Chapter 96 - Chapter 0: The Story Before the Story Begins, Part 5
That roar, which was neither a shout nor a scream, felt like it was heard from a very close place. As soon as he heard that roar, I could tell that the man's face turned pale even though the entire city was in a power outage.
"I-It's here...!"
"What's here?"
As soon as the door opened, the man came in with a momentum that almost pushed us aside and ran off toward the schoolyard as he was. In that moment we passed each other, the sight of the man's shirt sleeve being torn off and a tooth mark oozing blood being carved into his arm was illuminated by the flashlight. At least, it wasn't a tooth mark of a dog or cat.
"Hey, wait, stop!"
There was no time to hear the story. The man's figure disappeared behind the administration building, and Yoshioka and I looked at each other in silence. Did the people in the schoolyard also hear the roar just now?
From the man's panic, I can tell only that something is happening. He said he would be killed, so maybe he was attacked by the rioters I saw on TV just now. The news said that many deaths have already occurred due to rioters who run wild after being infected with a disease.
"For now, we should tell the teachers, right?"
"Yeah, I think we should also close the gate."
If rioters are wandering outside, it's better to lock the gate firmly and call the police. Just as I was about to lock the gate I'd just opened with the padlock, I saw something squirming on the road a little distance away.
When I illuminated it with the flashlight, I saw the back of a salaryman in a suit straddling someone. Is the one being straddled an elderly person? A cane is rolling by their side. The salaryman straddling them was just swinging both hands down and seemed to be assaulting the elderly person.
"Hey, what are you doing!"
No matter how much of an emergency it is, I can't overlook those who try to do as they please by taking advantage of the confusion. Without listening to Yoshioka stopping me, I jumped out of the school from the gate I'd just closed and rushed toward the salaryman who was committing an outrage against the elderly person. The salaryman, who had his face close to the elderly person's face as if to kiss them, didn't listen to my restraint. Grabbing his shoulder and forcing him to face here, I saw something hanging from his mouth.
That thing like a bright red hose was connected to the neck of the elderly person who was lifted up together. I noticed that it was a human trachea when the sight of the elderly person's neck being greatly torn caught my eye.
The elderly person was already not moving. Occasionally their leg convulsed, and a pitch-black puddle was spreading under their body. If seen under the sun, that puddle would surely be a bright red color.
I heard the sound of air leaking with a wheeze from the trachea still connected to the lungs.
"Uwaaaaah!"
Letting out a pathetic scream, I turned around and ran toward the school I'd just jumped out of. Along with a dull squelching sound of something falling behind me, the roar from earlier echoed again.
"Come here quickly!"
Sensing an unusual situation, Yoshioka was beckoning me at the gate. I could hear footsteps from behind, but I didn't have the leeway to look back, and I slipped through the gate just as it was.
When Yoshioka, who was waiting, quickly closed the gate, the salaryman who killed the elderly person just now slammed into the gate leaf with momentum. The area around his mouth was stained bright red, and pieces of meat were sticking here and there. Above all, what caught my eye was that the meat around his cheek had vanished as if it had been bitten off by something.
From the wound, bright red muscle that was torn and frayed and yellow fat were peeking out. Even though it's a wound where he must go to the hospital, the salaryman seemed to not feel pain at all. He repeated body slams against the gate leaf while screaming, but not a shred of reason could be found in those eyes. What was in those eyes was only a bloodlust like a hungry beast.
"W-What do we do?"
"P-P-Police..."
Remembering the sight I just saw, I suddenly felt like I was going to vomit on the spot. My teeth were chattering with fear. I felt like my pants were a little damp. I've seen many movies with gore scenes until now, but the corpse of the elderly person I just saw had a realism different from a fake corpse and a cruelty far exceeding it. What I saw was a real human corpse.
A person was killed, and eaten at that. And the culprit is now running wild in front of me. It's a case where the police must be called, but that police is now busy with the response to the riots. Anyway, let's go call the adults. When I thought that, the gate shook greatly with the salaryman's body slam. Half of the hinge screws fell out due to the impact, and Yoshioka hurriedly held down the gate leaf.
"It hurts, this guy bit me! I'll watch this guy, so you go call the teachers quickly!"
The salaryman poked his face through the gap in the gate leaf and bit Yoshioka's hand as he held it down. Thanks to him hurriedly pulling it away, the wound didn't become deep, but even so, the skin of his fingertip was peeled and blood was oozing.
He continued to repeat body slams, and the old gate leaf was shaking greatly while making a metallic sound like a scream. I thought it might be better for two people to hold it down, but then I wouldn't be able to convey the situation happening here now to anyone. There was no silhouette around, and one of us had to run and inform the adults that they were being attacked.
"O-Okay, I'll call the teachers and come back immediately."
"I'm counting on you to be as fast as possible, this guy has incredible strength."
He didn't look okay at all, but I have no choice but to believe those words now. What I should do now is go to the staff room and call the teachers equipped with man-catchers or tear gas sprays, saying "There's a man who's lost his mind. I can't handle him alone." The situation had already exceeded the level where we alone could do something.
The corpse I saw earlier crossed my mind again, and suddenly I felt like the strength was going to leave my body. Sour things welled up to my throat, but I endured it. Now is not a situation to vomit or leak urine. No, I had already leaked it, though.
As if rolling, I ran toward the staff room. Since the nearby residents who came and the volunteers are gathered at the gymnasium on the south side, no other silhouette can be seen near the northern administration building. Opening the door of the open corridor with a momentum that almost smashed it, I ran through the classroom building toward the staff room.
"Sensei, it's terrible! Please come to the back gate quickly!"
While shouting that, I jumped into the staff room. The grade head shouted "Knock!", but ignoring that, I called Nakatani-sensei, who was luckily in the staff room.
"What happened, what's wrong?"
"A person was killed in front of the back gate, and the culprit is running wild trying to enter the school. Now Yoshioka is holding down the gate——"
It was then. Through the window glass, I heard a scream from the schoolyard.
"What!?"
When the grade head opened the window, the screams were heard even louder. The number of screams increased one after another, and the people's stir and roars spread throughout the schoolyard.
In the ground brightly illuminated by the baseball club's lights, right next to the morning assembly platform near the classroom building, I saw the figure of a man grabbing a young woman. I noticed that the man was that young man about a university student who had entered from the back gate earlier. The man grabbed both shoulders of the woman who was trying to twist away and roughly pulled her in front of him.
Is he going to force a kiss? Even in this situation, such an out-of-place thought occurred, but the action the man took next was something I hadn't expected. The man vigorously bit into the woman's neck.
The woman, whose eyes widened, screamed, and her neck was stained bright red. Hurriedly, the people around pulled the man and the woman apart. The man, who was running wild while roaring like a beast, swung both hands around and bit the arm of the volunteer youth who tried to restrain him. Meanwhile, the woman collapsed while holding her neck, and her body started to convulse.
"Hey, is it him? The culprit you were talking about just now?"
"No, that person was also being attacked, and we let him into the school from the back gate."
Did that young man also lose his mind from the fear of almost being killed? But even so, the situation is strange. The young man is running wild as if he had stopped being human; he's a hungry beast rather than a madman. First of all, why is there a need to run wild in this place? Why did he go out of his way to bite the woman?
"Anyway, first aid..."
Several teachers hurriedly jumped out of the staff room with first aid kits and man-catchers. My head was on the verge of completely breaking down due to the succession of abnormal situations. I can't remember what I should do next, or even what I was trying to do. All I could do was stand blankly on the spot.
When the teachers who left the staff room showed their faces in the ground, the woman who had been convulsing until now suddenly stood up. The neighborhood lady who was looking after her showed a relieved expression and called out, "It's okay now." However, as soon as the young woman stood up, she grabbed that lady. Grabbing her head with both hands, she thrust her thumbs into the eye sockets. The lady screamed, and a red liquid flowed out from both her eyes.
"You, stop that!"
The grade head, who shouted that, was hit by a body slam from the volunteer youth who had been bitten while trying to restrain the man earlier and rolled on the gravel of the ground. The volunteer youth straddled the fallen grade head, beat his face recklessly, and bit him.
Acts of violence were now being carried out all over the schoolyard. People running away and those chasing them. Those caught were beaten, bitten, and killed.
People who were calm until a while ago despite some anxiety were now starting to kill each other. It was just like the rioters shown on the TV we saw earlier.
——The riots currently expanding all over the world, the news said that it's people infected with a virus who are causing them. But it also said that it's unknown how the virus is infecting.
Unless they started killing each other of their own will, the people killing each other now have been infected with the virus. Why were they infected? I immediately noticed the common point of the rioters.
On the face of that salaryman who was devouring the elderly person on the road in front of the back gate, there was a wound as if it had been bitten off. And on the arm of that young man who attacked the woman just now, there was a bite wound. And the young woman who was attacked by the man and is now killing people all over the place was bitten on the neck. The volunteer youth who was bitten while trying to restrain the young man is also participating in the killing now.
Everyone is being bitten. And all the people bitten have turned into rioters, and their number is increasing more and more. There is a high possibility that they are being infected by being bitten.
Suddenly, I noticed a major fact and almost collapsed on the spot.
That young man who first started running wild in the school, the one who was running away from rioters—the one who let him into the school was none other than me.
Apparently, I have opened the door to hell.
The protagonist greatly messes up.
Like the old lady impact in Dead Rising, if it's an orthodox zombie story, the one who first unleashes the calamity and turns a safe place into hell is a mob or a supporting character who will be killed immediately after. However, as I wrote before, this protagonist is a person in a supporting character-like position if it's an orthodox story, so he unknowingly invited an infected person into the evacuation center. He's at a level where he could sufficiently appear on "Shikujiri Sensei" (T/N: a TV show where people talk about their past failures).
So, the prequel, which is his nightmare, will end in one or two more chapters. After that, it will return to the present again.
I'm waiting for your opinions and impressions.