Whispers of Ash (The Nameless Book 1)

by Adrian Smith

“Afraid not. Name’s Ryan. I’m looking for some friends of mine. After I find them, I’m going to head down to Osaka. You’re welcome to join me.”

  “I’m Allie. Any ideas where they are?”

  “Ideas, yes, but I’m not certain. I was at the university talking to one of their friends when everyone started screaming and turning to ash. I thought I was going to as well, but the pain subsided. So the university is the logical place to start.”

  “I’ll come with you to Osaka, then I can head to Tokyo to report to the embassy,” Allie said. She pointed at the unconscious monks. “We can’t leave them like this. Maybe we should find the police.”

  “Okay. The police station is on the way.”

  “Have you seen anyone else?” Allie said. “Normal, I mean.”

  “One. Like the monks, but he didn’t try to eat me.”

  “What could have done this?” Allie said. “I feel like I’m living in an episode of Black Mirror. Planes crashing. People piles of ash or going berserk.”

  Ryan gazed at the flaming wreckage. “Not a damn clue.”

  She was right. Black Mirror. Twilight Zone. Outer Limits. Ever since Booth and Sofia had shown up in that bar in Shinjuku, he’d been grasping at information like swirls of smoke blowing in the wind. Yakuza and bikers attacking him. A virus in Europe and Africa. Phones and internet down. And then bang! the world goes crazy. Umi combusting before his eyes. He could only imagine what was happening in the cities. Was this sudden combusting worldwide? Or even Japan-wide?

  “Why Osaka and not the embassy in Tokyo?” Allie asked.

  “I’m worried about my daughter back home in Oregon. I don’t have time to deal with bureaucracy.”

  Allie smiled. “I hear you, but how else are you going to get home?”

  “I’ll find a way.”

  Ryan stared at Allie, trying to read her emotions. She was calm and her eyes darted around, but that was to be expected given what had just happened.

  “You’re American?” Allie said.

  “Yes.”

  “Your accent though.”

  “I’m originally from New Zealand.”

  “How did you end up in the States?”

  Ryan arched an eyebrow. “My wife and kids.”

  “Ah, fair enough.”

  “All right. Good.”

  “Good.” She gripped her wooden pole. “Police station first?”

  “Police station.”

  Ryan stepped off the sidewalk. A faint smile returned to his face. Allie had a nice manner about her, and the way she had dealt with the frenzied monks told him she was more than capable of handling herself. After the police, he was heading back to the university. If Sofia and Keiko were still alive and down in the bunker somewhere, the library was the best place to start. His survival instincts were telling him to leave, but his duty to his friends pulled him back. He had to find them.

  “So which part are you from?” Allie asked, her pole hitting the ground with a thunk with every step she took. “I’m from California. Big Sur.”

  “Oregon. Portland.”

  The roar of a powerful motorcycle, followed by the rumble of a large diesel truck, echoed up the street. Sporadic gunfire erupted. First the pop of small pistols, then the rattle of assault rifles. Ryan froze and drew his Glock. He glanced at Allie. Her brow was furrowed, and her lips pulled tight.

  “Rifle fire? In Japan?” Allie said.

  Ryan ducked behind a parked car and waved Allie down. He peeked from behind the car and heard another sound. Allie heard it too and turned her head toward it. Screams and shrieks, the sounds of dozens of feet smacking stone pavers. It was tough pinpointing just what the individual sounds were and how many. The clatter of the gunfire increased, drowning out the shrieks. He had guessed right about Allie. She had to be military. Most people would have said, “gunshots.” Not identify what kind of weapon it was. He strained his ears and waited.

  Pop, pop, pop. A quick three-round burst. Faint screams followed before another burst.

  “This can only be bad,” Ryan said.

  “Hide?” Allie asked.

  “The university.” He tapped Allie on the shoulder. “Get inside! Go!”

  They bolted from behind the car and sprinted through the small entrance at the back of the university buildings. Human shrieks and screams chased them into the courtyard. They sounded exactly like the rabid monks that had chased Allie. Filled with anguish and desperation, they screamed, “Feed!”

  He followed the signs to the library and held open the door, waiting until Allie was through. In the direction of the road, the motorbike revved its engine, tires skidding. It was followed by the crack of assault rifles cutting through the fog of human agony.

  “You go inside. I need to find out what’s happening out there,” Ryan said, turning to Allie.

  “Are you sure? A second ago you wanted to hide.”

  Ryan checked the magazine of his Glock: nineteen rounds left. “I’ll be quiet. Find somewhere and keep silent.”

  “I can handle myself. I’m not some damsel that needs rescuing.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. Until we know what we’re dealing with, can you stay out of sight?”

  “Fine.”

  He waited for Allie to close the door of the library and listened to the sounds of the rifles firing. They were precise. Controlled bursts rather than desperate. It signaled a well-trained force. The agonized screams of the berserk humans had stopped. Ryan glanced at the afternoon sky and said a prayer to his son Liam.

  Look out for me. For your sister. For all of us.

  Using the thickly planted border gardens and the shadows, Ryan crept around the perimeter and up a metal fire escape, making sure to keep close to the stonework of the building where the stairs met the riser. The edges of steps were less likely to squeak. After three minutes of climbing, he made it to the roof and jogged across it. He crawled the last few feet and risked a peek over the edge.

  Koyasan University lay in the center of the small village, at the base of a T-intersection. From this height, the temple where he had stayed, and the road that led to the cable car, were clearly visible. To his left was the museum and the post office, and to his right, cafes, shops, and the famous Okunoin cemetery where he had met Jiro the day before. It looked so peaceful and spiritual, like nothing out of the ordinary was happening. He refocused and glanced back to his left. A six-wheeled personnel carrier crawled along the road. It had an open back and a covered cabin. It looked like an FMTV—Family of Medium Tactical Vehicle.

  He reached into his satchel and grabbed his Yukon spotting scope.

  Men wearing gray coveralls were pinned down in a dead-end alley. They would pop up every few seconds and fire at another group: commandos dressed in black and wearing full-body armor; knee and elbow pads, shin guards, chest and back plates. A Black Skull sigil was visible on their shoulders. Their heads were covered in snug, smooth helmets; their faces unrecognizable in masks and dark goggles. All used HK433 rifles.

  Ryan focused on the men wearing gray. He recognized the symbol on their clothing: YamTech security. The Black Skulls rushed into the alley. The fighting was over in a matter of seconds. He observed the Black Skulls as they left the alley, leaving the dead YamTech security where they lay, and entered the nearest house.

  Shots rang out. One after the other. No pauses in between. Within seconds, the Black Skulls exited and moved on to the next building.

  Ryan sat down and pushed his back against the brickwork. Then it dawned on him. This was an execution force sent to finish a job: hunt for any survivors and silence them.

  Why? To what end? He brought the scope back to his eye.

  The death squads went door to door, leaving no house or building unsearched. The occasional Crack! of the carbines would ring out. Ryan turned to his right and scanned farther down the road. Another FMTV was pushing toward him. Riding just behind was the yellow rider, the MP5 strapped across his back.

  Ryan
ducked back down and crawled away from the edge. He had witnessed enough. He took the fire escape stairs two at a time, heart pounding. With the death squads coming in from two directions, he was a sitting duck. Sooner or later, they were going to enter the university and sweep it.

  He hit the ground and reached inside his satchel, checking to see if the plans were still in there. As far as he was concerned, it was the only option left. Somehow, he had to get into the bunker that lay under the town. If it existed at all. Find Sofia and Keiko. Get to Osaka and home to Zanzi. No, not difficult at all.

  A flash of movement caught Ryan’s attention. He ducked behind a maple tree and drew his Glock. A Japanese man, his hair disheveled and his feet bare, stood in the middle of the lawn. His white T-shirt was untucked and his belt loose, like he had been caught by an enraged husband, cheating with his wife, and fled out the window.

  The disheveled man spun around and spotted him.

  “Hello? Please help,” he said in English, his voice barely a whisper.

  “Here,” Ryan said, waving. “Hurry.”

  The man stared at him for a few moments before jogging over, glancing over his shoulder at the road as he ran.

  Ryan led him into the library and dodged between the rows of books.

  “Allie?” he whispered.

  She crawled out from underneath a bookshelf.

  “Who’s this?” Allie said.

  Ryan shrugged. “I found him outside.”

  “What’s happening out there?”

  Ryan hesitated, not quite sure how to proceed. Sugarcoat, or truth? He chose the latter.

  “Death squads are moving through the town, killing everyone. Including YamTech security.”

  “YamTech?” Allie asked.

  “They’re a big tech firm and have a research facility here in town. Right now, their security guards are getting taken out along with any survivors.”

  “Damn. That’s brutal.”

  Ryan pulled out the map book and tried to orientate himself. “Apparently there’s a bunker under this building.”

  “A bunker? Wouldn’t it be better to flee into the forest? I know a few hiking trails.”

  “The squads are moving in from two directions, cutting us off. From what I saw of these plans earlier, the bunker has exits in the forest.”

  “Sneaking us out, right under their noses.”

  “Yes,” Ryan said. “This way, I think.”

  It didn’t take them long to find the spiral staircase heading down. The deeper they went, the darker and mustier it became. The disheveled man didn’t say a word, not a sound, apart from his feet slapping on the metal stairs. He followed Ryan and Allie down into the basement. The trio walked down a long corridor stuffed with leather-bound books stacked on shelves. No one had bothered to keep the shelves in any semblance of order. A few of the tomes, covered in black mold, were stacked on the floor. Ryan cringed. Books of this age deserved to be kept in a clean, dry environment.

  “How old is this university?” Allie said, whistling.

  “It’s been here since the 1880s, but it dates back a few centuries before that as a Buddhist learning center.”

  Allie shook her head and moved on, her bō staff still gripped in her hands.

  The smell of decay from the black mold grew stronger as Ryan poked his head into another storage room. It was much the same as all the others: stacks of books and discarded office supplies. It was the second to last one, according to the map, and they still hadn’t found even an inkling of an entrance. It was possible there wasn’t a bunker at all. He really didn’t want to think about going upstairs.

  “Take a seat, guys. We need to plan what we’re going to do,” he said.

  He grabbed the old map from his satchel and smoothed out the pages on a low metal cabinet. “The squads up there are going door to door, searching for survivors. Executing everyone. Including those who’ve gone rabid.”

  “Why would they do that? It doesn’t make sense,” Allie said, shaking her head.

  “Does anything over the past couple of hours make sense?”

  “Nope. I guess not.”

  The disheveled man bowed. “Thank you, sir. Daisaku,” he said in heavily accented English.

  “No problem. Allie,” he nodded his head in her direction, “and I’m Ryan.”

  Daisaku bowed deeper. “Yes. It’s true. I’ve seen it. The soldiers firing.”

  “How did you get away?” Allie said.

  “I … I was sleeping off too much sake. Screams woke me. I…” Daisaku looked away and rubbed his eyes with his T-shirt. “My friends, work colleagues … in so much pain. Then poof! Like lantern paper.” Daisaku tucked in his shirt and belted his trousers. “I thought it was a bad dream, that demons had come to haunt me for drinking and not returning home to my wife and daughter. I sat there in my underwear, looking at the ash that had been my friends until I heard the guns. They crashed through the flat, and I grabbed some clothes and jumped out the bathroom window.”

  Allie shook her head. “This is some messed-up shit. I was meditating in my bedroom. I’ve heard screams like that before in ’Stan. But that was a whole ’nother level of shit. I thought I was having a hallucination. Some PTSD flashbacks.” Allie shivered. “And that smell. Worse than burning flesh.”

  Ryan stopped listening. He let them share their stories. He had learnt that shared stories led to comradery. If they were going to have any chance of surviving this, they were going to need morale and trust.

  He glanced at Daisaku and Allie. Allie was tall, agile, and had shown some skills in fighting. Daisaku was an unknown. Ryan liked to let people prove themselves. Often, people adapted to the fight and became invaluable.

  “What I really want to know is why those berserk monks sucked on Antonio’s spine. What’s in there that’s so appealing?” Allie said. “Ryan?”

  “They did what?”

  “The monks snapped his spine and sucked on it. Like a straw.” Allie blinked and wiped away a tear. “I was too slow. Before I knew it, they were on us.” She looked away.

  Ryan frowned and shrugged. “None of this makes sense. I’m more concerned with the squads closing in. Due to the size of the university, I’m guessing they’ll search it together.” He ran his finger along the plans, trying to judge the distance between the town and the cable car. “Okay. Our only option is to get into these tunnels and pop out somewhere far away. I’m presuming the squads have the cable car guarded, plus any roads down the mountain. So we need to find a hiking trail down and, after dark, make a run for it.”

  Allie pushed her black hair behind her ear. She tapped on the plans to the south of the cable car station. “There’s a pilgrim trail here.” She looked up at him. “It’s rough, with some climbing involved, but it takes you down off the mountain and it’s not that well used.”

  Ryan’s eyes followed her finger, and he clasped his hand round his chin. The trail came out close to Gokurakubashi, a small town with a train station. It was risky, but so was staying on this mountain. It was worth a shot.

  The rattle of gunfire interrupted his thoughts.

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  It was muffled, but close, perhaps the floor above.

  Screams followed, pained and full of terror. Whoever these people were, they were not taking any prisoners.

  Ryan considered himself strong, that he could withstand whatever curveballs life threw at him. This time, life hadn’t just thrown a curveball, though. It had lit an asteroid on fire and hurled it at his head on repeat. He blinked and glanced up at Allie. At Daisaku.

  He thought of Zanzi, somewhere in Oregon. Was she still alive? Ryan breathed out. His fears melted away as though a mange-infested monkey had suddenly jumped off his back. Helping these two, finding his missing friends, and getting back to his daughter, that was all that mattered. He couldn’t control the past. Stop what had happened. He could only control the present, the here and now, to influence the future.

  “According to the
se plans, there’s an entrance to the bunker somewhere down here,” he said.

  “Let’s go find it, then,” said Allie.

  Ryan went to the door and peeked out. The corridor remained clear and silent. Apart from the gunshots they’d heard, he couldn’t hear anything else. With one last look around, they trudged deeper into the moldy basement.

  Twenty

  Portland, Oregon

  “I’m sorry, Harriet. I’m going to have to take some blood,” Zanzi said.

  “That’s okay. I’m used to it.” Harriet rolled up her sleeve and tapped her inner elbow.

  Zanzi frowned at the cluster of puncture wounds and bruises. She could only guess at the torment the poor girl had gone through. Her plan wasn’t really a plan at all. More an acceptance of the situation. Ryan had always told her to face her fears head on. To adapt. Live to survive another day. Find another way out.

  At this point, they were surrounded by only God knew how many commandos. Pinned down with little chance of shooting any of them.

  Yes, the house was a possibility, but too risky. Or was it?

  Zanzi finished extracting the blood and capped the needle. She applied a band aid and handed Lisa the syringe.

  “They want Harriet and me alive. Right?”

  “Yes. So the commando claims,” Lisa said.

  “On three, Harriet and I are going to run into the house. If they want us alive, that should protect us. Give you a chance, at least,” Zanzi said.

  “We don’t know how many men he has. It’s too risky.”

  “Once we get into the house, I’ll provide you with some cover fire.”

  “Two minutes, Director,” the German commando called out.

  Lisa rubbed her temples with her thumbs and glanced at the trees. The wail of police sirens broke through the silence. Lisa raised her eyebrows and jolted her head toward the road as the sirens grew louder. Tires screeched as the police cars skidded to a stop, sirens still wailing.

  All hell broke loose. First, Lisa rose to her knees and sprayed the forest with bullets. She fired a burst toward where the German’s voice had come from. Then she rolled and fired a burst to her left.