Chapter 132 - Chapter 115: A Predator's Tale
How much time had passed since he lost consciousness? The moment he opened his eyes, he was assaulted by a dull ache in his head and a sharp, lancing pain in his ankle.
The world reflected upside down was blurred and swaying unsteadily. Realizing that it was his own body that was swaying, the boy finally remembered that he had been knocked out by a trap. About two meters below, he could see the cracked asphalt of the road surface.
The sun was hidden by the highway overpass covering what was overhead—though it was more accurate to say beneath his feet now—but the outside was brighter than it had been before he fainted. He managed to lift his arms, which were hanging toward the ground, and checked the time on his wristwatch. Only about an hour had passed since he lost consciousness.
Tightened around the boy's right leg was a wire about one centimeter thick, extending toward the horizontal bar of a light pole. It seemed that the moment his foot stepped into a puddle, some kind of fastener released and snagged his leg; simultaneously, a weight or something tied to the other end of the wire must have dropped, pulling the prey upward. Thanks to the boots covering his ankles, the wire wasn't biting directly into his flesh, but he had still been constricted for an hour. Moreover, because his entire body weight was concentrated on that single right leg, his limb was screaming in agony.
"Shit..."
The curse escaped his lips involuntarily. Fortunately, because he had secured his backpack and firearms firmly to his body with slings and buckles to prevent them from falling, nothing seemed to have dropped to the unreachable ground.
He scanned the surroundings, confirming no human figures were in sight. A trap designed for capture rather than killing meant that someone would inevitably come to check if prey had been caught. He didn't know when the people who set the trap would return. He had to leave this place quickly before then.
The wire was thick; it didn't look like something that could be cut with mere pliers. If he struck it with the blade of an axe capable of cutting metal chains, he might succeed. In an emergency, he could try shooting the wire, but he was worried about ricochets, and above all, the gunshot would echo.
Within his swaying vision, he looked at the axe holder attached to his belt. Fortunately, the axe was still securely stowed. He tried to pull it out and strike the wire coiled around his leg, but his upper body was too heavy for him to reach.
It was because of the backpack he was wearing. Filled with food and spare ammunition, the pack was quite heavy, making his upper body a prisoner of gravity. Having no choice, he undid the buckles and dropped the backpack to the ground. There was an abandoned passenger car directly beneath where he was hanging, and the boy tried to lower the pack as slowly as possible. However, the moment his strength wavered, the backpack fell with momentum, hitting the car's hood with a loud bang.
He lifted his upper body as if doing a sit-up, swung his arm, and slammed the axe blade into the wire. But because he couldn't put enough strength into it, it wouldn't cut. If he could swing the axe down forcefully against a hard surface, the blade might reach the core in one strike, but in the swaying air—and while upside down—he couldn't aim properly, nor could he put power into the arm swinging the axe.
He struck the axe about ten times, but only a few strands of the wire's fiber snapped and frayed. The boy regretted not carrying wire cutters. A large pair of wire cutters could snap through power lines as thick as a thumb or chain-link fences with ease. However, at over 60 centimeters long and weighing 2 kilograms, they weren't easy to carry, so he had left them tossed in the car ever since he found them. If he had known it would come to this, he would have brought them.
Still refusing to give up, he struck with the axe again, finally creating a three-millimeter crack in the wire. It was then that a familiar roar shook the air, making the boy freeze his arm.
Five infected leaped out onto the road from the building in front of him. Had they come out after hearing the sound of the backpack dropping? The infected scanned the area with bloodshot eyes, and upon spotting the boy, they let out roars and began running toward him.
"Goddammit...!"
The infected roared again, charging toward the immobilized boy. Now that he had been spotted, there was no longer any need to work quietly. Tossing the axe aside and grabbing his rifle instead, the boy flicked off the safety and fired without even aiming properly.
The gunshot echoed off the overpass, sounding even louder. The recoil of the shot caused his hanging body to swing back and forth, and naturally, the fired bullet flew off in a completely different direction. He tried to peer through the cylindrical dot sight attached to the rifle to aim at the lead infected. However, because his body was swinging and he was upside down, he couldn't get a steady aim.
He manipulated the selector and fired a three-round burst. With each pull of the trigger, three bullets were automatically discharged, piercing the chest of the lead infected. The infected collapsed to the ground spitting blood, but four healthy ones remained. They continued to close in on the boy.
He fired more shots at the infected, but because his body swayed with every shot, he struggled to hit them. By the time he had shot two more, the infected had closed to within arm's reach.
Fortunately, because he was hanging in the air by the wire, he wasn't immediately caught and eaten. The infected swarmed the car directly beneath the boy, reaching out and jumping from there to try and grab him. The sight of the infected's hands closing in before his eyes was more terrifying than he had anticipated; the boy swung his rifle, batting away the reaching hands.
"Don't touch me...!"
The swinging buttstock struck an infected's fingers directly, and a sickening sensation of bones breaking traveled through the gun. Yet the infected continued to reach out with fingers bent in unnatural directions, trying to catch the boy as he swayed like a pendulum.
Managing to suppress his panicking thoughts, the boy calmly swapped magazines. He shoved the muzzle of the rifle into the mouth of a female infected who was practically right in front of his nose and pulled the trigger. The lower half of the female infected's jaw was blown away, and her eyeballs popped out from the muzzle blast. The muzzle slid out of the mouth of the now-motionless infected whose spinal cord had been severed, and the boy fired at the remaining one. At a distance where they could reach him, he wasn't about to miss.
He had taken down the infected that jumped out from the building for now, but there was no time to relax. Now that he had let off gunshots, other infected would surely arrive soon. In fact, the boy heard roars rising from a place not far away. Judging by the volume, there probably weren't many, but there was no doubt they would be here shortly.
There was no time to dally. The boy lifted his upper body again, aimed the rifle at the wire by his feet, and pulled the trigger. The 5.56mm round severed the wire with a shower of sparks, and the boy fell headfirst onto the hood of the car about two meters below. He didn't even have time to break his fall.
The moment he hit the car's hood, an intense pain shot through his left shoulder, and the boy screamed. His left arm wouldn't move. It seemed he had dislocated it from the force of falling onto his shoulder.
His left arm was stuck against his side, immovable and throbbing with agony. His right leg, which had been bound by the wire until now, had no sensation other than pain; when he tried to move it, a surge of agony rivaling the pain in his shoulder assaulted him. It was only natural, given that his entire body weight had been concentrated on one point, tightly constricted for a long time.
He managed to move his functional right arm, trying to stand up using the rifle as a crutch. However, his body faltered from the intense pain in his right leg and the dislocation of his left shoulder; he was barely standing by pressing his back against the car door. Toward the boy in such a state, infected now came charging out from an alleyway.
He gripped the rifle's grip with his barely moving right hand, tucked the stock under his arm, and fired one-handed. But because he was firing an automatic rifle—which was meant to be held with both hands—with only one, the muzzle bucked wildly with every shot, and he couldn't aim. None of the dozen or so 5.56mm rounds remaining in the magazine hit the swarm of infected; the stray bullets only shattered the windows of abandoned vehicles and kicked up sparks against their bodies.
He let go of the rifle, drew his handgun, and fired without aiming. With every shot, a stabbing pain ran through his left shoulder, making his body stagger. Perhaps because he had hit his head hard when he was caught in the trap, his vision was blurred and he was dizzy.
Of the three infected that appeared from the alley, one took a bullet to the head, performed a head-slide onto the ground, and stopped moving. But that was it. The remaining two continued their charge toward the boy without being hit once, but the handgun would spit fire no more. The slide remained locked back, indicating it was out of ammunition.
He had to change the empty magazine. But his left arm wouldn't move. Holding the empty handgun, the boy stared blankly at the approaching infected.
Am I going to die like this? Just as that thought crossed his mind, one of the infected suddenly sprayed blood from its head, its lifeless body rolling across the ground. The remaining one, which had tripped over the corpse of the one running in front of it, tried to stand up immediately, but before it could, several silent bullets pierced its torso.
In a corner of the boy's hazy vision, he saw a figure approaching. Clad in green-based camouflage with a bulletproof vest and helmet, the figure drew near the boy without making a sound. Stopping a short distance from the boy, the figure fired the carbine in his hand at the infected that was still writhing with its incredible tenacity.
The gunshot sounded quite quiet. A cylindrical object was attached to the muzzle of the carbine the figure held. Even without being a gun expert, anyone who had seen a movie or two would know it was a suppressor.
The figure holding the suppressed carbine swept his gaze—aligned with the muzzle—around the area, confirming no living infected were nearby, then approached the boy again. First, he picked up the automatic rifle the boy had dropped, then with a swift motion, he snatched the empty handgun the boy was gripping. The deftness of his movements showed the person was accustomed to combat, but to the boy, that didn't matter. Before he could raise a voice of protest, the figure—a man—had taken the revolver the boy also carried.
"Sorry, but I'll be holding onto these."
"Who... are you?"
"We'll talk about that later. Right now, leaving this place is the priority. If you don't want to die, you'd better do as I say."
There was no reason to trust the words of this suddenly appearing armed man, nor did he intend to. However, hearing the roar of infected echoing once again, the boy changed his mind. For now, it would be best to follow this man's instructions. If the man had approached to harm the boy or steal his weapons and supplies, there would have been no need to go out of his way to kill the infected attacking the boy. He could have just waited for the boy to be killed and then leisurely scavenged the corpse.
The fact that he helped meant this man was different from the group that attacked last night; at the very least, it was safe to assume he bore no ill will toward the boy. In any case, his guns had already been taken, and there was no chance of winning a fight in his battered condition.
To the nodding boy, the man asked, "Do you have a car?"
"That one... the black Outlander..."
"That one, huh. ...Before that, your shoulder is out. We don't have time now, endure it until we reach the car."
"I can't use my right leg either."
"Your left leg is fine, isn't it?"
True enough, the boy thought, and began running toward the SUV he had just moved his gear into, dragging his painful right leg. Though he called it running, it was only the speed of a fast walk; despite the distance not being that far, it felt as though he were running a full marathon course.
Behind the staggering boy, the man followed with his carbine readied. Twice along the way, the man shot dead infected that leaped out from alleys. With the suppressed carbine, he accurately hammered two rounds into the chest and one into the head. Before the infected could even roar upon seeing the two, he took them down with practiced movements.
He had almost no time to look at the face, but he could tell the man was Japanese. From the pattern of the camouflage, he could vaguely guess the man was a JSDF member, but the equipment and weapons were clearly different from those of the JSDF members he had seen before.
However, now was not the time to pry into the man's identity. Act as he said and leave this place. That was what had to be done now; he shouldn't think of anything else.
After dozens of seconds of running, the boy and the man finally reached the SUV. The roars of the infected were carried on the wind, but none were visible nearby. As soon as the boy unlocked the doors with the remote key, the man pulled the magazines from the rifle and handguns he had taken from the boy and tossed them, along with the guns themselves, into the back seat where they couldn't be reached. While he was at it, the axe and knives the boy had been carrying were also taken and thrown deep into the car.
"Give me the keys. I'm driving."
The boy obediently handed over the keys. Disarmed, the boy had no way to resist the man. He had a folding knife hidden in his boot, but he knew without thinking that if he tried to use it to kill the man, he would be killed by the man first.
He opened the passenger door with his functional right arm and sat in the seat, practically shoving his body in. The man wedged his carbine on the door side where the boy couldn't reach, then sat in the driver's seat, making a point of showing the holster attached to his chest. After twisting the key and starting the engine, he leaned toward the boy and spoke.
"I'm going to fix your shoulder, so face this way. If you leave it, it won't heal properly."
No sooner had he said it than the man grabbed both of the boy's shoulders, forced him to face him, gripped the dislocated left arm with both hands, and twisted. Along with a sickening clunk, the joint returned to its place, and simultaneously, a sharp pain pierced the boy's entire body.
"——!"
On top of the pain and blood loss from hitting his head, this intense agony dealt the finishing blow. I don't know who this man is or what's going to happen to me, but I'm not going to pass out... However, as if a light switch had been flipped, the boy's consciousness was swallowed by darkness before he could resist.
I look forward to your opinions and impressions.