Lee Jun-Seo led me upstairs to his hideout. We had to climb three floors to reach an office corner overlooking the rail yard's parking lot. I didn't fully trust the guy, so I kept my fingers around the knife that I wrangled free from the psychos, ready to strike, even kill him if he tried to knock me out.

However, as soon as I opened the office door, I could smell the meat stew simmering in a large saucepan in the middle of the room, heated by a portable gas stove. I strode toward the food, opened the lid using the mitts sitting by the stove, and saw that mushrooms were in the stew.

"Meat! Real meat! And fresh!" I exclaimed.

Lee Jun-Seo looked at me as if I was crazy. "Yes."

"Are these porcini?" I gestured to the mushrooms.

Lee Jun-Seo made a curt nod.

"How?"

He pointed north toward the woods. I grunted, impressed. He then took two bowls from a cabinet and handed one to me. "Eat."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Why are you helping me?" I slipped, dropping my pretenses. "You don't know me."

He hesitated to answer for a moment, but then he pointed at my shirt. "Not your blood."

I looked down at it, realized that my shirt was covered all the way. "Er, no..."

"That's people's blood. Not sick ones."

"Um, it's not..."

"You killed some." It wasn't a question but a statement.

"Look, I can explain—"

"Good. Very good," he said, looking impressed. "You killed them. You're a friend."

Okay, that's simple enough, I thought. I crouched down across from him over the portable stove.

I watched him scoop out his serving first and then waited for him to take the first bite. Not to sound paranoid or anything, but I had a very long, bad day. The next thing I wanted was this man turning psycho on me and roofied the food. I had no intention of ending up strung on a hook as he bled me to death.

He stared back at me. Thinking on my feet, I said, "Where I grew up, I was taught it's pretty rude to eat first before the host. Sorry."

The man blinked, shrugged, and then dug into his food. I watched him a little longer, faking a smile.

Well, I guess it's safe then. I looked down at my bowl, scooping some of the meat with my spoon, hesitating whether I should take a bite. I had no idea what it was.

"It's a rabbit," he answered as if he read my mind and continued to devour his meal.

"Oh. I never have that before."

He merely let out a grunt.

I took a cautious first bite, though it tasted more like a meatier and earthier chicken. It wasn't bad, I mean, it was a full meal. I could even taste butter and olive oil, and there were parsnips, onions, potatoes, and garlic mixed in the pot. I caught sight of the bow resting by his sleeping bag. "You hunted them yourself?"

"Yes."

"Where'd you get the rest of the ingredients?"

He shrugged. "Around."

"Well, they're not very easy to find nowadays."

He shrugged again. "Yes."

Ah, a man with a few words, I thought. "So, what should I call you by? Can I call you, Lee?" I asked.

"No."

"Er, okay..."

A pause. He peered his eyes away from his meal and looked at me. "Jun."

"Oh, um, nice to meet you, Jun."

"Likewise."

And that was the end of our conversation for the next half hour or so. Frankly, I was too busy eating and getting a second round, which he obliged with another silent nod. Jun wasn't a talker, and I reckoned if he didn't want to speak to me, then I'd ignore him back. He rolled a water bottle my way after I was done with my third bowl, and I drank the entire thing. Jun watched me finished it without uttering a word or a break on his stony expression.

He was a hard man to read.

I looked around his hideout. "So, how long have you been staying here?"

Jun furrowed his brows. At first, I didn't know if he was judging me or took offense to my question, but then I realized he was calculating it. He answered, "Fifty days."

I let out a whistle. "Do you live in town?"

Jun shook his head. "Daegu," he said.

"South Korea?"

"Yes."

"Oh." I suck at geography, so I had no idea where that city was in South Korea. "Um, cool."

Jun studied me for a brief second and then looked away. He took my dirty bowl off my hands and put them inside a plastic bag, probably to wash it later.

"So, how'd you end up here?" I asked. "Sorry if I'm asking twenty questions."

Jun ignored the second bit and gestured to his compound bow. "Heard of IFAC? International Field Archery Championship?"

"Ah. A tournament."

"There were six of us, and now, only me."

"I'm sorry. You know, I shouldn't have asked."

"It's okay," Jun said. "My government tried to fly us out on a private plane, but Ki-Woo, my, um, friend, was a bit—turned inside the cabin. The plane went down." He shrugged. "Been on my own since."

"Again, I'm so sorry," I said. "Seriously, you survived a plane crash?"

Jun shrugged again for the dozenth time. "My turn," he said.

"Huh?"

"You ask me questions. Now I ask you questions."

"Oh." I frowned. "Um, okay. That sounds fair."

"How old are you?"

"I...um, seventeen."

Jun didn't look like he believed me. "Where you from?"

"Well, that's kind of a long story. I live in Portland, which is way out near the pacific coast, but I was in New York when everything started."

"Ground zero?"

"Um, yeah."

'Everyone is dead in that city."

"As you can see, I made it out."

"And you traveled all this way?"

"I got lucky, I guess."

"Some luck. You can fight."

"I mean, my dad taught me some."

"No, you can fight. I see it." Jun leaned forward, studying me, and then stared down at the blood on my shirt again. "How many have you killed?"

"Um, the sick ones?"

"No. People."

"I, er, honestly? I lost count. They were chasing me, and things got...messy. Real messy." Suddenly, the realization hit me like a truck. Those psychos might still be searching for me! I got up and strode toward the window overlooking the warehouse's parking lot, a dozen vectors still roamed down the lot, but there was no sign of them or their pickup trucks.

"Oh, we're safe. Too many sick ones around. They won't risk it."

"Who are they?"

Jun's eyes turned darker. He clenched his jaw before he answered me, "They kill anyone, killed many not too long ago."

"You mean the resort?"

"Yes." He frowned. "How do you know?"

"I...passed through there. I saw everything."

"Then you understand who they are."

"Do you know where they live?"

Jun regarded me curiously. "Why?"

"My friends. They took them away, but I escaped. I'm gonna go after them once I find out where they're staying. I didn't want to get caught out in the dark, though."

"Don't bother."

"W-Why?"

"They're already dead."

"What? How would you know that?"

"Like you, many people pass through, heading to big cities out west. Anyone who enters their side of town never comes back. Never."

"Well, we'll see about that."

Jun scoffed. A hint of a smile crept on his lips; the first I saw him smile. "You want to kill more?"

"No, not that. I just need to find my friends and get them out of here."

"Too dangerous."

"I don't care. But I'll be happy to have some help, no matter how small it is."

Jun studied me for a second before he got up and strode toward the window. He pointed a finger to the bell tower on the horizon. "South of that," he said.

I waited for a few seconds, but I gathered that it was all he had. Still, I asked, "That's all?"

Jun frowned. "Yes. As I said, no one comes back. Don't know exactly where. It's suicide to follow them."

I stared at the horizon where Jun had pointed. "I have no choice," I said.

"Then, you'll face many Alphas."

I turned to look at him, puzzled. "You've said that before, Alphas, and you asked me that, too. What do you mean by that? Is that how they call themselves?"

"You don't know?"

I shook my head.

Jun turned around and walked over to the far corner of the office, opening a drawer from a dusty desk. He pulled out a newspaper and handed it out to me. The date on top read April twenty-eighth, twenty days after Ground Zero. I didn't realize that some towns still published their daily news. However, I reckoned they hadn't fully grasped the severity of the situation, yet far away from the localized outbreaks happening across the major cities. Many rural areas were like that during the first few weeks of the pandemic, especially those from middle America and the west coast.

Jun pointed at the front page, a man in a gray suit in a white background, obviously taken from a screenshot of a YouTube video. "Alphas," Jun said, then pointed out the window. "Alphas."

The Headline read:

WANTED MILITIA KILLS 300 CIVILIANS IN ATLANTA.

"Holy shit," I gasped. "You mean they're from the same group?'

Jun nodded.

At the bottom of the picture said:

Hank Ludlow, leader of the , a well-funded extreme right-wing survivalist militia, posted a viral manifest via YouTube after a fatal bombing in the Atlanta Safe Zone. He rallied for the extermination of the weak and the rise of the Superior Man, calling action to join the group against what they deem is the end of days after a deadly global pandemic sweeps the world. Ludlow and the militia are currently wanted by the FBI and Homeland Security.

The group boasts two hundred satellite cells across the country.

"I never heard of them before. Albany didn't have this problem," I said.

"You got lucky. Boston has Alphas."

"You were in the Boston Safe Zone?"

"For a couple of days."

"How was it there?"

"Two months ago? Bad. Probably worse now. Alphas might have taken over."

I stared at Ludlow's picture, a bald man in his late twenties or early thirties, how he had his mouth opened with that intense, creepy scowl of his, pointing his finger to the screen. It reminded me of that famous Uncle Sam propaganda poster in the World Wars. I didn't know if it was deliberate by the newspaper or the writer truly believed the bullshit Ludlow was preaching to mimic the similarities between the photos. Skimming further into the article, I realized the journalist drank the kool-aid a little too much as he roused everyone in town into action to do what they must to survive the coming catastrophe. The newspaper even made a poll of the residents' reaction to the news, with over thirty-eight percent of Colby agreeing with Ludlow's radical tenets. Did they know or expected that they were going to kill lots of people months later? It makes you wonder sometimes. The entire world was turning upside down at a whirlwind speed.

"How organized are they?" I asked.

"Very. Patrols go out day and night. I hide; no trouble comes. That's why you should stay and next run far away."

"Obviously, I'm not going to leave my friends. I reckon you know a way around them, don't you?"

Jun glanced to the side and sighed. He didn't know me well, and there was no reason for him to be concerned for my safety since we're both strangers to each other, and I wanted to tell him that. Yet, I would accept any help at this point. If not, then I'd do it on my own without his aid, no matter how long it would take me.

Jun walked across the room, grabbed his bow and quiver, and then his small, black running pack. He took out a hammer from one of his duffel bags and secured it between his belt and then a dagger, which he placed in a knife sheath strapped around his ankle. "Follow me," he said.

——

Jun led me up to the warehouse's roof, and from there, I saw half a dozen banners of SOS, and I AM ALIVE painted on a white sheet (two were written in Korean), draped across the flat roof. Most of it was in tatters, had been rained on, or weathered by the sun. I realized Jun wrote it in the early days, and he clearly had given up on the notion of a rescue.

Alone for fifty days, I wondered, shuddering—what a lonely way to live.

We ended up on the edge of the building, looking down on an alley. In front of us was the second warehouse. Jun pulled out a wooden plank and laid it out across the gap, connecting to the other building.

My eyes widened, and I gaped at him. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

Jun shrugged. "Safest way."

I pointed to a four-story drop. "This is what you call safe?"

Jun looked down and shrugged again. "Yes. Safe." He didn't hesitate to climb over the ledge and then cross the wooden plank—fifteen steps across—without a single stumble.

Why do I always end up in these situations? I fucking hate heights.

I climbed over the ledge, which, mind you, took me a couple of minutes to do, debating whether I should do it. Of course, I couldn't walk out the front door with vectors roaming about. I made the mistake of looking down.

"No!" Jun shouted. "Don't look down. Makes it easy."

"Alright, alright. Jeez. I'm not looking down," I said, trying to control my breathing. I put my foot on the plank and felt it shuddered when a gust of wind blew through the alley. I reeled back my foot away from the edge. "Ah! Fuck that!"

"It's just the wind."

"Easy for you to say. You're already there."

June briefly closed his eyes, cracking his stony facade a little with his impatience with me. "Breathe," he said.

I took a deep breath and then put my foot back on the plank, letting it stay there for a few moments. "Did I already mention I'm afraid of heights?"

"No," Jun answered without a beat.

"Well, I am."

"Okay."

I rolled my eyes. "That's all you're going to say?"

Jun furrowed his brows. "Should I say nice things?"

I shook my head. "You know what? Never mind."

I put my other foot on the plank, extending both my arms out for balance. As Jun said, I didn't look down, planting one foot forward and then the other, until I reached the opposite ledge. I grabbed Jun's arms, and he pulled me back onto the steady ground.

"Wasn't bad," Jun said.

"Yeah, thanks."

Jun pulled back the plank and hid it between the exposed ductworks protruding out of the roof. I followed him across the roof to another ledge, though thankfully, we didn't have to cross another gap. Jun gestured to a fixed vertical ladder at the side of the building as our way out. Luckily, it had safety cages in case I fell. From up here, I could see the overpass where I crashed through the side, could see the damage I had done. There were no signs of the psychos—the Alphas—anywhere.

"We take my route through town. I can guide you as close to where they are, but only halfway," Jun said. "After that, you're on your own."

"No problem. I take all the help I can get."

I grabbed hold of the ladder, but Jun suddenly grabbed me by the wrist and then pointed down. A man in Superman's pajamas stood too close to the bottom of the ladder. He twitched and croaked where he stood, looking like some bored junkie waiting for its next stimulus. Jun grabbed an arrow from his quiver and readied his bow. The strings let out a muffled creak as he pulled them close to the side of his chin, aimed down, and let go. The arrow whistled loose, and in a second, it went straight through the man's eye. The vector crumpled to the ground.

My jaw dropped. Jun did that from the fourth floor. "Well, you don't see that every day."

Jun shrugged again, looking bored as ever, and he didn't even give me a smile or any hint of gloating. I would have. Jun climbed down the ladder, and I followed after him. Once we were on the ground, Jun trod toward the dead vector and pulled the arrow out of the skull, wiping the blood off on his pants. I kept a steady pace behind him as we crept behind a nearby train cart, crouching down as we heard the familiar groans of the vectors coming from the other side. Jun looked at me and pressed his forefinger over his lips, gesturing for me to keep quiet. I gave him a curt nod. He peeked out from the corner and then held out two fingers, signaling two vectors.

Ready? Jun mouthed at me.

I nodded and pulled out my knife.

Jun took one step out of his hiding place, knelt on one knee, and aimed his bow. The arrow shot out toward a woman, hitting her by the back of her throat. Before her body dropped to the ground, I was already behind the other, grabbing a clump of the vector's hair and pulled their head back to expose the throat, and sliced across cleanly. The vector let out a gurgled cry, too soft for the other nearby vectors to hear, before keeling over.

Jun raised one brow at me before moving forward, pulling out the arrow again from the woman. We didn't encounter any vectors after, ambling closer at a steady pace toward the chain-linked fence. Beyond that was the suburbs, though I could already tell that I am in Colby's less affluent neighborhood. Jun showed me where he had cut a section of the fence, pulling the lower half to reveal a narrow gap, which I had to crawl under.

"All the racket you caused distracted the sick ones," Jun said.

"That's good, right? It clears the way out."

Jun shook his head. "The sick ones need stimuli to attack. I memorized where the tame ones are, but the gunfires heightened their awareness, so they are probably hunting now. We're going to have to improvise from now on."

At that, I let out a wicked grin. "Ah, Jun. I just so happened to be good at that."