Felled by Ark

  ***

  There was almost nothing left in the store at the station. More than anything else, that scared me. Signs of foraging, of survival should have given me hope, but somehow it didn't. I felt like an invader, a scavenger slinking in the ruins of a war-torn city. I wanted the anonymity of the shadows and the security of empty streets on my solitary journey. Being with Jun and the others for a few days had made me itch to get back out on my own again.

  Two bodies were at the door, both of them teenage girls in the short gray skirt and blazer of a private girl's school nearby. They were the youngest I had seen so far and somehow it hurt to look at them. I knew the rest of Tokyo, and probably the world, was dead, including children, but thankfully I hadn't seen any of them yet. I wondered if it would have made a difference if I had been with them. Would I have been able to keep them safe? I heard Airi’s whisper, but the stab of pain that came with it drowned out the message. Maybe she had been trying to tell me that wondering about these things wouldn’t do me any good.

  The store had been looted, and the two dead girls had helped. Most of the food was gone from the shelves, and the two girls near the door held bags full of food that had spilled onto the floor where they had been killed. It wasn't a big store, but I could have taken a tenth of what had been on the shelves and lived for a month. It had to have been the work of a group of people. From the looks of the store they had cleaned it out in a hurry. Boxes and packages of flour and rice were stepped on and spilled across the floor, burst and littering the aisles. It looked like they might have been surprised in their raid. I tried to keep my mind away from it, but automatically I saw the slinking black shadows of the Uncle Deadlies picking over the corpses to take pieces away. I didn’t care if the group was still alive. I hated the sound of it, even in my head, but I could at least be honest with myself. I didn’t care. These kids weren’t the ones who had been spray painting messages around Tokyo. I felt it deep in my bones.

  The bread was still soft and fresh, and impossibly the food in the bentos looked like it had been made that morning. I didn't like the idea of eating something that was probably keeping the bodies fresh as well, but I didn't have much choice. I opened a few to smell them and they all seemed fresh. I took five or six cutlet bentos and five ginger pork ones, a few packages of bread and a jar of peanut butter. Strangely even the milk wasn't sour so I took some of that too. I guess the raiders must not have thought of the perishables because that was all that was left. The canned food and packaged stuff was all gone. I wondered if the amount of people it would take to clean out this store would be enough to make some kind of a stand against these things. But even if that were true, I hadn't seen or heard any signs of a large group of people in weeks. In a city as still as death, with no background noise of traffic or airplanes or trains, I knew I would have at least heard something. The fact that I hadn't made me want to avoid the raiders even if they were friendly. It felt wrong.

  Airi had always had unshakable faith in my ability to provide for and protect her. I got goose bumps and a cold sour feeling every time I thought about the fact that we weren't together when all of this had happened. I wanted to know. Almost as much as I wanted her back with me. Not knowing was bad. So bad that my hands started shaking while I held the basket full of food in the darkness of the grocery store. Not knowing where they took her or what they did to her, or whether the girl with wires in her cheeks that looked like her actually was her. I had driven away too fast to get a good look, and sweat broke out on my palms when I thought about it. I couldn't hit her like I had the girl in Tokyo Tower. And I couldn't have driven away like I did in Harajuku. No, it hadn’t been her.

  She once said while we were watching a zombie movie together, that if I ever turned into a zombie she would let me bite her so we could walk around and be zombies together. I told her the idea was horrible, but all joking aside, she said “At least we'd be together”. Maybe she was right. Maybe if she did show up with glowing eyes and wires in her cheeks I would know what to do after all.

  I didn't understand my motivation for it, but I decided to search the station. I guess my motivation didn't matter in the end. I burned it down.

  There were bodies though. Trainloads of them. On the station concourse there were the scattered dozens I've gotten used to stepping over, none of them smelling or rotting, but then I walked through a ticket gate, which slapped at my legs as it closed, scaring me enough to practically make me void my bowels. There was still enough power to operate it, maybe for the last time. The stairs heading for the platform were covered with bodies all fallen in mid-step, during what was likely the evening or morning rush judging by the sheer numbers. I had to step carefully to avoid falling down, and every step of the way I expected one of them to grab my foot as I walked past. I hadn't seen any wires or holes in their heads, but I didn’t trust the dead anymore.

  When I got down to the platform both the Keihin-Tohoku and Yamanote lines were stopped at the platforms, doors open with dead, disgorged passengers halfway through doors and hundreds of people still sitting in the seats. Many of them were still holding phones, iPods and books. Most of them looked like they had just slumped over in their sleep, on the way to a long day at work or on the way home. It could have been a typical day in Tokyo in other circumstances. A few were even standing, leaning against doors and others were holding onto straps, almost upright, half the body slumped toward the floor but for a few fingers holding them up. Talk about commuting hell. I had heard Japanese colleagues mention the term before, but I knew this wasn't what they meant.

  I didn't check for pulses. I never did anymore. That distrust of the dead had become as ingrained as breathing. Just as I was about to step off the train I had been looking in, I felt bonds tighten across my arms and chest, and my legs sucked into cold, viscous mud that I couldn’t see. I tried turning my head to find it still moved and saw at the very end of the platform, two shadowed shapes. It was bright, the sunlight slanting onto the platform, but it was like they sucked the sunlight into their skin and negated it. I could barely see them even though they weren't too far away. They crouched low, just like in Shinjuku Gyoen and watched me. I was sure they were watching me even though I couldn't see their eyes. I felt that dread, that refined, malevolence, murder and mayhem all combined that they projected, a split second later. Even though I expected it, it still disabled nearly all impulses except for the one to scream until I blacked out. In that instant, I thought of Airi and how utterly terrified she must have been, and I wanted to lie down and cry.

  But instead of tears, a hard kernel of anger pushed its way past the knot in my throat, and lodged itself in my chest, burning and breaking, spreading an intense pressure that felt like it was cracking my ribs. It was unlike anything I had ever felt before. That red mist floated in front of my eyes again and everything started to pulsate as my heart beat overtime. Maybe the Uncles saw some change in me because they slowly started to shift toward the edge of the platform at the end of the train. I felt like I was going to burst into flames, or collapse on the platform with an exploded heart, and all of a sudden those psychic bands of fear snapped and I lurched out of the train like I had been pushed from behind.

  They crouched, watching me but moving toward the platform edge as I pulled two sake bottle Molotovs out of my backpack, lit one, and threw it into the train car three cars ahead of the one I had just stepped out of. It burst and a wave of heat and flame jetted out of the car. I ran toward them holding the other bottle, and lit it as I ran. They scrambled and dropped to the tracks like monkeys escaping a burning jungle. A dozen more of them burst out of the other train on the opposite track, turning to look at me as they fell, tripped and panicked in their escape. I threw the other cocktail in the wide open door and it exploded at the instant one of them came running out. It burned, sloughing off pieces of itself. It tripped, black shreds of flesh falling off, and fell off the platform onto the tracks, running after the others as the flames wrapping it grew mor
e intense.

  I wanted to follow but I couldn't see any way off the elevated tracks without hurting myself. So I ran up the stairs, stepping on bodies, tripping and picking myself up again, the whole way out of the station. Buildings blocked my view of the tracks and I couldn't see them at all. I could have followed, but I was sure I wouldn't have found them. It was obvious that they knew their way around the city and could move without being seen. Black smoke poured out of the burning station and it looked like the fire was spreading to the adjacent buildings. I spray painted an X on the street in front of the station, bigger than anything I'd done before. I wanted people to know I did this one. I finally hurt one even if I couldn't confirm that it was dead. It felt good. Better than I've felt in days. A few drops of hurt for the oceans of pain my wife must have felt. I couldn’t hear her whispering, but the pendant in my pocket felt a little less sharp somehow.

  And now I knew they were afraid of me. It was in the way they ran, scrambling to get away from me. They were terrified. Maybe as much as I was of them. Standing there, coughing in the smoke pouring out of the station I wondered. Maybe they couldn't even touch me, and were sending the wire-cheeks after me because that was the only way they could get close enough. It made sense. I still had that lump of terrible, painful grief that blocked out breath and made me feel like I was choking sometimes. But now it had a place, a purpose. Fuel. I would to burn down the city and lay down in the ashes.