The New Normal

by Helltanz98

Normal days are gone for good. "This is the new normal it started that first day in front of the school when you saw that zombie first bite that teacher. All we can do, and need to do now is keep surviving." I said as we looked out over the city. It'd only been a day since that incident, and the only way we could keep making a difference was by surviving.

3. Chapter 3 The First House with the Tank

We're the First House with the Tank

-scene break-

I could understand why most of them didn't come. It was a logical combination of factors. I was a stranger, and Shidou wasn't. Even if they didn't have a reason to distrust me, they were probably more confident in their ability to trust the teacher. There was also the fact that I was rather gruff, and the bus clearly had more space. Any nascent anti militarism would have also played a role in the choice as well. Then there was the decision to split up had been pretty abrupt, and had come on the wheels of an argument, and Shidou pushing to be the leader.

Actually that had probably been the main thing that had gotten them to go. Shidou's adamancy over being the appropriate choice for leader was backed by confidence, and no body else had been so dramatically stepping up from the 'pool' of 'appropriate' canidates. On top of that there were a lot of factors that made people decide on what they had. I had no earthly idea what Shidou was going to do but he was on his own, unless we ran back into them. Hopefully he'd have the good sense to get food, and clothes.

I had made sure to point that out. Also they needed to get bags. It was common sense to know about food and water, they'd probably figure out clothes, and something to put stuff in pretty quickly as they started gathering food up so I wasn't too worried. He had the advantage of being the one driving, and he knew the city.

Shizuka suggestion for where we should go was as good as any especially since it really was for the best to try and have at least two vehicles. If we had been in this situation in America I'd have thought three vehicles would have been ideal. That wasn't likely to work in the crowded confines of a bustling Japanese metropolis. Of course two was the absolute minimum we had to have for getting around in this situation.

The ride over hadn't been exceedingly troublesome... I could follow directions. We'd seen a couple of people driving, but it seemed like the roads were mostly empty. The cars that were present were just empty... for one reason or another. It seemed most people were staying insider their homes; in accordance with a request from the authorities. So for right now there weren't any real problems driving around.

The real problem was actually, had been clearing up the area around the house. As far as choices for secondary vehicles the 'girlfriend's' hummer was pretty good. I didn't consider it ideal, for gas reasons but it would work. So Takashi, Ishi, Hirano, and I started moving some of the ammo to the hummer. We had a little while until dusk, and the girls were rushing to go freshen up, which was understandable.

"Thats a lot of bullets."Kohta stated looking at the mass of boxes. Individually each box of 20 308 caliber bullets was rather compact, and the 50 round 9mm boxes were only slightly larger by comparison. Without measuring I'd guess each individual box of 9mm was around maybe two inches in height.

While the girls had stayed inside after we'd checked out the interior, just in case, we'd stayed outside and made a little bit of small talk as we figured out the best way to handle this. I nodded, "It really is," We really just needed to move enough to make sure we could sit down in the back of the ASLAV. "Just free up some room thats all we need." Hirano nodded, he didn't question the dearth of 308 not with the two MAG 58s on top of the ASLAV's hull.

"What about that safe in there?" Ishi questioned, "And shouldn't we move some whats out here inside the house,"

He had a point, and I pointed to one of the spare tote bags, "Load that with 7.62," I gestured at the appropriate box, "we'll take some inside, and stick it somewhere, "And then we'll get to the safe, but lets finish this first." He nodded. I planned on grabbing the spare gun bag and bringing it in just in case we had to actually shoot something.

"Hai sensei."Ishi chimed in picking up the bag, and starting poking through the pile .

... oh fuck me really. Yeah sure I knew from a purely professional standpoint it was 'correct' but that crap was going to get annoying fast. "We also need to figure out how we're going to be moving, staying here for tonight is a good idea, but we do need to be able to move if necessary."
"Agreed," It was Takashi who said that as he and Hirano moved another stack of boxes off the seats of the ASLAV.

I set my own armful of ammo down into the pile, "Shizuka will be driving the hummer thats not an issue, and she is going to have to have people with here. Somebody needs to have a radio with them while she's driving." There was some acknowledgment to this. On the one hand they were high schoolers, on the other this ran the risk of being a total sausage fest in my vehicle. "Also we need to conserve space for holding supplies." which was pretty obvious.

I gestured to the duffle bags still on the external racks and started going to bring them down to put in the ASLAV. I'd wondered why I had felt off earlier, and then when we'd turned on the TV back at the school it had made sense. It was the year 2007. I was five years younger putting me closer to their age.

After we'd gotten clear of Shidou's group's line of sight I'd taken them off to the side and opened the back, and one of the five bags just so they'd know ahead of time. Ishi had of course been given one of my impact batons earlier, and well Saeko had her kendo stick but the rest... Arming the rest of them was getting increasingly appealing so I'd unrolled the mat holding a variety of things with sharp ends.

I left the knives put up, but the spare machete, and hatchets came out to play. These things were useful in a more woodland environment, which was what I'd planned for, but here they'd be good as a just in case kind of thing. Takashi was keeping his bat, but then he'd already proven he knew what to do with it. Still at least it had kind of evened us out on armament. Ideally at some point I could pass a gun off to Hirano, who had said he knew how to use one. He certainly knew the basics for gun safety. If he said he'd shot one before then at this stage it was probably worth it to take the chance.

After we closed up the back of the ASLAV and the Humvee we turned back to the house, "Might want to get food going," I had munched on an energy bar while we'd been driving but I doubt any of them had had any food sense before this whole mess started. Takashi picked up a crowbar that he'd found inside the house.

I grinned, he had the right idea "Glad to see you're prepared." I can't believe we were really going to crack open a safe. I mean staying in this chick's apartment was one thing but really this was... That line of thinking stopped immediately. We'd all split up to sweep the house, and when they'd told me about it I had figured it was some dinky little wall safe or something this was a little different. I dropped my tote back on the ground. "Hey Hirano its probably a shotgun in there are you up for using that?"

The ecstatic reply I got from the Otaku was promising at least. He ran over to the safe as I was putting my M14 down. "Lets open it already." He called.

Yeah I was in agreement with that, after we did this I needed to go look around, while they were cooking food, and while stuff was being loaded. "I had other guns, but these might be good for you guys to use depending on what they had," Most likely they were shotguns, if we were lucky pumps. It was Japan after all. At Hirano's look I nodded, "yeah well I haven't had the chance to unpack them, but lets go ahead and open this." I gestured for Ishi to hold the side of the safe.

It took some effort to get it open, but the crowbar managed to pull it open... fuck. Well there was a shotgun for sure, but damn. I heard some vague comment about illegal firearms, and kept looking at them.

Inside there were three guns, three long guns. It wasn't like I had been expecting handguns, but two semiautomatic rifles, and a shotgun wasn't what I'd been expecting. "Good thing we've got a dearth of 308," I muttered, as Hirano was already examining the Springfield M1A supermatch.

He turned after he put it down and moved on to the tricked out AR 10. "You're right, all of these and your M14 are in the ..." Oh god he was doing it again, a definite gun otaku moment. "and because they're semi automatic we'll definitely have plenty of ammo," Of the three guns though we'd definitely run out of ammo for the Ithaca first. "We should load these now,"

"Yeah," I agreed picking up my tote and pulling a box of 308 out, "We'll take that ammo with us, lets use this first," I commented picking up a magazine. It wasn't entirely altruism, the ammo that I had in bulk was primarily 'plinking ammo' for me, and we had a lot of it. Hirano already knew how to load a magazine, he'd said he'd learned from getting tutored in an Army base in America... funny that. It made showing Takashi and Ishi easier, There was probably another hour until night fell completely, but at least the power was holding up.

I looked around food definitely going to have to see about raiding the pantry... and water. The girls were taking a bath, but what we were definitely going to need was water. Raiding a gas station definitely was going to be a good idea. Of course we'd have to wait until tomorrow for that.

Once the mags were loaded we uprooted the safe turning it on its back, after removing everything from it. With the guns loaded, and all the spare, non trash, equipment packed then moved to the kitchen. I figured the best way to do this was to grab whatever we could, "What are we going to do?" Ishi asked as I pulled down the pots that I could get to."

"Get as much water as possible before the pipes stop pumping,"

Hirano nodded like he thought it was a good idea, but stopped, "But even with that we won't be able to stay for very long with Them out there. Gathering food and water here is a good idea, and using what we have is certainly, but..."

"Then we'll leave what we can't take, and whoever comes in after us will at least have some water, get any thing out of the freezer, we might as well east it first." Anything that would spoil would go bad fairly quickly once the power failed, and if we were lucky the grid would probably be online for another day or so. "Speaking of gathering supplies we do need to be ready to move out."

I was reminded of how much I hated apartments, even relatively big ones like this. I hadn't expected to have this kind of good fortune when packing my bag. Shizuka's girlfriend had guns covered, but I couldn't really say much about the stock of food. Well as long as the power didn't go out while we were cooking I suppose it wasn't that big of a deal.

When I'd been packing I'd gone for being prepared, but it was also true I'd packed based on expectations that were not likely to be true in Japan. When I'd packed my five bags I hadn't really thought too indepth about arming other people.

The shotgun was a good find though, even if I personally wasn't keen on them. They were simple to use, and clean, so the recoil would really be the only issue besides ammo. It was likely to be the first gun we ran out of ammo. Those were the breaks though, while we still had a little bit of light we needed to figure out where we were going to go if we needed to lead, because trying to figure that out at the last minute while we were trying to drive through zombie hordes was not going to be fun.

I could clear the road temporarily with my ASLAV, either by running them over or using the ammo for the Bushmaster. Of course I only had some much ammo for that as well, even on single shot mode. I had also used it to clear some space at the school.

In the best case it had done some good, and convinced some of the students to show some brains, and get clear of the zombies and be quiet. Not that we were being all that quiet ourselves. Right now though most people seemed to be staying in their houses, which was surprisingly but kept the streets semi clear so at least we could see anything walking towards us.

"I can handle the food sensei," Ishi interjected as I looked through freezer. My Japanese might have been improved but reading this at the moment wasn't fun, so I stepped back, and let him have at it. I took another couple of steps and looked towards the stairs, and then back at my watch. We'd driven from the school, and even with the brief, and annoying stops, along the way we'd managed to find some where to set up at fairly quickly. At the very least we should be solid for the night, and that was definitely a good thing.

"Hey," I blinked as Saeko, and Shizuka, and... Rei?... I think, all came down the stairs. "I'm going to start cooking so we'll have lunch tomorrow."

I blinked at the apron the sword girl was wearing, "Uh right," Well … she was at least thinking ahead, which was a plus. It was nice to see someone else doing that.
"I'm sorry none of the clothes would fit me," She smiled for a minute, "its a little indecent." She admitted.

Fucking weird ass half bow thing, I got enough of that at the damn Japanese joint in my home town as it was, "Uh Ishi is already started yeah go ahead." I stepped out of the way. "We'll hit somewhere tomorrow to get some practical clothes for everyone." I added, gods above knew we'd need it.

I waved Hirano over, "If they're out and handling food what do we do? I mean should we, we should keep watch," he declared tightening his grip on the AR 10. I shrugged, and nodded, and started up the stairs towards the balcony.

The nurse, and Rei were drinking sake, or what I assumed, which certainly didn't seem like a good idea, but who was I to talk. They had a bit of a point in drinking, it had been a hard day for them. I couldn't even say anything I'd drank while I was in high school, and I didn't have a clue what Japan's drinking age was to begin with so it wasn't like I'd have some bullshit moral outrage over it.

I leaned up on the railing, and looked out. The city had some bits with lights on, but it was getting dark, and well. Hirano had a mag light he'd taken out of my tote, which he'd stuck in his newly acquired tactical vest that he'd found in the apartment, but more importantly he had a pair of binoculars in his hand.

I tapped my hand on the railing as I watched the horizon, before swinging the EBR over the railing and shouldering it... it was hideously quiet. The news broadcast had told everyone to stay inside, so hopefully some people had the brains to do just that preferably behind a barricaded door, and on the second floor. Of course even if they did stay inside it didn't stop the idiots who didn't. I looked through the NVG, yeah Zed bunches way down the avenue. I checked my watch.

Arrival + 8 hours... and some change

I loosened, and lowered the rifle, "There is a lot of them," I sighed, "good thing we packed some of the things already. If we have to leave tonight its going to be in a hurry." We'd needed to pack some more though. Down side was from all I'd seen of the surrounding area there wasn't any place we'd passed that was good for our vehicles and us.

"Totally," Hirano agreed looking through the binoculars. "If we had gone into the police station there probably would have been zombies in there to."

Probably so, it'd been unnaturally quiet there, empty, dead. "This place would have been good to hole up in, but its going to be compromised soon," I adjusted my rifle, and swung towards the bridge. It was easily the biggest source of light, and noise, Zombies were probably heading right towards it. From what I could see there were emergency response vehicles there; cops and firemen it looked like but I hadn't heard any gunshots yet. "Tomorrow we're going to have to go, and we need to pick up clothes, and food, and bottled water."

That ingrate on the bus had a point maybe we should have stayed at the school. Then again all that was said and done, there was no going back. That little punk might have had a point, but we made our choice and no one forced him to get on that bus. So here we were.

I glanced at Hirano who nodded. "thats why you grabbed those medical supplies from the school's nurse station," He said, "even if you're well supplied right now thats all stuff you brought it won't last long if we're all using it. We just haven't had the time, but with these, and we have time to compose ourselves and plan our next move, and preparation is the key to battle."

"If we have to bust out here through them," I jerked my head towards the zombies up the road, "I'll take point and while they're closing I'm going to hit them with the bushmaster, and then drive forward." It'd probably be overkill but I didn't want to get to used to trying to run over zombies with the thirteen tonnes of armor. I hadn't looked at the suspension but if it was an actual, and it looked like it had the armor plating to be, it should be pretty sturdy. The problem was it still had four wheels and it could still lock up.

I turned a bit at the smell of food coming from the kitchen. "That smells good," Hirano voiced, kid probably hadn't had anything to eat all day so I could understand.

"Well we'll eat with the rest of them," Maybe not all of them, Shizuka and Rei had both been drinking so they probably weren't going to be up for eating.

He nodded, "We should discuss formations while we eat," Hirano declared. "We only have limitted space still in the ASLAV but we can at least have two people inside it," His grip tightened around the AR 10 as if he was making some difficult choice. "I'll ride in the humvee with this, and I'll handle the radio."

Well it was as good a plan as any. There was a thump against the wall. I snorted, it was probably the drunk people given we'd secured the entrances to the house fairly well. We didn't have a perfect line of sight around the house, but the door would take some effort to break down if it came to that, and the power was still working which meant the lights were on. I left the EBR up against the wall, and opened the door.

I walked out, and glanced down the stairs. Takashi glanced up from where he was cradling a clearly drunk, and blubbering Rei. I snorted, and flashed him a thumbs up sign, and then turned back around and walked back.

"Is it one of them?" Hirano asked, and I shook my head as I picked up my rifle.

"Nothing to worry about," I said leaning against the outside wall, "Just got to wait for dinner, so what do you think about what happened at the police station?"

He perked up, "Ah Shidou didn't stop bullies I wouldn't have gone with him. If they couldn't see he wasn't an appropriate leader thats their problem."

That was kind of harsh. "So, what about their chances to survive?" There had been a fairly largely group that had made it out of the school with us. Most of them had chosen to stay with Shidou, or maybe because of the bus. "Takuzo was pretty handy with that bat," That stupid towel he'd been sporting last I'd seen him though was an accident waiting to happen. He'd been the head of a small group when we'd run into them in the school.

"If they got away from Shidou they'd probably be okay, but even with him they might be alright since they're in the van." I nodded lifting my set of binoculars to look around. If we had been able to sort things out then we might have been able to do something more. "It'll give them a place to sleep, and that model gets really good gas mileage so if they're just driving around Tokunosu looking for supplies they should fine."

My fingers worked the zoom on the binoculars, "Yeah, we'll need to start looking for supplies tomorrow as well, food, and water, but also clothes,"

"Socks especially," Hirano said interjecting, "oh look at the bridge, that group there,"

I turned, yep big mob, "They look human," Which from one perspective was a good sign at least, of course there was no reason for them to be massing like that. I swept wide to the other side, to the other side which was obscured. I could see the bucket truck. Put two and two together, and it was probably a cordon. The question was why, or at least why was fire department doing the police's job. Then again the police station had been deserted.

-scene break-

It was a good thing we'd gotten prepared. At arrival + 11 hours and some change we rescued the next two additions to the group. A little girl named Alice, and a dog. Her dad had gotten stabbed by a bunch of survivors who were holed up in a house while he and Alice had been looking for a place to stay the night. Still the couple of hours we got to rest were a relief, and on top of that the supplies we had gotten from the apartment were a massive improvement to our situation.

We'd been in this situation less than an entire day, and my ASLAV already needed a good scrubbing down, but chances were that water that would be used would be to precious to use for something so trivial very soon. Still at just before ten, pm, local time we bugged out from Shizuka's girlfriend's apartment with all the supplies we could load.

Rescuing Alice had been an impromptu set up of collaborating efforts. Saeko had organized the loading of our remaining gear into the humvee while Hirano had clambered up the balcony to provide fire support for Takashi when he made his move. I'd driven the ASLAV, and Takashi had waited in place to grab the kid. As soon as we had her, and the Aslav blocked the zombies from trying to get through the gate to swarm Takashi. Hirano told the others and they loaded up in the Humvee once we were all ready to go. They shot off to join us with Shizuka at the wheel.

It probably wasn't the safest way to get clear, not with Shizuka having gotten drunk earlier, but there wasn't any helping it. It would have been nice to have spent the night resting at the house, but after all the noise we made rescuing Alice. It would have been a clusterfuck trying to hole back up in the house given that it'd been the middle of the night with sixty plus zombies all around us, and more probably coming from the noise we'd made, and that had been without having to fire the Bushmaster.

By morning we found a place to ford the river and cross to the other side, I still wasn't clear where exactly we were going, but the second day had dawned, and I was bushed. If we had to stay in town for more than a week it might at some point be worth it to go back and make sure we hadn't left anything important at the house. For now though the plan was try and find Saya's parents, and then we'd go after Rei, and Takashi's.

"What about after-"

There was still big black clouds of smoke billowing up from different parts of the city. Hopefully they'd die down instead of spreading, but I didn't know anything about fighting fires, much less in an environment like a big city. The zombies though... this was the New Normal. The old days were gone for good. "This is the new normal, and it started that first day in front of the school when you saw that zombie first bite that teacher. All we can do, and need to do now is keep surviving." I said as we looked out at what we could see of the city.

"His name was Teshima-sensei." Takashi stated.

Right... I shifted my position a little. Faintly I wondered if there were any survivors still in the school, or if any others had made it out. I couldn't even check now we were well away from the school. Some were hopefully alive, but they'd need food and water to survive. We all would in order to survive. Maybe there would be some semblance of order, but right now the city looked pretty messed up. Smoke was billowing, but on the plus side I could hear EMS sirens going off. That had to count for something that even a day into this they were working... or the sirens were still just going off and the cars were adandonned.

-scene break-