Chapter XXXVII: Swords for the Children's Crusade
9 Oct 1628
Incheon, South Korea
Ji-hye, Kyung-seok and Sergei led their newly acquired throng of survivors northwards on their way out of Incheon. Ji-hye and Sergei took point on opposite sides of the street, carefully moving forward and clearing the corners at every cross street they came to. Ji-hye noticed that the way Sergei handled himself implied he had been in situations like this before. She hadn't paid much attention to it before but both when moving through occupied territory and during a firefight Sergei operated like he had significant military or police training. Behind them the civilians and rescued children moved quietly along in two groups keeping close to the buildings as they proceeded. Kyung-seok walked Ji-yoon behind one of the main groups of civilians with Seok-won and Seok-min covering the rear. Before they got out of the bubble of safety around the apartment complex the group stopped by a large sporting goods store. It was unlikely now that they numbered in the hundreds that they would be able to sneak past the enemy undetected. They would inevitably have to fight and being severely low on bullets and lackluster in the totality of their armaments they were certain to sustain heavy losses in an engagement. With the police stations and nearly all the city's heavy industry in the hands of the aliens and their human allies this sporting goods store was the best chance to arm their newly acquired army.
Ji-hye and Sergei went in first and made sure the building was clear before allowing the rest of the group in to help themselves to whatever they could find. Ji-hye and Sergei then stood guard near the main entrance and kept alert for any activity in the street. Ji-hye handed Kyung-seok a ring of several keys from out of her pocket. "One of these should open the gun lockers if they have any here." Ji-hye said. "Good thing one of use remembered to bring those." Kyung-seok remarked as he took the keys and led Ji-yoon with him to go and unlock the secure cabinets where the sporting guns and bullets were kept. Just like the Soviet days of his father, Sergei thought, the Koreans were so afraid of their own people rising up in rebellion that they had to keep dinky little hunting rifles under lock and key by the police force. His assumption that it was rebellion the former ROK government feared was tainted through the lens of growing up during the collapse of the Soviet Union and experiencing the civil unrest that followed. "Things are looking up for us now wouldn't you say? We've got ourselves an army." Ji-hye quietly told Sergei as the rest of their group entered into the store. "An army of schoolgirls." laughed Sergei. "Hey, there were some schoolboys too." replied Ji-hye. "Those were boys? Sorry, I couldn't tell." Sergei lightheartedly replied. "You do bring up a good point though, we found a lot of kids at that place but where were their parents? It wasn't like the attack happened in the middle of the school day, it happened at night. You think we would have found more adults than the five or six that came with us." Ji-hye commented. "If you had checked the dumpsters you would have known." Sergei replied. "Ewww. Sorry I asked." Ji-hye said. With the majority of the new additions to the team being school aged teenagers it also meant that many of them came with their own backpacks or luggage. This was quite helpful to stock up on things when they found them; even if some of them couldn't fight they still served a purpose to the unit as a whole. "I was wondering, were you ever been in the military back in Russia?" Ji-hye asked Sergei. "No." replied Sergei. His response was short and to the point. To Ji-hye it seemed almost like he was hiding something. "Oh, ever done any police work then? Just wondering 'cause you seem pretty calm in a fight." Ji-hye inquired. "No. I'm just a pilot. Well, just a co-pilot for now." Sergei replied plainly. Ji-hye's eyes caught several of the kids' backpacks being loaded with box after box of .223 Remington rounds from the hunting department in the back of the store. "The rounds for the hunting rifles will also work with the K2. Since the NATO rounds are capped with that robo-buster metal we should probably save them for the robots. We each keep a spare magazine on hand in case but for standard use we should stick to the .223's" Ji-hye suggested. Sergei removed the magazine for his rifle and checked how many shots he had left. "I've got about four rounds left and a few more in my bag." Sergei said while removing the bullets from the magazine. "I'll go get you some more." Ji-hye said then walked towards the hunting section while Sergei remained on guard.
Elsewhere in the store Officer An and his prisoner stood guard over the back entrance to the store where another group of kids were taking more bullets out of the back storeroom and loading them into their backpacks. In the camping and outdoors sections the civilians and school kids stocked up on portable stoves, water purification tablets, flashlights, batteries, torch fuel and even long term storable food. Surprisingly this store had been practically untouched since the invasion, which seemed odd due to the fact that it contained many items that would be quite beneficial to people in their situation. It could be that this area was within the range of the neutron bombs that fell the first night or that the survivors had thought this would all be over quickly and they wouldn't need to hunker down long term before they were evacuated to Incheon International. A few places the store had been pilfered through, most of the backpacks and almost all of the crossbows were gone, along with a couple styles of fishing rods. Someone might have thought they would get some fishing done on the island. Whatever the reason, finding the store close fully stocked was a saving grace to this group who had been plagued by a lack of supplies ever since that first dreadful night. Those without guns found an assortment of blunt instruments, machetes and hatchets to arm themselves with. One girl pulled down a modern hunting bow off the top shelf and a full quiver of arrows, each with brightly colored fletching on the ends. The bow was top notch, one of the more expensive models this store carried. It was one of the last ones like it and she had to stand on a display table in order to reach it. "Hey, look what Hyo-ri found!" called out one of the girl's friends. "That is so cool." remarked one of the boys. Hyo-ri blushed and flipped her ponytail over the front of her right shoulder then drew back on the bowstring and let go. "Hyo-ri trying to be a badass, that's real believable." laughed one of the girls who knew Hyo-ri from school. Hyo-ri shrugged off the derisive comment and accepted the adoration from the others whom seemed somewhat impressed. She hopped off the table and headed towards the door where everyone that had already got what they wanted had begun to gather. Some of the other teenagers, predominantly boys who were taken by her, then followed Hyo-ri's lead and took bows for themselves, though they got the lower end models that were present in abundance.
Ji-hye had gathered up as many bullets as she could carry before they had stripped the store bare. The last few guns were being handed out by a fat man dressed in flannel and jeans standing by the gun case. All in all the sporting goods store brought in a good haul. They had several hunting rifles and a few shotguns along with enough ammunition to last a few weeks, or at least not be worried about it for a couple days. All the adults and even a few of the teenagers were now armed with firearms. "I think that's the last of them detective." remarked the man when he saw Ji-hye observing him. The man reached for his own rifle leaning against the side of the gun case when a small shimmering metallic ant about the size of a child's fist fell from above and landed on the man's forearm. The man carelessly brushed it off and started to walk away from the gun case. The insect landed on the ground and scurried back to the man, crawled up the back of his boot and went under his pants leg where it burrowed into his skin near his calf muscle. "Ouch! Holy shit!" the man exclaimed and lifted his leg and smacked his calf where the insect had gnawed its way under his skin. Ji-hye, now almost back at the door, took notice of the man's painful yelp and turned around to see another pair of silvery bugs land on each of the man's shoulders. The man swatted one off but the other one chewed through his shirt and burrowed into his shoulder and crawled inside the man's chest through the wound. The man screamed and attempted to stomp down on the bug on the ground. Thinking he had squashed it, he left his foot in place. However the insect gnawed through his boot and entered into his foot. As the man thrashed about in pain from the insects digging tunnels through his innards Ji-hye looked to the roof of the store and saw where the bugs had come from. One of the larger insects, that were close to the size of a small dog, the same ones she remembered from that night at the hospital was fluttering vestigial wings much like those of a grasshopper and releasing the smaller bugs one or two at a time from beneath the wings. She scanned the ceiling in horror and discovered at least four of the larger bugs. The man collapsed as more bugs landed on him and continued to devour his flesh. The rest of the people inside the store panicked and ran for the exits. More bugs dropped down and landed on several of them. In fright one man fired his shotgun up at one of the larger bugs on the ceiling. The blast killed the bug but at the same time destroyed a ceiling tile which was holding back a multitude of the smaller insects that came raining down on their unsuspecting victims below. One of the nearby large insects fell down with the collapsing ceiling tiles and landed on the fat man. The large insect bit the large man, now as good as dead, which made the smaller ones inside him exit his body and move on towards new victims. Kyung-seok and Ji-yoon escaped out the back door along with those nearby while Ji-hye and Sergei oversaw the evacuation of everyone gathered near the front. There were close to twenty people they could not save from the heart of the swarm. The numerous small bugs completely covered and devoured one person and then moved on to the next. There were thousands upon thousands of them spreading outwards from where they landed like the ripples in a pond whose still surface was broken by a stone hurled from afar. Ji-hye took a handheld propane canister out of one of the passing pre-teen's backpacks and tossed it towards the advancing horde of silvery ants and shot it causing it to burst into flame, thus incinerating a great number of the bugs, though hardly enough to impede their advance. Ji-hye then ran outside once the bulk of the group had escaped. Those who remained within the swarm or at the fringes of its advance could not be helped. She tossed a tear gas canister as she left, but it did nothing to the insects and only made those dying to their voracious appetite suffer more. Back where the insect attack had all began the fat man's body burst open to release a fresh swarm of the smaller insects along with a pair of the larger bugs. Sergei was the last one out of the store and made his exit by firing a rocket from his new friend "Big Poppa" into the largest mass of bugs he could see delivering both a thinning of the insect herd and a mercy killing for those being eaten alive in the store.
The group coming out the front door ran away in a full sprint as some of the bugs trickled out of the building behind them. A few shots were hopelessly fired from those at the rear to try and disperse the bugs to no avail. Some of them were pushed over and fell down onto the pavement in the panicked rout. Others stopped and helped those who had stumbled back to their feet, but at least one was abandoned and left to the insects. They joined with the group that had escaped out the back door and sprinted as fast as they could. They found themselves outside the collaborator's bubble soon when four skitters jumped down from the rooftops, two of which crushed adult civilian fighters as they landed. The other two clawed at three of the older teenager boys dealing grievous damage before they were swarmed upon by other students using melee weapons against them. One of the skitters clotheslined a fleeing man then before it could stomp down on that man's chest for the killing blow it was hit in the neck with an arrow. The arrow pierced through the skitter's tough exoskeleton into its most tender nerves and arteries. The creature staggered back and started to regain its composure when it was hit by a second arrow that penetrated even deeper and brought it down. Standing at a distance was Hyo-ri, still holding the bow in front of her with a steely gaze fixed upon her foe. "Damn girl, you really know how to use that thing!" remarked one of her admirers as he ran past her. Hyo-ri then ran ahead and retrieved her arrows from the skitter they were embedded in. The creature was still alive but in a weakened state and tried to resist her removing the arrows to no avail. As the arrows were removed they tore a wider gash in the skitter's flesh causing its blood to gush freely out of the wound when they were gone, rapidly draining the fallen skitter of life. The last skitter was bayoneted in the face from a man with an AK-47. The skitter's last act of defiance was to rake the man across his own face and knock him back several feet. Severely disfigured and blinded in the left eye but still alive the man was helped back up by a teenage boy who retrieved his gun for him. A mech rocket fired over the heads of the fleeing group caused the humans to disperse into the surrounding buildings. Though probably not what the aliens had intended, the detonation of the mech rocket at the head of the pursuing legion of insects halted their advance. The remaining insects then turned around and dispersed themselves amidst the nearby structures. The mech did not stand long before Ji-hye and Sergei switched back over to anti-mech rounds and lit it up from both sides. The standard mechs were nowhere near as hard to take down as the deluxe model though they still took a lot of holes before they stopped moving and hit the ground with a loud clang. The group then reformed and ran full speed to the end of the street where they had at last come to the realization they were no longer being pursued. They then proceeded in a more cautious manner fending off another attack by a band of skitters early on before they started to make it into the clear. They went a mile or two further until they reached a fire station next to a water treatment facility. It was only now after a long rout that they felt safe enough to catch their breath and take inventory of their losses.
Sergei, Ji-hye and Kyung-seok made sure the fire station was completely safe before bringing anyone in. This time they thoroughly checked the ceiling, walls, lockers, cabinets and any other potentially hollow area or hidden nook or cubbyhole that killer insects could be hiding in. Outside Seok-won guarded Ji-yoon to make sure she didn't escape or try anything. The group had taken hefty losses in order to claim their prize from the sporting goods store, though they were still numerically a considerable force to be reckoned with. They were 232 in total, 27 of which had sustained injures of which 9 were severe. Furthermore most of their losses to the bugs had been their adult fighters leaving them with fewer military grade rifles and an army where 214 of its members were between the ages of 14-16. Kyung-seok, Seok-won, Ji-hye, Sergei, two other men and three women were the only able bodied adults left in the group. This fact was not lost on the company's leadership as they combed through the fire station. "Those damned bugs prefer beef to veal you see. Now we really are left with an army of babies." complained Sergei. "They aren't exactly babies Serge, they can still fight." Ji-hye replied as she checked under the counter in the firehouse kitchen. "They are undisciplined brats; they will get each other killed I tell you." Sergei continued. Ji-hye got up and shined her flashlight in Sergei's face. "Well they're the best option we have right now." Ji-hye said before they went downstairs into the basement. "Check and see if that generator over there still works." Ji-hye said directing Sergei over to an emergency diesel-electric generator by the main breaker box for the fire station. Sergei fudged around with it a bit and it successfully fired up and the dim bulbs in the basement lit up. "Oh that is nice." Sergei remarked, sounding quite pleased with himself.
After the firehouse was deemed safe to enter they began to start letting the rest of the people inside. At the door Ji-hye checked each of their number for insect bites for she had remembered what had happened to Carter with just a single bite to the hand. So far everyone appeared clean; if the bugs got someone they had finished the job. The wounds she found were skitter claw marks and scrapes from falling on the concrete during the escape, that was until she found one man with an obvious swollen bite mark on the side of his neck. "I need to have a word with you over there." Ji-hye told the man, taking him aside while Kyung-seok took over inspecting the remaining people. "What is it?" the man asked after Ji-hye had led him around the corner to the edge of the water treatment plant. "Were you bit?" Ji-hye cut right to the chase and asked. "Umm, I don't remember. I had some of those little bugs on me and I was freaking out like everyone else." the man answered uneasily. Ji-hye could tell that he was lying. He knew that he had been bitten and the size of the bite mark indicated it was from one of the larger insects. "Alright now listen, I've seen these things before and I know what they can do. They bite you and that injects you with their larvae. Then those little critters eat out your insides and within an hour they crack you open like an egg and move on to devour whoever else is around. Now I've seen that bite on your neck and know what will happen to you, sooner rather than later." Ji-hye explained. The man rubbed his neck where the bite mark was as if he was pretending that he didn't know about it but Ji-hye could see through it. "It was one of the small bugs though, does that still mean..." the man asked in fearful protestation. "Yes." Ji-hye replied knowing full well it was a large insect that had bit him. "Unfortunately there's nothing we can do once you're bitten. Now you have two options. You can walk and let whatever happens happen in due time, or you can stay here, outside away from the others with a guard posted on you so that whenever you look like you're about to pop he will light you on fire in order to stop the bugs. We can try and accommodate you to the best of our ability but we have to protect everyone else as well." Ji-hye explained. "You will abandon your outdated morality or be destroyed by it." the man from the apartments voice echoed in Ji-hye's mind. No, not yet, Ji-hye told herself, strengthening her mental resolve. "It's up to you." Ji-hye told the man, who was getting extremely emotional at what he had just heard. "Do you have any family here? Anyone close to you?" Ji-hye asked. "My son." the man replied. "Do you want to put your son in danger when those things come crawling out of you? We can't promise we will be able to stop them all in time before they can get to someone else." Ji-hye asked the man. He stood there sobbing for several minutes, trying to rationally find a way to bargain himself out of his fate. He went through a range of emotions from sadness to anger, to regret before standing up straight and giving his answer to Ji-hye. "I will walk. I won't put my son, or anyone else's son or daughter in harm's way." the man said. "Do you want to say goodbye to your son?" asked Ji-hye. "No. I don't want him to see me like this. He should remember his father well. If he asks, tell him his father went down fighting for him, and tell him I love him, and know he will grow up to become a better man than I." the man said, breaking into tears. "I will." Ji-hye said sincerely. The man took his rifle and handed it to Ji-hye. "The living have more need of it than the dead. Give it to my son, so a part of me can still be there to protect him." he said. The man stood silent for several minutes then turned and slowly walked away as the sun sank towards the western horizon. Sergei came around the corner, glanced over at the exiled man and approached Ji-hye. "The rest of them are all clean." Sergei told her. "Good." Ji-hye said. "I wouldn't want to have to do this again." she continued. "A pity. He was one of our better fighters." Sergei said as Ji-hye started to walk with him back into the fire station. "Do you think I was right to send him away?" asked Ji-hye. "Of course. If he started spitting out bugs who knows how many of those kids they would eat before we are able to contain them." Sergei replied. "That's what I told myself too. Doesn't make it any easier." Ji-hye said. "It's not supposed to be easy. If it was easy you would know you're doing it wrong." Sergei assured her. The two of them went back inside the fire station where Ji-hye presented the rifle to the man's 15 year old son and explained what had happened just as his father had directed her. The man's son became visibly heartbroken then resolute then hugged Ji-hye with tears in his eyes. Ji-hye hugged the boy and tried to console him, overcome with sorrow that in some way this was still her fault.