
yoongi nods and goes to peel the potatoes, two large ones which he then cuts in half and hands to seokjin for him to boil. yoongi quickly and carefully looks out of the curtains, seeing that the street's less full of crawlers. "reckon we can light that fire at like eight, right?"
"probably," seokjin says, finishing up with the food. "i wanna be able to get out quick, just in case. let's pack up now?"
"sure baby."
they spend ten minutes packing their things. yoongi's four boxes are replaced by huge crates that stack on top of each other and are pretty compact. they have enough clothing for a whole week, each, which they wash whenever it's possible, enough weapons and ammo that they won't run out for a few months at least, along with the crossbow, bow and arrows they got from the campsite, and an impressive amount of blades. there's a good amount of nonperishable food, which they restock, and a smaller amount of perishable stuff, which they don't restock unless they need it.
the van's been modified since a few months ago; there's still a bed taking up a lot of the back space, with the four crates stacked and secured with bungee chords at the end of the mattress. yoongi and seokjin attached sharpened bits of metal to the front protective bit of the van, so they can plow through crowds with no problem, and all the windows have been reinforced with chicken wire they found at a hardware store/garage, where they stayed for two days fixing up popped tires and engine wires, both of them thankfully being fast learners and reading from big instruction manuals. the van has been spray painted black rather than the obnoxious yellow it was before, the locks are reinforced, the windows blacked out so the crawlers can't see them but they can see the crawlers.
as well as installing a semi-trap door thing in the roof, they also managed to fix the shitty tape player, meaning that while they cruise streets full of the undead they can enjoy the best hits of queen, abba and madonna, albeit quietly.
with a quiet hum of queen's somebody to love, yoongi slides a knife into the holster on his ankle and makes sure his gun is loaded, before helping seokjin load the freezers and refilled 5l bottles of water onto the the trailer. seokjin passes yoongi the two-toned brown leather jacket he's taken to wearing, ripped on one arm — he says he'll patch it up soon —, before tossing on the camo green jacket he's claimed as his. they're prepared if anything happens, seokjin slinging his bow over his shoulder with a sheath of arrows.
"this is really good, jinie," yoongi says appreciatively as they eat dinner off someone else's plates, the older smiling from the praise. "i'll make a flask of coffee after, for the night."
seokjin nods at the idea, swallowing down the bland yet filling food. "good idea. we'll take shifts driving?"
yoongi says yes and they continue eating. not much conversation can be made during the apocalypse, they've discovered.
it's as they're doing the dishes, quietly singing bohemian rhapsody together, that they hear a crash! that has them both startled, and then the familiar bone rattling groan. "crawler!" seokjin hisses, and their weapons are drawn. yoongi cocks his gun, and they stand back to back, arrow and bullet ready.
"where is it?" yoongi says, worry evident in his tone.
"i don't know."
they stand there, incomprehensible, and fuck if they're not terrified when they see where the noise is coming from.
the back yard, where they thought was safe, is crawling with crawlers who battered down the fence, and they're now clawing at the glass. "fuck," yoongi swears. "fuck fuck fuck — garage. now. quick."
they run to the garage, yoongi unlocking the van and getting in as quick as possible. seokjin hears the glass door break and he panics, hitting the button to open the garage door and getting into the passenger side. "step on it, quick." he says, and yoongi does so, seokjin getting into the back and poking himself out of the rooftop trapdoor once they're out, grabbing a bottle of beer and a match box. he stuffs his bandana into the bottle, soaking it, before setting it alight and throwing it at the pile of corpses in their driveway.
the flames quickly catch as yoongi takes a hard left, and seokjin sits back next to him, heart racing. this is the most dangerous situation they've been in so far, and he can't breathe quite right. "fuck, shit," he swears, putting his head to his knees, his hair matted with sweat that drips down his forehead. "that — that was so fucking close."
"we're alright," yoongi says, his voice as unstable as seokjin feels. "we're... we're okay."
they join hands over the gearstick, hearts racing and breaths heavy. seokjin tries to steady his breathing, taking a water bottle from the glovebox and gulping down half of it in heavy successions. "7/11, then?" yoongi asks, and seokjin nods, taking a hair tie from his pocket to tie back his greasy and matted hair.
yoongi, to lighten the atmosphere, slides in an abba tape, making seokjin feel a bit better once the start of take a chance on me plays quietly, still on edge. their hands clasp together tightly, palms sweaty.
"this isn't ever gonna end, is it?" seokjin says after a while of deadly silence, his throat dry. yoongi looks over at him, eyes dark.
"it— it doesn't look like it will, seokjin. doesn't look like it will."
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NOTES / 251118
sksjssjshajahai i love zombie apocalypse shit so much???? i've watched all of the walking dead and i own a whole book dedicated to surviving the zombie apocalypse so i really put my all into this!! i hope y'all like it!!!
i'm working on requests and four christmas oneshots so i'm a busy bee 🐝 i'm fuckin knackered but u know what i love writing and i love you all !!!
— love, jace