Chapter 201 - Bayside Shakedown
"What on earth are these guys, I wonder?"
The white smoke that had been hanging in the parking lot until just now cleared, and after that, a gruesome sight where several fresh corpses were rolling was left. The boy shakes the blood-stained axe to brush off the blood and meat pieces stuck to it and returns it to the sheath. Behind him, Sato was kicking the bodies of the fallen children with his toes to confirm if they were properly dead.
Yes, children. The ones who attacked the boy and the others were all children. Their ages wouldn't exceed 20 even for the oldest. Among them are those who seem to be upper elementary school students. Those guys rushed toward the boy and the others while carrying knives, bats wrapped with barbed wire, and self-made axes and spears.
The ones who shot in the smoke pots with arrows just before this battle started were shot and killed by Sato who delivered a counterattack, but those guys were also children of about middle school age. Bandits composed of children—to settle it with that conclusion, their state was too strange.
"It doesn't seem like they simply came to steal supplies. If so, Aki would also be dead."
But Aki's corpse is nowhere to be found. He doesn't know what those children's aim was in trying to kill the boy and the others, but if they attacked trying to kill the boy and the others, Aki who was standing on watch would have been killed first.
But Aki has vanished without leaving bloodstains or supplies or anything. They wouldn't do something troublesome like taking away a corpse, and he doesn't think such a thing could be done in this short time either.
"Lend a hand for a bit. Look for a relatively clean corpse and strip its clothes."
"What are you going to do?"
"The state of these guys was strange. Whether they had one arm blown away by a gun or a knife stabbed in their stomach, they didn't show even a bit of a sign of being in pain. They aren't just children."
Children who still rush to kill the boy while picking up weapons from a torn-off hand while dragging their internal organs. It was an unusual sight that couldn't be settled with words like suffering from hunger or the excitement of fear and combat.
"Search if there are injection marks, or if there are marks like being bitten. If they are human, if you shoot somewhere on the body, they become unable to continue combat from pain or fear, but if they can't do that, the battle ahead will become difficult. Since there's no time, do it in 1 minute."
"Understood."
"Also, secure any clues that seem to show where these guys have their base. Though if I were the opponent's commander, I wouldn't let them have such things that would reveal their location."
Looking for Aki is also important, but before that, if we don't know the enemy, we can't decide the way to fight this time either. Following Sato who immediately flipped over a nearby corpse, the boy also tried to look for a relatively clean corpse. But because he fired the gun like crazy, every corpse is full of bullet holes, and there are few corpses whose bodies are safe.
There was a corpse of a girl whose head from the forehead up was blown away and had not a single hit on her body. While feeling a slight resistance to stripping the clothes of a girl's corpse, the boy makes an excuse to himself that it's an unavoidable thing, takes a knife in hand, and rips her jacket.
The corpse shook powerlessly, and from the skull whose upper half vanished, with a becha sound, pink brains fell onto the ground.
He ripped the jacket and made the girl's corpse naked from the waist up, but no traces of using drugs were found. No marks of being bitten by an infected either. In the first place, if all the children rolling as corpses now were infected, that unusual durability and the monstrous strength to lightly swing weapons would be explained, but they wouldn't have intelligence left to do things like attacking all at once according to a signal or using weapons.
He also strips the bottom. He hesitated a bit and stripped the pants while leaving only the underwear. Here too, no marks like being bitten or injection marks of stimulants and the like were particularly found.
What on earth are these guys. Just as he thought so again, he notices the corpse's eyes are a bit strange. The corpse's eyes, which were half-popped out from the impact when she was hit in the head, were bright red and bloodshot.
"Sato-san, these guys' eyes..."
"Yeah, they resemble the eyes of the infected. But no marks of being bitten anywhere, what's going on?"
In the end, he doesn't know why these children have unusual durability and attack power, but at the time of combat, he must aim for the head just like the infected.
More importantly than that, now they had to carry out the search for Aki. Judging from the situation, she was likely taken away, but the purpose is unknown, and there's no guarantee that the ones who kidnapped Aki will keep Aki alive forever.
"So, how shall we look for her?"
"We'll use this."
What Sato took out saying that was a radio. Though it's not the terminal used for communication with the boy and the others. When Sato operates the radio's dial, noise flows from the small built-in speaker.
"That is?"
"The engineers made a beacon, so I tucked it into the gun's grip. It's also in your gun."
Look, he was told, and the boy pulls the lid at the bottom of the carbine's grip. Unlike handguns where the magazine fits in the grip part, long guns have a hollow grip part, and it's said that soldiers store maintenance tools or batteries, or cigarettes and banknotes in case they encounter residents of other countries.
When the boy removes the lid of the carbine's grip, a dry battery and some machine connected to it came out from inside. Is this the beacon thing?
"Because it's small, the range it can catch the radio wave is 2 kilometers or so and the battery only lasts for 1 day, but the approximate direction and distance can be known by the strength of the signal coming from the beacon. It helped that those guys took away Aki's equipment together."
"Why did you tuck it into the gun?"
"If you put it in clothes or luggage, it'll be found and thrown away during a body check. But if it's a gun, people in these times will surely take it home if they find it, and although they'll check if it has bullets and can be used, most guys don't check as far as the inside of the grip."
I see, the boy was convinced. In the current world, a gun is a powerful weapon that everyone wants to get. It can be used to protect oneself from the infected, and also to threaten or kill someone and steal supplies. There are no people who would leave such a gun behind. Actually, Aki was kidnapped, but the weapons and the luggage she had were taken together.
When Sato turns the radio's dial, a zaa-zaa noise flows from the speaker. When he extends the antenna and swings its tip left and right, a faint intermittent pi sound begins to flow. That too is a small volume that seems like it would be drowned out by the noise, but would this be the signal the beacon is emitting?
"It's this way. Support me."
Sato says that and proceeds toward the direction he was pointing the radio's antenna just now. The direction this signal flies from would be the direction where the beacon taken away together with Aki is.
"Can we catch up?"
"A car's engine sound wasn't heard, and they wouldn't be able to use a car in this city either. They are on foot. Besides, the fact that we can still receive the signal means they haven't gone that far."
Sato occasionally stops and confirms if the radio wave is being received by pointing the radio's antenna. The signal strength has been gradually becoming stronger since a while ago. Does that mean the beacon's position is gradually getting closer?
Be safe. The boy wished that without putting it into words.
"Ouch..."
At that time, Aki woke up along with a dull headache. At the moment she raised her upper body and almost rubbed her aching head, she notices that both her hands are tied with a rope.
"Eh, what is this?"
And she remembers the things before she lost consciousness. Keeping watch outside from the back gate of the police station, and then she heard a noise so she went outside and found a girl, and then...
There is no memory beyond that. Only, she remembers receiving some strong impact on her temple when she fainted. When she touches her head fearfully, amidst the sandy feeling of dust-covered hair, something slimy touched her hand. Immediately, a sharp pain runs through her head. She must have been hit with something.
"Where is this...?"
She understood that she seems to have been caught by someone. When she feels her body, the handgun and knife she was wearing have all been confiscated. Since there is no radio either, she cannot take contact with Sato and the others.
When she looks around, she understood that the place she is in is a very wide space. The roof is a glass-walled atrium, but because a black cloth—it would be a curtain or something—covers overhead, almost no sunlight enters the room.
She thought about standing up, but her feet are also tied. Aki moves her body mozo-mozo and somehow looks around, and there were a large potted plant of a withered ornamental plant and a bench before her eyes.
This would be a shopping mall or something. Come to think of it, when she looked at the map before departure, there were a large station and a shopping mall at a place several kilometers away from the police station. There were several other large commercial facilities in front of the station, but the one she is in now might be one of those.
The rest is why she was caught. Since she hasn't been killed yet, they wouldn't have simply tried to steal weapons and supplies. What on earth is the purpose—.
When she turned her gaze while thinking that far, Aki reflexively let out a scream at what she saw at the end of her gaze.
At the end of Aki's gaze, there were countless bleached skeletons. If it were just bleached skeletons, she is used to seeing them. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people died, and their remains were left without even being buried, rotted away, and are still exposing their miserable figures. Aki also saw several bleached skeletons by the time she went to the police station.
But what was before Aki's eyes was not just corpses. Countless skulls were piled up skillfully, and on both sides of them, bones of arms and legs, and a grotesque totem pole made by layering skulls are installed. As if it were an altar to perform some kind of ritual, a large pedestal was enshrined between them.
"What is that..."
Aki was trembling with fear. People who build such a thing using human corpses cannot be proper. She was terrified of what would be done to her by such people.
"Have you woken up?"
Suddenly, a voice other than her own was heard. Aki twists her body and looks behind.
The shutter that was closed until just now opened, and someone was standing. A young man wearing clothes like a clergyman. And behind him, a large number of children.
What on earth are these guys. Aki was feeling fear from the bottom of her heart at that unbalanced sight.
I look forward to your opinions and impressions.