Chapter Text
25 September 1811
Mrs. Beecham's Home for Orphans
Hertfordshire, England
Taehyung Kim
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a zombie—once having consumed brains—must be in want of more brains.” Taehyung Kim surveyed the pack of attentive, if somewhat restless, children gathered at his feet. “Precious little is known of the true nature of these creatures, so keep this truth fixed in your minds, pups—to them, you are considered their rightful meal in this mindless quest.”
“Mindless,” Samuel Riley—twelve years old and overflowing with jokes—whispered. “That’s why they need brains.”
The children buried giggles behind their hands, shushing each other with increasing volume. In moments like this, Taehyung remembered too clearly his life before he’d known of zombies. It was a luxury few could claim, though he’d almost call it a cruelty instead. Better to never be so sheltered. But these pups knew firsthand the darkness of the world. Knew to take humor and fun wherever they could find it.
Taehyung happily played his part. Even the bleakest of humor lifted spirits.
“Once bitten,” Taehyung went on, lifting his hands like claws, “the newly infected are filled with an insatiable hunger for the brains of the living. Millions have perished, only to rise up as legions of implacable undead.”
Taehyung let out a low growl, shuffling closer to the children who giggled and shrieked as they scrambled out of his way.
“Braaaaiiinnnssss,” Taehyung lowed, snatching Samuel around the waist and rapping his knuckles against his head. Taehyung’s sensitive nose picked through the scents of soap, sweat, lye from his clothes, and the distinctly non-distinct scent of English pups. A bit fresh, a bit earthy—much like the world after a rain. “As I suspected, hollow. No brains in here.”
The pups cackled at that, Samuel squirming free of his hold with a squeaky growl that made Taehyung laugh behind his hand. Samuel’s dark hair stood up here and there from his struggles.
The air stirred with new scents, Taehyung’s hands curling around the hilts of his blades before he processed them as familiar. Safe.
“That dagger on your hip, Sam Riley.” Across the yard, his brother, Jimin Park, bit back an amused smile, though his eyes were sharp as he noted Taehyung’s tension.
Taehyung released his blades with a small shake of his head. All clear.
“You know how to wear it,” Jimin went on, “but do you know how to care for it?”
“Well, I belted it on for him,” Penny McGregor teased, passing through with a crate of soaps and candles in her hands, coppery hair hanging down her back in a loose braid. Behind her, a half dozen of Beecham’s oldest children trailed with heavy sacks of bone ash. “So take what you will from that.”
The bulk of Mrs. Beecham’s Home for Orphans’ income came from odd jobs. Primarily, they cleaned homes ravaged by zombie attacks and repurposed human remains in a variety of ways. From Hertfordshire County’s poorest, to the elite families in their grand country homes—they were all reduced to the same, useful ingredients once they were finally and entirely dead.
Bones became bone ash, a key ingredient in both bone china and fertilizer. Rendering human fat for candles and scented soaps gave further purpose to the seemingly endless supply of corpses. A gruesome business, to be sure, but a clever one. And one that kept the children fed and clothed and in relative comfort.
“Is this ‘bully Sam day’ and no one told me?” Samuel braced his fists on his hips.
“You’ll be tall enough for a sword soon, you know.” Penny set down her crate and ruffled Sam’s dark hair. “So behave for Mr. Jimin and Mr. Taehyung. Learn to keep your head instead of getting buried next to it.”
“Aye, Pen, aye.” Samuel rolled his eyes, even as he leaned into the affection. “Be careful out there.”
“Always, pup.” Penny waved at them, patting the small sword sheathed on her own hip. She hefted her crate once more and called, “Train them well!”
“Always, pup,” Taehyung replied, grinning.
Penny—seventeen and itching to take on the world—stuck her tongue out at him.
“Speaking of training,” Jimin said, drawing the attention of the pups back to him. “The goal here is to make certain you know how to defend yourself—and your brains—from the undead.”
Jimin launched into their father’s Fundamentals of Weaponry speech, one they’d both heard often enough to have it imprinted in their memories.
Taehyung grinned to himself as he sat on an overturned crate and sharpened the wicked recurve blades of his new khukuris. The traditional Nepalese blade had become his favored weapon during their training travels. This new pair was a gift from his adoptive father to celebrate Taehyung’s tenth year with the Huening family.
Hard to believe it was ten years already since the Huenings made a space for him in their family, just as they had done for Jimin a few years earlier. And though Taehyung still felt the ache of the loss of his birth family a decade ago, he had more or less come to terms with the guilt of surviving. He could acknowledge, if only to himself, that he was happy with his circumstances. The life laid out for him in Korea—well, Taehyung doubted he would find any part of it worthy of celebrating.
“We were wolves once,” Jimin said. “And a spark of that beast still lives within us. Our primal natures make us formidable fighters, but the undead have the very same advantages.”
A warrior has both cunning and a wolf’s nature. Taehyung could almost hear Papa’s voice in his mind, deeper and more mature, echoing Jimin’s. Neither of which will remove a zombie’s head.
“To consistently prevail against the undead requires skill,” Jimin said.
And skill comes from practice, practice, and more practice.
“Until your weapons—be they claws or blades or guns, or even a stick or stone,” Jimin said, sounding so much like Papa that Taehyung bit back a laugh, “are an extension of you, body and soul.”
Taehyung sniffed the air now and then as he worked, letting his primal senses focus on the surroundings while Jimin handled the children. The dreary weather had taken a strange turn the past few days—damp and chilly and now heavy with fog that never quite burned off in the autumn sun. It altered the way sound and scent traveled through the air, so Taehyung didn’t dare relax.
“If you present as an alpha, count yourself lucky for the boost in strength that comes with it,” Jimin said. “But strength is not enough to face a horde. You must also be clever and enduring. Quick to think and quicker to act. Zombies will make you work harder than you ever have to survive.”
Jimin’s soft and sweet jonquil scent strengthened briefly as he unbuttoned the cutaway front of his redingote and shrugged it off. He carefully folded the summery yellow fabric lined in ivory—the colors reflecting the flower of his scent—and hung it over the yard fence. Beneath the full-length day coat, Jimin wore buff pantaloons tucked into black boots and a Florentine-neck blouse in white, the square neckline and cuffs decorated with his own embroidery. His golden hair was tied up off his neck in a short ponytail, wisps floating loose here and there.
“Now, then,” he said, adopting a looser stance, stretching lightly as he paced in front of the pups. “The first and most important thing to remember is this is not a battlefield of honor and chivalry. Those stories of old mean nothing to a zombie. Against a zombie, you fight to win, plain and simple.”
As his scent dissipated on the afternoon breeze, Taehyung caught wind of something decidedly less pleasant. Not close enough to be of concern just yet, but—
“There’s company nearby,” he murmured to Jimin, softly, so as not to alarm the children. “We may need to cut today’s session short.”
Jimin nodded sharply, rolling up his shirtsleeves to reveal his leanly muscled forearms. He reached out and tapped Taehyung’s nose.
“The sharpest senses in the family,” he said softly. “Papa would be proud as always, Tete.”
“But Mama would likely wail for the next week,” Taehyung countered, “so we won’t mention this.”
Nestled only a short ride from their home, Longbourn, Beecham’s sat—to Taehyung’s mind—in a particularly lovely but vulnerable bit of Hertfordshire’s countryside. Though the entirety of the county had renewed their vigilance amongst the recent rise in zombie attacks, the orphanage had little to speak of in fortifications—the wooden fence keeping Jimin’s coat out of the dirt was the main line of ‘defense’—and next to no capable defenders.
After helping them fend off a small pack of zombies last winter, Jimin and Taehyung had set their minds to changing the children’s sad circumstances to something more hopeful. They had been training the eldest children in the arts of war for nearly a year now. Several of the alpha and beta pups had since gone on to join the Hertfordshire Militia, while the omegas found themselves to be desirable mate prospects, even without family or fortune to recommend them.
Taehyung’s ears twitched, catching the distant jangle of carriage tack and the shuffle and stomp of the horses. The Beecham carriage pulled into view a few moments later, heading off to Meryton. Penny leaned around from the driver’s box and waved once more. He closed his eyes for a moment, inhaling deeply and letting his wolf senses interpret. The faint scent of undead was gone, perhaps trailing after the noisy departure of the carriage.
“We all know the story of Netherfield Park, don’t we? Surely you must.” Jimin asked, voice dropping as though telling a secret. It worked every time, drawing the children closer that they might not miss a word. “Shall Mr. Taehyung tell us anyway?”
“Mr. Tae, tell us the story.” Suki Waterhouse bounced in place, her smile bright.
“Please, Mr. Tae,” Samuel said.
“Please, please, please.” This came from the jumbled voices of the group as a whole.
“You just want to avoid training drills.” Taehyung smirked as smothered laughter confirmed the children’s motivations. “But I suppose we have time.”
Taehyung stood and tugged the faded Pomona green sleeves of his redingote straight, puffing out his chest, earning a round of cheers from the children as he sauntered up next to Jimin.
“As you know, it all started in March when Lord Yoongi, the Earl of Rosings, discovered a carriage that had been overrun on the road north from Kent…”
Whispers of Lord Yoongi echoed through the children.
“An officer of the Black Brigade—the Crown’s most elite and trusted soldiers—arrived at Netherfield Park during a simple game of whist,” Taehyung went on. “Though Netherfield is empty now, that night it was full of life and light. The Featherstone family were known for their amiable natures and hospitality and indeed, this day was nothing special for them—just a pleasant gathering with family and friends. One that turned into a zombie massacre with eighteen souls lost that night.”
The pups edged closer together, some holding hands, others glancing around nervously.
“Right inside their very home.”