Chapter 7: Punks - Escape – Confessions – Relocate
As we are about to turn the corner to the alleyway, we saw some guys with guns looking tough and shouting insults as I heard Sacha try to negotiate. The guys really sounded as tough as they looked so me and my team hung back.
"Look guys I don't mean any harm," I heard Sacha say, "How about you just calm down let's talk this out?"
"No way," Said a scrawny looking guy in that little gang with a shotgun, "Let us through, and let us take that little perch ya got up there." The guy made his point by cocking his shotgun.
"Buncha jackasses," I hear Suita say under his breath in disgust.
Since, we're slightly out gunned, I remember the element of surprise as I thought of a plan to signal Sacha and take the guys by surprise. It was then, I remember a signal me and Sacha made up. If we're nearby we whistle a tune or mimic a whistle sound. Since I'd mostly do animal sounds, he'll know it's me as I would use a simple bird whistle. So I whistled up to him and Sacha seemed to take notice as his tone changed a little, "all right, all right, so what's your offer for this place?"
"Okay listen here, ya cunt," Said the apparent leader who seems to be holding a pistol in his holster, "You guys let us in and as you'll give us all your stuff."
"First off, don't be so rude," Sacha said with a mocking tone, "Besides, I wont give anything to you if my friends have something to say about that."
"What friends," Joked another that surprisingly has a Howa Type 89 assault rifle as I had Hikari fire a bullet right at the leader's foot knocking him down and removing all use to the foot all together and surprising his cronies in the process.
I jumped out and said with a wide grin, "These friends," As i fired my revolver at them letting Suita and Kiko join in. The guys were pathetically screaming and running abandoning their leader as they dropped their guns and ammo.
We ceased fire as I approached the leader who is fumbling for his Glock. I sighed and casually shot the gun out of his hands and stomped on one of them as i pointed the gun at his temple. "ow, ow, ow," The man groaned as he began to negotiate, "H-hey, dude be cool here. L-look, I'm wounded s-so um just help me out and I'll leave you alone."
"Really," I asked sensing the venom in my voice, a kind of tone I never knew I was capable of, "Well, given the amount of noise we all made, that won't be an option when the dead arrive, plus I don't trust your kind on these streets." I made my point by cocking my revolver and hoping I don't get an itchy trigger finger mid sentence.
"O-okay s-so what are my options," The leader eagerly asked.
"Well," I began, "option one, we leave you here for the zombies, or two I'll be merciful and put you out of your misery right here, right now."
The thug seemed hesitant, "Is there any way that doesn't get me killed?"
I gave him a vicious look as i said in a sharper tone, "Did I stutter?"
The punk sighed as he said, "Fine then, and make it quick. I'll take option 2."
Stepping back a bit so I don't get splattered I fired the shot. After that, I turned to everyone else, "Get ready to leave, we got zombies coming."
Josh shouted down at us as he saw them through binoculars, "Oh shit, you're right Fuyu, we gotta go."
It was a lot faster than expected to get out stuff packed up to leave including the new weapons from the punks. Me, Josh and Suzuki covered everyone as the stuff got loaded up our vehicles. When it was time, the three of us got in our respective cars and booked it out of there as we still shot at those zombies. Sighs of relief all around as we set a course for our next destination. Both of us as teams conversed via walkie talkies that they found a while back, Hiromi and Hikari were walking about how they were surviving, but other than that, it was dead silent in our car. Since my group has the map, we are up front to lead the way. Right now, Kiko is riding shotgun with me by her request. At first, I got a little suspicious but I kindly accepted her offer so here she is sitting next to me. As I drove, I can't help but steal a glance at her. Even though we have seen each other a lot before I left for America, I can't help but notice how much she sort of changed aside from her long hair. First off, she has a different look in her eye, more determined and alert in comparison to her more tired and stressed look she had back then from her parents and part time job. I looked away before she caught me as I looked a bit lower from her face. I'm a bit of a gentleman so I'm a little ashamed to say this but, she's grown a little since I last seen her. I shook my head a little and paid attention to the road ahead as I took the set path we plotted. We drove past many things, crumbling and burning buildings there were zombies almost everywhere but the majority surprisingly didn't notice us.
The drive was gotten a little louder as I heard Haruko whispering something to Kiko. "Fuyu-kun," I hear her say almost startling me breaking the silence, "I-I wanted to tell you something. S-something I've wanted to say." Now, I've read some shojo manga a while back but for some reason, I have no idea where this is going. Even so, I was curious about what she'll say. Just what would my first female friend say to me?
Taking a quick breath I quickly thought about the many times we talked but still treated each other as friends...and something else as I responded with, "U-um sure."
She seemed hesitant at first, added to that, I could feel the eyes of my other friends burn into us as they listen in as she says, "F-Fuyu...I-I..." I felt my heart throbbing as though it's going to burst right out of my chest as she finally said, "I love you, F-Fuyu-kun. F-for a long t-time since we've been so close I've had a crush on you and I'll say it again, I love you so much."
The words echoed through my head as I felt time slow down. Then it hit me, all this time, the times I cared for her, helped her and even protected her I failed to realize the feelings I had for her. I hear Suita and Suzuki cheering me on as I said back to her, "I-I love you too, Kiko-chan." I saw her smile and she kissed me on the cheek as applause erupted in the car from my friends and I think from my walkie talkie as well. "Well done, Fuyu," I heard Josh say through the two-way I think I held the transmit button for too long, "You got a girlfriend. Hopefully you'll take good care of her."
"Oh I will," I say back to him as Kiko tapped my shoulder.
"Take good responsibility over me okay," She smiled as she continued, "Promise?"
"I promise," I say to her with a smile as we pull up to the destination just as the sun began to set. The building is more of an abandoned store with some bedrooms for the previous tenants. I'm comforted by the fact that Dad told me that he had people keeping this clean and structurally sound. We walked in and checked the place after securing the front entrance. The smell of something rotting lingers in the air as I check upstairs but I hear no movement of any kind there not even a moan. Alone and clutching my rifle strap where my M16 is hanging from with one hand and my other hand hovers over my revolver holster. I followed my nose to the source behind a bedroom door. I slid it open cautiously only to find a corpse of one of the building's caretakers, a knife stuck in his head with his hand clutched to it. I kept some partially digested contents that was my lunch down with a gulp and called for Josh, Suita and Suzuki to help me out with this body. The three didn't like the sight and smell but helped out anyway as i opened a window to push the body out. No one said anything about it so we headed back down to unload what we got.
