I placed the corpse in the courtyard, set up a wooden table, two chairs, and a large number of battery-operated lights next to it, deciding I’d keep an eye on it at least until the morning. I also needed Kamiji to stay there with me so I could monitor her progress and see if she turned into a zombie. We had no choice but to eat dinner right next to the corpse.
Once Kamiji and I were alone in the courtyard, I asked her a question that had been on my mind.
“…So can we assume that as of today you’re living here at the dorm again?”
She nodded awkwardly.
“I already have the zombie virus in my body, so it doesn’t make sense to live someplace else. I’ve only been away for a little while, but I’d appreciate it if you’d let me live here with you guys again.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I look forward to being dorm mates with you again.”
“Sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you.”
“Not at all… It’s my fault for lying to you in the first place. And hey, I couldn’t have beaten the clawed zombie if you hadn’t found that syringe in the house you moved into.”
“That was a good move if I do say so myself. Maybe a syringe is the most powerful weapon in this world,” she said and laughed out loud.
Although our lives had been in danger, we’d learned a lot in this recent battle—especially the fact that I now knew an injection of my blood could make special-type zombies powerless.
I decided I’d look for some different types of syringes the following day.
“I wonder what would happen if we injected your blood into a normal zombie? If it can kill them, we might be able to use it as a weapon.”
“Oh yeah…”
I picked up the syringe to experiment.
After I’d put the clawed zombie corpse on a blue tarp, I dragged it out of the dorm grounds. A short distance away, I had a female high school student zombie tied up against a telegraph pole. Even with its neck fixed to the pole, it tried to bite me when I approached it.
The female zombie had been there for more than five days, but it was still ferocious. I slipped behind it, stuck the syringe into the back of its neck, and injected it with my blood. It immediately calmed down before my very eyes. The zombie’s expression became docile; then it closed its eyes and stopped moving.
“This…is what happened with Haruka’s dad…”
It was only then that I remembered. When I’d tried to soothe Haruka’s dad, I had intentionally made him bite my right arm, causing blood to spurt out.
He must have drunk my blood. Was that why he’d lost consciousness…?
With my blood, we could make zombies immobile. Injecting them with blood was easier than tying them up with ropes, and we didn’t have to worry about them getting loose. Maybe we could attach syringes to the tips of arrows and shoot them at zombies. That way, even Mai and the others could defeat them…!
The question was how long they’d stay unconscious. To find out, I decided to go to Haruka’s house the next day and see how her dad was doing.