Hello, the Marshal here to bring you a side project the collective has worked so hard on. This will be a corollary side story taking place simultaneously with the canon anime and manga as well as the Marshal's own HMDS and CiD stories.
Ringing in the New DEADs
She had been the "Outsider", "half breed", "yankee," and other epithets she either could not recognize or did not care to. Her mother moved back to Japan, taking Alex with her, after the death of her husband, Army Major James Schweiger, in combat in Afghanistan a couple of years prior.
At first, Alex found life in Japan difficult at best. Her language skills were rudimentary – middle school children understood better than she did – and she found herself ill at ease around her classmates and relatives. Alex's grandmother would tolerate Seiko, Alex's mother, but would have nothing to do with Alex herself. The only one Alex could even remotely relate to was her older cousin, Maki. Maki had been abroad to the US a year previous as a foreign exchange student to UCLA and stayed with Alex and her family in Santa Monica for the year.
Alex was accepted into Fujimi Academy only because of her extremely good grades throughout middle school and her first year of High School, along with some very persuasive lobbying by Maki and Maki's mother, both former alums. The student council made an exception in Alex's case, but placed her in with the first years, one year behind her age group.
She found some small measure of success in the school's aikido club. Her father's German and Russian heritage bequeathed considerable body strength as well as a frame much larger than her contemporaries. At 179cm, Alex towered over her classmates and gave her a sense of pride.
By the start of her second year, Alex gained some notoriety as the one girl no one dared openly confront.
But that was all in the past...in another life…before everything ended…before They came.
She had been in class, English as it turned out, assisting the sensei with lessons as her TA. She noticed three other students, Komuro Takashi, Igou Hisashi and a brown haired girl she did not recognize, running down the hall past her classroom. That's when the intercom buzzed to life.
"Attention All Students. A fight has just broken out on campus…"
As soon as the announcement began, Alex slipped out of the room. Despite her stature, it wasn't that difficult. Everyone's attention fixed on the intercom gave Alex the needed distraction to get out into the halls and buy her precious time to get to her locker and the items awaiting her.
Growing up in the Southland, Alex knew all the stories about gang fights and riots around schools. Assuming this was a similar situation, Alex would need her boken and jo staff before things got too out of hand. Despite Japan being a firearms restricted country, criminal elements would have access to some guns and having her own weapons would bring some measure of comfort and tip the scales more in her favor.
Alex was in sight of her goal when pandemonium erupted. Panicky students and teachers rushed into the halls, instinct and adrenaline clouding all rational thought. Alex kept her cool long enough to break open a window and climb out onto the second floor ledge. And away from the maddening crowd.
Looking over her shoulder, Alex immediately understood this was no gang fight or riot. It appeared to her that some students and faculty were attacking and eating oth…
'No, that can't be right,' Alex shook her head. 'This is not a Romero film, this is real life.'
She looked again, but her eyes did not deceive.
'I need my bag, now.'
Crawling back in off the ledge, the halls were quieter, but not deserted. Some few stragglers roamed the halls, seeking safety. Screams and running were heard. One girl wandered over in Alex's direction, waving.
"Schweiger-san," she whispered in conversational, but accented, English. "What is going on?"
"I dunno, Kinoshita-san, but we gotta get outta here and into the open - fast."
Misa Kinoshita was Alex's Chem class partner and a whiz with formulas. Time and again she impressed her teacher and classmates with her knowledge of science. While coolly polite toward Alex, Misa made little effort to get to know anyone else and treated Alex with a mild sort of benign neglect.
"Why outside?" Misa asked, confused. "We can find shelter in here and wait for the police."
Alex pulled Misa along with a stern, yet gentle tug towards the lockers. She had to get her bag ASAP.
"Because when, not if, we have to start fighting for our lives," Alex began, "we are going to run out of space in here real fast."
Misa screwed her face into one of consternation. Stopping in her tracks, she regarded the American hotly.
"This is not Los Angeles," she huffed. "The sort of thing you may be used to there simply does not happen here."
Alex rolled her eyes then continued toward her locker.
"With or without you, Kinoshita-san, I am going to get my bag and get the fuck outta Dodge."
Taken aback at being treated so rudely, Misa stomped along after Alex. Stopping short of the corner, Alex crouched to her knees and peered around. As she feared, the locker area was swarming with writhing bodies, some screaming others grunting and moaning.
"Fuck!" Alex cursed under her breath. "Gonna need a distraction."
As if on cue, a loud ruckus and more screaming went up further down the hall, gaining the attention of most of the crowd. As the hall cleared out, Alex crept towards the wounded left behind. One girl, badly chewed up and losing blood fast, looked up and tried to reach Alex before she expired. Misa had used the time to creep up behind Alex, nearly giving her a heart attack.
"Jeezus!" Alex hissed. "Don't ever do that again!"
"Sorry," she said, almost in spite of herself. "Are we almost there?"
"To the lockers, yes," Alex said. "To safety, not even close."
At that moment, the girl who recently died, rose into a sitting position and looked in the direction of the now horrified duo. Her newly animated corpse began hissing softly and stumbled to its feet. Frozen in fear, Misa could only gape at the girl's body as it staggered off down the hall. For her part, Alex bit into her middy blouse to stifle a scream.
A flash of pink hair dashing down the opposite hallway followed quickly by an overweight young man snapped both girls back into reality. Alex cupped her hand over Misa's mouth and held her to the floor. Her scream stifled into Alex's hand, Misa tried to struggle out of the grip until she realized Alex was dragging her into the relative safety of the connecting locker lined corridor.
Working quickly, Alex opened her locker and retrieved the prize she sought. Her boken and jo staff, safely wrapped in their silk bag, awaited their mistress. Alex unwrapped the bag, withdrew the jo and handed it to Misa.
"Can you use this?" Alex asked.
"Somewhat," Misa replied weakly, taking the jo. "I studied a bit with the soujutsu* club."
"It will have to do," Alex commented, hefting her boken over her shoulder. "I only wish I was as good as Busujima-sempai."
The two girls threaded their way through the second floor to the fire escape stairwell. Finding it locked, Alex pressed her ear to the door while Misa kept a lookout. Satisfied that at least the landing was unoccupied, Alex brought her entire stature to bear and kicked the door open with a loud crash. Attracted to the commotion; several newly risen corpses turned and staggered toward the two girls.
"We ought not to do that again," Misa pointed out. Alex proceeded to step onto the platform and pulled Misa with her.
"Do what now?" Alex asked as she pushed the door shut and jammed a broomstick to hold it closed. "That would have earned fines back home for being locked."
"I noticed that when you kicked the door open, they started to come after us," Misa pointed out in a neutral tone. Fear, and some growing respect, had destroyed any feelings of superiority towards her classmate. If they were to survive, the two girls would need to be friendly and work together.
"You mean, like, they heard us or something?" Alex asked, peering down the open stairwell.
"I don't know how else to put it," Misa replied, "but yeah, something like that."
Alex mused over this info. It would give them a slight edge.
"They also did not seem to see us when we walked past, either," Misa observed. "Like they are blind, or something."
"Well, your chance to prove that hypothesis will come sooner than expected," Alex stated.
Pointing through the grated platform, Alex gestured to the crowd gathering at the foot of the stairwell.
"Shit, I knew I shoulda stayed home today," she griped.
"How would staying home help our current situation?" Misa asked, slightly annoyed.
"I coulda climbed into the attic, bolted the trap door and waited this out," Alex replied calmly.
Misa smacked her right fist into her left palm.
"The roof!" she cried out. "There is your open space and if any police helicopters are flying about, we can try and flag them down!"
The two reached the rooftop in time to see a young man and young woman beating down the last of the standing corpses and disappear into an inside stairwell.
"Isn't that Miyamoto Rei with Komuro Takashi?" Misa pointed out as the pair cleared the rooftop ledge.
"I didn't notice," Alex panted. She quickly scanned the rooftop. Mostly clear, one or two corpses near the astronomy tower regained their footing and stagger-stepped towards the two girls.
Alex ran over and proceeded to bash their heads with her boken. While preferring a baseball bat for this sort of work, Alex's boken proved just as capable in her hands.
"How about them apples, Busujima-sempai!" Alex called out to no-one in particular while shaking her boken to the heavens.
Misa called over to Alex while gesturing to the stairwell recently occupied by Rei and Takashi.
"Didn't you say we need to get out of here?" she called.
"Yeah, we do," Alex concurred. "Shall we?"
Finding their progress down blocked on the third floor by a horde of them, Alex and Misa were forced to detour down a corridor, away from the hope of safety with Takashi and Rei. Misa had reasoned that a larger group with more diverse skills would stand a better chance of surviving. With the hope of a link up gone, Alex and Misa would have to go it alone until they reached the outside.
Arriving at a second fire escape, Alex tested the panic bar and found the door unlocked. Breathing a collective sigh of relief, the two girls cautiously peered out. Finding the stairwell open, they quietly tip-toed down each flight of stairs to the second floor.
Once again, their escape was cut off by a gathering crowd at the foot of the stair.
"Weren't we just here?" Alex sighed in exasperation. "I am not going back up to the roof."
"Back inside we go," Misa offered. "We certainly cannot fight off that many."
Stopped short by one of them just inside, Misa proved her combat effectiveness by thrusting the jo staff at the creature's face.
And missed by a mile.
Alex caught the thing on the side of its head and sent it reeling off. Scowling at Misa, she considered taking her jo back.
"I never said I was any good, only that I had some practice. Miyamoto is far better than I am."
Shrugging her shoulders, Alex made her way toward a set of glass doors.
"We need to get out of here before it gets any darker," Misa pointed out while following close behind. The sun was already sinking toward the west and the sounds of screams dying out.
"I am aware of that, Kinoshita-san."
They peered through the glass doors separating the hall from the outside gangway between wings. The girls noticed that, aside from one unmoving corpse, the gangway was clear of any activity.
"Should we?" Alex asked, pointing outside.
"It cannot be any better or worse than this wing," Misa surmised. "What have we got to lose?"
"You want I should really answer that?" Alex asked, a skeptical look on her face.
"Ah, no, I'll pass, thanks."
"But, you're right. There may be another way out of here."
Quietly opening the door, the girls crept onto the gangway. Stopping short of the body, Alex brought her boken down onto its head.
"Can't be too sure these days," Alex explained.
"I agree, but we need to keep moving," Misa said. "The last thing we need is to get surrounded while dealing with every threat."
"Good thinking," Alex smiled. "I'm glad we're working together on this, Kinoshita-san."
"I think the time for honorifics is long past," Misa spoke, a hint of smile on her lips. "Please, call me Misa."
Alex smiled in return.
"In that case, please call me Alex," she replied. "Okay then, Misa-san, where to?"
"This wing of the school is a mirror image of the wing we just left, but is largely filled with club rooms, science rooms and the like not used for classroom teaching," Misa explained. "Plus, the wood shop is there and we may find some useful things there."
"Yes, Boss," Alex laughed quietly, offering Misa a sloppy salute.
"I will never understand American humor," Misa said, shaking her head.
"Just as well," Alex replied, a goofy grin still gracing her face. "It would take too long to explain anyway."
The girls crept into the activities wing and quickly checked the halls. Several corpses lay on the floor, their heads punctured by 10d† nails.
"Someone arrived here first," Misa mused.
Finding the door to the wood shop battered down and the room itself ransacked, Misa searched what was left while Alex stood guard. Several more corpses littered the floor, similarly dispatched by 10d nails.
"Someone made something, then left in a hurry," Misa pointed out.
Safe for the moment, Alex helped Misa scrounge whatever was left. The pair found a three foot pry bar, a carpenter's hammer, a 3m length of rope and a selection of screwdrivers. Alex found a schoolbag hung on a desk chair and proceeded to empty it out. Inside, she found a cell phone, iPod©, school books and notepad.
Misa placed the tools inside the bag, used a length of the mid gauge rope to tie the pry bar to the handles and slung it over her shoulders. She then picked up the phone and music player.
"Naughty, naughty," she said; as she flipped open the receiver. No signal. She then turned on the iPod© and perused its contents.
"Later, Misa-san," Alex spoke, a hint of urgency in her voice. "We can play lost and found later. Right now, we gotta get out of here."
A horrifying scream followed by the sound of power tools came from the floor below them.
"There are others!" Alex and Misa exclaimed in unison.
The two made their way to the stairs, only to find, once again, their path blocked. Coming to a screeching halt, they quickly turned tail and made back to the wood shop.
Misa's stomach made a most unladylike sound. Alex's followed shortly after.
"We gotta find something to eat," Alex stated flatly.
"There are some vending machines on this floor," Misa replied. "Have you any change?"
"Couple of yen," Alex said. "I usually use the school lunch pay card, so I don't carry a lot of cash. You?"
"The same."
Misa then went over to the pile left from the bag and searched it for something edible or cash and came up nada on both. She and Alex then made a concerted search of all the bags left in the room. Their total haul came in for three chocolate bars, one half empty sports drink and exactly ¥720. Pooling their own change, the pair had more than enough for two yakisoba breads along with drinks from the machines down the hall.
Alex stood guard while Misa fed the machine. Despite the chaos of the day, the power was mercifully still running and the hall blessedly clear for the time.
Glancing out the window, Misa remarked that it was well into late afternoon.
"Any chance of getting out of here tonight?" she asked Alex.
"Slim to none," Alex replied grimly. "I don't exactly relish the idea, but we're gonna have to hole up here for the night and hope the others are okay."
"Where?"
"Back up to the roof, I guess."
"Out in the open?" Misa whined gently. "I don't want to get sick from exposure."
She then smacked her fist into her palm again.
"The Astronomy club tower."
"Huh?"
"I heard from Ikumi-san that they keep sleeping bags and food there. We can barricade the stairs and stay there tonight."
"At least it is somewhat more secure than the school proper," Alex agreed. "Let's go."
They packed their lunches into the newly acquired schoolbags and made their way back to the classroom wing. Encountering only token resistance, Alex turned to Misa.
"You wanna try getting out one last time?"
Misa shrugged her shoulders.
"Worth a go," she replied. "At least now we have a fall back."
The two crept down the last fight of stairs to the first floor. The exit so tantalizingly close, both girls could taste it on their tongues. The only obstacle was the last open foyer leading to the shoe lockers and then…
Then what? They would be outside, but what was waiting out there? Where would they go and what would they do once they made it into the courtyard. Nodding to each other for encouragement, they made the final sprint to the doors…
…just in time to see a bespectacled male teacher kick an injured student and leave him behind to his fate and board a bus with six others. The bus then quickly sped off and rammed through the courtyard gate.
Left behind, the two girls watched as their last hope sped off without them. In the lowering sunlight, the injured student became dinner. Unable to watch, Misa took Alex's arm and led her back into the school.
Fighting their way through stiff, but sporadic, resistance, they found themselves in front of the sopping stairs leading to the Astronomy club tower. The remains of the previous barrier were resurrected and emplaced at the base of the stairs, secured with cloth scavenged from the clothing of corpses.
"We'll try again in the morning, Misa-san," Alex promised.
Misa smiled sadly, but did not respond. She proceeded to ransack the club room and took stock of their meager supplies.
"We can reuse the bottles until the water stops, but we have at most two days worth of food here," she informed her partner. "After that we have to leave or starve."
Sharing the ear buds for the iPod©, the two girls drifted off into fitful sleep.
*soujutsu, art of the spear or lance
† refers to the gauge, or size, of the nail; in this case 10d means "10 penny" and is 3inches long
A/N: okies, been a while since I put up a HotD story, I hope you all like it. As always, reviews are most welcome.