by Tristan Vick
“It’s okay,” Kevin said, wrapping his arms around her and squeezing her tight. “It’s been a stressful couple of days.”
She put her head on his chest and laughed at the whole situation. “What in the world were you thinking?”
Kevin smiled and assured her, “I was thinking I wanted to keep you safe.”
“Oh,” Saeko said softly, biting her lower lip. She felt ashamed by her lack of self-control. In her mind, her inability to grapple with her inner rage denoted a lack of willpower. She’d never learned to control it. Not entirely, anyway. It didn’t exactly win her many friends either.
Most of the boys at her school felt threatened by her, and had always avoided her because of her “strong personality.” Whatever that meant. Most of the girls steered clear of her as well, all but for Makiko and Eri. Kevin was the only one who was both patient enough and open-minded enough to love someone as messed up as her. She didn’t envy him for it, but from the bottom of her heart she loved him for it.
“I was thinking that I finally found the woman I love, and I don’t ever want to lose her,” Kevin added. It was his small way of trying to cheer her up.
Caught off guard, Saeko looked up into his blue eyes. “Wait a minute,” Saeko gasped. “You’re in love with me?”
“I know. It’s weird, right? We just met. But I feel like...”
“Feel like … what?”
“I feel like we’ve known each other for ages. Is that weird?”
Saeko hugged Kevin tightly and pressed her face into his chest. “No, it’s not weird. I feel the same way.”
16
Sex and Bullets
Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
Raiding their sixth consecutive mini-fridge, Saeko and Kevin settled down on the bed in whichever hotel room they had wound up in together and started to divide the rations of snacks and drinks evenly between them.
Kevin’s eyes lit up and he looked over at Saeko with a curious expression on his face. Reaching over, he grabbed the telephone receiver, listened, then hung back up. He was practically beaming with excitement as he looked at her.
“Well, are you going to tell me what it is, or are you just going to stare at me with that stupid grin on your face?”
“The telephone still works!”
“Yeah. So?” Saeko replied, a little disappointed by Kevin’s anti-climactic revelation.
“So?” Kevin said in a shocked tone. “So it means we can call our families!”
“Oh,” Saeko said in a quiet voice.
Kevin didn’t know how to respond to this unexpected mood swing. She seemed sad somehow.
“Did I say something wrong?” Kevin asked, still a little confused.
“No. It’s just that...well, my dad…he’s a fucking douchebag, and all my friends have been turned into zombies. My aunt and uncle have their own lives to worry about, if they’re even still alive. I’m just a burden to everyone. So, you see, I’m pretty much on my own from now on.”
Kevin took Saeko’s hand in his and smiled at her. “You’re not alone. You have me.”
A coy grin crept onto Saeko’s lips, and she squinted at Kevin with a devious look.
“Wait,” Kevin began, “whatever it is you’re thinking, you need to know...”
Before he could finish his sentence, Saeko gave Kevin a firm shove and sent him flying over the edge of the bed. He tumbled to the floor with a resounding thud, sending Saeko into uncontrollable fits of laughter.
Getting up, Kevin faked a hurt knee just as a ruse to gain her sympathy. Saeko’s face suddenly grew serious, thinking she had hurt him. Walking up to him, she put her hand on his back. “I’m so sorry, I thought it was just a …”
Without warning, Kevin spun around and tackled her. The two of them crashed down onto the bed, bounced, and rolled over the other side. Tumbling down to the floor, in the space between the two beds, they hit the ground with a thump. Landing on top of her, Kevin gazed into her deep brown eyes, and, as if they could read each other’s minds, they simultaneously began plastering each other with hot wet kisses.
“You know something? You’re really amazing,” Kevin gushed, gazing into Saeko’s deep brown eyes.
“Less talking,” Saeko said between heavy breaths. “More fucking.” She tore Kevin’s shirt off and he did the same for her.
Naked, Kevin wrapped his arms around Saeko, pulled her tight into his chest, and kissed her mouth long and hard. They rolled over, and Saeko was suddenly on top. She peeled off her panties as fast as she could and then ground her hips hard into Kevin’s inflamed member. Kevin moaned, then suddenly, erupting out of nowhere came the sound of semi-automatic gunfire.
Saeko’s heart skipped a beat in her chest. She quickly dropped down onto Kevin, and they listened to the staccato beat of nearby gunfire. “Shit!” she cursed. “What do we do?”
Like a clock winding down, their breathing grew slow and steady.
“It’s coming from the street below,” Kevin whispered.
Saeko rolled off and started gathering her things. “Quick. We’d better get dressed and see what the hell is going on out there.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that,” Kevin said.
Saeko tossed him his clothes, then eyed him up and down and grinned.
“What?” Kevin asked.
“Come here, handsome.” Saeko reached out her hand and waited for him to take it. Kevin gladly received it, and she reeled him in. Gazing into his blue eyes, she gave him the hottest, wettest, most sultry kiss he’d ever received. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“You promise?”
“Promise,” she replied, kissing him once more to seal the deal. Besides, it wasn’t like she wanted to leave him high and dry. She hated it too. Being left wet and unmet was just as bad, but they couldn’t just sit around all day and night in their little refuge, pretending they had it good. They both knew better than that. The end-of-the-world fuck was over. Now it sounded like Armageddon outside their window, and it was time to face the music.
17
Getting Out of This Place
Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
“Grarrrrgh!” growled the drag-queen zombie. It sported a raggedy red Tommy Hilfiger one-piece dress, a bright lemon-yellow wig, and the dark shadow of four A.M. stubble on its broad-chinned face. Tottering on wobbly heels, the zombie staggered forward with the finesse of a gorilla.
A second later a cherry-sized bullet hole marked its forehead, and it crumpled down onto its stylish red pumps and fell into a heap on the ground. All around it lay the twice-dead bodies of half a dozen other terminated Walkers. Saeko leaned up against the window of the hotel room, popped her head into the open frame, peeked out, and then popped back in just as quickly, letting the curtain fall back into place.
“What did you see?” Kevin asked.
“Fucking insanity,” she stated. “There are three black Toyota Crowns with dark-tinted windows and six or seven men in suits carrying machine guns.”
“You mean like secret agents?” Kevin asked.
“More like high-ranking Yakuza,” Saeko said. “Besides the Self Defense Force and the Yakuza, nobody else in Japan has access to guns. And they sure as shit aren’t the Self Defense Force.”
“Leave it to the gangsters to defend their turf during the zombie apocalypse,” Kevin said, amused. As the steady bursts of semi-automatic gunfire died down, Kevin scratched his chin and asked, “So what’s the plan, love?”
Saeko grabbed Kevin’s hand and, in a crouching walk, pulled him closely behind her. “We’ll use this distraction to get the hell out of this place.”
Kevin snatched up the duffel bag, full of the food and drinks they had raided earlier from the hotel refrigerators, and tossed it over his shoulder as they left.
Keeping low, they made their way out of the room and down the hall. After passing two flights of stairs, they finally came to the end of the hall, next to an emergency exit. Saeko cautiously pushed open t
he door and peeked outside.
“How many do you see out there?” Kevin inquired.
“About half a dozen. Most of them have made their way toward the sound of gunfire.”
“That’s still too many,” Kevin replied. “Even with both of us fully geared up, we’d risk being overtaken.”
Gently, Saeko let the door shut and looked back at Kevin; she was at a loss to think of anything else.
“I’ve got an idea,” Kevin said as he tossed the bag onto the ground. Crouching down, he unzipped it and began rummaging through the contents.
“What are you looking for?”
“This!” Kevin said excitedly, withdrawing three small bottles of liquor. He jumped up and scanned the hallway for any makeshift item that could contain the full contents of the bottles. Seeing a flower vase filled with plastic plants, he fetched the vase and emptied its contents out onto the floor. Pointing at the duffel bag, he said, “See if there are any more bottles of vodka or Jack Daniels in there.”
Saeko pulled out a bottle of each and asked, “You mean like these?”
“Perfect,” Kevin answered, taking the bottles from her. He twisted open the metal caps and poured all of the alcohol into the vase. “Do you still have your pen case from school with you?”
“Yeah,” Saeko said, drawing it out of the bag. “Why?”
“You got any rubber cement?”
“Cement?”
“You know, glue?” Kevin corrected, realizing that was not a term she’d be familiar with.
“I think so.” Saeko took out her pen case and opened it. With a smile, she pulled out the small bottle of rubber cement with a bright orange cap. “Got it!”
She tossed it to Kevin. He promptly unscrewed the orange cap and began dumping it into the vase.
“What on earth are you doing?”
“I’m making a Molotov cocktail. It’s basically a cheap way to make a dirty bomb. It’s a mixture of things that burn fast and slow, and a thickening agent like the rubber cement.”
“I see,” Saeko said, watching him mix the contents with a pair of disposable chopsticks called waribashi.
Kevin pulled out a small bottle of hand sanitizer gel and squirted it into the mix, and added, “Since we don’t have any lighter fluid or gasoline, I found the next best thing. You had some hand sanitizer gel that’s eighty-five-percent alcohol content in your sports bag. That’s as close to rubbing alcohol as we can get in such short notice. Hope you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind,” Saeko said. She smiled as she realized she’d picked the right guy to be with. Not only was he good-looking and smart, but he was good with his hands too. That mattered.
Proud of his handiwork, Kevin held up the bottle and added, “I sure hope this works. We’ll only get one shot at this.”
“Where did you learn to make this kind of stuff?” Saeko asked. She was interested in how this pristine, blond-haired, blue-eyed American boy could possibly know so much about making dirty bombs. She didn’t peg Kevin as the super commando type.
“My dad and his fellow seamen used to make them every Fourth of July. They said it was cheaper than buying fireworks. They’d build a bonfire and then chuck Molotov cocktails at it until it was six feet of roaring flames.”
“What a sad childhood you must have had,” Saeko teased. Kevin grinned at her.
“Actually, it wasn’t all that bad. I learned a lot from them.” Pointing back at the duffel bag, Kevin said, “Hey, pass me that extra headband.”
Saeko did as he asked and watched him unravel it and then douse it in the combustible mixture; then he wrung it out, being careful to make sure that every drop went back into the bottle.
Having finished making his sticky bomb, Kevin grabbed Saeko and pulled her into his arms. She grinned at him from the unexpected surprise.
As they stared into each other’s eyes, their lips growing dangerously close, she felt him reached into her skirt pocket. Suddenly Saeko’s whole body stiffened as she realized what he was reaching for. That’s when Kevin pulled out her purple plastic cigarette lighter.
18
Cocktail Party
Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
“Kuso!” Saeko gasped and stumbled back a few steps. She was shocked and mortified that Kevin had discovered her nasty little secret. “How the hell did you know about that? Tell me!” she demanded.
“You mean, how did I know that you smoke cigarettes?”
“Yeah,” she said, her cheeks growing hot pink as she brushed her hair out of her eyes. It wasn’t something she generally wanted anybody to know about her.
Kendo was a martial art, and as such, was a sport of honor. Getting caught smoking underage in a country where the age limit was twenty meant she’d be banned from any further participation in the sport. Worse still, they could take her second-place title away from her.
It seemed kind of silly to be worried about such a thing at a time like this, during the zombie uprising and all, but she had spent her whole life working for her top tier position. To lose it all to a dirty little habit would be a huge disgrace—which is why she had mastered keeping it her biggest secret.
“Please don’t tell anyone,” Saeko pleaded.
“Don’t worry. I won’t,” Kevin replied, letting her know with just one look that he understood her loud and clear. “But it wasn’t too hard to figure out. Every time after sex you disappear for a few minutes into the bathroom or to get some fresh air. That sort of thing.”
“All girls do that,” she said, blushing even more.
“What? How many girls have you had sex with?” Kevin said sarcastically.
“Shut up!” Saeko grumbled. “I mean, girls go to the bathroom a lot. And it just so happens that I like fresh air.”
“Right.” Kevin wasn’t buying it. “But I think you should know that those tells weren’t the only giveaways either. Earlier, up on the roof…you became extremely agitated with me for no reason.”
“You were being an idiot,” Saeko insisted.
Ignoring her dodge, Kevin continued with his deduction. “Or, it could be that we were trapped up there and you had nowhere to sneak away to that you could get your fix.”
“No, I’m pretty sure it was because you were being an idiot,” Saeko said again.
“The final giveaway,” Kevin said, “was when we were raiding the other rooms and I saw you sneak the half-used pack out of the bedside dresser that somebody had left there.”
Saeko felt like she could die. “You saw that?”
“It’s no big deal,” Kevin reassured her. “I don’t mind if you smoke.” Kevin tied a knot near the top of the headband and dropped it into the vase, letting it fill the mouth like a fat cork.
“When did you first realize?” Saeko asked.
“Actually, to be honest, I knew you smoked before I saw you swipe that pack of smokes.”
“How?” Saeko asked, breathing a puff of breath into her hand and smelling her own breath just to be sure. “I brush my teeth after every smoke, gargle with mouthwash, and chew gum, and down melting kiss-mints as if they were candy.”
“Well, you see, the truth is I went through your things while you were sleeping and—”
“What?!” Saeko screamed.
“Relax,” Kevin said. “I was looking for more condoms.”
“Oh.” Saeko shot Kevin a nervous glance. “What else did you find?”
“Nothing much. Just that you slide your cigarettes between your tampons so nobody will find them.”
“You’re terrible!”
Kevin turned toward her with a big cheesy smile and teased, “Me?! You’re the one who’d better be careful. You don’t want to get vaginal cancer. I recommend finding a new place to stash your cigarettes.”
“That’s not even—” Feeling self-conscious, Saeko crossed her hands over her crotch and shot Kevin the evil eye. “If you weren’t so damn charming, I’d have already killed you by now,” she fired back.
“Ah,”
Kevin said, changing the subject. He held up the bottle and exclaimed, “Finished!”
“Don’t change the subject!” Saeko snapped.
“You can punish me later,” Kevin said, shooting her a wink.
“Oh, I will,” Saeko vowed. “You can count on it.”
Taking her lighter, Kevin flicked it on and said, “Wait here,” as he lit the makeshift wick. Then, with the cocktail set aflame, he darted into the nearest stairwell.
Saeko went back over to the rear exit and cautiously pushed the door open so that she could peek outside. Suddenly she heard a window breaking. Glass rained down onto the ground a few meters away. Then she saw the bottle careening through the air.
The Molotov cocktail crashed down about fifty meters away and ignited the walking corpse of a hotel concierge, its pant legs going up in flames. It didn’t seem to be bothered by the flames crawling up its body, but the sight of flickering flames and the sound of the fire’s crackling caught the attention of the other nearby zombies, who began to circle around their combustible comrade.
Stepping outside, Saeko cheered, “Yes!” and pumped her fists in celebration of their small victory. With the monsters distracted, they could finally make their escape.
Saeko turned to go back inside the building but unexpectedly ran straight into a sickly looking mailman who was standing just on the other side of the door. She didn’t even have time to scream when suddenly his pallid hands were around her throat, choking her into silence.
Grabbing his neck to prevent his snapping teeth from sinking themselves into her, she pushed back with all her might. But he was much larger than she was and pressed her into the corner of the wall. She was pinned, and suddenly her head began to feel faint, her vision grew blurry, and she desperately wanted to scream for help, but nothing would come out.
Just as she felt like she couldn’t hold on any longer, a baseball bat came out of nowhere and smashed the mailman’s head so hard its skull crumbled into its own brain pan. Blood splattered across Saeko’s face, and she recoiled in disgust. The zombie fell to the ground, and Kevin stood over its lifeless corpse, bat gripped tightly in both hands.