by Ben Stevens
‘Where did you learn to use a sword like that? It’s incredible!’
Miyuki ignored the asinine question, instead now shouting at the young man some ten feet above –
‘It’s okay; they’re all dead. You can come down. Just hang from your arms, and then drop. You’ll be fine.’
The young man did as told, escaping the four pairs of hands which continued to claw at him from the open window next to the air con unit. He fell to the ground, the chopped-up body parts of the things scattered all around him.
‘Thank you,’ he said, tears flowing as he got up to fling his arms around Miyuki. ‘Thank you so much…’
‘It’s okay,’ returned Miyuki in a mumble, arms down by her side, the sword still in her right hand.
Then, abruptly, the young man broke off his embrace, saying as he began to sprint away: ‘I have to find my way back home – to my mother and father!’
‘Just – just take care,’ returned Miyuki, the teenager who was only a couple of years older than herself looking so fragile as he mingled among the other survivors, who were all the while running past… Miyuki hoped he’d find his way home; hoped he’d be safe after she’d basically saved his life…
But…
Then Miyuki turned her attention towards the podgy form of Henmi, who now had the smartphone turned upon himself as he gave a summary concerning recent events, just like a television reporter.
Realizing that the attentions of the teenage girl carrying the sword were now focused upon him, Henmi resumed filming her…
‘You should take better care of yourself, Henmi,’ said Miyuki. ‘Just standing there, filming away without a care in the world. You knew what I was like before – a bully. So with society now breaking down, and this sword in my hand, why do you think my character’s changed at all…?’
A faint, almost mocking smile played on her full lips as she advanced towards him. She raised the sword, staring directly into his face…
‘Wha – ? But… but Miyuki-san, what are you talking about?’ stammered the podgy geek, still filming even in the midst of his terror.
Down came the sword, Henmi giving a screech of terror, pulling his arms in towards him in anticipation of the blow that would cleave him in two…
And yet the sword missed him, cutting instead into the creature that at that very moment laid one of its twisted hands onto Henmi’s left shoulder.
The creature fell backwards, a section of it that ran from the right-hand side of its skull down to the top of its rib cage on the left-hand side separating from the rest of its body. The two parts slopped to the ground, where they twitched for a few moments before lying still.
‘Uh… uh…’ repeated Henmi, his facial color now a little green and with an expression that suggested he’d just pissed in his pants. But still he had his phone raised, filming the dismembered creature on the ground before again directing his smartphone at Miyuki.
‘Watch out, Henmi,’ said Miyuki, giving him a slight, almost mischievous smile before she began walking again.
She knew, without having to look backwards, that he was following her. Still filming, of course.
Let him. Truth was, she was beginning to enjoy – if only just slightly – the attention. She just hoped the geek would keep a slightly better watch on his immediate surroundings from now on. As it was, she was amazed that he had, somehow, so far gotten away without being bitten…
…Miyuki visited her mother three times in hospital. Basically every other day since her mother had been admitted. Doctors said she had some damage to her liver and kidneys because of all the pills she’d taken in her bid to kill herself, but that this damage should repair itself.
Said her mother had been lucky.
Lucky…
Miyuki held her mother’s hand and sat for an hour or so in the late afternoon after school. Not knowing what to say. Her mother shamed, avoiding eye-contact. Also sort of permanently drowsy.
And then Miyuki went home to the drab high-rise apartment. No one checking up on her. She just got up and went to school as normal each day, even with her mother in hospital after a suicide attempt. Miyuki didn’t know what to make of it all. Just met her friends in the evening, in some park, and talked too loudly, smoked cigarettes and never mentioned the fact that her mother had tried to kill herself.
And sometimes Miyuki awoke in the middle of the night, felt guilty and started to cry…
…At last the hospital came into view. Miyuki had trudged for what felt like forever through screaming chaos, society breaking down all around her. Henmi at her side, alternately filming the sword-carrying schoolgirl and then the staggering, lurching creatures that were everywhere. Falling snarling on the survivors, very few people even carrying any sort of weapon with which to defend themselves…
What the hell’s wrong with people? thought Miyuki almost viciously. They basically just gave themselves up as being lost right from the start; virtually allowed these lurching creatures just to pull them to the ground and tear out their throats with those hideous snapping teeth…
A number of times, Miyuki used her sword. Spotting that a creature was about to bite a still-human – but hadn’t done so just yet – and so quickly decapitating that creature before it could claim another victim. On a number of occasions, Henmi trailed a bouncing head along the road with his smartphone, quickly making sure that he then captured the headless body collapsing to the ground…
Miyuki had realized that the lunacy afflicting Tokyo – or at least the part of Tokyo she was in now – needed to be recorded. Not by a TV news-crew protected by American soldiers; but by a student, here in the thick of it, law and order completely broken down.
There – an obvious yakuza gangster (tinted glasses, punch-perm hair, black suit) fought right alongside a hatless policeman, both men firing their guns at the things all around.
Now, they were aiming exclusively for the head.
They’ve realized, thought Miyuki; who then quickly went to the men’s assistance as they both found themselves having to reload at the same time. As though sensing their weakness, the things clustered around them quickly staggered forwards – which was when Miyuki struck out with her blade, fast and hard, Henmi filming at the same as he gave his breathless commentary, the severed heads of the things smacking onto the sidewalk.
‘Hey – thanks,’ grunted the yakuza gangster, his gun reloaded and again taking aim.
‘Where did you get that sword?’ demanded the policeman.
‘You just look out for yourself,’ retorted Miyuki, even now feeling a certain pleasure in back-chatting a cop.
The policeman made to reply; then realized he had his hands full shooting the things clustered all around…
…But here was the hospital. A car park outside the front entrance, a number of ambulances parked haphazardly, their front and backdoors still open. A trolley lying on its side nearby; bloodstains on the asphalt. The two huge sliding glass doors were open. Usually they opened and shut automatically but now, for some reason, they gave a yawning entrance into the cavernous ground-floor of the hospital.
Things staggered around inside, drooling, turning to stare in the direction of Miyuki and the filming otaku as the pair entered. The creatures were dressed in hospital uniforms – white-dressed nurses; blue-suited porters… A number of things were also wearing hospital gowns, slit up the backs so their backsides were exposed. Miyuki heard a strangely distant humming in her ears as she searched for her mother, certain that at any moment she’d spot her…
But, as yet, she did not.
Her mother was on the fourth floor of the hospital. Strange that this whole thing should have started – for Miyuki, at least – on the fourth floor of her school that was several miles away. Miyuki took the stairs. The three elevators all in a row looked as though they were operational – power still on – but no way was Miyuki deliberately placing herself in a confined space.
Henmi followed her up the stairs, which turned at 180 degree
s halfway up before hitting the floor above. There were things here, holding onto the handrail, and as they staggered towards her – almost looking as though they’d just miss their footing and fall downwards, but somehow never quite doing this – Miyuki struck out with her sword and cut them in two.
‘Why are we here, Miyuki?’ ventured Henmi, in the midst of all the bloodshed.
‘To find my mother,’ returned Miyuki, the blade flashing down yet again. How many of these things had she killed so far today? Too many; no point even trying to keep count.
They aren’t human – they aren’t human Miyuki forcibly reminded herself.
And yet, she couldn’t forget that they had once been human. Skilled professionals, some of them, working long hours for the benefit of others. Nurses, doctors – what the hell had caused them to become like this…?
Something released on the Tokyo subway early that morning, Trouble had said. But then, who was to say whether that would-be rapist had even spoken the truth…?
…Reaching the fourth-floor now, bodies littering the staircase below. Even Henmi reduced almost to awed silence (although he kept filming) by all the bloodshed – although, given that the things hardly bled if at all when cut, there was hardly any actual blood. But still the floor was sticky, from all the living people who’d had their throats torn out however many hours before.
Still Miyuki kept thinking she was about to discover her mother. Would she be able to cut her down, as she was almost casually cutting down all these other former humans? Would she not just freeze, wholly unable to use her sword, her mother now become a thing bearing down on her, that thin, overworked body given unnatural strength?
Miyuki having her throat torn out first, dropping down to the floor… Then rising back up again, joining her mother as another member of the walking dead, the pair of them descending upon the screeching, tubby otaku named Henmi, who still continued filming even as two sets of teeth tore into his flesh…?
But as the sword flashed this way and that, yet another thing falling slain at her feet, still Miyuki’s mother did not appear. And they were almost at the ward her mother had shared with four other people. It was empty, two beds heavily stained with blood. An IV stand tipped over; Miyuki stepped over it, walking towards the bed that was by the window. The bed her mother occupied.
Next to it, smashed on the floor, was her mother’s phone. As though in a trance, her vision curiously tunnel-like and that strange humming again in her ears, Miyuki bent down to pick it up.
‘Miyuki?’ said Henmi, quietly yet urgently. Irritably Miyuki shook her head; and then she realized. Realized that she didn’t have the time to get sidetracked like this – and there was a note on the table beside her mother’s bed.
Miyuki (read the note, written in a hasty, sprawling hand – the same one used by Miyuki’s mother when writing her suicide note) – if by the slightest possible chance you find this, I may be on the roof of the hospital, with a few others. We will try to get to the emergency hatch that is on the fifth floor. If I didn’t make it – I love you. And I’m sorry.
…Miyuki dashed away tears with the back of the hand not gripping her sword. She knew Henmi was filming her all the while and suddenly she turned on him.
‘How long does the fucking battery last for in that thing?’ she almost snarled, leaning in towards the lens. Henmi backed slightly, but his body was tense with excitement. He’d seen the note also – knew that events were building up to some sort of climax.
Some things were staggering into this small ward…
‘How many of you do I have to kill?’ demanded Miyuki of them, her voice almost cracking with hysteria. She’d taken about as much as any one person was humanly capable of withstanding; her sword flashed out again, almost even without conscious thought, and more body parts slopped onto the floor. She’d cut one of the things from its right shoulder down to the left side of its stomach; still the dismembered part of it – that which had the head and left arm still attached – grabbed at Miyuki’s ankle with the solitary hand as she passed. With Henmi leaning close in to film it, Henmi cut the hand and then the head…
Then she gave a small scream…
Up another flight of stairs, that was now almost crowded with the undead. All of them snarling, clawing at each other and almost fighting in their efforts to get to –
The emergency hatch onto the roof. It had been opened, a ladder leading up to it placed on one wall. And as Miyuki watched, one of the undead climbed the ladder – they could do this! Emerging onto the roof where oh please oh please her mother was along with however many other survivors…
But now many creatures had got up there already, the survivors having nowhere further to escape to…?
With this though, Miyuki was once again spurred into action, forcing herself to ignore the aching tiredness in her arms as she hacked and sliced at the walking dead, making her way towards the ladder.
She cleared a circle around her, the things moaning and drooling several feet away, body parts scattered all around in front of them.
‘I’ll have to go up first, in case there’re any of these things right by that entrance that leads onto the roof,’ she informed Henmi, momentarily pointing upwards.
Then, realizing that the things were again pressing forwards, she said, ‘Make sure you come up right behind me, otherwise they’ll be taking a bite out of your legs…’
With that, sword held in one hand, she began to climb. It wasn’t high, maybe ten feet, and the sky through the square-shaped opening was wonderfully blue. She stuck first her head and then her upper torso through the hatch – there were a number of the walking dead but they had their backs towards her, walking towards the small huddle of survivors who were already huddled in a group by one edge of the flat roof.
‘Shittu-sayku,’ snapped Miyuki, almost irritably. What was it with people, that so few of them seemed able to fend for themselves even in the most basic of ways? They just stood there, screaming and crying, waiting to be bitten…
And then Miyuki saw her mother. In a hospital gown with a long, thin cardigan over the top, stood next to a man dressed in a green surgeon’s outfit, wearing matching clogs and with a white face-mask hanging down.
‘Mom!’ cried Miyuki, at once surprising several of the things into turning round and looking at her.
‘Miyuki,’ came the terrified squeal from below the schoolgirl. ‘They’re almost touching me!’
Miyuki realized that she was blocking the way onto the roof; Henmi had been waiting for her to climb up onto it while the things below made their rather slow but still steady progress towards him.
As Miyuki hurriedly got up onto the roof, beside a huge air-conditioning unit, she risked looking down even as a number of the things lurched towards her, for a moment ignoring the five survivors clustered together close to the edge of the roof.
Henmi came up, his bespectacled face sweaty and red with exertion and fear, still holding his smartphone. Miyuki made an attempt at pulling him up the last few rungs but she didn’t have the strength. Instead it was up to Henmi to almost fling himself onto the flat roof, where he lay gasping, as though he’d just tried running a four-minute mile.
For a moment, Miyuki allowed herself to dispassionately check him over, searching for any bites on his lower legs. The second she saw one – off his head would come.
Yet there was nothing. She would allow him to live; and to resume filming, as he did now.
Things were coming up the ladder and also towards them from up on the large roof. Miyuki thrust down hard through the open hatch with her sword; and the creature that had been clambering up fell away from the ladder, the blade of Miyuki’s weapon speared right through the centre of its head. But this caused the sword to be snatched out of Miyuki’s hand, now falling down to the floor below along with the slain creature.
Miyuki stood up, staring silently at Henmi. The things on the roof were near them, now. Then Miyuki again looked at her mother, who was crying as
she stared back, her hands covering her mouth, seemingly unable to speak.
Miyuki ran away from the open hatch, circumnavigating the scattered things lurching towards her and Henmi, as the pair (Henmi following) joined the other survivors stood by the edge of the roof.
‘Mom,’ said Miyuki, as they held each other. Henmi walked in a semi-circle in front of them, filming.
There were seven of them in total. At least five times this number of creatures walking towards them, fanning out almost as though cutting off any plans of a – temporary – escape onto another part of this wide roof.
And more things clambering up the ladder and onto the roof. Coming up all the time. Sooner or later there would be so many of them that there wouldn’t be space enough on the roof…
The surgeon dressed in the green overalls turned and walked towards the very edge of the roof. There was a concrete wall maybe a foot high running around the perimeter – that was all.
The surgeon stepped up onto it.
‘I’m not being eaten by those things,’ he said simply. ‘Goodbye.’
And he stepped off.
Miyuki’s mother and another woman gave a shriek; but the creatures were coming ever-closer. No longer the time for any histrionics. The choice was starkly obvious: to do as the surgeon had just done, or allow themselves to be torn apart by the gnashing teeth that were mere feet away.
As she realized that she would shortly be plummeting through the air, to meet a messy end on the sidewalk below, Miyuki looked dazedly at Henmi frantically fiddling with his phone.
‘You know what we have to do, don’t you, Henmi?’ she asked, her voice sounding strangely distant to her own ears.
‘Yes,’ returned the geek, in a distracted tone.
‘Then why are you still playing with your phone?’
‘I need to get this uploaded, onto Youtube, before I…’ mumbled Henmi, his brow creased with mental effort.
