28(A/N: Alright, here we go. Highschoool of the DEAD is one of my favorite anime, and I've been wanting to do a story on it for a long time. Unfortunately, I've never been able to come up with anything. That is, until this. I wanted to do a full-length story, but I'm pretty satisfied with this. It was going to be a single long one-shot, but after I finished it and saw it's length, I decided to split it into 4 parts. It takes place after the anime, obviously, and while it does somewhat take the manga into consideration, you won't need to have read it, as this story takes the plot into a different direction. You can pretty much place the timeframe at any point after the anime. One last thing, I tried to keep this 'T' rated, but if anyone thinks I should raise it to 'M', please let me know. Enjoy)
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
"CHILD OF THE DEAD"
Saeko Busujima wiped her mouth as her stomach finished emptying its contents. This was nothing new though; it had been happening for several days now, usually in the mornings. She wondered how much longer it would last, and hoped it would be over with soon.
She glanced at the others, and saw that they were still sleeping. That was good; they all needed their sleep. So far, she had managed to keep her condition hidden from them, but not for much longer. She was planning on waiting until she had proof before breaking the news to them. And for news this big, she needed proof.
Not for herself. She knew exactly what was wrong. The proof would be for certain members of her group in order for them to accept it. Not that she thought that they wouldn't believe her, but having the proof would make it easier and undeniable, and it couldn't be written off as something else until the signs began to show.
Saeko wasn't stupid enough to think that this was some kind of stomach bug, or food poisoning, or whatever excuse other women would tell themselves in order to deny the truth, or were too naïve to realize it. She was pregnant. She knew it for a certainty. And it wasn't women's intuition or anything like that. She simply knew what signs to look for, not to mention she had begun to suspect it the first time she'd experienced her morning sickness.
After the first morning of vomiting, the possibility of pregnancy had occurred to her almost right away. Despite doing the deed only one time, that was all it took. And so she had applied what she knew of pregnancy and thought back to that night at the shrine, counting the days that had gone by until now, then recalling how soon after conception morning sickness usually occurred. The days added up.
Next, and most importantly, had been her period. She knew when her monthly cycle was. And while stressful situations could cause irregularities, Saeko was fully capable of telling when she was late and when she had flat out missed it, and she had missed it.
Then there were other things to consider, such as cravings, irritability, weariness, and raging hormones. Yes, there were many signs, and Saeko had been keeping a look out for them ever since she had first begun to suspect that she was with child, even looking back to her behavior before the morning sickness. All the signs pointed to what she already suspected. Now all that was left was for her to do was pee on a stick and get that little red plus sign for confirmation.
After rinsing out her mouth, she walked back over to her friends and sat next to the one who put her in this condition. Takashi Komuro. She didn't blame him though; they were both at fault. As the saying went, 'it took two to tango'. She did wonder how he would feel about it though. While he did say he would take responsibility, she knew that he had meant for her. Somehow, she didn't think he'd had this in mind when he made that promise; she certainly didn't. Not that she thought that he wouldn't live up to his responsibilities; Takashi was possibly the most responsible person she knew.
Her mind went back to that night at the shrine. The two of them had gotten separated from their group, only managing to make plans to meet up with them at the Takagi Estate before they'd been forced to flee. It had been too dangerous at the time with all the walking dead wandering around.
After she had frozen in her slaughter of the dead when they came across a group of zombie children, something Takashi had had no trouble taking care of, the two of them had taken up refuge in a shrine for the night, the owner having either fled or perished. While they were there, Takashi had inquired as to why she had froze.
She had then told him of her more sadistic side. Of how she had been attacked by a prowler when she was younger, but had fought back, nearly killing her assailant with her savage assault. She had admitted to how she had been unable to stop beating him, how she had taken such pleasure in the act, and how cutting down these walking corpses gave her the same excited rush that bordered on sexual for her, and how that side of herself scared and ashamed her.
Takashi had rose to her defense, claiming how ever since the dead rose, that such actions were now required of them, and that he too had begun taking delight in putting down the rotting corpses, getting his own sick thrill out of it. Saeko had already been aware of that. She had seen the grins that crossed his face when he smashed their skulls with his bat, she had noted the excitement and delightful gleam in his eyes as he riddled them with bullets. But that side of him, she had pointed out, had only manifested after the world had collapsed, but that she had been that way ever before it happened.
He had dismissed her concerns, claiming how it didn't matter if they had this side to them before or after the dead began walking, because this was what they needed in order to survive now. It was simply the way the world was now, and they had to accept it.
She still wasn't entirely sure how it had happened. They had been sitting in front of each other, looking into each other's eyes, his hand on top of her, the warm light from the fireplace shining on them. Suddenly he had leaned in, and she had moved to meet him as they shared a heated kiss. Things had progressed from there, and the two of them had ended up making love right there on the shrine floor.
It had been her first time, and she greatly suspected that it had been Takashi's as well. Neither had planned on it happening, but it did, and Saeko wouldn't change anything about it. Not even the result of their union growing inside her. Though she would admit that she would have preferred for it to happen a little further down the line.
Looking down at the sleeping Takashi, she reached out and stroked his spiky brown hair, noting how it felt much softer than it looked. He mumbled in his sleep and shifted slightly, but did not wake. Saeko smiled to herself as she continued running her fingers through his hair. She'd had a crush on him before this whole zombie apocalypse started, but had never acted on it, thinking there was something wrong with her ever since she discovered her darker side, and that she didn't deserve to be happy with someone else.
She had been afraid to show anyone that side of her, hence the reason why she had frozen upon encountering the zombie children. Taking delight in killing the adult walking corpses was one thing, but she had been afraid of what Takashi would think of her if he saw her enjoying the slashing of zombie children. It was in that moment that's she realized, much to her horror, that she was no different than she was back when she had nearly beaten her would-be molester to death. No, she was even worse now, getting drunk off the power and violence she unleashed. It wasn't that she was a cruel or wicked person, but there was no denying the thrill she got when unleashing her violent side, and it left her disgusted with herself and filled with self-hatred.
However, Takashi had dispelled those worries as well. Not just by killing the undead children himself, but by what happened the next morning. Upon exiting the shrine, before she had even finished getting dressed, they had been surrounded by a group of at least a dozen bloodthirsty corpses. She had almost froze again, afraid and ashamed to let her violent side out, despite having confessed it to Takashi the previous night. She even briefly considered giving up and letting the dead claim her. But Takashi had once again dispelled those worries, even claiming she was the greatest girl he knew. He not only accepted her darkness, but encouraged it, insisting that he needed her, and her darkness, saying that he would embrace it, asking her to live for him if she needed a reason to live.
She'd stopped fighting it after that, letting out the monster that lived inside her whenever she needed to, reveling in the carnage she left in her wake. It was then that she knew that she was completely in love with him, and had asked that he take responsibility for her. He had grinned and agreed whole-heartedly.
A shiver ran through Saeko as she remembered that night. Of the passion they'd shared, of the feeling of his hands on her, his lips against hers, their sweaty naked bodies entwined. She reached up and touched her lips, imagining him kissing her, remembering the feeling of his touch. Her other hand came up to touch her breast, the same one he had grabbed when he encouraged her to let out her darkness, and she held back the moan that threatened to escape her.
A blush stained her cheeks and her breathing became labored as sweat began to bead on her skin as she got lost in her memories. She ran her hands down her body, imagining they were his as she indulged in her fantasy. She wanted him, she want to feel him touch her, feel him inside her, rediscovering the passion and heat they had shared that night. Ever since leaving the Takagi Estate, they'd been so busy trying to find a safe place to stay that they hadn't had the opportunity to be alone for longer than a few minutes. There had been that brief period of time on what they had thought was an uninhabited island, but the hallucinations they'd had from the fumes of the Hydrangea leaves they had unknowingly used in their campfire made it difficult to remember how much had been reality and how much had been fantasy. She had meant what she said though, she wanted to be his one and only.
A movement brought Saeko out of her thoughts, and she glanced at the sleeping figure beside Takashi. Bringing her hands down to rest in her lap, she frowned slightly at what she considered to be the greatest obstacle between her and Takashi. Rei Miyamoto, Takashi's childhood friend and sweetheart. There was a very… complicated history between the two of them that had only grown more complex overtime, especially during the zombie apocalypse.
Saeko was fully aware that there were still at least some lingering feelings between the two of them, and she understood. Despite the growing relationship between her and Takashi, she knew that he still cared for Rei a lot, and likely still had romantic feelings and attraction towards her.
Rei, likewise, was rather possessive of him because of their past relationship, especially after having lost her boyfriend, Hisashi Igou, during the outbreak at their school, and she often acted like she had some type of claim to him because of their past relationship. But to Saeko, it seemed as if Rei was trying to hold onto something, something that was no longer there, or was but a shadow of what it once was. Perhaps it was a coping mechanism to deal with the horrors of the new world. Perhaps she was hanging onto the feelings she had for the person Takashi once was in order to hold onto something familiar and comforting. Or maybe she just afraid of being alone, and was desperately clinging onto the only other person around who had truly cared about her.
Whatever it was, Saeko didn't know. One thing was certain though, whatever it was between Takashi and his former sweetheart, she wasn't going to let it interfere with her and Takashi's relationship. Despite there being more women than men in their little group, Saeko was not willing to lose Takashi, and she most definitely was not willing to share him with another woman.
For too long had she thought herself unworthy of love thanks to her dark side, but that was no longer the case. Not only was her sadistic side necessary for their survival in this new world, but it was fully and completely accepted by Takashi, who now had his own darkness that might even rival hers to an extent. But Saeko accepted that side to him, just as he accepted hers. She never felt this way about someone before, not even her past crush, and she was not willing to lose it, or him. She'd even go as far as to say he was her reason for living. He was what made all this pain bearable. Without him, she would very likely commit jigai.
Sighing, she laid down next to him. Placing her hands on her stomach and the life growing inside, she couldn't resist the smile that crept up her face as she looked out the barricaded window. The sun was already up, and they would be waking up soon, and be on the move once more. Their nights had consisted of finding whatever shelter they could, sleeping in abandoned vehicles and houses as they searched for a safe place to settle down for as long as they could. Tonight they were sleeping in a bus that had been turned on its side, the entrances having been barricaded so the dead couldn't get to them while they slept. Tomorrow, they would reach town, where they would restock on food, water, medicine, and other supplies. Saeko planned on picking up her own bit of supplies; some things to prevent future 'accidents' from happening, and something to prove that one had already happened.
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It looked like they weren't the first ones to ransack this particular drugstore, but there was still plenty of supplies left behind for them to gather; looters could only carry so much after all.
They had gathered the essentials, food, preferably nonperishables, bottled water, medical supplies, toiletries, and other essential items. Standing behind the counter, the air-headed school nurse, Shizuka Marikawa, was in charge of gathering any medications that they may need in case any of them got sick, hurt, or developed an infection. She stared almost absentmindedly at the shelves full of whatever medications hadn't been ransacked by looters.
Twirling her finger around as she read the labels, she hummed happily to herself with a content smile on her face. "Should I get Asprin, Tylenol, Excedrin, Aleve, or Ibuprofen? They all have relatively the same affects. Anyone have a preference?"
Not even bothering to glance at the ditzy nurse, Saya Takagi continued to grab items off the aisle shelves and shove them into the already stuffed arms of Kohta Hirano, whom she had elected to be her personal pack mule. "Just get the important stuff. You're a nurse, you should know what we might need."
"Ok!" Shizuka declared cheerfully. She went back to humming as she snatched a few boxes and bottles. She tapped her chin curiously after coming to one in particular. "Would you consider Ipecac important?"
Saya rolled her eyes. "I doubt we'll need to induce vomiting. When I said important stuff, I meant things like medicine in case one of us gets sick, antibiotics in case of infections, stuff like that."
"Ok!" She went back to looking at the shelves, before stopping give the bespectacled girl a questioning smile. "Do you think we'll need inhalers?"
A vein throbbed in Saya's head, and she let out an impatient sigh. "None of us have asthma, Miss Shizuka."
"Oh, right, we don't. Ok then… What about hemorrhoid cream?"
"Ah! Seriously? How did you get to be a nurse in the first place? Just take the important stuff!"
Struggling to hold onto everything in his arms, Kohta glanced at the pink-haired girl he had been crushing on for some time now. "Hey, speaking of the important stuff, are all these things really necessary? Some of them seem more like luxury items or conveniences. Like soap, shampoo, and deodorant. We can live without those. Even toothpaste isn't necessary for survival."
Whirling around, Saya fixed him with an annoyed glare as she pushed her glasses further up her nose. "Of course it's all necessary. I don't want to smell your nasty boy sweat all the time."
Looking dejected, Kohta diverted his eyes and pouted. "Girls sweat too, you know," he muttered under his breath.
"What was that?"
He jumped and stood at attention. "N-Nothing. It's just… we can only carry so much. Shouldn't we only take what we really need to survive?"
Saya poked him in his large gut. "Listen up, tubby, personal hygiene is important for good health, which is important for survival. Therefore, it is necessary." She cockily pushed her glasses higher up her nose again. "So just shut up and do as I tell you. I am a genius after all, I know what I'm talking about."
A short distance away, Rei smirked at her friends' antics, and went back to searching the shelves. Since they were in a simply drugstore, there wasn't much in the way of food. She did find a few things such as canned foods and granola bars, and she tossed them into her bag.
"Miss Rei! Miss Rei!" the youngest member of their group, little Alice Maresato, ran up to her with their dog, Zeke, barking happily behind her. Beaming proudly, the young girl held up a box of dog biscuits. "Look what I found for Zeke! We can take them, can't we?"
Rei smiled at the girl they had all but adopted after her father had been killed by a group of cowardly individuals who chose to murder a helpless father rather than letting him and his daughter into their house. "Sure we can. Can you hold onto them for us?"
Alice nodded enthusiastically, and hugged the box to herself. "Yeah!" Zeke continued to bark excitedly around her feet, and she opened up the box to take out biscuit, holding it over the dog's head. "Here, boy."
Saya ignored the scene as she continued to load up Kohta's arms with anything she considered necessary for their survival, whether he agreed with it or not. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a door leading to another room, and wandered what was behind it. "Hey, someone go check in the back. There may be some more supplies we can take."
"I'll go," Saeko replied, and headed for the door. She'd already found all the personal items she needed anyway.
The plastic bag she held in one hand contained two specific items. The first was a box containing a certain test she already knew she was going to pass. The second was another box with a number of pills so there wouldn't be anymore 'accidents' in the future. True, she wouldn't need them for a several more months, but it was always good to be prepared. Besides, she had the feeling that Saya didn't find Kohta quite as intolerable as she let on.
Reaching out, she grasped the doorknob and attempted to open the door, only to find it locked. She quickly remedied that with a kick, knocking it open. She was immediately greeted by a pungent odor, followed by a vicious snarl. Four walking corpses came stumbling out, their arms reaching for her. Saeko reacted instantly. Dropping her bag, she grasped the hilt of her specially made, all but indestructible sword, and unsheathed it. She stabbed into the first one, the blade going straight through the corpse's back. But Saeko knew that it wouldn't be enough to kill it.
Truthfully, 'kill it' wasn't the correct phrase since these things weren't actually alive, despite the imitation of life they displayed. They had no life, no soul, they were just mindless walking pieces of meat. A tree, a bacteria, a virus had more life than they did. They were just flesh that kept moving after death, similar to how the leg or antenna of an insect or the tail of a lizard continued to twitch after being severed from the body.
And speaking of severing, Saeko twisted her blade and sliced upward, cutting through the zombie's chest, coming out the top of its head. The zombie had practically been cut in half, but that hadn't been what put it down. Destroying the brain had been the key, putting a stop to all its other motor functions, and the creature fell unmoving to the ground.
Wasting no time, Saeko swiped her sword through the air, cutting through another zombie, separating its arms and upper body from its lower half, sending a shower of blood flying everywhere. At that point, Takashi had rushed over to her, and was currently leaping through the air, his metal bat raised over his head. He brought it down on the skull of another zombie, and its head all but exploded from the impact as it was smashed in.
He swung his bat at the fourth zombie, hitting it in the face. Its lower jaw was completely torn away, and it stumbled back into the wall, not even registering the pain with its dead nerves no longer functioning. A moment later, a gunshot rang out, and the zombie's brains shot out of the back of its head, leaving a large blood splatter all over the wall. Kohta stood holding his smoking rifle, having dropped the load Saya had filled his arms with. The light reflected off his glasses, giving him an almost sinister look as a large grin spread across his face as he stared proudly at his handiwork.
"And Mom said all those first person shooter games would never get me anywhere in life," he bragged arrogantly.
Saya humphed. "Nice job." She pointed to everything he dropped. "Now pick that up."
Takashi couldn't help but smile at the dejected look on Kohta's face before he turned to Saeko. "You ok?"
She flashed him a smile as the armless, lower bodiless zombie at her feet attempted to crawl. "I had it under control," she told him as she casually held out her sword and stabbed it through the back of the head, the blade exiting its mouth and piercing the floor. "But I appreciate the help."
Takashi returned the smile with one of his own, and Saeko felt a rush run through her, already having gotten worked up from the slaying of the two corpses she had put down. Seeing him take down those things got her just as excited as doing it herself. And based on the look in his eyes, he was feeling the same way. She wanted to respond to that desire and pounce on him right then and there, but other priorities took precipice.
"I'll go first," he told her. "Just in case there's any more."
"My hero," she teased, pulling her sword free.
As Takashi walked past her, she gave her sword a quick flick, ridding it of the blood, before sheathing it. She was very grateful of Saya's father for giving it to her; it was a lot more affective than the wooden kendo sword she had been using, and far superior to an ordinary sword.
Reaching down, she picked up her bag, and her eyes went to the four rotting corpses. Though she normally tried not to think about who the dead were back when they were alive, she couldn't help but notice that the four of them were wearing store aprons. If she had to wager a guess, she'd assume that when the initial outbreak occurred, one of them had gotten bitten, and then the four of them had then locked themselves in the back room for protection, not realizing that once bitten, the victim would turn. And when their fellow employee had risen from the dead, they had attacked the others.
It really was just like the movies. The craving for the flesh of the living, spreading the infection through bite, and needing to kill the brain to put them down for good. The biting, dying, and rising process all happened very quickly though; within a matter of minutes of being bitten, the infection would rapidly spread through the body like a fast acting poison, killing the victim before they were reanimated as one of Them.
Yes, that's what they referred to the walking corpses as, Them. Though they all knew what they really were, they didn't like to use the term 'zombie'. They did occasionally, but mostly they simply said Them. Perhaps it was a coping mechanism, some form of denial in order to deal with the reality of the situation they were in. They all needed a way to cope, and if by referring to the flesh-eating monsters as Them helped, then that was just fine.
They still didn't know how the whole thing started, and likely never would. Takashi had seen the initial attack at their school that had introduced them to the horrors of this new world, but what had happened before then was a mystery. They still weren't even sure what this was anyway. What made the dead stand up and walk? It wasn't everyone who died, only those who were killed by Them or infected by a bite. So it wasn't something they were already carrying that activated upon death.
But what was it? A pathogen of some kind, maybe a virus, bacteria, or a parasite, or some other new disease? Was it a result of radiation? A mutation? Perhaps some type of biological weapon or chemical spill, maybe a government experiment gone wrong? Hell, maybe it was aliens, or divine intervention. Perhaps it was a curse, or some evil spell, or maybe voodoo. Had it affected a bunch of people all at once, or was there a patient zero? There was really no telling.
Most importantly though, would this ever come to an end? So far, it looked like the answer was no, not any time soon. Possibly not for hundreds, or even thousands of years. Despite being rotten, it seemed that the zombies weren't affected by decomposition after a certain point, likely because they were still animate. The fact that they were still bleeding the way they were when there blood should have coagulated ages ago like a normal corpse supported this. Which meant, potentially, they could be walking around indefinitely. Meaning that humanity's only hope of vanquishing the dead was to kill them all one by one all across the globe until every last one was wiped out. And since there were tens of millions, if not billions, of Them all over the world, there was no telling how long that cleanup would take. Centuries most likely, and that wasn't even taking into account the fact that the zombies kept adding to their numbers with the more people they killed. Just a single one getting into a populated area could result in hundreds or thousands more of Them. Just look at how a single one had turned at least a quarter of their high school into an entire army of undead monsters.
They were most dangerous in large numbers. A single zombie, even a handful, weren't all that tough to deal with, or even avoid completely. Though very strong, they were slow, stupid, and their senses were dead. They couldn't seem to see, and seemed to rely entirely on sound to seek out their prey. However, once they picked up a sound, they were somehow able to pinpoint and lock onto it. Perhaps it worked kind of like sonar, and a single sound was all it took to lock onto their prey, their hearing amplified beyond superhuman levels since none of their other senses worked. It made sense, and also went in accordance with their great strength, presumably able to apply all their energy to a single muscle since none of their other body functions were in use.
So even though a single zombie was easily manageable, it was still extremely dangerous. And with their insatiable need to feed on the living, craving a taste of the life they no longer had, they relentlessly and tirelessly pursued their prey. Unthinking, unfeeling, undead, and always, always hungry. Just one could cause an entire community of survivors to fall, just like the Takago Estate being a prime had, although that had been due to an entire horde attacking.
And perhaps just as dangerous as the dead, or maybe even more so, were the living. Some people weren't cut out to living in a world like this. Scratch that, most people weren't. They would snap and became savages. Takashi had told them of the thug at the gas station he and Rei had left for dead after he had attacked them. And then there were the self-righteous idiots that had also been at the Takagi Estate. Not to mention the delusional sociopath that had been Koichi Shido. The sick bastard and his group of followers had gotten what they deserved after the EMP from the nuclear blast had caused their bus to crash in the middle of a horde of Them. If anyone deserved to be eaten alive by a bunch of flesh-eating ghouls, it was that group. Whether they survived or not, Saeko didn't know, but she wouldn't shed a tear for the sociopath and his followers.
Yes, it was a dangerous world, far more dangerous than the previous one. But they were learning, adapting, adjusting to their circumstances as they went along. Case and point, they had learned that they were better off as a small group rather than getting absorbed into a community. It was just them against the world.
Hopefully, they would find their families alive and well, and then after that, they would seek out a safe haven for themselves to live out their lives, maybe on an actual deserted island this time. It would also probably be a good idea to stop at a library and take a few books on wilderness survival, or maybe some of those books on how to survive a zombie apocalypse, something that up until a while ago had been labeled as fictional. And a few books on parenting would come in handy soon too.
Saeko's hand went to her stomach. She wasn't showing yet, but it would only be a matter of time. Tonight she would take the test and get confirmation for what she already knew. But while she'd had the time to come to terms with her pregnancy, she did wonder how the others would react. Shocked, she was sure, but what else? Alice and Shizuka would probably be delighted. Kohta would most likely say something stupid, and Saya would likely smack him for it before she began irritably lecturing Takashi about how irresponsible he was.
As for Takashi himself, well, Saeko wasn't entirely sure how he would react. She knew that he would take responsibility though. Not just because of what he told her the morning after their night together, but because that was just the type of person he was.
The real issue would be Rei. Saeko knew that she would be devastated and angry. She would probably feel betrayed, even though she wouldn't have any right to feel so; she and Takashi had no commitments to each other, and Saeko had never been shy about how she felt about him. Rei may have been hesitant with her feelings, and Saeko would even go so far as to say she was somewhat fickle and manipulative after the way she had strung both Takashi and Hisashi along for her own self worth, whether she meant to be or not, or even noticed. However, Saeko was not shy about what she wanted, and she was not going to cast the person she loved aside for her own convenience and ego the way Rei had.
Yes, tonight was going to be very interesting indeed.
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