by Tristan Vick
Suddenly a hand grabbed his boot. Looking down, he saw Rina slowly pulling herself out of the crater, crawling towards him on her hands and knees. She coughed up blood and then groaned. Reaching forward, she grasped at his foot and looked up at him with those haunting white eyes.
Admiral Sakaguchi shook her off and then climbed into the stealth helicopter. As it climbed into the evening sky, he looked down at the zombie version of Rina that stretched her bloodied hand into the downdraft, reaching upward, ineffectuality grasping at him. As the chopper pulled away, he raised his right hand and saluted. He could still see her staring up at him with her haunting, bleached gaze as she shrank away into the distance. He hated the fact that things had gone south like this, but the mission succeeded because of her sacrifice. He’d make sure to honor her with a proper funeral ceremony.
The black stealth helo cut through the night sky and made one final pass of the Skytree. It buzzed by close enough to rattle even Gen’s nerves and then took a sharp turn and headed South, toward Tokyo harbor. As it flew away from the tower the Admiral’s watch beeped. The moment the last chime had finished, a thunderous boom rang out behind him.
The night sky lit up as yellow and orange fireballs shot out of the sides and top observation decks of the Skytree which lit up like a Polynesian Tiki torch. The Admiral smiled.
“Nitroglycerin tablets and roll of C4,” he whispered to himself triumphantly.
It had taken him months of planning, but finally he was able to get in close enough to take down Gen “The Barbarian” and put an end to his sick and twisted empire built on the backs of sex slaves once and for all. Admiral Sakaguchi didn’t care that they were little zombie girls. Sick was sick.
In the Admiral’s opinion, there was a special place in hell reserved for men like Ijin Gen and he got exactly what he deserved—a painful, fiery death. A fitting end for such a treacherous snake.
32
Belly of the Beast
Tokyo Metro Subway System, Near Ginza Region
Deep in the bowels of Tokyo, Saeko Sakaguchi followed Rachael Ramirez past the derelict ticket gates and out onto the deserted subway platform.
The only light that was coming in shone from the mouth of the tunnel from street level up above. Saeko stepped cautiously past the rows of support columns which held up the ceiling, yet Rachael merely strode past, unafraid of any hidden dangers that might be lurking deep within the shadows.
Saeko looked around to see if any of the Biters had followed them down into the tunnel. She paused next to Rachael, who was just standing at the edge of the platform, as if she was waiting for a train. “What are we doing?” she asked.
“What does it look like?” Rachael replied, not paying Saeko any mind.
“It looks like we’re waiting,” Saeko said, a hint of annoyance in her voice.
“Then we’re waiting.”
“Waiting for what?” Saeko rolled her eyes and looked at Rachael as if she was from another planet. “I hate to break it to you, sister, but the electricity has been down since the outbreak. No power, no trains. In fact, most of the tunnels are blockaded up by the tens of dozens of empty husks of abandoned or wrecked cars.”
“Not all of the tunnels are offline,” Rachael informed.
“What do you mean, not all of the tunnels are offline? How would you even know that?”
Just then a headlight lit up the entire platform and a fully live train screeched to a halt in front of them. It had appeared so unexpectedly that Saeko took a step back and stood looking at it in awe, her mouth agape. It was as though it had come straight out of a dream of happier days.
The doors slid open and Rachael casually climbed aboard. Realizing Saeko was still frozen there, staring in shock and awe, she looked back at her and asked, “Are you coming or not?”
“Who are you? Who are you really?” Saeko asked. Suddenly there were loud moans and she looked back at the tunnel in time to see dark figures shambling down the stairs, making their way toward the pair. Without further hesitation Saeko jumped on board and the doors swooshed shut behind her.
As soon as the doors closed, a throng of pale hands slammed against the glass. Saeko wasn’t startled so much as annoyed, since she had expected it, but she moved away from the glass just to be on the safe side.
As the train lurched forward, the pallid hands scraped along the glass, but were powerless to keep up with the train which pulled away without a hitch, causing several of the monsters to fall onto tracks. Saeko almost laughed watching them stumble along behind them, the red taillights of the train dimly lighting them up just long enough to make out their hideous injuries before they faded away and the darkness swallowed them up.
While the train proceeded into the depths of the dark tunnel, the familiar sound and rhythm of a train traveling along its tracks soothed Saeko’s weary soul. Tears started to well up in her eyes as she realized how much she missed riding the trains and that comforting rhythm of the daily grind that was such a vital a part of her life before the outbreak. The nostalgia was overwhelming.
Getting a grip on herself, she looked over at this Rachael Ramirez woman with a suspicious glance then leaned back on a bench seat and pulled up her skirt. Saeko took out a pack of Mild Seven cigarettes she kept in a garter around her leg along with a stainless steel Zippo lighter. She tapped the package and held it out toward Rachael. “Do you want one?”
Rachael indicated that she didn’t and Saeko teased out a cigarette and kissed it to her lips. Bringing it up, she flipped open the lighter and lit up her cigarette. Blowing smoke in Rachael’s direction, Saeko put on her tough girl demeanor, and asked, “So who the hell is driving this train?”
“A friend.”
“A friend? Have a lot of those in Japan, do you?”
Rachael didn’t appreciate the girl’s attitude but didn’t want to provoke a fight so just bit her tongue. She imagined Hector might have been like this had he survived till adolescence.
“Like I said, nobody just wanders around the city. You were obviously hunting it.”
“I was,” Rachael replied. “It and all the others like it.”
“What?! There are more of those things out there?”
“Yes.”
“How many have you killed?”
“Including the one today…five, so far. And just like the other ones, it made its way here—to this city.”
“To Tokyo? Why would it come here? What do they want?”
“I don’t know yet. But I intend to find out.”
Saeko leaned back on the bench, brushed down her skirt, and crossed her legs. Once comfortable, she tucked her cigarettes and lighter back into the leather straps tied around her thigh. Although she wasn’t finished with her cigarette yet she figured she’d smoked up the car enough as it was and put it halfway out on the windowsill of the car, leaving its smoldering carcass there to fizzle itself out. “So, what then? You came to my rescue purely by accident?”
Rachael nodded in the affirmative. “Just a lucky coincidence.”
“Gee. Thanks. I guess,” Saeko replied halfheartedly.
“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” a familiar voice called out. “You’re not that special.”
Saeko spun around to see Daiichi Endo saunter up to them from the conductor’s cabin of the train.
“Endo-san!” Saeko shouted with glee, and leapt up onto him, wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, and kissed him on his lips. She lingered longer than was comfortable for him, since they weren’t exactly a couple, but she loved to tease him like that.
Rachael raised an eyebrow and then looked away, trying not to appear overly nosey.
Endo had mixed feelings about Saeko. She was old enough to be a lover but she was the Admiral’s daughter. Although she had made her feelings for him abundantly clear ever since they’d met two years ago, he didn’t want to complicate things by dating the boss’s daughter.
Not that they weren’t close or anything. He felt the connection too. It
was just the principle of the thing. Or as he’d often explained to her, the logistics of it just didn’t work out in their favor.
Sliding down his chest in the most seductive way possible, Saeko looked up and laughed at his standoffishness. Although she loved to torture him, she was still genuinely pleased to see him alive and well. “I’m so glad you’re alright,” she said, gazing longingly into his eyes.
“Likewise,” he said. He kept his stoic gaze, trying not to show too much emotion. It was the soldier’s way; it was the warrior’s way.
“So, Commander, it was you who cleared the tunnels then?” Rachael asked, trying to steer the focus away from the horny girl trying to plaster herself to the handsome soldier like a strip of papier-mâché.
“It was the Admiral’s idea, ma’am.”
“Of course it was,” Saeko said, her voice dripping with contempt.
Endo turned toward Rachael and explained the situation. “You see, Ms. Ramirez, the Admiral realized that three million underground was a lot easier to handle than twenty-four million above ground. Besides, if we were ever going to have a chance to take back Tokyo, we’d need to have a means of getting around safely, undetected. The subway was our best bet.”
“Makes sense,” Rachael said.
Endo turned back toward Saeko who was still staring at him intensely. He continued explaining the situation to them. “We blocked off certain areas, and then, using a fleet of heavily armed drones, we were able to clear entire blocks of the grid. After that it was just clean up and grunt work. It has taken two years, but we have four tunnels up and running.”
“That’s amazing,” Saeko gushed. She had probably gushed more than was necessary to relay her excitement, but she wanted Endo to know how genuinely impressed she was—not just with the success of the mission but with him as well.
“It’s just a job,” he said, blushing.
“No, it’s more than that. It gives us a real fighting chance,” Saeko beamed. She played it up to make sure Endo knew she was flirting with him, and to further stress her point, she hugged him again and squeezed him tight. She loved how his muscles tensed from her mere touch. She wondered if every part of him got this tense.
“Well, if you’ll excuse me,” Endo informed them, prying off Saeko’s clingy hands, “I have a train to run.”
Commander Endo placed Saeko’s roaming hands at her side with a forceful nudge, as if to try and make them stick there, then looked back over at Rachael and shot her a reassuring glance before he took his leave.
“Wait,” Saeko called out after Endo as he turned back toward the conductor’s cabin. “Where are we going anyway?”
“You’ll see,” Endo replied.
“You know I hate surprises, right?”
Endo just chortled lightly and went back to manning the helm of the subway train.
Saeko smiled and pulled up her skirt, flashing her skinny legs at Rachael. She plopped down hard on the bench across from the older woman. “So. What’s your story?” Saeko asked, attempting to break the awkward silence.
“My story?” Rachael echoed.
“Yeah,” Saeko said. “I’m interested.”
Rachael looked at Saeko’s eyes and sensed a sprite curiosity and youthful exuberance that she felt had been missing in her life for quite some time. The girl had been genuine in everything she’d said, so Rachael figured it couldn’t hurt to share the condensed version of her horror filled tale.
“My son was one of the first in my city to become infected. The day it happened, the day of the outbreak, he disappeared. I searched everywhere for him. I held out hope for as long as I could that I would find him again and that he’d be fine. I kept on telling myself it was all just a bad dream; that I’d wake up. I held onto that thought best I could. For the longest time, it was the only thing keeping me going. But the world just kept getting worse. In my search for Hector, I met up with a band of survivors, and, well, the rest is history, as they say.”
“Did you ever find him? Your son, I mean.”
Rachael looked away and stared down the empty corridor of the train, into the adjoining car. It was completely vacant. What a strange sight, she thought. An empty subway traveling through downtown Tokyo—for some reason it left her with a hollow feeling inside.
“Yes,” she answered solemnly. “I eventually found him, but…” Rachael turned her face away from Saeko. Her eyes flooded with tears.
“But?” Saeko asked with bated breath. “But he wasn’t—“
“No,” Rachael said, cutting Saeko short. Before Rachael could finish her sentence, the breaks bit down and gripped the train’s wheels, sending up sparks as steel scraped against steel. Slowly, the train screeched to a halt.
“We’re here,” Endo called out to them from the front. Stopped on the tracks, the train hissed as the hydraulic pressure of the breaks released, and then the doors slid open. In no time at all, Commander Endo was outside the entrance, motioning for them to come out. “It’s all clear.”
Rachael wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand then stepped out onto the platform without finishing her story. There was no need. Everyone knew the ending stories of the apocalypse—it was tragedy topped off with a touch of more tragedy.
Saeko shrugged, as if to say oh well, and then picked up the still smoldering cigarette from the windowsill and took one last drag on it, sucking out whatever fire remained. Having had her fill of it, she flicked the butt down onto the floor of the train and stamped it out with the heel of her shoe then follow after them.
33
The Devil Unmasked
Tokyo Skytree, Upper Observation Deck
Maya rushed up the stairs as the elevator screeched past her. Throwing up sparks, its severed cables whipped at the shaft like a dozen hissing snakes as it plummeted down toward ground level. Luckily, she had stepped out of the elevator just in time to be knocked on her ass from the sudden blast. It had only taken her a few seconds to figure out what had happened. The Admiral had betrayed them.
Maya reached the top observation deck and burst through the door, which was aflame, and ran out into the middle of what was left of the room. She skidded to a halt and gasped at what she saw.
Half of the room was missing—completely torn away by the explosion. A large gaping hole revealed a starry void expanding infinitely before her. Due to their extreme height the vast expanse was utterly terrifying...as if the night sky had swallowed them up.
The glow of moonlight highlighted the dark silhouette of Ijin Gen’s burned body, still smoldering from being roasted by the fireball.
At the far edge of what remained of the upper floor, Gen sat on his knees in the formal Japanese manner, the way a martial artist does when they are being instructed. His clothing was all but eaten away by the fiery blast; his blackened skin bubbled with third degree burns, his bare head glistened like a flayed salmon. He looked as if he had just clawed his way out of the ninth circle of hell.
He wheezed heavily, his lungs fighting to take in fresh air. His charred skin cracked with each his chest heave. It was a miracle he had survived at all.
Maya couldn’t tell if he had heard her come onto the observation deck or not, but suddenly, Gen’s bloodshot eyes flicked open and locked onto her. Slowly, his blackened lips peeled back to reveal bloody gums and broken white teeth grinning manically at her.
It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
Ijin Gen stood up, groaning as he struggled against the harsh pain of burnt skin tissue and injuries from the force of the the explosion. Bits of singed skin, no more than charcoal, flaked off as he stood up. The untarnished white of his teeth contrasted eerily against his charred facial meat as he held his manic grin. Looking down, he inspected his blistered hand and smiled even more.
The pain that Gen felt was excruciating. Every nerve in his body cried out in agony, as if a hundred thousand vicious tattoo needles had pierced him all at the same time. Stumbling over to the edge, Gen
stood on the cusp of the crippled observation deck and looked out over the ledge with dark terrible eyes—eyes as cold and hard as marble but with a fury as hot as a raging furnace and, after a long silence, he laughed. He laughed long and hard, blood seeping from fissures across his ruined lips. Eventually his laughter grew into a maniacal roar. Then he stopped laughing and spoke.
“I want the Admiral’s head on a silver platter!”
Maya politely bowed, and then turned on her heels to head back down the stairwell to do her master’s bidding.
“Wait!” he called out.
Maya stopped and turned around.
Ijin Gen fiddled with his left pinky finger. It was overcooked to the point of having completely transformed into a piece of charcoal. Pinching it with his right hand he twisted it and, with a crunch, snapped it off. Gen dropped it on the ground and turned toward Maya. She looked at his beastly disfigurement. The blackness of his burnt body now matched the blackness of his soul. It seemed to her as though he’d finally taken his true form—and it was glorious.
Maya’s eyes roamed down his naked, blistered and peeling body until they fixed themselves upon a bloody, erect cock. She grew wet at the mere thought of fucking this abomination. She imagined Gen must be godlike to endure such insufferable pain, but she knew he would suffer it and a thousand agonies more, if necessary, just to be with her now. That’s how she knew that he loved her.
Maya reached down and grabbed the slit of her cocktail dress and tore it open all the way to the waist. She wore nothing underneath. She spread her long legs and exposed her bush to him. She put her fingers in her mouth, then slowly reached down, parting her lips to touch herself. Her head fell back, she held herself wide for him to see how wet she had become.
Gen wrapped his hands around her neck and slammed her hard into a steel cross beam. So hard she cried out from the pain, but at the same time she couldn’t conceal her excitement. She wanted him inside her.