Kagome looked at her wrist and sighed impatiently. The plane was running late and she really didn't feel like staying another night in the Americas. Shippou was passed out on her shoulder and her trusty yellow backpack was slung across the other one for balance.
Suddenly a voice was heard on the intercom. "Unfortunately, flight 7749 - Atlanta to Tokyo is canceled. The plane has just come into the station but it's having a bit of trouble, so all tickets will be refunded. We are very sorry for the inconvenience."
Kagome puffed out her cheeks in annoyance and managed to pull her cell phone from her pocket while juggling her luggage and son. Dialing eleven familiar digits, Kagome smiled slightly when she heard the purring ring.
'Moshi Moshi'
"Ah, hello Kaa-san!"
'Kagome? Oh, are you ready to be picked up at the airport? I'll be there in a second.'
"No, no, wait! Don't hang up, Kaa-san! I called to tell you that my flight has been canceled due to some technical issues and I won't be home tonight."
'Oh, alrighty then! I suppose you'll be staying in America for a few more days then?'
"Until they get the flights sorted out, yes." Kagome smiled.
'Call me when they do, alright love?'
"Will do. Goodbye Kaa-san!" Kagome hung up and pocketed her phone. Gently, she shook Shippou awake.
"What is it Mum?" The tiny Kitsune boy yawned sleepily.
"We're going to stay in America for a while longer, alright Shippou?"
"Hmm, okay! I like America!"
Kagome smiled at her kit. "Yoshi! Lets go find a hotel for the night then!"
Shippou giggled at her enthusiasm and tugged at her hair. "Can we stay on the outskirts this time? I really miss the forests..."
Kagome nodded at her kit and gave him a small smile. "I read that there is a cabin Bed and Breakfast a few miles out while I was planning our trip - that sound good to you?"
"Yeah!" Shippou cheered.
Kagome adjusted her load and made her way out of the airport, the tiny boy clinging tightly to her shoulder.
Kagome awoke the next morning to screaming from the road outside the Bed and Breakfast. Shippou's terrified eyes opened soon afterwards and he leapt from his bed to Kagome's, clinging tightly to her bare arm.
"Mummy, what's happening?" His wide green eyes shone with confusion as he hoarsely whispered the question to his young mother.
"I don't know, love, but I'm going to find out." Kagome's gaze steeled as she removed her trusty longbow and quiver of arrows from her large yellow bag.
"Be careful," Shippou squeaked as she readied an arrow and peered out of the second story window.
The young priestess gasped and dropped her arrow when she saw what was transpiring outside on the once peaceful country road. "No..." Her breath hitched. "No!" She yelled, then immediately felt stupid for making such an loud noise.
The... creature - for that was all that Kagome could call it - raised cloudy, dead eyes from the female body it had been devouring and bared bloodstained yellowing teeth at the window, releasing a guttural growl. It rose from the body and began to stumble towards the house. Kagome shoved open the window and loosed an arrow at the creature's heart. It hit dead on, some black coagulated blood leaking sluggishly from the puncture wound. Kagome breathed a sigh of relief when the creature fell solidly to the ground from the impact.
Then her breath hitched when the body picked itself most gingerly back up, standing still on its feet for a moment as if to gain its bearings before moving towards the door of the house with renewed vigor.
"Shippou, lock the door," she barked to her kit as she drew and released four more arrows. Kidney. Lung. Windpipe. Stomach. The monstrosity just kept coming closer. It seemed to feel no pain. Glancing at her quiver, Kagome numbly noticed that she had only five more arrows. Mumbling a quick prayer to Kami, the young miko loosed one of her remaining precious arrows, aiming at the dim, filmy eye of the creature.
It struck.
The creature fell.
It did not rise again.
Kagome released the breath that she was holding and let her muscles relax.
"Yeah Mum! You got him!" Shippou cheered, then went suddenly and curiously quiet.
"What is it?" Kagome wondered.
"There is... It's another... Kagome!" Frightened green eyes widened as a tiny tanned hand pointed fearfully out of the window at the reanimated form of the lady who they had witnessed dying just minutes ago.
Before Shippou could lower his accusatory hand, the arrow was notched. The lady had almost enough time to take two shaky steps before an arrow was firmly planted in her left eye. Her body fell with a shudder and then lay still. This time she would not rise again.
Only then did Kagome recognize the fallen woman's apparel. She was dressed in the clothes of the kind middle aged lady who had owned the Bed and Breakfast.
"Oh Kami." Kagome gasped. "Shippou, Mrs Greene is, well..." She gestured helplessly to the bloating corpse outside.
"What about Mr Greene?" Shippou proposed a very good question after turning a little green himself.
Suddenly they heard a long moan from the other side of the locked bedroom door. The sound of fists pounding against the thick wood was a harsh contrast to the eerie silence, for even the birds seemed to have abandoned the death trap that was Bart and Betty Greene's Bed and Breakfast.
"Mum, is that...?"
"It's likely Mr Greene, yes." Kagome flinched as she saw the door handle jiggle, thankful that she had had the sense to tell Shippou to lock the door. "I have an idea, but you're going to have to trust me." Kagome quickly scanned the room, settling on unscrewing the bedpost from the metal bed. The pipe-like contraption rested in her right hand like a baseball bat and she took a few experimental swings. "Now Shippou, I'm going to have you pull open the door and jump out of the way, quick as you can in a moment. I'll beat his skull in with this thing." Her voice was deceptively calm as her heartbeat rose to an astonishing rate.
"Alright Mum. One." Brave green met calm blue. "Two." Delicate hands adjusted their grip on the pipe clutched between them.
"Three!" They called out together, child yanking the door open and shrinking into a corner while mother called the beast as many obscenities that she could think of in the heat of the moment.
Mr Greene - no - the creature paused comically for a split second, his hand raised as if to knock again. His neck was oozing black sludge where it met the shoulder and his mouth was foaming at the corners, like a rabid dog. A demonic growl rose from his lips and he charged.
"Shippou, shut the door just in case there are any more" Kagome ordered, a strand of fear making her voice raise an octave. Without checking to see if Shippou had followed through, the young miko swung the pipe towards the creature's head.
He kept coming, so Kagome swung again. On the fourth swing she heard his skull crack. The fifth swing made a squelching sound and Kagome could smell the vomit-inducing stench of rotting brain tissue.
The frightening abomination fell to the floor. Kagome backed off onto the broken bed and hugged Shippou tightly, tears slipping from her eyes to stain his hair bow.
"Is it... is it dead, Mummy?" Shippou whispered.
"Yes Shippou, I believe so." Kagome stroked his tail soothingly and rose to her feet to glance cautiously out of the window, keeping her hearing trained on the thing slowly staining the carpet with human fluids.
The only 'people' outside were the two things that she had slain. She breathed a sigh of relief, letting her tensed shoulders relax.
Turning, she poked at the body with her pipe, testing the creature for reaction. "Yup, definitely dead," she smiled wearily, then immediately threw up all over it.
"So what are we going to do now?" Shippou asked tentatively, handing her the comforter to wipe her face with.
"I guess we need to get more weapons, supplies. Learn how to survive with this new threat. If the creatures are able to infect others so easily and the dead come back to life to fight against the living then this will surely be made an epidemic soon if it's not one already."
Shippou jumped to her shoulder, quivering. "I- I'm scared, Mummy."
"It's okay to be scared. I am too, to tell you the truth. We have to be courageous, though. I'm not saying that it will be easy or anything, but we can survive. I know this for a fact. We did survive Naraku and the Feudal Era, didn't we?" Kagome poked her kit in the side teasingly in order to lighten his mood.
"But then we had Inuyasha, Sango, Miroku and Kirara." Shippou pointed out.
"But you still have me, love, and we can find new allies in this war. If you look hard and long enough, you can always find a friend." Kagome pulled him into her arms and stroked his cheek with the pad of her thumb, wiping away a lone tear.
"Yeah, I suppose you're right Mum" Shippou smiled. "Plus we've got my fox fire and illusionary magic to try out on them!" The kit kicked at the air a few times, loosing some small blue flames.
"Of course," Kagome smiled, "but now we need to scavenge what we can from this place and pack for the road. It's not safe to stay here anymore."
"Right."
They ended up finding a small backpack in a closet, presumably belonging to a grandchild of Mr and Mrs Greene. Up in the cupboard there was a bag of dried noodles and in the fruit bowl on the counter there was a variety of different fruits. A lightweight saucepan went into the small backpack as well as the noodles and some canned soups.
Kagome took all of her clothes out of her yellow bag and filled it with non-perishables. In the corner, she saw a wooden knife block. Examining the knives carefully, she took a large one for herself, a thinner, but just as long knife for Shippou, and tucked a spare into her bag. A smaller knife also went into her bag for preparing food. Neither of them wanted to risk contamination. As an afterthought, Kagome added a change of clothes for both herself and Shippou to the top of the bag.
"Grab something to eat and we'll be on our way." Kagome poured herself a bowl of cereal and bit into an orange. Shippou followed her example, knowing that this might be their last meal for a while. Rationing was a common practice on Feudal Era journeys, after all.
Outside there was still no sign of the infected, but Kagome wasted no time in salvaging her precious arrows from the dead-dead corpses.
"So Shippou, would you rather go right and return to Atlanta or go left and see where the road takes us?"
"Left." Shippou decided immediately. "Whatever those things are, they seem like they'd gravitate towards highly populated areas."
"I certainly would, were I in their shoes." Kagome shuddered. "Easier to get prey in the panic and with so many living, an army of dead could be made very quickly from the unfortunates that get killed."
"So... left then..." Shippou repeated after a moment of silence as they realized how deep the situation really was.
"Yeah, c'mon love." Kagome hefted her backpack onto her shoulders and began to walk at a tireless pace away from everything familiar.
Off into the fearful unknown.