Apoc Series (Vol. 2): Silence of the Apoc [Tales From The Zombie Apocalypse]

by Wilsey, Martin (Editor)

  Disgusted, his boss stated, “That looks nasty. Did you see a doctor about that?”

  “Doctor? Don’t be stupid. If I go to a doctor, they’ll send me to Hachijojima.”

  “Then get off your ass and take Mr. Tada his food.”

  “I told you, get someone else.”

  “Do what I tell you or I will have Mr. Souta throw you out,” he warned Jiro.

  “You can’t do that. I’ll be arrested for violating curfew.”

  The restaurant manager kicked the crate, warning him, “Don’t make me tell you again.”

  Sato reluctantly rose, commenting, “Unbelievable.”

  ***

  Approaching the first crossing over the Asakawao-bashi Bridge, the group saw a distant line of headlights approaching. They sped up and made a left onto Hiyodori-yama Road, and then a quick right, stopping on Owada Road.

  First Lieutenant Kimura hung back, stopping around the corner of the turnoff to observe the approaching convoy as the rest of the clan pulled farther up the street and turned off their engines. It was a dozen defense force vehicles in a hurry. The vehicles crossed through the intersection without slowing.

  “A convoy,” Kimura reported, pulling up. “In a hurry. Didn’t even look our way,” he told his boss.

  “Good,” Isamu replied to the news. “Then we continue.”

  ***

  Kenji Souta and Jinichi Nitta, both in their early thirties and sharply dressed, stood in front of the guest services counter with swords in their hands, waiting for Madame Fumiko Ikeda to get off the telephone.

  After a moment, the Madame hung up the telephone, and then addressed Souta.

  “I need you to send someone up to Mr. Tada’s room. No one is answering and several customers have reported a woman screaming from inside the room. The old man might have hurt one of my girls.”

  Standing by the elevator were two low-level subordinates, denoted by their off-the-rack suits that signified their lower station.

  Souta turned to the two, and called to them. “Kase, Sakata.”

  The two men hurried to the counter.

  “Yes, Big Brother,” Kase respectfully replied, almost in unison with Sakata’s same words.

  “Go to room 417,” Souta told them. “One of the girls may have been roughed up. Make sure everything is okay. But remember,” he added as a reminder, “Mr. Tada is a government official, so show him respect.”

  They urgently hurried to the elevator. Kase pushed the call button and the doors immediately opened to reveal a female operator inside.

  “Fourth floor, please, Ms. Otomo,” Kase requested, as he and Sakata stepped inside the car.

  ***

  At the top of the hill was Migita Hospital. As he passed the building, Isamu smiled at the thought that some members of Tohno clan might shortly be in need of their emergency room. Turning left onto Akatsukicho Street, they could see the green neon sign atop the ten-story Nakayasu Hotel in the distance. Travelling halfway down the street, they pulled into the Echo Mansion Apartment complex. If they travelled any further by motorcycle, the sound of their approach would give them away.

  “Kimura. You know the plan. Just make sure you buy us enough time.”

  Kimura bowed slightly to his boss, responding, “Hai! It will be done.”

  Staying close to the walls along the right side of the poorly lit street, they made the half-mile trek to the Hotel Nakayasu undetected. There was no formal parking lot attached to the hotel grounds, for the building was situated in a dense area of two-story houses. The parking lot was across the street and the pathway that led to the main entry of the hotel was accented by a dense wooded garden on both sides. Two Tohno Clan sentries stood near the entry door twenty feet from the street. They did not venture much further from under the large eave entry for it would constitute being out after curfew, and their boss could not afford to have his men arrested or a heavy fine imposed on his business if they were deemed to be breaking the law.

  ***

  Boss Kudo was a shrewd businessman. Though the curfew had severely impacted the profits of the clan’s prostitution business because few patrons were willing to take the risk of possible imprisonment for carnal pleasures after dark, Isamu had devised a way to circumvent it and bolster his business. He had opened the Nin Jin House; a four-floor building that included a bar/restaurant in the basement, two levels of private rooms, and their headquarters on the top floor.

  Their customers did not have to worry about curfew, for they could spend the evening being “entertained,” as well as enjoying food and liquor all night long. Business had been so profitable that they were planning on expanding by opening two larger facilities, which would raise much-needed capital to support the biomedical facility they had just taken over. He had set his headquarters chief and senior advisor to the task of acquiring the Nakayasu, but Tohno and Sakurai had betrayed him, acquired the hotel on their own, stolen the antiretroviral, and convinced nearly a dozen clan members to follow them to form the basis of Tohno Clan. Adding insult to injury, Gaku utilized the business plan Isamu had devised for the hotel’s unique services, providing pleasure to clients of every taste and imaginable fetish and by offering a unique menu to satisfy almost everyone’s palette in the hotel’s large restaurant, which was to be called Isami House.

  However, tonight Isamu was going to set everything right and prove to the clan that he was still capable of running the organization by retrieving the stolen ARS counteragent and punishing everyone who had betrayed the clan.

  ***

  Approaching the hotel, the Clan broke into two groups. Boss Kudo led a group of eight men in between two houses, while Saito, Kimura and two subordinates stayed behind. After a moment, the two underlings moved away, strutting down the street to the hotel’s entry walk.

  Saito had chosen these two to lead the frontal attack not only because no one from Tohno’s crew would recognize them, but also because he knew both were capable of drawing the guards away from the entry with little difficulty. Satoichi Kurosawa and Hiroki Matsui had moved up the ranks from low-level foot soldiers to junior leaders quickly by proving themselves not only with brawn but also guile. They vowed to Saito they would lure the guards away from the door so Saito and Kimura could climb over the garden wall from the side street and come up behind their enemy.

  Kurosawa and Matsui knew there could be no failure, but they were confident they could get the job done with little difficulty. They had a plan.

  As they approached, Matsui, with a wooden baseball bat in hand, shouted, “Oy! We want to join up. Let us see your boss.”

  The two sentries, both in their early twenties and both dressed in off-the-rack suits, stepped away from the door and to the edge of the high overhang.

  “Hey. What are you two doing here?” one sentry, named Takeo, asked. He held a lighted cigarette “Leave now.”

  “Are you deaf?” Kurosawa asked, as he held a sheathed katana sword over his shoulder. “We’re here to join up.”

  “You two punks need to leave now, or we’ll show you what we do to idiots like you!” Takeo warned, throwing the cigarette down and grinding it out on the landing.

  “Idiots?” Matsui stated, with a tone that reflected not offense but amusement at the attempted insult. “I can’t believe your boss lets two peons guard the entry. He must not be very smart.”

  “Impudent bastard!” Naoki, the shorter of the two guards, exclaimed, taking offense. He moved forward, but Takeo stopped him.

  “We heard Tohno Clan was important and tough,” Matsui taunted, “but you tremble like two chinpira. Useless.”

  The insult of cheap punks that Matsui had called the two Tohno sentries was all they would tolerate. Takeo stepped from under the entry eave and a few feet onto the pathway with Naoki following behind.

  “What?” Takeo asked, in a tone that dared the insult be repeated.

  Kurosawa replied, “Deaf… and stupid.”

  The final goad drew the two sentries up th
e path, giving First Lieutenant Kimura and Assistant Chief Kenichiro Saito the opportunity to climb over the garden wall undetected. As the two Tohno members were about to meet Kurosawa and Matsui’s challenge, a rustling in the shrubbery behind them drew Naoki’s attention. As Naoki turned to investigate, Saito slashed his sword down across his chest, and then thrust it through his abdomen. Saito twisted the sword before he pulled it free.

  At the same time, Takeo saw Kimura coming toward him and panicked. As he turned to flee, a bone-crushing whack from a baseball bat hit the side of his skull. As Takeo fell to his knees, Kurosawa thrust his sword through the man’s torso, then withdrew it. Takeo slumped face first to the sidewalk.

  “Useless,” Matsui stated, as he and Kurosawa stood smiling, looking down at their bloodied enemy.

  While the skirmish was taking place in the front of the building, Boss Kudo led his attack on the hotel using the exterior kitchen entry at the rear of the building. There had been only one sentry posted, who was too preoccupied with smoking a cigarette to notice Kudo Clan’s approach.

  With a wakizashi in hand, Enforcer Toshiyuki Matsumoto grabbed the inattentive sentry from behind. Covering the man’s mouth with one hand, he drove the blade into the base of the skull with his other. The sentry’s eyes widened with a look of pain and bewilderment as he momentarily twitched.

  Matsumoto twisted the blade, and then released the man. He grinned with perverse pleasure as he looked down at the corpse, and then pulled out a wiping cloth.

  Isamu and his men approached, Isamu signaling for them to enter. He tapped Matsumoto on the shoulder, a gesture that not only told his enforcer he had done a good job, but also that it was time to move. Matsumoto finished cleaning his wakizashi and followed his boss through the door.

  As soon as the kitchen staff saw Isamu and his men enter, they moved immediately out of his way, and as the clan members headed toward the door that would lead them into the dining room, the kitchen staff fled out the back door.

  It was well after 1:00 am, and the dining area had been closed for the day’s business for some time. The only person in the space was the restaurant manager, who was taking orders for room delivery. When the man saw Isamu, he respectfully bowed, keeping his eyes low. Isamu did not know the man, but gave him a smirk as he passed. The manager quickly departed, heading towards the kitchen, nearly running into Matsumoto who was on his cell phone sending a text message, and was not aware of the man’s flight.

  ***

  In the courtyard Matsui and Kurosawa were nearly done dragging the two dead Tohno Clan sentries from the pathway and into the garden when Kimura’s cell phone beeped. It was a message from Matsumoto, letting him know they had made it inside the building.

  ***

  Souta and Nitta were still at the guest services counter with Madame Ikeda.

  “What is taking those two idiots so long?” Nitta questioned aloud. “They should have called in by now.”

  When the automatic doors of the restaurant parted, neither Souta nor Nitta bothered to turn around from the counter to see who was exiting. Like all Tohno Clan members they believed that no rival family would dare make a raid on their headquarters, and there was no threat in regard to a rival entering undetected, especially after curfew, so only an employee would have been exiting from Ryotei Nakaysu. However, when Madam Ikeda’s expression turned from neutral to fearfully surprised, the two immediately turned to where she was looking, but they were too late.

  Moving swiftly from the dining room into the lobby towards the reception area, seven of Isamu’s men brought Nitta and Souta down before they could draw their weapons to defend themselves. As Saito and his three men came from the opposite direction, Kimura saw Ikeda drop behind the counter. He immediately went to the cowering woman and dragged her before his boss’s feet.

  Madame Ikeda begged and bowed for forgiveness, for she had once been one of the clan’s top-earning whores.

  “You pig. Betraying whore,” Isamu berated her. “I took you off the street. Trained you. Made you our Madame. Put you in charge. This is how you repay me?”

  “Forgive me, Boss Kudo. Please forgive me.”

  Outraged, Isamu informed her, “Your betrayal is unpardonable. Your treachery deserves something special. But you are not worthy for me to punish. Matsumoto!” Isamu addressed his enforcer, who was purposely cruel and sadistic when he was called upon to kill.

  “Yes.”

  “Punish her,” he instructed, vindictiveness in his voice.

  The Madame screamed as Matsumoto grabbed her by the hair, lifted her up, and without hesitation drove his wakizashi into her stomach. Matsumoto looked into her eyes as he sadistically smiled, and then kissed her lips as he twisted the blade and disemboweled her.

  While his boss was getting his revenge, Assistant Chief Saito stepped to the elevator and pushed the call button. When the elevator door opened, the female operator gasped with surprise, “Annta!”

  Seeing her, Isamu exclaimed, “Natsuko!”

  Miss Otomo bowed before him. “Forgive me, annta.”

  “How dare you call me that?”

  “Please, I beg of you. Take me back.”

  “Stupid pig,” he said. “Did you truly believe Tohno would give you more than what you had? Ignorant hick. Look how far you have fallen.”

  Natsuko’s insult and betrayal was far greater than the brothel Madame. He had given her a hostess job when no other business would, mainly because she had a thick Yamagata accent. However, Natsuko desired more than just a lowly position. She knew that her country upbringing and below-average intellect would not get her what she most desired—money and power. She had only two assets she could use to get what she wanted, her well-proportioned figure and her feminine guile. She had seen an opportunity in advancing her station. She had seduced Isamu and become pregnant.

  He knew that he had been tricked, but this is not why he wanted to kill her. Her insult and betrayal had been that she had become Gaku’s mistress and left with him when he broke from the clan, leaving Nozomi motherless.

  Isamu had not murdered anyone since his street gang days, before he went legitimate and formed the Kudo Clan, and as a yakuza boss he no longer had to soil his hands with such lowly business, which was the job of his men. But this was not business; it was personal.

  Miss Otomo groveled, bowing again. “Please do not kill me. I will do anything. Please forgive me.”

  It would have given him great satisfaction to watch her die slowly, but for Nozomi’s sake he would spare her life.

  Your words are hollow,” he told her. “But for our daughter’s sake, I will spare your pathetic life.”

  Holding the elevator door, First Lieutenant Kimura stepped partially out of the elevator car and addressed his boss.

  “Boss. Forgive the interruption. But the floor is locked.”

  Saito grabbed Otomo by her hair and raised her head.

  “Where is the key?” Isamu asked.

  Feigning ignorance, she replied, “What key?”

  Immediately Saito kicked her in the ribs for the disrespect. She groaned and cried in pain.

  “Stupid pig. Should I have Matsumoto kill you after all?” Isamu asked.

  Otomo was well aware of Enforcer Matsumoto’s brutal ways when killing. She raised her right hand, revealing a wrist key chain with a singular key. Saito grabbed it from her.

  Saito directed underlings Haruto and Yuuta to dispose of the bodies, and remain on guard in the lobby. He followed his clan leader and the other men into the elevator.

  Isamu looked at Otomo with disgust, as Kimura pushed an elevator floor button.

  “May your life be long with suffering for what you have done,” he imparted as the elevator door closed.

  ***

  Standing on guard in the hallway of the penthouse level, Yoshio and Nobu stood opposite and adjacent to the elevator.

  Yoshio was transfixed on the lighted floor numbers above the door. The number was at three and ascending.<
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  “All we ever do is guard the elevator. It’s boring,” Yoshio complained. “We should be in celebrating with the others.”

  Nobu warned, “Careful what you say. If Yazawa hears you complaining, he’ll demote you and make you a doorman like Takeo and Naoki.”

  “Yeah, but at least they get to be outside. This is stupid work.”

  A chime announced the elevator’s arrival.

  “Nani?” Nobu said aloud, confused.

  Nobu and Yoshio drew their swords. The door opened but the car was empty.

  “Empty. What is going on?” Nobu questioned, and then pulled a radio from his waistband. “Souta. Souta,” he called into it. “What is going on? Why did the elevator come up with no one on it?”

  He waited for a response, but none came.

  Yoshio told him, “He’s probably talking to Madame Ikeda again.”

  ***

  Haruto and Yuuta carried the body of Souta behind the guest services counter, and tossed his corpse atop Madame Ikeda. Over a radio came the voice of someone calling for one of the dispatched Tohno members.

  “Souta. Answer me. What is going on down there?” the man’s voice asked.

  “That’s the second time. You should answer that, Yuuta,” Haruto directed.

  “Souta. Answer now or I will let Chief Yazawa know you are fucking off again,” the voice demanded.

  Yuuta removed Souta’s radio and tersely responded. “What?”

  In the penthouse hallway, Nobu responded, “Souta. Why did elevator come up without Miss Otomo?”

  Yuuta smiled at Haruto, and then responded to the radio caller’s question.

  “Shut up and mind your own business.”

  ***

  Nobu was confused by the rude reply. Souta could act like a jerk on occasion, but was never rude to his fellow equals.