I put shoes on Haruka, who was still half asleep, and led her and the other two out into the yard. Unfortunately, though, we’d timed it badly, as just then clouds covered the moon, making it impossible to see where the zombies were. Protecting the three of them while trying to make it to the front gate would be next to impossible.
I would’ve been able to be a little reckless if I was alone, but I wasn’t sure they’d be safe if I left the girls inside. Even if Haruka and Tsukishiro were both carrying metal bats they’d found in a room…
Just then, Haruka put down her bat and started running as if she’d thought of something.
I immediately realized what she wanted to do. She jumped in the car without any regard for the risks involved and started the engine.
The darkness cleared, and we saw the zombies.
They reacted to the light and to the sound of the engine and made their way toward the car. I had to tie them up quickly, or they’d surround it—
But just as I was about to run toward them, the driver’s side window opened and Haruka shouted out to me.
“Yuuma! You don’t have to come over here!”
“Huh?! What do you—?”
“I know you can’t kill zombies!! So I will!!”
Haruka suddenly stepped on the gas and sent all the zombies around her flying. The car seemed to come to a stop, then Haruka started backing up, mowing down the zombies that were coming at her from behind.
Some of them appeared to be okay, but others had had their heads crushed by the tires. Haruka kept going forward and backward, targeting the zombies around her and trying to incapacitate as many as she could.
This was a war between humans and zombies. In which case, Haruka’s actions must have been the right thing to do.
—I couldn’t afford to hesitate. If I didn’t act now, someone would die.
I picked up the bat that Haruka had dropped and took a full swing at the head of the nearest zombie. It was a gross feeling, like bone shattering and something soft being squashed, but it would take more than one swing to destroy its brain.
“Aaaaahh!!”
Yelling at the top of my lungs, I rained down blows on the zombie in front of me. Something that stunk of decay—blood or intestines, I wasn’t sure what—splattered every time I swung the bat. The zombie’s head must’ve been crushed by then, but it was too dark to see whether I’d finished the job.
Meanwhile, other zombies were getting closer.
—It’s dark, so I doubt they’ll see me.
I gritted my teeth, turned my back to Tsukishiro and the others, and morphed myself into a zombie.
When I swung the metal bat again, I blew away the zombie’s head with a single blow. My strength as a zombie really was incredible. I destroyed one zombie after the next, hidden by the darkness.
I had to protect my friends. I wasn’t going to hesitate anymore.
The area was soon covered by the bodies of headless zombies, so I figured it should be safe enough to move away from Tsukishiro and the woman for a little while. Haruka was still fighting fiercely in the car, and with the light of her headlights to see by, I made it to the gate and locked it.
A considerable number of zombies had already entered the dormitory grounds, though. I had to get back to Tsukishiro and the woman as quickly as possible, and also meet up with Lisa and Ichinose—
That was when I saw it.
Until then, it had been too dark to notice the gigantic male zombie standing in my way looking down at me. He was well over three meters tall—basically a huge wall—and the hair on my body stood on end as I looked up at him. My instincts were warning me that this guy was dangerous.
“Tsukishiro! Go back into the room through the window from earlier!”
She should be safe once she went inside and locked the door, since I’d taken care of all the zombies around us. The important thing was to get my friends away from this monster—
“Raaaargh!!”
The giant zombie roared and came charging at me.
I set my sights on its approaching fist and reflexively swung the bat. I thought I’d start off by crushing his right hand—but the monster’s arm was as hard as a rock, and the bat bounced right off.
Calm down. It’s moving, so it shouldn’t be hard all over.
I decided to aim for a different body part. Without hesitating for a moment, I got inside the zombie’s guard and swung the bat at his left knee. The contact was met with a feeling like a ceramic plate shattering, and the giant zombie lost his balance.
I can’t let up here—
But just as that thought flashed through my mind, something passed in front of my eyes. A moment too late, I realized it was the zombie’s right arm.
The monster’s fist made contact, tearing off my right hand from the wrist down, and my hand went flying, still holding the bat. A shiver went down my spine. If the zombie hadn’t lost his balance just then, it would’ve been my head that went flying.
If I had the choice, I’d run right here and now—but I had people to protect. I had to do something about this monster.
Still, losing my right hand was a huge blow. How could I fight this monster with only my left hand?
“Yuuma!! Get out of the way!!”
My vision suddenly went completely white. A moment later, I realized it was the headlights from the car.
Haruka had rammed into the giant zombie from behind.
I jumped to the side not a moment too soon, and Haruka ran over the zombie at full speed. His huge body was lifted up by the hood of the car, and the back of his head hit the windshield with an almighty crash, leaving a spiderweb-like crack in the glass.
I couldn’t waste the opening Haruka had risked her life to create for me. I picked up the baseball bat with my left hand and jumped onto the chest of the zombie as lay face up on the hood.
First, I’ll crush his eyeballs—
But the giant zombie grabbed the raised bat. Try as I might, it wouldn’t budge; even with my zombie strength, I was no match for this monster.
I thrust my right arm—sans hand—in front of his face, trying to use the blood spurting from the wound to obscure the zombie’s vision. But with blinding speed, the monster raised his upper body and tore off my right arm with his teeth. Before I knew what’d happened, he had bitten off my arm all the way to my elbow and swallowed it.