Chapter 139 - Chapter 123: A Tale of Fighting Deeply and Quietly
The food procurement at the supermarket ended with fewer gains than expected, and the boy and Sato were forced to continue their supply collection. They had obtained a decent amount of food at the supermarket, but it was far less than the quota The Brotherhood had demanded.
The next place the two decided to head to was an elementary school located slightly inland from the reclaimed area. Elementary schools are designated as shelters in times of emergency, and for that purpose, they usually stockpile food and blankets. Although the stockpile is only enough for a few hundred people to eat for about three days, if it's preserved food for stockpiling, it should still remain as it is.
The problem is if many people evacuated to the shelter and the food had already been consumed. In that case, there's nothing they can do. However, the infected tend to attack places where many people gather, and the various shelters where many anxious people gathered were no exception. Many shelters were destroyed within a day or two after the infected appeared in Japan, and it's also conceivable that many supplies remain untouched.
It was a cruel story. To hope that many people had died so that they themselves could survive.
However, now they don't have the leeway to think about the people who died. For themselves and for Sato's comrades to survive, they had no choice but to believe that a lot of food remained at the shelter... but.
"This is a bit unexpected."
Sato, who was observing the state of the elementary school with binoculars from the corridor on the 4th floor of an apartment building slightly away from the target elementary school, muttered so. The boy, who was leaning his elbows on the railing and peering through binoculars next to him, was of the same opinion as Sato.
The elementary school reflected in the round field of vision of the binoculars was, in a word, desolate. The window glass of the school building was broken, the fence surrounding the site was knocked down, and bleached corpses were lying here and there on the ground.
What was unexpected was that on the road running along the site of the elementary school, corpses were literally piled up like a mountain. Whether because a long time had passed, those corpses were all decayed, and the bleached bones and torn clothes continuing endlessly were paving the road over the asphalt.
The main gate of the elementary school was destroyed, but what was different from other shelters was that it was broken from the inside out. The steel gate, which would weigh several hundred kilograms, was off its rails and lying on the road, greatly crumpled. In the shelters the boy had seen until now, the gate was broken from the outside in, unable to withstand the infected pushing from the outside.
And the crowning touch was the existence of three military vehicles parked in the schoolyard. Two JSDF-spec Pajeros painted in olive green without roofs and one truck for personnel transport with a canopy over the cargo bed are left beside the entrance facing the ground.
"Does this mean the JSDF was here?"
"I don't know either; after all, the chain of command was a mess. Which unit was where, and which unit was functional. Accurate information about which unit was wiped out didn't come in because of the confusion. But as far as I remember, I haven't heard that a unit was deployed in this vicinity. Most likely they moved from somewhere, and were staying at that elementary school on the way."
If the JSDF was at the elementary school, there's a reason for the countless corpses lying on the road. They probably shot at anything and everything to prevent the infected from entering. The trees in the schoolyard that appeared to be in the line of fire had their cross-sections torn and broken at about the height of an adult's chest, and limbs that had been blown apart, perhaps by machine gun fire, were scattered in the schoolyard. Even so, the fact that corpses that appeared to be infected were lying in the schoolyard means they couldn't prevent the intrusion despite their desperate resistance.
"Wiped out..."
"It doesn't look like that either, look."
The gate is clearly broken from the inside. They probably managed to escape somehow. The fact that vehicles remain means not everyone was able to get out of that elementary school alive, though.
In the schoolyard, several tents were pitched, and passenger cars and buses were parked, but those are also hard to think were brought in by the JSDF. Probably, refugees had come to the elementary school first. Then the JSDF also came later, and after that, the elementary school was attacked by a swarm of infected.
"We're going to see that elementary school."
"Eh? But if there were people who evacuated first, wouldn't the supplies be gone..."
"It's not supplies; I want weapons and information. Maybe weapons and ammunition remain in the school, and even if not, it would be good if there's something that shows the current location of other units."
If they were staying temporarily in the middle of a move, it's hard to think they had carried weapons and ammunition into the school, but there might be supplies left behind in the middle of the battle. What the two need now are powerful weapons and ammunition that can counter The Brotherhood. Considering that they must eventually exchange fire with The Brotherhood directly, they want weapons more powerful than automatic rifles.
He wanted to advance after drawing the attention of the infected with sound as usual, but the distance from the edge of the ground to the school building was quite far. To hit the outer wall of the school building with a stone, they have to get considerably close, but because the visibility is good, if an infected comes outside, they will certainly be discovered.
"It can't be helped; we'll rush the interior as is. If you find an infected, don't try to force a kill and retreat."
Sato tried to hand the boy a pistol with a suppressor, but the boy refused. With a weapon he's not used to handling, and a pistol at that, he couldn't hope for accurate shooting, and even with a suppressor, the gunshot doesn't completely disappear. If he fires in a narrow space like a school corridor, it will echo and be heard over a considerable range.
In that case, the usual way of fighting seemed good. If it's one infected, sneak up from behind and one blow to the head with an axe. If it's two, wait and see; if it's three, retreat without hesitation.
"Avoid firing except in an extreme emergency."
Sato changed the magazine of his carbine. Inside the magazine are loaded special bullets with reduced gunpowder to increase the silencing effect, but because of the long survival life, he has already used up the subsonic rounds for pistols, and only about forty rounds remain for the carbine. If normal bullets are used, the suppressor won't exhibit 100 percent effect. Subsonic rounds have a lower bullet speed and reduced power, so they are unsuitable for combat with the infected and are precious, but Sato seems to have judged that they should be used here.
To explore the wide school, Sato and the boy decided to act in two groups while knowing the danger. The boy enters from the main gate, and Sato from the back, and they search the two school buildings split into west and east respectively.
He was struck by a sense of anxiety that an infected might be peeking at the schoolyard from a window, but fortunately, no roar was heard from inside the school building, and the boy was able to come near the entrance facing the schoolyard.
First, he doesn't step into the school building suddenly, but heads to the three military vehicles left right next to the entrance. Corpses were scattered all over the schoolyard, and it could be seen that a fierce battle had occurred. If he looked down at his feet, empty shells giving off a dull golden glow were lying here and there. In the JSDF, they apparently collect magazines after they finish shooting, but those magazines were also left in various places in an empty state. They had apparently hammered not just thousands, but tens of thousands of bullets into the approaching swarm of infected.
He peeked into the Pajero whose door was left open, but there was nothing noteworthy. What's scattered on the seats and floor are scraps of paper and gum wrappers, and not a single firearm, let alone a single bullet, remains. Of course, he wasn't expecting that weapons and ammunition would be conveniently placed like in a game or something.
The troop transport truck was the same. The boy took his axe in hand and headed to the entrance while being careful not to make footsteps. The glass door of the entrance was pulverized, perhaps by stray bullets, and he stepped into the school while being careful not to step on the glass fragments scattered on the ground. Whether the school building was overrun by the infected after the JSDF escaped, the door of the entrance was blown off along with its hinges and was lying on the floor, greatly crumpled.
The lights were naturally off, but thanks to the many windows, the inside of the school building is bright. The boy, carrying a pistol in his left hand and an axe in his right, decided to search the first floor first.
As expected, there were traces of people living in the classrooms on the first floor. Cardboard laid on the floor and blankets scattered messily. Trash cans filled to overflowing with packages of preserved food and water bottles. From this state, it seems there were refugees in units of hundreds.
And in the classrooms and corridors, several corpses were lying. Old and young, men and women, various humans were dead. Those corpses were eaten here and there, and the boy speculated that they couldn't escape when the infected surged into the school. Every corpse is dried up, or the flesh has rotted away and bones are exposed.
After that, he looked around several classrooms on the first floor, but no food was left. They might have collected the food in one place and distributed it to each person from there.
From what he saw from the outside, there seemed to be a staff room on the second floor of the east school building where the boy is. If this school was a shelter, the staff room would have been the command base for shelter operation. If he goes there, he might find out where the food was collected.
Thinking so, on the way to the second floor, the boy discovered one corpse. There are corpses everywhere inside and outside the school building, literally enough to rot. But the reason the boy stopped his feet upon seeing that corpse was because it was a fresh corpse.
On the landing of the stairs to the second floor, a corpse that appeared to be a male infected is lying prone. The throat was slit with a sharp blade, and a hose-like trachea was exposed from the cross-section. Even for an infected with dull pain and a tough body, it's a wound that becomes a fatal injury in one blow.
Blood is still flowing out from that wound and painting the floor bright red. Unless the infected have a habit of sneaking up and attacking their own kind with sharp blades, it means another survivor killed this infected just before.
He doesn't know who that survivor is, but it would be better to stop proceeding further. The boy thought so. Just before the boy and Sato visited this elementary school, someone other than themselves had also come here. He doesn't know if they are still inside the elementary school now, but if they happen to meet, it will be troublesome. Even if that survivor is not a hostile existence, if they suddenly encounter each other, they might not be able to make a calm judgment and end up in a battle.
And the fact that a fresh corpse of an infected is lying means that many infected still remain in the school building. It's better to retreat temporarily and grasp who the survivor visiting the elementary school is.
Thinking so, just as he turned around to go back the way he came. Along with the groan of an infected from downstairs, a shadow swaying its body left and right is reflected on the floor of the corridor illuminated by the setting sun. That shadow is gradually approaching the stairs where the boy is, and in a hurry, the boy ran up from the landing to the second floor.
Apparently, an infected had remained on the first floor. It can't be helped, let's go down from another set of stairs... just as he thought that, a dry gunshot, bang, echoed in the corridor. At the same time, a suppressed voice saying "Idiot, why did you shoot...!" was heard.
In the corridor on the second floor, several fresh corpses were lying. The boy's gaze, following the corpses lying on the floor, ended at the entrance of the staff room whose door was left open. And from that staff room, three men jumped out in a hurry. One was gripping a pistol with gunpowder smoke rising, and the remaining two were each carrying a military automatic rifle.
The boy and the men's eyes met. For just a moment, a strange silence fell, and both sides looked at each other with faces like they had been hit by a pea-shooter. The boy noticed that the men were still young, a bunch whose ages weren't that far from his own. And seeing the black bandanas wound around their upper arms or foreheads, he understood that they were members of The Brotherhood.