Highschool of the dead: The British Outbreak
Chapter 16: Hunters in the Dark
Approx ¼ mile outside Chester safezone
Z-day +54
23:57
Lightning flashed across the rain-soaked city, lighting up the skyline for a brief moment before thunder rumbled in the skies above.
From his sniper nest atop the old abandoned shot tower, Jason scanned for targets. His L115 sat cushioned on his patrol bag, its night vision scope allowing him to pierce the darkness with a green tinge to his Sight. It had been 2 days since his battle with his former friend and colleague had begun, and both were intent on ending the other.
Jason Sighed as he panned his rifle over a row of houses over a kilometre away. Will had already used one of them as a sniper nest once before, he wasn't naive enough to use the same shooting point twice. As he watched for any Sign of movement, but it was a futile effort. Will was just as good at hiding as Jason, and an even better shot. The only advantages that Jason had were that Will didn't know where he was, and his rifle could outrange Will's.
As he watched and waited, Jason thought back to when the rift between Will and he first formed; during their time shooting in America...
-Flashback-
Blackwater PMC HQ
North Carolina
15:12
Jason and Will walked into the lobby of Blackwater PMC's head office together. Jason had spent the last month travelling and had met Will in New York before travelling down to Blackwater via Amtrak. They had decided together that they would come out to the states to do this course together, Jason so that Sergeant Owens would no longer have a valid excuse to keep him from the shooting team. Will so that he could just shoot stuff with high calibre weaponry.
They approached the front desk and were greeted by an attractive receptionist.
"Can I help you gentlemen?" she asked. Before Jason could stop him, Will was in there.
"Ask me again in that janitor's closet," Will said slyly. The woman smiled curtly at the teenager hitting on her. Jason just shook his head.
"Jason Rees and Will Maine," Jason said. "Were here for the shooting course." The receptionist nodded before typing in a few commands on her and producing a pair of blue plastic wallets with papers before handing one each to the teenagers.
"Here are your welcome packs. Inside you'll find your room keys, timetables and some paperwork you'll need to fill out before class starts tomorrow morning. Just give them into your instructor. I'm afraid you've been asSigned to different initial weapons handling courses that you're both on the same sniper and urban/ mountain course. Any other questions there's a number you can call in the pack. I'll have someone come over to take you to the dorm rooms."
The teenagers thanked the receptionist and sat down and waited for the shuttle vehicle.
"its sucks were not in the same basic course," mumbled Will. Jason shrugged.
"It's not the end of the world," he said. . "We'll still see each other in the mess."
"yeah," pondered Will. "What room you in any way?" Jason looked through his welcome pack.
"Room 204," replied Jason. "You?"
"Room 207," said Will. "Guess we won't even be bunking together." Though he did not publically acknowledge it, Jason felt sorry for whoever ended up sharing a room with Will. Though he did his best, Will had a tendency to become unhinged, even violent at times. It had taken a lot of convincing to get his parents to Sign off on him on the trip, partly on the proviso that Jason kept an eye and a lid on him... good luck with that.
...
Inside of half an hour later, Jason was walking down the hallway of his accommodation block with his kitbag over his shoulder, looking for his room. Eventually, he found it, room 204. He tried the door handle and found it unlocked. He pushed the door inward and found that his roommate was already there.
The room was pretty much a normal twin hotel room with a bed on either side of the room with a cupboard, small desk and chair on either side. Jason's roommate was a heavyset lad of Asian decent with a pair of black thick rim glasses and a large head of black hair that came down past his ears.
"Hi there," said Jason as he threw his kit bag onto the unoccupied bed. He stepped forward and offered him a hand. "Jason Rees."
"Kohta Hirano," said the lad in heavily accented English as he stood up and shook Jason's hand. "It's nice to meet you."
'Kohta...' thought Jason. "Japanese right?"
"That's right," said Kohta as he went back to sorting his belongings neatly into his cupboard. "Judging by your accent... British?"
"You guess correctly," said Jason as he set about unpacking. "Which basic group you in?"
"2," Replied Kohta, Jason nodded and kept the conversation going.
"Cool, same as me. You ever shot before?"
"Only airsoft guns and air rifles at a fair. You?"
"Yeah, I've shot before," said Jason. Kohta looked at him slightly surprised.
"How? I thought the gun laws in Britain were strict like the ones in Japan," he asked.
"Not quite as strict, but still pretty strict," replied Jason. "But I'm a member of the Air Training Corps, or ATC, or air cadets. We're a uniformed youth military organisation, so we have our own semi-auto version of the British army's SA80 rifle series. I've shot that as well as a few other rifles and shotguns."
"Oh..." said Kohta, "That is so cool. I do like the look of the SA80 too."
"Yeah," said Jason. "Thing is, most people think it's crap..." Kohta caught on and cut in.
"Because of the disastrous A1 variants, that suffered from major defects. But the A2 version currently in use..."
"Was remanufactured by Heckler and Koch, making it into one of the most reliable rifles currently available..."
"...To the point where in a recent trial it was put against an M16A4, Steyr AUG, AK-101, and a FAMAS..."
"Where it beat every single one of them in each category except the AK on reliability," finished Jason, he smiled. "Kohta, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
-Present day-
Approx ¼ mile outside Chester safezone
Z-day +55
07:00
Lance Corporal Aber and Private Forty climbed the stairs of the shot tower to where they'd been told Sergeant Rees had been camped out overnight looking for the sniper that the troops had named as 'that bastard.'
As a favour to the Sergeant. Aber had agreed to take on Forty as a sort of apprentice, to teach him the ways of marksmanship/sniping. They arrived in the top room, where they found Sergeant Rees with his rifle pointing out the window, still scanning for targets. The thing that stuck them was the smell.
"Jesus, it smells like piss in here," said Aber. Jason looked away from his scope and looked at her for a moment.
"Yeah well, when you gotta go and all that," said Jason as he took one last look before starting to pack up his kit.
"Any Signs of him?" asked Aber as she and Forty set out some of their kit.
"I saw some movement around Handbridge at about 3am, could have been him but I don't know." Jason slung is rifle over one shoulder and his patrol bag on the other. "Just be careful, he's a damn good sniper and slightly nuts in the head."
"As good as you?" asked Aber with a slight smirk. Both she and Forty paled slightly at his response.
"No. Better."
Jason left the sniper team to do their job while he descended from the shot tower to a waiting pickup that would take him back to Cornwell for some much-needed rest, although he doubted he'd get any. Jason climbed into the passenger seat of the waiting pick up and buckled up."
"Mornin'," said the driver, a man in his mid 20's dressed in fatigues and body armour.
"Hey," said Jason autonomously as he buckled up with his rifle stowed between his legs. He glanced into the back seat and saw that Alex was in the back. She looked particularly unwell and held a brown paper sick bag in her hands.
"Finally going to see the quack then ay?" asked Jason. Since she'd starting being slightly off the previous week, Jason had kept an eye on her. After it hadn't shifted after a week or so, and after the water bottle incident, he'd pressured her to see a doctor, which she stubbornly refused. The scowl she gave him as she held the bag close told him all that he needed to know. The pick up's engine rumbled into life and the vehicle shuddered as the driver shifted it into gear and they departed the shot tower.
After a few minutes of driving through the streets, Jason finally broke the silence.
"You should be wearing your seatbelt," he said to the driver. The driver glanced over at Jason.
"It gets in the way if I need to go for my weapon," he replied, patting at the Glock that sat in a repurposed magazine pouch on his body armour. "Besides. It's not like..."
The glass windshield shattered and the driver bucked before slumping forward. The engine roared as his body slumped forward on the accelerator and the car sped up. Jason grabbed hold of the steering wheel to try and keep the rapidly accelerating car on the road. A brief glance up the road showed Jason an upcoming lamp post.
"HOLD ON!" He shouted back at Alex. The last thing Jason saw before darkness claimed him was the look of horror on her face as the pickup hit the lamp post at high velocity, throwing him forward into the dashboard's exploding airbag.
...
Jason groaned as he came too. His head was pounding and every muscle and bone ached. This was a good Sign; he wasn't dead.
He blinked to clear his hazy vision while pushed down the still partly inflated air bag and tried to sit up slightly. Pain lanced up his side. Cracked ribs, he'd had them many times. His face was bruised and blood smeared his face from his broken nose. But he was alive, which was more than could be said for the driver. His body lay halfway out of the windshield, his severed head was lying on the ground several meters further on.
'Should have worn his seatbelt.' Thought Jason. His rifle was still propped between his legs, its barrel bent and slightly cracked from where Jason's head had glanced off it, rendering it useless. He slowly leaned around, pushing through to pain to check on Alex.
She slumped forward in the backseat, her pale skin was marred with blood and bruises and her head hung in a near unnatural angle. Jason quickly unbuckled his seatbelt and pulled himself into the back seat. He pressed 2 fingers to her neck to check her pulse. It was there, but weak. He needed to get her a medic, soon.
He quickly tried the pick up's radio, but he couldn't even get any static from the damn thing. He first tried to raise command, then Aber and Forty, but all to no avail. He took another look at Alex's unconscious form as he summed up his options: once they were overdue, they may try to raise them on the radio and when that failed they would probably send out a search party to find them.
Jason dismissed this plan almost immediately. Alex needed medical attention ASAP, and there was no way of knowing how long it would take a search party to find them, or if one was actually coming. Furthermore, there was also the issue of the sniper that shot them. Buried in the front of Alex's body armour was the remains of a round, and the driver's seat had a large bloody hole from where it had travelled through the driver, his seat before coming to a stop in Alex's front plate.
'Dumb bastard probably mustn't have had the plates in his armour to save weight.' Thought Jason. That only left option 2; carry Alex the roughly half a mile back to Chester and pray that Will didn't see them. And if anyone tried to stop them because of his exile, god help them.
Chester Hospital
Chester Safezone
Z-day +55
09:30
Jason sat by Alex's bed in silence.
When they'd arrived at the gates, the soldiers on duty didn't stop him getting Alex to the hospital. Upon arrival, they were both immediately seen too, partly due to their sudden arrival and appearance, but also, because no one was dumb enough to argue with a man holding a loaded Sig in one hand and an unconscious girl over his shoulder.
They'd taken them aside and examined them separately. Jason had been more or less right with his original self-assessment; broken nose and 4 cracked ribs from where his rifle had dug into his Kevlar vest. Alex's injuries were more severe, however. She'd suffered cracked ribs and also broken her nose, but also hit her head and had a concussion. The doctor's had taken her aside to run some tests and had only recently returned her to the room where they presently waited on the results.
"I'm sorry Alex," Jason whispered, taking her hand. "I promised Fred I'd look after you... guess it's not going so well," His self-pity was interrupted by the door opening. A doctor in a white lab coat walked in, he closed the door behind him.
"How is she doc?" asked Jason, dreading the response. The Doctor consulted his clipboard
"She has a slight concussion, 2 cracked and bruised ribs where her armour stopped the bullet, a broken nose and 2 broken teeth. Other than that, as far as we can tell she and the baby are fine."
"The baby?!" exclaimed Jason. "She's pregnant?!"
"Yes," replied the doctor, the calmness of his voice hinted that he'd been through this before. "It came up in our blood tests. She's about 3 or 4 weeks along. I assume you're the father?"
Jason looked down at the floor; he knew this wasn't going to end well for anyone.
"No," he replied, "But I know who is. Private Fred Hanson."
"We'll need him to come in and..."
"He's dead," deadpanned Jason. "Bitten about 3 weeks ago. He died leading a heard of infected away so my team and I could escape. He was a good man, and a good friend."
"I see," said the Doctor. He scribbled some notes on his clipboard. "I'll leave you 2 alone while I sort out some paperwork. I'll have some food brought up for you."
"Thank you," said Jason. The doctor left him and Alex alone. He looked at her again and took her hand and let his mind drift.
'So now we're going to have a baby to take care of as well? One that'll grow up without its father... what will life be like for it?'
After a few minutes, the combination of adrenaline wearing off and a night on none stop concentration took its toll, and he drifted into unconsciousness. As he slept, his memory slipped back to his time in the states.
-Flashback-
Blackwater PMC HQ
North Carolina
Day 6 of the First week of training
13:00
Kohta collected his food from the counter at the mess hall and looked around for somewhere to sit. He initially approached one of the metal tables that was closest but diverted when he saw that Will and his new 'friends' were there.
He'd come to the states to learn to shoot and enjoy himself, and Will Maine reminded him slightly too much of a slightly an aggro Shido-sensei for his liking. That and his new found friends reminded him too much of Tsunoda and the rest of the track team, the ones who repeatedly bullied and assaulted Kohta at school. Instead, he sat down at a table by himself and was about to take a bite out of his double bacon cheeseburger when Jason and a few others from their class joined them.
"Room for a few more?" asked Jason as he and the other 2 lads sat down with him. Jason looked down at Kohta's meal. "I see you're still rocking the double bacon cheeseburger there mate."
Kohta shrugged. "When in Rome," he muttered before he took a large bite out of his burger, which was, as Jason judged by his reaction delicious. "Besides, what are you eating?"
"Chicken salad with a steak sandwich," replied Jason. "I'm watching what I eat. When I get back I've got the Royal Marines potential officer's course."
"You're joining the Royal Marines?" asked Kohta. Jason nodded.
"I'm going for a navy university scholarship," he replied. "If you get it, they'll pay towards your uni fees as long as you join up as an officer for a minimum of 4 years afterwards. Although I plan to be in longer than that."
Kohta couldn't help but admire Jason. In many ways, he was what he himself wished he could be. Jason was good looking, athletic, got on with everyone and was a crack shot. Kohta felt that if he could become half the man that Jason was, he would be happy.
"So anyone got a girl back home?" asked one of the lads. "Jason?"
"Nah mate," he replied through a bit of salad. "Single Pringle mate. How about you Kohta?"
"Nope," replied Kohta while taking a drink from his coke.
"So who's Takagi then?" asked Jason with an evil smirk. Kohta spat his coke back out in surprise. How the hell had Jason found out about Takagi?!
"How did you..."
"You talk in your sleep mate," said Jason. "From the sound of it, it was a pretty hot dream. 'oh Takagi...'" Kohta went beet red as the table all gathered in on him. "So who is she?"
"She... She's a girl in my class," stammered Kohta. He hadn't told anyone about his secret crush on Saya Takagi.
"You got a picture?" asked one of the lads. Kohta hesitated before he pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket and typed in some commands to produce a class picture on the screen.
"The one with the pink ponytails," said Hirano as he showed the picture to his colleagues. They were impressed.
"Jesus Christ! She is hot!" said one of them.
"I thought the whole pink hair thing was just in anime..." said another.
"Hey mate, she is fit!" said Jason. "You asked her out?"
"No," Replied Kohta, "Someone like her wouldn't go out with someone like me. Besides, she likes Kumoro. The brown haired guy next to the red head girl."Jason frowned.
"Well disregarding that, what do you mean 'someone like her wouldn't go out with someone like me'?" he asked.
"Look at me," said Kohta, gesturing to himself. "I'm the unpopular kid. The otaku. The kid who's been bullied and who's out of breath when he reaches the top floor of the school. Why would any girl want to be seen with me, let alone go out with me?"
"Well," began Jason. "You're a good man Kohta. You just have some fitness and confidence issues, both of which you can do something about if you want."
"How do you know?" asked Kohta, slightly harsher than he'd intended. Jason was unfazed.
"When I was about 7, I was overweight and got the shit beaten out of me on a nearly daily basis at school," he explained. This surprised everyone at the table, from what they'd seen, it was hard to imagine Jason being overweight. Let alone bullying him (they'd all seen him practicing karate katas in some of his free time.)
"Both my parents were in the Royal Navy. My mother was deployed on ship at the time, and my father was aide-to-camp of some Admiral based in Portsmouth. He'd come home on leave but for the rest of the time I stayed with my grandparents and they weren't in a position to do much about the bullies. So I saved up my pocket money and after school, one day took myself to a local karate dojo and asked the Sensei to train me. A few days later, the bullies tried to take my sweet shop money. They found out the hard way that I could kick well above my own head height and that 3 punches to the gut are much more painful than it looks. I owe Sensei a lot, because of him, in 5 years I went from short porky nervous kid to lean mean confident fighting machine."
Jason paused to look Kohta in the eyes.
"Besides, girls our age are always looking for sports stars and the good looking guys. Eventually, they wizen up to the fact that most of them are assholes or totally incompetent outside of their specialist area and dump them, looking for someone more dependable. That is you Kohta. I see you as the dependable, trustworthy that people would want to back them up when the shit hits the fan. As my old CO used to say; 'Best isn't always best. I generally prefer turns up on time and not a twat.'"
Kohta was genuinely touched by Jason's words. Outside of his online otaku group, he had few friends and none were his age. Jason was the first person his own age who knew what he had been through and offered any good advice and encouragement.
"Anyway, we better tuck in," said Jason. "We've got our first range time with the sharpshooters and we don't want to be late."
"Amen to that," agreed Kohta as he resumed his feasting on his burger.
-Present day-
Chester Hospital
Chester Safezone
Z-day +55
13:35
Jason awoke with a start as the door into Alex's room opened. Acting on reflex his hand dropped to his holster and he drew his Sig on the door, ready to blow away the threat.
He blinked away the remainder of the sleep from his eyes and the 'threat' became crystal clear. It was a female nurse carrying a tray of food, one who looked slightly shaken at having a gun pointed at her.
"I'm sorry," said Jason as he lowered and holstered his Sig. "You startled me."
"It's alright," said the nurse as she entered the room and set down the tray of food for him on a nearby table. "I was told that a soldier was in here. I should have knocked before coming in, I know how jumpy you guys get when you spend time out there."
"Out there?" queried Jason. He knew what she was on about, but he was curious how she knew about it.
"Beyond the wall," she said. "I was in the group you guys rescued from Broughton. Everyone from that group would get jumpy after sleeping in out there for a while. How are you feeling by the way?"
"I've been better but I'll be fine," said Jason. He looked back at Alex, she was still out cold, although her chest was slowly rising and falling now with her breathing. "I'm more worried about her."
"Well the anaesthesia we gave her has worn off so she's just resting now. I think she's going to be fine," said the nurse. The sound of footsteps coming down the hall twigged Jason's ear. He turned to the open door to see a Major Marsden appear with a familiar face beside him. Jason's expression changed, as though he'd just tasted bad food.
Mrs. Bell wasn't it? Yeah, that was her, from the trial.
The same Mrs. Bell that had cut field rations to soldiers to the point that they were expected to make a 24 hour ration pack last 4 days, who at every available opportunity had criticized and scolded the military for the way they had done things, who had tried her level best to get Jason executed for doing his job. He couldn't help but wonder if she hadn't interfered with the military's affairs if they would be having a recruiting problem at the moment.
The look on Marsden's face was that he clearly knew this was no time for her to come and speak with Jason, but she had likely insisted. Jason snapped off a salute to Marsden and let his hand fall so that it hovered near his holstered Sig, but not quite on it. His hand's proximity to his weapon went unnoticed by Mrs. Bell, but not by Marsden who remained silent. Mrs. Bell opened her mouth and spoke;
"Sergeant Rees. I am Mrs. Karen Bell..."
"I know who you are," interrupted Jason, unable to keep the hostility out of his voice. "You're the one who tried to have me executed for doing my job."
Mrs. Bell scoffed, she was not used to being spoken to like that by anyone, let alone a teenager.
"Yes well, it has since come to light that those 3 boys were playing a practical joke and the whole thing was just a big misunderstanding. I will be having your exile revoked forthwith."
"Very kind of you," replied Jason, generally grateful for that but he was still weary. "Was there something you wanted to talk to me about?"
"Well," Mrs. Bell seemed extremely uncomfortable as if she had just been cornered and what she was about to say would piss Jason off extremely. "I wanted to apologise to you... and..."
"I believe you wanted to question Jason about why Sergeant Rees took it upon himself to bring back a group of survivors who were in need of medical care that would use up vital medical resources without asking permission first," said Marsden as if he were just dropping a helpful reminder. "By the way Sergeant, I agree with your decision."
Mrs. Bell looked at Marsden with venom in her eyes. Marsden just stood there and shrugged. She drew herself up in her immaculate 2 piece blue business suit. It didn't escape her notice that a small group of patients and nurses were listening on their conversation.
"Yes. I was going to ask you about that," she said. "You have done a good job securing vital supplies for the city, and training soldiers to fight beyond the wall. I am not denying that. However, and let me be frank Sergeant. There are not enough supplies to go around, and I feel that the military should submit to the rule of the council when it comes to matters of bringing in more people who will use more of our supplies..."
"You mean your supplies," said Jason, his fists clenched tight as his frustration mounted.
"Yes, they're ours," she said loudly, almost shouting. "We've paid for them with our blood. I speak for everyone when we say..."
"Shut it," said Jason. His voice was barely above a whisper. Mrs. Bell looked like she'd just been slapped.
"W... What did you say?" she demanded. Jason looked her in the eye, with fury in his that made her pale.
"I said, SHUT IT!" he shouted. She recoiled slightly. He continued to glare at her.
"You have no right to say that you have bled for anything. I doubt you've even lifted a finger against the infected, let alone gone out there and fought, bled and risked your life for a crate of soup, a deer carcass, or bottles of water. Do you even know how many soldiers have died out there? Do you even care? I do. I knew their faces, I knew their names. Nathan, Caroline, Fred. They bled for those supplies. They died for those supplies. Don't you dare say you've done anything to earn them."
"Be that as it may," snarled back Mrs. Bell. "The dead cannot give out supplies. So it is my job to divide up what we have. More people mean more stringent rationing. Ergo, we must limit ourselves to only bringing in people who can be useful..."
"Oh, I'm sorry," interrupted Jason. "Forgive me if I didn't stop to ask a bunch of people, mainly women and children who were starving, dying of thirst and on the verge of death what their credentials were before giving them aid! Next time I'll bare that in mind, Ma'am! Now if you are quite finished, I have better things to do than listen to you bitch about how I should do my job!"
Mrs. Bell was about to reply when she saw that Jason's right hand was resting on the butt of his sidearm. She glared at Jason as she stuck her nose up at him and flounced out of the room. Jason simply retook his seat by Alex's bed and held her hand.
"You weren't wrong Sergeant," said Marsden. "But neither was she. You could have been more tactful."
"I know she's right sir," said Jason. "We don't have the supplies to take in everyone we find. But I'm not going to let people die if I have a choice. And I will be damned if I let her take credit for the produce of our soldiers sacrifice."
Marsden nodded, "You have a good heart Sergeant. That's the reason she hates you." Jason looked t Marsden, slightly confused. He explained.
"As much as she would hate to admit it, Mrs. Bell needs the military, needs soldiers like you and me. But soldiers will never follow her because she will never lead them anywhere. That's the reason she needs the likes of you. She, and to an extent I, are bosses; we order things to be done. You're a leader. We say 'go and do'; you say 'follow me.' Mrs. Bell wants leaders like you under her thumb, to follow her orders. Something that you will never do, because you have a good heart."
"I understand sir," replied Jason, he looked back to Alex, who was still sleeping despite the commotion. "I do have a request though sir. I want Alex reassigned back to Chester. A forward patrol base is no place for a pregnant woman."
"I'll see that it gets done," said Marsden. "I'll also see to it that you get a rack in the barracks to get some proper sleep."
"Thank you sir, but I'm fine," said Jason. Marsden gave him the 'CO stare'.
"Sergeant I'm ordering you to get a hot meal and at least 6 hours bed rest before you go back to searching for Mr. Maine."
Jason looked flabbergasted, "Sir in 6 hours he could kill dozens of people."
"5 then," relented Marsden. "And that's an order Sergeant. Or I'll have the doctors sedate you."
Jason was going to protest, but relented, he knew better than to argue with Marsden over orders that were for his own benefit. Marsden departed, and after ensuring that an orderly would come and notify him when she awoke departed for the barracks via the armoury and mess hall. With a belly half full of warm grub and an alarm set on his watch, he drifted off to sleep.
-Flashback-
Blackwater PMC HQ
North Carolina
Day 6 of the First week of training
20:00
Jason sat in his bunk, cleaning each individual part of his HK MR308. He's spent the afternoon shooting the rifle on a 600-meter range to get used to it. The day had ended with a shoot off between the 3 top shooters from each class taking part. Jason with his MR308, Will with his sniper variant G3 and Hirano with an AR-10 as well as 3 other shooters. The range was 600 meters, and the target was a pistol competition target, 5 rounds each. Jason had placed in 3rd with a 5-inch grouping. Will came 2nd with a 4.5-inch grouping. But Kohta got 1st with an astonishing 2-inch grouping.
Jason and the other shooters congratulated Kohta on his result, except Will. Will had got into a fuss over the result and had been in a funk since. Jason hadn't seen him since he saw him cleaning his G3 in the rec room. He decided he was going to talk to him about it, just to make sure he didn't do anything untoward.
He continued cleaning his rifle in silence until the door opened. He looked up, expecting to see a happy Kohta, still basking in the glory of his victory, and rightly so in Jason's opinion. Instead, he was horrified to see a depressed Kohta walk in, sporting a black eye. Aside from that he also looked like he'd been roughed up and was wobbly on his feet.
"Dude! What happened?" asked Jason. Setting down his rifle parts and helping his friend over to his bed.
"Nothing," said Kohta dismissively. "I fell over." Jason dismissed this, he knew the Signs that someone had been in a fight, he'd both administered and received them enough times.
"Bollocks mate!" snapped Jason. "Who did this to you?" Though Jason already knew who'd probably done this. Kohta Sighed, and then winced sharply, a clear Sign of rib damage.
"Will and his buddies," relented Kohta. Jason was furious. Will had always been quick to anger, but he'd never gone this far before. He was just building up to go and deal with him when Kohta spoke up.
"Don't bother yourself," he said. "This sort of thing happens to me all the time. It's nothing I can't cope with. "
"Yeah, but you shouldn't have too!" replied Jason. "We need to tell the instructors."
"No point no one saw it," said Kohta glumly. "They jumped me behind the cafeteria, took some pictures then moved on."
Jason was really fuming now. No one and he meant no one, got away with bullying any of his friends. He formed a plan of revenge immediately. Will needed to face the music, and Jason knew just what to do.
"I'll be right back," he said. He grabbed his phone off the nightstand and left the dorm room. He headed down the corridor to Will's room. He took a deep breath to compose himself, he needed to be convincing if he was going to pull this off. He knocked on the door.
"Come in," came a voice from inside. Jason opened the door and walked in. Gathered in the middle of the floor around a game of cards against humanity were Will and his 4 friends, all of whom were American and built like tanks.
"Hey, Jay," greeted Will. "Care to join us?"
"Sure," said Jason, acting that everything was normal. The room was almost identical to his and Kohta's, although there's did not stink of weed unlike this one did.
"Hirano just came back," said Jason. "Looked like he got the crap beaten out of him. Guessing that was your handy work?"
"You got a problem with that?" asked one of the larger Americans. Jason held up his hands.
"Hell no," he replied, "I'm tellin' ya, the fat fuck deserved it, the man snores like a sailor and stinks out the bathroom like I don't know what."
"I know right?" said Will, " The little shit had the nerve to beat me at shooting. He had it coming."
"You get any pics?" asked Jason as he looked through the cards that he was dealt.
"Heck yeah," said one of the Americans. "Little piggy squealed when we jumped him. Had to have something to document the occasion?"
"Can I see?" asked Jason. Will nodded before tossing him his phone. "Code's 8864. Just go under photo's and they're at the end."
Jason took the phone; clandestinely making sure it was set to silent before entering the code. Sure enough, there were several photos of the 4 Americans and Will, standing over a beaten Kohta. The pictures made him sick, but he buried it. Vengeance would come. While he looked through them, he copied them to a text message and sent it to his own phone. Once they were sent, he erased all evidence of the transaction and returned the phone.
"Mighty fine work there guys," he said, masking his disgust. He played a few more rounds of cards against humanity before excusing himself on the basis of going for a shower before bed. He left the room and retreated back to his own. He checked his phone to ensure he had the evidence he needed, once he was sure, he went into the room to find a sobbing Kohta on the bed.
"I've got the pictures," he said, holding the phone up. "Let's nail the bastards."
The 2 friends couldn't get to the instructor's office fast enough.
-Present day-
15 miles outside Chester safezone
Z-day +55
16:00
Will returned to the depot basking in the glow of victory. He'd seen the car carrying Jason Rees and shot the car, causing it to crash. He'd killed Jason Rees, precisely as he'd been told to by his boss... Well, he hadn't confirmed the kill. He couldn't have, there were infected between him and Jason and the car crashed out of his line of Sight so he couldn't shoot him. But he was confident that Jason had not survived.
In the depot, men were working on vehicles, welding plate metal to their frames over the windows to give them some semblance of armour. He headed to the office, where his boss was waiting. 'Boss' was a large brute of a man who had been a senior lieutenant to a local gang boss, until the comically named 1st Chester militia company had rolled over their base in Broughton. Since then they'd been preparing for a retaliation strike, and with Jason out of the way, they were ready.
"Did you get him?" asked Boss, looking Will over as he entered the office. Will nodded. Boss laughed heartily. "Excellent. Then we strike tonight, and take what is ours."
So yeah... shit just got real, and it's gonna get even more real next chapter :D
I hope you enjoyed the chapter, no idea when 17 is going to be out, probably sometime next week or the week after.
Anyway, here's a question for you guys... more Kohta flashbacks or no? Let me know
Have a good one
Please review/ favourite/ follow
Jango