A deafening squeak was heard as a kind of semi-darkness settled, making the previous total obscurity recede. A dim light coming from the backlight lamps of the adjoining corridor further illuminated the room, as the only door, which had been closed for many years, now opened wide, squeaking more than ever, sounding like a complaint.
Silence finally returned as the door remained open, and skeletal, staggering figures began to move in its direction.
***
"Where are the other members of the staff?" asked a young Afro-American man, as he ate lettuce with small cherry tomatoes. The table his plate was on was surrounded by the many beautiful shrubs of this part of the Community's agro-building.
"I don't know," Larry replied, in front of him, as he finished his meal, sitting at the same table.
He was cleaning his plate with a squeezed piece of bread. Saucing one's plate, in order to make the most of every ounce of food, had become a habit for all the members of the Community, even those who originated from wealthy classes, or even very well off. There was a limited amount of food allocated per person, given the restrictions Administrator Adams had imposed, because of despair concerning the future. He chewed the piece of bread while watching with suspicion, on the edge of his almost empty plate, a last pellet of fake meat. It was made with mealworm flour mixed with vegetables and peppers, to add to the taste. He pouted and, finally, planting his fork in it, shoved the meat ball in his mouth, chewing quickly. The taste of chilies camouflaged the possible taste of the worms, he had to admit, but at his age, the old black man had difficulties eating anything other than red or white meat. That said, he accepted the idea that insects were a much higher source of protein than sheep and cows and required, to be bred, far less precious agricultural and water products. But he definitely preferred fish rather than this ersatz of a meat. It was too bad that they had to take up a small amount of fish, because of their importance in the aquaponic cycle.
Having swallowed while pouting once again, as he was hardly convinced, Larry continued, "I don't know where the agro-technicians of this part of the agro-building went. I told them, the other day, that we had to prepare the apple harvest this week. "
He looked at one of the apple trees behind him and continued, "I think the time to reap the fruits has come, they're ripe." Then he turned back, smiling at his young colleague.
A smile which disappeared as he opened his eyes wide.
The agro-technician in front of him looked at him, bewildered by his attitude.
"Warning!" Larry exclaimed while suddenly getting up.
Too late as a zombie was already biting one of the surprised young man's shoulders, through the tissue of his work gear.
The creature snatched a piece of bloody flesh as the young black man cried out in pain, and other undead gathered around him as he was still sitting, tetanized by pain. Further on, several other zombies arrived from all sides through the room's only open door.
"Jack, no!" cried the old agronomic engineer, backing towards a wall while he saw the creatures gather in numbers around his young colleague.
They reminded Larry of a bunch of vultures. While the young man was crying out loud, some of them plunged their rotten teeth into his throat. Blood flowed profusely along his neck, soiling their victim's working gear. Others put their bony hands with their sharpened phalanxes into his belly, removing the viscera. The things bit into the bloody organs, blood and pieces falling this time in Jack's plate.
The latter now had his eyes enlarged by the excruciating pain.
Larry could not help feeling a mix of horror and relief for Jack, as he saw life disappear from his eyes when his jugular veins were torn out.
A rustle in his back caused Larry to turn around, seeing that other zombies had moved behind him and spread bony hands mingled with rottenness towards him. The creatures, skeletal, their flesh like their strongly decomposed clothes, closed their emaciated arms on him.
They caught nothing but a vacuum for the little man, light and supple despite his age, slipped between them and ran toward another part of the large room which was illuminated by large bay windows. Lafayette rushed towards the open door through which the creatures had passed, heart beating, full of hope.
The door slammed shut on his face, knocking his nose and stopping him dead in his tracks.
Luckily still standing, as blood was now flowing from his nose because of the impact, he saw the creatures he had escaped heading toward him with excitement. Surprised, Larry found that the creatures were staggering less, as if they were galvanized…
And he understood.
They were galvanized by the smell of fresh blood, the young man's and his own. He slipped between shrubs and some tall trees, trying to hide between low branches.
Wasted effort, he thought to himself while, horrified, he saw the undead who weren't busy finishing chipping away what was left of his poor colleague, heading toward him, their red eyes reflecting hunger and greed .
***
Hiroto, with his saber in his hands, was demonstrating a series of movements of attack and parry when the bell almost made him jump.
"What's that?" Mei asked.
Further away in the dojo, she was also wearing a traditional kimono, with large black skirt-pants. She was making a little blonde in a kimono do rehearsals of attack and defense movements, with a small wooden saber.
Her father stopped and was opening his mouth to speak when Johnny, sitting cross-legged beside them shouted, "I think it's the invasion alarm!"
"What?” his old Japanese master asked, imperceptibly frowning.
"It's the sound alarm," cried a young girl, "In case of an invasion by the Community’s undead detainees used for Mengeles’s research. He's right, I heard it in an educational program on security, on the Community TV channel!"
Suddenly she was almost hysterical in her attitude, as seated cross-legged until then she rose, imitated by all the other pupils.
Hiroto and his daughter, who rarely watched TV broadcasting these programs, did not prefer to contradict them.
The old man sheathed his saber and went to the only door of the dojo, a closed one, saying, "Stay calm. I will go and find out if this is the ca…"
Something interrupted him by running towards him through the door which had suddenly opened provoking a reflex reaction of the Japanese who dragged his saber at the speed of lightning causing the weapon to make a swirling motion which made its blade...
... land on Red's neck.
"Stop!" Mei shouted stressfully.
Fortunately her father had stopped just in time to not decapitate the adopted daughter of his offspring. Hiroto lost his legendary calm and impassivity and became red with anger, shouting at the red-haired girl, "You're crazy, I could have killed you!"
"Excuse me," the teenager exclaimed, swallowing as she still felt the sharp-edged blade resting on the skin of her neck, continuing, "I was passing a blow of brush around the dojo and inside it, to deserve the Kenjutsu lessons, according to the ancient Asian tradition... But I hadn't expected to have to clean by myself... That!"
"What is it?" Johnny asked slowly and unconvincingly, frowning as he looked at her, as if she were an idiot.
Murmurs and grunts erupted from behind her through the wide-open door. She turned her head to look, like all the people in the dojo.
A frightful odor of rotting flesh invaded the room.
A partially decomposed zombie appeared and stopped, standing at the door. It was wearing what was left of tattered Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt, all tinged with brown because of the rotting of its skeletal body. The thing had only one apparent glowing eye, the other, as though it had been sunk in the depths of his skull, perhaps with a fine stick, resembling rather a dried, reddish grape. But its unique eye contemplated them all with much interest.
The thing then groaned wildly and walked awkwardly towards Hiroto and Red, its open hands stretched out towards them.
The blade disappeared from the edge of Red'
s neck to spin in the air with the old Japanese man, who passed on the side of the creature and slashed its outstretched arms.
That was while four other zombies passed through the door and put their hands on Hiroto's back.
He circled again, decapitating another creature and then planting his blade in the other's rotten lower abdomen, visible under its rib cage. He turned the blade in the abdomen of the thing but it showed no pain, trying to catch his face with its gaunt hands, with their sharp bony phalanges which were free of flesh.
Hiroto was able to avoid the hands that tried to grab him only thanks to the fact that he pushed the creature back with the blade, preventing it from moving further towards him. He was now battling to extract the blade for the purpose of terminating the living dead, but his saber remained blocked in the purulent flesh. The old Japanese man looked anxiously at the other two creatures which, slowly but surely, were circumventing the nearest ones. They were about to catch him, their jaws with rotten teeth already opening to tear off a morsel of flesh.
A very shrill cry was heard and the people in the room saw Mei jumping toward the things surrounding her father.
She was wielding a naginata, an old weapon composed of a saber fixed at the end of a long stick. Hitherto it had only been a decorative item used in the dojo that she had unhooked from above the open door. She cut the legs of the two creatures by making very large swinging motions with the long weapon, avoiding hurting her father through her skills and practice.
The two living dead, no longer supported by their legs collapsed on the ground and the young Japanese woman, with two new cuts, decapitated them one by one.
During that time her father continued to struggle to extract the blade of his saber, while preventing his ugly opponent from getting closer to him.
A new, even shriller cry was heard in another part of the room and everyone looked towards where it was coming from.
The little blonde was struggling with another zombie which had been a modest-sized fat woman, taller than her, who must have been in her forties during her transformation. Overweight, seeming to have Hispanic origins, she had probably been an adorable "Mama" in her former life, but today, there was no more motherly love. The creature's jaw had been partly torn away, showing teeth and flesh rotten to an ear. It opened an avid mouth with rotten teeth and looked with appetite at the little girl that it was trying to reach.
The kid pushed the thing back with all her might with her stick, to which the creature clung with its emaciated hands, trying to snatch it from Beth's tiny hands. While doing this, the living dead leaned over and tried to bite the little girl in the face. The latter, shouting and groaning, kept trying to stay out of reach as much as possible.
Two male zombies entered through the open door and swayed toward the child and their female counterpart.
"Beth!" exclaimed Mei, seeing her difficult situation and running towards the two new undead which were readying for a blood bath.
"Noooo!" cried Red, who slashed the handle of her broom onto Hiroto's partially exposed blade. The remaining wood of the broom was cut diagonally and sharply by the cutting blade.
Having checked it with a very brief glance the girl leapt towards the child and the female zombie. When she reached the fat female creature she lifted what remained of her broom and drove the sharp end of wood into an eye of the thing.
The zombie stopped fighting with Beth and froze, still holding the little wooden saber of little Beth in its rotten hands.
The little blonde, struggling one last time, succeeded in pulling harder on the handle of the little saber, thus extracting a small blade which had been inserted into what had, in fact, been a wooden sheath. Jumping into the air Beth arrived at the zombie's face and, with a cutting motion, slashed at the thing's throat.
The head was almost separated from the neck by the short blade, but not completely. The head swiveled backwards, retained by a piece of bloody flesh, with the handle still driven inside its eye.
Relaxing with what was left of her broom in her hand, Red looked with the little girl as the head finally completely detached from the neck. It rolled away on the floor, the wooden stick protruding from its eye hindering its rotation.
It was then that Red, who had the rest of the broom in her hands, and little Beth, saw the other two zombies approaching them, hands outstretched and their avid jaws open.
One of the two, tall and emaciated, its bony face with empty sockets, placed its bony hands on the red-haired girl's shoulders while the other tried to circumvent her to reach Beth, who, crouching, was hiding behind her.
Shaking with fear, the little girl squeezed the handle of her little sword, so much so that her fingers' skin had become chalk-white.
The emaciated living dead emitted a little grunt seemingly filled with contentment, as it forcefully pulled Red towards itself. Approaching its opened jaw showing rotten teeth, ready to devour the teen's face.
Moaning because of her efforts, she resisted by leaning back, in precarious balance, feeling the little girl curled up behind her. The wide open jaw which approached totally filled the red-haired girl's field of vision, who felt nausea while smelling the thing's fetid breath, a mix of blood and rottenness.
With a great sound resembling that of a violently cut cloth, the open jaw was torn in two from top to bottom and, surprised, the girl was on the verge of receiving a slender blade in her nose. Reclining her own head she saw that the creature had been cut in two from the top of the skull to the top of its neck, realizing that it was the blade of a saber that had cut it in two.
Hiroto's saber's blade.
Hiroto had arrived behind the things after he had finally been able to pull his blade out of his opponent's abdomen, which lay further away on the floor. Lying on its stomach, it was clinging to one of Johnny's legs who, a wooden sword in his hand, was striking the emaciated hands to make them let go.
Mei, meanwhile, was fighting two other zombies in baseball uniforms with her naginata, knife-cutting while rotating on herself like a fury and shouting a warrior cry.
Standing behind the zombie with the head having been vertically cut in half, the old Japanese, struggling, was again trying to free the blade of his stuck saber. It was jammed between the two parts of the upper neck. The zombie was trembling now, while the left and right sections of its head parted and hung down, on both sides, by their weight. These two parts were pending lower and lower, and now were almost in a horizontal position.
Hiroto didn’t have to fight a smirk, because of his disgust while watching the details of the anatomical parts of the head and brain, which were now clearly visible.
The creature's hands grabbing Red's shoulders relaxed, showing that the zombie had definitely ceased to "live". It began to sag on its legs, now only supported by the blade of the saber still buried in its neck.
Hiroto continued to struggle to free his blade from the neck, and he was embarrassed by the weight of the body. Surprisingly, he was unable to lift the blade and get it out of the wound. Red bore part of the weight of the zombie, its hands weighing on her shoulders, tending to immobilize her.
Beth gave a cry of frustration, the other zombie that had bypassed Red was now at her side. The creature raised the little blonde off the ground with both of its rotting, stinking hands, sunk into the collar of her strong little kimono.
The little one cut one of the hands at the wrist level with her saber, but through her action she involuntarily let go of its handle. Her little weapon fell a little distance away on the tatami. The sliced wrist detached from the creature's arm but, not in the least disturbed, it continued with its other hand to move Beth towards its open jaw, turning her a little so that it could plunge its teeth into the tender flesh of her neck.
The little girl screamed louder, kicking the top of the thing's chest, causing only a groan of discontent from the zombie.
The creature received a large side kick from Red.
This unbalanced the zombie, making it drop on
the tatami with its little prey still captive in its remaining hand.
Hiroto shrieked and finally freed his blade. He leapt toward the zombie lying on its flank as it continued to bring the little girl's neck closer to its gaping mouth. With a brisk sword movement he cut off the zombie's head. It fell on the ground and rolled in front of Beth's face.
Disgusted, she saw the mouth of the thing open and close while watching her with its reddish glowing eyes, still impatient to bite her. Fortunately for the little girl the thing's head was now unable to move from where it had landed, and it had to content itself moving its jaw without reaching her.
The decapitated body trembled and Beth, feeling the hand that held her weaken, finally released herself, rising to retreat, horrified.
The head was finally cut in two halves thanks to the blade of Mei's naginata, as she had also moved closer. The two parts of the skull of the thing, now separated on the ground, oscillated for several seconds while Beth watched it, fascinated and disgusted by it at the same time. Finally the two parts ceased to move and remained immobile, as a little pond of dark and stinking blood was expanding on the dojo's mattress.
Frustrated male groans were suddenly heard.
Red, Hiroto, Beth and Mei looked at Johnny who continued to strike the prone zombie still clinging to his leg, striking it with all his strength. He gave a last wooden sword thrust on the wrists of the thing which broke. The two forearms separated from the arms and fell on the tatami, their hands remaining clinging to his leg while the zombie emitted a little growl.
Johnny drew back and, striking one last time with all his strength, knocked the head of the thing. It detached from the neck and the head went rolling into a corner of the room.
Hiroto, panting, said, "Bravo, Johnny, quite a blow," and he then looked at the three females people near him before saying, "Bravo to you three too!"
He looked at the group of students of all ages who had sought refuge on the other side of the room and said, frowning, "You, on the other hand, I don't congratulate for your lack of courage and team spirit!"
Hungry Series: Tomes 1 & 2 Page 15