Chapter 222 - Chapter 206: A Story About Preparing Your Resolve
Around the time the boy lost his left eye, Sato and the others had finally reached the bridge connecting the Reclaimed Land to the mainland. Several trucks and vans, abandoned by survivors who had fled earlier, were lined up in a row, and beyond them, a flimsy, handmade bridge stretched toward the shore.
This was the bridge Sato had constructed after blowing up the original one to prevent intrusion from the mainland side. By repurposing the winch and materials from a crane at a construction site, they had built a drawbridge that split in two from the middle. Normally, it remained lowered for transporting supplies from the mainland, but in an emergency, the bridge girders on either the mainland or the Reclaimed Land side could be cranked up using the winch to prevent entry. However, no one had expected they would end up using this function not to prevent an intrusion from the outside, but to trap the infected chasing them from behind within the Reclaimed Land.
The mainland and the Reclaimed Land were separated by about 20 meters, and the original reinforced concrete bridge had collapsed over a 10-meter section in the center. On the mainland side across the drawbridge installed over the collapse, two minivans that Sato and the others planned to board were waiting, ready to depart at any time. Since they were hybrids, they weren't idling, but the drivers were already inside.
"Hurry! Hurry, over here!"
Aoi, Aki's classmate, waved her arms vigorously upon spotting Sato and the others. They had heard that the departure was delayed because a bus carrying the elderly and children had stalled, but since it wasn't visible on the mainland side, it seemed the repairs were complete and they had already left. Since Aki and the others had risked their lives to buy time on the Reclaimed Land specifically to let them escape, it meant their struggle hadn't been in vain. Just knowing that made Sato and Aki feel rewarded.
However, sporadic gunshots were echoing on the mainland side as well, indicating that the flashy combat sounds from the Reclaimed Land had drawn the attention of the infected on the shore. Even if they crossed the bridge, they couldn't afford to relax; otherwise, they would be overtaken by the infected coming from the mainland side. They had no choice but to leave this place quickly and flee to the safehouse they had prepared for emergencies.
With the injured Sato in the lead, the security guards who had run here from the accident site crossed the bridge with ragged breaths. Since it was a handmade bridge, it didn't have the load capacity for vehicles, so they had to head to the opposite shore on foot. Every time they stepped, a light metallic sound echoed from beneath their feet.
Looking down, the sea was beginning to grow rough. The sky looked ominous, and a wind had been blowing for some time. Waves crashed against the quay, and whitecaps were forming.
"Is that kid still not here?"
The moment they crossed the bridge and reached the mainland, Sato spoke. At those words, Aki looked back, but no human figure was visible on the Reclaimed Land side yet. The gunfire that had been echoing until a moment ago had stopped, perhaps because the boy had finally run out of ammo.
Sato called out to the boy over the radio, but there was no response. He couldn't believe that tenacious boy had been killed, but even so, they couldn't wait forever. If the infected appeared before the boy did, they would have to raise the bridge to prevent pursuit onto the mainland side, and even if they didn't, with the infected swarming from the mainland side now, waiting for him indefinitely would result in them being eaten.
Since everyone couldn't stay here, they first put the injured security guards into the cars to send them to the forward base, which served as their safehouse. Several security guards remained on the mainland side to guard the perimeter of the bridge, but their true feelings were likely that they wanted to leave this place as soon as possible. They kept watch with guns in hand, but occasionally they would look back with eyes that seemed to say, "Are we not leaving yet?"
However, the option of leaving the boy behind and departing quickly did not exist for Aki. Leaving behind the boy who had specifically volunteered for the dangerous role of a decoy to let the injured go first was simply too heartless. If possible, she didn't want to do such a thing, and she didn't want Sato to make that kind of decision either.
But time was pressing second by second. If the infected appeared on the opposite shore before the boy, or if Sato judged that the mainland base could no longer prevent the intrusion of the infected, he would abandon the boy without mercy.
"What are you doing..."
Aki muttered involuntarily. The notebook that had been thrust upon her by the boy when they parted felt as if it had grown heavy in her pocket.
Meanwhile, the boy was also approaching the bridge, with only a little distance left. He had covered his crushed left eye with a bandana as makeshift first aid while walking, but even so, the pain wouldn't subside. The sensation of blood, bodily fluids, and the liquid from inside his eyeball trickling down his cheek was disgusting.
Footsteps approached from behind again, and when the boy looked back, an infected wearing camouflage was charging at him. It was heavily stained with dried brown blood, but the camouflage wasn't from the JSDF, and the infected didn't look Japanese either.
It was likely a foreign soldier who had been aboard the passenger ship. Since the passenger ship stranded on the Reclaimed Land had apparently picked up soldiers and police along the way, it might be one of them.
The boy's attention was drawn to the equipment the infected was wearing. It didn't seem to have a rifle, perhaps having dropped it when it turned into an infected, but a holster hung from its suspenders along with several magazine pouches. Seeing the grip of a handgun peeking out from there, the boy stopped and drew his own handgun, which had only a few rounds left.
Because he couldn't see out of one eye, he couldn't grasp the distance for a moment, but he pulled the trigger regardless. He pulled the trigger twice, three times, and on the fourth shot, it finally hit the infected's chest. When its movements slowed, he fired one more, this time hitting the head.
After firing five shots, the handgun's slide remained locked back. He was out of ammo. Since he had no spare magazines or bullets, he threw away the handgun, which had turned into a mere lump of iron, and searched the corpse of the infected soldier, which had a hole in its forehead large enough for an index finger to fit in. The handgun in the soldier's holster was still loaded.
He shoved the automatic handgun, stained with dried blood, into his own holster. Since he didn't have time to strip it off the corpse, he used his knife to cut the suspenders where the spare magazine pouches hung and slung them across his body like a sash. When he lightly pulled the slide of the handgun, he saw a gold casing seated in the chamber. Apparently, the soldier who owned this gun had been taken down and infected without firing a single shot from his handgun.
The severed suspenders had several pouches containing handgun magazines and one grenade hanging from them. This, too, was an old grenade shaped like a pineapple with paint peeling off in places.
He had obtained a gun and bullets, but it was only a small comfort. The number of swarming infected was far greater than his bullets. He had to reach the bridge quickly, no matter what.
The boy fired the newly acquired handgun at the infected closing in from behind. Being a movie lover, the boy recognized it as the gun John McClane used, but right now, the type of gun didn't matter.
With a filthy roar, an infected slammed into the boy's stomach. Taking the hit head-on, the boy was literally blown back several meters and slammed onto the asphalt on his back. Even so, he kept his grip on the handgun, but when he tried to stand up, his side throbbed with intense pain.
It seemed his ribs had been broken when he was slammed onto the ground from the ship's deck during the escape, but it felt like several more had snapped from that tackle just now. He involuntarily took shallow breaths due to the pain, but he still calmly shot the approaching infected. The infected, taking the gunfire from below, recoiled as if hit by an uppercut and fell while scattering blood and fragments of brain matter from the top of its head.
Were they broken, or just cracked? If the broken ribs had pierced his lungs, he would be unable to breathe and coughing up blood by now, so at the very least, it wasn't a critical injury. His legs could still move.
Just as he stood up, another infected pounced. He instinctively shielded his face with his left arm, which was covered by a protector. The infected bit down on the boy's arm, but thanks to the protector, its teeth didn't tear through his flesh.
However, under the infected's incredible jaw strength, the metal protector quickly began to crumple. The bent metal plate dug into the boy's arm, threatening to crush it like a vise. Hearing his arm bone creak, the boy fired all the remaining bullets in the handgun's magazine into the infected biting his arm.
With every shot, the infected's body jerked, and its limp form collapsed to the ground. Tooth marks were clearly left on the protector smeared with the infected's saliva, and the crumpled metal plate was embedded in the boy's arm. It was a protector made by processing aluminum plates, but it had fulfilled its role of keeping the infected's teeth out.
Several more infected came running toward the boy. He took a magazine from the pouch on the sash-slung suspenders, swapped it, and pushed down the slide stop. With a metallic click, the slide moved forward and chambered a round. Even if the shape is different, the operation is mostly the same, the boy thought vaguely.
He leveled the handgun and aimed at the one in the lead. It was a female infected with long, disheveled hair. When he pulled the trigger toward her head, the fired bullet hit her forehead in a single shot. Blowing away blood and a piece of skin with hair from her head, the female infected fell.
Holding the handgun with both hands, he continued to pull the trigger. Though the air was cold, his body was hot from running continuously. Sweat running down from his forehead entered his crushed left eye, and an agonizing pain shot through him, nearly making him cry out in a strange voice.
Shoot. Shoot. Shoot. Shoot. When he ran out of bullets, he swapped magazines and shot again. After repeating this twice, finally, all the infected in front of him lay prostrate on the ground. The handgun and ammo he had gone to the trouble of taking from the soldier infected had already been reduced by nearly half.
However, it seemed he had managed to repel the lead group of infected chasing him for now, as no infected were visible within range. Having run all the way and with his left eye crushed, his entire body was rattling from fatigue and pain.
Perhaps because of that, when he saw something move at the edge of his vision, the boy's reaction was delayed for just a moment. It might have been because the movement was at the left edge of his field of vision, which had become a blind spot due to his eye being crushed. By the time the boy turned that way, an infected was already right in front of him.
Why? I should have killed them all. But the face of the infected pressing in on the boy right now was familiar. It was the female infected with long hair he had shot in the head and killed earlier. But looking closely, a white skull peeked out from the gunshot wound on her forehead; it seemed the bullet hadn't penetrated.
Come to think of it, he had heard of this. Compared to rifles, handgun rounds have weaker power, and depending on the angle, they can be deflected even if they hit the head, or they might slide under the scalp along the skull without delivering a fatal wound. It was the boy's mistake for not finishing her off properly because he had hit her head in one shot and because there were so many infected pressing in.
But it was too late for regrets now. The female infected grabbed the boy's shoulders with both hands, and her wide-open mouth filled the right half of his vision. He couldn't even aim the handgun he had just reloaded in time. Yellowed teeth peeking from the woman's open mouth—likely unbrushed since she became infected—saliva mixed with blood, and a terrible halitosis overwhelmed the boy's five senses.
Ah, this looks bad, the boy thought vaguely.
I look forward to your opinions and impressions.