Tsutaya

1. The City

A/N - Tell me what you think guys!!  The song for this chapter is The City by The 1975 :)

Sophia’s P.O.V

This is the post-apocalyptic world now. Just like they said it would be like, everything ruined, people dead, post-apocalyptic creatures emerging. Ha, it’s an adventure at the least. In these times you gotta make light of everything in spite of it. My whole family is gone, all my friends too. Kinda sucks in all honesty. But I got picked up by a group. There’s 25 of us. We’re the only survivors from my town so we decided to stick together. Everyone’s lost all their family except Amy and Holly. They’re mother and daughter, they’re the lucky two. 4 weeks after D-Day we began to run short on supplies so 9 of us got elected to venture out into the city, to find some new stuff, medicine, food, non-perishables. Its two hours travel away. We found a few cars here and there that weren’t too burnt out so we decided to take those.

We ended up taking 4 cars. 2 people in each and 3 in the other. We took big four by fours in case we find any stragglers in the street and we need as much room for as many supplies as we can find. We left on a Monday morning at the crack of dawn, promising we would return by the following Wednesday and if we didn’t we left a promise that they would keep themselves safe and stay where they are and to not come looking for us. Purely based on the fact that there’s the word that the city is teeming with deadly creatures that seemingly rose from hell itself. The trip started fine, our convoy rumbling along in the early morning dew along a debris strewn highway. We stopped occasionally to move a car or a body out of our way.

I was paired with Louis, a kind, intelligent man in his 30’s. He was tall and lean with cropped brown hair that was flecked with gray at the temples that lead to his strong jawline. He had these blue eyes that sparkled when he laughed and his muscular arms comforted anyone when they needed it. He was ever positive and helpful, always there for everyone. He was the core of our group, pretty much our leader in some ways.

He looked over at me, his hands lazily grasping the steering wheel.

“You feeling alright?” He asked, concern apparent in his eyes.

“Oh…yeah, for now” I laughed lightly as he snapped my out of my trance. I tore my gaze from the decrepit landscape that rushed past us to his eyes that didn’t believe a word I had just said.

“Well, no, actually I’m not.” I confessed in a rush.

“Tell me.” That was all he said. From those words I talked about my fears about what we were about to face, my family and how it’d all caught up with me, crushing me. I surprised myself that I didn’t break down crying right there in that car.

“I’m doing this for them.” I finished.

He nodded, his eyes back focused on the road

“I know how you’re feeling, I feel exactly the same.” My head whipped up and I stared at him.

“But you’re so calm and collected all the time.” I said, shocked.

“It’s the only thing you can be after you’ve seen your wife and daughter die in front of you and not be able to do anything about it.” A breath shuddered down his throat. He took another deep breath and looked at me.

“You are all I have now.”

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An hour later, at about noon, four sets of tires crunched to a stop in the middle of the crumbling city. I wretched my door open and I was greeted by a blast of hot muggy air as I jumped out of the cramped cab.

“Well this is nice.” Joked Louis sarcastically from the other side if the truck. Our doors slammed shut in almost perfect sync. I trudged around to the front of the truck taking in my surroundings. The once large, sleek buildings now crumbled and gave the foreboding aura of bereavement. Glass and rubble was littered over the ground covered in a few places with what looked suspiciously like blood. The rest of our assembly joined at the front of Louis’ truck who had spread out a large map of the city on its bonnet and was studying it carefully, jotting down notes on it with a pencil. He turned towards us.

“Okay so we’re gonna find a place to hole up for the next few days and then we’re gonna get started on getting this done. I want to get out of here as quick as possible.” He glanced around at the tall buildings, his eyes scanning the broken windows.

“Amy, Holly. You’re keeping guard of our base. Sarah, Andrew you’re on non-perishables down the west side of the city. Jacob. You and I are doing the South. And Sophia and Liam you’re doing medical supplies in the city center. If you get all in there go down the Upper Street, maybe check out the hospital.” He glanced down at his sheet that was clasped in his hands.

“You must only be out during 7 till 5. Any later or earlier you’ll be a nice meal for a Tsutaya.” We all shuddered at the thought.

A Tsutaya. Possibly the worst creature to come out of D-Day. No one knows quite how they came to be. There was murmurings that they existed before but there was someone keeping them at bay while others say they arouse from the deepest depths of the earth when the ground split open. These things are horrible. Stood at least 7 foot, tall lanky things that skittered around at night. Tsutaya’s prowled around on all fours but when they were going to attack they rose to full height easily outrunning a human. To kill they impaled their prey with the claws that protruded from their hands and ripped it to shreds with its teeth that extended from its gums. They all are this inky black colour and you can easily mistake one in the shadows for a person as they camouflage themselves with the clothing of their kill. The only way to really spot them is the stench. They smell like death. But here in the city they just blend in.  The first time I saw one was a week after D-Day. It was on the street, illuminated by our final existing streetlight, pursuing a boy from down my street. His final screams were horrible but it was worse to witness.

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It was almost 3 by the time we found a safe enough place. The top story of one of the least decaying buildings that wasn’t filled with corpses. It was open with a large unbroken window that ran the length of the penthouse which was framed with a curtain. It was one big room with an unmade mattress and a large mahogany desk against a vacant bookshelf. There was one door in and out. This was good. No place for the Tsutaya’s to hide.

It took 10 minutes to haul ourselves and our backpacks up the 25 flights of stairs. We laid out our stuff and counted all our supplies.

“There’s no point going out tonight.” Louis announced to the group.

“We’ll leave first thing tomorrow. Get ready.”