THE DEAD MUSIC CLUB CHAPTER 1- MIASMA
Disclaimer: Zombies are inherently very brutal, violent, and destructive creatures. What I'm saying is- if you don't like dark stories with unhappy events, then this is not for you. I'm putting this here to avoid any reviews criticizing this story for being too dark. If you don't like dark stories, then don't read this. Simple as that. I hope that didn't come off as rude...
WITH THAT IN MIND...
"Much to the surprise of the United Nations, North Korea has made repeated threats towards some of the most advanced nations of the world. They have seemingly severed their shaky alliance with China, and included them with their threats. Although they were not specific as to what they would do if nations didn't lift their trade embargo's, they seemed rather confident that the United Nations would give into their demands. Their demands were as followed..."
Hirasawa Yui used the remote to turn the television off. Too many big words about too many places she didn't care about. She picked up her school bag and called up the stairs, "Ui, are you ready to go!"
Her sister, Ui, marched down the stairs with her own school bag, and Yui's guitar on her back, "Onee-chan, you almost left this behind."
Yui blinked in surprise, it was unlike her to forget something like that, "Oh, thank you Ui. I owe you one."
"If you keep saying that, you're going to have to take me to Paris or something." Ui chuckled. With all the times that her sister had said that, she wasn't too far off with that exaggeration.
The two of them walked side by side in the cool autumn morning towards their school. Although she didn't have anything specific to look forward to, Yui knew it was going to be a good day. The sun was behind a light sheet of clouds, bathing the city in a blood red glow. She didn't know why such a color was associated with war, she though it was beautiful.
The sisters said their goodbyes when they arrived, each of them going to visit their respective friend groups. Yui happily skipped along to meet her band mates, but she had to decided whether or not to see if they were in the classroom or the clubroom first. She tried the classroom, and with luck, they were there.
"Good morning everyone!" She said and waved at them. The rest of the Light Music Club had arrived before her, as always, and were standing or sitting in the corner. Yui noticed that the younger guitarist, Azusa, wasn't there. Even if they had different classes, she was almost always there with them. Yui knew that was because Azusa secretly loved her and wanted to have her babies; but was biding her time silently.
"Good morning, Yui-chan." Tsumugi said with a bow, Mio and Ritsu were too involved in some trivial argument to even notice her.
"Where's Azu-nyan?" Yui asked, and looked around to make sure that Azusa wasn't trying to ambush her for +7d6 sneak attack damage.
"Azusa-chan won't be here today." Tsumugi glumly said, "Her parents have both fallen ill and are confined to their beds. She's staying home to take care of them."
"I hope they get better soon, it's not the same when she's gone." Yui pouted, forgetting how she had gotten along just fine a full year before Azusa had joined them. She looked over at Ritsu and Mio, whose argument was getting more heated.
"...Even if they do have the means to back up their threats, North Korea would never instigate any sort of war with any country from the U.N." Mio adamantly argued.
With a shake of her head, Ritsu replied, "They work so hard on their military that everything else suffers. Think about how many missiles they must have, if they were just able to get a few of them off before they were shot down in orbit... Well they could easily take South Korea, China, and us straight out of the picture."
"Why would North Korea attack us?" Mio laughed.
"Read up on your history my dear Mio. We weren't exactly the nicest neighbors back sixty years ago." Ritsu said with a wag of her finger.
"Still, a tiny piss-poor nation like knows better not to attack a nation who's superior in every way." Mio told herself.
Yui leaned towards Tsumugi, "What are they arguing about? It sounds boring."
Tsumugi, knower of all, replied, "They're talking about how North Korea is threatening to take offensive action against the United States, The United Kingdom, South Korea, China, and Japan if a series of demands aren't met."
"Oh." Yui sighed, suddenly she had an exciting thought, "What do they want? Money? Power? To rule the world?"
"Mostly shares in major global companies and permission to use NATO forces for their own projects. Some other things too, but I don't remember what they were." Tsumugi told her. Yui paid attention to about half of that; it was too boring for her to divert attention to. Their brief conversation was cut even shorter when their teacher, Sawako, entered the room.
"Take your seats everyone, let's get today over with." She grumbled and made her way to the front of the room. The dark circles under her eyes were obvious to the entire class, and there was a nasally undertone to her voice that suggested illness. She sniffled, then wiped her nose with the back of her sleeve without caring what people thought, "Alright, does anyone want to take attendance for me? I'm not feeling too well today."
"On it." Nodoka Manabe said without missing a beat, as was expected from her. There were murmurs around the class about just how pale Sawako was looking. She hadn't been looking too great the last couple of days, especially with that virus going around, but now it surprised everyone to see that she even managed to show up today.
It was Yui who had the bravery to ask about it, "Sawa-chan, are you sure you're well enough to be teaching today?"
"I'm fine." Sawako replied, she was laying her head against her desk with her eyes closed.
"Well, it's been twenty minutes and you haven't moved from that spot." Yui pointed out.
"That's nice." The sensei dreamily sighed.
"Maybe you should go home, and they can find a substitute for you." Yui suggested.
"Too many teachers are out today with that virus going around, they can't spare anymore substitutes. As long as you don't get into any trouble, everyone here can do whatever they want." Sawako told her, then attempted to fall back asleep on her desk again. Yui relayed the news to her friends, which spread around the class. A few students who had more than half their teachers gone that day decided to just go home.
"Maybe I should just go home..." Ritsu said to herself. Mio was quick to put a stop to such ideas.
"No, that's the kind of thing that leads to you become a NEET." Mio sternly told her. Yui jumped at that word.
"Well, Mugi-chan seems to be leaving." Ritsu pointed out, and gestured to the door where Nodoka and her were standing with Sawako. The latter looked like she was having trouble standing.
"They're not leaving school." Mio sighed to the drummer, than stood up to go investigate just what they were doing. She casually approached them and asked about what they were doing.
"Ah, Tsumugi-san and I are escorting Sawako-sensei to the nurse's office. She really is too ill to be here today." Nodoka explained to her.
"Ah, that's very kind of you. Azusa's home taking care of her sick parents too; looks like this flu strain is getting pretty bad, huh?" Mio replied, very conversationally.
"It seems so." Nodoka nodded, "Well, we need to get going again. Tell the rest of the class to behave while Sawako-sensei is gone. There should be a substitute here after lunch."
"Alright, I'll tell them." Mio assured her, then went to go do just that. Her news was met with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Some people were deathly worried about their teacher, some were apathetic towards her absence, and some were glad to be relieved of adult authority.
Mio took this opportunity to get ahead on her studies. With all this free time, she cracked open a text book and began copying down all the important sections for their upcoming test.
"What a crummy day." Yui sighed, outside it had just started raining. Those light clouds from that morning had turned into black storm clouds. Luckily, she had her umbrella in the clubroom, so at least she wouldn't get wet. That thought didn't cheer her up, she was still worried about Sawako. The woman looked like she had been awake for days, and forced to run a marathon too. Just as she was thinking that, Tsumugi returned with an unhappy look on her face. Its source was obvious, she was frivolously scrubbing at her blouse with a handful of paper towels; there was dark stain all over the front of it.
"Oh my god, what happened?" Mio asked after quickly making her way over to the keyboardist. Yui and Ritsu were right behind her in an instant.
Tsumugi shut her eyes and paused a moment before replying, "She threw up on me!"
"Is there anyway you could get you clothes changed?" Mio asked, using her nicest voice.
Ritsu, quickly seizing this opportunity, placed and arm around Mio's shoulder and said, "You know...that stain looks an awful lot like blood."
Mio's face went pale, and Ritsu could have sworn her pupils shrunk, "B-blood?"
Yui decided to be the hero, "It's not blood Mio-chan, red cereals can make your puke red too."
"We're in Japan, we don't eat any cereals." Ritsu scoffed. Mio was still too horrified by the image of her teacher vomiting blood to pay attention to them.
Tsumugi finally answered Mio's original question, "I have a spare blouse upstairs in the clubroom. Do you think it would be alright for me to leave and go change?"
Yui had to be the one to reply since Mio was still panicked for another 4 turns. After taking a short survey of her surroundings, she replied, "Half the class already left, what's another few of us?"
"Why do you have a spare uniform up there anyways?" Ritsu asked.
"I placed one in the storage closet in case one of you got wet again like Yui-chan did." Tsumugi explained, after another second she spoke again, "Wait, you're all coming with me?"
"You're walking around with red cereals all over you. You'll need an escort." Yui told her, matter-o-factly. Although Tsumugi didn't quite understand why being splattered with vomit required you to have an escort, she accept Yui's "logic" without question.
"I still say it's blood." Ritsu said, Mio moaned at that. The drummer sighed, and grabbed her by the hand to break her apparent paralyzation.
"Don't worry Mio-chan, we all know that it's red cereals." Yui assured her.
"For God's sake Yui, it's cereal not cereals!" Ritsu snapped at her. Yui shrugged it off and kept up following Tsumugi through the hallways of the school. Finally breaking away from her unnatural fear, Mio realized how anarchic their school had become all of a sudden. People wandering the hallways, shirts untucked, other things along those lines. Mio didn't believe that nasty flu strain was an excuse to throw away standards and social decency.
At the base of the stairs, one of their "classroom" friends, Satsuki, was sitting there with her head between her knees. Tsumugi was quick to make sure everything was alright with her, "Satsuki-san, are you not feeling well?"
"No, I feel like fucking shit." Satsuki said to her knees. Her tone was openly hostile, with a hint of exhaustion.
"I'm sorry to hear that." Tsumugi said with a bow, "Do you want help from one of us getting to the nurse's office?"
"The place is already packed, a lot of girls came in today with the flu." Satsuki replied, sounding hopeless, "One of those bitches gave me it, and I hope they get hit by a bus or something. Seriously, I'm starting to cough up blood."
Mio squirmed at that.
"You mustn't stay here then, you need to go home and get better. I can call a taxi and-" Tsumugi tried to tell her.
"Mugi-chan, it's fine." Satsuki cut her off, "I only live a few blocks away. When my stomach starts feeling better, I'll go on my own."
"Alright..." Tsumugi said, and reluctantly passed her on her way up the stairs. When they made their way to their clubroom, the chaos of the rest of the day seemed to melt away. Routine and familiarity took over, and the four of them were able to breathe a sigh of relief. Without even thinking, Yui was setting the table for tea, and Tsumugi was boiling water.
"Hey! Mugi-chan, please get into clean clothes first." Ritsu reminded her.
Tsumugi blushed over her occupational hazard, "Right, sorry, forgot for a moment."
Ritsu chuckled while shaking her head. She noticed that Mio was sitting on the couch, and hadn't said a word for a while now. "Hey, Mio-chan, is something up?"
"I was just hoping that Azusa didn't get ill as well." Mio whispered, "She's with her parents, who are sick. I just can't get the faces of Sawako and Satsuki out of my mind; they both looked so agonized. I would hate to see Azusa like that."
"I know." Yui agreed from behind them, "Azu-nyan is too cute, I would probably cry if I saw her like that."
"Do you think we should start wearing those masks over our mouths or something?" Ritsu asked. She had seen a few people with those, but they were already coughing so it was hard to tell how well they worked.
"I did that for the whole Swine Flu thing, and I still had it for like a week." Mio replied with a shake of her head, "No, let's just try not to come within coughing distance of anyone for awhile."
"Maybe we should just stay here until lunch, then see if there's a substitute teacher for Sawa-chan." Yui suggested.
Ritsu ignored her and went to torment Mio some more, "What do you do if someone pukes up blood on you though?"
Mio squirmed in terror and put her hands over her ears. Yui turned around and jumped in surprise when she saw Tsumugi in her underwear, apparently trying to decide whether or not to change into another school uniform...or maid outfit.
"Sorry Mugi-chan, but we're not allowed to wear maid costumes in class. I know from experience." Yui glumly told her.
Tsumugi sighed, "What about the dancer dress?"
"You mean the one that makes you look like Aya from Biohazard?" Ritsu asked from across the room.
"Yeah, that one." Tsumugi replied.
"Wear it." Ritsu adamantly said, "Wait, does it come with the boots?"
"No, just the dress."
"Then go with the school uniform then." Ritsu gave in. Tsumugi went with it, and was dressed back in normal clothes within seconds. Now they could move onto more important things- drinking tea. Although this was a common, and sacred practice to them. Drinking tea during class time somehow felt wrong, almost dirty.
"We should go back, shouldn't we." Mio spoke up, she was barely sipping at her tea.
"So we can continue doing nothing, at least here we can do nothing while drinking tea." Ritsu replied, she then held out her cup to Tsumugi, "Mugi-chan, fill 'er up."
"Yes ma'am." Tsumugi nodded, and went quickly to work to replace Ritsu's tea. She knew exactly how much honey, milk, and sugar each of them needed to be perfectly satisfied. However, in such a dismal, out of the ordinary atmosphere; satisfaction was difficult to achieve. Yui seemed content though, but that really wasn't worth celebrating. Celebrating the fact that Yui was happy was like congratulating yourself on waking up with all your limbs still attached.
"I don't know, this just doesn't feel right." Mio muttered, "Should we at least ask permission from Nodoka or someone first?"
"I'll text her then!" Yui announced, and produced her cellphone. With practiced precision, her fingers sped across the phones keypad until her desired message was sent, "Until we get a reply, we should just take it easy." To emphasize her point, she leaned back and plopped her feet on the desk.
"Don't do that, it's unbecoming." Mio scolded. Yui reluctantly obeyed.
As much as they wanted everything to be normal, like any other day, something just didn't feel right. The air seemed stale, and that peaceful quietness that usually engulfed the school was gone. Even up on the third floor, they could hear people from the second talking loudly since order had seemed to fail. Mio was eagerly awaiting someone to step up and put everything back into its place, so that school could resume its average scheduled pace.
Ritsu and Yui decided to treat it like something along the lines of a vacation. Just for one day, they could kind of sit back and relax without any worries. That tense atmosphere had faded, and the two of them were chatting away about a variety of topics that covered many aspects of their lives. Mio even joined in a few times. Not one of them realized that two hours had passed with no reply from Nodoka, or any word from anyone. Their clubroom was a sanctuary cut off from the rest of the school for now. And considering the flu going around, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing...Until they heard a message over the intercom.
It was the male voice of their schools headmaster, whose name none of them had ever bothered to learn. When his message began, all the talking from downstairs instantly ceased.
"Hello everyone, I realize today has been hectic with the flu strain. I want to thank all of you who stayed here despite the circumstances of many of our faculty. However, I have some very dire news. There are multiple suspicious people on campus who have taken advantage of this momentary state of disarray to enter the school premise. They will be dealt with quickly by law enforcement, but until then every student must stay in the classroom they are in with the doors locked and the window shades down."
When his message ended, the four girls stared at each other, eyes darting back and forth to one another. It was Ritsu who broke the silence, "So...Does that mean we stay in here?"
"I guess..." Mio whispered, "One of us should send a text message to someone in our class to tell them that we're still here."
"I sent one to Nodoka-chan, remember?" Yui reminded them.
"Send another then." Mio said, and stood up to go lock the single door closest to then. Ritsu followed suit and locked the double doors near her drumset.
"We don't need to lower the blinds for the windows up here do we?" Ritsu asked.
"Not if we stay out of sight of the windows on the doors." Mio replied. In a situation like this one, her bravery was admired by the other three. Then again, there wasn't really anything to be afraid of. Things like this periodically happened in middle school, it would be over within minutes. To keep out of sight of the "suspicious persons" they sat on the floor beneath the windows.
"Does anyone know any games we could play to pass the time?" Tsumugi asked. Mio was reading a book, Ritsu had her MP3 player, and Yui was sitting up to look out the window into the rain. The keyboardist was the odd one out with nothing to do.
"If only I had my old Dungeons and Dragons books with me, that would be a great way to pass the time." Ritsu lamented.
"Not that game again, you always found a way to completely shaft me." Mio growled at the drummer.
"I like it though, it was fun being a paladin." Tsumugi sighed, remembering those fond memories with her friends.
"I liked Lady Mugi-chan The Brave." Yui agreed. They all took a moment of silence for Lady Mugi-chan The Brave, who had rolled a 1 on her saving throw to avoid the black dragon's breath. There was no burial for the paladin, because there wasn't anything left of her to bury. It was universally agreed that Tsumugi was all around more likable when she wasn't a puddle on the ground. Which was why they went to great efforts to keep her eyebrows where they were.
Since there was no entertainment to be had for the keyboardist, she joined Yui in lazily watching the rain form puddles outside. Something outside caught her attention, and brought up a question she felt needed to be asked, "What kind of law enforcement did they say would show up?"
"They didn't say what kind." Mio replied, not looking up from her book. After a moment, she asked, "Why do you ask?"
"Look, doggies!" Yui said, and pushed her finger against the window in a rudimentary gesture of pointing. Mio quickly stood up to see what exactly was going on outside; Ritsu was too drawn into The Who's Won't Get Fooled Again to notice her surroundings. Outside, Mio saw what looked to be armored cars...armored cars in her school's parking lot. Not only were they armored cars, but they were armored cars belonging to Japan's Ground Self-defense Force. Like Yui had said, they had brought police dogs with them.
Her calm was shattered as she slumped back onto the floor. The headmaster had certainly neglected the details of these "suspicious persons". This wasn't just some drunk guy staggering around with an unloaded gun or something, that didn't call for the military. She stood up, still shaking, "No, I have to go home where I know everything is alright. The flu, the military, this is just too much for me."
"But the headmaster said to stay in here." Tsumugi protested as Mio marched towards the door.
"I appreciate following rules as much as the next person, but I would feel much safer at home with my parents." Mio told them. Yui and Tsumugi waited a few moments before even reacting.
"Should we go after her, maybe even go home ourselves?" Yui asked as she started sending a text message to Ui. Apparently Ui's friend Jun had fallen ill with that flu, and she was escorting her home.
"I don't know." Tsumugi worriedly said, tears forming in her eyes. This unexpected schism did not bode well with her.
Ritsu removed her earbuds and looked around, "Hey, where did Mio go?"
"Do you pay attention to anything!" Yui shouted at her, there was no anger in her voice though.
"Nope." Ritsu proudly replied.
Tsumugi answered her original question, "Mio-chan decided that she would take her chances going home. But we saw those military vehicles outside, what if it isn't safe. It isn't like her to take a chance like this!"
Yui hugged, and gently began rocking the distraught keyboardist back and forth. Ritsu stood up and stretched, then began walking towards the door, "Well, I'm gonna go after her and make sure she's safe. I'll call you and tell you how it goes if we decided to leave; okay?"
"Okay." Yui nodded, trusting the drummer.
When Ritsu stepped outside, she could hear shouting downstairs in some of the hallways. Men yelling at each other, but she couldn't figure out what they were saying. But now she was starting to get a little afraid. To make sure Mio was okay, and to find out where she was, Ritsu dialed her number on her cell phone. Mio picked up after it rang twice.
"Hello?" Mio whispered, it sounded like she was crying.
"Mio! Where did you go, you just stormed off and it really freaked Tsumugi out." Ritsu replied as she walked down the stairs. Satsuki was still there from earlier, but she was standing up. The flu had only gotten worse it seemed, her skin was even paler before and her eyes were glazed over. Her face was completely devoid of any emotion, and her jaw was slacked just a little bit. Ritsu half thought that the girl was drunk.
"I'm in the bathroom on the second floor right now. Can you come get me?" Mio asked through her tears. Ritsu side stepped Satsuki who was trying to grab onto her for support or something. Yep, she was definitely drunk.
"Hey, not now!" Ritsu yelped at Satsuki as she staggered towards her.
"What?" Mio whimpered.
"Sorry, I was talking to someone else." Ritsu replied, without realizing that she was making hand gestures that Mio couldn't see.
"Just come get me!" Mio cried.
"Okay, okay. You're acting really weird, you know that?" Ritsu chuckled and passed a few more apparently drunk girls, "Mio, were they having a keg party down here or something? Everyone is either drunk, or that flu is worse than we thought."
"Stay away from them!" Mio cried, Ritsu had to pull the phone away from her ear at the sudden burst of noise.
"Okay, okay." Ritsu muttered and turned the knob of the door. It didn't budge, "Hey Mio. It's locked."
As if that was the magic word, there was a click at the door knob, and a shaken Mio practically fell onto Ritsu. Ritsu caught her and helped her compose herself again, "What's with you, you weren't even gone five minutes. Is it really that bad down here?"
Mio nodded, tears were flowing down her face. Ritsu used the back of her fingers to wipe a few of them off those cheeks, "Did someone try to hurt you or something? Tell me what happened."
The bassist said nothing, but with a shaking hand she pointed behind Ritsu. The headbanded drummer turned around felt her body freeze in fear. Like something out of a horror movie, there was one of her classmates, a girl whose name she never bothered to learn, shuffling towards them. Someone had apparently shot her at least a dozen times in the chest with an automatic weapon. Her uniform was turn apart by the bullets, and her pale body was painted red with blood. However, none of this even seemed to faze her as kept moving towards them.
She took a step backwards, which gave her a nice look into the inside of her classroom. Those two girls who were always together, long brown hair and shorter black hair, whose names Ritsu couldn't remember either (she decided that after this she was going to start taking a more active role in learning names) had their hands inside another girl, and were happily pulling parts of her out to feast upon.
Ritsu looked around and saw another girl who was missing an arm. In those few hours they were upstairs, Hell had opened up somewhere in their school or something. Another girl had her jaw torn off, and a sizable part of her large intestine was dragging behind her. As if to taunt her, they would occasionally hiss or let out a low, hollow, sorrowful moan.
She wanted to throw up, she wanted to crawl up into a ball and wish it all away. But a primal voice in the back of her mind was screaming, Get the fuck out of there! Never one to ignore such voices, she grabbed Mio by the wrist and ran back the way she came. All of those girls were slowly coming after them, with others joining their ranks. By the time they reached the stairs, there were at least a dozen behind them. Ritsu pushed Satsuki out of the way and ran back into the clubroom.
"Oh hey, Mio-chan's back." Yui said with a wave and a smile. That smile fell apart when she saw how Mio was crying, and that pale look of horror on Ritsu's face. It also seemed that Mio's fan club had followed her too; because she could see several people pressing themselves against the door from the outside. For some reason that Yui couldn't place, they were hissing and moaning.
Ritsu locked it, then laid down on the floor, staring up at the ceiling.
"So what happened downstairs?" Tsumugi asked the two.
The drummer sighed and turned her head to the blonde provider of tea, "Have you ever seen Night of the Living Dead?"