Fujimi High School

0647 April 16, 20xx

Day 2

Wolf awoke with a start, not knowing where he was. It took him a moment to realize that he was in the back of the truck, Kat curled up against him and still sleeping. He glanced at his watch, and listened. There was no noise at all. He lay there for a few minutes, until the aches started to hit him. Very carefully he shifted Kats' head to the roll of cardboard and shop coats and quietly got up. Man, was he stiff and sore. Thankfully he had some Tylenol in his bag, so he pulled out a couple of T-3s. Then it dawned on him that the food and water was in the cab of the truck and he never had been able to swallow pills without a good slug of water. Shit.

He walked to the back end of the box and put the ladder over the side. A couple of minutes later he'd taken the pills and was heading to the washroom for a quick wash and a leak. Having done that he put his ear to the lobby door, and listened. No sound. He debated opening up the door to see what was out there but figured it wasn't worth the risk. Better to get Kat up, have something to eat and see about getting the truck started.

He walked back to the Komatsu, and climbed up the ladder. He knelt down beside Kat and gently shook her. As her eyes opened, she smiled at him, and slowly worked herself into a seated position. She groaned from the stiffness and he handed her a couple of Tylenol and a bottle of water.

"What time is it?" she asked as she sipped the water.

"Just after 7. The sun should be up now. I checked the lobby, no sound. I can't hear a damn thing other than the hum of the neon lights. If there is anything out there, its dead quiet. How you feeling?"

"I'm stiffer than hell. It's been a long time since I slept on anything other than a nice soft bed. But I expect it will go away once I get moving. How about you? You get any sleep?"

"Yeah, maybe a couple of hours." He moved behind her and told her to take off her jacket. That done he started to massage her neck and shoulders.

"Oh that feels good... Nice to see you still have the touch."

He continued, then had her stand up so he could work down her back. After 10 minutes of this she turned to him and said "Ok now it's your turn." He sat down and she returned the favour. Between that and the Tylenol they were in reasonable shape after an hour and some breakfast.

"So what's the game plan today? Besides running over the critters on our way to the harbour?" Kat said as she finished working his back muscles and he turned towards her.

"First we get the compressor going so I can finish the lug nuts. Then we start up the truck. Once she is warmed up, we open the door and head out. I don't really remember how I got here, I was too busy playing tourist. So you'll have to navigate for us. I want to get to the Tokonosu Yacht Club. That's where Sabre Dance is."

"Do you remember if you crossed a bridge over the river on your way here? Kat asked.

"No, we didn't. I remember roughly from my chart that the harbour is on this side of the river, and at the outskirts of town on the south side. The club looks to be a working stiffs' club, not fancy, and in the docks area. It's right across from the commercial fishing docks. I radioed that other one on the mouth of the river and their prices were astronomical compared to this one."

"Good. I know the one you are talking about. Mr Sakura has a boat there and he took several of us teachers out sailing last fall. I can get us there. No problem." She said with a sure look in her eyes.

"Got any last minute questions or ideas?" he asked

"No."

"OK then, let's get this show on the road then. Grab the operators manual and climb into the cab. I'll go fire up the compressor."

As she turned to the bench for the manual, he walked over to the main compressor and hit the switch. Immediately the big three phase motor started up and the compressor started to build up pressure. He'd already set up the hose, the impact wrench and the proper socket, so it was a matter of waiting for the compressor to reach maximum and go into maintenance mode. He turned towards the Komatsu, and climbed aboard. He turned the key and the electrical system came to life. He then pushed the starter button and was rewarded with the chugging sound of a big diesel coming to life. Once she fired he let her warm up, watching the gauges. Temperatures and pressures came up to spec quickly, and he left the wheel to go back down and do up the nuts. The compressor had by this time reached max pressure, and it was less than 5 minutes work to get them all snug. He dropped the wrench, and walked over to the bay door. He could now hear moans and thumps as the critters came at the door and ran into it. He pulled the locking bars away from the rails and the door was now ready to open.

Back in the cab he did a final check on the gauges, and was satisfied. He turned to Kat, and told her to open the bay door. She scooted out onto the boarding platform, hit the jury rigged switch and scooted back into the cab, locking the door as she went.

The Komatsu was parked nose into the bay, so the door was behind them. The two of them watched in the rear view mirrors as the bay door slowly rose, and they could see a couple of dozen pairs of feet, then legs, torsos and finally heads. The wave broke and the critters flooded into the garage. It was do or die time.

Wolf dumped the parking brake and shifted the transmission to R1. The rear view camera came on and he saw the critters flowing to either side as they headed towards the engine noise. Letting off the brake, he slowly started backwards out of the bay. A couple of critters were knocked to the ground and disappeared beneath the lower edge of the rear camera's screen. As the front of the truck started to back away, the critters gathered round it turned to follow. Kat kept an eye on the boarding steps but so far not one had shown any sign of recognizing it as a way up. They didn't seem to be aware of anything other than the roar of the diesel, once again proving they were only interested in sound.

He backed up a good 75 feet out past the bay door. The critters piled up round the front of the truck. Reaching for the gear shift he moved it to D1. Cranking the wheel hard over, the body of the truck twisted on itself, and he let the brakes go again. The truck started forward, driving into the crowd. Those to the side were swept off, those to the front ended up going down and under. He was pretty sure they had crushed some but the big truck didn't seem to even shudder. At something like 56 thousand pounds empty weight, the bodies would have been squashed to paste. He was glad he didn't have to see them.

Gradually he worked his way up to D5. The truck rolled on at about 25 miles an hour, passing the end of the building and then turning to the parking lot. All around them critters turned to the sound and started shuffling towards the moving earth mover.

Wolf turned to Kat. "Anything you want from your car?"

"No, we can leave it." She said as she fiddled with the radio. There was nothing coherent on any frequency, just broken bits in Japanese that she couldn't make out. She turned the radio off.

"Head out the gate and follow the road around until we hit the first intersection."

"Aye Aye, Bwana, out da gate, follow da road." He grinned at her. She elbowed him.

"Oww, what was that for?"

For being a wise ass." Kat was still very afraid, though it had gotten better now that they were moving.

"Sorry. I just figured some levity would go good now. We are in good shape, on the road and in a vehicle which will make this a piece o' cake. Don't worry Kat, in a couple hours we'll be safe aboard the boat and they can't touch us there."

The roads were empty. As they cleared the trees at the top of the hill that Fujimi High was perched on, the view opened up. They looked out of a city in deep trouble. Wolf counted at least 40 major fires before he gave up. More than a hundred columns of smoke rose all over the city, on both sides of the river. Here and there a car or cars sat abandoned on the side of the road. Some of them had their doors open, blood spattered around. Some of the buildings on either side of the road stood with shattered windows. They saw not a soul as they descended into the coastal area. Here and there they passed shambling critters, occasionally a bunch of them. All of them turned towards the sound of the diesel. None of them had a chance to chase them, but more than a few heard them coming and moved out into the street in front of them. The big Komatsu didn't even shimmy a bit. They disappeared under the nose, and that was it for them.

As they paralleled the river, they looked over at the bridge about a half mile ahead. Here they saw the first signs of life. The bridge was jammed with cars and other vehicles, gridlocked in place. They could see people trying to get across, fighting to get to the other side and possible safety, before the critters bringing up the rear could get at them. He saw what looked like JSDF troops standing on the roofs of the cars, spraying the mass of dead with rifle and machine gun fire. Every few seconds a flash of light and smoke as grenades were used. It also appeared that the barrier at the far end had mortars emplaced, as they seemed to be pounding the bridge approach in an effort to stem the flow. It didn't appear to be doing any good as the critters surged forward through the explosions, up the approach and onto the bridge itself. They engulfed the cars as they pushed ahead to get to the sound of dinner. Some troopers retreated in time, managing to jump from car to car and get out but most of them waited too long to run. They died trying to save the civvies.

"Jeezuz there must be thousands of them now." Wolf cursed.

"No, more like hundreds of thousands. The city had 2.4 million people living here. How many do you think got away? You saw how rapidly it spread at the school. I imagine the down town core was a complete slaughter. All those workers in tower offices, with only a few ways out? A few of those things get into a building and it would be a nonstop feeding frenzy. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide."

Wolf checked his watch. They'd been on the road for half an hour now. He figured and Kat concurred that they'd hit the docks in another 45 minutes unless they had to make any major detours. So far they'd not hit any major blockages. What little they had run into was handled by the crudely welded bumper, and the cars pushed off to the side. But as they passed through the city core that might change.

Sure enough, as they came round the corner of an office tower, they found the road blocked pretty badly. Wolf pulled up to a stop. Within a minute, the first critter put in an appearance, shuffling out of the lobby of the building. Meanwhile he studied the pile of cars, trying to determine the best way to push through or whether to back up and go around another way. In a very short time, they had drawn a crowd of critters. Kat was starting to look panicky. He reached over and touched her arm. She turned to look at him.

"Steady Kat, nothing is gonna hurt you. I promise." Turning back to the job at hand, Wolf put the Komatsu back into D1 and slowly advanced towards the first car. Catching it on the corner of the bumper, it pivoted sideways and then he used the articulated steering to shove it off to one side. As it went, it in turn spun others around. Backing up he did the same to the one beside it, going in the opposite direction. He pushed it as far as he could, bashing it into the wall of the office tower.

As he did this, the critters kept trying to attack the truck, accomplishing nothing other than getting themselves crunched under the wheels or between the bumper and the cars that were slowly giving way. So far not a one of them had even tried to climb the ladders on either side, not seeing them and only following the roar of the diesel as it moved back and forth.

Eventually he managed to poke a hole through the mass of cars without any of them blowing up, (he'd smelled gas a few times from ruptured tanks) and they carried on down the road. Another half an hour, punching through one more pig pile of cars, and they could see the tsunami wall off in the distance. As with most coastal towns and cities in Japan, there was a 10-15 meter high wall between the harbour proper and the rest of the city. (A lot of them had been retrofitted with an additional 5 meters after the March 2011 tsunamis over flowed the 10 meter walls in a lot of places). It ran from the hills to the north and south, along the waterfront, set back a hundred meters or so. At the river it turned westward up both banks, until it petered out when the surrounding land reached a high enough level.

The wall was breached in several places by large steel gates which could be closed in the event of a tsunami. He expected them to be open but perhaps this area might be sealed off. It was a ready made fortress, and all they would have to do is get the gates closed, and then clear out the critters that were trapped. If they succeeded, they would have a land base, with facilities to handle a fair number of survivors. Anyway it was something to think about.

Ten minutes later, the Komatsu pushed a couple of cars away that had been abandoned in front of one of the gates. Backing up from that minor task, Wolf put it back into drive, and diesel snorting the beast entered the yacht club parking lot. As they moved towards the breakwater, he was pleased to see Sabre Dance waiting patiently. As they drove round the club area, looking for the gates that needed to be closed, he saw several boats at the moorings that had people in them, all waving wildly. The yard itself had perhaps 30-35 critters wandering around, all of them moving towards the big Komatsu.

After driving along the wall from one end of the yacht club compound to the other end of the public marina compound beside it, they found that there were 4 gates to be closed. Wolf checked the fuel gauge, they still had plenty. He headed back out through the nearest gate, and drove along the perimeter heading towards the river. The gate controls were located on both sides of the wall, and the wall also had numerous ladders on both sides to allow people to enter and exit if the gates were closed. They determined that the best way to secure the area would be to wipe out every ladder on the outside, and then close the gates one by one.

They headed to the south end of the wall, up onto the hill there then turned and drove close along the wall, scraping off every ladder he came across. They did this all the way to the river. When they got there, he looked up the length of concrete wall paralleling the river, and saw more of them, and so they drove half way back into the hills, back towards the school, letting the truck turn the ladders into scrap.

Turning back towards the harbour, he made a point of crunching any critters that had come to the road, attracted by the roar of the diesel. An hour later, they had closed the gates one by one, and returned to the yacht club. That last gate ground shut and they looked round for more critters. They saw about 20- 25 making their way slowly towards the truck, so once again they went into a circle. By 1300, the compound had been cleared of the walking dead.

Wolf moved the Komatsu over to the breakwater, and shut her down. He grinned at Kat.

"Told you we'd be OK."

"I know and you proved it too. Thank you for getting us out of there." With that she leaned over and kissed him. He put his arm around her and kissed her back. He reached up and stroked her cheek, grinned again, and said "Come on. Let's go see about lunch. I'm starving."