Tsutaya

Chapter 2 - Floor 14

“5 days and we’re leaving the city. Thank god. This place reeks of death and decay and everything seems to be covered in either dust, rubble or blood. We just have to gather more supplies and we can go.” I psyched myself up the next morning in front of the stingy bathroom mirror. I quickly washed my face with a small handful of water from the jug propped up on a stool and wrestled my short blond hair into a pony tail. I took in my features. My dark blue eyes were sunken in my sockets and you could see the stress lines on my face. God I looked so much older than 17. I took a breath and stepped back through the door to join my kin.

The room was a bustle of activity. Everyone stressing to get the smallest amount of essentials we needed for the day into backpacks, pulling on shirts, looking for shoes, eating dry crackers. I walked through the hype to grab my backpack and my shoes, exactly in the same place as where I left them the night before. I pulled on my ratty converses and shrugged my backpack over my shoulder. Liam appeared at my side in a blink holding a map.

“We’ll start here and then go over there, yeah?” He said pointing along a yellow highlighted line stretching from the cities center towards the big hospital at the other end of town.

“Sounds good.” I replied to his retreating back as he went to check our final plans with Louis. I slouched by the door waiting for the tall, broad shouldered boy to return. He did in an instant. His once decent length light brown hair was now cropped close to his scalp and his brown eyes were constantly filled with worry for our travelling party. His hand gently touched my elbow.

“Ready?” He asked.

“As I’ll ever be” I replied with a faint laugh. We waved goodbye to the rest of the room before trudging out into the dim hallway.

The long hallway reeked of decay. We walked forward over the musty carpet, past peeling walls and towards the staircase lit by streams of feeble sunlight shooting from the cracks in the windows that lined the descent. We made our way down slowly, carefully checking each floor before continuing down, peering around each new corner. At last we reached the bottom and cautiously made our way out the ire escape, only to be greeted with the crisp dusky morning light.  We slowly made our way across what seemed to be a once busy intersection, now littered with burnt out cars and remains of goodness knows what. Out of the blue Liam grabbed my hand and pulled me roughly into a cover of trees. I looked over at him, worried. His forefinger pressed to his lips in a bid to keep me silent. I followed his line of gaze, my eyebrows shooting up at the sight.

Across the street was a small alleyway and from it emerged a Tsutaya, not a big one mind you, but dangerous none the less. Its long limbs carried it from the darkness out into the sunlight, its dark back glinting in the sunlight like an oil slick on the sea. It seemed to shamble across the ground, like it had an injury. Its back turned towards us and revealed a large cut oozing blue black blood from the top of its hind leg. Small high pitched whimpers carried on the wind towards our hiding place. It seemed to slow before coming to a complete stop a couple hundred meters away from us. With one last pitiful scream it fell to its knees.

“It’s calling.” Liam acknowledged all of a sudden.

“What?”

“It’s what they do when they know they’re dying.  Louis told me. It calls in the rest of its pack, it could be two more or it could be twenty more. We have to move.” With those last words we both pelted away from the howling Tsutaya towards a large gray building in the hope that there were no more in there. We sprinted through the shattered glass doors towards an identical one at the back. Screams of approaching beasts filtered through the door we just ran through, heading away from us.

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“Is it this one?”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s this one.”

“But they look the same?”

“Read the signs. What do they say?”

“Ooooooh, yeah. Sorry, you’re right.”

Liam and I debated over the map. He was right.

“I’ll go to this one and you go to that. Meet back in 15?” He said, pointing at two labeled chemists on our maps. I nodded. We synced our watches and headed off. Me to the south and Liam to the North.

It was a nice day, the sun had burnt off the last traces of the beasts that roam the streets. They hate the sun, avoid the hottest parts of the day so that’s when we can venture from our hiding spots.  I double checked my map again. I rounded the final corner and was greeted with a large blue, yellow and red sign proclaiming “Chemist Warehouse”. I quickly ducked inside, stepping over the cracked glass of the shattered door and pushing forward the unbroken metal grate. I hurried around, filling my backpack with the essentials. Panadol, cough medicine, Band-Aids, gauzes, electrolyte drinks, heck anything I could find. After roaming through the isles I grabbed a few of the remaining packets of lollies from the counter, shoving them into my half-filled backpacks but keeping a hold on the red frogs.

I stepped back onto the street, ripping open my treat with the hope they hadn’t gone off. I was in luck, they were still good. With a smile on my face I followed the map to my next meeting point. After about 20 minutes and half a packet of red frogs later I came face to face with a soaring silver building with the words “Bayer Chemist Corps.” Printed over the doorway. The rest of the red frogs later Liam turned up, weighed down by an almost full backpack.

“I found a few things.” He told me

“I see.” Giving him a look through sit lids. He offered a trivial smile, shrugging. He stepped past me and pushed open the enormous glass doors which were surprisingly unlocked.

“So why are we here? it’s not a hospital?” I questioned.

“No but floors 14 and 18 are where they keep all the samples of everything they make. I’ll talk 18, you take 14.” He grabbed my hand and led me to the stairwell. We trudged up in silence.

12…13…14

“I’ll scream if I’m in trouble.“  I joked as we parted ways for the second time that day.

I pushed open the fire escape and entered the dim room. It was lit by one solitary roof to ceiling window on the other side of the floor. Rows and rows of shelves lined the huge room, all stocked too. I must of gotten the external wounds section. Mountains of bandages gazed at me from all angles. I began stuffing as many as I could into my backpack, walking down each isle in turn.

6 minutes later it was full and I didn’t have nearly enough.

“Shit.” I swore to myself desperately hoping I could fit more as I rounded the corner to the next isle and as if by magic my hopes for another backpack was answered. At the end of the next isle lay a back pack. Black and not too suss looking it was sturdy and big, a hiking bag, just was I was looking for. I ambled towards it, my pace picking up but as I reached it I saw that it still had an owner and not an owner I expected to see. I stepped back.

“Well…fuck.”