There was not a term that could define the events at the Takagi compound, except pure pandemonium.

Takashi, Miku, and Hisashi did not need to see past the walls to know what had happened. Shido had undoubtedly started driving away as soon as he had gotten behind the wheel of the bus. It just had to be then that the thing in the sky-it-had moved too fast for anyone to get a good look at it, but it must have been a missile-landed straight outside. Shido had lost control over the bus and slammed into the wall, sending chunks of the cement and mortar flying.

There had been a tentative hope that there was time to prepare. No such luck. There had been zombies outside the walls, and crashes of the missile and the bus had reached the ears of others, perhaps even miles away. The crowd had panicked and dispersed even as the undead tore through the opening.

"Damn!"

As a zombie reached for Hisashi, the boy swung his arm out sharply at an angle, pushing the monster's arms away and throwing off its balance. He kicked the zombie's legs out from underneath it and gave it a boot to the head.

Crunch!

"Haghhh!" Miku swung out, sinking the blade of her ax into another zombie's skull and withdrawing it cleanly. Beside her, Takashi looked frantically from side to side. There were screams and moans from the zombies all around him, and he saw survivors strung about everywhere, running from the zombies or trying to fend them off. There were corpses sprawled across the grass, and he was not entirely sure they were all zombies.

"Look out!" Hisashi shouts as another zombie swung at Miku from her left flank and another lunged at the front. She screamed and brought the ax down on the zombie in front of her, but this time she's unable to withdraw it cleanly. Snapped back into focus, Takashi kicked forward and pushed the corpse to the ground. Miku wound up for another swing, but the other monster was too close...

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three bullets flew through the air, and the zombie fell on its back as three holes opened in its face. Takashi, Rei, and Hisashi spun around to see the white sedan barreling towards them. Souichiro Takagi was at the wheel, and Saya was in the front passenger's seat. Kohta was hanging on to the roof of the car, the Springfield rifle under his arm. He looked a little pale from his precarious position and the shots he had to fire so wildly, but he held on.

The sedan swerved to the side, the right. side coming closer to the trio as it stopped moving, Souichiro kicked his way through the driver's seat, quickly brushing the wrinkles out of his uniform and grasping his sword scabbard with his left hand. He nodded at Takashi, Miku, and Hisashi.

"Get in the car. My daughter knows a special spot."

"Father!" Saya scowled, but sweat was starting to appear on her forehead. "You can't possibly mean you'll…"

Souichiro drew his sword from the scabbard, silencing her. "Someone has to look for your mother, and someone has to restore order. You know what you need to do."

Saya looked at him, then scooched forward until she swung her bandaged leg over the gap and sat in the driver's seat. She nodded. Souichiro smiled, then dropped it as he looked back at the young trio before him.

"Get in the car!"

They rushed forward as the rearmost door swung open. They went in one at a time through the opening. They could see that Shizuka, Jo, Alice, Saeko, and Rei had squeezed into the center row, seatbelts haphazardly drawn over themselves.

Saya started up the sedan again, and the vehicle went straight over the grass, knocking a couple of zombies out of the way, as it drove past through the hole in the wall.

Saya made a sharp turn and stopped. The bus was right next to the sedan now, the front pulverized by the impact. The windows were all broken. She couldn't see anyone through them; the survivors must have fled. Takashi peered through his own window.

"Maybe they have supplies in there?"

Saya pondered. It would take some time to reach the destination…

She let Takashi, MIku, Hisashi leave through the back door, uninhibited as they were by seatbelts. They wandered towards the bus and ran into their first zombie, struggling to get up from the broken door. Rei, having unfastened herself, came running after them from behind.

"Hisashi! Don't go running out like that-" She stopped as she saw what the others saw.

It was Koichi Shido, his suit in tatters. His eyes were glazed over, and his mouth hung open. He had a bleeding bite on his shoulder.

Bang!

The zombified teacher fell flat on his face. Everyone but Rei turned to see Kohta squatted in a firing position, but with the barrel of his rifle now pointed at the sky. Rei stepped forward, giving the corpse a smoldering look of contempt, before kicking it in the head.

Miku moved forward, her ax at the ready, with Takashi following close behind. They filed into the bus. In the middle of the central row was a young female zombie with her neck bent at an odd angle, her head hanging off it like a broken showerhead

Miku stepped forward, swinging her ax horizontally and taking off the zombie's head with one blow.

"H-he..uh..."

Miku and Takashi froze, then moved towards the back of the truck. Imamura was sitting with his back to the hatch, his hair swept back. The pair could see that he had been bitten in his arm, and more disturbingly, a chunk had been taken out of his chin.

He studied them for a moment through hooded eyes. "Not...not gonna make..it." He pointed a mangled finger at the ax in Miku's hand.

"Please…"

Takashi turned and tried to take the ax, but Miku held firm and pulled away from him. She looked at Imamura, grit her teeth, then let out a long, deep sigh.

Then she took a step and slammed the head of the ax through Imamura's skull.

He was dead on the spot.

Story idea by CRed1988 and writing by Jerviss.