Chapter 215 - A Story of the Holy Hand Grenade
Sato immediately communicated the fact that thousands of the infected were aboard this luxury liner to those waiting on the quay. If the infected were to land, there would be no place to run in the Reclaimed Land. Of course, about a dozen armed security personnel were surrounding the ship and had constructed positions in case of an emergency. However, Sato was not optimistic enough to think that alone could hold back thousands of the infected.
"What are we going to do now?"
"We have no choice but to do something about this ship. Either take it out to sea or just blow the whole thing up with a bomb or something..."
However, both of those plans were unrealistic. The liner, which had run aground in a manner almost mounting the concrete quay, didn't seem likely to be able to leave the shore even at high tide, and judging by the captain's notes, the engine wouldn't work either. On the other hand, there were no explosives here in an amount that could blow this ship to smithereens along with the infected. They might be able to sink it by blowing a hole in the hull, but that would be meaningless in its grounded state.
"Anyway, exiting this ship now is the top priority. We'll follow the route we came and go outside."
At least there were no infected on the route up to here. However, that was strictly a matter of "happening" not to encounter them. The infected do not have the intelligence to leave the ship in lifeboats. Even after the captain and crew, who had escaped infection, evacuated, there should have been thousands of the infected on this ship.
Most of the infected were those who had transformed from the people in the facilities at the rear of the ship, such as the park and movie theater, which had become temporary aid stations, and the boys had come straight to the bridge on the upper level of the front of the hull without passing through there. That might be why they hadn't encountered any infected.
In any case, preventing the infected from landing was the top priority now. Sato immediately ordered the other two teams currently exploring the ship to evacuate the ship, and subsequently informed the security personnel building defensive positions on the quay of the fact that there were infected inside the ship. The presence of infected inside the ship was expected, but even so, the number of thousands must have been unexpected. Even through the radio, the boy could tell that Han, who was taking command of the security on land, was shaken.
Would they be able to hold them back if the infected overflowed out of the ship? The boy considered the number and equipment of the security personnel on the quay and judged that it would be difficult. There were about a dozen security personnel deployed around the ship on the quay. There were two gun emplacements with JSDF machine guns, but if such things could do something about the infected, neither Japan nor the world would have fallen into this situation.
"We're leaving here. The others will leave the ship before us. Shoot anything that moves."
Sato's instruction was extremely simple. From now on, everything they encountered inside the ship, other than Sato, was an enemy.
Sato and the boy began to turn back the way they had come. They jogged through the employee passage and exited through the boarding door they had used when storming the ship. Despite it being such a simple thing, running through the dark ship passage made him feel as if he were trapped in a labyrinth.
Once they turned a corner and the chemical lights used as markers were no longer visible, he suddenly became anxious about whether this was truly the right path. Perhaps they were proceeding through the wrong passage, and at the end of it, countless infected were waiting for them. He found himself thinking such things.
Every time he ran, the ring of light from the flashlight attached to his gun illuminated various parts of the corridor, but nothing moved. Are there really infected on this ship? He almost thought so.
However, the rear of the ship, where the two had not yet stepped foot, must be in a hellish state. No one knew how many people had died and how many had become infected on this ship.
Just as the two had turned back the route they came and finally reached the halfway point, a communication came in. The other two teams exploring other parts of the ship had apparently succeeded in escaping from the half-destroyed boarding door that was the entry point. Both had not seen a single living infected on the way, but they had apparently seen several human corpses.
"Only we're left. Let's get out of here quickly—"
Just as Sato was about to say that, the boy felt a sign of something moving in the darkness ahead in the corridor. Chemical lights had been placed as markers after the two had passed through on their way to the wheelhouse, faintly illuminating the ship's interior, where sunlight did not reach, in fluorescent green.
That light wavered for just an instant. Once used, a chemical light continues to emit light for half a day. It's impossible for it to go out. If that's the case...
The boy's bad feeling was correct. Just as he thought a human shadow was reflected on the corridor wall illuminated by the chemical light, something rounded the corner of the corridor and showed itself. The unsteady, staggering gait was just like a drunkard's, but because it was dark, he couldn't see the face. It was certain that it had a humanoid shape, but he couldn't distinguish if it was human or infected.
However, all the humans who had been alive on this ship should have either evacuated in lifeboats or been left behind in the ship and turned into the infected. If they hadn't read that diary, the two would have hesitated to judge who that human shadow was. But the notebook left by the captain stated that this ship was a nest of the infected and there were no survivors.
Sato leveled his gun without hesitation and fired. Although a silencer was attached to the muzzle, its effect was minimal at close range and in a confined space. A muffled gunshot that resonated in the gut thundered, and the reflected gunshot vibrated the eardrums. He saw the human shadow at the end of the long corridor have something spray from its head and collapse onto the floor from its knees.
It was an infected. Sato and the boy had not thoroughly checked every room and passage they passed on their way to the wheelhouse. Had the infected from just now been prowling in such a place?
Although encountering an infected was expected, the fact that they had fired finally made the boy realize they were falling into a dire situation. Moreover, despite having a silencer, the gunshot made an unexpectedly loud noise in the narrow ship, and perhaps having heard that sound, he felt the sign of something starting to move at the end of the long passage.
"This is bad, let's get out of here quickly."
Sato said so and proceeded down the passage while leveling his carbine, from which gunpowder smoke was still rising. They stepped over the corpse of the infected they had just shot on the way; the infected had been killed by being shot once each in the chest and head, perfectly. He was impressed once again by Sato's skill in aiming and killing a vital point in an instant in the darkness.
However, the boy had no time to be impressed by Sato. Multiple shadows were wriggling at the end of the passage again, and he could faintly see them coming this way. When the boy aimed his gun, the attached flashlight illuminated the figures of the infected running toward them with bloodshot eyes.
"This way is no good!"
Sato said so, fired, and began to retreat. The direction the infected were currently swarming from was exactly where the boy and Sato had come from. The route they came could not be used. They had no choice but to exit the ship from somewhere else. Seeing one, then another infected coming from the darkness, the boy began to turn back toward the route to the wheelhouse while firing along with Sato. Perhaps having heard the gunshots, he felt the sign of even more infected swarming in.
To evacuate the ship, turning back the way they came was the fastest. But since that was no longer possible, Sato and the boy ended up running around the pitch-black ship without even a decent guide map.
"Encountered a large number of infected! Seal the entry point!"
Sato barked instructions over the radio while running. Hearing those words, the security personnel waiting at the entry point where the boys had entered the ship would have begun the work of sealing the breached boarding door. If they encountered infected inside the ship, they would seal the entrance even if personnel remained inside to prevent the infected from getting out. That was the prior agreement.
Even if it meant abandoning the personnel inside the ship, they would delay the time it took for the infected to land on the Reclaimed Land by even a moment. That was the objective, but when he thought about being on the side being abandoned, it hit him hard.
"Where are we going out from!?"
Pushing the groans and roars heard from behind to the back of his mind, the boy shouted. Since they would be caught by the infected immediately if they stopped to fire every time, they no longer had time to shoot their guns.
"No, go back!"
Before answering the boy's words, Sato, who was running ahead, shouted and turned back. Behind him was also an infected. They had ended up sandwiched between infected from the front and back of the passage.
"Hand grenade!"
Sato shouted, pulled the safety pin from a hand grenade he took from his pouch, and threw it toward the approaching swarm of infected. After throwing a hand grenade at the infected approaching from the other side as well, Sato grabbed the boy by the collar and dove into a cabin whose door had been left open. Immediately after Sato kicked the wooden door shut, an explosion thundered on the other side of the door, and the cabin shook.
What couldn't withstand the power of the explosion was the wooden door, which was blown off the door frame along with its hinges. Over the heads of the boys, who were prone on the floor and covered by a duvet, fragments of the door that had turned into wood chips rained down. Hearing the raw sound of something being slapped down with a wet thud, the boy poked his face out from the duvet and saw, through the entrance where the door had been blown away, that one side of the passage had become covered in meat fragments.
"Stand up."
The boy, whose arm was grabbed by Sato and pulled up, went out into the passage while leveling his gun along with him. The situation in the corridor where the two hand grenades had detonated had become tragic, with corpses of the infected scattered all over the floor. The blast must have reflected in the narrow passage, further increasing its power. The infected who were at the center of the detonation point had their limbs blown off and were half-turned into minced meat, and even the infected who didn't receive a direct hit from fragments had their limbs or necks broken by the powerful blast and were hardly moving.
"So, where are we going out from?"
When the boy asked that again, Sato silently pointed upward. Apparently, the plan was to go out to the upper deck and evacuate the ship from there. There was a possibility that infected were on the upper floors as well, but there was still a chance they could evacuate outside from the open deck or cabin windows. However, if they went down and encountered infected there, there would be no place to run.
Sato leveled his gun and stepped onto the passenger stairs at the end of the passage. He aimed his gaze, integrated with the muzzle, upward, confirmed there was no sign of infected coming down the stairs, and began to climb. Just as the boy was about to follow Sato up the stairs, the sound of multiple footsteps thudded from below.
Looking down, the infected were using the stairs and climbing up from below. Having made both gunshots and explosion sounds, it was only natural they were noticed. The boy also hurriedly ran up the stairs, but he was about to be caught by the infected.
"You bastard...!"
He shook off an arm that reached out and delivered a kick to the face of the lead infected. The infected, whose nose tip was crushed by the bottom of the boot, tumbled down the stairs, taking the followers with him.
Immediately, the boy took out a hand grenade and pulled the safety pin. He threw the hand grenade, its safety lever having flicked away by spring force, into the swarm of infected who were trying to stand up, and the boy hurriedly ran up the stairs. A few seconds later, an explosion thundered behind him, and the blast and meat fragments blew up the stairwell.
Waiting for your opinions and impressions.