Author's Note: I do not own Another or Eternal Darkness. Another is property of Yukito Ayatsuji and PA Works. Eternal Darkness is property of Silicon Knights and Nintendo.
Chapter 2: City of the Dead
Kyouichi Sakakibara and Mei Misaki turned a corner in the road and immediately, their eyes were assaulted by two bright lights.
"Freeze, drop your weapons!", A male voice ordered.
"Don't shoot!", Kyouichi said, throwing his hands into the air.
"They're not one of them", the other voice, also male, said, "You can come over here".
Kyouichi blinked, the blur in his vision from the intense light fading away to reveal two police cars with flashing lights blocking the road into town. Standing behind them were two police officers, one of them armed with a submachine gun Kyouichi recognized from a first person shooter video game as an MP5. The other officer carried a semi automatic shotgun that Kyouichi thought was called a Benelli M3… or was it an M4?... Both weapons had tactical flashlights attached under the barrel.
About two dozen bodies lay strewn about the ground in front of the police cars, some of them human, though something was off about them. It was Mei who noticed it.
"These bodies", she said, "I see the color of death on them too brightly, like they have died twice".
"I don't know what you mean by color of death", the police officer with the MP5 said, "But we've been attacked by waves of what look almost like… zombies… for the last half hour or so… they're all decayed… they shouldn't move… but they do…"
"And there are those things that look like praying mantises", the other officer said, "and those giant things". As he spoke, the police officer motioned to several bodies of the praying mantis-like creatures and a the remains of a single large creature lying face down on the pavement, riddled with bullets.
"We've seen the mantises", Kyouichi said, "But I thought that big thing was a pile of bodies or something. Any idea what the hell's going on here?"
"No idea", the police officer with shotgun said, "We've tried getting into contact with other police departments and the JSDF for backup, but the radio is getting this strange interference. Cell phones don't work either."
"As far as we know, we could be the last people still alive in Yomiyama.", the other officer added, "From what we saw driving out here, in only gets worse in town, more of these things. Seems to be concentrated on the north end. If I had to guess, I'd say these things were coming from somewhere around there."
Suddenly, Mei said, "More of them, behind you". The officers turned to see a group of four "zombies" advancing on them, their bodies smelling of decay, their bodies a blood red as though all the skin had been peeled off.
The officer with the shotgun fired a shot, blowing away the half-decayed neck of a zombie blowing off its head. The zombie, however kept moving, though it flailed its arms about wildly, unable to see, hear, or smell its prey. A second shotgun shell to the torso blew the zombie in half, finally sending it falling to the floor.
Meanwhile, the police officer with the MP5 riddled another zombie with bullets until if fell to floor, dead. Within a few seconds later, all four of their undead attackers had been returned to death.
The police officers reloaded their weapons. As the officer with the MP5 finished reloading, however, the thunderous footsteps shook the ground. A creature about two and half meters tall, with arms and legs as thick as tree trunks, with razor sharp claws walked out from behind a house about twenty meters beyond the police roadblock. The monster was covered in scales of the same blood red color as the "zombies" and the "mantises". Most disturbingly, it seemed to have three heads.
The two police officers fired on the creature that stood before them, but the only got off a few shots before the monster fired off two red beams of energy, striking both of them with a thunderous roar. The two police officers fell to the ground, with no marks on their bodies, but smell of burning flesh filled the air, as though they had been electrocuted.
Kyouichi sprinted over to one of the police officers and grabbed the MP5 and took aim through the red dot sight attached above the receiver, placing the dot over the creature's body. Kyouichi pressed down the trigger. Until this moment, Kyouichi did not realize just how loud a real gun actually was. The chattering of fully automatic fire drowned out all other sounds as Kyouichi pulled the weapon down a hard as he could, struggling the control the muzzle climb.
The monster roared in anger and pain as the bullets impacted all over its body, charging at Kyouichi in a furious rage. Between the chattering of his MP5 firing, Kyouichi heard a series of loud bangs add to the cacophony of his own weapon- Mei had picked up the shotgun, pointed it at the monster, and squeezed the trigger. Mei recoiled, feeling the gun kick back more than she had expected. Unphased, Mei placed the gun against her shoulder and fired again, two more times.
It was over in less than two seconds, but it seemed like an eternity. As Kyouichi's gun finally fell silent, replaced by the click of an empty chamber, the three-headed monstrosity fell to its knees, before finally landing face down on the pavement, dead.
"Mei!", Kyouichi said, "Are you alright?"
"Fine", Mei said, before adding, "You have any idea how to reload this thing?".
"I think you do it like this", Kyouichi said, taking the a shotgun shell from the dead police officer's belt and loading it into the loading gate of the shotgun, red end first.
"Thanks", Mei said, loading the next shell herself, until the weapon would not take any more shells. As Mei reloaded, Kyouichi fiddled with magazine of his MP5, finding the magazine release in front of the magazine after a couple seconds. He removed the empty magazine and took a fresh one off the fallen police officer's belt.
"We should take the rest of these", Kyouichi said, removing the police officer's belt, with contained four more magazines, as well as Smith and Wesson revolver in a holster, and a nightstick, before he replaced his own belt with the officer's holster belt. Mei did the same.
Kyouichi walked over to the place where he had dropped his pickaxe and picked it up, along with Mei's metal spike.
"It think it's a good idea to keep the melee weapons handy, in case we run out of ammo.", Kyouichi said, loading his weapons into one of the police cars, which still had its light flashing and the engine running. Kyouichi climbed into the driver's seat of the police car.
"Are you sure you can drive this thing?", Mei asked.
"I think I can figure it out", Kyouichi replied as he depressed what he hoped with the clutch and pulled back on the gearshift. He then turned the steering wheel and depressed the gas pedal. The car lurched backwards, off the road and onto the shoulder.
"OK", Kyouichi said, "That's reverse".
After fiddling with the gearshift for a few seconds, he managed to get the car into first gear and moving forward.
"Kyouichi", Mei said, "You're driving towards the town"
"That cop said theses things seemed to be concentrated on the north side of town. I bet they're coming from Yomiyama North. If we get to the school, we can put a stop to this. The police are scattered and probably dead, and we can't get into contact with the SDF. If anyone's going to stop this, it has to be us!"
Mei thought about it for a second. Kyouichi was right. If they got out of town and contacted the JSDF, who would believe them that their town was overrun with monsters. They'd likely be arrested for stealing the guns and the police car. By the time the authorities found out the truth, who knows how far the darkness that emanated from Yomiyama would spread.
Kyouichi turned a corner, running down one of those mantis-like creatures, before driving down a hill past a row of houses, before slamming on the brakes to stop from crashing into the house at the bottom of the hill. Kyouichi made a sharp turn onto the main road, driving towards Yomiyama North.
Suddenly, the car stalled. Worse still, about five zombies slowly advanced from the buildings on either side of the road. Mei grabbed her shotgun and opened the door, before pointing the shotgun directly at the nearest zombie, a few meters away.
Mei squeezed the trigger, firing off a shot that blew away the zombie's head and riddled its torso, The zombie fell the floor. Mei fired a second shotgun blast at the next nearest zombie. It too fell to the ground. Then, something unexpected happened. The zombie Mei had shot a few seconds ago got back up.
Unphased, Mei shot the undead creature again, blowing away most of the putrid flesh on its torso. This time, the zombie stayed. Mei fired another shotgun blast at the downed zombie, making sure it was dead.
As Mei shot another zombie with two blasts- to make sure it stayed dead, Kyouichi fiddled with the ignition and the gearshift, trying to get the car back into gear. Suddenly, Kyouichi heard a gunshot that was not fired by Mei.
A police officer armed with a revolver took aim at the car, his last shot flying just inches from Kyouichi's face, shattering the side window. A piece of glass scraped the side of Kyouichi's face. Thinking quickly, Kyouichi grabbed his MP5 from below the seat with one hand and steadied into on the windowsill, before firing a burst of about five or six rounds.
Kyouichi's aim staggered slightly as one of the hot shell casings hit is foot, but nonetheless, the torso of his attacker was riddled with bullets. Sure enough, one of those mantis-like creatures burst from the chest of the police officer, its host body too damaged to be of any use.
Kyouichi fired a burst of two rounds at the mantis-like creature, only for it to dive out of the way at superhuman speed. It had literally dodged the bullets.
"You've got to be shitting me!", Kyouichi said.
Suddenly, a shotgun blast was heard. The creature tried to dodge the projectiles, but it could not dodge all of the shot, two of them hitting its torso and one embedding itself in its head. The monster fell to the pavement.
As Mei killed the monster that had possessed the police officer, Kyouichi finally got the car working again. Mei jumped into passenger seat and slammed the door shut as the car took off, making its way through the streets to Yomiyama North Middle School, plowing through and zombies or other monsters that got in the way.