Chapter 51 - Chapter 49: A Story of Cleaning Up
A single infected was wandering aimlessly in the middle of a road where several cars had been abandoned on the shoulder. The moment they find prey, the infected begin to run with literally superhuman physical ability as if they had found water, but they don't spend their time being that powerful normally. When no humans (prey) are found, or when none are nearby, they just wander around like vagrants.
I aimed my crossbow at that infected. I overlapped the red glowing reticle of the dot sight with the infected's nape and pulled the trigger the moment their movement stopped. With a twang, the string hummed, and the loosed bolt pierced the infected's neck from behind.
The crossbow bolt seemed to have damaged the spinal cord and further pierced the trachea. As soon as the infected collapsed on the spot and began to convulse, Naomi-san, who had been waiting beside me until now, started running soundlessly. Crossing the road while keeping her rifle ready, she properly drove a knife into the head of the convulsing infected to deliver the finishing blow and finished crossing the road safely.
Beyond the road Naomi-san had crossed, a four-story apartment building towered. The cars left parked in the parking lot were covered in dust, and some even had their doors left wide open. All the balcony windows remained closed, and the mud-stained laundry fluttering in the wind indicated that there were no longer any people in this apartment.
This apartment was our bed for today. If we were lucky, we might stay there as a base for the time being. That apartment was the tallest building in this area, and it could be said to be an ideal property whether for keeping watch or for barricading ourselves in.
However, since entering this town, we have already spotted several infected. Although we were able to come near the apartment without making a sound thanks to the hybrid car's electric motor, we don't know how many infected are in this vicinity. Even though it's a place away from densely populated areas, it's more correct to think that there are infected in places where people used to be.
That said, we couldn't keep moving and sleeping in the mountains forever like we had been. Although we were able to secure weapons and ammunition when escaping Osawa Village, we could hardly take any food with us. Besides, the car's fuel is running low. Unless we enter a town once and obtain those supplies, we will starve to death before being eaten by the infected.
"Well then, I'm going, so Mana-chan, make sure to wait properly inside the car. Yui, I'm counting on you in case of an emergency."
"I'd like to say 'leave it to me,' but by myself, I..."
Reflected in my eyes as I looked back was the figure of Yui clutching an over-under shotgun with unpracticed hands. Inside the car parked behind her, Mana-chan was staring this way with an anxious face.
Since we couldn't confirm whether the inside of the apartment was safe, we couldn't act as a whole group. Besides, since we don't know where the infected are, the probability of being discovered would increase if the four of us walked around in a line. It had been decided to have the two of them wait inside the car until the safety of the apartment was secured.
"It's okay, you won't be found if you hide inside the car. Those guys only react to moving things; they don't go out of their way to search around for humans."
"That's true, but... oh well, make sure you come back safely."
I felt a certain kind of surprise and emotion that such words had jumped out of Yui's mouth. Even though she used to shower me with biting words whenever she opened her mouth, to think she would offer words of worry. Though I knew that even our previous exchanges were nothing more than a kind of teasing.
I nodded and looked around while readying my crossbow. It wasn't enough to simply not have infected in my field of vision. I checked the convex mirrors on the road to confirm there were no infected beyond the corners, and only then did I finally begin to cross the road. I recovered the previous bolt from the infected who was dead in the middle of the road and then joined up with Naomi-san.
"Alright, then I'll take the lead. You take the rear. Watch your line of fire; I don't want to be shot from behind."
"I'll be fine. Or rather, in such a narrow place, there won't be a turn for me."
Naomi-san laughed at those words, swung the rifle she had been readying onto her back with a sling, and instead drew two kukri knives from the holders on her waist. I followed behind Naomi-san, who readied a knife in each hand, with my crossbow ready.
The weapons and ammunition obtained in Osawa Village were all of an order of magnitude more powerful compared to the poor armaments we had until then. That said, we cannot use guns frequently. Even adding them all together, the bullets we obtained are at most around 400 rounds; while rifle rounds and buckshot used for hunting guns might be obtainable at gun shops, it's impossible to obtain handgun bullets unless we are extremely lucky.
Besides, if we fire guns, the infected will gather due to the gunshot. For that reason, we had decided that using guns would be a last resort, and our rule was to use blunt instruments or blades as before in other cases.
The automatic doors at the apartment entrance remained closed, but they opened easily when I thrust a crowbar into the gap and pried. Now that the lifelines are dead, no alarm will sound even if we force the automatic doors open. The inside of the entrance, where the lights remained off, was dark, and it had an atmosphere where it wouldn't be strange for an infected to jump out from anywhere.
Naomi-san returned the knife in her left hand to its sheath and instead took a flashlight in her hand and turned it on. A powerful 200-lumen light tore through the darkness, reflecting the state of the dilapidated entrance. Letters and envelopes were scattered on the floor, and the ornamental plants placed here and there were withered.
I also turned on the flashlight I had forcibly fixed to the fore-end part of the crossbow with tape and followed after Naomi-san. The only things that could be heard were the sound of the wind blowing in through the gap in the automatic doors and our footsteps.
The elevator located straight ahead through the entrance was, as expected, stopped. Judging by the number of mailboxes right next to the door, there seem to be nearly 40 rooms in this apartment. If divided equally, that's 10 rooms per floor. We have to go around all of them and secure safety.
Splitting into two groups would be more efficient, but then it's possible for one person to be attacked without the other noticing. Besides, it's difficult for one person to cover all directions, and we might not be able to deal with it if an infected suddenly comes out from a blind spot. In order not to produce sacrifices, we couldn't afford to skip the trouble.
The apartment was L-shaped, and beyond the entrance, many rooms were lined up like a wall. We decided to check the safety of the rooms starting from the first floor.
Naomi-san swung her right hand forward, conveying "advance" with a hand signal. There were no human figures at the end of the long corridor lined with doors. Several doors of the rooms on the first floor were left wide open, and the sight of the residents having left in a hurry came to mind.
"For now, let's ignore the locked rooms. And the rooms where the doors are closed."
The infected are humans whose reason has been blown away; they can't possibly live a civilized life. They wouldn't go out of their way to close a door after entering an open room, and furthermore, an action like locking it is impossible. That much intelligence does not remain in those guys. Therefore, the possibility of an infected being inside a room that is locked or where the door remains closed is infinitely close to zero.
There might be cases where a resident turns into an infected inside a locked room, but even in that case, they probably won't be a threat. After all, nearly half a year has already passed since the pandemic occurred in Japan. The infected are not zombies. They die if shot in the head, and they die even if stabbed in the heart. The infected, who can also be driven to death by cutting an artery and causing excessive bleeding, couldn't possibly live for nearly half a year without eating anything.
If there were an infected inside a room with a closed door, it would be a case where there was a survivor who visited this apartment just before we arrived and turned into an infected just like that. However, there are no traces of anyone having visited recently, either outside or inside the building. That being the case, the only ones we have to pay attention to are the rooms with open doors.
With Naomi-san as the vanguard, we approached the rooms with open doors. Stopping in front of a door with a plate labeled "Room 105," she held up three fingers of her left hand which gripped the flashlight and lowered them one by one. And the moment all fingers were lowered, she rounded the open door and stepped into the room all at once.
I followed quickly into the room after her while readying my crossbow, but there was no sign of people inside the dim room where the curtains were drawn shut. Naomi-san illuminated the inside of the room with the flashlight, but no moving things were found in the messy interior. Neither humans nor infected were there.
Perhaps the owner of this room also evacuated in a hurry; fragments of broken dishes, towels, and clothing were scattered on the floor. Although we checked here and there just in case, there was indeed no one. The wide-open dresser drawers and the numerous clothes overflowing from them conveyed the frantic state of this room's resident to us.
All the rooms with open doors on the first floor were safe. While heading to the second floor via the stairs, I stopped on the spot, feeling like I heard some footsteps.
Apparently, it wasn't a hallucination; Naomi-san also stopped and was listening intently. Following the hand signal for "move slowly," we went up the stairs step by step with such caution that not even the sound of shoe soles rubbing would occur. Since the stairs and the second-floor corridor intersect perpendicularly, we couldn't directly observe the state of the corridor from the stairs.
There, Naomi-san took out a rod about the size of a ballpoint pen from her pocket. That thing, which had a small mirror attached to a broken radio antenna, was something Naomi-san had gone out of her way to make in order to grasp the situation beyond corners.
Naomi-san leaned against the corner, extended the antenna, and thrust it into the corridor. When she adjusted the angle of the mirror at the tip of the antenna a few times, her face distorted slightly in displeasure.
Naomi-san, who tucked the mirror away, held up two fingers. That was the signal for "there are two infected," and it probably meant there were two infected in the corridor beyond this corner. In fact, when I listened intently, I could hear slight footsteps.
I nodded to show my understanding and leaned in right next to Naomi-san. Then, after nodding as we met eyes, I jumped out around the corner with vigor and exposed myself to the corridor.
Beyond the corridor stretching straight ahead, about 10 meters away, there was one infected standing still, facing the opposite direction from us. And beyond that, the figure of another infected staggering while facing this way. I aimed at the infected further back and pulled the trigger of the crossbow.
The loosed bolt grazed the side of the infected in front and plunged vigorously into the eye of the infected in the back. The eyeball burst, and the bolt that pierced through to the eye socket seemed to have reached the brain. The infected fell over backward, but before their back hit the ground, Naomi-san had leaped into the corridor.
Closing the distance all at once with the infected in front who tried to scream according to instinct upon seeing my figure, Naomi-san swung the knife she held in a reverse grip in her right hand as if scooping upward from diagonally below. The knife's tip gouged the infected's throat, and the severed organs were exposed from the gaping wound. Perhaps an artery was also severed; blood sprayed from the wound like a fountain. With this, the infected cannot scream and call their comrades.
However, the infected was still alive. Since the trachea was severed and the artery was also cut, they would probably die even if left alone, but they were spared instant death due to their tenacious vitality. Along with the sound of breath accumulated in the lungs wheezing from the exposed trachea, the infected tried to grab at Naomi-san.
However, Naomi-san did not panic and took a step back; the extended hands grabbed empty air, and she swung down the knife she held in a forward grip in her left hand onto the head of the infected who had lost their posture. The crescent-shaped blade pierced deeply into the infected's head, and this time the infected's movement stopped for sure.
Calmly pulling the knife from the head of the infected who collapsed to the ground, Naomi-san gave it a flick, and blood splatters scattered in the corridor. If one only looked at this, it would be no different from a gruesome murder scene, but I have long since become accustomed to such sights. I won't vomit, nor will I be shaken.
"Well then, let's continue the cleaning."
Nodding to Naomi-san who said that, I stepped over the two corpses lying in the corridor and followed after her.