“Actually, it’s a cosmetic syringe for transferring makeup and perfume into another container. Since yesterday, I’ve been killing time by snooping around that new house I was living in. I came across it and went back to get it as soon as I came up with this idea.”
“You really saved me…”
I was about to thank her again when I noticed something.
Kamiji still had her back to us, and for some reason, she was covering her stomach with both hands.
“…Kamiji? Is something wrong…?” I asked carefully, and she slowly turned around.
“—?!”
Haruka and I swallowed.
Kamiji’s stomach was covered in blood.
“That thing stabbed me when it pushed me away.”
“This is serious! We have to tend to that wound right away!”
“Forget it. The cut’s deep…probably all the way to my organs.”
“Huh…?!”
“There are no doctors in this world, so I won’t last much longer,” Kamiji said matter-of-factly, her face contorted in pain.
It didn’t seem real. I couldn’t believe Kamiji was about to die…
Even more blood was pouring out of her body and drenching the asphalt beneath her, and I just stood there in dismay.
“…I’m sorry… If you hadn’t tried to save me…”
“Don’t apologize. I’m grateful to you, Kousaka.”
“You are…?”
“Yeah. When this zombie showed up, I knew right away that it was the immortal one you mentioned. You got out of the minivan but then got back in and drove off when it chased after you, and I thought you were abandoning me. But if I made a sound, that zombie would have found me, and I had no way of telling you that I was on top of the roof… But you came back for me.”
“I only did what anyone would have done…”
“Which is also what I did. If you die, then we’re done for. My luck…just ran out.”
“K-Kamiji…”
I was at a loss for words. Kamiji shifted and lay on her back, and I realized it must be hard for her to remain sitting. She’d die if we left her like this. But what could we do when the world no longer had any hospitals?
The only thing I could do was kill zombies. And even then, I hadn’t been able to defeat that clawed zombie. If only I’d thought of feeding it my blood sooner, or restrained it yesterday, or never come across it in the first place…
Kamiji was about to die because of me. That was an indisputable fact.
…But wait. Was it really too late? Wasn’t it too soon to give up…?
“…Kamiji, there’s a slim chance I might be able to save you.”
“…Don’t tell me you’re going to operate on me? I was stabbed in the guts. An amateur could never stitch up my organs.”
“No… It’s not that…”
I sat up straight, looked her in the eye, and made my suggestion.
“—You can become a zombie, too.”
“…Huh?”
“Since I became a zombie, I’ve found that any wounds I get heal quickly. So if you become a zombie, too, then you might not die.”
“What the hell are you saying…? Even if do survive, there’s no point in living if I turn into a monster without a will of my own.”
“You’re right. That’s why I’ll turn you into a zombie. That way, you might become a zombie without losing your consciousness, just like I did. Of course, I’ve never done this before, so I don’t know what will happen. Maybe you’ll lose your senses like those other zombies out there, or you might not even become a zombie. But you’ll die for sure if we don’t do anything, so—”
“—It’s worth a try?”
“Yeah.”
“Hah…” Kamiji sighed and looked up into the air.
“Besides, even if you become a zombie and lose your senses, you’ll still be alive,” I told her. “We could find a way to turn zombies back into humans someday, and then you’d be able to go back to living your life.”
“…Right. So I have a chance of surviving either way? …Okay, I’ll take that bet.”
“Thank you.”
“I don’t know why you’re thanking me.”
“This means you believe me.”
Kamiji smiled weakly.
“So how are you going to turn me into a zombie? Bite me?”
“Either that…or I can give you my saliva or blood to drink…”
“Of all those, giving me your saliva mouth-to-mouth seems like the best option.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do. That said, I have no idea how much we’ll need or how long it might take for you to turn into a zombie, so we can start with a little at a time and—”
“Forget the details and get on with it. It’d be stupid if I bled out before I could turn into a zombie,” she said, interrupting me mid-sentence.
Perhaps she was getting pretty close to her limit.
“…All right. Here goes…”
As Kamiji lay there on the ground, I moved closer and pressed my lips against hers.
First, I gave her about the same amount of saliva I usually gave Mai and watched how she reacted.
Less than a minute later, Kamiji jumped up with a surprised look on her face and rolled up her bloody T-shirt.
“…I don’t believe it… I’m really healed…”
Her exposed belly was stained with blood, but the bleeding had stopped completely and there wasn’t a scratch on her.
“Kousaka, your saliva is incredible…”
“Don’t let your guard down, though. You’re the first person I’ve turned into a zombie this way, and there’s still a lot we don’t understand… I think your zombie strength repaired your stomach wound, but we don’t know what kind of side effects there may be, so we’ll need to monitor you for a while.”
“Okay… But at least I’m not going to die straight away. This is the second time you’ve saved my life,” she said, her expression softening.
It was only then, seeing Kamiji smile, that I realized the battle had come to an end.
After that, we met back up with Mai and the others, who were waiting for us in the minivan, then safely returned to the dorm.
I couldn’t afford to take my eyes off the clawed zombie, so I carried its corpse when we moved it. About twenty minutes had passed since I’d crushed its head, and it hadn’t shown any signs of reviving so far. Still, it was too soon to relax. There was always the possibility it would regenerate in a few hours and cut its way loose.