"On the night before the day when everything came to an end, I stayed up late."
Takashi Komuro: age 17
Last Alarm
Chapter Six
The Day Everything Came To An End.
Seventeen year old Takashi Komuro looked in horror at the at the grotesque scene from his perch on the third floor landing of the fire escape on the "C" wing side of the school.
He had been quietly pondering the events of the past week, and in his sad thoughts he had reminisced of the days of his childhood, when the love of his life made a simple, yet profound promise when they were still children.
A promise, that in his heart he hoped would grow to a lifetime of joy and happiness. And yet, it seemed that in a mere glimpse of time, it had become as nothing.
The sudden abrupt visit from a fellow classmate earlier had done little to improve his mood, as Saya Takagi seemed to only be able to twist the knife cleaving his heart in two with the even sharper edge of her tongue.
With only insults and criticism assailing his ears from the sharp-tongued teen, Takashi used the only effective weapon in his arsenal to stop the onslaught from the school's most annoying know-it-all.
He simply ignored her.
It was enough to gain him a reprieve from her insults and helped encourage her to leave him alone with his thoughts, but did little to improve his mood.
And as he continued to allow his thoughts to drift back to the source of his heartache, a sudden banging of metal had interrupted his thoughts once again as it appeared a man, possibly intoxicated, seemed intent on slamming himself through the locked gates in the teacher's parking lot.
"Is he some drunk or just some psycho?" Takashi thought.
Four teachers had been alerted by the noise, and as they confronted the man at the gate, Takashi watched one of the teachers, a man named Tejima, grab the lethargic man and then roughly slam him against the gate.
"Showing off for Hayashi sensei again." Takashi thought. The whole school knew the two teachers were an item, as much as they both denied it. Still, even if it weren't true, Tejima sensei seemed to sure be intent on constantly showing off in front of Hayashi sensei every chance he got.
The teacher was also a wrestling coach, and prided himself on his strength, and was accustomed to pushing the students beyond their physical abilities just to boost his own ego, which made him extremely unpopular with the students.
His strength did little to prevent what happened next when the man suddenly broke away from Tejima's grip and proceeded to bite a huge chunk out of the teacher's arm.
His screaming and his rolling on the ground came as quite a shock to Takashi and to the teachers standing around him as well as the heavy loss of blood splashing on the pavement. Even more shocking was when the teacher suddenly stopped moving and no longer appeared to be breathing.
Even from his perch, Takashi could see no chest rise coming from the man.
"He's dead from a BITE to the arm?" Takashi wondered incredulously. "How is THAT possible?"
Then as if to put everyone's fears to rest, the teacher appeared to be breathing again, much to the relief of Hayashi sensei, whose visible relief at seeing Tejima appear to fully recover, betrayed her obvious romantic feelings for him.
Suddenly, without warning, the injured teacher reached up and grabbed the woman by the front of her blouse, and yanked her down pulling her close to him. His jaws then opened and clamped down on her neck, biting through the skin and severing her carotid artery.
Her screams as she writhed on the ground dying, caused the other two teachers to finally lose their nerve, and they turned and ran away from the gruesome scene as fast as their legs could carry them.
Takashi was stunned at what he had just witnessed. The shock to his brain was only momentary however. The receptors in his brain overrode the fear and the panic, that was the normal response to a traumatic event and prepared him for the normal human "Fight or flight" reaction. However, his first thoughts were not of preserving his own life, nor were they focused on seeking help.
His only thoughts were the life and well-being of one person, the source of his greatest joy and recently, his deepest pain. Takashi immediately tore away from the railing and sprung up the flight of stairs two at a time and slammed through the door, running as fast as he could through the empty hallway.
"REI!" Thought Takashi. "I HAVE TO GET TO REI!"
It had gone so horribly wrong.
The firefight at the airport had been a nightmare enough as it was. Over there, we were up against superior numbers, all of them hostile, but our advantage was that none of them were armed with anything more than their teeth.
While we were only a handful of men, with the weapons we carried with us, we had managed to hold them back long enough to make our escape to where we thought was safety on the mainland.
Now instead of the nightmare being over, we were stuck between the figurative rock and a hard place, facing the same deadly enemy we had just escaped from earlier, on one side of us.
But now, we had another dilemma. We had "friendly forces" in this case, the local police, lined up on our other side with weapons drawn, waiting with itchy trigger fingers to open fire on what I'm sure they believed, were heavily-armed international terrorists on their native soil.
Oh yeah, we were SO screwed.
"Everybody, sling your weapons, and put your hands on top of your heads, and start walking slowly towards the cops." J.R. ordered.
He then quickly spoke to the Japanese men with us, and after he finished they nodded their heads and began putting their hands over their heads as well, lining up in front of us.
I was puzzled at first, but then realized what the plan was.
We were going to surrender to the police.
And by having the Japanese move in front of us first, we were showing to the police that the Japanese were not harmed and not hostages by having them walk in front of us.
We on the other hand, would walk behind them with weapons slung, and hands over our heads and try to appear as non-threatening as possible. It was our hope that the police would be less inclined to start spraying bullets if they could see that their fellow countrymen were not in any danger, and that we weren't a threat.
"Why not lay down your arms and then surrender?" You ask?
Because our "Friends" were closing in on us pretty fast, and by the time the police realized that we weren't the real threat here, it might be too late.
And if the Police didn't began to realize that we were the good guys here pretty soon, we might have to make the hard choice to defend ourselves, both from the police and our hungry friends.
Deep down, I was praying J.R.'s plan would work. I've worked alongside with police for years now, and I have some close friends amongst their ranks.
For many years I've worked and suffered together with the P.D. guys in all kinds of situations, in all kinds of weather and in all times of the day or night, and just to show you how close we were to the police we worked with, we even cooked and shared meals together back at the station, and spent time together on our days off hunting or fishing or enjoying backyard backyard BBQ' with them and our families.
And even though these policemen were of a different nation, they were still fellow first responders. They were still fellow "brothers in blue" in the public service world, and they were still only doing their job.
I can't tell you how torn I was between the possibility of having to open fire on the police to keep my buddies and myself safe from the walking death coming at us. Still, if they got nervous, and it came down to them or us.
Well, I prayed even harder that this plan would work believe me.
J.R. shouted something to the line of police still aiming their pistols at us while the officer-in-charge continued to shout through his loudspeaker, probably telling us to drop our weapons or put our faces in the ground.
The Japanese men walking in front of us looked back at us nervously. But J.R. continued to speak to them, encouraging them to continue to shout to the police that we weren't hostile and that an even bigger threat was behind us, I suppose, because a few of the police picked up their heads to look over our shoulders as if to see if there was anything behind us.
The mechanics and guard were still shouting to the police not to shoot at us I guess, but it seemed to me that the cops were determined not to pay attention to our efforts to surrender peacefully and were getting more and more agitated that we weren't complying word for word to their commands.
Much as I hated the situation, I could understand why the police were being so adamant about us dropping our weapons and kissing the dirt.
Police are taught to maintain control of a situation no matter what.
One of the main lessons they learn in the Police Academy is that if you lose control of a situation, the situation will control you.
Sounds kinda simple and almost cheesy too, but you have to understand, if the cop is in a possible volatile situation and he doesn't handle the situation by doing everything in his power to gain control by peaceful or aggressive means. Then the situation can boil over and get out of control and people get hurt or killed.
It's a job that is a lot harder to do than people think and I can't tell you how much these guys are underpaid and underappreciated for the job they do.
Most people and their children will wave at firemen as we pass by in the big red truck. But I have as yet to see someone give a friendly wave to a police car going by unless the car is way past them, and then they give a wave alright, only it's the universal one-finger wave.
Much as I have a lot of respect for the "boys in blue" of ANY nation. There was no way we were gonna comply with their orders verbatim.
One, I don't know about the rest of the guys, but I had no clue what the Police Commander was saying in the first place, since my Japanese is limited to the few words and phrases I picked up from watching subtitled anime back in the 90's.
So there was no way I could comply with their demands, word for word, like they wanted. Funny, I guess my latino features just didn't convince them that I wasn't a local and had no idea what the hell they were saying.
Second, as we were moving forward to the police, our cannibal friends behind us must have smelled dinner on the table, because they seemed to have kicked it into second gear as they appeared to be closing in on us a lot faster than before. They were still shuffling forward, but at a quicker pace.
Personally, as crazy as it sounds, I was glad these were the George Romero version of zombies. You know, the classic slow-moving lethargic kind and not the Olympic athlete runner types that came out in the re-makes. We'd have been long dead otherwise.
Still, there was no way we were going to drop our weapons to the ground and then lay flat waiting to be cuffed and leave ourselves defenseless. Unfortunately, it was beginning to look more and more, like this situation was not going to end very well for any of us.
"Boss, they're not buying it." Ben said to Chris as we were now about 100 feet away from the line of police cars.
"Nope, it don't look like it at all." Said Chris, who then turned his head to look at J.R.
"What do you think, bud?" he asked as the voice on the loudspeaker seemed to be screaming in anger now.
"Yeah." Said J.R. with a sigh, " Looks like it's "Plan B" time again."
He then spoke loud enough so all of us could hear, but not loud enough for the police to overhear his plan. " Alright, everybody get ready. When I give the word, SCATTER.
"Try not to open fire on the locals if you can avoid it." He continued. " Get clear of here, and E&E as best you can. Rally at the "Hilton".
The "Hilton" was our code word for the U.S. Embassy,…..IN TOKYO.
"AW GEEZ, ARE YOU KIDDING ME!" I thought with alarm." TOKYO?! That's over three hundred miles away!"
While all the guys had all been through SERE training in the military and this was nothing new for them, I had only been given a simplified course when the guys were training me back in Nevada for a contract we were going to be doing in AFRICA.
Don't get me wrong, it wasn't an impossible thing to do, even with my giant self, traipsing across the Japanese countryside hoping I don't get noticed.
But truth was, unlike the guys, I had no experience trying to evade and escape a nation-wide manhunt, and I have to say, I was feeling a little overwhelmed on my first-ever OP as a fill-in medic mercenary.
For a guy that had never been outside of Texas before I took on this job, I really felt I had bit off more than I could chew.
As it turns out, my hopes that we were not going to need to fire upon the police to save ourselves came true. Although not in the way I was expecting at all.
As we were all tensing up to leap amongst the trees and scatter to the four winds, I saw movement in the trees fairly close to where the police were holding their position, and as I looked, a single figure shuffled out of the cover of the trees headed towards the police whose attention was squarely on us and not watching their flank.
"OH SHIT." I heard a few of the guys say as they had also seen the lurching figure come shuffling out of the trees in a beeline for the first squad car.
The cops were about to come under attack and didn't even know it.
My mind raced to think of the word for "Left" in the Japanese language.
"Is it MIGI or HIDARI?" My mind was screaming. I wasn't sure. "Ah, screw it!" I said out loud as the guys turned their heads towards me, probably thinking I'd lost it.
"HIDARI!" I screamed. "MITTE! (Look) HIDARI! HIDARI! ABUNAI! (Danger) HIDARI!
It was probably not the best thing to do with a bunch of trigger happy police whose nerves were probably on a razor's edge to begin with, staring down a bunch of armed mercenaries. But I couldn't help myself. They were not the bad guys at all, and right now, they were in the same boat as we were.
The officer on the loudspeaker stopped talking in mid-sentence suddenly, as a couple of his men cried out in alarm.
The lone figure that had shuffled out of the trees had been joined by a small crowd of his buddies dressed in the clothes of office workers apparently very hungry and very agitated, as they immediately set their sights on the police who were now beginning to realize they'd been looking at the wrong perp's all along.
But it wasn't till the police in the first car opened fire without any effect on the attackers and were attacked themselves that the rest of the police reacted.
But unfortunately, they didn't react quite the way we had hoped either, as about roughly half the Police started shooting at the monsters attacking their comrades while the rest fired a couple shots in our direction.
The shots went wide, but we weren't sticking around for them to adjust their aim.
"RUN!" GO! GO!GO! Yelled Chris , as everyone scattered and started running amongst the trees and out of the line of fire.
The Japanese mechanics had given up trying to convince their fellow countrymen of their innocence, and were running along with the rest of the guys who were also taking shots at some of "Them" who were also moving amongst the trees.
"PAPPY!" GET OUT OF THERE! RUN!" I heard Ben yelling as he took off for parts unknown.
I had already been on the move along with the rest of the guys when the first shots at us had been fired, and I was almost in the clear too, now that the police had completely lost interest in us as more of the things had started attacking the police and they were being overwhelmed by a mob of these things, that seemed to spring out of nowhere.
But I guess Ben had seen me as I suddenly stopped running, after I heard the young mechanic that we'd brought along with us start screaming.
I turned around to see him sitting on the ground, his hands over his ears, and he was evidently overcome with fear from the traumatic events he'd had to endure in the past hour and now with bullets whistling above his head, men screaming in pain as they died just a few feet away from us, and bloodthirsty monsters approaching relentlessly.
Well, I guess it was just too much for the kid to bear and he was now in one of the worst stages of human fear.
Hysterics.
He was screaming the same thing over and over again, and even with my limited Japanese, I recognized what he was screaming, and it tore my heart apart.
The kid was calling for his mother.
Nineteen year old Yuki Matsura was completely out of his mind with fear. He had gone to work at the airport with his uncle as an apprentice mechanic and had been learning the trade now for over a year. He still had hoped to get into a good university, and pursue his real dream of being an architect. But with his grades, he needed to pay the balance of the partial scholarship he had received in order to attend the university he wanted to attend, and so he had taken the job under his uncle's advice.
Unfortunately, It was his uncle that had been attacked back at the airport, as the other mechanics later told him what had happened.
And now he had seen them for himself up close and personal the very monsters that had killed his uncle and two of his friends as the Americans had fought them. Yuki had been right on the edge of panic ever since the Americans had pushed them into the old plane they had been working on since that afternoon.
Now between the helicopter crash and the screams of men dying around him, and the sound of bullets whizzing by his ear, he had now been thrown completely over the edge.
"I WANT TO GO HOME! I WANT TO GO HOME! " He screamed as he kneeled to the ground, hands over his ears.
And then as the panic completely overwhelmed him, he cried for the only person he could think of that could make everything better. The only one who had ever made him feel safe in his entire life.
"KA-CHAN! KA-CHAN! KA-CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN! He screamed unable to stop himself.
A hand grabbed his arm and he instinctively opened his eyes and screamed as he thought the monsters had come for him at last.
Instead, he looked into the eyes of the big American whose big, heavy bag he had carried at the airport and who he had thrown up all over his arm when the helicopter went out of control.
He had thought that the man was mad at him for vomiting on him and then for letting that other heavy bag fly out the open door.
Instead, the big man was down on one knee kneeling over him, a gentle smile and a calm look on his face.
"It's okay, son. I'm here. Let's go." The man said in English, in a voice so calm it seemed that the man was not afraid at all of the horror going on around them, but he seemed more concerned with making sure that Yuki was alright.
Yuki blinked, and tears still burning his face, he got up from the ground and started following the big man as they ran away from the horrible scene. They had only run a few feet when a shot kicked up the dirt near them and they came to a sudden stop.
They both turned towards the direction the gunshot had come from and Yuki saw that it was a young policeman pointing his revolver at them. He looked almost as young as Yuki was, and his eyes were full of fear too, with tears streaming from his eyes as the pistol visibly shook in his hand.
Yuki watched in horror as the young cop pointed his revolver at the American and then pulled the trigger.
The hammer of the young man's gun clicked as it fell, but there was no report.
He had obviously fired all five of his shots, and in the stress of the situation, had lost count of his shots.
The frightened policeman seeing that he was empty, was struggling to open the chamber of his revolver as the American yelled at him and then raised his short rifle and fired.
Yuki closed his eyes, thinking the American had killed the policeman, but as the American continued to shoot, he opened his eyes and saw that the American was shooting at a number of the monsters that were attacking the police.
The young policeman that had shot at Yuki and the American had been nearly attacked by one of "Them" while he was trying to reload, and the American had shot it just as the attacker had placed his hand on the young cop's shoulders.
The American was now walking forward and shooting at the attacking horde and yelling for the police to run, Yuki guessed, because suddenly all the police started to run away from the monsters and towards the direction where Yuki and the American had been running.
As he was running by, one of the police grabbed Yuki's arm and yelled at him to run.
"WHO IS THAT GUY?!" the policeman yelled at the young mechanic as they ran.
"I DON'T KNOW!" Yuki answered running as fast as his legs could carry him. "BUT RIGHT NOW, HE'S MY BEST FRIEND! He yelled as they caught up with the rest of the fleeing police and kept on going.
The police had been fighting back courageously with their ASP batons after having used up the rounds in their 5-shot revolvers.
But with the over-whelming numbers coming in now from their flank and from the front, there was just no way hand-to-hand combat was going to save these guys from getting killed. I looked at the kid that had just shot at me and was surprised to see that didn't look much older than the kid I had just gone back for.
"Probably a rookie." I thought judging from the way his hands were shaking as he tried to reload his pistol.
Unless you have a speedloader, a revolver is a pain to reload, especially under stress, so as he was trying to reload, one of "Them" came from around the back of one of the patrol cars and was trying to help himself to the kid's throat as I raised my carbine up just as it had grabbed his shoulder.
"GET DOWN!" I yelled as I squeezed the trigger.
The Infected man's head snapped back as the rookie cop gasped and looked at the thing that had nearly killed him.
"Welcome to Law Enforcment, kid!" I shouted, as I aimed at the next creature and started popping each one trying to save as many of the policemen as I could.
But we were quickly being overrun, and try as I might, policemen started to fall before the monstrous horde, and a moment later, there was nothing more that I could do.
"GET OUT OF HERE! I yelled at the cops that were still standing.
"ISOGI!" I screamed, hoping it was the right word for "Go".
Some of them managed to break away as I covered them, maybe about five as the rest were quickly overcome and there was nothing else I could do but try to save my own skin as the bunch that had been behind us, finally linked up with their fellow Infected.
I ran through my carbine's magazine and then dropped my carbine, letting it hang from its sling as I then transitioned to my pistol and continued firing until the police were all clear and then turned heel myself and ran after the police down the street, until we were suddenly blocked by a huge crowd of people.
Evidently all the noise had attracted a bunch of people on their way to work and they all seemed oblivious to the walking death roaming the streets around them because as I rounded a corner, all of the surviving police and the young mechanic were standing in front of a large crowd of people eagerly trying to gawk at the bloody scene behind us and seemed more intent on getting a good look instead of listening to the police who were yelling for the people to run for their lives I assumed, from the way the police were shouting and waving their arms.
The reason Military and Police Instructors always warn recruits that you NEVER fire a warning shot in the air is because ONE, you might hit somebody close by, obviously.
And TWO, because of the simple fact that what goes up must come down.
A bullet shot in the air will eventually comply with gravity's pull and will eventually, come hurtling back to earth. And since bullets don't have a guidance system that recognizes bad guy or good guy, well, they'll hit and kill anything in their path.
It happens in the U.S. all the time during the holidays when people get liquored up and start shooting their guns in the air as a cheap alternative to fireworks.
Still, I didn't see much of a choice at the time, not unless I wanted to leave these people here all set up as a buffet. In hindsight, maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all.
But it worked.
I pulled my empty mag out of my carbine and slapped in a new one and fired two shots straight up into the air.
Well, that only got their attention.
So when that didn't work and the crowd still hesitated, I switched the lever to FULL AUTO and fired three bursts in the air while I began running towards them yelling my head off.
That did it.
The crowd immediately started screaming and everyone started running away with the police running after them as they say, "all assholes and elbows."
Watching them take off the way they did, I couldn't help but watch them with amusement as they headed for parts unknown.
"Just like in a Godzilla movie." I said out loud.
Yeah I know, I have a sick sense of humor sometimes.
It wasn't funny though when another bunch of police cars came screaming around the corner about a hundred feet away from me and stopped their patrol cars to avoid hitting the crowd .Then the cops got out of their cars and started leveling their revolvers and began taking shots at ME.
"OH SHIT!" I yelled as I ran down a street opposite from where they were standing with bullets whizzing over my head and impacting the walls around me.
One thing about the streets in Japan, especially in the bigger cities, they're not quite the same as the streets in America.
Matter of fact, they're more like LONG,NARROW alleyways than anything else. Basically, there's no way to hide behind a wall easily, or duck for cover from a vengeful policeman trying to kill you.
So I couldn't do like the guys taught me back in Nevada and duck and cover behind anything, or take cover behind a vehicle and fire over their heads to give myself a chance to make a decent break for it, like actor Robert De Niro and his buddies did in the movie "HEAT."
Nope, the cops had a clear view of my ass running down the street, and they did their very best to shoot it off, as I did my own version of Johnny' Depp's character Captain Jack Sparrow, and went screaming down the alley like an idiot.
So much for my dreams of being a bad-ass commando.
I'm guessing the Infected attackers had finally diverted the cop's attention from me finally, or the cop's just simply ran out of ammo, but either way, as soon as I got to the end of the street and made a hard left, I no longer heard shots or shouts coming behind me.
For the next few hours, I did my best to stay as far away from people as best as I could and not be noticed. Which is pretty damn hard for a heavily-armed American as big as I am to do, but somehow I managed, and I was able to move unnoticed through the city streets and hide under a few bridges here and there.
I actually went unnoticed for a while and finally managed to catch my breath. It wasn't till I started hearing more screams later on in the day and saw people running in all directions that I popped my head out from under a bridge to see what the fuss was all about.
The situation had apparently gotten WORSE, because now a LOT of people were running in panic now, probably because the Contagion had begun to spread like wildfire throughout the city.
I deduced that fairly easily because now I started to see people screaming and running from across the OTHER side of the river as well.
Lying low now was no longer an option, and if I wanted to form a plan to be able to escape and link up with the guys, I needed to get a better view of the situation.
Making sure there were no police around, I grabbed my gear and after donning my pack. I grabbed my carbine and started running up an uphill road hoping I could find a good vantage point and try to escape this nightmare.
"I hope the guys are all right" I thought to myself as I ran uphill, seeing nothing but chaos in the city below.
It took a while before I was almost to the top, and I could get a very good view of the city.
It wasn't good. Things had definitely hit the fan down there, as I could see people running here and there while police cars and fire trucks ran helter-skelter as well, and smoke from fires were now starting to drift in the sky.
"Damn." I swore. "How long has this thing been going on? You can't tell me those things took over an ENTIRE city in a matter of hours?!
I didn't have long to ponder my own questions though, as a familiar moaning came from my left.
"Aw, man!" I said in despair. "Don't you guys have anything better to do!" I yelled in rage.
"DANG IT!" I said putting my hands on my head and sighing. I then turned my head to face my latest dilemma.
"AW, CRAP!" He wasn't alone either. These guys really believe in hunting in packs I guess, because there were a BUNCH of them, and not just office workers either, but what looked like school kids as well.
"Awwww, no!" I moaned. "Not kids too."
I shook my head and then looked around.
The Infected were still a ways off around the corner of the hill, but they would be pretty close to biting range in a couple minutes, so I looked for my best exit strategy.
Once again, turning right was not an option as I looked back towards the smoking city.
Left was no good either with the moaning munchers coming down the hill.
I then looked straight up the hill to where a green chain link fence stood with what looked like some sort of modern structure behind it.
It was a steep hill, but I had something going for me.
Unlike many of the steep hills along the roads and highways in the United States, the people of Japan wisely strengthened these steep hills with steel-reinforced concrete to help prevent landslides.
They were also constructed in such a way, so that they were built in what looked like a honey-comb pattern molded into the surface, and that would definitely help me by giving me excellent hand and foot holds to use in my climb up to the top of the hill.
So once again, like back at the airport. I was going UP.
It took a bit of effort, but after a while of climbing, I had reached the top and grabbed the fence post and pulled myself up and sat on the edge, as I then looked back down at my admirers below.
These things couldn't climb, thank goodness, but they sure were giving it the old college try, as they were rubbing their fingers down to the bone LITERALLY, trying to climb up after me.
Blood from the avulsed skin of their fingers were smeared thick all over the concrete wall and their moans just seemed to get louder and louder the more they tried harder and harder to reach me.
Geez, that was so sick to look at.
Still holding the metal fence post, I grabbed my Gerber Multi-tool that I carried in a sheath on my belt and got to work.
I've had one of these on my belt ever since my paramedic days and they've been invaluable in all the years I've used them. Anytime I needed a tool in an emergency situation, these things have proven to be worth their weight in gold.
I started cutting the small pieces of wire that held the chain link fence to the metal post.
Cutting the fence itself is too hard for such a small tool and is just wasted time and energy. Cutting those little retaining wires is usually all it takes, and when I got the fence loose enough, I took off my pack and shoved it underneath, and then shuffled underneath it myself.
Once I was on the other side, I donned my pack again and nearly had a heart attack, when a couple of young blood-covered school girls came from around the corner and started walking towards me.
Covered in blood, making that awful moaning sound that was really starting to piss me off at this point every time I heard it, I stood stunned as they came shuffling towards me.
"Am I some sort of zombie version of catnip or what?" I said out loud. I just couldn't seem to turn a corner without one of these things waiting for me with bloody hands and drooling mouths.
I was tired though and I decided to stand my ground instead of moving away. I was physically exhausted, and while I wasn't ready to be served up as a Tex-Mex platter, I was getting pretty sick of running too.
So this time I stayed put and watched them come toward me, not making a sound as they shuffled forward.
After walking up to within 50 feet from me, and just as I was about to raise my carbine and open fire, the two girls suddenly halted and seemed to lose interest in attacking me all of a sudden.
"What the hell?" I thought to myself as I watched them while remaining perfectly still.
The girls didn't seem to see me, or at least, have any more interest in me as they just stood there, doing nothing.
Suddenly a shout from behind them somewhere in the building caught their attention and they raised their heads at the sound and started walking back towards the direction they had come from.
I didn't move till they were out of sight and only then did I stand up and breathe a sigh of relief.
"I guess they don't see after all." I thought to myself. All this time, I had thought these things could see just like us. Instead, they were just attracted to the sounds of shouting and all the shooting we'd been doing.
"So there isn't a big bull's-eye on my back after all." I said to myself.
The way these things kept popping up everywhere I went, I was beginning to think I was the target of this whole zombie apocalypse thing. Still, I couldn't take the chance that was really how all these things operated and just willy-nilly walk in front a whole crowd of these things and expect to get past them by moving silently.
But at least I had something to go on, and so quietly walking forward, I went the opposite direction of where the girl's had gone. Cautiously, with my carbine at the ready, I walked around the corner of the building.
Into the middle of a friggin' massacre.
It was a scene that I can't even begin to describe.
Evidently, the building was a high school judging from the uniforms the now Infected teens were wearing, although it was certainly big enough to be mistaken for a college university back home.
Everywhere I looked there were kids in school uniforms shuffling around while some were kneeling on the ground, feasting on the remains of those who were too far gone to rise again and were now being consumed down to the bone by packs of blood-covered kids, just like those mechanics at the airport.
The smell of blood, excrement and other body fluids baking in the sun was nauseating, and even though I've never thrown up once in all the years I've worked on the job, even with bodies that were days old, I have to say, I had to adjust the way I breathed a bit just so I wouldn't get sickened by the smell.
It had been my bright idea to get a higher vantage point to assess my situation and figure out the best escape route. Instead, my climb to safety from Death's cold hand that was still scratching for me at the bottom of the hill had not led me to safety at all.
Instead, I had arrived in the middle of a hornet's nest. OR, as we say back home,…..
"Out of the frying pan, and into the friggin' fire." I grumbled.
"Well, this was a royal bust." I thought. "Now what smart guy?"
I couldn't go back the way I came, which was a sure way to end up becoming a latino lunch, so my best bet was to skirt the perimeter and look for a spot not heavy with these things and climb over the wall.
Or, my next option would be to find a secure room in the building, rest a while, and then come up with some sort of plan. In truth, I didn't see a spot in this entire school that I wanted to be around for any length of time, so I started to stealthily move along the fence line looking for a safe spot to escape this place.
It was horrible, I have to say.
Everywhere that I went, it was one grotesque scene of carnage after another.
Bodies lay everywhere, ripped apart and some still in the process of being eaten by entire packs. It was like listening to wolves or lions eat. The sound was too terrible for words, and I doubt that I would ever get those sounds or those images out of my head if I ever survived this ordeal.
Still, somehow, I kept plodding on.
I guess I was about halfway across the length of the school, when I came across one side of it that was opened up and you could see the very center of the campus. The scene was no prettier here than where I had just come from at all.
But as I looked up at the upper stories of the school and saw the many walkways that connected from one side of the building to the next, I saw something that I had not expected to see.
SURVIVORS!
It was two women in fact, from what I could see, a blond woman who looked like she was probably a teacher, and a young teenage girl.
They saw me at the same time that I saw them, and I waved at them frantically as they stopped to stare at me.
I guess as rough-looking as I was, not to mention all my weapons and gear hanging off me, they were probably unsure as to whether to trust me or not.
Seeing as how the three of us were the only living survivors, from what I could see, it was best to make contact fast, let them know I was a friend, and then get out of here as quickly as possible.
I quickly scanned the open space in front of me and I noticed that here was a clear spot with no visible attackers all the way to the bottom of the stairs where the women were standing.
So with carbine to my shoulder, I started to walk quietly towards them as they watched me from above.
"WHO IS THAT?" Saeko said, peering at the large, heavily armed foreigner walking towards them with rifle at the ready, as she tightened her grip on her bokken.
"I've never seen him before." Shizuka said as she watched him approach the bottom of the stairs, being careful to not attract the attention of the Infected students stumbling around below. "Maybe he's one of the new security guards the school hired recently. There's been a LOT of perverts hanging around lately you know."
Saeko closed her eyes and shook her head at the school nurses's words. Shizuka sensei had always been one of the kindest people of all the members of the school faculty, and was an excellent school nurse, but her head seemed to be nowhere near this planet sometimes, Saeko thought.
"Sensei." Saeko sighed. "Since when does the school district hire foreign nationals as school guards, and especially those armed with assault weapons?"
"I hadn't thought of that." Shizuka said, pouting. Then her eyes suddenly brightened as a thought came to mind. "Ah, I know! Maybe he's that new teacher from Canada we just got on the exchange program!"
Saeko closed her eyes again and began rubbing her temples as she felt a headache coming on.
Before Saeko could respond to the school nurse's completely ludicrous theory, they were both startled by the sound of a girl's scream to their right.
Immediately, they began to run towards the source of the scream, in the hopes they were not too late to help the young frightened girl screaming in fear for her life.
I had just reached the bottom of the stairs when I heard the sound of a young girl screaming.
I looked up thinking it was one of the two women on the landing, but they were both running towards a door in the main building, obviously trying to come to the aid of whoever was in trouble.
I didn't hesitate either, and I bounded up the stairs two at a time.
I have to say, all those years climbing stairs and working with 100 pounds of equipment hanging off my back, not to mention all the mandatory gym time at the Fire department had certainly paid off today.
Even with my heavy sniper pack on my back all day, I barely felt the weight of it as I was up the stairs in a flash and without being too winded too boot.
HEY, for a 44 year old retired fireman, that's pretty good, so stop laughing.
I quickly swept the area with my carbine and after seeing it was clear, I moved towards the glass doors at the end of the walkway.
Just as I was approaching the door, I heard a loud commotion coming from behind the doors.
The doors were heavily tinted and I couldn't see anything through them, but I could definitely hear through them and it sounded to me as if someone was using some sort of power tool, maybe a drill or something like that for some reason, while the voice of a young girl kept on screaming .
At the same time, I heard a series of dull sounds of someone hitting something and then, what sounded like bodies hitting the floor.
"Aw crap. Those women are REALLY in trouble." I thought as I moved swiftly towards the door and prepared to make entry.
One of the things that's the hardest to do for Firemen, Police, and I imagine the Military guys or anyone else in this world for that matter, is to avoid charging in when your adrenaline's pumping and every part of your brain is screaming at you to "DO SOMETHING!"
It's hard not to start kicking down doors and breaking windows and start dragging people out of harm's way when you're in that frame of mind.
Still, you have to control yourself, otherwise, you end up doing more harm than good.
And believe me, people have gotten hurt or killed when some well-meaning first responder kicked in a door and caused a backdraft, gave the wrong I.V. medication and killed someone, drove too fast and ran a red light at an intersection and wrecked, or accidentally fired a round while pulling their service pistol from its holster.
All of these things have happened usually because someone was on an adrenaline rush and was NOT using his head first.
Now that I'm holding a carbine in my hands instead of a fire hose, the danger had increased a thousand-fold if I didn't focus one hundred percent on what I was doing and resist the temptation to start knocking down doors and hosing down the place with bullets.
So when I stopped at the door and put my hand on the knob and got ready to make entry, I heard the same awful scream again for someone screaming for their mother.
Hearing someone scream for their mother always cuts me to my heart.
I'm not ashamed to say, it affects me in the worst possible way. It always tears me up.
If someone tells you nothing affects them EVER. They're lying or they need psychiatric care.
We all have something that affects us in some form or fashion. We do our best to overcome it, and push on to help people and do our job. But each of us in Fire, EMS, Police, and the Military have at one time or another, experienced something that kicks us in the gut whenever we come across it.
For me, hearing someone scream for their mother affects me the most.
A human scream is the most awful, painful thing to hear.
And while many people have been de-sensitized in this world with watching violent movies, videos and video games with voice actors screaming on the screen, I assure you the real thing is NOTHING like those canned voices, especially when the person whose screaming is someone your trying to help, or a friend or family member.
When a person screams for their mother, they have reached one of the highest points of fear that the mind can reach that goes beyond panic.
And when they've reached that point, it is usually because they are fully convinced that they are about to die.
It doesn't matter your age or gender, even the elderly have screamed for their mothers just before they died.
There is just something instinctive that when we are at the height of fear, our psyche reaches out to the one who made us feel the most secure in our life. There are some men and women in this world, that don't deserve to be parents, but even then, when a person is most afraid, they'll call out to even the worst mom or dad in the world regardless.
So when I heard the hysterical voice of a young girl screaming for her mother, I admit, I didn't keep my cool and make entry into the room the way the guys taught me back in Nevada when they first taught me CQB.
Instead of FOCUSING on what I needed to do,… I reacted.
AND I KICKED IN THE F_CKING DOOR.
Saeko had just taken out the last two attackers after rushing into the foyer with Shizuka in front of the faculty lounge.
They had found two teens, a young boy and a teenage girl with shocking-pink hair surrounded by "Them", and they were in dire need of help as the young girl was in a state of hysterics trying to fend off an Infected teacher with a battery-powered drill, while the young boy seemed to be struggling to fix some sort of home-made gun that was obviously not working.
They had arrived just as another pair of teens also did, another male, that Saeko recognized and another female.
Working together, they had managed to dispatch the attackers very quickly, with Saeko using her bokken, the other girl using a mop handle as a spear, and the young boy, Komuro was his name, who bashed in the head of one of "Them" with a baseball bat.
Saeko let out a breath in relief, happy that they had been in time to save the first couple from the clutches of the Infected students when suddenly, the door behind her swung open and hit the wall with a crash that startled all of them.
Saeko and the other teens flinched at the sound and also at the sight of a very big adult moving swiftly into the room with an assault rifle leveled at them.
It was the same man that she and Shizuka had seen outside earlier, and seeing him this close and pointing his weapon at her caused Saeko and the rest to freeze for a moment as the man quickly swept the room with his carbine.
He then started moving with his rifle leveled towards the teenage girl who was still fending off the Infected teacher with the drill, blood and brain matter splattering on her clothes and in all directions.
Recovering from her shock, Saeko gripped her bokken in anticipation of having to go on the offensive if the man posed a threat.
Instead, the armed man walked up to the Infected teacher and kicked him against the wall away from the blood-splattered girl.
The obviously in shock teenage girl then sank to her knees, staring emptily into space as the big man, turned away from the teacher who was no longer moving, and kneeled down in front of the girl after he lowered his rifle.
"Hey sweetie. You OK?" The man said in English, in a very calming voice as the pink-haired girl stared straight ahead, not answering him.
And as the young girl continued to stare vacantly into space, the man spoke again, this time, in Japanese.
"Musume, daijobu desu ka?" he asked her again.
Saya felt as if she was in a bad dream. She could see shapes of people and hear people speaking, but couldn't tell what they were saying or see who they were because they seemed so far away.
"Where am I?" she thought in her head. "What's going on? I'm supposed to be in school, what am I doing here? I'm going to be late. I can't be late. I can't get a bad report. Papa, will get mad. Why is everything so blurry?
A rather large shadow entered Saya's field of view but she couldn't see a face.
"Who are you?" she wondered.
The shadow spoke to her, but she couldn't comprehend the words. Then Saya heard the shadow say to her very gently, "Daughter, are you all right?"
"Papa? Saya thought to herself, slowly coming out of her shock.
"No, it can't be Papa." Saya thought, as shock turned to terror. " Papa doesn't act so nice to me."
"You're not my Papa!" Saya 's mind began to scream." Get away! NO! The MONSTERS! GET AWAY!"
"GET AWAY!" Saya screeched.
I quickly backed away from the young girl who had just snapped out of her shock finally, as it now looked like she was on the verge of a complete emotional meltdown.
I had entered the room after kicking the door out of the way, and then I made a quick sweep of the left side of the room and then to my right and quickly saw that there were six teens standing in the middle of the room, with a bunch of Infected students lying on the floor.
Remarkably, it appeared as if all the threats had been neutralized by the teens before I had made my dramatic crash into the room.
"Wow." I thought. "Not bad for a bunch of kids."
The danger was not completely over though, as one of the teenage girls at the far side of the foyer was trying to fight off an infected adult by impaling him in the skull with a power drill.
The Infected teacher was still moving somewhat, and since all the other threats were down, I quickly moved past the other teens and knocked him over with my boot, away from the young girl who seemed to be at her wit's end.
As the body crashed to the floor, I aimed my carbine at him and did a quick check to make sure he was down for good with a kick to the side, with no response from the blood splattered corpse.
Since he was no longer moving, I then focused my attention to the young pink-haired teen kneeling on the floor.
She didn't appear to have been bitten as far as I could see, and I also noticed that she was staring vacantly into space, indicating she was deep in the throes of traumatic emotional shock.
I knelt down next to her trying to make sure she was alright, since all of us might have to leave this place in a hurry, and if this girl didn't snap out of her shock, then getting her and the rest of the teens out safely could be increasingly difficult.
My attempts to approach her calmly and ease her out of shock failed, as she suddenly snapped out of her shock and started screaming at me to "GET AWAY", I guessed ,from the way she was trying to scurry away from me.
I got up and backed off hoping that by doing so, she'd eventually be able to calm down before I was forced to give her a sedative to calm her.
Hopefully, though, it was just temporary shock from what had just happened and not an irreversible psychotic episode she would never recover from.
Or maybe it was just my appearance that scared her.
I hope not. I didn't think I was THAT ugly.
As I stood up, the young brown-haired girl with the spear, and the teacher that I had seen earlier, ran over to the young girl on the floor and roughly brushed by a chubby kid armed with some sort of nail gun, bowling him over as they both ran towards the girl in order to try to calm her down.
Not wanting to be injured in the process of helping the young teen, I walked away a short distance to give the girl a chance to recover from her shock gradually without having to relapse after seeing my ugly mug.
As I stood there watching over all of them, I noticed that all the kids in the room were looking at me as if I were some sort of monster too.
Well, I guess I couldn't blame them.
Not often you see a heavily armed man busting into a campus on a school day in Japan I guess.
Trying to convince them that I was no threat, I gave them a weak smile and turned towards the hallway to make sure it was clear, and stayed there while they gathered themselves together.
I was actually pretty impressed with them. They had managed to defend themselves despite the craziness of what was going on and managed to stay alive while most of the school and the city for that matter, was now Infected with whatever sickness this was.
After making sure there was no threat from the hallway, I walked back towards the door I had busted through.
One of the two teenage boys, the taller skinnier one, had just closed the door and I gave him a friendly smile and nodded my head towards him in a friendly gesture as he nodded his head as well and then walked past me over to the other kids.
I then just stood there and pretended to look out through the door as if I were watching the Infected outside shuffling around in all directions.
"Good." I thought. "They weren't attracted by any noise."
I was really glad I hadn't had to shoot my carbine to be honest. I still had plenty of ammo, but if these things were attracted by sound, then the report from my carbine would have been like ringing the dinner bell.
"Who is HE?" Takashi asked Saeko, as all the teens stared at the armed man standing by the exit door.
Shizuka was still attending to the girl who was still freaking out at the carnage, and the attention of the teens was on the newcomer, a possible ally.
Or, a possible threat.
"I don't know." Saeko responded.
"I was out on the walkway headed here with Shizuka-sensei when we saw him waving at us from the fence line. He was walking over to us when we heard her scream." Saeko said, pointing towards Saya as Shizuka was trying to console her.
"Is he a soldier?" Asked Rei, her hands clutching Takashi's arm as she watched the man standing silently in front of the doors looking out the glass, his rifle cradled in his arms. "He looks like one. Has he been fighting THEM, or is he something else altogether?"
"Whoever he is, we need to be careful and watch his every move. Until we know for sure who he is, everyone be on your guard." Takashi said as both of the girls nodded their heads in agreement.
"Uhm, ano? Are you alright?" Saeko asked the teenage boy with the glasses that Shizuka had knocked to the floor earlier.
The young man was mesmerized by the sight of the man standing by the door, his eyes looking like they were about to pop out of his head.
"SUGE!" Kouta was screaming with glee inside his head. "LOOK at all those WICKED,COOL GUNS he HAS!
(A few minutes later.)
"By the way, you already know the school nurse, neh?" Saeko said to the skinny teenage boy. "I'm Busujima, Saeko from Class 3-A" she continued.
"Komuro, Takashi from Class 3-B." Takashi replied.
"Busujima sempai, I remember you won the national championship last year." The brown –haired girl said. "I'm Miyamoto, Rei . With the sojutsu club. "
"Uhm,….I'm Hirano, Kouta." The young chubby teen with the glasses stammered nervously.
"Pleased to meet you." Saeko said, smiling sweetly.
"Whoa." Kouta thought. "She actually TALKED to me!" He thought overwhelmed with joy to be acknowledged by one of the high school's top ten most beautiful girls
With the exception of Saya and Shizuka who was still kneeling next to her, all of the teens looked at the silent sentry standing by the doors.
"Ano." Takashi asked the man hesitantly. "Who are you?"
When the man didn't respond, Takashi asked him again who he was a little louder this time, and the man, sensing that he was being spoken to, turned his head and looked at the teens.
"Excuse me, we were just wondering who you were and where you come from." Takashi said.
The man looked at Takashi with a puzzled expression on his face for a moment as he seemed unable to comprehend Takashi's words.
"Gomen nasai." The man said in a strange accent that was unfamiliar to Takashi. "Nihongo O sukoshi hanashimasu. Eigo O hanashimasu ka?" The man asked with a slightly embarrassed look on his face.
"HAI! I mean,YES! I speak English!" Rei said with some enthusiasm in her voice. My name is Miyamoto, Rei. Pleased to meet you sir."
"ME TOO!" Kouta said with a LOT of enthusiasm in his voice, as now it seemed clear that the man was not unfriendly, but was just not able to speak fluently in Japanese.
Speaking in English Kouta burst forth in a flood of questions that came streaming out of his mouth faster than tracers from a minigun.
"Are you American? You sound like an American! WOW! Your carrying a Mark 18 carbine! That's a favorite of the American Special Forces! Are you American Military? SPECIAL FORCES?! WHICH ONE?! DELTA FORCE? SEALS?! GREEN BERETS?! RANGERS?! MARINES?! WHOA! YOU HAVE AN M24 SNIPER RIFLE TOO! ARE YOU A SNIPER?! ARE YOU ON A MISSION?! CAN I HOLD IT?!"
"I ALSO speak English." Saeko said politely, intentionally interrupting Kouta's hyper-enthusiastic stream of questioning. My name is Busujima, Saeko. Pleased to meet you, sir."
"Hi Guys." The man replied, trying obviously trying to be friendly. "My names Jim, and yes young fella, I'm an American."
"Sorry to disappoint though buddy, but I'm just a medic." The American continued. " And I'm just passing through."
"Pleased to meet ya'll too gang." The man said nodding his head in a sort of bow.
"How about you son?" The man asked, his question directed towards Takashi. "You speak English too?"
"My English,is not very good." Takashi stammered, looking a little embarrassed.
"Ah, no problem buddy." The American said good-naturedly. " Neither's my Japanese. I'm sure the young ladies can make sure we get our conversations straight. He said with a wink."
"I take it ya'll are students here?" the man asked in his strange accent.
"Yes sir, we are." Saeko said politely. "And this is the school nurse, Marikawa, Shizuka."
"Ma'am." The American said nodding his head to the nurse as she smiled back at him.
"Well guys, I'm extremely happy to have stumbled across ya'll, because I haven't see anyone that didn't want to take a bite out of me, or shoot me in the butt for the past few hours."
The teens all laughed at the man's attempt at humor.
"Nice bunch of kids." I thought.
At this point, I was just happy to see a friendly face. And quite frankly, even though they were just school kids, when your lost and all alone in a hostile environment with a whole city full of unfriendly's out for blood, you take your friends where you can find them.
However, our happy moment wasn't to last as the young girl who had been slowly recovering from her shock burst out suddenly in a slew of angry words vented towards us as she was now no longer numb with fear but was now venting her rage at us with a vengeance.
The very polite, raven-haired girl with the bokken walked over to the screaming girl and put her hand on her shoulder, speaking softly, trying to calm her as the girl's anger was finally spent and she once again stared vacantly into space.
She then suddenly saw her reflection in the mirrored back of a broken trophy case, and noticed her blood-stained clothes. She then started brushing her clothes as if to wipe away the blood on them talking to herself as she did so.
Finally, the last of her shock wore away and the floodgates poured forth as she collapsed against the girl named Saeko's chest and started to cry.
I looked over at the group surrounding the young girl as her wails echoed down the long hallway.
I felt sorry for her as I'm sure everyone else in the lonely hallway did.
Only the most callous person in the world could not sympathize with her tears of fear and pain. She was just an innocent kid who came to school like she normally did every day, going through the same routine like everyone else in the city, and suddenly her life was dramatically changed not by some natural disaster, but by the world turning on its head and people she had known and seen every day were now killing each other.
We, as human beings can only take so much horror before our inner walls collapse upon themselves and the fear and grief we try to hold back gush forward in a flood that once unleashed, cannot be stopped until the hysteria abates itself on its own.
This poor girl had finally reached her breaking point twice in one day. And even though I was afraid the noise would attract unwanted company, I let the girl get it out of her system.
In truth, I wondered how long it would be before the rest of us reached our breaking point.
It doesn't matter your age or how strong you think you are. We all have our breaking point. It's really just a matter of time, before any of us finally reaches that point really.
After a short while, the girl's wails died down to quiet sobs, and then after a few sniffs and wiping her face with her sleeves, the girl looked at the rest of us and quietly nodded her head.
She had let all her anguish out, and was now ready to put all this behind her. The young raven-haired girl helped her to her feet as I finally got the words formed together to voice my concern.
"Minna-san." I said in Japanese. "Abunai-dayo. Ikimasho-ka?"
("Everyone. It's dangerous here. Shall we go?")
Everyone looked at me and nodded their heads. Since I really had no clue as to where to go, I looked at the teacher and asked her in what I hoped was "Sensei, where do we go?"
"Sensei, doko ikimasu ka?" I said hoping they'd be able to understand my words despite my South Texas twang.
"Ah!" Shizuka said in response to the American's query in his rough Japanese.
"You want to know where we are going?" Right over here, my car keys are in this room. Come in everyone!" Shizuka said cheerfully, as she nonchalantly walked to the faculty room doors and grabbed the door handle.
Everyone's eyes went wide as the school nurse, absent-mindedly grabbed the door handle and yanked the door open, allowing two Infected teachers to come from behind the doors, moaning and reaching for the blond woman with jaws agape.
"SENSEI!" Rei yelled in warning, as the sudden loud roar of gunfire echoed in the foyer.
BLAM! BLAM!
BLAM! BLAM!
Everyone screamed and flinched involuntarily as four quick, loud reports from the American's rifle blasted in the foyer like thunder claps that had their ears ringing as the shots echoed down the length of the hallway and to the rest of the school.
The two Infected teachers fell to the floor in a heap as the American swiftly and silently as a ghost rushed forward with the rifle at his shoulder, blinding everyone with the glow of a very bright light mounted on the side of his rifle that he switched on as he moved forward to the door and then disappeared into the dark room, once again firing his rifle as he did before, firing two rapid shots twice in succession, as the flash of his rifle lit up the room each time he fired his rifle.
"Double-taps." Kouta thought.
Shizuka was stunned at what had just happened, her hand still holding the door open as the American disappeared through it.
"Ara?" She said, a little dazed.
"SHUT THE DOOR! SHUT THE DOOR! Saya screamed, as she rushed past Saeko, slamming her body against the door knocking the handle violently from the school nurse's grasp and nearly knocking her down in the process as Saya tried to shut the door with the weight of her body, struggling to push against the hydraulic arms that prevented the doors from closing too swiftly.
"TAKAGI-SAN!" Kouta yelled as he watched Saya pressing her body against the door trying to force them closed, inadvertently trapping the American inside alone with who knew how many Infected still moving around in there.
"SAYA, NO!" Everyone screamed in horror at seeing Saya's panicked attempt to shut the door and pressed forward to try to stop her.
Saya however, was in panic mode again and in her hysteria, her mind could only focus on one thing.
"THEY'LL HEAR THE NOISE! THEY'LL HEAR THE NOISE! THEY'LL HEAR! THEY'LL HEEEEAR!"
As the door was almost nearly shut, a large hand suddenly clamped down on the door right near Saya's face, as she pressed her body against it. Everyone screamed and jumped back at the sudden sight of the hand on the door which caused Saya, who was still pressing against it, to scream loud and long as the door was easily pushed open by the figure behind it.
The four teens behind Saya, immediately raised their weapons, poised to strike at the horror coming from within, as the American suddenly popped his head out from behind the door and looked at them quizzically.
"All clear guys." The big man said calmly as he opened the door with his right hand, the very same one that had scared Saya half to death, while he dragged the body of an infected teacher by the shirt collar with the other.
"Just give me a second to get the bodies out of the way kids, and ya'll can go right in." the man said casually.
"Oh, by the way." The man said halting at the door, as he stooped down to stare at Saya directly in the face not less than three inches from her nose, his eyes narrowing to slits.
"Is there some particular reason WHY you were trying to lock me up in here now, pumpkin?" The man asked Saya with a not-so- amused look on his face.
Authors notes:
Hey guys, I managed to finish this chapter early. I had hoped to have it finished by Sunday, but I got it out a little earlier. WOO! HOO!
I've been encouraged by your warm reviews from all of you and from my younger brother who got a chance to read my story too, and it's been a real source of encouragement for me to keep on writing this story. Thanks guys I appreciate it.
Writing this story was a little hard for me though. In this job, we are no strangers to people's pain and we see a lot of it. In a small way, I tried to write how anguishing it really is to hear someone calling for help, and as I did so, a few memories of some bad experiences I encountered caused me to put away the laptop for a while. But the whole point of this story is not to dwell on pain and suffering but rather to focus on the good that is done by complete strangers in an overwhelming situation, so I try to put some humor in each chapter as I go along to keep the story from being to grim.
As you can see, there will be some trust issues between the kids and my character especially with Saya, which as one of the other members suggested might call for some attitude adjustment by Jim and Rika later. By the way, for all the kind people who have posted a review and for those who listed me on the "favorites", if any of you wish to offer any ideas or suggestions for the story or would like to be in the story yourself, send me a PM. I would especially like to hear from my overseas fans as well. In this story, the British SAS and some NATO forces will be involved later, so if you're from overseas and would like your name put in the story, lemmee know. I'll try to work it in when the time comes for that part of the story. Thanks again guys for your support. And I'll get started on the next chapter!
BTW,
Yes, I took a few liberties on some things. In the anime, Takashi closes the door leading into the foyer that is obviously CLEAR GLASS, and swings OUTWARD. Also, the door leading into the teacher's lounge is a SLIDING door vs. the one in my story that is a double door with hydraulic arms.
What can I say? I like my version better. LOL.
Anyway, thanks again to all of you for reading my fanfic. I really appreciate the support!