Chapter 4: Escape and Dead Infiltration

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"Takashi!" Saya whispers viciously as she breaks the arm reaching through the broken pane as she watches Takashi and Saeko move the other barricade. She had the impression that the noise she and Hurano made was a bit too effective. Probably attracting every one of them within a three floor radius.

"I'm hurrying. I'm hurrying." Takashi muttered under his breath as he and Saeko moved a desk. He shoved the last obstacle out of the way with as little noise as possible before checking the window in the door. The hallway was clear of any of 'them'.

"Ready?" he asked the room, bat over his shoulder, his hand clenched, knuckles blanching with suppressed tension.

"Let's go!" Hirano said, all but abandoning his position in front of the rear barricade. The group ran out of the room as the barricade gave way, Saeko shutting the door behind them and locking it with a chair under the handle. A delaying tactic at best, but it would have to do.

The group of five, four students and a school nurse in training, ran as silently as they could down the hall, down a flight of stairs, and across the school's main building.

A scream broke the eerie silence. They glanced at each other, then, headed in the direction of the scream. It was the stairwell to the first floor. A set of students were making a last stand. Hirano shot one of the dead as Takashi clubbed a second. Saeko took out two more, and Rei took out the last one. All of this happened in near perfect silence. Sound was their enemy now, just as much as 'they' were.

"We're getting out of here, are you guys ready to go?" Takashi asked the group in an almost whisper.

"Komuro! Why are you inviting them?" Saya demanded in a whisper.

Takashi looked at her like she'd grown a second head for a split second, frowned to himself, then shook his head. "We've got a better chance of staying alive if we stay together." Hirano observed.

"Plus, we're already taking the micro-bus, it's not as if it's not going to hold the extra people." Miss Marikawa said, finger to her lips, chest heaving.

"Good points..." Saya muttered, then took a deep breath, "they react to sound. If we stay silent we should be invisible to them and be able to get out of the main entrance." she said, pointing.

"And who exactly is going to test out that little theory? You?" Rei asked. Saya blanched.

"I'll do it. Busujima, can you watch my back?" Takashi asked Saeko as he hefted the bat.

"I'll snipe from here if you need it, let's do this quick, ok?" Hirano said, readying the nail gun.

Takashi nodded at his glasses wearing gun fanatic friend before heading down the stairs. The room was almost empty, but there were enough of 'them' to make him pause every few steps. Finally, coming within kissing distance of the walking putrefaction that was the walking dead, he bent down and scooped up a shoe, which he promptly threw against the far wall away from the door before quickly walking to the door and opening it.

Outside, with a fresh breeze coming in, the smell was more tolerable. Less like a physical presence and more like a vague feeling of unease.

The others followed, the last of the new group, as he stepped down onto the last step of the ground floor slipped and fell, his weapon banging against the railing with a hollow but excruciatingly loud clang.

"Run!" The shout was torn from Takashi's lips as they raced toward the micro buses.

***** ***** ***** Meanwhile, elsewhere in Tokyo *** **** ***** *****

Inuyasha leaped down into the well, the aqua blue of the portal between times swirled around him, lights became brighter, and then he was at the bottom of the well in Sengoku-era Japan.

He jumped from the bottom of the well and ran toward Kaede's house.

Kouga was smelling something horrible. That horrible smell pervaded the area, destroying his delicate sense of smell. He followed the noxious cloud, suspecting Naraku as the source. He was very surprised when he found the sacred well as the source of the stench, and Inuyasha, whose back was to him as he raced toward Kaede's home.

"Kagome!" The thought immediately came to mind, and he jumped down into the well. He was immediately surrounded by swirling shades of blue from light, sky blue, to dark, midnight blue, to a deep royal blue of deep seas. When he landed, the smell was worse, so much worse. He jumped out of the well, opened the strange door, and walked out of the building that hid the well. Kagome was crying over an older man that looked dead, and smelled worse.

Just as he reached out to her, his love, the body on the ground twitched.

"Kagome!?" He shouted in warning as he ran forward.

"Kouga?" She looked up at him with tears streaming from her dark eyes, completely startled.

Inuyasha handed Miroku, Sango, Kilala and Shippou each a jewel shard, leaving three with Kaede to give one each to whomever she thought could help. He put out a call for help among the demons, hoping Kouga and maybe a few others would get the call, and they raced toward the well.

As each of them went through the well in turn, Inuyasha waiting to go last impatiently, Sesshomaru watched from a small distance.

"Brother, what are you doing, and what is that smell?" Sesshomaru asked himself aloud. He'd been nearby when he had gotten the call to arms his brother had sent out among the psychic link between demons.

Inuyasha glanced in his direction momentarily as he looked around, sensing someone watching him. He had no time for this... he thought to himself before leaping down after Shippou.

Miroku, who had landed first, was trying to convince Sango that she should go first. Sango, in turn, was threatening the lecherous monk with Hirakotsu, and her fist. Shippou was halfway up the well wall, and Kilala, in small fox form, was on his back. "If you guys would stop arguing you would get up a whole lot faster." Inuyasha growled, grabbing both by the top and jumping from the well with them, landing just in front of Shippou.

"These are dead humans we are facing." He said, motioning to Tetsuaiga laying uselessly in it's sheath. "Tetsuaiga won't transform. So it's claws and teeth. If you are bitten, you become one of them" He gave the group a quick version of events, preparing them for fighting other, dead humans.

Unnoticed to him and the others, the well had activated a final time, letting Sesshomaru pass into the world of the future. He listened to his brother's explanation, frowned, and waited until everyone else had left the well building before leaping out onto the dirt floor. His clawed feet bare, his snarl as he caught an even stronger whiff of decay. It was close to the miasma that surrounded the half demon Naraku.

"Kagome, get away!" Souta shouted, pushing his sister away from their grandfather. No. From what remained behind inside of their grandfather. "He's dead. We have to finish him." Souta took the short spear in his left hand, prepared for the worst moment of his life, and jammed the point into his grandfather's eye.

The eye bulged before exploding in a mess of reddish jelly like fluid, the eye bursting, the delicate bones behind the optic orb broke easily in the wake of the wooden spear, the tissues behind them parted and scrambled as Souta applied the force to destroy his grandfather's brain. He sobbed as he pushed the old man off of the stick, his mind wrapping around the fact that his grandfather was now dead at his hand.

No. It wasn't his grandfather. It was one of 'them'. The hungry dead. He wasn't a person any more. Just one of the many, many dead.

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AN: Yup. It's gonna be a gorefest folks. :)

Insanity is a matter of opinion. -me