Dreaming of Cosmic Defense
The night stretched on as Kim Jun stood guard around the house, shotgun in hand, until the first light of dawn.
When the morning sun finally began to climb higher, a long yawn escaped him.
“Huuuuaaaam.”
He had endured the long hours, and the acrid stench of burning zombies had finally begun to fade.
Kim Jun pulled a ladder out of the camper van, climbed up, and peered over the wall.
With not a single ember left glowing, charred fragments of corpses lay scattered everywhere.
The sight would have made most people grimace, and for some it might even leave a lifelong trauma, but Kim Jun remained calm.
He had seen far worse while hunting countless zombies over the past weeks.
Once killed, zombies decayed at an alarming rate. Within days they would rot, melt away, and vanish, leaving only faint traces behind.
Kim Jun figured the rotten smell would linger for a while, but as soon as the remains disappeared he planned to reinforce the barrier even further.
After finishing one last cigarette, he dragged his exhausted body back inside the house.
Clatter. Clatter.
Shaaaaa—
In Ah and Eun Ji were already up, quietly preparing breakfast as if yesterday’s chaos had never happened.
“Ah, you’re back?”
“Oppa!”
The two girls rushed over, checking Kim Jun’s condition before greeting him warmly.
He gave them a small smirk, unslung the shotgun from his shoulder, and headed straight for his room.
“No need to make breakfast for me. I’m gonna sleep like the dead, so only wake me if something serious happens.”
“Understood.”
Kim Jun closed the door behind him, didn’t even bother washing up, simply stripped off his clothes, collapsed onto the bed, and fell asleep instantly.
He hoped that when he woke up, nothing terrible would have happened and everyone would still be smiling.
That evening.
After sleeping deeply, Kim Jun called exactly three people together for a briefing about yesterday’s events.
Gaya, Eun Ji, and Mari.
Once the three eldest sisters were seated, Kim Jun took a sip of cold water and began questioning them one by one about what had happened.
“Alright, let’s hear it.”
“I’ll go first,” Eun Ji said quietly, raising her hand before calmly recounting the situation.
“The zombies suddenly came rushing down the alley from the main road where they usually appear. Then they gathered in one spot and started circling the entire house.”
“That’s right. They swarmed out of nowhere and clustered together right outside the wall,” Gaya added.
Kim Jun listened to both women and jotted everything down in his notebook.
He then sketched a rough map of the surrounding alleys he had patrolled and explained it to the three of them.
“While I’ve been going back and forth, I’ve spotted zombies here and there. At most four or five at a time. But this is the first time this many have gathered in the area.”
“Strictly speaking, it’s not the first time, is it?” Eun Ji asked.
Kim Jun thought for a moment, then remembered something.
“If you’re talking about that time with the police… there weren’t that many then either.”
“In any case, could it be that the zombies sensed something unusual?” Mari suggested, thinking carefully.
“Like those snakes or bats, maybe they detected our movement or body heat and realized we were here.”
“That’s definitely possible.”
Kim Jun wrote that down too.
But then Gaya spoke up.
“Still, if that were the case, they would have attacked every single day. But they haven’t, right? Maybe it was just a string of coincidences?”
Kim Jun considered her words. He recalled every date he had discovered and eliminated zombies in the area, and asked the girls who had stayed behind to guard the house while he was out. He recorded everything.
No matter how he calculated it, there was no clear pattern to the zombies’ appearances.
He moved on to the next question.
“Then let’s talk about what happened after you first spotted the horde. What did you do?”
At Kim Jun’s question, both Gaya and Mari turned to look at Eun Ji.
“Honestly… she did everything.”
“Eun Ji unnie made the call really fast.”
Kim Jun already knew she never backed down from danger, but he was still impressed. Dozens of zombies had been swarming right outside the wall, and she had handled it.
He listened carefully as Eun Ji quietly explained what she had done.
“First, I had everyone go up to the third floor like you taught us for the slingshot training. We also prepared the nuts we use as ammo.”
“Good thinking.”
“Next, I used the walkie-talkie to try and contact you since we didn’t know where you were. I assigned one person to keep trying in case the first attempt failed.”
“That was also excellent.”
Both ideas had come from Kim Jun’s training, and the speed with which Eun Ji had adapted to the crisis proved she was quick on her feet.
“Then I remembered what Mari told me about zombies backing off from bleach, so I threw some at them.”
“You filled the condoms…”
She had turned them into water balloons, hurled them at the zombies, then held the line from the third floor with the slingshots.
And when she saw the burning rebar pipe during last night’s watch, she had used that too. Kim Jun decided she had done everything perfectly until the very end.
“You all did incredibly well while I was gone. You deserve praise.”
“We all have to survive together,” Eun Ji replied.
In this moment, it was important to openly praise the girls who had protected themselves.
At the same time, Kim Jun decided to establish one more rule for when he had to leave.
“That’s why, for the time being, instead of going out to gather supplies, we need to focus on reinforcing the house’s defenses. At least until all the zombies outside the wall are gone.”
“Understood. We’ll get ready too.”
“Do we have any barbed wire?”
“We’ll have to make it.”
Kim Jun began sketching out the construction plans.
But before that, there was something else they needed to discuss.
“I’ll talk about the construction later, but listen up. From now on, when I take some of the girls out to gather supplies, we need someone who can stay behind, protect the house, and lead the others.”
“That should be Eun Ji…”
“If I never left the house again, sure. But we’re taking turns, right?”
Gaya nodded at that. Kim Jun pointed at the three of them.
“Since there are three of you, let’s start with you three. We’ll create a new manual based on this defense.”
Kim Jun realized they needed officers.
Just like how squad leaders were necessary when he was a sergeant controlling soldiers, or how nurses supported doctors, or how field workers needed office support.
He promised that once the house’s defenses were strengthened, they would gather every evening with these three to create a new manual.
A short while later, Kim Jun began the real work.
Do Kyung, Rana, Emily and the others who always helped with outdoor tasks came out. Kim Jun brought out a bundle of wire and started by preparing two steel pipes.
“We’re going to fix these from one end to the other as support pillars.”
Even though the area behind the wall was covered in broken glass and smeared with dried zombie blood, Kim Jun set up pillars at each end.
After securing them firmly with cement, he began crafting new barbed wire right there.
“Twist the wire like this.”
“Half-life?”
“Ah, you call wire ‘half-life’?”
“Here, watch. Steel cage!”
The gap in field terminology showed again. Do Kyung and Rana didn’t understand, so Emily corrected it in English.
Kim Jun scratched his head, confirmed it was just wire, then twisted it into a spiral shape.
He wrapped rusty nails tightly around it at intervals, creating a terrifying barbed wire that would draw blood the moment anyone touched it.
“We just wrap this around the pillars?”
“That’s the plan. I’ll climb the ladder to install it, so you three just keep making more.”
Rana, Do Kyung, and Emily followed Kim Jun’s orders. The same hands that once held microphones and lipstick were now gloved and twisting barbed wire.
I should have made razor wire in advance. Maybe I should’ve grabbed some when we went to that junkyard last time?
Kim Jun felt like he was locking the barn door after the horse had already bolted, but he hurried anyway to make the barrier thicker.
He left the work to the girls for a moment and went inside for a glass of water.
Inside, another lesson was underway.
“This is mugwort, and this is water parsley. If you’re not sure, just bring it back and I’ll sort everything.”
“Mmm~ I see.”
Nanika and Eun Ji were learning how to identify edible wild greens from In Ah while knitting.
Their hands kept working the crochet hooks through the yarn to make clothes, while their eyes and ears absorbed In Ah’s explanations about the different plants.
“Working hard, I see?”
“Ah, oppa!”
The three stood up to greet him. Kim Jun waved, opened the fridge, pulled out some water, and chugged it down.
“Suddenly learning about wild greens?”
At his question, Nanika nodded carefully and spoke in a small voice.
“Um… oppa…”
“What is it?”
“I… last time when I saw the zombies I got so scared I couldn’t fight properly… and I couldn’t even get in the car to help gather supplies… so I thought I should learn at least this much now…”
She fidgeted, clearly depressed that she hadn’t been useful. Kim Jun walked over quietly and gently stroked her hair.
“Everyone has things they’re good at. You’re already making clothes and studying new things, right?”
“Ah…”
Nanika’s face turned bright red again at his touch. He smiled warmly to comfort her.
Eun Ji and In Ah watched and nodded, knowing his gentle care helped everyone’s morale.
“By the way, where are Mari and Gaya?”
“On the third floor. They said they’re training.”
“Training?”
Curious, Kim Jun headed up to the rooftop room on the third floor while still drinking water. There he found the two women engaged in intense exercise.
“Nnggggghhh!”
“You’ll dislocate your joints doing it like that!”
“No I won’t! This is how I trained back in the day!”
Gaya was lifting a pair of 5kg dumbbells while Mari tried to correct her dangerous posture.
“What’s all this about?”
“Ah, oppa!”
Both women quickly set the weights down and prepared for a different exercise.
“After what happened with the zombies, I realized how important physical training is.”
“So you’re working out with those?”
“Honestly, I feel like I have way less strength than the younger girls.”
Gaya had felt the limits of her stamina recently and decided to throw herself into training.
Both women were determined to reach at least Emily or Do Kyung’s level by continuing to use the treadmill, exercise bike, and dumbbells.
“Keep it up. If you need it later, I’ll teach you proper form.”
“Oh right, oppa used to train a lot too, didn’t you?”
Just looking at his broad shoulders, and having personally experienced his six-pack and powerful thighs when he took his clothes off, the two older sisters knew exactly how fit he was.
Kim Jun encouraged them to keep working hard, then went back downstairs to continue making barbed wire.
After several days of work, the newly created barbed wire extended several meters beyond the existing wall on top of the pillars. Everyone clapped when they saw the finished product.
Now it looked nearly impossible for anyone—zombie or otherwise—to climb over the wall with its broken glass, metal shards, and razor-sharp nails wrapped in barbed wire.
“It’s perfect! No one’s getting through this!”
Rana, Emily, Do Kyung and the others cheered and clapped even though they had helped make it. They were amazed at how Kim Jun had turned it into a completely reinforced fortress.
But Kim Jun wasn’t finished. He brought out a wooden box he had been hammering together by himself.
“There’s still one more thing.”
“Huh?”
He called over Rana and Mari who had been working with electricity, as well as Do Kyung, Eun Ji, and the rest of the work crew, and showed them what he had prepared.
What he pulled out was electrical wire he had stripped from the boiler at the beauty salon he visited with Eun Ji last time. He had cut and braided the cables together to create proper wiring.
“What are you going to do with that?”
“Turn any zombie that touches it into a roasted corpse.”
“!?”
The girls looked confused. Kim Jun connected the wires, wrapped them thoroughly with electrical tape, then showed them the equipment inside the wooden box.
“Wait, isn’t that the battery?”
He had brought one of the electric car batteries they used as backup power. It was even connected to the switch they had installed for the well pump.
He ran the battery from the storage shed in the backyard, connected everything step by step, covered it with the wooden box, and wrapped the whole thing in cloth.
Then he explained how dangerous it was.
“Pay attention. I ran the wire from the far end, connected it to this battery with a switch, and linked it to the barbed wire all around the perimeter. Flip this switch and electricity will flow through the entire fence.”
“Whoa! An electric trap!”
Kim Jun had thrown together the electric barbed wire they had only ever heard about in stories.
To demonstrate the danger, he told everyone to step back, then flipped the switch.
There was no sound, but Kim Jun took a half-eaten sausage from the fridge and tossed it onto the barbed wire.
Crackle— Bzzzzzt!
“Eek?!”
“Shh!”
“Whoa!”
The moment the saliva-covered sausage touched the wire, sparks flew and it bounced off, landing at their feet completely charred and smoking.
“It’s extremely dangerous, so we only use this in the absolute worst-case scenario. Also, be careful not to step on the wire when walking around. It’s a long run—if it gets cut, we’re screwed.”
With that warning, Kim Jun flipped the switch back to the safe position.
After completing the new fortress barricade, he looked at each of the girls who had worked hard for days and gave them a small smile.
“You all worked really hard today. Should we have a feast tonight?”