The After part 1
Pairing: Jongup-centric (if you are reading for a romantic pairing then you will most likely be disappointed)
Rated: PG13
Length: 5.5K (this entire story is fully completed and is 40K so there will be around seven parts)
I wrote this. entire. story with These Two songs on repeat. You all know how important songs are to a story for me so please give them a listen.
He was fourteen when the world stopped. When The After happened. Oh the planet kept on spinning of course. The sun kept shining and the grass grew until it was too tall to safely walk through anymore. You risked your life every time you entered someone's yard. The safest place to be was in the cities now.
To be honest, he had been in the after time for so long now that he didn't remember any other way. For three years all he knew was that he was running and he would never be able to stop.
For Moon Jongup, this was the rest of his life.
---
"It's your turn to go out today." A boot nudged not very gently into the back of his thigh. "I went out yesterday. We need to finish off the building." When Jongup didn't move the foot pushed harder. "Get up or I swear I will just put a bullet in your head and eat on your rotting carcass for a few weeks."
Jongup rolled over and sleepily rubbed his eyes until he could see without wincing. "I'm too tough, Jae. My muscles probably taste like rubber." He pushed himself up to his feet and grabbed the welcomed cup of coffee out of Youngjae's hands. It was watered down greatly and the coffee grinds hadn't been changed in four days but it was better than nothing. And Jongup knew a hell of a lot about having nothing.
After giving him an eye roll and throwing a rifle at his head, Youngjae left him to go back to his own bedroom and hopefully get a few hours of sleep after keeping watch all night.
That was the only good thing about the creatures of The After. They hated the sunlight and only came out during the day if they grew abnormally desperate. Scientists called them vampires for a while, until there weren’t any scientists left who gave a fuck about continuing the research. But Jongup knew that wasn't it, not really. They disliked the light but if they hadn't ate in a few weeks then nothing could stop them. And blood wasn't even what they were after. They wanted flesh. Skin and bones and hair and teeth and tears. The blood was just an appetizer.
No, to Jongup and everyone else of the world, these could only be called zombies. Monsters. Something that shouldn't even have been scientifically possible. Youngjae told him once that he knew how the epidemic started. Said it was because of a flu virus, but Jongup didn't know if he was just pulling his leg or not. Youngjae was always spouting out scientific facts like he was a walking encyclopedia which he may have well been. Jongup never even got to graduate high school, what the hell did he know. Whatever it was, it was global and it was fast. Within days over ten percent of the world's population was infected and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Vaccines were created, herbs and incense were bought in bulk, millions of people flocked to their churches to pray for a miracle. But nothing worked.
And then The After truly began.
---
"Jongup! If you don't go out soon then all the good stuff could be gone!" Youngjae threw a shoe at the wall between their rooms. "I want some soda this time!"
He sighed and made sure his gun had bullets before leaving his room. The last thing he needed was to go hunting for supplies with an unloaded gun. The long-healed wound on his shoulder throbbed in memory of the last time he had been that stupid.
The only things they had to choose from for breakfast were some stale biscuits Youngjae had tried cooking yesterday and a half-empty package of beef jerky they had been working on for a week. Jongup wisely chose a strip of the dried meat and a bottle of water from their dwindling supply. If his math was right (and he quit school at fourteen, he never claimed to be a genius), then they had about four more days’ worth of water apiece. That was priority number one. Expired food and flat sodas could wait until he acquired the water.
There couldn’t be many people left in the city. Searching for food had only recently begun to get more difficult. For now they were almost completely through sweeping their current apartment building of all edible items. Pretty soon they were going to have to move on and find another one.
This was their sixth building this year and it had only taken them four weeks to tear through the available food and water in the abandoned apartments. It should have taken longer. That meant the city had more dwellers then they had originally thought which could prove to be inconvenient.
It had been over three years since the outbreak started and it swept the world like a wave leaving only sparse pockets of people that mainly lived in unpopulated areas. Most of those that were left tried to band with other survivors in the big towns. Jongup was one of the lucky ones since his family lived high in the mountains. At least that was what his father had told him the day after he had shot Jongup’s mother point blank between the eyes.
Jongup couldn’t stop the way his knees tried to buckle underneath him at the memory trying to claw its way up the surface, but he had long learned to hide his emotions. No one cared about his tears. No one would stop and ask him what was wrong. There was no saving any of them. Daehyun had screamed that into his face so many times over the first few months of The After that it felt like a tattoo across his skin. There is no saving us.
The top floor was so quiet that Jongup swore he could hear his heart beating. This was a fourteen story building, it should have taken them two months to work their way to the top. Jongup glanced at all of the hastily scrawled X’s on the doors that Youngjae had gone through last time. Only two apartments left and the chance of finding potable water was slim to none. They could always head to the rivers and try their luck at drinking that water, but it was a last resort. Neither boy was brave enough to chance the wild. They had stacked buckets and barrels all over the roof of their building but it hadn’t rained in weeks and Jongup knew things were going to start getting terrifying soon if they didn’t find something.
The first apartment was already ransacked, something they had come across a lot lately. The fridge had been toppled to the floor but thankfully the rot smell had dissipated ages ago and all that was left was a large unidentifiable brown smudge on the wood surrounded by animal droppings. Probably rats. The rats were everywhere. Youngjae wanted to use them for target practice but Jongup kept trying to convince him that they needed to conserve their bullets. Guns were the only way to kill the infected and Jongup would rather kiss one of those germ-infested rats right on the lips than face a zombie with no ammo.
There was a loud squeak as he stepped carefully into the room and his first reaction to loud noises was to automatically draw his gun, hand tight on the butt of the rifle. It was just a toy. A stupid, fucking dog toy that someone had left in front of the door. He wondered what kind of dog lived here so long ago. Was this pink bunny his favorite toy or just one of many for a spoiled pet? Did his owner grab in on his way out the door, wanting to give his faithful companion one last sense of normalcy and soothing?
Youngjae told him that he was getting too distracted lately. But Jongup thought it was the opposite. He paid too much attention. Nothing happened that wasn’t caught by his two small brown eyes. Jongup noticed everything and it was slowly eating him up inside.
“You’re going to get yourself trapped one day.” Youngjae growled at him as he had to once again be the guard of the two while Jongup hurriedly tried to tie his shoes after tripping over them. “Stop watching the windows and start keeping an eye on where you’re going. The fuckers don’t shoot at us you don’t have to look up for them.”
But Youngjae didn’t understand. Youngjae hadn’t left anyone behind. It was just him and his grandma in The Before and once she died he was left on his own. But Jongup had to keep searching, had to have one eye on his future and one on his past.
“If you don’t kill me then I will never stop searching for you, Guppie.” Wet eyes and cracked lips pleading with him. Begging him to raise the gun and do what they both knew had to happen. Bloody teeth, that was all Jongup could remember about that morning for months afterwards. Those goddammed bloody teeth. “I don’t want to hurt you! Just do it! I’ll never stop!”
He had to brace himself against the bathroom door. The bag of shampoos and toothpastes he had been collecting dropped to the floor underneath him. This had to stop, he told himself. It was only getting worse the longer it had been since everything had started. Sometimes he wondered if everything would just be easier if he gave up. Asked Youngjae to turn the gun on him, the same way Daehyun had tried to get him to do. It wouldn’t be hard for Youngjae. He was the master at hiding his true self. All Jongup saw of him was the quiet but intense man that only spoke when necessary and hadn’t cracked a smile in their entire two years and four months together.
There was no way in hell he could really leave Youngjae like that though. Youngjae was his last link to humanity and even if they didn’t outwardly show it, they both needed to cling to each other. They couldn’t give up, not after making it this far together.
Jongup breathed out heavily when he found a size large winter coat still hanging in the closet. Their old ones were starting to get threadbare and they could share this one and double up on the two old ones when the cold came. Thankfully they still had a few months left of warm air, but they had been at this long enough to never let something they’d need later pass by them.
The second apartment was only barely touched with a few half-empty cereal boxes in the cabinet and several cans of vegetables with rusting lids. For obvious reasons they didn’t like to eat out of decayed cans but if they got hungry enough they would risk it, it wouldn’t be the first time. At least he found an unopened package of sugar, that was the best food find he had come across in weeks. It would greatly help those biscuits Youngjae had practically had to force feed him yesterday.
“Anything good?” Youngjae yawned when he entered the apartment an hour later and scratched his stomach, head leaning against the doorframe as he tried to force himself alert. “You were only gone for a couple hours.”
Jongup shook his head and dumped his sack out over the table. “There were only two unsearched apartments left. I got a few toiletries and some gross cans of corn that will probably give us botulism. The only good things I found were some sugar and a thick coat.” He shook the coat out and smiled proudly. Last winter they had to spend every night curled up together to stay warm. If they could just find one more thick one like this then this year shouldn’t be as hard.
“Not bad.” Youngjae nodded and ran his fingers through his messy hair, frowning when his hand dropped back to his side. “Your hair is starting to get pretty long again. Want me to cut it?” His own hair was always cut shorter and he liked to buzz it around the sides. Said it made it difficult for the zombies to catch him if they didn’t have anything to hold onto. He even wore body-clinging clothes and carried all of his supplies in a backpack so that if he had to he could drop it and run.
“Nah. I like it long.” Jongup preferred to keep his hair the way it had always been. Just in case they ever ran into each other again, he wanted to make sure Daehyun would recognize him. The same boy with the same shaggy brown hair and dark skin. “I’ll wait a bit longer before trimming it.”
Youngjae nodded. “So you finished the building off? Damn.” His face fell and Jongup tried to ignore the longing look he gave to their living room. “I’m so fucking tired of moving. Let’s get this placed packed up and we can start searching for another one tomorrow. I’ve not seen any human activity around here since we moved in so maybe this whole block’s untouched. We can hope right?”
He handed Jongup a jar of honey and the newly acquired sugar. “Mix some of this together and I’ll heat the biscuits up over the fire. It’s still early enough to get it going and have it extinguished by nightfall. I don’t want them to see the smoke in the air.”
The infected were smart. That was something else the scientists had gotten wrong. They told the public that the disease would make them idiots, make them slow to react. They were wrong. So, so wrong.
They watched the humans during the nights. Kept tabs on buildings that looked inhabited. They were the exact same person they had always been, only their appetite had changed.
Jongup knew just how difficult it was to tell an infected from a real human. They looked the same, they could even act the same. They could convince you to do anything for them and you wouldn’t even know it was wrong until it was too late.
One even convinced a fourteen year old boy to open the door.
“Where do you think we should go next? North towards the business end maybe? That’s where all the rich people lived. Surely there’s some good stuff left up there.” Youngjae threw a couple of biscuits on a plate and handed them to Jongup. “We’re going to need to start scouting out a place to stay in for the winter. Last time we waited too long and didn’t have enough wood chopped.”
Jongup chewed on the dry food, thankful for the sweet honey flavoring this time. “Wherever you think is best.”
Where Jongup was a country boy, barely escaping from the disease because of his hidden away house in the mountains, Youngjae was born and raised in the suburbs. His grandmother spoiled him and bought every single computer and video game that came out for her grandson. He proudly told Jongup that he was a computer geek. That was how they had survived the first few months unscathed. Youngjae had heard about the virus spreading through his internet friends and was prepared by the time it hit his town. He had convinced his grandmother to buy water and canned food in excess and knew how to handle a gun through an online shooting game. Youngjae told him the greatest thing to happen to him was that his grandmother died of old age four months after the first local attack. “If I would have had to shoot her…” Youngjae’s eyes had glazed over when he had shared his background. Jongup wondered whether to try and console him or sit back and let Youngjae get it out. “I buried her in the backyard so they couldn’t get to her.”
“I think it’s our best option.” Youngjae shuddered when he bit into one of the hard bricks. “If we keep going south we’re going to run into the river and I don’t want to be that close to the woods.”
“What do we do when we run out of buildings and supplies?” Jongup tore at his food, his appetite long gone. “Where are we going to go?”
Youngjae tried to look reassuring, but his face had long been set into a scowl and it wasn’t able to contort that way anymore. “We’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.” He motioned towards Jongup’s bedroom as he grabbed their plates and wiped them off with a dish towel they had found in the drawer. “Go get some sleep. You’re on watch tonight.”
He hated sleeping but knew he had to do it to stay up through the night. When he slept the nightmares came. In the beginning of their alliance, Youngjae had rushed in and tried to console him awake as soon as he heard the guttural cries and deep sobs coming from the normally quiet boy. But eventually he realized that it didn’t help and had stopped. Now Jongup had to suffer through them alone.
There was no savior. Nothing was coming to save them. Daehyun was right.
---
“Do you think she knew what she was doing? And that somewhere deep inside her head she was screaming at herself to stop?” Jongup knew the questions were stupid. But he couldn’t stop thinking them. They ran in a loop through his brain every second of the day. He didn’t tell anyone but sometimes at night he thought he heard her whispering for him from the stairs. Come with me baby.
“I hope not. Would you like your last moments on earth to be of you trying to eat your own damn family?”
Come downstairs sweetheart. Mommy has a present for you.
Jongup awoke with a scream, his mouth quickly covered by Youngjae’s palm, the older boy long used to having to muffle his cries by now.
“Quiet Jongup! You’re going to let everyone know we’re here!” Youngjae glanced out the curtains in alarm. “I’d try to find you some sleeping pills if they weren’t all expired by now.”
He sat up and buried his face in his knees trying to calm the heartbeat racing in his chest. “Sorry.” Jongup muttered. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and grabbed his rifle from the chair beside his bed. After checking and double checking to make sure it was loaded he pushed past Youngjae and headed into the kitchen.
“You want to talk about this or something?” Youngjae didn’t sound like he really wanted to share feelings at nine pm but still thought he should ask out of courtesy anyways.
Jongup snorted and pilfered another piece of the jerky off the counter. “Just go to bed. I’m fine Doctor Yoo.”
Youngjae still didn’t look convinced but he nodded anyways. “Alright. Wake me up if you see anything unusual and-“
“And don’t go checking it out by myself.” Jongup finished for him. He had heard the same order every night since they had met but for some reason Youngjae still felt the need to repeat it to him. “I know Jae.”
With a final nod Youngjae headed into his bedroom and locked the door behind him. Even after all this time together he still didn’t trust anyone but himself. Not that Jongup could really blame him. He knew that at the end of the day you just had yourself to depend on.
There is no one coming to save us.
He shook his head. “Go away Daehyun.” He muttered, leaning on his elbow against the couch. They keep all their candles out through the night so that it wouldn’t draw any attention to them so he had a good view out of the window with just the moon as a light. He could see the whole street and the only entrance to the building was on this side so if anyone tried to come up they would know precious minutes in advance. Youngjae had barricaded the other doors on the street level so that they wouldn’t have to worry about them.
The night watch was boring as hell but they had to do it. There was no way they could be caught unaware up here with nowhere to escape.
By the time the sun started coming up Jongup was near asleep, his eyes blurred from staring at the street all night long. Youngjae’s door opening startled him so that he dropped the rifle with a loud bang on the floor.
“Jumpy much?” Youngjae rolled his eyes and scratched his belly with a yawn. “You want to go ahead and start searching? We need to do it early just in case we can’t find something. We’ll need time to get back here and recheck the traps to make sure nothing got in.”
“Let’s go.” He grabbed his backpack and headed to his room to shove the few personal items he had into it. Once he had his pistol and spare ammo inside all he really needed was his clothes. Usually they wore the same outfit for weeks on end until it the boot soles were worn to pieces and the clothes were covered in so much blood that the color was permanently a dark copper. But they always made sure and kept a few spare outfits and boots on hand so he shoved those, along with his new winter coat, into a suitcase they had stolen from their first apartment together. He pulled the picture out of his back pocket and not for the first time wished he had something to keep it safe in. The colors were faded from the constant wear and tear and he could barely make out the faces smiling back at him.
“I’ll find you.” He promised the grinning boy in the picture, smile large and infectious as he wrapped his arm around a much younger and much more innocent Jongup. With a final brush of his thumb against the picture he slipped it back into his pocket and met Youngjae in the living room.
Youngjae was reloading his handgun and had already packed his backpack of bullets and two grenades he had managed to acquire over the internet before the virus spread. Jongup never asked where or how he had gotten them but he was thankful they were there in case they were desperate. The small suitcase of his spare outfit and combat boots was beside him, the duffel of food and water looking way to small by his feet. “We’re gonna be in trouble soon, Jongup.” He caught his gaze and furrowed his brows at the meager supply. “We need to step it up this week. Maybe both of us should start searching during the day. We can set enough traps so that nothing gets up to us wherever we go.”
“If all else fails…” Jongup waved his rifle at him with a small smile. They had both made a promise ages ago that before they could ever be caught they would end each other. Jongup hoped it never came to that. He wasn’t able to do it then and he wasn’t entirely sure he could do it now either.
They were careful on their way out of the building. This was their first time outside since they had moved into the building. It just wasn’t safe enough to walk around exposed like this. Danger could hide behind every corner.
“You want a high-rise or a low-rise?” Youngjae held his gun in front of him as he turned onto another block. Even when he dropped it to his side he still kept his finger on the trigger, his eyes going from side to side and back again as they walked steadily up the abandoned street.
Side-stepping a long rotted body, Jongup thought about the question. A high-rise meant more notice of an impending attack. It also gave them more floors to scour for goods.
But a low-rise was easier to protect. There were fewer entrances and the buildings were smaller so you could keep watch on a smaller area.
“High-rise.” He finally decided. “I like being up high. Feels safer.”
Youngjae nodded. “Me too. Plus most looters don’t like to climb all those steps so they ignore the bigger buildings and focus on the easier to manage ones.”
Climbing a million steps up about thirty flights of stairs was exhausting but it was good exercise for them and they had to keep their stamina up. Once a week Youngjae made them run up and down however many steps their current building has. It was hard work running while holding a gun up and keeping it steady but he knew Youngjae was right that they needed to do this.
“I hate steps.” He muttered to himself, kicking a rock up the street stubbornly.
“There’s a good block up here.” Youngjae sped up, his jaw tense. He wanted off the streets as soon as possible. There were too many variables out here and he didn’t like their odds. “I found a map in the bedroom of the last apartment and I’ve been studying the different neighborhoods.”
Jongup didn’t ask why he wasn’t let in on the knowledge beforehand. He knew Youngjae only told him what he needed to know and nothing else. It wasn’t anything personal, that was just the way life was.
They stopped in front of a building that was fifty stories tall at least. Jongup glanced around nervously. This neighborhood was obviously meant for the wealthy, but the buildings were so close together that he felt caged in. “This building looks like a trap.” He murmured, gripping his gun a little bit tighter. “There’s too many around here. There’s no way we could be unnoticed.”
Youngjae headed around the side to check the other entrances. “Yeah but that might be a good thing, Jongup. Maybe they won’t expect people to be hiding in crowded parts of the city. Most people headed towards isolated areas. This could be a genius hideout.”
He wasn’t sure but Youngjae was the unspoken boss of their duo. When he told Jongup to do something then he did it because being bossed around was a hell of a lot better than being left behind. Plus he was used to being ordered what to do all the time. It was almost comforting to have Youngjae be so bossy.
“Let’s do a sweep of the building to see if it’s even worth it.” He stepped through the broken door into the ransacked lobby. In the initial panic everyone had gone completely insane. Stores were broken into and entire buildings were turned upside down in their rage. But over time those that panicked easier were the first ones to go and only the calmer and more sensible humans were left. So even though the door was completely shattered, Jongup knew Youngjae must have had a plan for how to keep them safe.
They always stayed still and quiet in a new building. Usually if it was already inhabited they could hear people moving around after a few minutes. But this one was silent, the only sound was the wind gently whipping leaves into the lobby entry.
“Let’s head up to the middle. We’ll find somewhere to stay and then come back down and rig up some traps before nightfall.”
He followed the older boy up the stairs, gun raised over his shoulder in case he needed it drawn quickly. Youngjae grumbled under his breath as they stepped over bloodstains and crushed wrappers of food. Luckily the higher they got the less evidence of human activity they found. It was smart to pick a tall building, Jongup told himself. Youngjae knew what he was doing. He would take care of them.
“Here’s floor twenty-eight. Let’s try it and see what we get.” They hesitantly entered the hallway, eying the doors trailing down the walls with unease. “Guard my back.”
The first apartment was unlocked so they walked right in, not surprised to see the furniture overthrown and the cabinets standing wide open and empty. “That’s okay. This is a tall building. There has to be something here we can use.”
The next few were still locked but thankfully Youngjae had long ago learned how to pick them with a kit he kept in his pocket. If they weren’t thinking rationally then they could probably kick the door open but they preferred to make it look like no one had disturbed the locks. They tried to stay as inconspicuous as possible.
“I like this one.” Youngjae announced in the fourth apartment on the floor. “It has a good view of the street entrance and there’s still enough furniture left to stay comfortable.” He peeked in the bathroom and wrinkled his nose. “Bathroom needs cleaned a little though. We’ll have to find some buckets to put on the roof for water. God I hope it rains soon.”
They each claimed a bedroom, Youngjae getting the bigger one like always, but that was fine. Jongup preferred the smaller ones because they were cozier. The room had previously belonged to someone much younger than him. He toed a stuffed bear out of his way and threw himself over the penguin covered bed sheets.
Youngjae entered the room behind him and sat on the edge of the bed, watching him. “It’s almost your birthday. We’ve been together a long time now.”
His voice almost sounded sentimental, but Jongup knew that couldn’t be the case because Yoo Youngjae was the most emotionless and stoic person he had ever met.
“I can see you, Jongup. This life isn’t easy for you and I get that. It’s not easy for anyone. But you can’t keep looking for him everywhere we go. It’s not going to bring him back.”
“He’s looking for me.” Jongup turned over and faced the wall, not wanting Youngjae to see the hot tears leaking out of his eyes. “He promised he’d find me.”
With a sigh Youngjae awkwardly reached over and laid a hand on his shoulder. “And what do you think is going to happen, Jongup? A hug-filled reunion? Why are you doing this to yourself?”
Jongup pushed the hand away and angrily scrubbed his face clear of tear tracks. This wasn’t the time to break down. They had work to do.
“I’m either going to kill him or he’s going to kill me.” He slid out of the bed and stalked out of the room. Sometimes he regretted ever sharing his past with the other boy. It only made it harder when he threw it into his face. “Let’s get going. We still have to rig up the lobby and our front door.”
They worked quickly laying all of their easy to make traps. The more elaborate ones would have to come when they had more time. These were simple ones that would just make noise if someone tried to enter the building. Youngjae called them oldies but goodies. Together they pushed an old hutch in front of the broken door and hoped the infected weren’t suddenly traveling in packs that would make them stronger. Most of the one they had encountered were gaunt and weak from lack of food. Youngjae theorized that they liked to stay loners so that they wouldn’t have to share food.
“We’ll come back down tomorrow and start work on the doors to all the lower floors. I still have some C4 left. We won’t need much to make a big enough explosion to hurt something. Or someone.” One thing Jongup had learned early on with Youngjae was that he didn’t feel one ounce of guilt over hurting someone else to save his own skin. They had kicked aside many stragglers along their way who had begged for a handout or a shared place to hide. It was always a mystery to him why the loner boy had taken him under his wing when he found him shot and lying in a pool of his own blood inside a convenience store. Youngjae had merely rolled his eyes and pulled him to his feet, muttering under his breath about always carrying a loaded weapon on him when venturing outside.
They were in a rare good mood when they entered the hallway they had claimed as their own. Jongup was jittery and excited to explore the cabinets that had looked untouched and might possibly hold a treasure trove of goodies.
Just as his hand encircled the doorknob, Youngjae yanked him back and shoved him against the wall. “Stop.” His voice was low as he eyed the dirty carpet in front of the door. “Our footprints Jongup. Look at them.”
He was already on guard which meant his heart was racing and his eyes were glazing over in fright but he tried to see what Youngjae had noticed anyways.
“I don’t see anything.” He whispered back, cocking the safety off his gun and preparing to shoot first and ask questions later. “It’s just a bunch of dust and dirt.”
Youngjae nodded. “Exactly. When we left you could see our footprints easily. Now they’re smudged like someone’s walked over them.” He dropped his backpack to the floor and motioned for Youngjae to take the other side of the door.
He raised his fingers and on the count of three they kicked the door open, startling the stranger rummaging through Youngjae’s suitcase.
“Don’t shoot me!”
Part Two
Rated: PG13
Length: 5.5K (this entire story is fully completed and is 40K so there will be around seven parts)
I wrote this. entire. story with These Two songs on repeat. You all know how important songs are to a story for me so please give them a listen.
He was fourteen when the world stopped. When The After happened. Oh the planet kept on spinning of course. The sun kept shining and the grass grew until it was too tall to safely walk through anymore. You risked your life every time you entered someone's yard. The safest place to be was in the cities now.
To be honest, he had been in the after time for so long now that he didn't remember any other way. For three years all he knew was that he was running and he would never be able to stop.
For Moon Jongup, this was the rest of his life.
---
"It's your turn to go out today." A boot nudged not very gently into the back of his thigh. "I went out yesterday. We need to finish off the building." When Jongup didn't move the foot pushed harder. "Get up or I swear I will just put a bullet in your head and eat on your rotting carcass for a few weeks."
Jongup rolled over and sleepily rubbed his eyes until he could see without wincing. "I'm too tough, Jae. My muscles probably taste like rubber." He pushed himself up to his feet and grabbed the welcomed cup of coffee out of Youngjae's hands. It was watered down greatly and the coffee grinds hadn't been changed in four days but it was better than nothing. And Jongup knew a hell of a lot about having nothing.
After giving him an eye roll and throwing a rifle at his head, Youngjae left him to go back to his own bedroom and hopefully get a few hours of sleep after keeping watch all night.
That was the only good thing about the creatures of The After. They hated the sunlight and only came out during the day if they grew abnormally desperate. Scientists called them vampires for a while, until there weren’t any scientists left who gave a fuck about continuing the research. But Jongup knew that wasn't it, not really. They disliked the light but if they hadn't ate in a few weeks then nothing could stop them. And blood wasn't even what they were after. They wanted flesh. Skin and bones and hair and teeth and tears. The blood was just an appetizer.
No, to Jongup and everyone else of the world, these could only be called zombies. Monsters. Something that shouldn't even have been scientifically possible. Youngjae told him once that he knew how the epidemic started. Said it was because of a flu virus, but Jongup didn't know if he was just pulling his leg or not. Youngjae was always spouting out scientific facts like he was a walking encyclopedia which he may have well been. Jongup never even got to graduate high school, what the hell did he know. Whatever it was, it was global and it was fast. Within days over ten percent of the world's population was infected and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Vaccines were created, herbs and incense were bought in bulk, millions of people flocked to their churches to pray for a miracle. But nothing worked.
And then The After truly began.
---
"Jongup! If you don't go out soon then all the good stuff could be gone!" Youngjae threw a shoe at the wall between their rooms. "I want some soda this time!"
He sighed and made sure his gun had bullets before leaving his room. The last thing he needed was to go hunting for supplies with an unloaded gun. The long-healed wound on his shoulder throbbed in memory of the last time he had been that stupid.
The only things they had to choose from for breakfast were some stale biscuits Youngjae had tried cooking yesterday and a half-empty package of beef jerky they had been working on for a week. Jongup wisely chose a strip of the dried meat and a bottle of water from their dwindling supply. If his math was right (and he quit school at fourteen, he never claimed to be a genius), then they had about four more days’ worth of water apiece. That was priority number one. Expired food and flat sodas could wait until he acquired the water.
There couldn’t be many people left in the city. Searching for food had only recently begun to get more difficult. For now they were almost completely through sweeping their current apartment building of all edible items. Pretty soon they were going to have to move on and find another one.
This was their sixth building this year and it had only taken them four weeks to tear through the available food and water in the abandoned apartments. It should have taken longer. That meant the city had more dwellers then they had originally thought which could prove to be inconvenient.
It had been over three years since the outbreak started and it swept the world like a wave leaving only sparse pockets of people that mainly lived in unpopulated areas. Most of those that were left tried to band with other survivors in the big towns. Jongup was one of the lucky ones since his family lived high in the mountains. At least that was what his father had told him the day after he had shot Jongup’s mother point blank between the eyes.
Jongup couldn’t stop the way his knees tried to buckle underneath him at the memory trying to claw its way up the surface, but he had long learned to hide his emotions. No one cared about his tears. No one would stop and ask him what was wrong. There was no saving any of them. Daehyun had screamed that into his face so many times over the first few months of The After that it felt like a tattoo across his skin. There is no saving us.
The top floor was so quiet that Jongup swore he could hear his heart beating. This was a fourteen story building, it should have taken them two months to work their way to the top. Jongup glanced at all of the hastily scrawled X’s on the doors that Youngjae had gone through last time. Only two apartments left and the chance of finding potable water was slim to none. They could always head to the rivers and try their luck at drinking that water, but it was a last resort. Neither boy was brave enough to chance the wild. They had stacked buckets and barrels all over the roof of their building but it hadn’t rained in weeks and Jongup knew things were going to start getting terrifying soon if they didn’t find something.
The first apartment was already ransacked, something they had come across a lot lately. The fridge had been toppled to the floor but thankfully the rot smell had dissipated ages ago and all that was left was a large unidentifiable brown smudge on the wood surrounded by animal droppings. Probably rats. The rats were everywhere. Youngjae wanted to use them for target practice but Jongup kept trying to convince him that they needed to conserve their bullets. Guns were the only way to kill the infected and Jongup would rather kiss one of those germ-infested rats right on the lips than face a zombie with no ammo.
There was a loud squeak as he stepped carefully into the room and his first reaction to loud noises was to automatically draw his gun, hand tight on the butt of the rifle. It was just a toy. A stupid, fucking dog toy that someone had left in front of the door. He wondered what kind of dog lived here so long ago. Was this pink bunny his favorite toy or just one of many for a spoiled pet? Did his owner grab in on his way out the door, wanting to give his faithful companion one last sense of normalcy and soothing?
Youngjae told him that he was getting too distracted lately. But Jongup thought it was the opposite. He paid too much attention. Nothing happened that wasn’t caught by his two small brown eyes. Jongup noticed everything and it was slowly eating him up inside.
“You’re going to get yourself trapped one day.” Youngjae growled at him as he had to once again be the guard of the two while Jongup hurriedly tried to tie his shoes after tripping over them. “Stop watching the windows and start keeping an eye on where you’re going. The fuckers don’t shoot at us you don’t have to look up for them.”
But Youngjae didn’t understand. Youngjae hadn’t left anyone behind. It was just him and his grandma in The Before and once she died he was left on his own. But Jongup had to keep searching, had to have one eye on his future and one on his past.
“If you don’t kill me then I will never stop searching for you, Guppie.” Wet eyes and cracked lips pleading with him. Begging him to raise the gun and do what they both knew had to happen. Bloody teeth, that was all Jongup could remember about that morning for months afterwards. Those goddammed bloody teeth. “I don’t want to hurt you! Just do it! I’ll never stop!”
He had to brace himself against the bathroom door. The bag of shampoos and toothpastes he had been collecting dropped to the floor underneath him. This had to stop, he told himself. It was only getting worse the longer it had been since everything had started. Sometimes he wondered if everything would just be easier if he gave up. Asked Youngjae to turn the gun on him, the same way Daehyun had tried to get him to do. It wouldn’t be hard for Youngjae. He was the master at hiding his true self. All Jongup saw of him was the quiet but intense man that only spoke when necessary and hadn’t cracked a smile in their entire two years and four months together.
There was no way in hell he could really leave Youngjae like that though. Youngjae was his last link to humanity and even if they didn’t outwardly show it, they both needed to cling to each other. They couldn’t give up, not after making it this far together.
Jongup breathed out heavily when he found a size large winter coat still hanging in the closet. Their old ones were starting to get threadbare and they could share this one and double up on the two old ones when the cold came. Thankfully they still had a few months left of warm air, but they had been at this long enough to never let something they’d need later pass by them.
The second apartment was only barely touched with a few half-empty cereal boxes in the cabinet and several cans of vegetables with rusting lids. For obvious reasons they didn’t like to eat out of decayed cans but if they got hungry enough they would risk it, it wouldn’t be the first time. At least he found an unopened package of sugar, that was the best food find he had come across in weeks. It would greatly help those biscuits Youngjae had practically had to force feed him yesterday.
“Anything good?” Youngjae yawned when he entered the apartment an hour later and scratched his stomach, head leaning against the doorframe as he tried to force himself alert. “You were only gone for a couple hours.”
Jongup shook his head and dumped his sack out over the table. “There were only two unsearched apartments left. I got a few toiletries and some gross cans of corn that will probably give us botulism. The only good things I found were some sugar and a thick coat.” He shook the coat out and smiled proudly. Last winter they had to spend every night curled up together to stay warm. If they could just find one more thick one like this then this year shouldn’t be as hard.
“Not bad.” Youngjae nodded and ran his fingers through his messy hair, frowning when his hand dropped back to his side. “Your hair is starting to get pretty long again. Want me to cut it?” His own hair was always cut shorter and he liked to buzz it around the sides. Said it made it difficult for the zombies to catch him if they didn’t have anything to hold onto. He even wore body-clinging clothes and carried all of his supplies in a backpack so that if he had to he could drop it and run.
“Nah. I like it long.” Jongup preferred to keep his hair the way it had always been. Just in case they ever ran into each other again, he wanted to make sure Daehyun would recognize him. The same boy with the same shaggy brown hair and dark skin. “I’ll wait a bit longer before trimming it.”
Youngjae nodded. “So you finished the building off? Damn.” His face fell and Jongup tried to ignore the longing look he gave to their living room. “I’m so fucking tired of moving. Let’s get this placed packed up and we can start searching for another one tomorrow. I’ve not seen any human activity around here since we moved in so maybe this whole block’s untouched. We can hope right?”
He handed Jongup a jar of honey and the newly acquired sugar. “Mix some of this together and I’ll heat the biscuits up over the fire. It’s still early enough to get it going and have it extinguished by nightfall. I don’t want them to see the smoke in the air.”
The infected were smart. That was something else the scientists had gotten wrong. They told the public that the disease would make them idiots, make them slow to react. They were wrong. So, so wrong.
They watched the humans during the nights. Kept tabs on buildings that looked inhabited. They were the exact same person they had always been, only their appetite had changed.
Jongup knew just how difficult it was to tell an infected from a real human. They looked the same, they could even act the same. They could convince you to do anything for them and you wouldn’t even know it was wrong until it was too late.
One even convinced a fourteen year old boy to open the door.
“Where do you think we should go next? North towards the business end maybe? That’s where all the rich people lived. Surely there’s some good stuff left up there.” Youngjae threw a couple of biscuits on a plate and handed them to Jongup. “We’re going to need to start scouting out a place to stay in for the winter. Last time we waited too long and didn’t have enough wood chopped.”
Jongup chewed on the dry food, thankful for the sweet honey flavoring this time. “Wherever you think is best.”
Where Jongup was a country boy, barely escaping from the disease because of his hidden away house in the mountains, Youngjae was born and raised in the suburbs. His grandmother spoiled him and bought every single computer and video game that came out for her grandson. He proudly told Jongup that he was a computer geek. That was how they had survived the first few months unscathed. Youngjae had heard about the virus spreading through his internet friends and was prepared by the time it hit his town. He had convinced his grandmother to buy water and canned food in excess and knew how to handle a gun through an online shooting game. Youngjae told him the greatest thing to happen to him was that his grandmother died of old age four months after the first local attack. “If I would have had to shoot her…” Youngjae’s eyes had glazed over when he had shared his background. Jongup wondered whether to try and console him or sit back and let Youngjae get it out. “I buried her in the backyard so they couldn’t get to her.”
“I think it’s our best option.” Youngjae shuddered when he bit into one of the hard bricks. “If we keep going south we’re going to run into the river and I don’t want to be that close to the woods.”
“What do we do when we run out of buildings and supplies?” Jongup tore at his food, his appetite long gone. “Where are we going to go?”
Youngjae tried to look reassuring, but his face had long been set into a scowl and it wasn’t able to contort that way anymore. “We’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.” He motioned towards Jongup’s bedroom as he grabbed their plates and wiped them off with a dish towel they had found in the drawer. “Go get some sleep. You’re on watch tonight.”
He hated sleeping but knew he had to do it to stay up through the night. When he slept the nightmares came. In the beginning of their alliance, Youngjae had rushed in and tried to console him awake as soon as he heard the guttural cries and deep sobs coming from the normally quiet boy. But eventually he realized that it didn’t help and had stopped. Now Jongup had to suffer through them alone.
There was no savior. Nothing was coming to save them. Daehyun was right.
---
“Do you think she knew what she was doing? And that somewhere deep inside her head she was screaming at herself to stop?” Jongup knew the questions were stupid. But he couldn’t stop thinking them. They ran in a loop through his brain every second of the day. He didn’t tell anyone but sometimes at night he thought he heard her whispering for him from the stairs. Come with me baby.
“I hope not. Would you like your last moments on earth to be of you trying to eat your own damn family?”
Come downstairs sweetheart. Mommy has a present for you.
Jongup awoke with a scream, his mouth quickly covered by Youngjae’s palm, the older boy long used to having to muffle his cries by now.
“Quiet Jongup! You’re going to let everyone know we’re here!” Youngjae glanced out the curtains in alarm. “I’d try to find you some sleeping pills if they weren’t all expired by now.”
He sat up and buried his face in his knees trying to calm the heartbeat racing in his chest. “Sorry.” Jongup muttered. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and grabbed his rifle from the chair beside his bed. After checking and double checking to make sure it was loaded he pushed past Youngjae and headed into the kitchen.
“You want to talk about this or something?” Youngjae didn’t sound like he really wanted to share feelings at nine pm but still thought he should ask out of courtesy anyways.
Jongup snorted and pilfered another piece of the jerky off the counter. “Just go to bed. I’m fine Doctor Yoo.”
Youngjae still didn’t look convinced but he nodded anyways. “Alright. Wake me up if you see anything unusual and-“
“And don’t go checking it out by myself.” Jongup finished for him. He had heard the same order every night since they had met but for some reason Youngjae still felt the need to repeat it to him. “I know Jae.”
With a final nod Youngjae headed into his bedroom and locked the door behind him. Even after all this time together he still didn’t trust anyone but himself. Not that Jongup could really blame him. He knew that at the end of the day you just had yourself to depend on.
There is no one coming to save us.
He shook his head. “Go away Daehyun.” He muttered, leaning on his elbow against the couch. They keep all their candles out through the night so that it wouldn’t draw any attention to them so he had a good view out of the window with just the moon as a light. He could see the whole street and the only entrance to the building was on this side so if anyone tried to come up they would know precious minutes in advance. Youngjae had barricaded the other doors on the street level so that they wouldn’t have to worry about them.
The night watch was boring as hell but they had to do it. There was no way they could be caught unaware up here with nowhere to escape.
By the time the sun started coming up Jongup was near asleep, his eyes blurred from staring at the street all night long. Youngjae’s door opening startled him so that he dropped the rifle with a loud bang on the floor.
“Jumpy much?” Youngjae rolled his eyes and scratched his belly with a yawn. “You want to go ahead and start searching? We need to do it early just in case we can’t find something. We’ll need time to get back here and recheck the traps to make sure nothing got in.”
“Let’s go.” He grabbed his backpack and headed to his room to shove the few personal items he had into it. Once he had his pistol and spare ammo inside all he really needed was his clothes. Usually they wore the same outfit for weeks on end until it the boot soles were worn to pieces and the clothes were covered in so much blood that the color was permanently a dark copper. But they always made sure and kept a few spare outfits and boots on hand so he shoved those, along with his new winter coat, into a suitcase they had stolen from their first apartment together. He pulled the picture out of his back pocket and not for the first time wished he had something to keep it safe in. The colors were faded from the constant wear and tear and he could barely make out the faces smiling back at him.
“I’ll find you.” He promised the grinning boy in the picture, smile large and infectious as he wrapped his arm around a much younger and much more innocent Jongup. With a final brush of his thumb against the picture he slipped it back into his pocket and met Youngjae in the living room.
Youngjae was reloading his handgun and had already packed his backpack of bullets and two grenades he had managed to acquire over the internet before the virus spread. Jongup never asked where or how he had gotten them but he was thankful they were there in case they were desperate. The small suitcase of his spare outfit and combat boots was beside him, the duffel of food and water looking way to small by his feet. “We’re gonna be in trouble soon, Jongup.” He caught his gaze and furrowed his brows at the meager supply. “We need to step it up this week. Maybe both of us should start searching during the day. We can set enough traps so that nothing gets up to us wherever we go.”
“If all else fails…” Jongup waved his rifle at him with a small smile. They had both made a promise ages ago that before they could ever be caught they would end each other. Jongup hoped it never came to that. He wasn’t able to do it then and he wasn’t entirely sure he could do it now either.
They were careful on their way out of the building. This was their first time outside since they had moved into the building. It just wasn’t safe enough to walk around exposed like this. Danger could hide behind every corner.
“You want a high-rise or a low-rise?” Youngjae held his gun in front of him as he turned onto another block. Even when he dropped it to his side he still kept his finger on the trigger, his eyes going from side to side and back again as they walked steadily up the abandoned street.
Side-stepping a long rotted body, Jongup thought about the question. A high-rise meant more notice of an impending attack. It also gave them more floors to scour for goods.
But a low-rise was easier to protect. There were fewer entrances and the buildings were smaller so you could keep watch on a smaller area.
“High-rise.” He finally decided. “I like being up high. Feels safer.”
Youngjae nodded. “Me too. Plus most looters don’t like to climb all those steps so they ignore the bigger buildings and focus on the easier to manage ones.”
Climbing a million steps up about thirty flights of stairs was exhausting but it was good exercise for them and they had to keep their stamina up. Once a week Youngjae made them run up and down however many steps their current building has. It was hard work running while holding a gun up and keeping it steady but he knew Youngjae was right that they needed to do this.
“I hate steps.” He muttered to himself, kicking a rock up the street stubbornly.
“There’s a good block up here.” Youngjae sped up, his jaw tense. He wanted off the streets as soon as possible. There were too many variables out here and he didn’t like their odds. “I found a map in the bedroom of the last apartment and I’ve been studying the different neighborhoods.”
Jongup didn’t ask why he wasn’t let in on the knowledge beforehand. He knew Youngjae only told him what he needed to know and nothing else. It wasn’t anything personal, that was just the way life was.
They stopped in front of a building that was fifty stories tall at least. Jongup glanced around nervously. This neighborhood was obviously meant for the wealthy, but the buildings were so close together that he felt caged in. “This building looks like a trap.” He murmured, gripping his gun a little bit tighter. “There’s too many around here. There’s no way we could be unnoticed.”
Youngjae headed around the side to check the other entrances. “Yeah but that might be a good thing, Jongup. Maybe they won’t expect people to be hiding in crowded parts of the city. Most people headed towards isolated areas. This could be a genius hideout.”
He wasn’t sure but Youngjae was the unspoken boss of their duo. When he told Jongup to do something then he did it because being bossed around was a hell of a lot better than being left behind. Plus he was used to being ordered what to do all the time. It was almost comforting to have Youngjae be so bossy.
“Let’s do a sweep of the building to see if it’s even worth it.” He stepped through the broken door into the ransacked lobby. In the initial panic everyone had gone completely insane. Stores were broken into and entire buildings were turned upside down in their rage. But over time those that panicked easier were the first ones to go and only the calmer and more sensible humans were left. So even though the door was completely shattered, Jongup knew Youngjae must have had a plan for how to keep them safe.
They always stayed still and quiet in a new building. Usually if it was already inhabited they could hear people moving around after a few minutes. But this one was silent, the only sound was the wind gently whipping leaves into the lobby entry.
“Let’s head up to the middle. We’ll find somewhere to stay and then come back down and rig up some traps before nightfall.”
He followed the older boy up the stairs, gun raised over his shoulder in case he needed it drawn quickly. Youngjae grumbled under his breath as they stepped over bloodstains and crushed wrappers of food. Luckily the higher they got the less evidence of human activity they found. It was smart to pick a tall building, Jongup told himself. Youngjae knew what he was doing. He would take care of them.
“Here’s floor twenty-eight. Let’s try it and see what we get.” They hesitantly entered the hallway, eying the doors trailing down the walls with unease. “Guard my back.”
The first apartment was unlocked so they walked right in, not surprised to see the furniture overthrown and the cabinets standing wide open and empty. “That’s okay. This is a tall building. There has to be something here we can use.”
The next few were still locked but thankfully Youngjae had long ago learned how to pick them with a kit he kept in his pocket. If they weren’t thinking rationally then they could probably kick the door open but they preferred to make it look like no one had disturbed the locks. They tried to stay as inconspicuous as possible.
“I like this one.” Youngjae announced in the fourth apartment on the floor. “It has a good view of the street entrance and there’s still enough furniture left to stay comfortable.” He peeked in the bathroom and wrinkled his nose. “Bathroom needs cleaned a little though. We’ll have to find some buckets to put on the roof for water. God I hope it rains soon.”
They each claimed a bedroom, Youngjae getting the bigger one like always, but that was fine. Jongup preferred the smaller ones because they were cozier. The room had previously belonged to someone much younger than him. He toed a stuffed bear out of his way and threw himself over the penguin covered bed sheets.
Youngjae entered the room behind him and sat on the edge of the bed, watching him. “It’s almost your birthday. We’ve been together a long time now.”
His voice almost sounded sentimental, but Jongup knew that couldn’t be the case because Yoo Youngjae was the most emotionless and stoic person he had ever met.
“I can see you, Jongup. This life isn’t easy for you and I get that. It’s not easy for anyone. But you can’t keep looking for him everywhere we go. It’s not going to bring him back.”
“He’s looking for me.” Jongup turned over and faced the wall, not wanting Youngjae to see the hot tears leaking out of his eyes. “He promised he’d find me.”
With a sigh Youngjae awkwardly reached over and laid a hand on his shoulder. “And what do you think is going to happen, Jongup? A hug-filled reunion? Why are you doing this to yourself?”
Jongup pushed the hand away and angrily scrubbed his face clear of tear tracks. This wasn’t the time to break down. They had work to do.
“I’m either going to kill him or he’s going to kill me.” He slid out of the bed and stalked out of the room. Sometimes he regretted ever sharing his past with the other boy. It only made it harder when he threw it into his face. “Let’s get going. We still have to rig up the lobby and our front door.”
They worked quickly laying all of their easy to make traps. The more elaborate ones would have to come when they had more time. These were simple ones that would just make noise if someone tried to enter the building. Youngjae called them oldies but goodies. Together they pushed an old hutch in front of the broken door and hoped the infected weren’t suddenly traveling in packs that would make them stronger. Most of the one they had encountered were gaunt and weak from lack of food. Youngjae theorized that they liked to stay loners so that they wouldn’t have to share food.
“We’ll come back down tomorrow and start work on the doors to all the lower floors. I still have some C4 left. We won’t need much to make a big enough explosion to hurt something. Or someone.” One thing Jongup had learned early on with Youngjae was that he didn’t feel one ounce of guilt over hurting someone else to save his own skin. They had kicked aside many stragglers along their way who had begged for a handout or a shared place to hide. It was always a mystery to him why the loner boy had taken him under his wing when he found him shot and lying in a pool of his own blood inside a convenience store. Youngjae had merely rolled his eyes and pulled him to his feet, muttering under his breath about always carrying a loaded weapon on him when venturing outside.
They were in a rare good mood when they entered the hallway they had claimed as their own. Jongup was jittery and excited to explore the cabinets that had looked untouched and might possibly hold a treasure trove of goodies.
Just as his hand encircled the doorknob, Youngjae yanked him back and shoved him against the wall. “Stop.” His voice was low as he eyed the dirty carpet in front of the door. “Our footprints Jongup. Look at them.”
He was already on guard which meant his heart was racing and his eyes were glazing over in fright but he tried to see what Youngjae had noticed anyways.
“I don’t see anything.” He whispered back, cocking the safety off his gun and preparing to shoot first and ask questions later. “It’s just a bunch of dust and dirt.”
Youngjae nodded. “Exactly. When we left you could see our footprints easily. Now they’re smudged like someone’s walked over them.” He dropped his backpack to the floor and motioned for Youngjae to take the other side of the door.
He raised his fingers and on the count of three they kicked the door open, startling the stranger rummaging through Youngjae’s suitcase.
“Don’t shoot me!”
Part Two