Chapter 14 - Chapter 12: A Summer Night's Dream Story
Beyond the endless line of people, a makeshift checkpoint with several tents had been set up. Although it was a slow, turtle-like pace, the line proceeded, and after many tens of minutes, my turn finally came.
"Are you alone? What about family or friends?"
Across the desk, a middle-aged police officer sitting in a folding chair asks. He likely wants to evacuate family members or acquaintances together to avoid causing anxiety as much as possible, but unfortunately, I have no one I know here. No friends, and of course, no family. Those people were all as good as lost three days ago.
But I couldn't say that honestly. After hesitating for a while on how to answer, the words that finally came out were,
"...I'm alone for now."
It was a half-baked answer. The officer gave me a pitying look as if he'd noticed something, but many people longing for evacuation were lined up behind me. Perhaps because he couldn't spend extra time, I was told to proceed, and I followed.
What awaited next was a body search. As soon as I entered a tent that had separate entrances for men and women and was airtight, I was ordered to strip down to my underwear. It's likely to check if I've been bitten by an infected, but the temperature on a March night is still low. The people who entered the tent, including myself, hesitated, but we finally began to take off our clothes, urged on by JSDF members who were wearing protective suits that looked like spacesuits and carrying rifles in their hands.
Instantly, piercingly cold air envelops my body. It must be a surreal sight to see men of all ages shivering in their underwear, but from the perspective of the person doing it, it's not funny at all. Wishing for it to end quickly, I lined up in the queue for the body search.
"Yes, raise both hands high."
As told, when I raised my hands high, the JSDF members looked over my body thoroughly. If there was even a small wound, one would be questioned immediately; in fact, the person lined up in front of me took extra time and his lips had turned purple from being naked for a long time.
"What about this wound?"
"Ah, that's a wound from when I fell. This one is from when I bumped into the corner of a locker while escaping from school."
Since the member pointed to the wound on my palm and the wound on my thigh, I answered honestly. If I were to answer jokingly, "I got it from an infected," I would be taken somewhere immediately. To prevent that, I had to appeal by any means that I had not been injured by an infected.
A large amount of virus lives in the mouths of the infected, and it's said that infection occurs when the virus enters the body through a wound by biting and reaches the brain, as the news said. It seems the virus is also contained in the blood, but the possibility of infection from that is low unless one comes into contact with literally a drenching amount. However, since almost nothing is known about the virus and it's not known what causes infection, contact with the infected must be avoided at all costs.
"It's fine, you may go."
Since I was told that, I was about to put on my clothes with relief when it happened. Because a man's shouting was heard from behind, I instinctively looked back. I saw a young man who was the only one wearing clothes despite not having received the search yet, yelling at a JSDF member. Seeing his blonde hair, piercings, flashy clothes, and the necklaces dangling from his neck, he was apparently a person of the so-called "yankee" breed.
"What the hell, you bastard! Don't touch me!"
"Please take off your clothes; you cannot evacuate without receiving a body search."
"You can tell just by looking, I'm fine! I haven't been bitten anywhere!"
Whoa, that's a flag. I immediately understood that he was dangerous. Perhaps sensing an extraordinary atmosphere from the yankee who stubbornly refused to take off his clothes, the men around the yankee backed away from the spot. However, since it was a narrow tent, a hellish scene spread where men in their underwear were pushing their bodies against each other.
"We are authorized to take any measures for the suppression of the situation. Please follow the instructions obediently."
Saying so, when he brushed away the hand of the JSDF member who reached out, the man let out a strange cry and rushed toward the exit of the tent. But he couldn't proceed well in the tent crowded with men, and the yankee was immediately pinned down by several JSDF members. He resisted by swinging his arms, but he was no match for the trained JSDF members, and the man was pushed down to the ground and his clothes were roughly stripped off in no time.
"Major, he has indeed been bitten."
At those words, the surrounding men jumped back all at once. Through the gaps between the heads of the people pushing and shoving to get away from the yankee even a little, I could see the body of the man who had been pushed down to the ground by several members and had his jacket pulled open.
On his upper arm, there was a clear teeth mark with blood seeping out. A bloody bandage was lying next to it, perhaps because he had tried to stop the bleeding, but apparently, the blood still wouldn't stop. Although there are individual differences, it's said that the closer the wound is to the head, the faster one becomes an infected. I don't know when the yankee was bitten, but how much leeway is left until he loses his sanity and starts rioting?
"Take him away."
"Hey, wait a minute! I'm fine! Let go, I'm a human!"
The yankee shouted, but the JSDF members in protective suits who wouldn't let go of his hands heartlessly led him out of the tent. Since he would be considered a dangerous element the moment he was bitten, the muzzle of a rifle continued to be pointed at the yankee the whole time.
Such interactions must have been repeated many times already. I tried to peek at the face of the member in front, but that expression through the gas mask looked as if it held no emotion whatsoever.
As soon as I left the tent, a transport plane passed overhead with a roaring sound. Was that an aircraft called an Osprey operated by the US military? In addition to its unique form, it had been covered in the news quite a bit for a while, so even a novice like me knew that much.
Apparently, the USFJ is also doing its best to rescue survivors. A trivial thought came to my mind: would the people who were loudly shouting "Oppose Osprey" ride an Osprey to evacuate? Looking at the Osprey descending toward the ground of the sports park that had become a helipad, I wondered vaguely how much longer it would be until we could leave here.
It was about 200 meters to the ground, but the flow of people was slow as usual. It's natural since such a situation is occurring all over Japan. To evacuate the people here all at once, one would have to gather helicopters from all over Japan.
I've heard the destination of the helicopters is a ship at sea or a nearby uninhabited island where no infected have been confirmed. I wonder which of those I will be carried to. And what kind of life will I lead from now on.
I no longer have any acquaintances I can rely on. Even if this virus turmoil subsides, I no longer have a place to return to. The radio said the entire area where I lived was lost in a great fire. Even if my house miraculously remained, there is no one else to live there but me.
I am the one who killed Dad and Mom.
When infected people appeared in Japan and the infrastructure began to die, we headed to the high school that had been designated as a shelter, just like during a natural disaster such as an earthquake or typhoon. At that time, I hadn't thought things through well, thinking the situation would subside soon anyway. And many other people thought the same way, and many people gathered at the high school.
From the perspective of the infected, a shelter where unarmed people gather is nothing but a perfect hunting ground. Thinking about it now, the choice I should have taken then was to avoid places where people gather and just keep running.
But no matter how much I think about it, the past won't change. The infected who came from other areas seeking food naturally attacked the shelter, and a hellish scene where blood, flesh, and corpses rolled without a gap unfolded at the high school.
The reason I didn't die then was simply that I was lucky. I was exploring a school building that wasn't being used because I was bored; I was saved for just that reason. But instead of surviving, I ended up seeing hell.
The first thing I did when I heard the screams and shouts echoing from the schoolyard was the passive action of hiding in a cleaning locker. If I had gone to look for my parents then, a different conclusion might have been waiting, but I was just scared. I was so scared I couldn't move from that spot.
And when the screams subsided, I finally took action. I found a rebar along the way, and while vomiting all the contents of my stomach upon witnessing a corpse for the first time—and a badly damaged one at that—I searched for Dad and Mom. Perhaps the infected had gone after the people who fled; I was the only moving thing in the school building.
While exhausted, I searched around for Dad and Mom and found one infected in the toilet. When I saw the infected crawling around the floor with both hands, its leg meat almost gone as if it had been eaten up, I stood frozen on the spot.
That infected was in a state of somehow being alive despite the meat all over its body being eaten. Half the skin on its face had disappeared, and the cheek meat was also eaten, exposing muscles and gums, but that infected had traces of Mom.
I wanted to deny it as a lie, but its clothes and belongings clearly showed that the infected, who was one step away from being a corpse, was Mom. But there wasn't a trace of Mom's kind atmosphere, and there was the figure of an infected trying to eat me even by crawling. My instinct was telling me Mom was no longer human, and I understood that too. How can one keep moving when their internal organs are protruding from a torn belly?
Understanding that Mom had turned into a monster, I took the best action I could at that time. That is, I swung up the rebar and toward that head—
The roar of a fighter jet that flew overhead at high speed brought me back to reality. Looking up, several fighter jets are flying toward the west while drawing red trails of jet engines in the night sky. And before I knew it, I had gotten quite close to the helicopter on the ground. At this rate, if two or three helicopters come, my turn will surely come.
I wonder if those were JSDF fighter jets escaping toward a safe base. That thought was fleeting; I didn't miss something falling from the wing of a fighter jet illuminated by the red flames of the fires on the ground. A few seconds later, a particularly large red flame rose from around where it fell, followed by a roar incomparable to anything before.
This isn't an explosion from a fire or accident; that was a bombing just now. Immediately after realizing that, this time a formation of several attack helicopters passed overhead and fired rockets from their sides. The rockets fired toward the west vanished from sight in no time, followed by machine guns being fired from the noses of the hovering attack helicopters.
If I thought that, intense gunfire echoed from the west, the direction we just came from. The gunfire heard until now had been sporadic, but this time it was incessant and loud, as if a gunfight was occurring. Rockets were fired from the attack helicopters again, staining the night sky even redder.
The fact that gunfire is heard loudly means they are firing nearby. And bombing by fighter jets, plus strafing by attack helicopters.
In other words, it meant the infected were coming close. By the time I realized that, people had already panicked and were rushing toward the ground to get on the helicopter before anyone else.
"Please stay calm! We will protect you! So return to the line!"
Police officers and JSDF members shout until their voices are hoarse, but it didn't seem to reach the ears of the people who had fallen into a state of panic. Immediately after seeing people running toward the ground while shaking off the JSDF members trying to restrain them, I witnessed even more evacuees rushing in like a tsunami from behind.
"Those things are coming!"
"Hurry up!"
Being closer to the place where the fighting is occurring, they might know more than we do, who were waiting outside the park. The checkpoint that had been strictly guarded until just now was easily swallowed by the wave of people, and the tent where body searches were being conducted was in a state where it was more correct to say that rags were caught on the framework because many people had forcibly broken through.
Looking at the sky, even more attack helicopters were firing rockets and machine guns like crazy. The fact that the fighting continues even after firing that much means that many infected are rushing toward this sports park.
That would be so. After all, there are many humans here who become food, just like the shelter I was at. In addition, the JSDF and police had been firing all over and calling out using loudspeakers to protect the people. Although it was necessary, it's like saying food is here. It would be strange if the infected didn't swarm.
Looking at the ground, the helicopter that had been taking in evacuees was taking off in a hurry. I wonder if they tried to leave before being attacked by the infected, or if they feared they wouldn't be able to take off due to weight overload from people rushing in. Either way, the helicopter probably won't return here anymore. And we have lost the means to escape from here.
I was so close to leaving here, so why is the timing so bad? A young man running from the direction of the checkpoint pushed me, who was standing dazed on the spot, saying "Out of the way!"
As I fell, I hit my head hard against the base of a tree planted by the side of the road. After feeling sparks fly in my vision and something warm and wet soaking the back of my head along with a dull pain, I lost consciousness.
I look forward to your opinions and impressions.