by Tristan Vick
Before she could finish her sentence Gordon Longstaff’s sheet slipped off and fell to the floor. Both women looked down then right back up at each other with flushed cheeks, hot with embarrassment. Alyssa blushed and said, “Oopsie.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Patricia said. “I’m a doctor. I’ve seen it all before.”
“You got any clothes around here, doc?” Gordon asked, changing the conversation.
“I’m afraid I don’t. At least, not any men’s clothing that is. Are you fine wearing a woman’s summer dress?”
“If that’s all you got…then I’m fine with it.”
“Good,” Patricia laughed. “I’m sure you’ll look downright fetching.”
Alyssa and Patricia both giggled, but their jubilation was suddenly interrupted by a rapping at the door.
Without further notice, the door burst open and two female models urgently rushed into the room followed by none other than the Queen Bee herself, Jennifer Hurley.
As usual, Jen was dressed for shock value, and wore black tape over her nipples in the form of little x’s; below that she wore a custom made chastity belt fitted with a steel skull with sharpened fangs that dared anyone to even think about trying to get into her panties uninvited.
Jen’s knee-high platform boots, shiny skull knee-guards, and steel tipped toes clanked intimidatingly as she entered the room. The entire punk-goth ensemble was completed by a pair of matching, black leather arm straps, steel spiked leather wrist cuffs, and fingerless leather gloves.
Surrounded by five women, all of them looking at his junk, compelled Longstaff to sigh with a healthy dose of embarrassment.
Jen narrowed her eyes at Alyssa, as if to say “stay your ground,” then, after a brief pause, she smiled—a needless courtesy which Alyssa repaid in kind.
“Now that I have you all here,” Jen said, “I have a very special surprise.”
“Let me guess, you found your languishing soul and rushed right over here to tell us,” Gordon quipped.
“Very funny,” Jen chuckled, laughing superficially to show everyone how much of a good sport she was. Running her fingernails under his chin, she grinned at Longstaff, then turned and said, “But not quite. It’s something much more exciting.” With that out of the way, she turned on her heels and hastily exited the way she had come. As she went out into the hallway, she called out, “Meet me down at the docks in ten minutes.” With a bit of vaudeville in her voice, she sang out, “Don’t be late!”
The two models stayed behind and waited patiently.
“Is there something we can help you with?” Patricia asked, sounding rather upset.
“We have orders to bathe Mr. Longstaff and give him a shave and a trim.”
“Make him presentable,” the other girl stated.
“Presentable for what?” Alyssa asked.
“We don’t know, miss. We were just told to bathe him and clean him up.”
“You don’t have any cloths or water,” the doctor observed.
“To tell you the truth,” said one of the models nervously, brushing her hair back. “We were ordered to lick his wounds and…”
“Enough!” Alyssa barked heatedly, her face glowing red with anger. “Nobody is going to lick anything of his,” she growled, pointing at Gordon, who had snatched the pillow from Patricia’s bed and was covering himself with it. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, miss,” the first model said, averting her eyes to try and escape Alyssa’s smoldering gaze.
Gordon put his hand on Alyssa’s back to calm her, and said, “Thanks, but I think I’ll just take a quick rinse in the shower.”
“It’s in the back,” Patricia informed him, thumbing over her shoulder.
“Thanks,” he said. Then, with Alyssa’s assistance, he made his way toward the shower.
Once the bathroom door closed, Doctor Hemingway turned back toward the two women who gazed at her with terrified eyes and reprimanded them. “Ladies, I expected more from you.”
“We’re sorry, mistress. We’ll try harder.”
“Never mind,” Patricia said. “Just go and fetch his clothes. Chop, chop!”
The two women scurried away to do as they were told. Patricia didn’t want to risk them revealing her secrets, the way they were quaking and trembling before her as though she were some kind of monster. At least, not yet anyway.
61
Warrior’s Interlude
Aokigahara Village, Near Mt. Fuji, Japan
Birds chirped to alert the slumbering village that dawn had arrived. Enjoying the cool morning air, Rachael leaned against the rock wall that ran around the perimeter of the Shinto shrine inside the village. Nearby sat a spring-fed purification font that demarcated the entrance of the shrine. Sauntering over to the font, she reached in with cupped hands, drew up some water, and splashed her face. In addition to cleaning her face, the cold water helped shock her awake. Dipping her hands in again, this time she brought the cool liquid to her lips and took a drink.
Bending over, Rachael reached down and pulled out a handkerchief she kept tucked inside her boot. After drying off her face she folded the handkerchief neatly and tucked it back inside her boot.
Looking up as she finished, she spied six little stone statues, each wearing a tiny straw hat. They sat perched atop their own little mantelpiece starring directly back at her with plump faces.
One of the village elders, a tiny old woman in her late sixties with graying hair and who spoke a bit of English had passed by earlier and informed Rachael that the pleasant little statues were known as Kasa Jizou and were considered the guardian spirits of children. These little chubby Buddha-like rock guardians with their cute little hats loitered about Japan’s numerous shrines, acting as good luck charms and making people feel safe and secure.
Gazing out across the courtyard, Rachael unexpectedly witnessed Saeko sneaking out of Daiichi Endo’s tent, which he’d set up in the small park next to the school the night before. She carried her clothes bundled up in her arms and was completely naked except for her black lace panties. Saeko had turned to head toward the bathhouse when she saw Rachael leaning on a rock wall next to the series of Kasa Jizou statues starring right at her, and muttered to herself, “Shit.” She’d been caught, quite literally, with her pants down.
Rachael smiled and waved.
Embarrassed, Saeko decided there wasn’t anything she could do but own up to it, and walked over to where Rachael stood and greeted her with a pleasant “Good morning,” then added, “It’s not what it looks like.”
Rachael raised an eyebrow as if to say “Oh, really?”
“Well, okay. It’s totally what it looks like,” Saeko gushed. She could hardly contain herself. She had wanted to be with Endo for about a year now, but too many things kept preventing them from finding the time for it. Now she simply couldn’t stop smiling.
What’s more, all the flirtation, the effort, and the patience had totally been worth it. Initially Endo wouldn’t have anything to do with her. At first she thought it was because she was Admiral Sakaguchi’s daughter; she even considered the possibility that he didn’t like girls. But when she figured out that that wasn’t his hang up, she decided it was probably the fact that even though she was fast approaching her twenty-first birthday, she still looked exactly like the high school girl she was four years ago, before she’d become infected.
Apparently, slowed aging was a side effect of the Resurrection Virus, a strange effect which altered her physiology. She would perpetually look like underage jailbait. She wouldn’t mind it so much if it wasn’t for the unfortunate realization that her breasts probably wouldn’t fully develop until she turned ninety, if ever.
“So…you gonna keep me waiting? Let’s have every little juicy detail!”
Brushing a strand of dislodged hair out of her eyes, Saeko grinned sheepishly. “What would you like to know?” Saeko beamed.
“How big is it?” Rachael said, half-jokingly.
Saeko l
aughed. “I can’t tell you that!”
Rachael raised her eyebrow again.
Both girls laughed. Then Saeko blushed and said, “I couldn’t get enough of him. It was…passion. Hot, sweaty, tangy passion. We did it like seven times. My legs are still quivering with the aftershocks of…” Saeko covered her mouth and hushed herself. She hadn’t intended to share all the details. It just sort of slipped out.
“Good for you,” Rachael said, still beaming. She could remember a time when she was young and in love. Not that she was ancient or anything, but she was beginning to feel her age. Bending down, she hugged Saeko then whispered in her ear, “You’d better put some clothes on. There’s an old man checking you out from over by the chicken coop.”
Cautiously, Saeko looked over her shoulder and noticed the village early birds were already getting ready to tend to the fields, and decided to quickly put on her clothes before too many noticed her standing there with her bare breasts in full view.
As Saeko dressed herself, still gazing at the chicken coop, Rachael scratched her chin and asked, “If the villagers don’t eat meat, why do they have chickens?”
“Eggs aren’t considered to be living things yet. So they are allowed. Besides eating them fresh, they use them to make bread, pasta, and other food products.”
“As long as I can have my morning coffee, I’m good,” Rachael replied.
“I think the farmers gather near the gate with the guards and brew their own coffee every morning. If you want…we could swing by and get you a cup.”
“That’d be great,” Rachael said.
As they headed toward the village gates Saeko turned to Rachael and asked, “Ever since yesterday, I’ve been dying to ask you; how in the world did you turnover that truck as though it were just a mere child’s toy?”
Rachael smiled. “Would you like to learn that little trick?”
“Are you serious?” Saeko asked excitedly.
“Of course I am,” Rachael said.
Saeko hopped up and down with excitement and, unexpectedly, grabbed Rachael and hugged her. She practically clung to her like a koala on a eucalyptus branch.
“We’ll need a bit of room for sparring. Things can get pretty intense. Is there a place we can practice in solitude?”
“I know just the place,” Saeko said. “Follow me.” With that, Saeko hurried out the fifty-foot tall bamboo gates, nodding at the guards as she went. They returned her greeting with a polite bow.
Rachael shrugged and followed after her.
62
Training Day
Aokigahara Forest, Near Mt. Fuji, Japan
Walking along an old dirt trail that parceled the glistening rice fields, Saeko led Rachael down an old worn path that cut through several tiers of patties which, like glistening stairs, descended to the foot of the hill before emptying out into the valley just before the grove of the bamboo forest.
Making their way into the forest beyond the perimeter of the village, they passed a three-and-a-half foot rock, then a broad clearing before they came upon a babbling brook in another thicket of the bamboo.
“This way,” Saeko beckoned.
Rachael followed Saeko deeper and deeper into the forest until they finally stepped out into an open clearing which seemed to have been carved out for just such a use. At the center of the glade, surrounded on all sides by a towering wall of bamboo and evergreens, sat an old Shinto shrine. Roughly fifty meters directly in front of the main building of worship there were two lion-dog guardian statues, one with its mouth open, the other closed. They stood watch before a large wooden torii gate, painted bright red.
The shrine itself was a wooden structure about the size of a small home. It provided quaint, cozy shelter for whichever priest or monk tended the grounds, but by the looks of things, Rachael assumed it was no longer occupied. Like most Japanese architecture, the building was raised several feet off the ground, replete with a wraparound deck which was sheltered by the overhanging eves of a massive, elegantly designed rooftop. The roof sloped at a steep forty-five degree angle toward gently curved eaves which curled upward at the ends, wherein little sculpted dragons perched. The roof was, of course, made with the special green kawara tiles, indicative of most shrines.
Peering inside the structure, Rachael could see paper sliding doors opening up to a ligneous oratory which was encased in a secondary series of wrap-around sliding doors, this time with floral patterns printed on them in gold foil. These led into an inner worship chamber painted all in gold.
“I used to come here often,” Saeko said. “It was my own little quantum of solace away from all my troubles. A place I could get away from the mundane drama of people…a place I could collect my thoughts. That sort of thing.”
“It’s lovely,” Rachael said. “Something about the atmosphere here is soothing. Calming.”
Indeed, Rachael felt at peace. She didn’t know if the serenity she felt derived from the fact that it was secluded and well protected from ambling monsters by a thick bamboo forest, or if it was something more spiritual; she suspected it might be both. She felt at ease here. It was the first time in a long while she didn’t feel tension from her neck to her toes. That tension, ever present, of always being on heightened alert, waiting for the worst to happen because the “worst” had a bad habit of catching up to you.
Saeko turned to face Rachael and nodded. Then, she respectfully bowed and said, “Onegaishimasu!”
“What does that mean?” Rachael asked.
Saeko scratched behind her ear and contemplated the question. “It’s sort of hard to translate. It means both please and thank you in advance of the thing you ask for.”
“In that case….” She placed her left fist on her right palm and bowed reverently in return. “Onegaishimasu.”
Before she could react, Saeko felt the blunt force of Rachael’s elbow smash into her face. Her head flew black with the full force of the hit and she reeled to the ground. Pushing herself up, Saeko felt blood run from her nose and mouth.
Rachael calmly composed herself and said, “The first lesson is…you must learn to embrace the pain.”
“You couldn’t have just said that to begin with?” Saeko inquired as she slowly stood back up.
“No,” Rachael insisted. “Because then you wouldn’t be learning to embrace the pain, you’d merely be trying to brace yourself for it so when it came you could try to ignore it.”
“Ah,” Saeko said, wiping her blood onto her shirt sleeve. “Right. So, what do you expect me to do, just turn off my pain like a switch?”
“Something like that,” Rachael explained. “You see, pain is like a limiter. When you push your body to its limits, pain alerts you that you’re going into the red. It’s your body’s way of screaming at you to stop whatever it is you’re doing to it because it’s not built to handle it. If you ignore that warning, then your body will simply break down and fall apart.”
“You mean, I’ll die.”
“No, you won’t. Because, like me, you cannot die. At least, not in any conventional sort of way. And if you do bite the dust, you’ll just resurrect anyway. That’s our curse.”
“Okay, so what you’re saying is we can tear out our limiters and push ourselves to the extremes of what is super-humanly possible?”
“Exactly. With our powers we can punch through that wall of pain which normal people retreat from. We can push forward into the red and into the dangerous territory of that point of no return. We can step across that line and stand nose to nose with the Death himself and not be afraid. I have seen the face of Death many times, Saeko, and he has seen mine.”
A somber look fell over Saeko’s face as she glanced over at Rachael. “You’re the first person I’ve met who’s shared these special abilities. Do you think, well, do you think we can ever die? I mean, permanently?”
“I have a feeling that if we took a bullet to the head then, like the undead, we’d probably stay down. Permanently. I mean, the fact that we still f
eel pain at all seems to suggest we’re not entirely immortal.”
“Just demigods, then?”
Rachael laughed. “Something like that.”
“Alright, I can live with that,” Saeko said, shooting a wink at Rachael to let her know she was just being glib. “So, the moral of the story is, be careful not to get shot in the head and we’ll live a long, pain-filled life.”
“Exactly.” Rachael smiled. It dawned on her how nice it was to have someone who could relate to her and her unique situation.
“So how does it work? Slicing through zombie skulls is one thing, but destroying a two ton vehicle? How is that even possible?”
“By unleashing your full potential.”
“You make it sound so easy,” Saeko quipped.
“The key is to focus. Focus all your strength and energy into just one move.” Turning toward a tall stalk of bamboo, Rachael made a fist and pressed it against the thick shaft. “Case in point, if a fighter punches something with all their strength,” Rachael explained, pulling back her fist, “they might shatter every bone in their arm. But with your unique abilities, you can push through the pain knowing that your arm will be healed before your opponent ever hits the ground. The trick is to hit them in such a way as to ensure that they don’t get back up.”
Letting go, Rachael swung her arm, thrusting her fist foreword with such a force it cut the air with a sharp sounding swoosh, the kind that Saeko had only heard her sword make when it cut through the air.
As if made of balsa wood, the bamboo splintered. Shards shooting into the air made a haze around the source of the impact, as Rachael’s fist made contact with it. Breaking through to the other side, Rachael paused for a moment, then stood upright. Looking over her shoulder, she let the tall top half of the severed bamboo stalk fall over and crash to the forest floor before turning toward Saeko with a satisfied look which seemed to say: See, I told you so.