Volume 1 - Chapter 11

Shopping Without Zombies

Ryotaro and I loaded up the van with every type of grocery item we could think of.

He moved the power drills to the front seat so they didn't get buried.

Aiko and Chiemi suggested more and more stuff, but they also helped carry some of the food instead of just barking orders.

We started with food items that had long shelf lives and didn't need a lot of cooking. I grabbed cans of Ajinomoto's tuna and corn, while Ryotaro stocked up on Nissin's instant ramen and Calbee's potato chips.

We also grabbed bags of Meiji's chocolate and Glico's Pocky sticks for quick sugar rushes. Not bothering with one and two at a time, we carried entire cases and flats of items.

Six people would go through calories in no time at all.

Before I moved on from the snack aisle I made sure to grab my favorite kelp. I wiped out the entire section of Miyako Konbu, the little red boxes now piled up in my shopping cart.

As we continued to fill the van, I spotted a section of pickled jar items. I grabbed entire cases. I had jars of Mizkan's pickled plums and Kyoko's pickled cucumbers, knowing they would add a nice tangy flavor to our meals.

Jugs of water and flavor drink mixes filled up multiple shopping carts. I knew the weight would be a lot for the van, but we needed to stay hydrated.

Ryotaro spotted a shelf of sake and grabbed a few bottles of Gekkeikan's traditional rice wine, saying they might come in handy for celebrations or just to take the edge off during tough times.

Not forgetting about Mio and her love for tea, I intended to fill up an entire shopping cart with several boxes each of almost every single tea variety I could find.

Mio’s face flashed in my mind, and I knew she would appreciate having a variety of teas to choose from. I started loading up the cart with boxes of different types of tea.

First, I grabbed several different senchas, a classic green tea that's popular. It was a great everyday tea, and basically the only one I knew anything about. Mio would appreciate it.

Next, I found a section of matcha, genmaicha, and hojicha, wiping off more than half the supply on the shelf.

I stopped reading the labels but kept grabbing more. It didn't matter. I had no idea what the difference was between them. All that mattered was that Mio would know, and then I would get to enjoy her expert tea making.

As we turned our attention to the fresh food section, I started feeling a sense of urgency. We needed to grab as much as we could before it all went bad.

Aiko took charge again, leading us through the aisles.

She grabbed a handful of fresh daikon radishes, their white flesh gleaming under the fluorescent lights. Aiko tossed them in the cart, followed by green onions and fresh ginger.

I could already imagine the delicious aroma of miso soup made with these ingredients, if we were able to cook them.

Chiemi focused on fruits. She carefully selected ripe persimmons, their orange skin glowing like little suns. She added them to our growing pile, along with crisp apples and juicy pears.

Ryotaro was all about the protein. He grabbed a few trays of sashimi-grade fish. He grabbed some bags of ice from the freezer to keep them cold.

Since we couldn't guarantee freshness, they would need to be cooked soon. It was unfortunate but this was our new reality.

He also added a few packs of thinly sliced beef and pork, perfect for hot pot or to add with noodles.

I focused on the vegetables, grabbing bags of mushrooms, bok choy, and napa cabbage. I also added enoki mushrooms, their long stems swaying as I placed them in the cart. After that it was all about strawberries and peaches for me.

It felt like I was breaking the law each time I pushed a cart full of groceries to the van without paying. It wasn't stealing because everyone who owned it before was now a brain dead zombie.

With the van packed nearly full, the last few things we focused on were frozen foods. We each grabbed a wide assortment of meals.

I didn't even pay attention to the brands or the flavors since I was getting tired of shopping and worried about zombies.

Aiko passed me on the aisle with her last cart of goods. “It’s getting full in the van, huh?”

“Yeah, this is probably too much already.”

She nodded. We both knew some of it would go bad before we could eat it, but it would do the same thing sitting there in the store. There was still a mountain of food for any other survivors that might need something.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

After we were all done I could barely close the van doors.

Chiemi turned to us. “There’s no room for whatever is behind that locked door at the station!”

“Oh, man-oh!” Ryotaro exclaimed. “She’s right-oh!”

I laughed, but it was a serious problem. If we found something good, the florist van was already full of groceries.

Aiko said, “we already need another vehicle!”

“Two more,” Chiemi corrected. “Remember, we will need one for the decoy plan, otherwise the zombies will follow us all the way to the house.”

I thought about the zombies and it reminded me I hadn't seen one in a while. Loading up on groceries had me distracted.

We looked across the intersection. There were now hundreds of zombies trying to figure out how they could eat whatever was making that music play from the car.

It was both sad and funny to me. Less than one full day earlier they were normal people. Some of them may have been on the verge of being just as brain dead, but they were still people.

Now, they were just stupid walking corpses with no souls. I had already killed four of them, so I hoped they had no souls left.

"That's a scary sight," Chiemi said.

Aiko shook her head, "yeah. We should get going before the crowd gets even bigger."

I said, "Ryotaro, let's find another van."

The old man immediately started looking through the parking lot with me.

I found two good vehicles but they were older models with key ignitions and no key, so I kept looking. I had no idea how to hotwire the thing, so it was pointless to think about how to get the nice ones.

"Maybe this one," Ryotaro pointed at a silver van. "The keys are here like the driver just ran away!"

I went over to the vehicle and looked in through the windows. It had two rows of seats, but they were empty.

"As long as it has fuel, it looks good," I said.

Chiemi agreed.

Aiko said, "as soon as you start it up, we'll probably start drawing attention to us."

It made sense. I looked around at the streets. Random zombies slowly wandered towards the huge crowd of them that was now gathering. They ambled from every direction.

A few had already spotted us, but they seemed conflicted between the horde of groaning zombies, or if they needed to come towards us.

"She's right," I said.

Ryotaro started the van's engine. It wasn't loud, but it was enough to convince a handful of zombies to turn our direction.

"Okay!" Aiko took command. "Follow us back to the police station!"

We all agreed on the plan and jumped into the vehicles.

I was driving the one packed full of groceries. Ryotaro let me pull out of the parking lot after Aiko, and the old man took up the rear. I was following the red car, and she avoided the zombie crowd by turning right.

Once we got away from the biggest threat I looked in my rearview and saw dozens of zombies trying to chase after Ryotaro's silver van.

They were too slow, and we got away from them after just a few blocks. The zombies gave up and went back to join the crowd at the florist shop.

We were cruising along nicely for a while. I had the pedal pushed down hard and the florist van struggled to chug along with the weight of our groceries.

I hoped I didn't have any problems going up the mountain.

A few minutes went by without incident. The road was narrow and abandoned cars lined the street. Thankfully we were able to drive around all the ones left oddly about. It wasn't so congested that they created true obstacles.

Off to my right near some houses I saw a dog running free. I wondered if the owner was still alive, and I guessed at the answer.

Not paying attention to the road, I nearly caused a huge problem.

I slammed on the brakes, heart racing as I watched Aiko's car come to an abrupt stop in front of me. The weight of the van made it difficult, but I managed to avoid rear-ending her.

The groceries in the back shifted, and items not stacked very well slammed against the back of my seat.

I looked to my left and saw the welfare center. The parking lot was teeming with hundreds of zombies.

The police station was right next to the welfare building, and I saw a crowd of the brain dead creatures swarming the place, surrounding a white car that was wrecked against the structure. It wasn't there before.

"Hell!" I yelled, my voice echoing in the van.

I was angry and frustrated. We went through all that trouble to get the power drills, and then it seemed like our plan was doomed.

I couldn't hear anything except the moans of the zombies, so I had no idea why they were swarmed at the police station around that white car. Their hunger for human flesh was loud, I knew that much.

Aiko's tires peeled out as she hit the gas again. I followed but couldn't peel out as the van struggled just to move forward. My mind raced to come up with a new plan.

Being in different vehicles, we couldn't communicate, and Aiko was in the lead, so I had to trust that she made a good choice. No problem. I knew she could do that.

We couldn't drive back the way we came, not with the horde of zombies blocking our path. We needed to find another way to get back into the police station. Hopefully Aiko's idea was to turn around someplace and do the radio trick.

I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Ryotaro's van approaching. He must have seen the zombies too. He slowed down but then he caught back up after running over some of the walking dead. I laughed at the gory scene and wondered if I was losing my sanity.

Dozens of zombies were giving chase. We were faster, but we needed enough distance so that when we came back they wouldn't follow.

Aiko took a left and then another left. I figured out quick enough what she was doing. It was a big circle.

If we got too far away from the station then the zombies wouldn't hear the radio. If we didn't get far enough away, we wouldn't have enough time to find a radio.

Aiko took one more left at the intersection ahead. Her little red car easily squeezed between a bunch of wrecked vehicles.

I didn't want to lose her, so I followed, unsure if I could navigate the van between the piled-up cars. As long as I didn't get stuck, it didn't matter.

The florist van was wider than Aiko's sports car. I slowed down and turned the wheel carefully, trying to fit between the wrecked vehicles.

I was almost through when a horrible screeching noise slid down the passenger side of the van. I was scraping along the wrecked cars. I floored the pedal and powered my way through.

Behind me I heard Ryotaro's van smash into one of the vehicles. I was lucky I made it through the jammed up wreckage. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw Ryotaro forcing his way through.

The engine of his van squealed as he bounced between them, metal against metal. The panels on his vehicle ripped open, but that didn't matter.

He finally cleared the wreckage just as Aiko pulled into Kanonji Shinkin Bank parking lot and stopped near some other vehicles. I drove in and stopped right behind her.

It was a good location only one block from the police station, but we needed to hurry.

Aiko and Chiemi jumped out and both started looking for unlocked vehicles. I watched as they jiggled the handles on a dozen cars and Ryotaro pulled the silver van into the lot.

While I was looking back at him, Chiemi found the winning car. I heard Song of the Dead by Kana-Boon blaring from the radio when she turned it up high.

If that didn't get the zombies dancing, I didn't know what would.