by Ben Stevens
‘Oh no – I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!’ repeated the driver, running over to kneel by the creature that was now starting to get back up…
Miyuki opened her mouth to shout some sort of warning – but it was too late. With a look of some surprise (evidently at the fact that someone was getting back up, so soon after being struck by a speeding vehicle), the taxi driver bent down to place a supportive hand underneath the creature’s left shoulder…
With a speed which belied the creatures’ usually stumbling, shambling gait, this thing which had cartilage, bone or whatever the hell it was sticking out through the hole in its neck whipped its head around and bit into the taxi driver’s right forearm.
The creature snarled as the taxi driver gave a shriek of shock and pain, moving its head around with its mouth remaining tightly clamped shut on the driver’s arm, like a dog worrying a bone. The driver sank to his knees, blood running down either side of the creature’s mouth, those people running past barely even noticing the spectacle in their frantic efforts to get away.
This scene was happening everywhere, anyway…
And soon enough the look of terror and agony left the taxi driver’s eyes, and there was the gray marble stare as he got slowly back to his feet, the creature that had recently bitten him also now fully rising. The taxi stayed where it had been left, the door open, engine running. Forgotten.
‘Hitomi!’
‘Papa!’ cried the girl whose wrist Miyuki was continuing to grip. Miyuki looked in the direction from where the shout had come. A man wearing a white shirt was running towards the two schoolgirls, the car a short distance behind him with its driver door open and the engine running.
Pulling free of Miyuki’s grip, the girl named Hitomi ran to her father. He held her to him, eyes welling with tears as he said her name repeatedly.
‘She,’ said Hitomi, pointing back at Miyuki with one hand. ‘She saved me!’
The father stared with momentary uncertainty at the older girl with the short skirt and blonde highlights. Ordinarily, he would have been much less than delighted that his precious young daughter was keeping such dubious company.
But then the father shouted at Miyuki –
‘I’m getting out of here – out of this area. I know a place where we’ll be safe, my family and I. And you, if you want. So, come with us!’
Miyuki struggled to think, the screaming and yelling going on all around. Car horns sounding, a vehicle crashing into a glass-fronted shop nearby. Soon enough the roads would be clogged and no one would be able to drive anywhere…
‘Come on!’ entreated the father, now pulling his daughter towards the car. It wasn’t safe to remain in the same place for any length of time; not with the stumbling, marble-eyed creatures that were all the time increasing in number.
‘I… my mother…’ stammered Miyuki.
And then another horn sounded, over a loud rap song blaring from speakers. Miyuki looked away from the father and Hitomi and there was a young man of about twenty, wearing sunglasses, his hair also streaked blond and a cigarette sticking almost defiantly out of the corner of his mouth as he sat on his large, white motorbike.
‘Trouble,’ gasped Miyuki, addressing the helmetless young man by his street name.
‘C’mon,’ said Trouble, an arrogant smirk playing on his tough, handsome face. ‘I know a place we can go; a place we’ll be safe. It’s not far at all.’
It was this last sentence which made Miyuki make up her mind. That, and this chance to finally get to ride with Trouble. She’d always liked him, but he naturally got his pick of the slightly older girls. She’d been out with a few of the younger boys, given a couple of them a hand job, allowed them a feel of what was between her legs – but always her sights had been set on catching Trouble’s eye.
And now here he was, offering her a backie on his motorbike. There was no way Miyuki was passing this offer by, regardless of the present circumstances.
So she ran towards Trouble and his large bike, not even bothering to look again at Hitomi and her father. She climbed on, as the creature that had once been a taxi driver staggered towards them. Revving his engine, Trouble then gave the creature a sharp kick as he roared past it.
Miyuki gave a shriek of laughter. She was with Trouble and he was kicking ass! Living up to his street-name. Everyone else was crying and cowering and getting bitten and getting back up again with that grey marble stare – but here she was sat on the back of Trouble’s big bike with the music coming out of its speakers and nothing was going to get them. Hell itself had better stay out of their way!
…Trouble weaved his bike through the chaos. Streets and roads littered with the stumbling corpses and the shrieking survivors. Cars crashed into each other and the fronts of shops. Some other vehicles still moving, much slower than the motorbikes – Trouble’s and others’ – the cars barely able to pass through the mayhem. And this morning Mayumi had left her boxlike apartment in a drab Tokyo suburb and made her way to high-school, and there had not been the slightest indication that any of this was about to occur…
Just what the hell had occurred – and, it seemed, so damn quickly…?
Miyuki decided that Trouble could fill her in on the details, whenever they got to wherever it was Trouble was taking them. He’d said it wasn’t far – a place where they could be safe. Miyuki still had to tell Trouble that she needed to get to see her mother, at the hospital. Maybe Trouble could take her there on his bike.
Miyuki hoped her mother was safe. She’d done something terrible (although, Miyuki knew she was at least partly to blame for her mother’s actions), was in hospital because of that, and so Miyuki could only hope that these walking corpses weren’t currently stumbling through the hospital corridors, attacking her mother and those other helpless patients lying in their beds…
And yet – whatever was happening seemed to be everywhere. Fires breaking out; a police car crashed into a fire engine, the sirens of both vehicles still blaring as the police officers and firemen fought with the stumbling creatures that were undoubtedly increasing in number with every passing minute.
A fireman sank his axe into a thing’s shoulder, almost severing the arm… And yet the thing didn’t even pause in its stumbling progress, bearing down onto the yelling fireman, sinking its teeth into the front of his neck even as a hysterical policeman emptied his pistol into the thing’s body, the bullets clearly having absolutely no effect…
It was obvious to Miyuki now that these things had to be shot or hit in the head. But then, from her experiences with Ikeda-sensei and the former teacher’s pet Akane, they had to be hit hard…
But the motorbike was leaving the main roads now. Trouble taking them away from the centre of the chaos, the creatures now more scattered, just staggering rather than attacking, the ordinarily quiet streets leading towards the sprawling temple – located at the foot of a mountain that was covered with tombs – offering less targets than the downtown network of skyscraper blocks of offices and shops.
Salubrious homes with beautifully-kept bushes in the front gardens, some with neatly-trimmed bonsai trees by the entrance porch. Fences made from bamboo, although these homes were more western in design than traditional Japanese.
A white net curtain twitched in a second floor window, a scared female face momentarily staring out before it again concealed itself. Miyuki wondered if the woman wasn’t hiding out in this house with her whole family, hoping that this madness afflicting Tokyo – maybe even the whole of Japan? – would somehow just pass…
A final steep slope, the motorbike’s engine sounding as though it was straining slightly, and then Trouble entered into the temple’s car-park. He stopped the engine – had already killed the music – and stepped off. Helped Miyuki disembark, offering her his hand like a proper man.
‘Why have we come here?’ asked Miyuki quietly.
Trouble screwed up his eyes, looking around him. There was no sign of life. They were stood near the temple’s main hall
, with its great sloped roof and large wooden beams, but there was no sound of any chanting or such coming from inside.
Then Trouble looked further up the mountainside that was behind the temple and its car-park. The forest of greenery and countless lines of stone and marble tombs disappearing into the hazy morning sunlight. It wasn’t yet real summer, when the temperature was all but unbearable – but still, it was hot enough.
‘Up there,’ began Trouble, motioning towards the sea of trees and tombs, ‘there’s a building. Used to be a house or something, but now it’s derelict. We can hide in there until all this passes.’
‘But – just us? Is anyone else there?’
‘A few others know about it; maybe they’re in there already, or will come in a while. But we should get going – careful, now. Whatever these things are, we don’t want any of them spotting us and then following us to where we’re going…’
Miyuki really wanted to say something, concerning her urgent desire to get to the hospital where her mother was staying. But there was something in Trouble’s voice, his whole attitude, which commanded obedience.
…And it was only now that Miyuki remembered that crazy story her grandfather had once told her. The old man had been dying, his brain half-poisoned by failing kidneys. Whispering some hoarse words in Miyuki’s ear, after she’d reluctantly visited him in hospital following school one day.
You’re a girl, but you’re still my oldest grandchild. Fact is, you’re my only grandchild the old man had declared. I told your father the same thing, but then he just ran off somewhere… Never was any good, that one… So I guess he never told you about – the sword?
At this, Miyuki’s eyes had widened slightly with surprise. No (she’d signified with a shake of her head) the father whom she’d barely known, who’d run off somewhere with another woman when Miyuki had still been small, had never said a single-damn-thing about a sword.
I hid it, continued her grandfather. Once the Americans used those two terrible bombs to finish the war, instead of trying to invade Japan, I hid the sword. Wrapped in oily cloths, so it can be used immediately whenever Japan next faces grave danger. And Japan will face grave danger one day – that’s for certain…
Miyuki nodded again at this and sneaked a look at the clock on the hospital wall. She was due to meet some friends, soon. One said he would be able to bring some alcohol. Already she was starting to come home late, shouting and swearing at her mother when that tired, overworked woman dared ask her where she’d been – saying that she’d been kept up, worried…
I’ll tell you now where the sword is declared the grandfather. So, if the day ever comes during your lifetime when Japan again faces grave danger, you will be able to use it to defend yourself – and others…
Yeah, yeah – whatever thought Miyuki, barely keeping the exasperation and boredom she felt at having to listen to this semi-delirious crap out of her face. She consoled herself with the thought that her grandfather wasn’t a poor man, and so would probably leave her a bit of money once he died – which looked to be any day now…
And then the old man began to describe just where she would be able to find this alleged sword…
…Miyuki followed Trouble closely along the winding paths with the ancient, sagging stone walls that cut through the lines of tombs and the many trees. It was an absolute maze – and yet Trouble seemed to know his way without any hesitation, turning sometimes here, sometimes there, always keeping low, his body crouched.
There were also those creatures stumbling around the mountainside cemetery. On several occasions, Trouble suddenly stopped and almost knelt to the ground, motioning for Miyuki to do the same.
A thing passed ahead, where one winding pathway intersected another. Stumbling, that strange rasping sound issuing from its throat. Dressed in a monk’s robes, the head shaved. It still carried its prayer-beads in its clawed hands, and for a few moments Miyuki thought that it might actually be chanting in that strange, guttural voice…
Then a scream, coming from some other part of the mountainside. A call for help. Miyuki – still distressed by such a cry, although she’d already heard it any number of times today – started to stand, instinctively wanting to help…
‘Get down!’ hissed Trouble, and Miyuki instantly did as told.
‘We can’t help them,’ continued Trouble. ‘Just have to look out for each other – you and me.’
Miyuki felt something warm flare in her chest at these words. You and me. A bond between her and the gang leader; this suggestion that they were in this thing together. Now going to this secret hide out Trouble knew, where they’d be alone…
For a few moments, in the midst of such exciting thoughts, Miyuki forgot all about her mother.
The screaming was abruptly silenced and the stumbling monk-thing stumbled on by ahead. Trouble set off again, his hands with the metal skull rings down by his sides, ready. For the first time, Miyuki felt safe, protected.
And then she saw the house where they were heading. Part of the roof had fallen in, and so had been covered by a blue builders’ tarpaulin. But she’d no idea how they could get inside; the front door and all forward facing windows looked to have been boarded up. Rubble had been disposed off all around the decaying walls of the house; bricks, stone and marble from previously demolished tombs, headless religious statues…
Still not daring to speak, Miyuki followed Trouble around to the back of the large building. This looked to be as secure as the front, deliberately closed off by builders to any potential trespassers.
But then Trouble picked up a screwdriver concealed underneath a rock, and undid the two long screws that were actually the only things keeping the wooden back door closed.
It opened inwards into a dark, earthy-smelling interior, the rooms still partially divided by moldering, sliding doors of wood and paper. Two wooden steps led up from the open back door, and taking them Trouble then looked back at Miyuki.
‘Follow me,’ he ordered. ‘Quickly.’
For some reason feeling suddenly worried, strangely suspicious, Miyuki did as she was told.
They were all alone. She knew that already. For there was no one else inside this derelict building, located smack bang in the middle of a sprawling temple cemetery. She was all alone with the gang leader called Trouble who had the reputation for extreme violence, those bloody, bitten creatures meanwhile stumbling around outside.
Thought Miyuki at once: Maybe I should have got in the car with that girl named Hitomi and her father, after all…
…Trouble closed the door behind them, and put a large concrete block against it, so that it would not swing inwards. It was near-dark; Trouble flicked his lighter, and lit two candles on the ground. There were some old wooden boxes which obviously served as seats. Empty beer cans and a multitude of cigarette ends on the rotting tatami mat flooring showed that this derelict building had – as Trouble had already said – been used as a hideout before.
Only this time, Trouble and the fifteen-year-old schoolgirl named Miyuki were hiding out from the walking dead within Tokyo, and – ?
‘Trouble,’ said Miyuki; quietly, cautiously – ‘What’s happening?’
Trouble shook his head as he lit a smoke. He offered one to Miyuki, who accepted. He lit it for her, Miyuki trying not to cough as she inhaled. She preferred the lightest cigarettes available. The thin ones which came in the pink, feminine packets. Trouble, meanwhile, favored such strong, classically American brands as Lucky Strike and Marlboro.
‘Don’t know,’ he said, his voice low and gruff. As he spoke, he was also obviously listening out for any noise outside. But so long as none of the walking dead happened to lurch past right by the derelict house in the middle of the cemetery and hear talking, Miyuki thought they were pretty safe.
‘Heard something about people getting sick on the subway,’ continued Trouble, crushing out his smoke underfoot and immediately lighting up another. ‘This morning, right during rush hour. Maybe something lik
e that sarin gas attack that happened in Tokyo some twenty years ago… A terrorist thing, perhaps.’
‘What – which terrorists?’ questioned Miyuki.
‘Don’t know – stop asking me so many fucking questions,’ returned Trouble, his eyes boring into Miyuki’s although his voice did not alter its quiet, gruff tone. For some reason, Miyuki found this more frightening than if Trouble had started shouting. But then his tendency to exhibit an outwardly calm demeanor, while at the same indulging in almost psychopathic displays of violence against anyone who happened to displease him, was well-known.
Strange, but only now did Miyuki actually consider that she could phone her mother at the hospital. She really needed to hear her mother’s voice now; really needed to hear anyone’s voice apart from that chillingly calm, low-pitched drawl coming from Trouble.
But as she produced her mobile, Trouble said –
‘What are you doing?’
‘My… my mother is in… in hospital,’ Miyuki almost stuttered. ‘I have to… to ring her…’
‘Put that phone away, and come and sit here,’ said Trouble, his voice still low-pitched and almost monotonous in its lack of tone. He motioned at the wooden box next to the one upon which he now sat.
Miyuki sat cautiously down as she felt the hairs on the back of her neck beginning to rise. She’d always admired Trouble from afar; and now, she considered that maybe she should have maintained that distance.
‘You know,’ said Trouble now, ‘I’ve always liked you.’
‘Really?’ replied Miyuki, her voice sounding unnaturally high and tight even to herself. She was sat with her knees close together, painfully aware of how much thigh her short skirt was exposing.
Then she froze as Trouble put one hand above her knee. Previously she’d felt an undeniable buzz as she’d sat on the back of his motorbike; had felt the dream she’d had of catching his eye becoming a reality, despite how desperate things currently were in Tokyo and perhaps Japan (the world?) as a whole…
But now Miyuki just wished she were anywhere but here. Sat alone with a young man known and feared for his violence and aggression. She just wanted to leave and try, somehow, to travel the several miles to the hospital where her mother was…