Post by Yuka Takano on Dec 18, 2016 1:36:22 GMT -5
Yuka Takano
Location: California Coast- California State Route 1, towards San Simion
Time: 3:04pm
“Speaking Japanese”
“Speaking English"
“Speaking Japanese”
“Speaking English"
Two women were soaring down a winding road cut into the side of a rocky cliff descending towards the ocean of California coast. One was quite young and riding a canary yellow coloured pushbike with a basket made of thatching on the front, the other, middle aged and slugging behind on a red mountain bike. Yuka looked back behind her as the forty-nine year old struggled to make it up the next crest, huffing like an asthmatic, but she never stopped and when she saw Yuka looking she told her to keep her eyes on the road. They were nearing the downhill so Yuka bit back her concern and pushed on. The woman hadn’t looked good for weeks, and she was slowing down. She was also in immense pain. The blood on her hands when she had her coughing fits meant cancer, she knew that much. Nina knew she was a dead woman but she planned to fight it as long as she could.
The road curved one more time, and the couple pushed up the last steep incline before coming to a comfortable downhill. She hadn’t seen a town for ages and their daylight was eventually going to run out. She wished she had a map. At the top of the crest though, Yuka could see everything. The signs had been saying that they were on California state route 1. It was an absolutely breathtaking road. There was forest on one side and beach on the other. Happily there wasn’t a horde in site though Yuka could see a bunch of cars just up ahead, which could always mean biters. She signaled for Nina to stop and both of them came to a halt in front of what looked like a head on collision between a motorcycle and two cars. The guard rail was broken and one of the cars was tittering on the edge of the cliff looking like it would fall if Yuka so much as sneezed near it. Nina staggered over to the side of the road, holding her chest and wheezing. Yuka moved towards her, concern written all over her face, she spoke in their first language: Japanese.
“Nina-san…”
“I’m fine.” The stubborn woman snapped
“Just sit this one out, please”
The woman looked annoyed, but she went to sit on the guardrail as Yuka, gun in hand, checked out the cars one by one. There were some very old zombies sitting in a ute that had it’s bumper wrapped around an old tree, but luckily only the one in the back seat was still moving. Unluckily it was a very small kid who was stuck in his seatbelt. Feeling like she wanted to gag she quickly plunged her knife into the poor things eye until it stopped moving. The back of the ute held paint brushes, rollers, paint buckets under an old blanket, which she decided to shove in her bag. She checked the glove box, the cupholders and all the floors and came up with a toy dinosaur, which she left behind, a pencil case containing some pencils an eraser and a sharpener, which she stashed, and finally a bag of groceries. Most of it was completely useless but there was a few packets of dried fruit and a bottle of water. She brought the water over to Nina, who nodded at her and took slow sips from it, before placing it in Yuka’s pack for her.
“Lets keep moving.” Nina suggested, gaining her concerned looks from the younger woman again, which she ignored as she got back on her bike. They dodged the cars and road until the trees were becoming more densely packed. They hadn’t been riding for long before she heard the crash. Yuka skidded to a stop and flung her little bike to the side. Nina was laying on her side, rasping for air. Her bike had hit a rock and the tire was punctured. Her arms were scraped up and bleeding from the fall and her eyes were shut tight against the pain. “Not good… Hey, Nina!” Nina gained control of her breathing and looked up at Yuka “I can’t go on anymore. You should leave me here.” Yuka shook her head “No! I won’t!” She held out her arm, and, grumbling, Nina took her hand. She helped the woman to her feet. “We walk.” She said firmly. Nina just shrugged “You know, you are delaying the inevitable.”
Yuka laughed at that “Aren’t we all?” She replied “Aren’t we all just delaying the end by surviving? You’re the one who taught me that I should never give up until my time came.” Nina was silent, but she had a tiny smile on her lips “You’re one of the good ones, Yu. Don’t let that flame go out.” Yuka grinned “There’s the Nina I know. Talking like a fortune cookie.” They both had a chuckle at that.
An hour or two passed and the afternoon sun was starting to dip in the sky. Little did they know that someone was stalking them. Nina was looking in very ill repair so they decided to stop. There was an old Mobil gas station off to the left. Plants had reclaimed most of the tarmac, and the Mobil sign had crashed into the car park like a meteor, but there seemed to be no zombies around. Out front there were a few camp chairs and an old tin rubbish bin full of ashes. There was light smoke coming from it as if it had recently been put out. She didn’t like that. “Nina that looks-“ She was cut of mid sentence by a loud bang.
At first, Yuka though she had died. She stood there, covered in red for about twenty odd seconds, her ears ringing. When they cleared, Nina was laying at her feet and the sound of manic laughter was echoing around her skull. A deranged man stood before her, half his ear was chopped off, his nose was broken, his eyes were bloodshot, there was some kind of ziplock full of white powder in his hand, and some on his nose. And Nina had a hole through her head. He had just shot her. Without a word, or any foreseeable reason, he’d shot her dead.
By the time she reacted, he was saying something. In her grief and shock she could barely grasp the English. She’d heard only Japanese for the last two weeks.
“…You know I aint fuckin around girlie…”
She looked him square in the face
“…Your weapons… drop…Ye…”
Her vision was red, her entire being was red. In a split second after he’d underestimated her enough, her hand moved to her belt and suddenly his head became a pincushion for her knife.
It whistled through the air, closing the 1-meter gap between them, and landed into his face with a wet THUNK. His gun went of a split second before he fell but the bullet went astray, puncturing a nearby tyre.
Then there were two bodies laying on the ground. It had been so abrupt. So out of the blue. Who the hell would have thought this addict would be the one to take down her mentor and friend, Nina Momoi. She was covered in her blood now, her face and neck were stained with a splattering of thick crimson liquid. She wiped at it but only managed to make it worse. The taste was in her mouth: It was metallic and overpowering. and no matter how much she tried to eject it, she couldn’t. The shock was keeping her from crying, but it was also keeping her from moving. She just stared down at the body. Eventually, after what seemed like hours, but was really only minutes, she bent down to close the woman’s eyes, ripped her knife from its new socket and trotted back over to her bike.
Her face was utterly devoid of emotion as she rode along the highway, now suddenly on her own for the first time in three years. Completely alone. She couldn’t get anything out. Her chest was tight and it was a wonder she was breathing at all. An hour or so later, her next tribulation faced her, though, when she saw all the guns pointed at her head, she almost screamed at them to kill her. Almost. But she wouldn’t give up yet. Nina hadn’t.
The barricade was lot’s of cars heaped together as cover. There were men and women there with an arsenal of weapons. Looking down the barrels her reality finally sunk in. Yuka shot her hands high into the air “It’s not my blood. I’m not bit. Don’t shoot me!” Fuck, Yuka, speak English!
She tried again, same sentence, but in her second language. “Don’t shoot me, I’m not bit! It’s not my blood!”