“Everybody, please remain calm. This may be the apocalypse, but don’t give up hope just yet. Help may arrive—”
Takina groaned, feeling a hard yet somehow reassuring wooden surface pressed against her cheek. She must’ve nodded off. Her body felt leaden, and her eyes didn’t want to open.
She began to register smells around her. There was the refreshing, slightly sweet aroma of coffee beans… The smell of Café LycoReco. There was another smell, too—Chisato’s.
“…Looks like this is it for this studio. We can hear them groaning outside. They’re just past the barricade now… Thank you, everyone, for doing your job right till the end… Argh! Aaaaargh!”
There was the crash of something breaking, a stampede, and screaming…followed by silence.
Takina could hear only even breathing. Not hers, though. But then, whose was it?
She opened her eyes with the effort of pushing open a heavy door, forcing her consciousness to rise out of the dark depths that were pulling it in.
At first, her vision was blurry, the world sepia colored. Then Takina’s eyes focused on Chisato’s face, her eyes closed.
“…Hnngh?”
Chisato was sleeping with her head on the café counter, dressed in her Lycoris uniform. As Takina’s awareness slowly returned, she realized she was sitting next to Chisato, her head on the counter, facing her partner.
It was rare for Takina to nod off, and it was even more strange that she’d nod off next to Chisato.
She sat upright and rubbed her eyes. Something didn’t feel right. She looked around the café, which was empty, the last rays of the setting sun bathing the interior in their orange glow. Hold on. LycoReco got plenty of natural sunlight, having been built to make the most of the stained-glass windows, but the lights were always on nonetheless, so you’d never see that orange evening glow normally.
Why were the lights off? Was the café closed that day, or was it after opening hours?
Takina couldn’t remember what day of the week it was. She looked at the TV, but it showed colored bars as if the broadcast was over. Takina took out her phone and checked the date and time—it was a regular day, still during their normal opening hours. Oddly, though, the phone wasn’t getting a signal. There was no cellular network reception or even LycoReco Wi-Fi. Was the router off?
“Nn… Hmm?”
Chisato muttered, sat upright, and did a big yawn.
“Huh? Where is everybody? Where’s Teach?”
“I don’t know. I also only just woke up. Something’s not right.”
Chisato looked around, like Takina had earlier. She cocked her head.
“A blackout?”
It couldn’t be. The TV was on.
Ding-a-ling rang the doorbell. The girls stood up on reflex.
“Welco… Er…”
Takina’s voice got caught in her throat. The man who came in was clearly not okay. His clothes were dirty, torn, and stank like garbage. He was looking at them with lifeless eyes, his mouth hanging open, groaning inanely. Some of his skin was peeling off… He was rotting. In short, the man looked like a corpse. A moving corpse…
“He’s a zombie! Wow!”
Chisato excitedly ran over to the “customer.”
“What’s the occasion, some sort of event? The last time I checked, it wasn’t Halloween today! Wow, this getup is super realistic!”
If he was a cosplayer, his costume was worthy of a Hollywood movie. The rotten smell, though, betrayed that this wasn’t just a fancy outfit.
This man was, without doubt, a zombie, as Chisato said. But that only raised more questions in Takina’s head. Why…? How…? Takina had to push them out of her mind since this was no ordinary situation, and she couldn’t afford to become confused. Confusion prevented swift action, making matters worse. It was irrelevant why the zombie was there. Its presence was a fact—a fact that had to be dealt with. In emergencies, you didn’t have the luxury to carefully analyze the situation. You had to act.
Takina picked up one of the counter stools and threw it with all her strength at the zombie, hitting it square in the face. The stool shattered, and the zombie staggered backward, falling out of the café and landing on its butt on the street outside.
“Takina! What did you do that for?!”
Ignoring Chisato, Takina went to lock the front door.
“That was mean, Takina! That’s no way to treat a customer…”
“Did that look like a customer to you?”
“Huh? Did he look like a customer? Well, he looked like a zombie…”
“Yes, exactly.”
“Maybe he’s from Hawaii.”
“What?”
Suddenly, there was a loud bang on the door.
“See, Takina? He’s angry now!”
“Do you think a normal person would knock on the door, without even saying a word, after having a stool thrown at their face? No. A normal person would call the police or an ambulance.”
“Um… Yeah, probably, but he could be really tough. Let’s check on him.”
“Why are you siding with the zombie?”
“Because… Come on, Takina. He can’t be a zombie.”
“It does seem crazy, but there he was.”
“Let’s calm down, okay? You must be watching too many movies. Or reading too much manga.”
“I don’t want to hear that from you, Chisato.”
“Okay, then… Too many video games?”
“You’re starting to make me angry.”
“Not games, then… TV?”
“You’re being awfully persistent about this.”
“I know—old variety shows? Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Let’s think about this rationally, okay? That dude was a bit…rotten, right?”
“Yes, he appeared to be in a state of decay, just like a zombie would—”
“Hold up, Takina. The popular image of a zombie being a rotting corpse comes from old movies. Now, the canon is that a virus causes zombification, but in the past, it was the result of black magic or some religious stuff. The dead would crawl out of the graves. But that’s impossible here because dead bodies get cremated in Japan!”
“Wait, Chisato. In the movie we saw at the theater with Mr. Doi, it was a virus turning people into zombies, but they were a bit rotten, weren’t they?”
“That was just a way of showing that it was a long time since they’d become infected.”
“Oh.”
That changed everything. A rotten zombie was impossible in Japan, regardless of whether a virus or magic had zombified them. A corpse would need many days to rot to that extent unless it were the height of summer… No, even then it would take quite a while. Waking up to a world filled with rotting zombies was absolutely impossible.
“But then, how do you explain him?”
“I honestly think he’s just a very dedicated cosplayer.”
“Shall we check?”
“Yeah.”
They unlocked the door and opened it. On the other side was the man, his neck bent in a disturbing direction. He groaned.
Simultaneously, the girls kicked him off into the distance and locked the door again.
“Takina, I think that was a genuine zombie.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying…”
They looked at each other, thinking for some time.
“We need to get a better handle on the situation,” Chisato said in the end.
She ran over to a window and peered outside. Meanwhile, Takina went to lock the rear door and checked the café for potential intruders, looking for the rest of the LycoReco crew. She opened the closet where Kurumi liked to sit, but all she found there was Kurumi’s computer, which was switched off.
Thinking it best to be armed, Takina fetched her and Chisato’s gun satchels from the staff room.
Back on the café floor, she saw Chisato holding the TV remote.
“The TV isn’t getting any signal. My phone also has no internet, and I can’t make calls.”
“That’s what I found as well. I got out equipment, just to be safe. I didn’t find the others.”
“Oh. I hope they’re okay… There’s nobody but zombies outside. No living humans… I’m getting a little worried.”
“If more of those things are outside, we should assume that the police…no, the city is dead.”
“Why’s all this exciting stuff happening so out of the blue?”
“You think this is…exciting?”
“Sure is! Are you not excited? It’s like a fantasy coming to life! Have you never fantasized about something like this? Narrowly escaping the zombies and barricading yourself in a shopping mall with a few other survivors… Wait, this is it! A shopping mall! Let’s go! We have to! It’s our calling as zombie apocalypse survivors!”
“Chisato, there aren’t nearly as many big shopping malls here in Japan like the ones you’d see in movies. Besides, those malls have too many entrances we’d need to block, and then we’d have to find and destroy any zombies already inside. It’s too much work for the two of us. I know what sort of fun you’re looking forward to, but allow me to remind you, there are no gun stores in Japanese shopping malls.”
“Aw, damn… But there could be stores with chain saws, at least.”
“…You don’t want to be killing those zombies with a chain saw, trust me.”
A chain saw could be used to cut a skinned carcass with no blood in it… But cutting zombies would quickly result in the chain saw getting clogged with blood, flesh, bits of clothing, and hair. Moreover, chain saws were heavy and unwieldy. In the worst-case scenario, the chain might suddenly snap and be flung in an unforeseen direction… There could be all sorts of trouble. It wasn’t a sensible weapon.
Takina explained all this to Chisato, who looked at her with irritation.
“It’s like you have no dreams, Takina.”
“I do have a dream, to become a first-rank Lycoris and—”
“That’s not what I meant! More like indulging in fantasies sometimes, even if they’re not realistic!”
“I have no interest in that. More importantly, we need more information. The emergency bag should have a radio.”
“Radios, huh…? Why can’t we ever be on the same wavelength, Takina? Why can’t we both enjoy this exciting adventure?”
“Maybe next time,” Takina said dismissively.
Without further ado, she took the emergency bag from under the counter and removed the radio.
Ding-a-ling!
Startled, Takina raised her head over the counter to see who had come in, but nobody was there. The door was closed.
“Chisato…?”
Chisato was gone.