Chapter 11: First Day of the Apocalypse
"...The zombies in this world are so fucking confusing."
Three figures blocked the hallway ahead of me.
At first glance, they looked exactly how I remembered them.
Slow.
Unsteady.
Barely able to keep themselves upright.
The classic zombie package.
The problem was that all three of them were staring directly at me.
Which shouldn't have been possible.
If memory served me right, the zombies in Highschool of the Dead relied heavily on sound. Their eyesight was terrible. Not completely nonexistent, but bad enough that standing still and staying quiet could often save your life.
So why were these three making a beeline toward me?
I wasn't shouting.
I wasn't running.
I wasn't even moving.
Yet somehow, they knew exactly where I was.
That was concerning.
Then again, after spending days trapped in a world filled with rooftops and mask-wearing psychopaths, my definition of concerning had become a little distorted.
One of the zombies suddenly lunged.
Fast.
Far faster than its earlier shambling suggested.
Its mouth opened wide as it threw itself toward me.
Fortunately, I wasn't the same Hiro who had first arrived in High-Rise Invasion.
Back then, I probably would've frozen.
Now?
My body reacted before my brain finished complaining.
I shoved my backpack forward.
The zombie smashed face-first into it.
Its momentum died instantly.
Before it could recover, I swept its legs out from under it.
The corpse hit the floor with a heavy thud.
The other two immediately continued forward.
I didn't bother finishing the first one off.
There wasn't any point.
Killing zombies was satisfying.
Getting surrounded by zombies wasn't.
So instead, I charged straight at the remaining pair.
One caught a backpack to the face.
The other got shoulder-checked hard enough to stumble sideways.
Neither managed to grab me.
Good.
Because if even one hand got a proper hold of me, this situation would've become significantly more annoying.
I slipped between them and immediately broke into a sprint.
"...See you, fuckers."
Angry growls echoed behind me.
I didn't look back.
I had more important things to worry about.
Namely, the fact that the entire school was rapidly descending into chaos.
Screams echoed through the hallways.
Students ran in every direction.
Teachers shouted contradictory instructions.
Nobody knew what was happening.
Nobody knew what to do.
The announcement about violence on campus had only happened a minute ago, yet somehow, the entire school already felt like it was collapsing.
Honestly.
The zombies were putting together an impressive speedrun.
A student burst out of a nearby classroom.
Blood covered one of his sleeves.
His face was pale with terror.
Behind him came another student.
Except this one wasn't running.
He was biting.
The first student barely made it three steps before he was dragged to the floor.
His scream cut through the hallway.
I looked away and kept moving.
There was nothing I could do.
I had only survived four days in the High-Rise Invasion world, but that had already been enough to teach me one valuable lesson.
You couldn't save everyone.
The moment you tried, you'd simply become another person waiting to be saved.
Besides, I already had a destination.
The nurse's office.
More specifically—
Shizuka Marikawa.
Medical professional.
Future owner of one of the safest houses in this damn world.
Access to medicine.
Access to supplies.
Access to guns.
A fortified home.
An armored vehicle.
Objectively speaking, she was one of the most valuable people in the entire series.
Also...
Well.
There was another reason.
Not an important reason.
But definitely a noticeable one.
Let's just say nature had been suspiciously generous when designing Shizuka Marikawa.
The kind of generous that made structural engineers lose sleep at night.
"...Tsk."
I clicked my tongue and forcibly stopped myself from getting distracted any further.
Focus.
Important assets first.
Admiring assets second.
I rounded another corner and nearly got flattened by a crowd of panicking students.
Someone shoved me.
Someone else tripped.
At one point, I had to climb over a desk that had somehow ended up in the middle of the hallway.
I had absolutely no idea how that happened.
Nor did I care.
The school was becoming more dangerous by the second.
And the zombies...
The zombies still bothered me.
Their numbers didn't make sense.
Not even a little.
Several minutes later, I finally reached the nurse's office.
"Finally."
I stopped outside the door and carefully peeked through the glass.
Good.
Very good.
I wasn't too late.
Marikawa-sensei was more than fine.
Running around the room while trying to gather supplies.
Panicking.
Being helpful.
And somehow still making physics cry.
I stared for a moment.
"...Wow."
Reality had somehow made her even less aerodynamic than the anime.
Which honestly felt impressive.
Then I noticed the other occupants.
Two students.
One standing.
One lying on a bed.
The standing one looked nervous.
The one on the bed looked terrible.
Pale skin.
Cold sweat.
Shallow breathing.
And most importantly—
A bite mark.
My expression immediately darkened.
"...That's not good."
I'd seen enough zombie movies to recognize where this was heading.
I quickly opened the door.
Everyone inside reacted immediately.
The standing student grabbed a nearby metal pole and held it like a weapon.
Marikawa-sensei nearly dropped the box in her hands.
The guy on the bed reacted too.
Barely.
"...Relax."
I raised both hands.
"I don't bite."
The standing student visibly relaxed.
Slightly.
Only slightly.
Which was fair.
Outside sounded like the apocalypse because it was the apocalypse.
"Is everything alright now?" he asked.
I stared at him.
Then at the window.
Then at the distant screams still echoing outside.
"...Does it sound alright?"
"..."
"...Right."
Without waiting for a reply, I grabbed a nearby chair, wedged it beneath the door handle, and stepped deeper into the room.
My eyes immediately swept across the layout.
Entrances.
Exits.
Blind spots.
Potential weapons.
The kind of things I never would've thought about a few weeks ago.
That was when I noticed a roll of medical tape sitting on a nearby shelf.
I smiled.
"Oh."
Now that was useful.
Without wasting any time, I grabbed the roll and unzipped my backpack.
The standing student blinked.
"...What are you doing?"
Instead of answering, I pulled out several textbooks and placed them on a nearby table.
The room immediately went silent.
Even Marikawa-sensei stopped moving.
Probably because seeing someone calmly pull out schoolbooks in the middle of a zombie outbreak wasn't exactly normal behavior.
I tore several sections from the books, folded the pages together, wrapped them around my forearm, and secured them tightly with the tape.
The standing student stared.
"What are you—"
"Making armor."
"What?"
"Paper is harder to bite through than clothes or flesh."
"Oh."
Marikawa-sensei nodded.
For some reason, that explanation completely satisfied her.
Honestly, that was both reassuring and concerning.
A few minutes later, both arms were wrapped.
The result looked slightly ridiculous.
But if something tried biting me, I'd much rather it bite a mathematics textbook than my actual arm.
My attention drifted toward the student lying on the bed.
The guy looked even worse than before.
His breathing had become shallower.
His skin was pale.
And every few seconds, his body twitched involuntarily.
The standing student noticed where I was looking.
"He'll be okay."
His voice lacked conviction.
I didn't respond.
The bite mark was enough.
I already knew how this would end.
Outside, the screams continued.
Some distant.
Some alarmingly close.
Every now and then, something slammed against the door I'd barricaded with the chair.
The sound made the standing student flinch every single time.
Then suddenly, amidst all that—
"Okada?"
The guy on the bed stopped moving.
Completely.
The room fell silent.
The standing student immediately rushed over.
"Okada?"
No response.
"Hey."
Nothing.
His voice rose.
"Hey!"
Still nothing.
Panic slowly crept across his face.
"Wake up!"
Marikawa-sensei tried to move closer, most likely to help, but stopped when I blocked her path with my arm.
I didn't explain.
I simply reached into my bag, grabbed one of my tools, and quietly approached the pair.
Meanwhile...
The student grabbed his friend's shoulder and shook him.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Nothing.
Then—
The body moved.
Violently.
Its eyes snapped open.
Cloudy.
Empty.
Wrong.
The standing student's expression immediately brightened.
"Thank God—"
He leaned closer.
Way too close.
Honestly, if death flags were a real thing, this idiot was currently collecting them like trading cards.
And I was right, because not even a second later, a jaw snapped open.
"A-AAHHH—!"
His now-zombified friend shot forward.
Straight for his neck.
But before the bite could land, I grabbed the back of his collar and yanked him backward with all my strength.
The student's feet left the floor.
The zombie's teeth snapped shut on empty air.
Close.
Way too close.
The standing student crashed onto the floor in confusion.
The zombie immediately tried to follow.
I didn't give it the chance.
One hand grabbed a fistful of hair.
The other drove the sharpened screwdriver downward.
PHISK!
The metal disappeared into its skull.
The corpse immediately went limp.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
The room became completely silent.
Then I pulled the screwdriver free.
Blood dripped onto the sheets.
...
Huh.
Somehow, that had felt a lot easier than stabbing a living person.
Anyway.
The standing student stared.
At the corpse.
Then at me.
Then back at the corpse.
His face slowly turned white.
"W-What the hell..."
"He died."
I wiped the screwdriver against the blanket.
"Then he got back up."
"..."
The student looked like he wanted to argue.
Wanted to deny it.
Wanted to say that none of this made sense.
Then his eyes drifted toward the bite mark.
Toward the blood.
Toward the corpse that had just tried to eat him.
Whatever argument he had quietly died.
Then, staying true to its fucked-up nature, the world didn't give us even a moment to breathe.
Something slammed against the door.
Every head in the room turned toward it.
Well, something had been hitting the door for a while now.
This time, however, the impact sounded different.
BANG!
Louder.
Another impact followed immediately afterward.
Then another.
Outside the window, figures had begun gathering as well.
Students.
Teachers.
School staff.
People who had probably been perfectly normal less than an hour ago.
Now they stood outside, staring into the room with dead, hungry eyes.
"Oh God..."
The standing student stumbled backward.
CRACK.
A thin fracture spread across the window.
Nobody spoke.
Nobody needed to.
Every person in the room understood exactly what that sound meant.
The zombies outside immediately became more frantic.
Throwing themselves against the increasingly fragile window over and over again.
CRACK.
Another fracture appeared.
Then another.
The standing student's breathing became increasingly uneven.
Marikawa-sensei looked surprisingly calm.
Or maybe confused.
Honestly, trying to understand what was happening inside her head felt like a side quest I wasn't qualified to complete.
I ignored all that and quietly picked up the metal pole from earlier.
The window wasn't going to hold.
Not against that many.
Not for long.
The zombies continued piling up outside.
Each scream coming from somewhere else in the school seemed to attract even more of them.
By now, the glass looked less like a window and more like a countdown.
My eyes drifted toward the standing student.
Still terrified.
Still shaking.
But unlike most of the people I'd passed on the way here, he hadn't completely frozen.
That was good enough.
"Can you swing a weapon?"
"...What?"
I pointed at him and clarified in the most unhurried tone I could manage.
"Can. You. Fight?"
The student glanced at me.
Then at the crowd outside.
Then back at me.
"I... I think so."
"Good."
I quickly crouched beside a nearby table and pulled one of its metal support bars loose.
The metal groaned in protest before finally giving way.
Crude.
But usable.
I tossed it toward him.
He barely caught it.
"U-Um..."
I grabbed the original pole for myself.
"Hit them."
"..."
"...Preferably in the head."
The student stared at me.
I stared back.
Eventually, he nodded.
Good enough.
I then turned toward Marikawa-sensei.
"Sensei."
"Hm?"
"I'll help you gather supplies later. For now, hide behind those beds."
I pointed toward the far corner of the room.
"The zombies won't reach you immediately from there."
"O-Okay."
She nodded surprisingly quickly.
Honestly, she might've been the easiest person in the room to work with.
The student tightened his grip around the improvised weapon.
Still scared.
Still shaking.
But at least now he looked ready to fight.
I stepped beside him.
Not in front.
Beside.
"Take the left."
"...Left?"
"I'll take the right."
The student swallowed.
Then nodded.
Outside, the zombies slammed themselves against the glass again.
And again.
And again.
The fractures spread.
Growing larger.
Wider.
Louder.
Then—
SMASH!
The entire window exploded inward.
Glass scattered across the room.
The first zombie stumbled through.
Then another.
And another.
A flood of corpses began pouring inside.
I tightened my grip around the metal pole.
Took a slow breath.
And stepped forward.
"...Alright."
The nearest zombie lunged.
I tightened my grip.
Then took the initiative and swung with all my might.
End of Chapter 11
Author's Note:
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