by Tristan Vick
“Ma’am?” the guard repeated, nodding at the helicopter and then flashing her a glimpse of the hand grenade he held in the palm of his hand.
“No,” Saeko answered. “That won’t be necessary. You can all stand down. I’ll handle this personally.”
Saeko crouched down as she approached the chopper to avoid the whirling blades. As she approached the olive-colored military aircraft, the large siding door on the side opened, and a uniformed soldier held it back, inviting her in.
Without hesitating she climbed aboard and, as soon as she was securely inside, the door slammed into place and the Merlin buzzed furiously as its three turboshaft engines roared to life. With determination, the giant green insectile machine sluggishly rose into the early morning sky and then urgently zipped across the horizon.
15
Devil’s Foreplay
An Undisclosed Warehouse, Midtown Tokyo
Stepping into the dimly lit room, Gen Koyanagi took off his ruby lens sunglasses and brushed his long, feathery dark hair out of his eyes. Although Gen smiled admiringly, something was missing behind his eyes. In fact, his unfeeling gaze betrayed the depths of the cold, obsidian blackness of his heart. Dressing it up with a smile couldn’t hide the fact that a real monster lurked just beneath the surface of his skin.
Gen strolled over to a female zombie tied to a metal bed frame with no mattress—just naked wire springs—that lay in the middle of the empty warehouse. The girl wore a tattered high school uniform consisting of a white collared shirt dappled with blood splatter. A forest green necktie hung askew; at one time it had coordinated with a blue and green plaid skirt. A, now ripped and stained. The tattered skirt did little to conceal the snarling girl’s white cotton panties, since her legs were spread wide open, each foot securely tied to opposite ends of the bed frame.
Gen inspected her as if he was inspecting a slab of expensive Kobe beef, then grabbed the petite, snarling girl by her chin, ignoring the fact that she desperately struggled to break free of his grip so she could bite off his fingers.
“How fresh is she?” Gen asked.
Maya Nishimori, Gen’s faithful associate, wore a tight fitting black skirt suit that accented her trim waist and full hips. She pulled out a notepad and tapped the screen, bringing up the subject’s file. “She’s about eighteen hours…old,” she replied in a monotone; the kind of voice which denoted a keen professionalism as much as it did a complete lack of moral conscience.
Licking his lips, a cruel smile crept onto Gen’s face. “A rare treat, to find something so young and fresh.”
Gen put his arms behind his back and bent over the bed, putting his face dangerously close to the colorless eyes of the girl’s pallid face. A succession green branching veins appeared just under the girl’s oddly translucent skin, which Gen caressed ever so softly and watched in morbid amusement as she stained to get at him with ferocious, snapping jowls.
Maya sighed impatiently as she waited for Gen to stop fooling around with the creature and asked, “Will you be requiring anything else of me, sir?”
Gen looked at Maya Nishimori and then at the sixteen year old zombie tied up before him. He relished the thought of what he was about to do to the poor creature. “It’s not rape if she’s already dead, isn’t that right, Nishimori?”
“I don’t believe so, Sir.”
“Gag her for me.”
“As you wish, Sir,” Maya answered dutifully.
She approached the bedside and picked up a ball-styled mouth-gag, the kind used in hardcore S&M bondage sex, and shoved the red ball into the girls biting mouth, careful not to get her fingers in the way of those ornery clacking teeth in the process. After she secured the straps, Maya motioned with her open hand, as if she was presenting the girl as an offering, and gave a slight bow to Master Gen as she backed away.
“Oh, one other thing,” Gen added, as he unbuttoned shirt. “Get yourself ready for this evening. I need you by my side, looking presentable.”
Without saying another word, Maya respectfully bowed and then watched impassively as Gen stripped bare and, his flaccid penis dangling between his legs, inched toward the snarling monster with a sick and twisted yearning.
16
Tokyo Protocol
The Ruins of Narita International Airport, Chiba
Black boots clomped along the floor of the vacant corridor as a Special Forces team of highly trained Japanese Self Defense Force soldiers entered the main hub of Narita International Airport.
Each member of the seven-man team was armed with Colt M4A1 assault rifles fully equipped with grenade launchers and suppressors. Along with their black face masks and night vision goggles, the team’s black clothing made them look like modern warfare versions of the infamous Shinobi ninjas of Japan’s illustrious past.
The team entered the vast baggage check area of the airport; one of the soldiers tossed two HC canisters to lay down a thick smoke screen. The canisters rattled around on the ground, leaving a trail of white smoke behind them, and finally came to a standstill in the middle of a large throng of loitering undead. The veil of smoke quickly filled the room and engulfed the lumbering monsters that had been taken by surprise.
The Special Ops squad squatted down and lowered the infrared eye-pieces mounted on their helmets. The pounding of boots on polished cement quickly faded into noiseless shuffling as the soldiers vanished into the smoke.
The group of confused undead, which consisted of deteriorating salary men and unlucky layovers, fumbled about in the thick haze, unaware of what was happening. The Special Ops team knew from experience that smoke crippled the creature’s senses, especially their sight and smell. Unable to get a fix on their next bite, the monsters just bumbled aimlessly about.
Suddenly, the central soldier of the group tossed a green flare into the middle of the zombie pack and, lighting a swath of the gray smoke with a pale, lime green glow. That was the “go” signal. Suddenly a serious of red laser beams flickered on and quickly honed in on their unsuspecting targets.
“Shoot anything that’s black, blue, and red all over,” Commander Daiichi Endo ordered. “Anything without a heartbeat and warm blood pulsing through its veins is fair game. And remember, make every shot count.”
Sporadic gun fire echoed through the high-ceilinged chamber of the infested airport. Monsters moaned out in stomach wrenching agony, but could not find their prey. One by one the dead dropped like flies and collapsed into heaps on the ground until none were left standing, the ravenous moaning completely silenced.
Breaking the new quiet, Commander Endo shouted out, “Spartan formation, now!” As the smoke settled, the soldiers regrouped, forming a defensive circle in the middle of the promenade, backs together, facing in all directions.
Holding up an Echo-locator gun, which looked more like a camera with a wide zoom angle lens than a weapon, one of the soldiers pulled the trigger and watched the digital monitor as green sonar waves rippled out at a pitch inaudible to the human ear. Looking over at the commander, the soldier said, “No movement detected.”
Commander Endo grunted, as if to say that was satisfactory. “Alright, I want eyes on every exit. Mr. Takeda…”
“Yes, Sir,” Takeda answered, saluting the commander.
“Execute operation ‘Baitcaster.’’
“WILCO, Sir,” Takeda said with a sly grin; he’d been waiting for this. Crouching down, he pulled out a silver Sony boom box from a large black duffel bag and powered it on. Reaching into his vest pocket, he fished out a CD of Enka, a traditional Japanese folk music featuring sentimental ballads, and placed it into the disc loader.
While Commander Endo’s team were preparing for more zombies to stumble into their ambush, they failed to notice amidst the settling smoke and blasting music a mysterious shadowy figure standing perfectly still on the second-story walkway, watching them with dark eyes.
17
Disruption
Military Escort: Mid-Flight, Somewhere Over Tokyo
“We should be right over it any moment now, Ma’am.”
Out of the corner of her eye, something caught Saeko’s attention and she looked over at the pilot. The pilot seemed to be nodding off at the wheel. Without warning, the helicopter abruptly dipped then corrected itself. Saeko’s escort looked over his shoulder to see what had caught her attention. Noting the same precarious situation, he leaned over and tried to shake the pilot awake.
“Hey, buddy, snap out of it!”
As soon as he put his hand on the man’s shoulder, however, the pilot slowly turned his head, revealing white, frosted eyes. He let out a terrifying hiss. Snarling with hunger pangs, the pilot sank his teeth into the alarmed soldier’s hand. He yelped out in pain and yanked back, trying to free himself from his comrade’s jaws.
“Arghhhh!” The soldier tore his hand away from the chomping mouth of the pilot, who was held back by his safety harness, and then clutched his wrist. “He bit me!”
“Baka yaro!” Saeko cursed, reprimanding herself for her short-sightedness. Shit like this is why she never goddamn fucking flew anymore. Without a moment’s hesitation, Saeko lifted her skirt and slid out her over-sized Bowie knife. The soldier, gripping his wounded hand tightly, turned just in time to see her raise the blade high above her.
Eyes wide with fear, he cried out, “No, wait! I’m fine. It’s just a scra–”
“Sorry,” Saeko said, apologizing after the fact. “But I don’t have time for this bullshit.”
She ripped the knife back out of his face; blood splattered across the side window of the helicopter. Saeko quickly turned toward the cockpit and, with all her strength, stabbed the knife into the back of the pilot’s head.
Her lethal blow pierced the base of his skull and the blade tip exited his face through one orbital socket causing the now single-eyed pilot to slump over onto the flight controls which, subsequently, sent the chopper into a spinning free reel.
As the vehicle whirled out of control, Saeko was knocked off her feet and tossed around the cabin. Being pressed into the side wall by the increasing G-forces, she heard the engines screaming as the machine entered a downward tailspin. The squeal of the rotors and blare of collision alarm signaled the aircraft’s imminent demise as it plummeted from the sky.
Unable to fight the extreme G-forces pushing and pulling on her, Saeko slammed into the ceiling along with the other soldier she’s just dispatched. This knocked the wind out of her lungs, but before she could recuperate she abruptly slammed back down onto the floor when, suddenly, the chopper impacted with the side of the Mode Gakuen Tower in Shinjuku, downtown Tokyo.
The explosive crack of shattering glass and the grating sound of twisting of metal rang out as the Merlin tore its way through the mid-section of the beautiful, softly peaked oval building like a blazing comet.
The initial impact wasn’t enough to halt the aircraft’s momentum though, and with a blast of splintered glass and a spray of sparks, the screaming helicopter shot straight through the building, in one end and out the other, then smashed into the steel framed skyscraper on the opposite side of the street.
Fortunately, the second impact stopped the Merlin’s momentum, and it became logged in the side of the building. Just as the smoke settled, there was the sound of steel twisting and crumpling and the helicopter rolled out of its small impact crater and plummeted toward the ground once more.
I just can’t catch a break, Saeko thought as she flopped around inside the cabin before smashing back down onto the floor again. She looked up just in time to see the engine catch on fire. “Kuso!” she shouted as a mammoth fireball engulfed the helicopter.
Looking out the window, the flames blown back, all that Saeko could see was the concrete rushing toward her at breakneck speed. Reflexively, she put out her hands to shield herself from the violent impact—as though it would do any good. She knew it wouldn’t help even as she automatically went through the motions.
Abruptly, the vehicle clamped down around her like a metal bear-trap and she experienced the full, bone crushing pain of the final collision. The sheer force of being crushed alive along with the unrelenting dizziness from all the lurching and spinning made her want to puke her guts out. At the same time, her ears filled with the clamor of crinkling steel mingled with the awful sound of her own bones popping and snapping, like the crunch of a light bulb being squashed under a boot, as she succumbed to the weight of the helicopter multiplied tenfold by the violence of the impact.
Before shock could numb her to the pain, however, she felt every agonizing and lacerating sting. Luckily, her torment was swiftly ended by the black shroud of death that mercifully overcame her.
18
Rendezvous
Tokyo Bay, Off the Cost of Yokohama
Rina Kobayashi stood on the deck of the Japanese Hyuga-class helicopter carrier, the largest and most advanced battle carrier on the planet. Dressed in her white, formal dress uniform, she waited for Admiral Kazuma Sakaguchi to arrive. Behind her sat a state-of-the-art vertical take-off and landing transport vehicle with stealth technology. Its black polygraphite skin and angular contours made it look like the love child of an F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter and a V-22 Osprey—or a black swan turned Terminator. The pilot had already begun prepping the engines for take-off.
Under the cover of darkness, Admiral Sakaguchi marched up to Rina, saluted, and climbed into the VTOL without so much as a word. Tonight’s mission was off the books, and considering that the Admiral was involved, only Rina and the select pilot knew anything about it. As far as the rest of the crew were concerned, the Admiral was making a quick visit to see his daughter and then coming straight back. What they were actually up to was of a far more sensitive nature.
The whir of the twin rotors became deafening as the turbine engines revved up. Rina climbed in and slammed the door shut. As the VTOL climbed into the air and swung around the control tower, the Admiral looked out the window and saluted at the officers on deck. The VTOL climbed into the air and upon reaching an optimal altitude, its rotors shifted and switched from helicopter to airplane mode. Once it pulled away from the carrier’s lights, the VTOL’s black body faded into the darkness. Not even a hint of moonlight was able to reflect off the light-absorbent surface of the sleek mechanical bird.
19
Infectious Evil
An Undisclosed Basement Storage Facility, Tokyo
The cavernous basement of the Parco department store was framed by nothing but the skeletal structure of exposed steel beams. Lit up by a series of aluminum capped halogen lamps that hung from the wire strewn ceiling, a small gathering of people dressed in expensive business suits and cocktail dresses, gathered around a young zombie girl who was strapped to a metal bed. They whispered to each other in hushed voices, avoiding eye contact with the others around them. Surrounding these spectators was a contingency of armed men in black suits, dark sunglasses, and fully automatic weapons, who along the walls and exits. They watched over the proceedings like vigilant guardians, making sure everyone felt secure amid the evening’s activities.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Please, feast your eyes on this delectable piece of flesh recently recovered from the ruins of Akihabara,” said Maya Nishimori in a heavy, Japanese accent. Making a grand, sweeping bow, she waved her hand, gesturing toward the bed, which sat in the middle of the room. The disgruntled zombie girl writhed violently, fighting her restraints. “As you can see,” Maya added, “her skin has not yet begun to fester, her scent is still but a light, airy musk, minus the stench of rot and decay, and her loins are still moist enough to allow for easy penetration.”
Raising his hand, Gen added, “Bidding will start at two weeks’ rations for twelve or equivalent favors and services to be requested sometime in the near future. All of which confer a binding contract and must be fulfilled upon request.”
“Two weeks’ worth!” an American-sounding voice called out from amid the spectators.
“Five weeks!” a Chinese business man shouted.
An ebony woman stepped forward. She wore too much green eye-liner and held an oriental-styled fan made up of black raven feathers in front of her face. In a thick Haitian accent, she called out, “Six weeks and favors!”
“Fifteen weeks…and favors,” a Russian voice said in a hubristic tone.
The crowd of spectators gasped and turned to see who had made such a bellicose bid. Fifteen weeks for twelve people would be enough food and supplies to last Gen a year. The bidding ceased with a hush. As the crowd parted, a young Russian man with platinum blonde hair and a spotless white suit stepped out from amongst the gathering and swaggered over to the side of the bed where Gen greeted him with a firm handshake.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Gen said, addressing the crowd. “It appears we have ourselves a winner!”
Maya opened a leather bound ledger and handed the Russian a gold pen with an old fashioned ink nib, which he gladly took. He signed his name boldly, promising to fulfill his end of the bargain, and handed the pen back to Maya.
Once the business was finalized, Maya closed the ledger, bowed politely, and backed away.
Gen took two glasses of champagne from the tray of the maître d' who catered to the guests, handed one to the Russian, and raised his glass high. “Cheers!”
They clinked their glasses together then gulped down the fizzy beverages in one go. Gen set his glass back down on the tray while the Russian simply tossed his to the ground, where it burst and scattered across the polished floor.