The Manager's Bite
I couldn't even think about hiding the noise. The situation was already completely fucked—what good would sneaking around do? So I thundered down the stairs, taking them two or three at a time in a frantic rush. I could hear the zombies groaning on the second floor too. On the first floor, several of them spotted me and came sprinting toward the stairs. I was trapped. The entrance was blocked by zombies, and going back up the stairs was impossible.
"..................."
The only option left was the half-open door right in front of me. It was the building manager's room. The phone number on the front door confirmed it. The indoor slippers were still jammed in the doorframe exactly as he'd left them two weeks ago when he couldn't be bothered to open the door properly. I had no idea what was inside, but anything was better than the zombies. Fewer was better than more. I yanked the slippers out, stumbled into the room, and slammed the door shut with my body. The sound of the door lock clicking was immediately followed by pounding on the other side.
"Shit.....!"
I threw every other lock I could find, tossed the baseball bat aside, stepped in the water pooled on the floor, and dragged the refrigerator over. I didn't even know where the strength came from. I unplugged it and shoved it against the door. Once it was in place, the tension drained out of me all at once and I collapsed against the fridge.
"Ha.... haha..... hoo......."
Whether it was relief at surviving or the rush of having accomplished something—or maybe both—my body had no strength left, but my mood was strangely euphoric. I was still basking in that thrill when I noticed something moving in the room right in front of me. A body was thrashing about, floating roughly thirty centimeters off the ground.
"......This world."
It was the kind of setting where survivors turned into zombies when they died. The manager had hanged himself and turned. Now that I'd walked in, the zombie version of him was struggling. The moment I understood, I lunged for the baseball bat. But before I could reach it, the zombie dropped to the floor and charged.
"Agh!"
If it pinned me while I was on the ground, I was dead. I twisted away. It was going for my neck. A bite there meant bleeding out. So I had to give it something else. What?
"Agh! Fuck, agh!"
When I came back to my senses, the zombie had my left arm in its mouth. Its jaw strength was weak—probably because it had been hanging for a while. It hurt like hell, but at least it wasn't tearing chunks out. If I stayed calm, I could handle this. Except staying calm was never going to work.
"You fucking bastard! Die! Just die!"
I had no strength to begin with, and the punches I threw in blind panic didn't even hurt. The zombie didn't so much as blink, just kept gnawing on my arm. It had climbed on top of me too, so I couldn't kick it off. After several wild swings at its head, I realized something. The baseball bat was right next to my head. My left arm hurt like crazy, but the wound wasn't that deep. The zombie's bite was weak; it was just chewing. That meant I still had time.
I took a deep breath and slowly started pushing myself backward with my legs. Moving two people's weight with just my legs was brutal, but I had to do it. I needed my right hand free to grab the bat if I wanted to live. The zombie, apparently confused, was holding my left arm with both hands and mumbling around it.
"Fuck..... hoo... fuck........"
Every time I moved, the zombie on top of me shifted, and its mouth moved with it. Naturally, the arm it was chewing on moved too. Which hurt like a motherfucker.
"Hngh.... you bastard..... seriously..... it hurts so fucking bad......"
My groping right hand finally found the bat's handle. I started to swing it down, then stopped. The zombie's teeth were still sunk into my left arm. If I brought the bat straight down, those teeth would drive deeper. So I took another breath and swung horizontally instead.
"Agh! Shit!"
Ignoring the searing pain shooting up my arm, I scrambled away from the now-limp zombie. The impact must have been stronger than I thought, because it didn't get up right away. Then it seemed to recover and opened its mouth wide. I shoved the bat between its teeth instead of my flesh.
"Grk!?"
"Die, you bastard!"
Teeth clattered to the floor. Its jaw cracked. The zombie groaned. I swung the bat again. Once. Twice. Three times. I caught my breath, panting, then hit it four more times. Five, six, seven. On the eighth swing, putting everything I had left into it, the zombie finally stopped moving—its head gone, just like the college student zombie from before.
"Fuck......."
I fell backward and lay there, staring at the ceiling while I caught my breath. My heart was pounding. My left arm was shaking. The wound. I had to deal with the wound first. Luckily, there was a first-aid kit in this room. The manager used to hand out basic medicine whenever tenants got hurt. I kicked his corpse out of the way and started searching.
"Found it!"
The kit was right there, and it had what I needed. An unopened bottle of saline, various ointments, and bandages. My left arm looked bad. Dark, sticky blood was oozing out, and the bite looked several centimeters deep. It was already starting to swell, which was a terrible sign. I remembered how to treat it from the novel—clean it with water, dig into the wound until fresh red blood came out, apply ointment, wrap it in gauze, and reapply medicine three times a day. It wasn't supposed to be that serious. But to me, it was.
Dig into the wound? Just touching it already hurt like death.
"........................"
Just in case, I pinned the saline bottle between my thighs, opened the cap with my right hand, and dripped a few drops onto the wound. It felt like dying. I managed not to spill it, but I could only sit there trembling and gasping for a while. That was the thing about pain sometimes—it was so bad you couldn't even scream. It burned and stung and throbbed, and I was supposed to dig my fingers into it.
"........Hoo."
If I didn't do this, I'd die of infection. I had to. I didn't want my arm cut off. My shaking right hand grabbed the saline bottle and I walked to the sink. I laid my left arm across it.
"Hngh......."
I tried to hold back the sounds, but the moment the saline touched the wound, the pain surged. I set the bottle down, hesitated, then poured some into my right hand too. Then I shoved my fingers straight into the wound. Indescribable agony. Sticky blood welled up. I watched the dark red spread across the sink, then picked up the bottle again with trembling hands.
"Hngh....... hoo. hoo. haa...... haaagh......"
It hurt so fucking much. The wound was still leaking thick, dark blood. I swallowed the curses rising in my throat and kept digging with my fingers. The zombie had chewed so thoroughly that the wound was a full knuckle deep. After several rounds of cleaning, the blood finally stopped being sticky, but it was still dark red, so I had to rinse it again. It took dozens of minutes before I was done disinfecting. I roughly dried my dripping arm with tissues and sat down.
".............................."
The wound definitely looked better than before. The swelling had gone down and the bleeding seemed to be slowing. Still, I squeezed out ointment, spread it carefully, wrapped it in gauze, and secured it with medical tape. Then I checked my jacket.
"Bastard. This was expensive."
The left sleeve was shredded. There were holes, but it was still wearable. I washed the bitten area with the bottled water I'd found in the college student's room earlier, then took off my headset and poured water over my head at the sink to clear my mind. Lukewarm water ran down my hair. It helped a little. While drying my hair with a towel from the room, I thought about what came next.
What the fuck was I supposed to do now? I clearly needed rest. I'd burned through too much stamina to do anything else right now. If I was going to rest, I had to rest properly—which meant waiting out the rest of the day. I didn't want to get chased at night because I left too early. I'd wait until the zombies' attention was scattered. But that required food.
"Wow, I love you."
I went back into the room hoping for supplies and found plenty of instant ramen. Not just ramen either—canned food, Spam, wet wipes, bottled water rolling around on the floor. I stood there blankly, wondering why he'd killed himself when he had all this, until I noticed a note on the desk.
"Shit."
It said his parents had called. He'd heard groaning, then his mom saying she loved him. The call ended with their screams. He couldn't bring himself to keep living, so he was ending it here. If anyone who lived in this officetel found this, please use the food. That was the message, scribbled in a rush. There was a postscript on the back: don't bother burying the body. Just lay it on the bed and cover it with a blanket. That was enough.
Of course I was going to do that. But my eyes were drawn to the next line.
"..........Wait. He had a weapon....?"
There was a three-section steel baton under the bed. I memorized the request not to hesitate using the dead man's belongings, then checked under the bed. The baton was there. I shoved it into my pocket, then dragged the manager's corpse to fulfill his last wish. It looked ridiculous, but I managed to get him onto the bed. I straightened the body as neatly as possible and pulled the blanket over it. Then I lay down on the floor.
I just wanted to sleep for a bit. I needed to rest. Only then would I be able to keep going.