Chisato giggled, softly putting her arm around Takina from behind to snuggle up to her. She’d slipped under Takina’s quilt.
Takina was about to remove Chisato from her futon with a kick when one of the windows shattered, letting in a horrible stench accompanied by loud groans. Zombies had broken in and were pouring inside one after another.
“Damn it! That clichéd trope of getting attacked right when things are getting good!”
“Stop talking nonsense, and let’s get rid of them!”
Takina kicked away her quilt and grabbed the gun. Eight zombies had made it inside, although there might be more waiting on the street. The zombies were on the floor, having fallen while clambering through the window—nothing to be scared of.
Without hesitation, Takina shot one of the crawling zombies in the head. It was common knowledge that was where you should aim to kill zombies and, at such close range, where you could get a headshot without fail.
The zombie spasmed once and then stopped moving. Takina was reassured. They could be killed.
She started shooting the other ones without emotion.
“Chisato, grab the bags! We’re getting out of here!”
LycoReco was a small café. Even though the opponents were mindless rag dolls, they might win if they swarmed the girls in there.
Takina regretted that she hadn’t thought of boarding up the windows, using the tools Chisato had brought back with her. The zombies were coming after her and Chisato. She aimed at another one and pulled the trigger.
“Ugh… I don’t know if I can do this…”
Like a scared little girl, Chisato stood petrified with that spiked bat in her hands.
“What are you doing, Chisato?!”
“It’s just that they look so much like people… Or, they kind of are people…? I somehow can’t bring myself to hit them…”
“Okay, just grab the bags, and let’s run—”
“Look, it’s Mizuki.”
“What?!”
Takina spun around and looked at the zombies crawling into the café. One of them, walking slowly, was certainly Mizuki. Her eyes were milky white, and her rotten skin was peeling off. She had bite marks on her body and even large gashes where flesh had been chewed off. Still, she was instantly recognizable as Mizuki.
Groaning ominously and with drool dripping from her open mouth, the zombie Mizuki was walking toward Chisato.
“Chiii…saaa…tooo…”
“Eeek! Mizuki, why are you one of them…? Why did they have to get you, waah…? DIEEE!”
Chisato swung back and hit Mizuki with the spiked bat, which broke on impact, but knocked Mizuki away, smashing her into the wall. She slowly crumpled onto the floor.
“Oh no, my bat broke?! My precious handmade spiked bat?!”
“That…that was good, Chisato. You’ve overcome your resistance against killing the zombies?”
“Um, well, I just felt that as a good friend, I should put her to rest. She was, like, totally zombified, after all. Besides, it’s just a dream.”
Chisato chucked the broken bat at Mizuki’s corpse, quickly took out her trusty gun from her satchel, and loaded bullets into the chamber.
“Let’s get out of here, Takina!”
“That’s what I said earlier…”
Mizuki’s body was lying curled up on the floor. Chisato didn’t want to take any chances—she shot her zombified friend in the head. Then she hoisted her Boston bag onto her shoulder, ran to the front door, and unlocked it. Behind were countless zombies, standing around as if they’d been waiting for the girls to come out. Chisato boldly approached them and began very precisely shooting them in the neck from an extended stance with the gun held diagonally in front of her face.
When she’d shot Mizuki, she must have realized that her nonlethal ammo might not penetrate the zombies’ skulls, even though their bodies were softened by decomposition. That was why she aimed for the neck. A rubber bullet could kill a person if it hit the vulnerable neck at close range. It did even more damage to the rotting zombies. Their heads jerked upward as if punched from below, flesh bursting. Some had their heads completely severed from their bodies by the impact. Chisato was very efficiently mowing down the zombies.
The undead were sluggish, but it wasn’t easy to shoot them precisely in the neck while they were moving, trying to lunge at them. Chisato didn’t hesitate, though, executing them methodically like in the zombie games she played over and over: five bullets, five dead zombies. Chisato headed out into the street, reloading her gun.
“Don’t throw the magazine away, Chisato! Think long-term. We might not have a chance to resupply for a while!”
Takina picked up the magazine Chisato had dropped and shoved it into her Boston bag. She sprinted after Chisato…
“Yiiikes!”
Takina bumped into Chisato, who was walking backward.
“What’s wrong?! Oh…”
It was a surreal sight—the usually quiet area between the café and the Kinshicho Station was packed as if there was a street festival, except it was packed with zombies. And they were all looking at the girls, their cloudy white eyes gleaming in the darkness of a city without power. A primal fear made the girls shudder.
“Ugh, what do we do?! There’re so many!”
“We make a path. Move over!”
Takina stepped out in front of Chisato, planted one leg in front of the other, and held her gun with both hands, arms extended. It wasn’t quite the Isosceles stance or the Weaver stance, but a sort of modified Isosceles combat stance suited to rapidly shooting multiple targets to the left or right of the shooter as they created a break in the enemy lines.
Takina firmly braced her feet against the ground and locked her upper body in position. She would turn only at her hips, moving like a gun turret.
The zombies groaned and started shambling toward the girls. Takina opened fire, taking them down one by one, starting from the targets closest to her, like it was shooting practice. She had told Chisato earlier not to discard empty magazines, but there was no time for her to save hers. She let the empties drop to the ground, loaded new ones, assumed the same stance again, and fired.
It was surprisingly easy. The zombies were about the same height and moved in a predictable line toward the girls without trying to dodge, one wave after another. It was almost too easy. As long as she had enough ammunition, Takina could keep going… Or so she thought.
Assuming there’d be no need for stealth, she hadn’t attached a suppressor. Because of that, the continuous gunfire not only made her ears hurt, but the muzzle flash also partially blinded her. She could still make out what was near her, but everything else blended into the darkness.
“Chisato! See any cars we could take?!” Takina shouted over the crack of gunfire.
“Let me see… There’s a delivery van parked outside Mr. Orimoto’s store!”
Bingo, thought Takina. Mr. Orimoto from the thrift store used an old van. Without Kurumi’s support, the girls wouldn’t have been able to hijack a newer car with electronic security, but an old van could be easily broken into and jump-started with the tools they had.
“I’ll clear the way!”
Takina switched to Weaver’s stance and turned toward Mr. Orimoto’s thrift store. The street was chock-full of zombies. Why did there have to be so many of them? Takina clicked her tongue in annoyance…
Bang! There was an explosive shot. A whole bunch of zombies got knocked away, falling like dominoes. Chisato lined up with Takina. She was holding the shotgun.
“Let’s go, partner!”