What had they been doing inside the house? I wished I could give them a proper burial, but there was still the possibility they’d regain consciousness like I had. The only thing I could do was leave them alone for a while and see.
I wanted to know why I was the only person who could stay human. But was there even a way to find out with the world devastated like this…?
“Um… Yuuma? What’s the matter?” Hyuuga asked, looking at me with concern.
“Never mind, it’s nothing… There’s no one at your house, right?”
“Right. And my parents commute by train, so our car is there.”
“Then why don’t we head to your place? Your family might have come home, too.”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind going to yours…”
“Uh, that might not be a very good idea.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“It’s just… I checked it out not too long ago, and a fire was burning really close by. There’s no telling when it might spread to our house.”
I lied on the spot; I didn’t want to tell Hyuuga my family had become zombies and have her feel sorry for me.
“A fire…? I’m sorry to hear that. And you can’t even call the fire department…”
“It was bound to happen at a time like this. Anyway, that’s why we should go to your place.”
“Okay.”
With that settled, we set out for Hyuuga’s home.
I couldn’t afford to let my guard down even for a second. I had to protect her—
But just then, out of nowhere, zombies started falling from the sky.
Simply put, a zombie is a moving corpse. Its heart has stopped beating, and it has no body heat. From a biological standpoint, it’s dead. And yet somehow, zombies are able to move around, defying all logic and common sense.
Watching them, I’ve come to understand that zombies have no will of their own but simply react on instinct. They move slowly in response to sounds, smells, and other signs of life—and bite down hard with their strong jaws when they spot prey. That much at least is just like the movies.
I don’t know why people become zombies when they’re bitten, but often in media, their saliva contains a virus that invades a victim’s body and transforms them. I’m not sure if that’s the case here, though…
How to stop them is also unclear. Film logic says that if you crush their head or decapitate them, a zombie will stop moving. But in the real world…
These were the sorts of thoughts going through my mind when a zombie suddenly fell headfirst onto the ground in front of me.
A horrifying splat echoed around me as its upper body was crushed. Bright-red blood and guts seeped out from where its skin had broken, and a foul smell began to spread.
With the exception of the gray skin color, it was mostly the same as a human body. It reminded me of an illustration I had once seen in an anatomy textbook.
The zombie squirmed on the asphalt for a few seconds, then stopped moving. At the very least, that amount of damage seemed to incapacitate it.
I looked up and spotted several zombies on the balcony of an apartment building. They were staring at us, and some leaned over the railing. The zombie that had just been crushed to death seemed to have seen us and jumped.
“Yuuma…”
Hyuuga looked like she was about to start crying as she clung to my arm.
“It’s okay. I’m here.”
I wouldn’t be able to protect her if something as trivial as this was going to upset me. Forcing myself to work up the courage, I stepped into the residential area facing the riverside. We continued down the street at a jog, and it wasn’t long before we spotted three male zombies ahead. They began walking in our direction as soon as they saw us.
“Stand back, Hyuuga.”
“—Huh?! Aren’t we going to run?!”
“There are bound to be more zombies on other streets. Besides, it’ll be okay. There aren’t that many of them.”
I braced myself, then quickly closed the distance between the oncoming zombies and me. Grabbing one by the collar, I threw him into the backyard of a nearby house. A tall fence separated the yard from the road, so I figured he wouldn’t be able to scale it right away.
I easily tossed the two remaining zombies into the yard as well. My monstrous zombie strength really did come in handy.
“Hyuuga, let’s go.”
“Okay!”
Tossing zombies left, right, and center, Hyuuga and I took off at a run, headed for her house. We were almost there when we ran into a miniature horde. There were about ten in all, and taking care of them would require a lot of effort.
“Hyuuga, stay back a sec—” But right then, I saw five zombies I’d just thrown coming toward us.
That wasn’t good. I wouldn’t be able to protect Hyuuga with enemies on both sides.
I shouldn’t have just tossed all those zombies out of our way, but incapacitated them by destroying their upper bodies—an easy enough task with my new zombie strength.
It wasn’t too late to start doing that now. I had to stop them completely.
But when I saw the cloudy-white eyes of the zombies staring back at me, I realized I couldn’t do it.
The enemies in front of me were shaped like people. They may have been monsters without consciousness, but it wasn’t easy to convince myself that it was okay to tear them to pieces when they still looked so human.
What if they regained their self-awareness someday, like I had?
“Yuuma! Over here!”
Hyuuga grabbed my frozen right arm and pulled me onto someone else’s property. She opened the front door without a moment’s hesitation, and fortunately, it was unlocked. I ran through the house without removing my shoes, then went out through a window in the back. There were no zombies around, and we crossed the yard before the ones from earlier had a chance to catch up.
We’d been running for a little while when Hyuuga came to a stop on a narrow gravel path.
“We should be safe by now, don’t you think?”
“Yeah…”
“Let’s keep going; my house isn’t far from here. It’s been five years since you last came over!” Chatting in an incredibly cheerful tone, she set out at a walk again.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t kill those zombies, and I put you in danger,” I said, and Hyuuga turned around to face me. “Maybe I’m immortal now, but that doesn’t mean anything if I can’t fight…”
My chest was burning with shame and regret. I realized that the rules of the world had changed: From this day on, only people who could kill zombies would be able to survive.
It wasn’t easy to act rationally, though. I couldn’t deny that I didn’t want to kill anything that was once a person.
“—Yuuma. You still see people who’ve become zombies as human beings, don’t you?” Hyuuga asked as I stared at the ground.
“…Yeah.”
“Then it makes sense that you can’t kill them. Don’t feel you need to force yourself to; we can keep using our heads to stay away from the zombies.”
“…You’re sure you don’t mind running away, even though I can kill them?”
“Of course I’m sure… That kind heart of yours is one of the things I like best about you,” she said with a shy smile.
“…Thanks.”
It made me happy that Hyuuga understood my values. I might look like a monster, but that didn’t mean I had to be one at heart.
A sense of relief washed over me, and just then, the skin all over my entire body prickled.
What was that…?
“—?!! Yuuma, you’re…!!”
“Huh?! I’m what?”
“How can I explain…? It’s faster if you see it for yourself…”
Hyuuga came to stand next to me, then, for some reason, took a photo of us together.
She showed me the screen. My eyes and skin color were back to normal. I looked human again.
“…What’s going on?”
“Does this mean you’re back to being human?”
“On the outside maybe, but…”
I suddenly realized that my heart was beating again, and warmth had returned to my body.
“Looks like I’m no longer a zombie.”
“That’s amazing! You did it!”
“I dunno if it’s something to get so excited about…”
I’d only been able to fight my way up to here because I’d been a zombie—
“Urrrgh… Aaargh…”
At the worst possible time, we heard zombies moaning again.
A few of them walked slowly toward us, perhaps having overheard our conversation. This wasn’t good; I wouldn’t be able to protect Hyuuga if I was only human.
But the moment my brain registered the zombies and I adopted a fighting stance, I felt that same prickling sensation as before all over my body.
My arms started turning gray.
“You look like a zombie again!”
“…I have no idea how, but it looks like I’m able to switch back and forth between human and zombie.”
Having been through it twice by now, I started getting a feel for the transformation.
I would use this power to do everything I could to protect Hyuuga!!
We made it safely through the horde and finally reached Hyuuga’s house.
I used to come here every day to play when I was in grade school, so I was bursting with nostalgia, but now was no time to get sentimental.
Hyuuga unlocked the front door and went inside. I followed right behind her, back in my human form.
“I’m home…,” Hyuuga called out in a subdued voice, but the house was quiet, with no sign of anyone inside.
Hyuuga forced a smile and said brightly, “I guess no one’s home yet. The trains are out, so they must be having a hard time getting home. I’ll just wait patiently for them.”
“Hyuuga, don’t feel you have to put on a brave face. I’ll keep an eye out for zombies, so why don’t you go lie down for a bit?”
“Mmm… I’m fine. I’ve been running around a lot, and I’m all sweaty, so what I really want is a shower and a change of clothes. You can take a shower, too, if you want.”
“Yeah, that’d be nice.”
I’d just been thinking how good it would feel to be clean again. There was no telling how long we’d be able to use the shower, so I should do it while I had the chance.
“You’ll want a change of clothes, too, I’d imagine. You’re probably about my dad’s size. Why don’t you try on his clothes?”
“Thanks. I’ll take you up on that.”
“Come upstairs with me,” she said, and we went.
“This place brings back memories…”
I reminisced about the days when I used to come here to play. Takuya’s room was at the top of the stairs, Hyuuga’s room was down the hallway to the right, and their parents’ room was to the left. I could even remember what the inside of each room looked like. Me and Takuya had played here every day after school, but I completely lost contact with him when we started going to different junior high schools.