The four of them hurried away from Kagemitsu Weapon Store, which was beginning to collapse behind them. Thick black smoke billowed from the roof of the wooden building, followed by the sound of cracking support beams slowly crashing to the ground. The streets around the store felt eerily deserted, but the smell of fresh blood from the monster fish carcass would surely draw hundreds more zombies soon.
Renjiro led the way with two sheathed katanas at his waist. His head kept moving as he warily monitored every narrow alley along the street.
“We need to get to our housing complex in the western block,” Renjiro said without slowing his pace. “Our house is only a few kilometers from here. We need to make sure our parents are still alive.”
Daiki and Kazuki nodded quickly. The same deep anxiety shone in both their eyes. In the midst of this sudden apocalyptic situation, their families’ safety was all they could think about.
But Uncle Kagemitsu, walking at the back of the line, suddenly tapped Renjiro on the shoulder.
“Wait, Renjiro,” Uncle Kagemitsu called out heavily. “You don’t need to go back to that housing complex.”
Renjiro stopped immediately. He turned around and stared at Uncle Kagemitsu with a furrowed brow. Kazuki and Daiki stopped too, looking at the old man in confusion.
“What do you mean?” Kazuki asked, his brow furrowed. “Our families are there!”
Uncle Kagemitsu let out a short breath to steady himself. “Two hours before you arrived at my store, I happened to hear an emergency radio broadcast from the Japanese military. Your housing complex in the Hanazono area had already been secured by the military.”
Hearing that, Daiki immediately stepped forward. “Secured? You mean they’re all safe?”
“Yes,” Uncle Kagemitsu replied with a firm nod. “The soldiers moved quickly and swept the area clean because it’s near an evacuation center. All surviving residents of the complex were transported in armored military trucks to the Tachikawa JSDF Air Base in Western Tokyo. That place has now been turned into a safe zone and the main refugee center.”
Uncle Kagemitsu’s explanation instantly lifted the heavy weight from the three young men’s chests. They looked at one another with overwhelming relief. Their parents and families weren’t trapped inside their homes amid a zombie siege. They were already in the hands of the military.
“Tachikawa…” Renjiro murmured as he pictured a map of Tokyo. “That’s pretty far west from where we are now.”
“Correct,” Uncle Kagemitsu said, pointing upward. “If we take the road below, we’ll definitely die. The streets of Shinjuku are completely gridlocked with thousands of cars and a sea of zombies. The fastest and safest route is above, using the Metropolitan Expressway.”
Daiki looked up at the concrete barrier of the elevated expressway standing several meters above their heads. “How do we get up there?”
“There’s an expressway ramp near the intersection ahead that collapsed into a sloping path. We can climb up from there,” Uncle Kagemitsu replied.
Without wasting any more time, they immediately headed for the intersection. Sure enough, the end of the expressway ramp had sunk into the ground after the earlier tanker-truck accident. The concrete rubble formed a rough incline that they could climb with ease.
One by one, they climbed carefully. The moment their feet touched the asphalt of the elevated expressway, the sight of ruined Tokyo spread clearly before them.
The elevated expressway was deathly silent. Hundreds of cars were trapped in a long, frozen traffic jam. Most of the car doors stood wide open, indicating that their owners had fled in panic. Clothes, bags, and scraps of food lay scattered across the filthy asphalt.
“Stay alert and don’t make a sound,” Renjiro whispered, warning his companions.
They began walking side by side between the dead cars. Daiki walked in the middle with his composite bow ready to draw, while Kazuki guarded the left side with his thick iron frying-pan shield.
After walking about five hundred meters, Daiki suddenly stopped. He raised his right hand, signaling for everyone to halt.
Ahead of them, right in the gap between a city bus lying across the road and several sedans, several human figures moved strangely.
They were a group of JSDF soldier zombies still wearing full green camouflage uniforms, protective helmets, and thick bulletproof vests over their chests. The monsters’ bodies looked swollen, with coarse hair growing through the tears in their uniforms.
“There are five,” Daiki whispered in an extremely low voice. “They’re wearing thick bulletproof vests. Neither Renjiro’s slingshot nor ordinary arrows will do anything if they hit the chest.”
“We have to take them out quietly,” Renjiro replied. “If they make noise or start shooting, the zombies below the expressway will climb up immediately.”
Renjiro quickly laid out a plan using hand signals.
Daiki took aim at the soldier zombie standing farthest back. He aimed his arrow at the unprotected throat above the steel vest.
TWANG!
The sharp steel-tipped arrow shot forward and struck the first zombie squarely in the throat. The creature collapsed to the ground without making a sound.
At the same time, the other four zombies noticed them and began shuffling closer with low groans.
Kazuki immediately moved to the front. With a swift motion, he used his thick wrought-iron pan to pin one soldier zombie against the city bus.
DHOOM!
The zombie struggled violently, but Kazuki’s pan-shield grip was too strong to break. Renjiro, already beside him, moved with lightning speed. With one quick swing, one of his black katana blades slashed through the back of the zombie’s knee, forcing it down onto one knee, followed by a swift thrust into its temple that ended the monster’s life.
JLEB!
The three remaining soldier zombies charged toward Daiki and Uncle Kagemitsu.
Daiki quickly drew his steel-chain nunchaku. He swung the chain around the approaching zombie’s neck, then yanked hard, throwing the monster off balance. Uncle Kagemitsu didn’t waste the opportunity. From a safe distance, he drove the sharp tip of his yari spear straight through the gap in the zombie’s helmet.
JLEB!
The last remaining zombie tried to claw Kazuki, but Renjiro leaped from the hood of a nearby sedan. The crossed slash of Renjiro’s two black katanas cut through the zombie’s neck, severing its head and sending it rolling across the asphalt.
SLAAASH!
The brief battle ended without making enough noise to trigger a panic among the zombies below the overpass. All five soldier zombies now lay lifeless on the roadway.
Renjiro sheathed his sword again, then checked one of the pockets in the bulletproof vest of one of the soldier zombies he had just defeated. Inside, he found a clean tactical military navigation map.
“This map shows the safe route taken by military convoys heading to Tachikawa,” Renjiro said with a faint smile.
“Good,” Uncle Kagemitsu replied. “With this map, we’ll know which overpasses ahead are still intact.”
The four of them tightened their supply backpacks and gripped their weapons. Beneath Tokyo’s slowly darkening sky, they continued along the elevated expressway toward Tachikawa Air Base—their only hope of reaching the safe zone and reuniting with their families.