Horror Fan Fiction ❯ Yuri of THE DEAD ❯ 4: Reunion (Final) ( Chapter 4 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Notes: This author must regretfully pass on that Highschool of the Dead co-creator and author Daisuke Satou passed away on March 22 due to ischemic heart disease at the age of 52.
Yuri of the Dead!
Reunion
Rika Minami escaped the airport, then swiftly assessed the overall situation. No radio contact with her superiors in the police. Cellphones down. The airport overrun by zombies, the routes into town similarly fallen. Limited supplies and materials. Still...
'I have to find out what happened with Shizuka," Rika decided, and set out to Tokyo.
'Borrowing' well, stealing really, an abandoned police transport wasn't hard. She got the keys off a fellow officer's body, and headed out. VERY quickly Rika figured out why vehicles were a blessing and a curse in a zombie apocolypse. On one hand, it carried you far and fast, but on the other the engine noise drew in zombies by the bucketload.
"Fuck," Rika cursed aloud as she finally crashed up on a pile of corpses, then swiftly bailed out of her truck, thankfully not that far from her home.
Guns, annoyingly, also drew in zombies which was why Rika was mostly using an extended police baton. Weighted, it could swing with immense force, allowing her to crush zombie heads. Which she used with gusto as she hurriedly but quietly advanced.
Finally reaching the house Rika was disappointed to find it empty. Someone had been there then left, including raiding her guns, damn it. She was SOMEWHAT comforted to find a note left by Shizuka...
Apparently her school had been overrun by zombies, and Shizuka and a group of students and teachers had escaped. The group had split, and Shizuka and a smaller group had crashed here before raiding her guns and going to look for the kid's parents.
"Fuck," Rika cursed again.
She couldn't blame the kids wanting to find their parents, but this home was nearly a fortress. Supplies, a high wall, her second armory in the basement... they could have held out for weeks here. Possibly months. But no... they had to leave.
With a sigh she checked the water heater (still running thanks to a back up power source she installed) and went and had a nice long shower. She was filthy. Then she dried and collapsed on her bed, catching up on the sleep she had lost over the last couple of days...
The next morning, Rika got up and showered again, knowing she probably wouldn't be able to for awhile. Then she filled a backpack with supplies, loaded up with two steel tipped combat batons along with pistols and her favourite ammo.
Rika dressed with a certain degree of care. Heavy woollen trousers and shirt. Not actually bite proof, but they'd be tough to rip or chew through. Heavy, high work boots so she could tuck the pants into them. Bullet proof vest, because she didn't know who was armed out there. And heavy gloves, again to hopefully protect from bites.
Then she locked up and headed out to find her friend.
"Fuck," Rika cursed as she stood in the wreckage of the Takagi compound.
The far right nationalists had been defeated by the zombies, that was clear. But going through the wrecked compound, Rika was fairly sure they had fought an organized retreat. So some survivors clearly had escaped.
The fact that a well organized, prepared group had fallen was a depressing sign for the future. The zombies appeared to be able to defeat even good defences via pure weight of numbers. Still, she wasn't going to give up.
'No sign of Shizuka,' Rika noted, 'and the worst of the zombies have moved on too. Do they only chase active prey?'
Rika reached the far wall, then clambered over the rubble. The sound of falling debris clattered in the deathly silence. Nearby she heard the rumbling groan of a undead, staggering towards her.
The girl would have been cute, if she wasn't missing half her face. She blindly staggered forward towards the sound, reaching out. Rika pulled one of her batons out, waiting until it was close enough, then swung. The weighted wood smashed the skull open, sending the zombie flying and killing it once more.
Knowing the sounds would draw more undead, Rika hurried off...
"Fuck," Rika cursed as she looked at the mall through her binoculars.
Once the crowded parking lot would have been full of people. Now it teemed with the undead, whom apparently had mobbed any survivors within. SOMEONE inside had apparently tried to use the outside speakers to send out a distress call, but that had drawn in the dead instead.
Rika swept the mob of the dead with her binoculars, but there was too many of them to see any detail. She sighed and repacked her gear, then moved off. On the bright side, the mass of the dead meant the side streets should be clear.
For now.
Not that far from the mall Rika came across more undead that had been destroyed. In addition to what looked like bullet wounds, someone had cut them down with a frickin' SWORD. Cleanly and very efficiently too.
'Which matches some of the bodies I found at the Takagi compound,' Rika noted as she moved on. That might mean she was on the right track...
"FUCK," Rika cursed as a group of undead shambled out of the woods.
GETTING to this dinky little island had been hard enough. The people fleeing the chaos had grabbed boats and other sea craft trying to escape. And since most of them had no idea how to operate said sea craft, they often sank them and drowned. Which meant finding a boat had been a bitch. Not to mention navigating the sailboat to this small island.
And she'd missed them again!
There were five undead, looking like vacationers who presumably had been trapped on the island and died. The five women advanced steadily, and for a moment Rika was tempted to use her guns. But the noise might draw out more undead...
Taking a baton in each hand she waited for them to get into range. A fast strike dropped one with a wet crunch, the noise making the others advance quicker. Rika stepped back carefully, setting up to strike down another. In a few moments she was done, the bodies laid out in the sand.
"What a mess," Rika sighed. She set out determinedly, knowing she had to search the island to be sure they weren't here. Though she was already thinking this was a fool's errand...
Scouting the island she found the few shops, and was amused to see the pile of abandoned swimwear. 'Who puts on a swimsuit in a zombie apocolypse?' she shook her head ruefully, then noticed one sized to fit Shizuka. Oy...
Looking out over the water, Rika sighed. At least she appeared to be on the right track. "Oh hell," she murmured aloud, "I'm going to have to take that damn boat back to shore..."
Rika FINALLY caught up to them as they were exiting an abandoned grocery store they were raiding for supplies. The group almost immediately took up a defensive position facing a stranger, the sort of caution that Rika firmly approved of.
"RIKA!" a busty blonde exclaimed, bursting through the group and running at her.
"Shizuka," Rika caught her in a hug, holding the other woman close. Without thinking about it she pressed her lips to her's, and Shizuka sighed happily as she leaned into the kiss.
"Told you they were probably more than friends," the slightly chunky young man noted.
"Kohta!" the tsundere pinkette scolded.
Rika and Shizuka finally disengaged, both smiling at each other happily. Rika then rolled her eyes, "Do you have ANY idea how hard it's been to find you?"
"Sorry, Rika," Shizuka smiled back.
After introductions and such, the group headed out together. "How DID you find us, anyway? We've been all over Tokyo...," Takashi asked.
"TELL me about it," Rika snorted. "The weapons and clips of ammo you took from my house had a radio transmitter in them. I've been following that," she shrugged.
"Huh," Rei blinked.
"Anyway...," Rika shrugged, "wherever you kids are going, as long as Shizuka is going along, I'm going too."
"Awww!" Shizuka glomped her again.
To be continued...?
Notes: Kinda blending the anime and manga timelines for this. Basically this follows the anime, then the mall bit from the manga, then Drifters of the Dead OVA. I also read to re-read the manga, because I seem to remember Rei's mom joining them at one point. May revise this later...
Conceded: It's NOT realistic that the tracking device idea would work, considering the EMP the series was hit with. But it was that or have her be a Sherlock style detective and find them via examining clues and such.