Chapter 178 - A Story of the Holy Hand Grenade
Even after getting onto the main street, the pursuit by the infected did not stop. The boy, who had been restlessly pointing the machine gun muzzle left and right, suddenly felt that the number of vehicles following behind had decreased.
He squinted in the darkness and somehow counted the number of vehicles in the convoy. One minivan, which had been running at the very end, was not following.
"Sato-san! The last vehicle isn't there!"
Immediately after he said that, about 100 meters behind, a car's headlights turned on. The vehicles left on the road had long since had their batteries die, so it wasn't that they turned on by themselves. The one with its headlights on was the familiar minivan, and infected were surrounding it. A man was shouting, poking his head out from a small sunroof.
"Help meeee!"
The minivan was completely surrounded by infected and seemed unable to move forward or backward. Apparently, the tires were slipping on the infected's blood and fat, and the member in the driver's seat seemed to be desperately stepping on the accelerator, but there was no sign of it moving forward at all. In the meantime, the infected surrounding the minivan were steadily increasing and were striking the vehicle body with all their might.
Since there were infected outside the driver's seat as well, going outside was a suicidal act. Moreover, they had used up their weapons, so they had no means of fighting. If left like this, the windows would soon be broken and the members would be eaten alive by the infected that invaded the car.
"All vehicles stop; the last one is surrounded by infected."
"The ones riding it are Brotherhood guys, right? Leave them behind."
As soon as Sato spoke into the radio's microphone, a sharp voice immediately came back from Sato's comrade. It seemed the other comrades also agreed with that opinion, as they were demanding Sato continue forward and leave the minivan behind.
"There's no value in helping those guys; just leave them be."
"We shouldn't have helped them at that time."
Even while they were stopped, infected were approaching the convoy. Whether they helped them or abandoned them, they couldn't dally.
The boy looked at the minivan once more. The minivan's windows hadn't been broken yet, and the member who poked his face out from the sunroof was desperately calling for help. For now, they were still enemies. But the feeling of whether it was okay to just abandon them like this was swirling inside the boy.
"Let's help them."
"Let's do that."
The boy was a little surprised that Sato agreed so easily. He thought that even Sato might abandon them this time, considering the overall situation.
In this situation, abandoning the members would likely be the most rational decision. But even if they were enemies, was it really the right thing to abandon a human who was asking for help? Certainly, the act of saving the members itself was dangerous, and there was a possibility of putting other people in danger because of it.
That said, the boy thought he didn't want to abandon them after all. If he were in the same position, anyone would want to be helped.
"All vehicles continue forward. We'll rejoin after helping those guys."
"Hey, don't screw around! Are you, the guide, going to abandon your role!"
"Even without worrying, if you just keep going straight like this, you'll reach the destination. It's harder to get lost."
"That's not it; I'm saying there's no need to help those guys! Those guys have also laughed while watching many people die until now!"
"Don't you guys, who were in The Brotherhood until now, say that! Just because you did a good thing at the end doesn't mean everything you've done until now is cleared, and it doesn't mean you guys have the right to judge the guys who were doing bad things!"
At those words of Sato, the radio's speaker fell silent.
Even though they were rebels who cooperated with Sato to drive The Brotherhood to destruction, the fact that they were members of The Brotherhood didn't change. Until Sato made contact, they too must have been hurting other people with violence or exploiting them as members of The Brotherhood. Even if they were pained by those acts, if they didn't raise their voices and oppose those acts and didn't take any action, they didn't have the right to criticize the other members.
And it was the same for the boy. The boy had also taken the lives of many people until now out of self-preservation. Even if he saved one or two lives now, it didn't mean all his actions until now would be forgiven. But for the boy who was repenting for his past mistakes, that was the only way he could think of to atone for his sins.
The armored vehicle left the convoy and made a U-turn on the main street. The boy let go of the heavy machine gun handles and instead gripped an automatic rifle. With a large-caliber machine gun, there was a possibility of turning the minivan into a honeycomb along with the infected.
"Give me one more gun."
When he said so to Aki inside the car, a shotgun muzzle was thrust out from the hatch. Slinging the loaded shotgun at his side, the boy leveled the rifle. Depending on the situation, he would have to get off the armored vehicle and cover the members as they got out of the minivan.
The infected had already broken the minivan's windshield. The members who were in the driver's and passenger's seats seemed to have moved to the rear seats to get even a little away from the infected, but he didn't know how long they would last at this rate. The infected were thrusting their faces through the broken windows and reaching their hands toward the members inside the car.
"Hang on!"
Sato said so and drove the armored vehicle in on a course that just barely grazed the side of the minivan. The infected surrounding the minivan were hit by the armored vehicle and went rolling across the road like bowling pins. The infected's siege became thin only there, and as soon as the armored vehicle stopped, the boy jumped off the armored vehicle's roof and ran to the minivan.
The minivan, surrounded by infected, had been struck repeatedly, and the vehicle body was dented in various places. Several infected that noticed the boy left the minivan and came toward the boy, so he calmly shot them down with the automatic rifle. In the rear, Sato, who had come out from the driver's seat onto the roof, leveled the heavy machine gun and was showering gunfire toward the infected that were approaching further.
"Stay down!"
He said so to the members asking for help from inside the car, leveled the rifle toward the minivan, and fired. The fired bullets passed through the broken minivan windows, flew over the heads of the members who had ducked while holding their heads, and pierced into the infected on the opposite side of the vehicle body.
Looking at the state of the minivan, both front wheels were slimy with blood and fat, and the rear wheels were flat. Likely when he ran over an infected, a broken bone had pierced the tire. In a minivan with no off-road capability to speak of, it would become immobilized if it got stuck, let alone a flat tire.
Since the infected were densely packed like a wall surrounding the minivan, it was harder to miss than to hit from point-blank range. Since the rifle ran out of ammunition, the boy leveled the shotgun and went around to the opposite side of the vehicle body. There were still about two intact infected remaining, so he dealt with them with the shotgun. Taking the buckshot from point-blank range, the infected's heads blew apart as if they had exploded.
"The door won't open!"
The infected were gone for now, and a member who seemed to have tried to go outside let out a panicked voice. Apparently, because it had been struck repeatedly by infected, the rail of the rear seat sliding door had become distorted.
"Get out through the window!"
The boy said so and cleared away the glass remaining on the window frame with the shotgun's butt. While the members were thrusting their upper bodies through the narrow window and struggling, he fired the shotgun toward more infected that appeared. The shotgun, which was only loaded with four rounds, ran out of ammunition in no time, and the boy switched to a handgun and fired further. He didn't even have the leeway to reload.
"Get down quickly!"
Since the handgun bullets were finally exhausted, the boy hurriedly swapped the rifle magazine. But before he could pull the bolt handle and complete the loading, one infected pounced on him. He struck its head with the gunstock and kicked it hard as it fell. In the meantime, the boy, who pulled the bolt handle and loaded the first round, pointed the rifle muzzle at the head of the fallen infected and pulled the trigger.
While the boy was struggling with the infected, the two members had somehow managed to escape outside through the window. Sato showered the heavy machine gun bullets like water from a hose upon the swarming infected.
Showering a burst from the rifle upon the infected that were still following, the boy also ran to the armored vehicle. The heavy machine gun seemed to have run out of ammunition for sure this time, as Sato pulled his body back into the car from the gun mount and returned to the driver's seat. The members who arrived first climbed into the passenger seat and rear seat of the armored vehicle respectively.
The thought that they might run amok inside the car wasn't non-existent, but there was no time to be saying such things now. He couldn't tell them to go find another moving car because he didn't want to ride with them, and there was no such leeway. Since he had helped them, he couldn't just throw them out even if there were risks.
Following the members, the boy was the last to climb into the armored vehicle. He shut the armored vehicle's thick door on the infected's hand that was reaching right under his nose, and at the same time Aki shouted, "Get us out!", the armored vehicle accelerated rapidly.
Pushing aside the members whose faces were a mix of fatigue and tension, the boy again put his body outside from the roof gun mount.
As expected, he could see the infected running while chasing the armored vehicle. Moreover, two infected were clinging to the handrails attached to various parts of the armored vehicle's body. One of them showed no sign of letting go of the handrail despite its body being scraped against the asphalt and becoming blood-stained. The other was climbing up the vehicle body and trying to invade the car through the gun mount hatch.
The infected that had already climbed onto the armored vehicle's roof let out a roar as soon as it saw the boy appearing from the gun mount. The boy thrust the rifle muzzle into its mouth and pulled the trigger just like that. Half of the infected's head blew apart into fragments, and the eyeballs popped out from the pressure of the propellant gas. That body, which had lost its strength, fell from the roof and landed on top of the other infected that was being dragged while grabbing the handrail. The two infected went rolling across the road together, and while watching that, the boy said to Aki inside the car, "Give me the hand grenades."
"Hand grenades? Where are they?"
"There's a suspender with several pouches attached at your feet, right? That's it."
"This... wait, I wish you wouldn't just leave explosives lying around carelessly at my feet."
It was certainly as Aki said. As long as the safety pins were in, the hand grenades were safe, but it wasn't good for one's mental health to have several explosives that could tear a human body to shreds rolling around at one's feet.
The boy received the bundle of hand grenade pouches, took one out from inside, held it with both hands, and pulled out the safety pin. In fiction works, they often do things like pulling out the hand grenade safety pin with their teeth, but if you actually did that, your teeth would undoubtedly chip. The safety pin has its tip bent so it won't come out easily, and because of the relationship of suppressing the safety lever that's trying to spring away with the force of a spring, it requires considerable strength to pull out.
The boy threw the hand grenade, from which he had pulled the safety pin, in the opposite direction of the armored vehicle's travel. The hand grenade, whose safety lever had sprung away, bounced several times on the ground and rolled toward the infected running after the armored vehicle. But perhaps because he threw it with too much force, the hand grenade exploded not right in the middle of the infected swarm, but on the outskirts. Along with an explosion sound, the road enveloped in darkness became bright for an instant, and the window glass of the buildings that still remained shattered all at once.
Sharp metal fragments were scattered at high speed, and several infected that took the iron storm from behind fell. But the infected on the outside had become shields, and there was almost no damage to the infected running in the front. Despite having hand grenade fragments embedded in their backs or having limbs twisted in strange directions from the blast, they continued to run energetically while chasing the armored vehicle.
The boy took out another hand grenade, pulled the safety pin, and this time, timing it so it would explode right in the middle of the infected swarm, he threw it. The hand grenade, thrown underhand, exploded in the center of the infected chasing the armored vehicle. The infected were mowed down like bowling pins, and the metallic sound of hand grenade fragments hitting the armored vehicle's body echoed.
This time, many infected fell with one shot. The boy threw the hand grenades that were in the suspender pouches one after another, and along with the explosions, the infected chasing the armored vehicle fell one after another. By the time he used up the hand grenades, the infected chasing them could be counted on one hand, and the boy used the rifle to finish them off.
"With this, the infected aren't chasing us anymore."
"We can't be at ease. Just because we can't see them doesn't mean anything; they can hear the engine sound. Before they can find us by relying on the sound, I want to cross over to the reclaimed land."
Ahead, the convoy that had been preceding them was visible. Apparently, after the armored vehicle turned back to rescue the members, they had continued forward at low speed. Thanks to the armored vehicle having monopolized the infected's attention, they didn't seem to be under attack.
The armored vehicle overtook the convoy and again began to lead. That said, the boy realized by looking at the surrounding terrain that the destination was right under their noses. When the convoy came out to the coast, he could see the light of a flashlight blinking at regular intervals in the distance.
"It's my comrade; he's signaling that we can cross without issue now."
It seemed to be Sato's comrade who remained on the reclaimed land. Perhaps he had been preparing, as the bridge span was already lowered and was in a state where passage was possible.
"Alright, we're leaving the cars here for now. Get out with as many weapons as you can carry."
Sato stopped the armored vehicle near the bridge and said. The boy returned inside the car and picked up the handguns and ammunition boxes that were scattered carelessly on the cargo floor and floor. As for the armored vehicle's heavy machine gun, he couldn't really remove it and take it with him. It was heavy, and above all, there was no ammunition.
The member the boy and the other had helped reached a hand toward a handgun on the floor. Since he couldn't let them have weapons, the boy brushed that hand away and said, "Get out." At that tone that brooked no argument, the members hurriedly jumped off the armored vehicle.
He recovered as many weapons as were in the car, but the number was surprisingly small. The same went for the ammunition. They had consumed a considerable amount of ammunition by the time they escaped to this reclaimed land.
But at least, there were no casualties among the allies. No vehicles had fallen behind, and everyone was safe.
He looked around, but there was no sign of infected coming. Aki and the others were already crossing the bridge and heading toward the reclaimed land side, and the boy and Sato, carrying weapons and ammunition, followed after.
On the crude bridge, which was made by taking iron plates used for scaffolding at construction sites and making them so they could be lifted by a crane truck's winch, crude handrails were attached. It wasn't that the construction was solid, and because it was fixed only on the side in contact with the land respectively, the entire bridge swayed with every step.
The boy and Sato stood guard with rifles leveled on the opposite shore until everyone else had finished crossing. He could hear infected roars in the distance, but Sato, who was wearing night-vision equipment, did not confirm the figures of infected.
Eventually, everyone finished crossing, and the boy and Sato also crossed the bridge. Immediately after crossing the bridge, the young man operated the winch lever, and the bridge was lifted again. The bridge span on the opposite shore was as it was because there was no one to operate it, but since the bridge span on the reclaimed land side was up, it was impossible to cross from the opposite shore.
Finally, he was no longer being chased by infected, and the boy was able to take a breath. The fatigue until now came over him all at once, and he slumped onto the spot in spite of himself. The pain of the wounds all over his body, which he had forgotten in his excitement, returned as if they had just remembered.
I look forward to your opinions and impressions.