We could hear him, but we couldn’t see him.
He could’ve at least projected an image of himself or something to put Shiiko’s mind at ease. He can’t possibly be that dense.
“Keith Wayne, was it? I need to ask you something.”
“Go ahead,” he replied casually.
“Why don’t you show yourself?”
“For what reason?”
“Most people don’t really need a reason to see the person they care so deeply about, especially not after all this time.”
“That is true for most people, certainly.”
His chipper attitude is seriously weirding me out. Is this guy really Keith Wayne?
“No, no, no!” Shiiko was practically screaming. “Why? This can’t be happening!”
“What’s going on?”
“The time machine! It’s... It’s not working!” Shiiko shouted, whipping her head back to me. “I can’t get it to start, let alone change the past, when one of the parts is missing!”
I surveyed the ceiling, peering into every single one of the cameras—Keith’s watchful eyes.
“Why, Keith? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Beats me,” came his nonchalant reply.
There’s no doubt about it: he’s enjoying this. He’s watching Shiiko on the verge of a breakdown, and he’s relishing it.
“Hiroaki, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“Same here.”
We nodded to each other and began searching the area.
There’s no way it ends here. There’s gotta be a final boss; the setup calls for it.
At that moment, the door opposite the one we’d entered opened, and something emerged from the darkness.
“Zombie!” Shiiko screamed.
Although it looked vaguely human, its skin had completely rotted away, making it impossible to tell its color or facial features for that matter.
It must’ve been one hulking man or woman back in the day because it was huge—easily over two meters tall with abnormally wide shoulders.
Even more curiously, it held a thick, steel pipe in one of its hands.
Is that a... weapon?!
“You really picked the wrong time!”
Of course we weren’t going to just sit back and watch. Tetsuko and I pulled out our UMPs and fired one shot each to see what would happen. We also had to factor in our location.
Both .45 ACP rounds, known for their immense stopping power despite low initial velocity, were on a direct collision with its cranium.
“Huh?!” I blurted.
The shrill sound of ricocheting bullets filled the room. Needless to say, our shots hit the wall without so much as grazing its head.
We missed? At this range, both of us? Not possible.
This left us with only one other alternative: this titan of a zombie had dodged our bullets.
If that wasn’t crazy enough, it also switched to hanmi, a classic aikido stance which involves standing with your feet perpendicular to each other.
It seemed like a boxer ready to throw down... This zombie, which should’ve only known how to stumble forward one rotting foot at a time.
“What the hell?!” Tetsuko and I were frozen in place. Otoha, on the other hand, charged straight in.
“What’re you doing?!” I shouted.
“No worries. Sprinters are in all the latest zombie media,” Otoha said, readying her shovel.
This isn’t one of your movies! This is real life!
“Drop it! The zombie, it’s—”
Otoha, of course, swung her shovel without letting me finish. As always, she aimed for the head—no, the neck.
As Otoha took the last step, she did a half spin and brought the shovel down, applying the full force of her body. The shovel sliced through the zombie’s neck like a well-tempered sword... or at least, it was supposed to.
The harsh sound of clashing metal echoed across the room.
Like a well-trained knight locked in a glorious battle, the zombie had thrown up its steel pipe to block Otoha’s attack. What followed was unlike anything we had seen before.
It twirled the pipe around, ripping Otoha’s trusty shovel right out of her hands.
It’s not mimicking past behavioral patterns; it’s reacting to her as though it has a mind of its own!
“Oh no! Otoha!” Shino yelled, her voice filled with dread.
Otoha quickly ducked down, avoiding the hand reaching out to grab her. The deafening roar of the M700 followed immediately after. I watched as the big-game hunting round—leagues above your average pistol rounds in terms of stopping power—pierced right through the center of its chest.
Shino had chosen to avoid the head so it couldn’t dodge again, instead aiming for the spinal cord.
Excellent decision-making on her part... except for the fact that the zombie shook it off like it was nothing.
How?! To exert conscious control over its body, the spinal cord has to be intact. This thing not only took the hit, but it barely even reacted! Was her aim off? No, maybe this has something to do with the intricacies of the human body.
A bullet can enter the body in a straight line, but it’ll get caught up in tissue and exit at a different angle. So maybe the bullet did pierce the zombie’s chest, but its trajectory got thrown off just enough to miss the spinal cord? In that case, you’d at least expect it to penetrate the body, but it didn’t. A soft point bullet meant for hunting big game didn’t penetrate the body at this range?
“Otoha, something’s not right here. Fall back!”
Knowing that standing would mean her immediate death, Otoha did the smart thing and rolled away to put distance between herself and the zombie.
It tried chasing after her, only to be served hot lead courtesy of Tetsuko’s M500.
The zombie faltered for just a split second, which was all we needed.
“Over here!”
“Hiroaki, Otoha, over here!” Shino turned the wheelchair around and wheeled Shiiko out of the test site.
The three of us followed close behind, stopping every few steps or so to take potshots at the zombie in hopes of slowing it down.
We managed to make it out of the test site a few seconds after Shiiko and Shino.
While boss monsters typically tended to be area-restricted, this wasn’t a video game, nor did we feel like testing it out.
“What’s going on here?! Why is it so powerful?!”
“I don’t know, I’ve never seen anything like it.” Otoha tilted her head while in full sprint.
She even managed to pick her shovel back up. Remarkable.
“The closest things I can think of are possessed and resurrected zombies, but those don’t use weapons or switch types seemingly at random,” Otoha muttered.
A zombie that stumps our walking zombie database? Is it even a zombie at that point?
“Over here!” Shino beckoned to us as we ran into another room. Pushing ourselves against it, we slammed the bulky iron door shut.
Dunno if it’ll buy us much time, but it’s better than nothing.
“What is this place?”
Judging from the sheer amount of shelves, might it be a storage room of some sort?
“Move away from the door,” Otoha said and proceeded to shoulder-tackle one of the racks, knocking it over. Countless vials fell to the ground and shattered, their contents spilling all over the floor.
Call me crazy, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to go around breaking random vials, especially not in a research facility like this.
“What is that thing?” Shino asked, pushing Shiiko farther into the room.
“All I know is that it’s different from any zombie I’ve ever seen,” was her not-very-helpful response.
Banging noises started coming from behind us.
We don’t have much time. The door and the racks will only hold it back for so long.