Chapter 208 - Tuna, Please Look Forward to It-ish Story
Even though spring had come, it didn't get warm at all. There were many cloudy days, and sometimes the temperature dropped to near freezing.
Half a month had passed since they fought the children at the shopping mall. The remodeling of the secured police station into a forward base was progressing day by day, and exploration of the town was also proceeding in parallel.
Even though it was long past the season for the new school year, the temperature didn't rise. Someone joked, "Maybe some country started a nuclear war in the confusion, and a nuclear winter has come to Earth," but it wasn't funny.
"...Because! It's true!"
"Didn't you just mistake a bird or something for it?"
As the boy was preparing for his daily patrol around the Reclaimed Land, he heard such voices. Men from the security unit, carrying guns on their shoulders, were talking about something as they walked.
"What's wrong, trouble?"
"This guy says he saw a plane. That's impossible, right?"
The words that came back to the boy, who stepped in thinking it was a fight, were unexpected.
"It wasn't a mistake, that was definitely a plane."
"A plane? When and where did you see it?"
"Just now when I was coming back from finishing patrol. I saw something for a moment over the town. That was definitely not a bird."
According to the man, that plane-like object was apparently circling over the city's buildings. It was too far away to clearly make out what kind of silhouette it was, and by the time he hurried to call his comrades, it had apparently disappeared somewhere.
The town is many kilometers away from here. Since a bird flying there would be smaller than a grain of rice and couldn't be seen, a flying object large enough to be visible from here could only be a plane.
"Did you report it to Sato-san?"
"I just got back, I was about to go report it now."
"Is it really a plane? Who on earth would be flying a plane?"
One of the pair said. He seemed to doubt the eyewitness testimony of the plane-like object, and the boy inwardly agreed with that opinion.
"Well, the JSDF or..."
"Even if the JSDF remained, if they have enough strength left to fly a plane, why haven't they responded to our radio? The only ones who answer are people surviving in small groups somewhere, and the JSDF and police haven't answered even once, right?"
As he said, to fly a plane, a certain scale of personnel, equipment, and supplies are needed. An airfield, fuel, parts and mechanics to properly fly the plane, a sound aircraft, and personnel to guard the airfield. Ten or twenty people are not nearly enough.
And if the JSDF were safe, why is there no response to the survivors' radio? He had heard many rumors that JSDF units that survived had gathered in Tohoku and were creating a safe zone. If so, why don't they respond to the survivors' calls? It's understandable if they don't have enough strength and it's difficult to go for rescue. But if there's no response even to the radio, the existence of such a large unit must be just a rumor after all.
"Didn't you mistake the reflection of light from a building's window glass for something? Or maybe your desire for help to come showed you a hallucination."
"I gave up on help coming long ago... I guess it was my mistake after all."
Surely it was. Before the boy could say that, a boy arrived at the shopping mall plaza where the boys were, looking flustered. He was supposed to be in charge of fishing for food procurement at the quay today.
"It's bad, come quickly!"
"What's wrong, what happened?"
"The sea... in the sea..."
The boy said only that, and perhaps because he couldn't think of the words after that, he immediately turned back.
"Something seems to have happened at the coast. Heading there now."
The boy reported that to Sato over the radio just in case and started running after the boy. The two security personnel also followed after the boy while looking at each other.
"...Whoa."
The shopping mall in the Reclaimed Land is not that far from the coast. The boy, who went to the sea following the boy, witnessed an unusual sight there.
Many human corpses were floating in the gray sea. Not one or two, but dozens of corpses were drifting on the waves and being pounded against the concrete quay. Elderly people acting as supervisors were desperately soothing the frightened children. Children basically don't go outside the Reclaimed Land and aren't assigned dangerous jobs with weapons. Usually, they were supposed to do farm work or fishing for food security, but did that backfire?
"What happened?"
"When everyone went out fishing, something was floating offshore. At first I thought it was trash or a fish carcass, but I never thought it was human corpses... and as you can see, it's not just one or two."
"Yeah, just how many are there..."
"Exactly. ...It's better not to show the children any more than this. I'll take these kids back. Sorry, but I'll leave the rest to you."
The old man said so and led the children back toward the shopping mall. As expected, age counts at times like this, the boy thought. Wisdom of age, as they say. The boy didn't immediately realize that continuing to see corpses was not good for the children.
"Where did these corpses flow from..."
Some of the corpses are wearing orange life jackets. It's as if they escaped from a sinking ship, but no such ship can be seen looking around. Did a ship wreck somewhere, and they died after escaping and reached here by riding the ocean current?
Looking up at the sky, countless seabirds were circling over the boys' heads. They were landing on the floating corpses and pecking at the meat. For the birds, the floating corpses were excellent bait.
"What should we do?"
"What do you mean... we have no choice but to pull them up."
"Are we going to pull up all these corpses? How much trouble will that take?"
"Then you, are you okay with all the fish you catch from tomorrow being ones that ate human corpses?"
He had heard a story that in the year after a ship sinks and many people die, crabs become a bumper crop. He didn't know if everyone thought about that, but at least they would be reluctant to eat fish that might have grown large by eating dead human meat.
When he asked Sato for instructions, he said, "Pull up as many corpses as possible to the land." The food in the Reclaimed Land is provided not only by preserved food but also by fishing from the quay or using rowboats. Continuing that in the future, it's not good for mental health to have corpses floating in the sea forever. Also, if corpses are left alone, there is a possibility that an epidemic will occur.
By Sato's instruction, those other than those on guard on the opposite shore of the Reclaimed Land were to take turns recovering the corpses. Extending a long pole with a hook at the tip into the sea, they pull the corpses drifting in the waves toward the quay. And then, using the landing nets used for fishing to hook the head or feet, they lifted them up all at once.
Many of the corpses had parts of their bodies missing, perhaps eaten by sharks or fish while drifting. And perhaps because the seawater temperature is higher than the air temperature, the decomposition of the corpses is also progressing. Many corpses with stomachs greatly swollen due to gas generated by decomposition were being pounded against the concrete quay.
"Lifting up, one, two!"
Along with the signal, they pull the landing nets or poles with hooks to lift the corpses onto the quay. But perhaps because it had become brittle from being eaten by sharks during the drift, the leg of the corpse they were trying to pull up tore off at the base, and the corpse fell back into the sea. Next to that, there was a corpse that scattered rotten internal organs into the sea along with a popping sound, perhaps because they accidentally poked the stomach that had become brittle due to accumulated gas.
"Ughhhhh."
Even though they are used to seeing corpses, recovering them is another matter. Most of the corpses currently rolling in the town have dried up or become bones, and there are many who are seeing corpses in the middle of rotting like this for the first time in several months. Immediately several people vomited toward the sea, further polluting the sea where corpses were floating with vomit.
The corpses pulled up from the sea were lined up on the quay, and Sato was checking their belongings and the like. Looking at those corpses being lined up, the boy thought it was like the scene of a tuna wholesale. He had never seen a real wholesale even once, though.
"Did you find out anything?"
"One thing is that they aren't Japanese. And another thing is that they died about two to three weeks ago."
The corpses' decomposition was progressing and it was difficult to discern their features, but he certainly felt they weren't Japanese from their skin color and the like. Also, the name of the ship written in English on the life jackets they were wearing somehow felt like it wasn't from a Japanese vessel. Maybe Southeast Asian, the boy thought.
"Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia... something like that."
Sato, who was taking out a wallet from the clothes of a male corpse and checking what appeared to be an ID, continued.
"Can you read foreign languages?"
"I can do English. Chinese and Russian are so-so, but I don't know any other languages at all."
"Then what's the basis for the time of death?"
Sato pointed to the arm of the male corpse. That arm, which was almost torn off from the shoulder, has a quite rugged watch on its wrist, but it doesn't have the dial it should have. A smartwatch, it's called.
"That smartwatch has military-grade waterproof performance and is a type with a long-lasting battery. In daily mode, it lasts about twenty days. There's still a tiny bit of battery left, and judging from the decomposition of the corpse, it's about that much."
"You know a lot about it."
"Because I had the same one."
When the boy timidly touched the smartwatch the corpse was wearing, the screen lit up and the current time was displayed. To think it works even after being submerged in seawater for many days, it's truly military-grade.
The reason the time is later than the watch the boy is wearing is probably because the place where they lived was further west than Japan. The battery mark displayed on the screen was almost gone, and the "!" meaning charging required was flashing.
"What happened, I wonder."
"I don't know, I'll investigate that from now on. It would be good if there's someone who has a diary or something written in English."
While the boy and Sato exchanged words, corpses were being pulled up from the sea one after another. For a while, no one would want to say they want to eat fish, the boy thought.
I'm waiting for your opinions and impressions.