Chapter 216 - A Story of 'A Boy from the Sky'
Gunshots vibrating the air, and the metallic sound of spent shell casings falling to the floor. And the figures of the infected illuminated by muzzle flashes and flashlights, along with countless roars. That was everything the boy currently perceived.
He had climbed the stairs to escape the countless infected prowling the ship, but ahead of them, more infected who had heard the gunshots, explosions, and the roars of their comrades were waiting.
"This way is no good!"
When Sato shouted and fired his gun, several infected tumbled down from the top of the stairs. Looking up, the figures of several infected were on the landing of the stairs, which was covered with a grand carpet. From further above, several footsteps of things running down the stairs could be heard. They couldn't go any higher using these stairs.
Sato and the boy went out into the passage again. Numerous cabins lined the left and right of the narrow passage, which had a grand carpet and beautiful white walls, and the boy realized they had emerged into the passenger section. Sato threw another hand grenade at the infected chasing from behind. The last hand grenade exploded, and blood and meat fragments danced over the heads of the two.
"Whoa!!"
An infected suddenly jumped out in front of the boy, who was running through the passage aiming for another set of stairs. It seemed they had been inside a cabin whose door was left open. The male infected, who opened his mouth wide and showed off yellowed teeth, leapt at the boy as soon as he saw him.
The boy tried to level his gun, but the distance was too close. The muzzle of the carbine hit the body of the approaching infected and was deflected, and the boy instinctively raised his arms to guard his face. Immediately after, the infected bit into the boy's left arm, which was covered by a protector.
The protector, made of metal plates covered in urethane, didn't let the infected's teeth through, but it began to deform with an unpleasant sound due to the powerful jaw strength. The boy was slammed against the corridor wall by the momentum of being pushed, and the impact caused the breath to leak from the depths of his lungs. The radio equipped on his waist belt was sandwiched between the wall and the boy, deforming with an unpleasant sound, and the wireless earphones made a strange noise for an instant before emitting only static.
He couldn't afford to stand still like this with the infected approaching from behind, so the boy let go of the carbine and pulled out his handgun. And leveling the handgun at his hip, he fired several shots into the torso.
The body of the infected in front of him shook with every shot, but even so, it didn't lead to death. The boy raised his right arm holding the handgun and fired from below at the infected's face. The head of the infected biting the boy's left arm burst from the inside, becoming a grotesque face with the nose and upper lip blown away.
Even with a bullet piercing the face, the infected was still trying to eat the boy. He fired several more shots, and one of them pierced the palate from under the jaw, the bullet churning the brain inside the skull. Skull fragments flicked away, and blood spray stained the ceiling of the beautiful corridor red.
"Are you okay!?"
Sato pulled the boy up while shooting his gun. The boy looked at his arm covered by the protector and was relieved that the infected's teeth hadn't gone through. The infected's tooth marks were clearly engraved on the protector, but it hadn't been penetrated.
"I'm okay!"
The boy replied and fired bullets at the infected chasing from behind. Only a little ammunition remained for the carbine he had brought.
"Just a little more! We can get outside in just a bit!"
Sato switched from his carbine, which was nearly out of ammunition, to his handgun and began running ahead again. The boy also knocked over a large pot of a withered ornamental plant placed at the side of the passage, trying to stall the infected even a little. The lead infected tripped over the fallen pot and fell, and several following him stumbled over him and fell one after another. However, that only had the effect of slightly dulling the momentum of the infected, and they had no choice but to run desperately.
"Whoa!?"
Just as he was about to catch up to Sato, infected showed themselves from a side passage as if to separate the two. Most of them chased after Sato, but several headed toward the boy. He no longer had time to chase Sato. The boy pushed away the infected coming toward him and dove into the passage they had just emerged from. Sato was shouting something, but it was drowned out by the roars of the infected and couldn't be heard.
The passage the infected had emerged from was connected to stairs, and the boy climbed the stairs frantically. Perhaps it was a hull-side staircase, as small windows were embedded in the wall, and the light shining through them slightly illuminated the surroundings. He wanted to see the situation outside from the window, but there was no time for that.
There were infected chasing from behind, but there was no sign of infected coming down from above. Running up the stairs two steps at a time, the boy aimed purely for the top. He kicked an infected he was about to be caught by down the stairs, treated them to a bullet, and climbed the stairs while dodging their hands, until finally, the door leading to the roof deck came into view.
If it's locked here, it's the end, he thought while putting his hand on the doorknob and pushing the door with his whole body as if tackling it. With the sound of metal creaking, the door swung open, and the boy went outside almost rolling.
Because he had been in the dim ship's interior, the outside light was dazzling, and the boy narrowed his eyes. However, what reached the boy's ears was the sound of continuous, intense gunfire. The gunshots were coming from outside, not from inside the ship.
"What...?"
He immediately closed the door, ran across the roof where pools, parasols, and jacuzzis were lined up, and looked outside by leaning over the railing. At the sight spreading there, the boy's eyes widened involuntarily.
From the roof deck on the floor below where the boy was, infected were pouring out and conducting a charge toward the position where the defense personnel were. The height from the roof deck to the quay of the wharf was over ten meters. The ones who jumped first seemed to have died, either because they hit a bad spot or because they were showered with bullets the moment they landed, but the infected continued to jump out of the ship one after another, using those corpses as cushions.
Apparently, infected were also jumping out from cabin balconies and passages whose windows had shattered from the impact of running aground. For the infected, they didn't care about dislocations or fractures; some had arms bent in strange directions, or dragged broken legs with bones sticking out as they crawled toward the position. Occasionally, an infected would fall headfirst onto the quay and stop moving, but most succeeded in landing without taking much damage to their physical functions.
In contrast, the boy's comrades, who had built a position at a distance from the ship, seemed to have their hands full just preventing the infected from approaching them. There were two positions centered around machine guns, showering bullets at the infected who had landed on the ground. However, only a few were able to fire at the infected before they jumped from the ship; most were firing bullets to defeat the infected coming toward them. The swarm of infected that had burst from the ship had approached to within about fifty meters of the position.
Why did it come to this? The boy couldn't help but think so. The breach in the ship the boys had entered through should have been sealed as soon as they encountered the infected, so they must have come out from somewhere else. They should have faced this ship inspection considering that possibility, but even so, the boy couldn't help but be flustered by this situation.
After all, there were thousands of infected. If they all made it onto the land, how much could they handle with their equipment? Furthermore, the security personnel intercepting the infected at the position did not have silencers on their guns. It was unavoidable in this situation, but if they were flashily firing guns and scattering gunshots, there was a possibility that the infected outside the Reclaimed Land would also come here.
That said, what the boy should do now is get out of this ship, join the security personnel, and reduce the number of infected. The boy, who reached for his radio to contact them, remembered that his radio had broken in the earlier fight with the infected. Having no choice, the boy shouted loudly and waved his hands, trying to get them to notice his presence.
"Hey!! Over here!!"
An unpleasant striking sound came from the door behind him, perhaps because infected were crowding it, but if he went down without being noticed, there was a possibility he would be mistaken for an infected and shot dead. After shouting and waving his hands for a while, one of the people leveling a gun at the position seemed to have noticed the boy. It was Aki.
He couldn't hear what she was saying with her eyes wide open, but she was likely saying something like "Why are you in a place like that?" To her, who had picked up a radio, the boy used gestures to communicate that his radio was broken.
Subsequently, the boy took out a rope from the backpack he had been carrying until now. He hooked the hook on one end to the deck railing and threw the bundled rope over the railing. Seeing the rope swaying in the air, Aki also seemed to have noticed the boy's intention. He saw her call out to the comrades around her and refrain from firing around the place where the rope hung. He had been carrying the very heavy bundle of rope all this time in preparation for such a situation.
With a destruction sound from behind, the door, which had come off its frame, blew across the deck. It seemed the door had been broken by the brute strength of the swarming infected. Seeing the infected pouring out onto the roof deck one after another, the boy hurriedly passed the rope through the carabiner attached to his belt and leaned over the railing.
Peering down, it looked to be forty meters from the current deck to the quay. The tip of the rope was swaying just above the ground, showing it had barely enough length to reach the ground. If he fell from here, he would surely die.
After pumping his few remaining bullets into the infected, the boy grabbed the rope with both hands and climbed over the railing. Using the ship's outer wall as a foothold, he weakened his grip on the rope and gradually descended.
The swarming infected leaned over the railing and reached out their hands to the boy, but the boy had already descended to a place where the infected's hands couldn't reach.
If it continues like this, he can descend safely to the ground. Just as he thought that, something fell from above the boy. An infected, whose only thought was to attack the boy, climbed over the railing and threw its body into the air. For an infected without fear, it doesn't matter what happens if they fall to the ground. Attack and eat the human in front of them. That's all they can think of.
Instinctively, the boy twisted his body and managed to avoid the infected falling from above. The infected, who couldn't catch the boy, fell as it was and bloomed a bright red flower of blood on the quay upon hitting the ground.
However, it wasn't just one infected falling. A second, then a third followed, leaping into the air and reaching out their hands toward the boy while falling. The boy, who was desperate to hold onto the rope so as not to fall, couldn't avoid the falling infected and let go of the rope after being hit by one of them.
By the time he thought "Oh," it was too late. Along with the impact, his vision rotated again and again, and he saw the gray sky, the gray quay, and the figures of Aki and the others fighting rotating in the distance. And before his eyes was an infected grabbing the boy's body, opening its large mouth, and about to bite right now. The rope he had let go of swayed in the air, and the ground drew closer and closer. Without being able to do anything or think anything, the boy could only watch the concrete ground drawing closer.
Another large impact. A strong pain as if his body were being torn apart ran through his entire body, and the boy lost consciousness.
Waiting for your opinions and impressions.