by Tristan Vick
Gently pushing the door open a crack, Kana peered into the back room. There were cardboard boxes everywhere. But not a trace of anything living. Or dead. Thank goodness. Still, it bothered her that although the room was empty the unnerving sound continued.
She knew that she’d have to toughen up eventually. Either that or else be a perpetual pain in Kevin’s side. Determined to prove her self-worth, she pushed the doors open and boldly stepped into the back room. “Hello?” she called out. But there was no answer. It seemed that the strange noise had died down.
Inspecting the back as thoroughly as she dared, Kana didn’t find anything that stood out as peculiar. As she was about to head back out and meet up with Kevin she heard the noise again. This time there was a rattling to accompany it. The racket was coming from outside the storage room’s rear exit.
Along with the small rectangular windows that ran the length of the top part of the wall, the door to the exit had a small square glass window that let in just enough light to allow her to perceive her surroundings. Creeping up to the window, she looked out and saw a small child. It was a little girl, about five or six years old. She looked uninfected, but Kana needed to be sure before she tired anything.
The girl’s clothes were snagged on a chain-link fence that ran between the storeroom and a secondary building in the back. Probably a gardening supplies store.
It was the first time Kana had seen another survivor besides Kevin and herself since the outbreak. She wondered how a small child like this could have survived for so long on her own. Maybe she hadn’t. Maybe she had a parent or a guardian nearby. Maybe they’d ran off in search of food. Maybe something happened to them. But right now, the little girl needed Kana’s help.
Kana decided it was worth the risk, so she quickly threw open the door and stepped out into the outer corridor. The girl jumped in fright at the sight of Kana. Not wanting to cause her any undue alarm, Kana put out her hand and said, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here to help you.”
Unable to speak, it seemed due to the trauma of recent events, the small child eyed Kana’s knife with terror-filled eyes.
Noticing her fear, Kana folded the knife up and slid it back into its holster. Putting her hands up, to show she was unarmed and friendly, Kana took a step forward. “See, I won’t hurt you.”
“Grughhh!”
Kana jumped at the sound of the moan and whipped her knife out again. Spinning around, she saw a zombie shambling toward them. It was on the other side of the chain-link fence, but Kana froze up with fear. Looking at the kid, she said, “Can you get free?”
Looking back up at her with worried eyes, the little girl shook her head. “No.”
Kana took a step closer, but her movement excited the zombie, and it picked up its pace. Kana looked over at it then back at the child. She didn’t know what to do. But she couldn’t just leave a helpless child trapped like this.
Running up to the girl, Kana grabbed the girl and tried to pull her free, but she was snagged on the fence extremely well. It was almost impossible to free her. At least in the time it would take for the zombie to reach them. Kana pulled with all her might, but the girl’s clothes wouldn’t tear free.
“Ruehhh!” the zombie moaned out again, reminding them that they were what’s for dinner.
Kana looked up; the monster was only ten or eleven steps from reaching them. “Kuso,” Kana cursed as she used her knife to start sawing at the girl’s clothes.
Suddenly teeth pressed up against the chain-link fence. The monster’s fingers reached through the empty spaces, straining to grab the two survivors. Kana started crying. Although she cut through the first layer, it seemed there was another layer underneath that one that was hooked too. “Dammit,” Kana grumbled to herself, and began sawing even more furiously.
At this rate, it would take forever to cut through all the layers, Kana thought. And she wasn’t even sure which part of the girl’s clothing was snagged. Everything was so tangled up.
“Can you get out of your clothes?” Kana asked.
But the girl didn’t reply. She just stared up at Kana with scared eyes that revealed she was pretty much stuck.
Just then there was another loud moan, and a second zombie appeared at the end of the opposite corner. To make matters worse, the door to the second building started rattling. Kana looked around and weighed her options. “Hetta-Kuso,” she cursed again. They were surrounded on all three sides. The only way out was to go back the way she came. And to do that she had to not only free the girl, but somehow get her over the barbed wire lining the top of the fence.
Looking down at the girl, Kana said, “I’ll go get help. Just…hang on. I’ll be right back.” As she turned to leave, she heard a weak voice weighed down with fear call out to her.
“Please, don’t leave me.”
Kana stopped in her tracks, but she didn’t dare look back. Her fear overwhelmed her and all she could think about was getting out of there. Ignoring the small child’s plea for help, Kana went back through the storage room doors, back the way she had come, and ignored the little girl’s pleas for help.
As she passed back down the hallway, past the bathrooms, and entered the main floor of the building, she suddenly heard the child scream out, “Don’t leave me! Please, don’t leave me.”
Feeling terrible, Kana stepped out of the supermarket entrance, her head bowed and her shoulders slumped. She felt worthless. Suddenly, Kevin bounded up to her and grabbed her by the elbow. “Come on, we gotta split. There’s at least seven more of them headed this way.”
“But…” Kana began, looking back over her shoulder, back in the direction of the little girl. She wanted to tell him, but if they went back now they’d be trapped too, with no way out. What could she do? Kana looked him in the eyes and then took his hand in hers.
“Hurry, this way,” Kevin said, taking the lead.
They jogged away from the store. As they ran, Kana reassured herself that the girl could still get free. She still had a chance. But as much as Kana wanted that to be true, she suspected the worst.
Embarrassed by her failure to save the young girl, Kana thought it best to keep the terrible incident to herself. If Kevin knew what she had done, if he found out that she just left a small child behind to die, he’d never trust her ever again. Worse than that, he certainly wouldn’t have any reason to trust her to be alone with their own child.
The only way she could ensure his trust was to hide this awful thing she’d done. Keep it a secret from him lest he discover she was nothing but a useless coward who cared more about saving her own ass than helping someone in their greatest time of need.
37
Once in a Lullaby
Minato Region, Tokyo Tower
Panoramic blue skies filled the gaping hole in the roof of the lorry truck’s carriage. Saeko gazed up at the tranquil clouds wafting by and remembered fondly when she used to pretend they were the shapes of animals. She half-expected to see a flock of birds fly overhead, but ever since the outbreak there had been barely a twitter or a peep.
Saeko looked around and discovered that she was lying inside what appeared to be a delivery truck full of pastries and breads. It had probably been on its way from the bakery to the local supermarket or convenience store, she mused.
The large aluminum carriage was filled primarily with cardboard boxes that, in turn, were filled with little individually wrapped breads and soft cream-filled pastries. It was like falling through a tinfoil blanket only to land on cardboard filled with hundreds of little puffed-up plastic-wrapped bread pillows. Again, Saeko found that she had somehow managed to cheat death. Even so, that didn’t prevent her from feeling the splitting pain in her side.
Looking down at her torso, she discovered the cause of the searing pain. A large shard of aluminum had torn off when she slammed through the carriage’s roof and had cut through the right side of her abdomen. Straight through her kidney. The gory scene looked as though a crazed magician had tried to saw
his showgirl in half, only with a real saw, leaving the ghastly blade in so she’d bleed out on the stage for all to see.
Alarmed, Saeko grabbed the aluminum sheet with both hands and took a deep breath. White-hot pain surged through her side as she pried the metal sheet out of her abdomen. Eventually the sharp twinge of pain suddenly became too much to bear and she screamed out in agony.
Discarding the scrap metal, Saeko waited for her side to heal. It would only take a few minutes. The more she grew accustomed to her newfangled powers, the more she realized that it was possible to literally count the minutes it took for her body to mend itself. She was getting better at gauging the time it took for certain types of wounds to heal too. For example, a broken bone took about fifteen minutes to mend itself whereas a flesh wound, such as a serious gouge like the one she was currently dealing with, took about five minutes to completely mend.
Waiting for her body to heal, she continued gazing up at the blue sky overhead and contemplated the fact that she couldn’t even die right. If the thousand-foot leap off Tokyo Tower couldn’t even end her, as morbid as it was to think about, Saeko wondered if it was even possible for her to die.
Every awakening was too damn painful. Broken bones and dislocated limbs had to be reset. Bone fractures mended themselves. Dislodged teeth somehow grew back in. No matter how badly she got beat up, no matter how disfigured she became, somehow her body always snapped back into shape. It was like being made of human memory foam, always able to regain her original form. And each time was just as painful as the last. Which put her off trying to make any further suicide attempts.
She figured there must be a limit to how much self-inflicted torture she was willing to put herself through for a stupid boy. And if she’d learned anything by now, it was that this, right here, was probably her limit.
Annoyed with herself, Saeko knew that such self-abuse was immature. She hated the fact that she was acting like a foolish little girl with severe codependency issues. How pathetic could one girl get? Grow up, she told herself.
As far as she was concerned, she was over Kevin Benjamin Russell. This time was the last time she tortured herself on his behalf. Of course, there was a time when she would have gone to Hades and back again for him. But no more. Now he had someone new, and Saeko was determined to erase Kevin from her memory for good.
Groaning from the pain, Saeko motivated herself to sit up. As she did so, a sharp burning sensation shot into her ribcage. She groaned as her ribs fanned themselves and then snap-crackle-and-popped back into place. Feeling the worst had passed, she stood up and rocked her head on her shoulders, popping her vertebrae, then put her hands on her hips, arched her back, and straightened her posture. Everything seemed to be in working order.
Looking over at the rays of light shining into the carriage, she noticed that the loading doors were ajar. She presumed it was probably due to the impact of her crash through the rooftop after taking a swan dive off the top of Tokyo Tower. The force of the air was probably enough to blow the doors off the hinges.
Slipping on a plaster of exploded pastries, she made her way to the door and kicked it the rest of the way open. Pastries slid down out of the back of the truck and spilled out onto the pavement.
Saeko hopped down onto the street, dusted herself off, and then bent over and picked up a soft buttermilk bread roll that had caught her eye. Opening the plastic bag, she pinched out some soft bread and took a bite. It was delectable. It had a light buttery taste that drove her taste buds wild. She hadn’t had junk food like this in months. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten at all.
Taking another bite, she heard a loud moan and looked up. Approximately twenty meters away stood an undead man in a cheap suit looking right at her. He was a scruffy-looking man with frizzy gray hair and a goatee. His clothes were in tatters and he looked generally weathered. Saeko assumed he had probably been homeless before he was turned.
Scanning her surroundings, Saeko frowned. It wasn’t just one Walker she had to worry about, it was roughly fifty, give or take a few dozen. “Well, this bites,” she lamented, popping the last morsel of sweet bread into her mouth. With her mouth full of bread, she grumbled, “Can’t a girl catch a friggin’ break?”
Licking her fingers clean, Saeko crinkled the plastic wrapper in her hand then let it fall to the ground. Attracted to the noise, the monsters closed in on her position.
It was like the Tokyo Dome all over again—surrounded and outnumbered. But this time she wasn’t caught off guard. This time she had the advantage of wide open spaces and a blazing sun perched high above her to expose every creature before they got within biting distance. This time, she would dispense payback with the sting of her blade—the bringer of pain—and the cold bite of its steel.
As the horde drew nearer, shambling toward her with outstretched arms, their avaricious fingers knotted and curled, amid the din of their guttural moans, Saeko drew out her sword.
The elegant steel blade, with an oriental dragon etched into it, gleamed in the glorious daylight. Widening her stance, Saeko raised her blade high and braced herself for the onslaught. Only, this time, she’d be doing the slaughtering.
38
Urban Hideaway
The Tokyo Area, Near Sagamihara
Making one last sweep of the limousine bus they had discovered abandoned by the side of the road, Kevin scrupulously checked under and behind every seat for anything that might bite.
Having secured the bus, he let out a sigh of relief and made his way back up the aisle toward the door. It had turned dark outside faster than he would have liked, and so they had no choice but to hole up here for the night. Returning to the front, he poked his head out the door and said, “It’s safe.”
Kana quickly picked up their things and handed them to Kevin, who gladly took them and then helped her up into the bus. Slamming the door shut behind them, he piled their bags up against the door, which he made sure was locked.
Kana searched for blankets and pillows. Anything they might use for comfort and warmth. She checked the luggage space above the seats and found complimentary blankets. She took one and handed it to Kevin, who was already making himself comfortable in one of the middle section seats. She took another two seats for herself directly across from him, and used the extra blanket she’d roll up for a pillow.
Sitting in the seat adjacent to him, Kana looked over at Kevin, who had his arms folded across his chest and looked as though he was fast asleep. “You awake?”
“Yup.”
“Do you think we’ll be safe here?”
Without cracking his eyelids, Kevin remained calm and replied, “As safe as we’ll ever be in the middle of the city with hordes of Biters roaming the streets. If we stay quiet tonight, any stragglers should just ignore us and pass us by.”
“Still, I’d feel safer sleeping in an apartment building or someplace like that.”
“I know,” Kevin said with a sympathetic sigh. “But the place we had staked out was cut off by the first horde that we ran into. The second horde caught us by surprise and chased us five blocks in the wrong direction. I’m afraid we’ve used up all our daylight hours. Better to lay low here for the night than wonder aimlessly through the dark streets hoping for something comfortable like a bed and breakfast.”
“I saw a love hotel down the street,” Kana informed him. “It was only about two or three kilometers back.”
Kevin had seen it and contemplated crashing there for the night, but given his last experience at a love hotel, he had decided against it. “Normally, I would have. But I just wanted us to push as far as we could before the night settled.”
“I see,” Kana said, sounding disappointed. If they had the comfort of a bed, she was planning to go down on him. A little thank you for keeping her safe and working so hard to keep them on the true and steady course.
Unable to sleep, Kevin pulled out a folded-up map of the city from his inside jacket pocket. He unfolded it and t
hen, using a small flashlight, marked their position on the map with his finger. He calculated how much land they’d have to traverse before making it out of the city. Once he’d finished his estimate, he folded the map back up and tucked it back inside of his jacket.
“How much farther till we get to your dream oasis away from the city?” Kana asked.
“About another seven kilometers to the edge of Sagamihara. Then thirty-eight more to Lake Yamanaka at the base of Mount Fuji. If we get up early we should be able to make it out of the city by afternoon. Then we’ll head toward Doshi which will bring us halfway to Mount Fuji.”
“Great, more walking,” Kana said with a touch of sarcasm. She blew some loose strands of hair out of her face and slouched down in her seat.
“Let’s just try and get some rest,” Kevin said. With that, he rolled over and pulled his blanket over his head.
Kevin felt that they should have left the city much earlier. A point of contention they’d often argued over. Tokyo was a concrete jungle including a tangle of power lines, like sprawling vines, which spread down every street as far as the eye could see. In front of them the famous Mount Fuji stood tall, and just behind them a denticulated silhouette of skyscrapers perched upon the horizon. A cityscape infested with a plague of living dead. It was a virtual death trap. Their only hope was moving forward, never backward.
Surviving the hungry city wasn’t an easy task. It took all you had just to scavenge food, or find toilet paper, or even a bar of soap. If you were careful, real careful, you had a slim chance of surviving. All you needed was a backup plan and a backup plan to that backup plan. But ultimately the city had grown too dangerous.
What bothered Kevin the most was that there was just no way to predict where the zombies would show up. They moved around at random, which made them extremely unpredictable. Some days there wasn’t a monster in sight. Other days you were making use of that backup plan of the backup plan and hoping you didn’t need at least one more backup plan.