Kyoto, Japan

My next host had ask to conduct her interview at the Imperial Hero park, just outside of Kyoto, the new capital of Japan. Once i've arrived, i could see hundreds of memorial stones with the name of hundreds of thousands of people carved into it, the names of people who fell during the Japanese reclamation campaign of the home islands from the living dead.

We met up and shook hands right infront of a giant mural called "the mural of hope," easily one of the most recognizable image of the Japanese experience during World War Z. Originally taken from a photograph, it depicts a company of soldiers standing in a line formation, firing their rifles at the horde of undead during the Battle of Sapporo, the first of the Japanese major cities to be reclaimed.

Like many people of her generation, Nonna Ikari is old before her time. With a few strains of gray hair, wrinkled skin and a long deep scar on her neck, one would be forgiven to think that this former Japanese infantryman is in her late fifties, when in reality, Nonna is only thirty six years old.

"The skies was dark that day. All the smokes and ashes are rising into the air from the fires that rage down below. You could smell the stench of burning corpses even from miles away. The tall, glamorous and shinning skyscrapers are now nothing but a burning mess. It's like looking through hell colored glasses. That is how Tokyo was the day i left."

"I was a new recruit, just graduated from high school a year prior when the great panic hit Japan. My unit was deployed to Tokyo when the goverment enforce martial law in order to keep the outbreak from spreading and keep the population calm. At first, we won't do nothing. They just told us to "guard" some place strategic where people can see us easily and just stand there, doing nothing but to look tough with our rifles, gas mask and combat gear. Our objective was just to make sure the people know we are in charge."

"You don't handle infection case?" I ask.

She shook her head. "No, at least at the first month no. Infection cases were handled by the chemical corps and special forces. Whenever a living dead was seen and reported, the chemical corp would be the one who take care of it. They would track them, find them, kill them and put them inside a bodybags to be disposed of. After that they would thoroughly disinfected the surrounding area and put up quarantine signs to keep people away. It worked at first, and the citizen seemed convinced that the goverment had it all under control. Children and sometimes teenagers and young adults would stop in their tracks to admired us, looking menacing in our cammo and body armor, sometimes they would ask to take a picture with us, and who are we to say no to them. One time, one of my squadmate even manage to convince a girl to give up her numbers to him, i remember the look of joy on his face when she really did it. For the first few weeks of the panic, we all believed that the plauge might be over before we knew it and life went on as normal for a while. That is, until it was not."

"What went wrong?"

"We got to complacent, that's what happend. All over the news, you see each city from all over the world fall one by one. Cape town, Shanghai, New York, Hanoi, Paris, Delhi, Singapore, London, Jakarta, Cairo, Bagdhad, and so on. All of them falls to the undead within the first two weeks, and yet, up until that point, not a single Japanese city were lost when so many around the world did. Everytime we have a down time, we would return to our barracks and turn on international news just to hear foreign media praising our military and our goverment for our quick response. Everytime we heard that, it filled our chest with pride. That was when thing started to go south, real fast."

"First of all, we didn't have enough manpower to cover all of Tokyo. The Japanese Ground Self Defense Force is only 150.000 strong, not enough to cover the whole home island, even with the reserve being called to duty, it is still not enough. In Tokyo we only have 10.000 men to cover the whole city. And all of them are ordered to guard the crowded part of the city, like Shibuya or Ginza. But that was our mistake, we didn't guard the ghetto, the place where low income people lives, have a high crime rate and generaly not sanitary, a perfect place for the virus to spread."

"Positive cases start to multiply at a rapid rate in the ghetto's, soon, there were thousands of living corpses walking around as they please and killing everyone and everything in sight. Once the report began to come in, both the JSDF and the police force were called in to establish quarantine zones on these ghetto's. But, it didn't help, it is impossible to cover every single street or alleyway, many zombies manage to walk past the quarantine zone without any of us notice it, the infection also spread through evacuated civilian who were bitten but went unnoticed, once they're outside of the quarantine zone, they would reanimate and spread the infection even further."

"The ever growing number of infection forces us to expand the quarantine zone, but it was all to late, by the third month of the great panic, 1/3 of Tokyo's population has been infected with thousands more are dying everyday to dehydration, starvation, violent crimes and suicide. That's when the order came to evacuate the home island."

"When that order came, i couldn't believe it, none of us can. This has to be a mistake, perhaps the prime minister was just drunk when he give that order and he will renounce it shortly after, or maybe it was just some rouge goverment employee who had given the order for just some sick joke. We were all waiting, hoping, praying that someone's in charge would revoke the order, but that never came, the prime minister wasn't drunk nor intoxicated with any illegal drugs, he was sober and dead serious when he given that order. We we're all in denial, even when we began to establish evacuation route out of the city we are still in denial. This can't be real, just a month ago we were the safest country on earth next to Israel. Now? we're on the run with our tails between our legs."

"When it finally dawned on me that this is reality, i remember feeling angry, angry at the goverment for being so incompetent, had they informed us about the true nature of the virus early on then we might stand a change against the undead. If that had happend, the army will probably have the funding for equipment to fight the undead, we might have the proper training how to fight them, we might never loose Tokyo, or any cities for that matter and many people would still be alive, but because of theirs and our incompetence, a lot of people are nothing more but a bunch of walking corpses."

She look at the rows of memorial stones in front of us, seemingly in a deep thought. She sigh, took a moment to breath before continuing.

"Originally, we were planing on using Haneda airport and the Tokyo harbour for the evacuation effort. But the military high command quickly thrown that plan out the window pretty quickly once they learned how infested both of them really are. Haneda airport and Tokyo harbour are, well were the most guarded place in Tokyo at the time, due to the large wave of refugee that come from South korea, China and Southeast Asia, in hope of finding a save heaven here. Just outside of Haneda airport there's already a refugee camp being built using scrap materiel. There were thousands of them and these refugee were guarded closely incase one of them is infected, and indeed, a lot if them are."

"To detect infected refugee, we copied something from the Israeli playbook. Once the refugee arrived at our land they were required to walk pass a dog cage. If the dog were calm, then they would be let through, but if the dog suddenly becomes aggresive, then that person is infected and would be taken away to a secluded spot to be "Dispose of." Soldiers would also performed daily patrol inside the refugee camp with K-9 unit to look for any infected individual that might somehow went past security unnoticed, and they found quite a handful of them."

"But once the military start to loose control over the city and were force to create quarantine zones, soldiers that were suppose to guard these two place got called off to help to create these zones. Leaving Haneda airport, Tokyo harbour and the refugee camps surrounding it very lightly guarded, thus, the infection spread through out the refugee camp and the surrounding area like wildfire. When the JSDF wanted to used it as evacuation point, they found out these two place is too horribly infested with the walking dead that they abandoned the plan and were force to search for an alternative location."

"That alternate location is set in multiple location around the greater Tokyo area, but the one i get assigned to is on Odaiba Beach, located between Minato and Koto city. There are at least three dozen ships of the coast of Tokyo bay area to help with the evacuation effort, Most are military landing dock ship and a few civillians cargo ships and cruise liners. The most important player of the evacuation though is the two school carriers that had been converted into an actual aircraft carrier/refugee centers. Those are the school carriers of Saint Gloriana and Chihatan. From the reason i listed above, you might think the evacuation went smoothly since we have more than enough ships to carry millions of refugee. If you think so then you are very wrong."

"The problem is, at least for my case is that there's no port near Odaiba beach that could support a large ship, let alone a school carrier. For this problem though, the military had to improvised. They used landing craft to land in the beach to dissembark troops and equipment to with the evacuation effort, then they would allow refugees to board the landing craft and transport them back to the ship offshore. Of course, the navy didn't have enough landing craft so civillian fishing boats and rubber raft were also used."

"The second problem is the biggest and the most obvious one. The zombies. Odaiba beach was chosen because it has a low number of infected individuals in its surrounding area, but that doesn't mean there are none. at the begining of the evacuation, my squad got involved in clean house operation. Basically we go door to door to check for an infected individuals and kill them to make sure they didn't bother us once the evacuation truly begins. It was terrifying you know, breaching each door not knowing what you'll find on the other side, whether the corpse you see is actually dead or still alive. It was nerved wrecking."

"The real threat though came from the millions of zombies coming in from the more densely populated area that will no doubt, will be following the refugees that were fleeing to the evacuation zones. The JASDF would be the first one to slow them down. After the evacuation proccess begin, the air force send dozens of fighter jets to blow the undead horde sky high to prevent them from following the refugees. The problem is, zombies won't die unless you destroy it's brain. You could cut their limbs, blow their heart, severed their torso, suck their lung out, or even chop their neck and they would kept coming at you, they just won't die, if anything, the bombing just turns them into crawlers, which is harder to spot, harder to shoot and therefore harder to kill. The second problem was, the air force are bombing the city indiscriminantly, killing the undead and civilians alike. One time i happend to look up and saw a fucking B-29 of all things. I quickly put two and two together once i saw the logo on it's wings, it belong to Saunders university high school, they were commandeered by the air force to help with the war effort. Later i learned that Saunders students themself actually fly those missions because they're the only people in all of Japan, no scratch that, the only people in all of Asia that know how to fly a B-29. I know to well what those girls must be feeling, knowing you're freshly graduated or haven't even graduate high school but already has more body count than an entire battalion. It's a terrible feeling."

"But of course, like i say, those bombing weren't enough. There has to be soldiers on the ground to make sure that not a single zombie catch up to the refugees. That's where we come in. We would set up road block and firing position to slow down the horde. We made our stand on a crossroad near a train station called Shinonome, on our left is a train tracks and on the right side is a freeway bridge. We set up the defensive road block using abandoned cars, concreate barrier, sand bags, and razor wires. The roadblock we built is around 4,5 meters tall and around three meters thick, we build firing steps with sandbags right behind the main barricade. In the middle we have this slide open gate, around 5 meters wide to let refugees through and could be closed anytime to stop the dead from breaking through, it's pretty sturdy for something we build on the spot."

"By this time, the news of the American defeat at the battle of Yonkers had reach us. It didn't sit well with us, because there's a big change the events that transpired in Yonkers might repeat here in Tokyo. For the most part, we only monitored the stream of refugee that was heading for the evacutation zone. But this time, we are more cautious than last time, we won't risk another outbreak inside the ships. As i monitored the refugees went past our lines, i reflected on my past choice that ended me in this point. I never plan to join the JSDF, my original plan after graduating high school was to continue my study abroad in Moscow, but after i graduate, my parents broke the news to me that the money they've been saving for my study abroad is not enough. I didn't hold it against them though, they've work hard enough to support me, so i thought i might as well help them to afford my education."

"I began to look for jobs but none are more suited for me than being a soldier. I had been a vice-commander of my school senshado team, which is run more like a paramilitary organization than a simple school elective, so life as a soldier won't be much of a culture shock to me, unlike to many other people. So that's what i did, i went to a recruiting office, sign a 5 year contract, went to basic training, graduate and were assigned to the Eastern army 1st division. I never planed to stay as long as i did."

She let out an amused laugh.

"I ended up staying for ten years."

"I kept thinking to myself, what if i didn't join the JSDF, what if my parents had enough money to send me to Moscow. A lot of what if thought went through my heads, but i banised those thoughts as soon as they show up. I still have a job to do, i need to focus."

"Then, they arrived."

"The stream of refugee hasn't slow down, there are at least two thousand refugees still waiting to be let through when the undead horde began to show up. The horde is at least two and a half killometers away from our position, but even with such distance and surrounded by tall building, we could clearly see how big the horde was. There were thousands of them, most are crawlers, having their limbs blown of from the air force bombardment. The refugee saw them too and went into a freenzy. They abandoned all manners of discipline and began to push each other, trying to went past the checkpoint without any clearence. We fired warning shots but it was no use."

"Our company commander requested for artillery support and give the cordinate for fire mission at the horde. Seconds later, i heard multiple whistling sound coming from the air. I look up and saw multiple 155mm airburst rounds falling into the horde of the undead. Just 10 meters before they hit their target, the rounds burst open, releasing hundreads of smaller plastic bomblets the size of a hand grenade. Those explosive landed onto the streets and destroying everything in sights. the line of cars suddenly burst into flames when the rounds ignited their fuel tanks like a small volcanoes. The barrage lasted for a full thirthy seconds, it kills half of them and the fires and all the burning vehicles seemingly slow them down a bit."

"Yet, we didn't cheer at the sight of the destruction of our enemy, we already know what will happend when you got to complacent during an open battle, the americans had paid a heavy price for it. When the barrage was over, we readied our weapon and ready to fight. But we have a problem, the refugee. Behind us, there are still many refugee that are stuck in traffic, and the artillery barrage sent them into another freenzy. They start to abandoned their cars to by pass the traffic evacuation zone. Those who are still in front of us is in a much worse condition. With the undead behind them and a military check point infront of them. The panics spread among them faster than the virus itself, especially with some of the refugee at the back are already being torn apart either by the living dead or the barrage. People began to abandoned their cars, their belongings and in some cases, their own family. They were so desperate to reach the evacuation zones that they began to climb over cars, the barrier we put and even each other. The little gates we put on our barriers began to overflowing with the upcoming refugees, at one point, there are more then twenty people squeezing their bodies at once."

"As the horde slowly creeping in on our position, i happend to look over at our company commander. Captain Kondo Katsumoto, a very devoted soldier, had been a part of the JSDF for over 20 years, and from what i know, he's also the very few people inside the JSDF to saw combat during the Iraq war when he was given the task of protecting the Japanese embassy there from terrorist attack. He got a look on his face, even through the gas mask, i could see it in his eyes the look of acceptence followed by a look of determination. He took a deep breath and with all of his might, he yelled out the order to close the gate."

"At first, no one moves even those who guard the gate to prevent it from falling over stop what they're doing for a moment and just stared at him. Of course this doesn't last long since we have a shit ton of people on the other side of the gate. But still there are a few who let their oppinion known to the captain. "There's still people out there!""But the road isn't clear yet!" "What the hell are you thinking?!" Stuff like that. They all couldn't fanthom the idea of leaving all of those refugees to die. But i knew deep down that he was right, even though i hate to admit it, the captain is right. The dead is closing in behind them but there's still thousands of refugee that hadn't past the checkpoint. If we force ourself to let all of them through, we might risk another outbreak inside the ships, or even worse, ended up overrunning the evacuation zones. Our orders is to hold the undead at bay while navy carry those refugee to their ship. and even though we could saw them clearly, none of us had a clear shot at them. There are full company and three tanks guarding that checkpoint, and yet, none of us had fired a shot at the undead, thanks to the refugee blocking the line of sight. We can't prevent the undead from entering the evacuation zones with the refugees still blocking our way. That's when the realization hits me, we needed to sacrifice this people to save the others."

"That's the harsh reality of war, you can't save everyone, and that sentiment is particularly fitting for this one."

"The captain then repeat the order again, more loudly this time. And yet, still no one oblige the order, the soldiers responsible for the gate couldn't bring themself to close it when there are still people trying to past through. The captain had enough, he fire his rifle into the air to gain everyone attention and bellowed to us all. "CLOSE THAT DAMN GATE OR EVERYONE WE'RE TRYING TO SAVE WILL DIE!""

"After he said that, the hopelessness of the situation became clear to all of us. I could see my comrades lowering their heads, silently cursing at the gods and our own goverment for keeping us in the dark for so long. The one who's guarding the gate finally gave in and began to close the gate. When the refugees saw the gates being closed, they went abseloute 'ape shit' for the lack of a better words. They started screaming, cursing at us for closing the gates, some where still trying to squeeze their way through. My squad went to help the gate keepers to closed the gates while a few other squad were standing on the parapet, aiming their rifles at the panicking masses, fired their rifles into the air, trying to get hold of the situation. Even thought there are more than twenty people trying to close the gate but the refugees wouldn't let us. They kept squeezing their way through and those who made it through just booked it to the evacuation zones, all of them are to scared to even considered to help their fellow refugees. There's this one guy in the crowd, he's a big guy, probably a sumo wrestler from his build. When it came his turn to squeeze his way through, i had enough. I gave up on trying to close the gate on him, instead, i walk up to him. The man gave me a death glare and open his mouth to hurl insults at me, but he quickly shut his mouth as his expresion turn from anger to fear once he say the barrel of my rifle are pointed at his face. I pulled the trigger before the man could plead for his life and push away his body from the gate for it finally to be closed."

"You killed a civillian?"

"A burden i need to shoulder for our sake. The undead is already giving us a hard time and the civillian just gave us more headache than we could handle. Trust me, it wasn't easy to pull that trigger, and i suffered the consequence of my action every day for the rest of my life. I could never unsee the look of terror on his face and that same face often haunted me when i sleep. After the gate were closed, we further reinforced it by piling up sandbags behind it to prevent the refugee from breaching the gate. One of the tank use its cannon to push an abandoned car to the gate to act as another barrier. As we continue to reinforced the wall, we could hear the civillian on the other side, cursing at us for leaving them behind, their voice was filled with anger, anguish, and desperation. We tried our best to ignored them as they beg for us to open the gate. Then, i heard a series of gunshots coming over from the palisades, some of the refugee are desperate enough to try climbed over our barrier, the squad positioned at the palisades had fired multiple warning shots to warn off the refugee from climbing over, some listen, but others don't, those who didn't listen kept trying to climb over the wall. We were forced to shot those who tries to climb over."

"Why did you guys kill those refugee, instead of letting them climb up?"

"If we let them climb over, it'll motivate the other and will start a much larger riot, and that would force us to kill more of them. If that happend, the living dead would be the least of our worries."

"After the barricade was fully reinforced, we were ordered to retreat to a secondary defensive position, that we've built a hundred meters behind the first one. This one is only a standard roadblock instead of a wall. Just some razor wires and sandbags as our firing position. The captain said the reason for us withdrawing to the second defensive position is because the first one is "no longer defensible" in his words. Though we all knew the real reason, he wanted to spare us from the horror of watching those refugees ghastly death. Even though were almost two hundred meters away from the first barricade, we still could hear the sound of the undead closing in and the sounds of panicking civillians. We could hear them getting literaly eaten alive, their scream, their cry for mercy was still clear on our mind. Did you ever heard the phrase "No man left behind?" It's a pretty common saying among militaries around the world. Well, that day i learned that phrase is a total horseshit."

"We all just sat behind our firing position, hopelessly listen to the slow and painful death of the thousands of people on the other side of that wall, knowing full well it is to late to safe them now. One guy, a medic couldn't take it, he grab his squadmate rifle and turn it on himself, that really messed us up. Most of us just kept silent and hopelessly listen to the carnaga on the other side of the barricade. A few soldiers couldn't take it and started sobbing and whimpering, asking the gods what sins have we commited to deserved such punishment. One guy in my squad were curled up in a fetal position, his left arm were clucthing his rifle while the other was holding tight onto his rosary necklace, he looked up at the black sky and pray to god to make it all stop. But of course, his prayers went unanswered."

"Suddenly, we all hear a sound that brought us out of the trance we were on. It was a whistling sound coming from the sky, the telltale sound of an incoming artillery barrage. Before we know it, our original barricade were bombarded with High Explosive munitions, sending shrappnel, limbs, torso, and even life heads into the air. We were stunned. Why would the captain order an artillery barrage that he knew very well would destroy the barricade that's keeping the living dead from reaching us? Though, soon enough, we learned that it was not the case."

"When we were to busy moping in despair at our situation, one of the radio operator secretly called for an artillery strike with the cordinate being our old position. After the barrage had ended, and the captain found out what he had done, the captain punch him in the face ask what he was thinking. You know what this moron had to say for himself? Mercy kill, that was his excuse. He said that leaving the refugee to be eaten alive was to cruel so he was actually "giving them mercy" by killing them instantly with artillery instead of being eaten alive. Of course, by "mercy kills" them, this dumbass had destroy the barricade that keep the dead from reaching us!"

"After felt like hours, the dead start to breakthrough the destroyed barricade, we immidietly assumed our position. But, none of us fired a shot. We were just in shock at what we're seeing. Those who went through first were a mess, most of them are crawling, the barrage had taken out their legs, torso's and arms leaving their guts dangling from their stomach but their brains are still intact, leaving them with the strength to walk over their dead comrades. Behind them are the ones were thousands that weren't touch by the barrage at all and they're slowly catching up to their comrades at the front. Yet, that was not what made us hold our fire, rather it was who those zombies were."

"You know how movies always portray the undead as a middle aged man that were dressed in either a business suit or a worn out old jacket. But that couldn't be further from the truth. In reality, the infected came in all shapes and form, old man, young women... and children, lots and lots of children, most couldn't be older than 10 years old. I guess it made sense why there are so many of them, they're to weak to survive on their own and the chaos caused by the panic and the evacuation caused many children saperated from their parents and got infected while they were scared and alone. Seeing those precious little kids turn into nothing but a walking corpse is enough to give us nightmere for three lifetime."

"The sudden explosion of a tank cannon snap us out of our trance, followed by the rapid fire of heavy machine guns that cut the horde into pieces. Suddenly, we all felt an adrenaline rush and all the training we've been through finally kicked in. The squad leaders yell at those who seem like they're about to lose it while yelling orders for the rest of us to get ready. We sighted our target, took a deep breath and fire. Soon, one by one, zombies started to fell onto the pavement, our mortars and the HEAT rounds from our tanks send them flying everywhere, when their bodies hit the ground, their comrades would trip over them, creating some sort of domino effect that somewhat slow down the horde. We rifleman tried our best to aim for the head, a civilian might thought it was easy, just aimed it slightly higher and you'll surely hit the head, but after you're trained and told your entire military career to aim for the chest, transitioning to aim for the head isn't as easy as many people thought. To create a competent rifleman, one must spent countless hours on the firing range to built up steady hands, good reflex and muscle memory to aim properly. But that muscle memory of shooting at the center mass were pretty much useless when you were fighting the walking dead."

"The machine gunners were even less accurate than we were. Machine gunners are trained to fire in a short controled, accurate burst, shooting three to five rounds each burst. They suffered the same problem as us riflemen as they were also trained to aim for the center mass, they were less accurate because the fast fire rate of a light machine gun."

"Lucky for us though, the zombies we're facing were slow, not that they have any speed to begin with. The ones we were facing, the ones in the front that is were heavily battered from the artillery strike. Most can't even walk and were crawling towards us with a snails pace. I remember crouching down behind a sandbags with my Type 89 aimed at a zombie that somehow still walking upright. I kept telling myself, just go for the head but i instead hit 'em square in the chest. The round knock 'em down but just seconds later it got up and continue to walk like nothing happend. Man when i saw that i swear i feel like i was about to piss myself. I didn't even got to be the one who put it down, before i could finish the job, a bullet went through it's head, this time that thing stays dead. After that i mentally told myself to made sure to aim for the head."

"I got my second change not even a minute later, it was a crawler who had both of its legs blown of from its body, i couldn't tell if this zombie was a man or a woman, its face had been completly disfigured that made it impossible to distinguised it's gender. But from it's height i could tell that this zombie was a child, for a second i froze at that realization, i found myself imagining what this child looks like before he or she turn, what their life was like or hoe their parents were. I banished those thought out of my mind as soon as they appear and i reminded myself what we're facing. I put my sight on its head and gently squeeze the trigger."

"The bullet hit them right between the eyes and knock 'em dead. I took a breath, sighted my next target and fire another round. I try my best to pace myself between each shot, trying not to shoot too rapidly and waste all my ammo. Some of the others are doing something similar to me, fire slowly and steadily to ensure accuracy, even though all of us had a hard time of hitting the head. Unfortunately not everyone were calm and collected, some just said screw it and went full auto on the undead. Those who did ended up wasting their ammo faster then they should've, leaving them dry even though the dead were still pouring in. A girl i knew, same platoon different squad went through all of her ammo in just three minutes, when her gun didn't spew bullets anymore she just kept pulling the trigger and yelling out profanities. Her squadmates were forced to pulled her back from the line to keep her from completely losing it."

"We kept firing and firing into the ever closing horde, we kill them off one by one very fast, but not fast enough. That's when our ammo began to run low. One by one, soldiers all around starts to hear their gun made the dreaded 'click' noise, the reports began pouring in from all sides about their ammo situation. I then experience the same thing two minutes after the first report came in, when my rifle made that click noise i had reach down to my vest and found it empty, i cursed out loud and report my status. By this point, we haven't fully taken out the first wave, yet most of the rifleman had run out of ammo, even our .50 cals begining to spewing bullets less often and they're our most important weapon in all this. The tanks aren't even firing high explosive rounds anymore and began to switch to sabot. Now, even though it was not the most effective way of combating zombie, high explosive rounds are still useful since it's impact will blown of limbs and its shockwave would knock them down and slow them down, even if it didn't kill them, sabot on the other hand were almost useless against the undead. Do you know what a hardened tungsten dart would do to a horde of walking corpses? Nothing! I mean sure it would tear them apart when it made contact but it was not as effective as a bullet or a high explosive round. Sabot are specifically design to destroy other a tank from a high cocentrated kinetic energy, that's what makes it a great weapon in armored warfare and complete garbage in this war, a high explosive round or a single bullet could do the job way better than a sabot."

"Luckily, we have brought a truck that was filled with ammo crates to prepare for a situation like this. The problem was everybody was to focus on shooting zombies that no one had actually brought those ammo to us like it was suppose to. So in our moment of panic we all rush that truck to grab any spare ammo. The commanders requested another artillery strike to buy us time to get those ammo. Judging from the distant sound of helicopters flying back and forth, we could tell the evacuation process was still going on, and none of us will leave this place until every civilian have been evacuated."

"After we replenished our ammo, we moved back to the line and wait for the dead to catch up to us. This time we took our time to improve our defense, the last artillery strike had created slowed them down are turn most of them into crawlers, so they were slow. Also the zombies that we had killed earlier had piled up and created a three meters tall palisades of corpses, it comes to a point where we just shoot any heads that pop over the top. Even though they pop over the top wasn't as often as a few minutes ago, we knew this was far from over. Over that piles of bodies we could still hear their moans as clear as ever, we knew they're still thousands of them eager to feast on our flesh. Those who went over the top were mostly lost their lower half, that's why they went over that pile so slowly, but we knew when the other arrived, the ones who wasn't touch by the barrage arrived, then it would be back to being a total shit show."

"As we kept firing, the piles started to became bigger and bigger by the minute as a zombie would rise through the pile only to be shot dead by us and became another corpse in the pile. At some point, that walls of bodies reach the height of five meters tall, and when it reach that height, it was the same time when we began to run out of bullets to shoot, for real this time, we had spent all of our spare bullets. I think the last shot was fired around afternoon, even then we still could hear the moaning sound of the dead still persistent as ever. The company commander contacted the navy using the radio and requested an update on the evacuation of civillian. He was informed that the evacuation was almost complete, but we're required to hold on for a little longer until the evacuation was complete. With that information, the commander were silent for a moment, seemingly conteplating how are we gonna hold them back with no ammo. Then, all the sudden the fire in his eyes spark, he yelled out his next order. Fix bayonet!"

"You guys did a bayonet charge?" I ask astonised.

Nonna snort and shook her head. "What? No, of course not, what year do you think it is? 1945? No, the way we use our bayonet is like how pikemen fight in the middle age. Since our tanks has ran out of ammo, and there for useless, the crew used it reinforced the barricade, so that our barricade were made of sandbags, concrete road block, abandoned cars and tanks, after that we would stand on top of or behind the barricade with our bayonet, when a zombie got in range of our bayonet, we would stab them in the head."

"After we got into our new position, we waited, since there's no one shooting, the zombies that went over the pile went over with no opposition. When those few zombie that went through reach our barricade, we kill them pretty easily. But then the whole thing turns upside down, remember those body pile that kinda act as a natural barricade, well, when the horde reach the pile, some of them climb over it like the other, but the sheer number of zombies that attempted to climb over cause the body pile to collapse, every bodies that was on that pile tumbled down like an avalanche. When that body pile started to collapse, thousands upon thousands of zombies marching towards us completely unopposed, a few grunts that had regain their composure start to loose it again. At first i couldn't hear their sounds of distress, their gas mask muffled most of their mumbling, but as the horde got closer and closer, suddenly the gas mask couldn't muffled their sound. "Oh shit! Oh shit!" "We're gonna die here!" "We need to get the fuck outta here!" Everytime an asshole couldn't keep their mouth shut, for whatever reason they need let everyone hear it."

"The commander try to call for another artillery strike, knowing the risk of friendly fire due to the close proximity of the horde to our position, but he did it anyway so we could just take out the stragglers, and i think he knew that anyone of us would prefer the latter than the former. But the response he gotten were less than enthusiastic. The person from the other side of the line reported that there are no artillery support left that are available, it seems they've also run out of ammo. This meant that we're truly on our own now, we can't really requested an air support since us and the air force used different frequency. He then ask again how long we have to hold them of, the operator on the other end says eight minutes minimum."

"Not even three minutes later, the dead reach our barricade. The sound of bayonets piercing a skulls soon was heard all around. The dead piled up infront of our barricade, their rotting hands try their hardest to grab us while we stand on top of or behind the barricade, picking them of with ease, though it doesn't make it less scary. I was standing over one of the tank when one of them somehow manage to climb over the top and went to grab my squadmate who's busy stabbing the ones at the bottom, before it could do that, i grab its shirt and slammed it into the hull, before it could get back up i crushed its brain with my boots."

"Shooting them behind cover is exhausting enough, but this is a whole other level. Everytime i stab a zombie and moved on to the next one, it was faster and harder, and i don't think it's because i was getting energize, no it's because i was getting tired and my body just kept pumping adrenaline through my veins, everytime i kill a zombie i could feel my breath getting more ragged, my heart is beating faster and faster, and my gas mask that i was fine with suddenly feels suffocating to a point that i couldn't take it anymore. I scream at the top of my lung and rip away my gas mask and helmet in the process and threw it at the horde. I then began to hack and slash zombies head like there's no tommorow, i swing that piece of blade so fast and so carelessly that it snap, but it didn't stop me, i just hold my rifle by its barrel and use the stock as a club. i swing and smash zombies heads left and right all the while screaming like a banshee, splattering blood and brain matter everywhere."

"Suddenly i could feel a hand grab my shoulder, i instinctively turn around to smack whatever it is, but it turns out to be my squad leader. He ordered me to get back from the line, i straight up refuse but he knock some sense into me, saying that i'm just harming myself if i continue like this."

"Just when he said it, two black hawk fly towards us and landed just behind our line, the civillian had been evacuated, and now it was our turn. The injured and those who were exhausted like me were the first to go, we drop our weapon and most of our equipment to make as much room as possible, there are atleast 30 people loaded in the chopper i was in, way over capacity for a black hawk. After there are no more room for anyone else, the black hawk took of and head for a ship offshore."

"As we began to leave the city and fly over Tokyo bay, i look out the window and saw a pair of F-15 dropping bomb over Ginza, seconds later multiple fire balls sprung up and release a torrent of black smoke, in fact the black smoke was coming from all over the city, as if the entire city was on fire, or it probably because it is. As we fly over the ocean, the adrenaline in my veins start to worn off, the exhaustion i felt finally sets in full force, i gave one last look at the burning mess that use to be our capital before it all turns black."