Chapter 1, The Dead Arise
(AN: Overhaul of scenes later in the chapter; new dialogue and scene descriptions.)
I'm not exactly sure as to how I got here… maybe a temporal displacement or something? I don't know. Anyway, I woke to find myself on the grounds of some kind of school, a high school it seemed. I never liked any school for that manner; I put it all behind me years ago with my College Masters Degree in several fields. Why I was here was an absolute mystery to me, but it soon became clear that I was stranded in some area I didn't recognize, without any means of communication or tools, just the clothes and such on my back. I was wearing a pure black leather biker jacket, with long sharp spikes on the shoulders and my hands were wearing gloves that had smaller, but probably just as sharp, spikes on the back of them. I was also wearing black jeans and a pair of black steel toed boots; also, my trusty CZ-75 was in its holster on my belt. My entire body was well toned and bulky from many years of military service and weightlifting, turning it into a V-shape that most women would kill for a man to have. I saw a sign next to the high school, written in Japanese, I then knew I was in Japan, a country which I was going to learn the language of, but never got around to it.
But for some reason, I was able to read it with little to no problems at all; it said something along the lines of 'Fujimi Academy' I don't quite remember the rest. 'The heck?' I thought to myself upon the realization that I could read Japanese at all. I also saw that it was the same year as when I fell asleep, putting any fears of traveling into the future or the past to rest, there were several human figures standing in front of the gates, all of them shambling around in various inhuman ways, upon closer inspection, I saw their pale skin, I heard their moans of hunger and most of all, I saw the dead looks in their eyes, only one thing came to mind in seeing these figures. "Zombies? Impossible!" I muttered to myself in pure disbelief, I then heart the intercom crackle and a voice began to speak through it.
"This announcement is for all students, an emergency situation is taking place in the school right now, all students must follow their teacher's instructions and evacuate. I repeat; an emergency situation is taking place in the school right no-" It seemed to be cut off by something as I drew closer to the main gates, being careful as to not revealing my position in any way. Without warning, the intercom was filled with the same voice as before. "What are you doing?! Stay back!" A sound unlike any I heard, with the exception of movies, TV and video games, was also heard on the intercom; it was the growl of the undead! "No! Don't! AAAAAAAAGH!" There was then an abrupt cutoff with a loud round of static, which was then silenced completely… there was a deafening silence for several seconds as I heard absolutely nothing other than the other zombie's groans and movements, coupled with the wind in my ears. 'All it takes is a single thing to set something off!' I thought to myself as I waited for something to happen.
It seemed as though something did; without any warning I knew of, the school erupted into only what I can only describe to be absolute chaos! Various students, even some of the teachers were clawing, pulling and pushing many of each other out of the way to try and reach apparent safety. "Except if I'm right, then nowhere is safe…" I muttered to myself, this whole thing has begun to hit a downward spiral, just as I thought it would. I began to sneak into the school itself, to try and see if anyone was still coherent enough to be saved. I then came across a single girl who had been running throughout the back tennis courts, bobbing and weaving to get around the corpses, but she was eventually completely surrounded while I silently snuck up behind one of the zeds, grabbed its neck and snapped it clean off the shoulders, throwing the head in a random direction, the other two were taken care of much more brutally. I grabbed one by the arm and bent it to the point of it snapping in two.
Once that was done, I somehow managed to punch its head so hard that it burst apart in a shower of blood, mucus, brain matter and bone. I didn't even know I was that strong! The other one seemed to rush me, but I was ready, I swung my arm into a backhand and hit it right across the face, causing the jaw to snap right off and hang loosely on a chunk of flesh. Then I gave it a solid punch to the gut, making it double over and I then hit it with my fist again, this time snapping the neck off of the shoulders. Once I got my bearings back, I turned back to the girl I had just saved, she just sat on the ground in silence as we stared at each other.
I didn't know what exactly was going on in her head, but I didn't know whether or not to say anything out of the fact that I didn't know Japanese. Listening to a gut feeling I had, I opened my mouth to speak and… It's hard to describe what came out of my mouth at that point, because my English was overpowering all other sounds my mouth made for me, but there was an underlying Japanese sounding series of words that followed my English ones to the direct meaning and grammar of the entire Japanese language! "Are you… alright?" I asked, the student nodded, what I heard from her mouth was the exact opposite of what I was expecting; she might have been speaking Japanese in her own perspective, but what I heard was English. "Y-yes… thank you… but who are you? I've never seen you around the school before." She stated in wonder.
It was honestly a completely understandable question to ask in the current situation, but I was not expecting to understand her language at all. I just waved off her earlier question. "Later, it's too dangerous, you may come with me if you want to, and your chances of survival are greater than being alone you know." I stated quickly as the girl nodded once more. "Yeah, okay, I'll go with you." She said as I nodded my own head. "Alright, but remember one thing; you have to do precisely what I say, no excuses, understand?" I asked as the girl agreed to my terms and we went off to look for other survivors. In the depths of the library, we found two girls running for their lives, both were wearing typical female Japanese high school uniforms; Gakuen I think they're called, consisting of a white shirt, a green... something, I don't know what it's called, green skirts, black socks and shoes.
One of them had light blue eyes, like bright electricity, her hair jet black, tinted a slight blue tied back in a pigtail slightly combed in the front. Her bust was impressive for her age, at a great D-cup, the other girl had brown hair in a bun with light brown eyes while her bust size was pitiful, only roughly b-cup or above. Both the girls were running while holding hands together, most likely friends or something. "We should be okay if we run together Misuzu." The girl with brown hair stated as she and 'Misuzu' ran along the upper levels of the library. "Of course, we will; because you and I are best friends, Toshimi." Misuzu said back before she and Toshimi stopped running and froze at the sight of what was coming up the stairwell below; more zombies!
They both screamed in terror as I pulled my CZ-75 out of its holster and opened fire, splattering brain matter and blood everywhere when the bullets hit the freak bag's heads. I ran up to them and requested that they come with me, they both nodded and followed me and the girl I had saved earlier out of the library and we quietly made our way into an empty storage room where we caught our breath. "That was… a close one… thank you… sir…" Toshimi said to me between breaths. "It was no problem, just happy to help." I responded as I smiled, then turned to the first girl I had saved. "By the way, I never caught your name." I said while she just smiled.
"I'm Kironi Shuzki, pleased to meet you." Kironi introduced. "Very well then, my name is Alexander Williams, you can call me Alex if you want, I'm a Lieutenant of the Canadian Armed Forces Special Ops Unit." I said clearly and politely, Toshimi tilted her head to the side. "Special Ops unit?" She asked as I nodded. "Yeah, I did a few tours of Afghanistan too." I then turned back to the door and prepared to open it. "We should be moving right about now, no sense of staying in such a confined space." The girls agreed as I opened the door as quietly as I could and we silently went through the school in several levels, looking for survivors wherever we could, turns out there weren't that many. I personally snapped the necks of any individual zed we came across as silently as was possible, ceasing all their movements instantly. My military training took hold during that time and it was kind of like one of those missions I used to do where I was to take my time and make certain I was to not be discovered.
After roughly 13 minutes, the girls and I came across the school's medical ward where I found the school nurse, and an assistant presumably, fending off an entire hoard! The school nurse was a very tall woman with absolutely ridiculous curves and a buxom chest that was like nothing I had ever seen before. Her breasts had to have been larger than double D's, J-cup at the most! They were so big that they looked fake, her posterior on the other hand, was small compared to her bust, but it was still far bigger than most girls I had ever seen in my life. Her long blond hair extended past her waist and she had a pair of warm hazel eyes. Several bangs of hair came down to her face, with two locks coming down at her sides, framing her flawless face; the woman was nothing short of perfectly gorgeous! She was also dressed in a typical Japanese nurse outfit, which did absolutely nothing to hide her massive sized breasts. Her assistant, clad in a male Japanese high school uniform with gray eyes and black hair was fending off the zombies all by his lonesome, but I knew it was futile. I had to do something! I instinctively reached into my leather jacket and came upon the grip of a Commando assault rifle and pulled it out of the jacket, realizing that I had not had it in the first place after a few seconds.
"What the-? Oh forget it!" I hissed as I turned the safety off with a soft click, cocked the firing mechanism back and opened fire on the hoard, making several of their brains splatter in a shower of blood and gore when the 7.62×51mm NATO bullets collided with various parts of their skulls. Blood, bone, brain matter among other parts of the heads fell to the floor or spattered against the wall upon this occurrence. I then trained my weapon on the rest, shooting them full of holes, then focusing on the heads, soon letting them fall into a pile of a combination of their own limbs, blood, sinew, organs, pulmonary systems and… other various parts. I had never killed this brutally before; it was always quick and efficient, I guess I never gave it much thought before. Once I was certain that I had them all down, I turned and looked back at the two I had saved, the curvy nurse and the assistant, who I now noticed wore glasses.
"Are you both alright?" I asked, concerned for them both. "Yeah, we're alright." The assistant stated. "Who are you exactly?" The nurse asked, sounding as though she just got out of bed or something, I tried to keep my eyes away from her breasts as I explained. "You can call me Alex, Lieutenant of the Canadian Armed Forces Special Ops Unit. And you?" I asked back. "I'm Kazu Ishii and this is the nurse of the school, Miss Shizuka." Ichi stated, motioning towards Shizuka as he introduced her. "Hello." She greeted shyly. "I honestly wish we could have met on better grounds than this..." I admitted before hearing running behind me, I whipped around to see a girl rush in, no doubt to see what the gunfire was all about, she had a set of beautiful deep blue eyes, complimented by long, straight, shiny purple hair that reached down far below her back, with a triangular fringe that barely reached the bridge of her nose, she was considerably taller than the average girl in Japan, even having longer arms than most.
She also had a kendo practice sword at her side, when she laid eyes upon me, she narrowed them suspiciously. "What happened? Who is this?!" She demanded upon seeing me, Toshimi and the other girls I had saved jumped in front of me. "Hey! He saved pretty much all of us!" Kironi stated once she heard the threatening tone in the other girl's voice. "Is this true?" She demanded to my face. "Of course it is! I swore an oath to protect! Besides it was the right thing to do." I said back calmly, the girl sighed. "At least you were able to help, that was brave of you; how you protected these two." She said, which sounded almost like praise to me. "Tell me, what's your name?" I asked her, she was silent for a few seconds. "…Saeko Busujima, Kendo Martial Arts Club member, that's who I am." Saeko stated as I gave a slight grin. "Saeko… I like it." She blushed at my remark a little, but hid it. "Well, we shouldn't hang around here, more of them will come." She stated as I nodded. "You're right, let's go!" Once we got a bit more acquainted with each other and packed away as many of the medical supplies as we could, we left the nurse's office.
At one point during our journey to find other survivors, I decided to test out the abilities of my jacket as the others watched in disbelief. I had pulled out a gun; the Thompson SMG, seemingly straight from the 1940's!. "So, this jacket has a temporal storage space… neat." I admitted as I briefly wondered what else I could find. I thought about explosives and my hand was greeted with 2 M-27 hand grenades in my hand. "Well, there seems to not be much of a limit…" I tried pulling as many of them out as I could, I gave up trying to empty my jacket of grenades around the 52nd grenade. I then thought about a silencer and one got put into my hand as it reached into my jacket, the silencer fit nicely with my Commando, just like a glove. "This will most definitely be useful!" I stated as I looked over the now quieter weapon. I then had thoughts about a rocket launcher and soon I reached into my jacket and found an RPG in my hands, as soon as I had a good look at it, I immediately put it back into my jacket's storage space, satisfied with the abilities that it held.
Once I was finished trying out my new jacket, we headed down the stairs by several floors. "The faculty room? Jesus, what a pain in the ass…" Saeko muttered in frustration. "All the car keys are in that room, that's where they keep them." Shizuka explained before Saeko knocked another zed aside and continued on her way while I put the finishing shot with my silenced Commando, the silencer bringing down any noise that would have attracted unwanted attention. "You know, I wouldn't recommend letting them grab any part of your clothes, because of their deceased state, they have surpassed all human limitations, including pain of exertion. Some will go as far as to break bones to get to their prey, once they grab something; it's hard to get it loose." I analyzed as we continued. "Wow… that's smart…" Shizuka commented as she stepped forward before she tripped up on a random carpet on the floor, falling to her knees. "I hate these stupid floor mats!" She said with distaste, Saeko kneeled in front of her. "You know, what you're wearing isn't exactly made for running." Saeko said to Shizuka, reaching down to grab at her skirt. I heard a loud tear as Saeko straight up ripped one side of Shizuka's skirt and didn't stop until the tear revealed Shizuka's panties from the side! I was shocked, as was Ichi and the other girls, but we all kept our mouths shut. "A-are you crazy?! This is Christian d'jour!" Shizuka exclaimed as Saeko stood up again, shook her head and sighed. "Your clothes or your life; which is more important?" Saeko asked flatly, Shizuka squealed in frustration before she said something I couldn't quite make out.
We heard a bang directly above us, followed by several 'pshh' noises, which I cannot describe! "What was that?!" Shizuka demanded. "It came from the Faculty Room." Saeko calmly stated. We then began to pick up the pace (Thanks to Shizuka's wardrobe modification) up the stairs directly to the faculty room, upon hearing a scream from said Faculty Room, I immediately bolted it even faster towards the room itself, I shoulder charged the door and burst in with the others. A few seconds later, I found myself standing next to a teen with the spikiest black hair, with a slight purple hue, I had ever seen. He was about average height, brown eyes and a slender yet reasonably strong build suggesting being extremely agile if nothing else. He wore the typical black male school uniform with a visible red t-shirt underneath and was holding an aluminum baseball bat in his hand. Standing next to him was a girl with straight golden brown hair with several bangs and two antennae-like strands jutting from the top of her head. She also had a single, small ponytail done on the back of her head, leaving the rest to hang long. Her legs were noticeably toned, even in her uniform, she had a very impressive athletic-looking body, though nothing short of beautiful, a buxom chest to compliment the rest of her undeniably healthy figure.
Her eyes were also a beautiful reddish-brown, she was also in a standard issue female Japanese High School uniform and a spear made out of an old mop handle clenched tightly in her right hand. The main thing I was staring at was a girl in the same kind of uniform as the first one, only her hair was a pure hot pink in two ponytails, both going down to her posterior in pure length, her eyes a darker version. Next to her was a slightly chubby teen with shoulder length black hair, glasses and what looked like a nail gun attached to several wooden parts to make a makeshift gun stock. The main thing about the scene was the second girl, in her hand was a drill meant for screws and such that was embedded in the skull of a zombie that was right in front of her, the drill still spinning at max speed. I had to give her credit, if the only thing I had on me was the same kind of tool, I probably would use it in the same manner if a zombie tried to rind the flesh from my bones. She was also screaming at the top of her lungs while blood from the zed spattered every which way, even onto her uniform especially.
"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE! SOMEONE PLEASE!" I honestly could not blame her for being so scared, as I was on the inside, but I hid it pretty well all things considered. Me and Saeko took a look at the two new arrivals and silently knew what we had to do. "I'll take the right side." Saeko stated. "Me and Rei will get the left!" The boy said. "I got all of them in the center! Break!" I commanded as we rushed towards our targets. I bludgeoned one of the zombies with the stock of my Commando then shot it in the head to finish it, another I shot a single shot to the head, stopping it permanently as it fell to the floor, I then shot in full auto as I aimed to make a sweeping motion, all of the first row died instantly, while the rest were killed off by the second wave I made. I then killed the last one in the center by pure blunt force trauma. I panted as I turned and saw the others in their own work, killing the rest of the zombies in their own ways. Saeko and the male teen bludgeoned them to death while Rei knocked her targets down and stabbed them in the heads, destroying their brains or smashing them wide open.
After a few minutes, Saeko stood to the left of me calmly; the aforementioned Rei and the boy were standing to the right of me, panting hard from what was probably probably improper exertion or something. The second boy was standing where he was the whole time, shocked at what he had just witnessed while the second girl was kneeling in front of the re-killed corpse of which she just disposed of, crying. "Taka-" The boy was interrupted by Rei and Shizuka rushing past him, Shizuka hitting him with her right breast by pure accident, making him fall onto his back. Rei and Shizuka ran up to Takagi in concern. "Takagi, are you okay?" Rei asked, gently holding the girl's shoulder.
"Miyamoto…" The girl, now identified as Takagi, whispered back, I decided to give them some space, let it happen ya know? Saeko walked up to the first boy. "You already know the school nurse, Miss Marikawa. I'm Saeko Busujima, from class 3-a." Saeko introduced herself, the first boy nodded. "I'm Takashi Komuro from class 2-b." Takashi introduced. "Miss Busujima, I remember you won the championship last year, I'm Rei Miyamoto I'm in the spear martial arts club." Rei introduced. "Oh, and I'm Khota Hirano, from class b just an F.Y.I." Khota said shyly. The girls I had saved introduced themselves, leaving me to be the last one for introductions. "My name is Alexander Williams, you can call me Alex if you want; I'm a Lieutenant of the Canadian Armed Forces Special Ops Unit." Saeko smiled. "Nice to meet you all." She said happily, I smiled along with her. "Why are you guys being all warm and fuzzy?" Takagi demanded as she shakily stood up, we all turned and looked at her. "Why are you being so polite to Rei Miyamoto!? You flunked last year, you're the same age, she is not your elder!" I didn't understand; why was she acting this way? "What are you talking about Takagi?" Takashi asked in shock, Takagi whipped around and gave us the angriest glare I had ever seen on the female gender.
"DON'T TALK TO ME LIKE I'M STUPID! I'M SMARTER THAN ALL OF YOU COMBINED!" She yelled louder than I have ever heard before, no one I knew yelled louder than her. 'She's losing it!' I thought sadly, as I knew what it was like to experience your first real kill, even if it was an undead. "You should be lucky I'm even in the same school as you!" Tears streamed down her face as she began to truly cry. "I'm uh… I'm a…" I placed a comforting hand upon her shoulder, she looked directly at me. "Shhh… Its okay, it's over now. I promise you." I said gently, attempting to calm her down.
Takagi then saw a mirror beside her, showing her covered in head to toe with blood stains. "Look at me…" She said shakily. "All of these bloodstains… Now mom will have to take it to the cleaners…" I gripped her shoulder tighter, grabbing her attention once more. "That does not matter! What does is that you're alive, not whether or not you are dirty. I'm certain your mother would say the exact same thing." She brightened up somewhat at my words, but immediately turned downcast again. She then began to sob, which turned into a roar of anguish as she sobbed uncontrollably into my chest. I comforted her as best I could, but I knew only one way to heal a scar like this; let time pass and let the wound heal itself. I knew it all too well, I held her gently as she continued to sob, I for whatever reason could not let go, as I found myself feeling sorry for her. I knew at some point that she was on top of the world, but a single day like this shattered the support structures of her very psyche, making her fall from grace… just like me… I let her cry into my chest for several minutes until she cried herself dry and fell into complete silence, making me for a second think that she had been turned, but a quick check of her skin tone disproved that. I picked her up, bridal style, Takagi too distressed to care, I carried her to the door leading out of the room, and I stopped briefly and glared at the others.
"Leave us alone for a bit, she needs time… alone." The others nodded at my demand and I walked out of the room, heading to a different one, a science classroom, and set Takagi down on the floor next to the wall on the far side, next to the teacher's desk then sat down beside her, she moved herself closer and grabbed hold of me, not wanting to let go. "You need a few minutes?" I asked her, she nodded silently. "Very well, just let me know when you are coherent enough to move." I stated, leaning back against the wall. Takagi laid her head on my lap for several more minutes before she let me know that she was ready to move again. We moved to where the others were currently standing in, a computer room, and sat down on a couple of the chairs there. Rei turned on the TV inside to the news station to see how widespread the whole thing was. "The government has begun to discuss emergency measures, however, the mobilization of self defense forces have been seen as a sign of a frantic-" the reporter on one news cast was cut off as Rei switched to a different channel. "-With 10,000 have been victimized in the Satama area so far. The governor has already called this-" A loud bang was heard as the reporter whipped around to hear what the noise was, as did the cameraman.
"A-Already declared this a state of emergency. And requesting disaster relief-" She was cut off again as two bodies in body-bags on gurneys rose up and prepared to walk again until they were shot through their heads by the police forces there. "Two gunshots! It looks like the police are finally using firearms! From what I can see here-" The cameraman and the reporter were suddenly attacked by a few zombies from off screen. "No! NO!" The reporter screamed as her cries of fear were cut off by the camera breaking and the audio cutting out as the screen went back to the news anchor.
"There seems to be a problem with our remote, from now on, we will bring you the rest of the story from inside the studio. The situation outside seems extremely chaotic, so stay home unless it's absolutely necessary to go outside! We'll bring you more stories as soon as it's safe to cover the current situation from the site." Takashi banged his fist on a desk in frustration. "Is that all? Why didn't they tell us anything else?" Takagi spoke up from her silence. "They're afraid of causing a panic." She stated simply. "A panic?" Rei questioned. "Yeah, you idiot! First there's panic then chaos, and chaos causes a disruption in order and then… when order is disrupted… well, you should just hand it all over to the walking corpses!" She stated bluntly, I nodded. "In a nicer way of putting things, my country would do the exact same thing, to prevent a panic; they would hold information deliberately in order to stop panic from spreading so that the situation is easier to deal with. In addition, there were a few cases in a few countries where they would threaten a single person to not spill his or her beans over a single piece of information to make things easier for themselves to deal with it."
The news channel then switched to another anchor, this one presumably in North America. "This unusual and unprecedented biological phenomenon that's spread throughout North America has yet to be put under control. Government authorities have evacuated the White House and will relocate to a command center on board the aircraft carrier U.S.S. George Washington. There are reports that the transfer of power is in preparation for the use of tactical warheads to combat the infestation. We have currently lost contact with Moscow, Beijing has been set ablaze, London has maintained order, while in Paris and Rome there are reports of looting. The government officials have declared a state of Martial Law." Suddenly, the screen began to flicker as the quality dropped dramatically.
"Currently, the-" The anchor was cut off by the screen turning completely into static, this time permanently. Everyone, including me was in a state of shock. "So they're everywhere…" Takashi stated glumly. "That's crazy!" Khota said in response. "Everything was normal when I checked the internet this morning!" He explained incredulously. "I can't believe this… this happened all over the world in a few hours… but they'll stop it right?" Rei said, scared out of her mind as she grabbed Takashi's arm, almost as though he were her shield. "I mean they have to stop it, from spreading I mean… everything is going back to normal soon!" She said with hope, which was utterly crushed by Takagi's downer mood. "That's not going to happen." She stated, which was something which Ichi didn't like. "Why do you have to be so blunt about it?" He demanded. "This is a Pandemic! There's nothing we can do!" She specified. "A pandemic…" Shizuka said under her breath, most likely knowing exactly what it was. "It's an outbreak of an infectious disease; the entire world is experiencing the same outbreak!" Takashi raised an eyebrow. "So what? It's some kind of epidemic?" Takagi nodded at the question.
"This is exactly like the Spanish Flue in 1918; more than 600,000,000 got infected with it and 50,000,000 died from it." She explained. "Remember how much of a panic Swine Flu caused?" She asked, we all nodded, I personally remember how much pain one of my friends was in when he had it; he barely made it out alive! "Well, square that!" Takashi said bluntly, making us all shiver. "Not to be disagreeable, but I think this is more like the Black Death from the 14th century." Shizuka stated, making us all wonder whether or not this plague was a derelict version of that. "Over 1/3 of the European population died from it. You're smarter than you look." Takashi complimented, I still found it irritating of how Takashi kept calling everyone stupid in one way or another, but I knew there was a time and a place for that, and this wasn't it!
"So, how did the outbreaks finally end?" Takashi asked while I provided an answer. "There are many debates about that to be honest, but one overpowering theory is that when too many people die, then the virus/plague has nowhere to go to spread at all; there would be no one to spread the disease to, it can't spread itself!" I explained. "But now…" Ichi said from over at the window. "All the dead people still move and start attacking you…" Our faces turned glum at this realization. "Are you saying that there's no reason for this outbreak to stop?" Saeko asked when Shizuka snapped her fingers, grabbing our attention. "Wait a minute! The weather's going to be hot; they may not be able to move if their flesh decomposes and they become skeletons!" That brightened us up a little, but one question remained, asked by Saeko. "How long does it take for that to happen?" Shizuka put her finger to her chin in thought. "Well, in summer, some parts of the body become could become skeletal in about 20 days, but it takes considerably longer in winter. A couple months, that's not too terribly long." Takagi shook her head. "I can't believe it; she's not smarter that she looks." I cast a glare in Takashi's direction. "What are you saying?" I asked, harshly. "Medical logic doesn't apply to those dead corpses that move around and attack humans. Worst case scenario; they might never decompose." She said glumly.
"First thing we do is find out if our families are okay, then we need to find someplace safe to hold up for a while. But no matter where we go, we're going to need a plan." Takagi nodded at the statement before turning to me directly. "One more thing, Alex, what exactly are you doing in Japan, and what's with your jacket?" She asked me, I sighed, knowing this was coming. "I'm not certain if you'll believe this, but considering that the end is nigh, I might as well come clean… Before I met you all, I was back in Canada, preparing to live my life as a retired veteran of the latest Afghanistan tour. When I fell asleep, I was on my bed, the next thing I know, I'm outside the school next to the sign out front that says the school's name." They all looked severely confused at my explanation. "You mean… you never willingly came to Japan?" Toshimi asked. "No, I didn't." I said, shaking my head. "When I arrived, I had nothing but the clothes on my back and my CZ-75 in its holster. First thing I did I was I saved Kironi here in the tennis courts and later Toshimi and Misuzu in the library. Afterwards we all snuck through the school towards the medical ward looking for survivors, I also snapped a few zombies' necks on the way. I found Shizuka in the medical ward of the school with Ichi; I killed all the zombies present and met Saeko a few seconds later." Shizuka, and the others who were present there at the time, visibly tensed at the mention of such an incident, most likely traumatized at seeing so many zeds fall so quickly. "Once we gathered some supplies, we headed out and later found the rest of you like you found us and the rest is history." I continued explaining, to which, I wondered how to explain my jacket's strange capabilities. "Now, how do I explain my jacket anyway?" I rubbed my eye with my fingers as I contemplated what to say for a few seconds. "Well, long story short, I can pull any ranged weapon I desire out of my jacket along with any kind of attachment or ammo type with a single thought." Their eyes widened in surprise, especially Khota's for some odd reason. "I would give you all a weapon, but I don't know whether or not any of you have experience in training with firearms." I said sadly. They all nodded in understanding, after that, we then continued discussing on what to do. "Teams; we need to team up!" Saeko suggested to which everyone was in agreement over. Everyone grabbed their supplies and weapons as we prepared to move out. "Let's try to pick up survivors on the way" Saeko suggested. "Let's do it!" Said Takashi as he looked far more determined than ever before. "What's the best way out?" Rei asked. "Sorry to break it to ya stupid, but we're just gonna have to go out the front." Takagi stated as my eye twitched at her berating of others. "Let's go!" I said, I opened the door and checked for zombies and found several in front of me, I shot the first two on the left while Khota killed the other two on the right. Takashi killed one that was in behind the four first ones, he then let out a yell as he charged with the rest of us to the battle ahead.
"Let me make something perfectly clear to you all; there's no need for you to engage in a fight unless it's absolutely necessary. Do whatever you can to avoid a fight, you got it?" I asked as the rest of the group nodded. "Remember, they're sensitive to sound, so keep it quiet." I continued. "They're also strong enough to break through ordinary doors, thus if they grab a strong hold of you, they will not hesitate to tear you to shreds, so be careful, understand?" I then heard a loud scream, it came from a different stairwell altogether. We found a group of survivors surrounded by the undead much like we were in the beginning. 5 in total, 3 of them were male, the rest female, one had black hair and blue eyes, wearing the standard male Japanese high school uniform and strangely had a towel wrapped around his neck. Another was wearing the same kind of uniform, having purple-hued hair and green eyes, the third was in a white dress shirt, had dark hair and brown eyes. The first female had short light brown hair, similar in color to Rei's, hazel eyes and also clad in the female uniform, the second had a lighter shade of skin color with two sets of freckles on both her cheeks shaped like upside down triangles, her hair was a deep blue, also wearing the female uniform I had seen so many times already.
Khota fired his nail gun and killed one closest to the group, Saeko took the chance and leaped off the railing high into the air, hitting one zed with her wooden sword, Takashi ran down the stairs as fast as he could towards the zombies and cracked a zombie in the head with his baseball bat, crushing it instantaneously. Rei stabbed another in the chest, letting it fall a few steps before she turned around and kicked it off the stairwell altogether. I shot the last two with the Commando at the last second, letting them both fall unceremoniously to the ground. "Thank you…" One of the girls in the group said, very grateful over us saving her life. "Please, keep it down, has anyone been bitten at all?" I asked, they all shook their heads no. "What? No, no one." The blue haired girl said quickly. "It looks okay, we'll be alright." Rei assured them. "We're getting out of here!" Takashi said reassuringly. "Do any of you want to come with us?" He asked. "Sure." The girl with light brown hair said. Later, we were near the bottom floor, I was ahead of the group; I saw something out of the corner of my eye and raised my fist to stop everyone.
"What is it?" The girl with brown hair we had just rescued, Kokunsa being her name, asked. "There's a whole bunch of them down there, aren't there?" I asked quietly, motioning to a hoard at the bottom of the stairs. "From what I've been able to gather, the only thing they're able to react to, are sounds. They can't see us, so it'd be pointless to hide from them." I smirked at Takagi's assertion. "Why don't you go down there and prove it?" She glared at me and scoffed. "But even if we keep going through inside the school, once we're attacked, we're going to be stuck." Saeko stated, saying what she knew. "We have to go through the gate, we don't have any choice!" Rei said; her voice strong and unmoving. "Someone needs to go and confirm Takagi's theory. I don't suppose you want to volunteer?" Saeko asked Takagi who glared at the swordswoman, I sighed. "I'll do it!" I stated as I stood up straight. "I'll go into the fire!" I said metaphorically. "No, you stay, I'll go!" Rei insisted. "No, I think I should go ahead first." Saeko suggested as I shook my head, no. "No, you should be put on standby just in case, besides, they're dealing with me, who else is as trained as I am?" I asked, no one retorted at all aside from Rei! "Alex, why?" She demanded as I shrugged. "I'm not certain…" Rei was not satisfied with my answer. "What do you mean; you're 'not certain'?" She demanded again, I shook my head. "I'm being completely honest, I'm not certain as to what is possessing me to do this, but know if anything goes wrong, I'll pull out no matter what!" I assured Rei, Rei shook her head. "Alex!" She hissed at me, preparing to lunge after me, but Saeko stopped her, I'm not certain what they said next, but I didn't care at the moment.
I slowly walked forward as soon as I reached the bottom of the stairs; I tightened my grip on my weapon so much I thought the plastic would crack or something. I could hear my heartbeat as it intensified; nearly beating itself out of my chest it was so powerful! I stopped a few feet from the center of the room; no zombie seemed the least bit interested in me, not even the slightest! I then noticed one zombie shambling in my general direction, as swiftly and as quietly as possible, I raised my gun, not wanting any noise! I stood as still as a statue, no movement, not even a vibration! I could see the dead, cold eyes of the freak in front of me and every detail, from the pale skin to the blood that still dropped out of his mouth and those teeth that it still had! They were rotten and disgusting, still, I dared no move even my eyes as he looked ready to strike then… walked straight past me with only a groan to fill my ears. Sweat dripped down my face as I stood in the same place as I had been the whole time. I didn't know what to think! "So, they're really blind huh?" I muttered as quietly as I could muster. I spotted a shoe right next to my right foot and I got an idea."If that's the case…" I picked the shoe off of the floor and prepared to chuck it in a direction I saw fit. I threw the shoe as hard as I could; it made a loud 'bang' upon hitting the wall next to a corner opposite of the door. The zombies all turned and looked in the general direction of the noise I made and began shambling towards it!
With the zed's distracted, I directed the others to the doors and opened them, one by one they went through silently, until one boy with a metallic pole, presumably from a lamp or something, hit the side of one of the doors and created an extremely loud 'twang!' The entire building suddenly went quiet as everything stopped moving, zeds included, as they turned and looked towards our group. I realized there was only one thing left for us to do; I grabbed an RPK LMG from my jacket, put a silencer on it and screamed at the top of my lungs: "RUN!" Every one of us bolted in a furious sprint for the nearest vehicle. "Why did you open your big mouth you idiot?" Takagi demanded. "We could have made it here just be taking care of the ones that were close by if you hadn't said anything!" She complained, I raised my RPK and fired in her direction, killing a zombie behind her. "Well, look who's talking!" I stated sarcastically as I kept moving. "The noise would have probably echoed anyway, just start swinging!" Rei pointed out, Khota aimed his nail gun at a hoard, but there were far too many for him it seemed. "There's too many!" He exclaimed as I shook my head. "I don't think so!" I opened fire on the horde of zombies and cut as many of them down as I could. "Do not stop moving; kill anything that stands in your way!" I ordered as the others surprisingly followed my orders to the letter, none of us stopped moving.
We slaughtered every zed that got near us and I did the most damage as a path-cutter; we were essentially the definition of running and gunning! I had to admit though; I had to save a few stupid people who stopped several times, reminding them of my orders upon doing so. Once we got close enough to the bus, I turned to Shizuka. "Shizuka, the key, now!" I demanded, she nodded and opened up the bus while we all piled in. Shizuka turned the bus' engine on and was startled for a moment. "Oh my! This is far different from my little Bug!" She looked over the controls of the bus in an extremely painstakingly slow process. "Let's see… gas… brake… there's the clutch…" I rolled my eyes and tapped her on the shoulder. "Let me do it, please." I asked as she nodded "Okay…" She got out of the seat and sat down in one of the seats behind me as I took the wheel.
"Prepare for liftoff boys!" I said excitedly and put the bus into first gear until someone noticed something. "Who's that?" Takashi asked, I looked over and saw several students along with who I presumed to be a teacher running for us full speed. One of the students was a young girl, possibly a second year student if I remembered the Japanese school systems correctly, who had light orange hair just like Rei, but cut much shorter and she seemed to use a hairband to keep her hair back. She also had a small pair of earrings in each ear. Another student was a red-headed girl with golden brown eyes. She was wearing the female uniform of Fujimi Academy. The next one had dark blue colored hair and blue eyes covered by a pair of glasses. The next one was a male, he had brown and surprisingly yellow hair, wore the male Fujimi High School uniform, and unlike the other students, he was wearing slippers instead of regular shoes. Under his uniform he seemed to wear a blue high-collar sweater that was unbuttoned slightly. The next male was someone who wore a long white-sleeved shirt. He had short black hair and light brown eyes. The 4th member of the group was another male, he had messy brown hair as well as eyes of the same color. Under his jacket, he wore a red-orange shirt.
A 6th one had jet black hair, just as black as mine, with a complete set of the Japanese high school uniform I had seen so many times already. He also wore glasses over his green eyes. The last young male was someone who I swear was on something. He had long black hair that grew over his eyes. He did not wear the black uniform jacket over a long-sleeved white shirt, very similar to a few students I had seen. Unlike most students with these shirts, his was left completely untucked. His most unique feature was his dilated eyes, which when I looked a little closer, seemed to be the result of drugs or something illegal. The final one of the group, the teacher, seemed to be a man wearing a black pinstripe suit. Inside the suit, he wore a white dress shirt along with a yellow tie. He also wore black-framed glasses which beheld golden eyes. "That's Mr. Shido of class 3-a." Saeko explained. Rei tensed visibly at the name. "Shido…" She muttered. "I can wait; if anything I'll run everything over!" I said confidently. "If you try and run them all over, you'll flip the bus, you idiot!" Takagi yelled to me while I smirked back at her.
"Who said anything about letting it flip?" I said smugly as I turned to grab the wheel. "Hang on; I'm bringing this bus to them!" I yelled, I put the pedal to the metal and the bus rolled forward, I turned the wheel sharply and ran many zeds over. Once I was facing the kids and Shido, I straightened the wheel and roared in their direction, and then I swung the bus' nose to the left, then to the right and stopped the bus with the main side door facing the kids and Shido. "Keep the dead off me, I'll get them." I ordered, I then stepped off the bus and led the kids onto the bus. I then noticed at the last minute that one of the kids had sprained his ankle and Shido had turned on him and kicked the poor kid in the face, then left him as zombie food! At first, I could not believe what I had just witnessed, and then instinct took hold. I ran at full speed past Shido, and opened fire with my RPK, blowing the heads off of several zombies, any that got too close for comfort were quickly killed with my bare hands! One actually managed to grab a hold of me from behind, but before he could get a bite in, I smashed my head into its own head, shattering its front teeth in. I then threw it off me and stomped on its head, finishing it off. Turning my attention to the young man, he was completely surrounded by the walking corpses and was staring up at them in pure fright. I let loose with my RPK again and blew most of their heads off and destroyed the brains of the rest, all of the corpses falling harmlessly onto the young man.
I then got a few of the corpses off of the kid and held my hand out to him. "Come with me, if you want to live!" I stated bluntly as he then grabbed my hand, I lifted him up and threw him over my shoulder. I ran as fast as possible back to the bus, wanting nothing more than to save as many lives as possible! I dodged zombies every which way, I ducked, I sidestepped, I dodged, I preformed every maneuver I knew and soon, I managed to get back onto the bus. I placed the boy into a seat next to Shizuka and told her to look after him. I then jumped into the driver seat of the bus and gunned it! The engine roared at my command and I threw the wheel in the direction of the gate, running over zombies like no tomorrow.
Once I had gotten within a few hundred meters of the gate, I told everyone: "Hang on!" They did as told and I hit the gate full force; the gate buckled under the full might of the bus heading full force into it and I turned the wheel to the left, sending us in that direction, in the direction of the city. Once we were clear of the school, I breathed a sigh of relief and let my more mediocre side take hold of my driving as we left behind the high school. I looked behind me briefly, many of the group that we left with breathed a sigh of relief, Shizuka tending to the injured kid and the rest being completely silent as they had somber looks on their faces. Shido was in the far back, probably contemplating something. All the while, I just kept my eyes on the road, wondering where we would go next, but I knew one thing: wherever we would go, whatever we would face, I knew we would survive no matter what!