World War Z

That must have been terrifying.

Not at all! It set off an explosion of frenzied activity, a race to discover where our population might resettle. Would it be the South, the coral atolls of the Central arid South Pacific, or would we head north, colonizing the Kuriles, Sakhalin, or maybe somewhere in Siberia? Whoever could uncover the answer would be the greatest otaku in cyber history.

And there was no concern for your personal safety?

Of course not. Japan was doomed, but I didn’t live in Japan. I lived in a world of free-floating information. The siafu, that’s what we were calling the infected now, weren’t something to be feared, they were something to be studied. You have no idea the kind of disco

What about your parents?

What about them? We lived in the same apartment, but I never really conversed with them. I’m sure they thought I was studying. Even when school closed I told them I still had to prepare for exams. They never questioned it. My father and I rarely spoke. In the mornings my mother would leave a breakfast tray at my door, at night she would leave di

You never questioned where your parents were?

The only reason I cared was because of the precious minutes I was wasting having to feed myself. In my world too many exciting things were happening.

What about the other otaku? Didn’t they discuss their fears?

We shared facts not feelings, even when they started to disappear. I’d notice that someone had stopped returning e-mail or else hadn’t posted for a while. I’d see that they hadn’t logged on in a day or that their servers were no longer active.

And that didn’t scare you?

It a

How long did this go on for?

About three days. The last post, from another otaku in Sendai, stated that the dead were now flowing out of Tohoku University Hospital, in the same cho as his apartment.

And that didn’t worry you?

Why should it? I was too busy trying to learn all I could about the evacuation process. How was it going to be executed, what government organizations were involved? Would the camps be in Kamchatka or Sakhalin, or both? And what was this I was reading about the rash of suicides that was sweeping the country?” So many questions, so much data to mine. I cursed myself for having to go to sleep that night.

When I woke up, the screen was blank. I tried to sign on. Nothing. I tried rebooting. Nothing. I noticed that I was on backup battery. Not a problem. I had enough reserve power for ten hours at full use. I also noticed that my signal strength was zero. I couldn’t believe it. Kokura, like all Japan, had a state-of-the-art wireless network that was supposed to be failsafe. One server might go down, maybe even a few, but the whole net? I realized it must be my computer. It had to be. I got out my laptop and tried to sign on. No signal. I cursed and got up to tell my parents that I had to use their desktop. They still weren’t home. Frustrated, I tried to pick up the phone to call my mother’s cell. It was cordless, dependent on wall power. I tried my cell. I got no reception.

Do you know what happened to them?

No, even to this day, I have no idea. I know they didn’t abandon me, I’m sure of it. Maybe my father was caught out at work, my mother trapped while trying to go grocery shopping. They could have been lost together, going to or coming back from the relocation office. Anything could have happened. There was no note, nothing. I’ve been trying to find out ever since.

I went hack into my parents’ room, just to make sure they weren’t there. I tried the phones again. It wasn’t bad yet. I was still in control. I tried to go back online. Isn’t that fu

“Now, now, NOW! NOW! NOW!” I started beating the monitor. My knuckles split, the sight of my own blood terrified me. I’d never played sports as a child, never been injured, it was all too much. I picked up the monitor and threw it against the wall. I was crying like a baby, shouting, hyperventilating. I started to wretch and vomited all over the floor. I got up and staggered to the front door. I don’t know what I was looking for, just that I had to get out. I opened the door and stared into darkness.

Did you try knocking at the neighbor’s door?

No. Isn’t that odd? Even at the height of my breakdown, my social anxiety was so great that actually risking personal contact was still taboo. I took a few steps, slipped, and fell into something soft. It was cold and slimy, all over my hands, my clothes. It stank. The whole hallway stank. I suddenly became aware of a low, steady scraping noise, like something was dragging itself across the hallway toward me.

I called out, “Hello?” I heard a soft, gurgling groan. My eyes were just begi

My mind was finally clear, maybe for the first time in years, and I suddenly realized that I could smell smoke and hear faint screams. I went over to the window and threw the curtains open.

Kokura was engulfed in hell. The fires, the wreckage… the siafu were everywhere. I watched them crash through doors, invade apartments, devour people cowering in corners or on balconies. I watched people leap to their deaths or break their legs and spines. They lay on the pavement, unable to move, wailing in agony as the dead closed in around them. One man in the apartment directly across from me tried to fight them off with a golf club. It bent harmlessly around a zombie’s head before five others pulled him to the floor.

Then … a pounding at the door. My door. This… [shakes his fist] bom-bombom-bom… from the bottom, near the floor. I heard the thing groaning outside. I heard other noises, too, from the other apartments. These were my neighbors, the people I’d always tried to avoid, whose faces and names I could barely remember. They were screaming, pleading, struggling, and sobbing. I heard one voice, either a young woman or a child on the floor above me, calling someone by name, begging them to stop. But the voice was swallowed in a chorus of moans. The banging at my door became louder. More siafu had shown up. I tried to move the living room furniture against the door. It was a waste of effort. Our apartment was, by your standards, pretty bare. The door began to crack. I could see its hinges straining. I figured I had maybe a few minutes to escape.