Highschool of the Dead: Fanfiction Darkpenn

Chapter 11: Towers

Towers

The zombies are getting smarter, and stronger.

"Well, this is a hell of a way for a woman in her mid-thirties to enjoy herself," said Saya Takagi, as she tore along the empty highway on the motorbike.

But she could not deny that she was having a good time. This was the first time in years that she had been able to get away from Tomo and her responsibilities there. And much as she loved Kohta and their children - although Nozomi was currently exploring the mainland - she was glad to be on her own for a while. And she liked riding the bike. Yes, it used up precious fuel but she had never been particularly enthusiastic about horses, nor they about her. And the bike was, putting it simply, fun.

She smiled when she thought that there had been a time when she had hardly known what fun was. Pre-Outbreak, life had been one long strain. Much as she regretted the loss of the old world, and the ninety-nine-point-nine per cent of its inhabitants, she enjoyed life as it was now. Since Sheroda, the zombies had become much less of an existence-threatening problem, although there was still a need to be wary. So she always had her trusty Luger whenever she was away from Maresato farm, and at the moment she had a Mac-10 machine gun in the bike's saddlebag as well as her usual supplies.

She was travelling northwards, heading towards Depot 361, on the eastern coast. She had never been there before, although there was regular radio contact. She wanted to take a look at their hydroelectric power plant, to see if the technology could be used elsewhere. In the southern part of the country, she had built 34 windmills - she did not particularly like to think of them as 'saya-mills', as most people called them - to generate power, as well as several mobile kits for places like the American aircraft carrier, which was slowly being stripped for material and supplies. But she was always on the lookout for new ideas, knowing that their best chance of survival was diversity of supply.

She had recently passed through the city of Takasaki, deserted and largely ruined. She came to a sign pointing towards the next city, Maebashi. She had not heard of anyone who had been there, but there was no sign of any zombie activity. So she rode on, and in a little while was passing through the outskirts of the town. The freeway became impassable so she switched to ground-level streets.

The town seemed empty. Along the road, a number of buildings had been destroyed.

No, she thought, stopping for a closer look. Not destroyed. More like ... pulled apart. Exterior walls and interior fittings alike had been removed.

"Odd," she said to herself. She rode on.

She came to a little park. She stopped. There was a pile of ... stuff. Everything from chunks of plaster to furniture to toys. A pile ten metres high. It looked as if it had been there for several years, at least.

A kilometre further on, in an intersection, there was another pile, larger than the first. But this one looked more selective: mainly bricks, tiles, planks and pipes. She checked that there were no zombies around, and then got off the bike for a closer look.

The structure was surprisingly sturdy. The material was not piled up at random: the pieces had been selected and put together, like a jigsaw puzzle.

She walked around it, wondered about its origin and purpose. Her first thought was that it had been built by survivors as a lookout tower, but the location and design were all wrong. She took out her digital camera and snapped a few pictures.

She got back onto the bike and continued on her way - slowly. In a few minutes, she came to a two-storey business building. Three of its walls had been removed, and it looked as if the internal wiring and cables had been taken out. So had a range of structural supports. She could see the marks on the road where girders and metal bars had been dragged away.