Chapter 113 - Episode 0-1-3: A Story Where Those Who Run Are Viet Cong
When I woke up, the inside of the room was pitch black. Looking at my wristwatch, the time for sunset had long since passed.
Faint light from the ground was coming in through the window. Outside was in the same state as during the day—no, it was even worse. The number of people thronging the bridge had clearly increased since the daytime. Whether due to an accident or arson, a car left by the roadside was burning. It wasn't just the car; fires were breaking out in various parts of the town.
Despite being in such a state, the bridge was still blockaded. The number of JSDF members guarding the bridge had increased since the daytime, and they were bathing the gathered crowd in searchlight beams from watchtowers installed along the road. In front of the gate hurriedly attached to the bridge, a fire engine was spraying water at the thronging people.
Apparently, people had lost their patience and were trying to forcibly break through the bridge. Skirmishes were breaking out here and there between them and the JSDF members trying to prevent it. Toward the people trying to climb over the barricades and barbed wire by placing signboards found nearby on top of them, the water discharge from the fire engine made a direct hit. Several people were blown away by the powerful torrent of water, but the people still protested against the JSDF blockading the bridge and attempted to break through.
On the JSDF side, they seemed to be refraining from firing guns, perhaps to avoid heating up the riot further. Instead, they were using water discharge from fire engines and tear gas, and for those who still tried to approach, they brandished large shields and pushed them back.
A scene exactly like the footage of riots occurring in foreign countries that I had seen several times on television was unfolding before my eyes. Does it mean that even Japanese people, who are said to be diligent and act calmly while following rules even during disasters, can no longer say such things if their lives are exposed to danger?
"This is bad..."
I had planned to go down and cross to the other side of the river if the blockade of the bridge was lifted, but by all appearances, the JSDF had no intention of letting a single person cross the bridge. Besides, if I went down poorly now, there was a high possibility I wouldn't be able to move due to the rushing people.
That said, I couldn't stay holed up in this room forever. Just as I was thinking about what to do, a scream that drowned out the people's roars could be heard from below.
"H-help me!"
Saying so, a man desperately fleeing while pressing his hand to his neck is pounced upon by a woman from behind. If it had ended at her pinning the man to the ground, I might have been able to laugh it off as a lovers' quarrel or something. However, in the next moment, the woman bit into the man's neck and tore away his flesh. The man's shriek and the people's screams overlapped, and the crowd that had filled the front of the bridge suddenly opened up a space right there.
There was no doubt that woman was an infected. I had heard the gunshots of the JSDF finishing off infected from around town since the daytime, but had they finally come to the bridge? She must have been bitten in some other place and manifested symptoms right here on the spot. Beyond where the people were pushing and shoving to get even a little away from the infected, there was the figure of a JSDF member aiming a gun on a watchtower provided on the bridge.
"What are you doing? Fire!"
One of the crowd shouted, but the JSDF members merely aimed their guns and didn't pull the triggers. Naturally, since the crowd filled the space before their eyes. If they fired poorly and missed their aim, it was certain that casualties would occur from stray bullets. While the member on the watchtower was shouting something into his radio, the infected who had killed the man attacked the crowd.
There, finally, the member on the watchtower, who could overlook the road in front of the bridge, pulled the trigger. However, the fired bullet hit not the infected but a woman behind it, and the woman fell to the ground with a scream. The gunshots continued, and after causing two more cases of collateral damage, a bullet finally pierced the torso of the infected. A finishing gunshot was added to the infected writhing on the ground.
"Open the gate! Let us through the bridge!"
"Are you telling us to die?! How long do you intend to keep us in such a dangerous place?!"
However, the crowd did not settle down and seemed to be heating up even further. Even if it was to kill an infected, casualties had occurred from collateral damage. That fact must have amplified their anger. And the fear that if they stayed here, they would be killed by the infected or killed by the JSDF as collateral damage drove them.
"Stop! Stop!"
A person who seemed to be the commander with a megaphone was shouting, but the situation was already uncontrollable. The crowd rushed toward the gate blocking the bridge and the JSDF defending it. Along with voices seeking restraint, the gunshots of warning shots echoed, but that further fanned the crowd's fear and anger.
"Everyone, we're breaking through here!"
Someone shouted, and voices responding to it roared. Brandishing bats and square timbers they had apparently brought to protect themselves from the infected, or even with bare hands, the crowd rushed toward the JSDF deployed at the entrance to the bridge.
From the JSDF side, gas canisters and non-lethal rubber bullets were fired, but they had little effect on the crowd, which had turned into a single living thing. Toward the members who were hesitating whether to fire at humans who weren't even infected, the crowd that had climbed over the barricades and barbed wire attacked.
"Fire! Fire!"
One of the members shouted, and gunshots vibrated the air. However, the member who fired was the first to be targeted by the crowd. Beaten with bats, people surrounded the fallen member and tried to steal his gun. Toward them, gunfire was showered from the watchtowers and armored vehicles.
Perhaps there were those among the crowd who had hunting rifles, as along with a gunshot, a member who had been leaning out from the roof of an armored vehicle and firing collapsed into the vehicle while trailing a tail of blood from his neck. The enraged crowd swarmed the watchtowers and vehicles and began to shake them. Because they received the power of dozens of people, the makeshift watchtower collapsed, and the vehicle overturned. Furthermore, Molotov cocktails were thrown at several armored vehicles lined up in front of the gate, and the vehicles were enveloped in flames.
"Retreat! Retreat!"
With that voice, the members retreated toward the other side of the bridge through a small door made on the side of the gate while firing. Once the members who had been attacked by the crowd had mostly withdrawn behind the gate, the crowd began to strike the gate with the iron pipes and bats in their hands to try and break it. However, perhaps because it was built sturdily so as not to be broken through by the infected no matter what, it didn't seem like it would break with just a little bit of striking.
Then, suddenly, a bulldozer left abandoned on the riverbank began to move along with the heavy vibration sound of a diesel engine. The person sitting in the driver's seat was a young man. I don't know if he had worked at some construction site, but he likely knew how to operate a bulldozer. People quickly jumped out of the bulldozer's path, but several unfortunate people who couldn't escape were turned into squishy lumps of blood and meat under the crawler tracks along with shrieks.
However, the people seemed to even have a tendency to think that as long as they themselves weren't caught in it, it didn't matter if others died. Despite a person being run over before their eyes, the crowd was letting out cheers of joy toward the bulldozer advancing toward the gate.
"Every single one of them is crazy..."
Having witnessed that sight, only such words came out of my mouth. Everyone in this place right now, including me, is swallowed by madness.
But there's no way I shouldn't use this situation. It's clear that the infected have come as far as this town. If that gate is broken through, people will cross the bridge toward the safe town on the opposite bank. If I can mingle with that, I can also cross the bridge.
The bulldozer, advancing while crushing barbed wire and pushing aside barricades, slammed into the iron gate with force, and the roar vibrated the air. The gate, which seemed to have been made for the purpose of preventing breakthrough by humans and passenger cars, might not have anticipated destruction by heavy machinery. With the first strike, the gate was half-crushed, and when the bulldozer backed up and slammed into it once more, the gate opened inward from the hinge part. Immediately, the crowd ran through the gap in the opened gate toward the east across the bridge.
On the opposite bank, the retreated JSDF unit was aiming their rifles and waiting for the crowd.
"This is the final warning! Turn back immediately! If you advance any further, we will stop you with force!"
But the words did not reach the ears of the crowd, whose blood had rushed to their heads and who were dominated by fear and anger. Toward the crowd that still advanced, immediately after the voice over the megaphone saying "Fire!" was heard, the gunshots of a volley, different from the sporadic ones earlier, echoed throughout.
The members set up bipeds for machine guns and rifles on sandbags and the hoods of armored vehicles and began firing toward the approaching crowd. The fellows running in the front row fell after being showered with bullets all over their bodies, and those following followed a similar end.
There, finally having come to their senses, people began to turn back the way they came while screaming. However, bullets were showered mercilessly even on the backs of the fleeing people. Despite the crowd having lost their will to fight and running around in confusion, the firing continued.
"You bastard!"
The young man sitting in the driver's seat of the bulldozer advanced across the bridge while shouting so. Bullets were showered toward the bulldozer, but the raised dozer blade became a shield and protected the driver's seat. While echoing the high-pitched metallic sound of bullets being deflected, the bulldozer drove.
With small-caliber rifle or machine gun bullets, it seemed difficult to penetrate the sturdy dozer blade. Seeing the bulldozer advancing despite the storm of bullets, the people who had been fleeing began to run east across the bridge again. Using the driving bulldozer as a shield, the crowd advanced over the bridge where corpses were rolling.
However, in the next moment, the bulldozer was enveloped in flames along with an explosive sound. The sight of the people who were behind the bulldozer having their limbs scattered into pieces in the explosion was burned into my eyes.
Another explosion occurred in the central part of the bridge, and the densely packed humans were blown away. What appeared from the town on the opposite bank was a combat vehicle that looked like a tank turret had been placed on the roof of an armored vehicle. Every time the muzzle flash burst from its muzzle, the people on the bridge were blown into pieces.
Furthermore, several armored vehicles equipped with heavy machine guns on their roofs followed after that, and members leaning out from the roofs fired. The heavy machine gun bullets seemed to have considerable power, as people who took direct hits had their limbs blown off, or their bodies torn in half.
"It's already impossible..."
Now that it has come to this, it is impossible to forcibly break through the blockade and cross to the other side of the bridge. Even if they only had rifles, there's no way a crowd that is almost bare-handed can match the JSDF, which has even brought out tanks. The JSDF intends to let no one cross this bridge no matter what.
Then I must find a way to cross to the other side of the river by another route. Immediately after I thought so, this time screams could be heard from the opposite side—from the west. Not one or two, but a chorus of screams and voices seeking help drown out the clamor at the bridge.
"What is it this time...?"
Since the balcony faces east toward the river, I have to go out into the hallway of the apartment building to see the state of the west. When I opened the door and went out into the hallway to look around, fires were rising here and there. And on the road, the figures of people who had run from the west, the opposite direction of the river, could be seen. With desperate expressions, they frequently looked back behind them and ran toward the bridge while raising voices seeking help.
There were several human shadows chasing behind such people. One of the human shadows running while letting out a growl pounces on the back of a woman running on the road. That fellow, who pinned the woman down, bit into her nose with force.
A horrifying scream vibrated the air. Multiple human shadows swarm the woman whose facial flesh was torn away around her nose. From various parts of the town, beast-like roars that I had heard before were beginning to be heard.
A swarm of infected has finally rushed into this town as well. I felt a feeling as if the world before my eyes had turned pitch black.