Volume 1 - Chapter 36

The Anger

Speedy boy rose up from his kill, eyes locked on me.

I knew running was futile, but I had no other options. I turned back towards the house and ran, already exhausted.

My legs and lungs burned with each step. My out of shape stride was heavy-footed as I hobbled across the field.

I glanced over my shoulder and saw the fast bastard was gaining on me. His movements were fluid and graceful, like a predator stalking its prey.

I had no doubt I was about to suffer the same fate as Chiemi.

As I thought of Aiko, my last breaths came in ragged gasps. My heart pounded in my chest and my legs started cramping. I had seconds left at best, but I pushed on, stumbling, hunched over, arms dangling like noodles, as fast as I could manage.

Twenty yards from the driveway.

Gunshots.

I tried turning to look, lost my balance, and ate a face-full of dirt.

More gunshots in quick bursts.

I heard a thump on the ground nearby, followed by the voice of a strange man in pain. "UUMPH! Damnit!"

My face burned. I scrunched it up and wiped dirt away, eyes watering, mouth full of soil. I couldn't wipe the granules away, and it hurt more each time I blinked.

"Hachiro?" I heard Aiko from a distance.

“Here!” I spit out dirt when I shouted.

I tried looking, but the pain was too much, vision mired by soil in the eyelids.

An unknown voice groaned, "I'm gonna kill you!"

I turned towards it, hearing someone crawling and stumbling to me. Maybe he'd been hit and slowed, but he lived.

"Speedy boy?"

More groaning and crawling but no response from the killer.

I clamored up to my feet and stumbled away.

The angered voice yelled, "Get back here!"

"Hachiro!" I heard Aiko, "run!"

I tried looking in her direction, not knowing how far she was. The world was blurred, my eyelids sandpaper.

I kept them closed.

"I can't see anything!"

"It's behind you! Keep going!"

I put one foot in front of the other, only half-able to see where I went. My tired legs swung one footstep after another. I rolled an ankle, wincing in pain, but I pushed forward anyway.

The ground shifted to pavement and I knew I had found the road.

Aiko told Mio to get in the house. More gunshots. Then Aiko cursed. It told me all I needed to know. She had missed.

Two bodies collided and I heard Aiko groan, then a scuffle. When I turned to look, all I saw were two blurs in a heaping mess near me, wrestling on the ground.

Aiko cried out for help.

My stomach dropped, new worst fear realized. I couldn't let her die. I stumbled towards them. Speedy boy wasn't going to kill her. I couldn't let that happen.

I kept moving, legs shaking, and fell in a ditch.

"Hachiro!" Aiko screamed.

Her fear was the most horrible sound I had ever heard in my life.

A different voice. "NO!"

Looking up from the ground, I saw what looked like Yuki. She stomped by me, headed towards Aiko and speedy boy.

It couldn't be. Yuki had died.

The fighting stopped. That fast bastard stood up from Aiko and paused long enough for her to break away from him.

"It's about time!" The strange man said.

A new fight started between Yuki and speedy boy. They were going fist to fist at one another and she was holding her own.

Aiko crawled over to me. She was injured. "Hachiro…"

"My queen…"

We helped each other to our feet and limped towards the house.

"He got me…" Aiko winced between breaths. "The thing bit me like… like four times!"

I shook my head. "Doesn't matter!"

My only thought was getting us to safety.

Aiko and I hobbled together towards the house, our bodies battered and bruised. I didn't care if she was injured by speedy boy. It would be hours before she turned into whatever Yuki had become.

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We had time.

Making it to the porch at the house, we finally sat for a minute and caught our breaths. Ryotaro opened the door and we stumbled in, falling to the floor.

Mio was freaking out, her eyes wide with fear as she took in our condition. The boy was fearful but stayed in the corner, calm, his eyes darting between us and the door.

Ryotaro went for a first aid kit.

"I'm sorry!" Mio cried.

I said nothing in response.

Ryotaro returned with a case full of basic medical supplies and began tending to Aiko's wounds.

"I'm so sorry," Mio kept going on.

"You could help!" I yelled. "Water! Get some water!"

Mio was crying.

Ryotaro already had some I didn't know about. He poured half a bottled water on Aiko's arm and then handed me the other half.

I poured it over my eyes and scrubbed them clean with dirty hands. It hurt like nobody's business and I screamed in agony, tears flowing harder each time I sent a finger back and forth across the eyeball.

More water.

Finally I could somewhat see, but I had a massive pain right behind my blurred eyes. There was no doubt I had scratched them to no end.

But I could see again, barely.

I scrunched my eyelids closed and open several times, focusing on the old man taking care of Aiko.

She was on the floor, shirt shredded to pieces. Gash marks from speedy boy's nasty fingernails covered her stomach and arms. She had multiple bite marks.

"I shot him," Aiko said, "I shot him once."

I leaned over Aiko, heart heavy with guilt and worry. Her beautiful face was marred by sweat and dirt, but her eyes still held that fierce determination I had come to admire.

She winced as Ryotaro cleaned her wounds, his hands steady and sure. He cut bandage strips with precision, disinfecting and covering each gash with care.

"I got him," Aiko repeated, her voice strained. "I got a hit in."

"Good."

I didn't know how to respond. She was injured, possibly dying, and all she could focus on was that she had managed to land a blow on that monster. I swallowed hard, trying to push down the lump in my throat.

Mio kept apologizing, tears streaming down her face. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."

I blamed her for all this. If she hadn't been so careless, so stupid, we wouldn't have been spread out and weak. We wouldn't have been easy targets for that thing.

All of this had escalated in a matter of minutes because she’d split us apart as a group.

Ryotaro worked quickly, his brow furrowed in concentration. He cleaned the gashes on Aiko's arms and stomach, cutting away the torn fabric of her shirt to get a better look.

Each time she winced, he paused, waiting for her to give him the okay to continue.

Mio's sobs filled the room, a constant reminder of the mistake she had made. I clenched my fists, trying to push down the anger that was building inside me.

"We'll get through this," I whispered to Aiko, hoping that somehow, some way, it would be true. "Together or never."

She smirked. "Together or never. Did you see Yuki?"

I nodded. "Yes."

"She's fighting him. She's fighting that… that thing, Hachiro."

“I know. I saw that.”

“Isn’t that cool?” She asked. “Yuki’s alive and she is… she's fighting for us.”

My mind raced with more thoughts than I could process.

Yuki had come back to life. Haru was right all along, and I was feeling a mix of confusion, fear, and awe about it. She'd been dead for too long for this to be possible.

Too many thoughts swirled in my head, making it hard to focus on anything else.

Aiko lay before me, her body covered in wounds. The sight of her like this made my heart ache. I wanted to do something more to help her, but I couldn't rewind the time or take her place.

Ryotaro worked diligently on finishing the makeshift bandages, his hands steady and sure. He seemed to be the only one who kept himself together in this chaotic situation.

Mio's frantic crying filled the room, grating on my nerves. I felt angry at her presence. This was all her fault. If she hadn't been so careless, so stupid, we wouldn't be in this mess.

I took deep breaths, trying to control my emotions before I did something I might regret.

Haru sat quietly in the corner. He seemed calm considering the circumstances. I wondered what was going through his mind. He'd been right the whole time.

I clenched my fists, trying to push down the anger building inside me. I knew I had to focus on the present. I took a deep breath and tried to clear my own mind, pushing aside the anger I had towards Mio.

It didn’t work.

Rage! This was what it felt like!

I had never experienced such a sudden onset of emotion that made me lose all grip on reality.

Mio was going to die for this!

I looked towards the petite woman and stood. "This is your fault!"

"NO!" she screamed, backing away.

"Hachiro…" Aiko begged.

The beautiful woman pulled me back to my senses, and I looked down. My hands were clenched into fists, mouth locked tight, eyes furrowed.

I hadn’t realized I was huffing loudly.

But Aiko stopped me with one gentle hand on my leg. She looked up, afraid of the way I was behaving, and I knew instantly it was too much.

"Hachiro… It's okay."

I couldn't let my anger towards Mio consume me. Not now, and not when Aiko needed me.

I exhaled slowly, trying to release my tension.

Her eyes were filled with fear. They had concern for what I might do. I knew she didn't want me to be the alpha or the jock type. She wanted me to be the man she had come to love, the man who would protect her and those around him.

I let out another slow breath, and then another, unclenching my fists. I wouldn't forgive Mio for what she had done, but I wouldn't take it any further.

Aiko was alive, at least for now, and that was the only thing that mattered.

Turning my attention to Ryotaro's bandage work, I looked over the beautiful baseball star. She had gone through so much in a matter of minutes, and yet she was still here, still fighting.

I felt a surge of love and admiration for her, and I knew I would do anything to keep her safe. I would do anything she needed me to do, and I would act appropriate and calm for her.

Only for Aiko.

I knelt down beside her, taking her hand in mine. "I'm sorry."

Aiko gave me a weak smile. "It's okay. I know you're just trying to protect me."

Mio was still sobbing in the corner, her guilt and fear palpable. She was suffering, and that was plenty to satisfy me. She deserved her self-loathing, at least for now.

I shifted my focus back to Aiko and my own failures. "I’m sorry. I let you down. I let Chiemi get killed and I couldn’t protect you when you needed it most.”

Aiko shook her head, wincing in pain.

“No. We all failed. That thing obviously followed us back to the house and waited. It was watching for the… the right moment to attack.”

It made sense. I thought back to the scene at the museum parking lot. Speedy boy was smart, and now I knew he could speak.

I wondered why he wanted to kill us so badly. That part didn’t make any sense. He wasn’t eating us. He was enjoying himself. It was a sport.

Aiko asked, “Where is she?”

“Yuki?”

She nodded.

“I don’t know.”

“We have to help her,” Aiko said, struggling to sit up on her own. “We can’t let her down again.”

I tried helping Aiko stand, but she was independent and far more capable than I was. She stood to face me, clothes ragged.

My body still ached from fatigue, my eyes burning, and muscles tightening into cramps.

Aiko was everything I wasn’t, and I loved her so much. She would always be beautiful to me, even if she became a zombie.

I asked, “What are you suggesting?”

“Let’s reload.”

She pointed to some of the weapons and ammunition we had stashed inside. The little pile was everything we had left. At the rate we’d used it up, this would be our last time using the guns.

“I’m a horrible shot,” Ryotaro said, “and an even worse doctor. This might not be the best plan-oh, Aiko.”

I turned to the old man. "You have a better plan-oh?”

He looked up at me, his eyes filled with concern. “No.”

“Then it’s the best we have at the moment.”

I pointed to the window, to where we had left Yuki outside fighting with the other zombie. “Yuki’s the only reason we're alive right now. I say let’s do this!”

Aiko was already grabbing two rifles from the corner. She picked up two magazines and tossed one to me.

“Thanks to Chiemi, the magazines are already filled.”

When she handed me the rifle I snapped it in with ease and heard a click. Aiko did the same, then pulled back on the lever to load the first round.

I imitated the action. She smiled, then looked out the window and into the distance.

Turning to look with her, all I could see was the long sloped yard of her mother’s property and that distant tree line where Chiemi had died.

“You ready?” She asked me.

“No,” I said, “but I will do what is necessary for you and the people I love.”

We kissed. I knew it might be the last kiss we ever have.