World War Z_ An Oral History of the Zombie War ( PDFDrive )

pick it up. Many Kami Dana have a small mirror in the center. My eye caught a reflection in that
mirror of something shambling out of the bedroom.
The adrenaline kicked in just as I wheeled around. The old man was still there, the bandage on
his face telling me that he must have reanimated not too long ago. He came at me; I ducked. My
legs were still shaky and he managed to catch me by the hair. I twisted, trying to free myself. He
pulled my face toward his. He was surprisingly fit for his age, muscle equal to, if not superior to,
mine. His bones were brittle though, and I heard them crack as I grabbed the arm that caught me.
I kicked him in the chest, he flew back, his broken arm was still clutching a tuft of my hair. He
knocked against the wall, photographs falling and showering him with glass. He snarled and came
at me again. I backed up, tensed, then grabbed him by his one good arm. I jammed it into his back,
clamped my other hand around the back of his neck, and with a roaring sound I didn’t even know I
could make, I shoved him, ran him, right onto the balcony and over the side. He landed face up on
the pavement, his head still hissing up at me from his otherwise broken body.
Suddenly there was a pounding on the front door, more siafu that’d heard our scuffle. I was
operating on full instinct now. I raced into the old man’s bedroom and began ripping the sheets off
his bed. I figured it wouldn’t take too many, just three more stories and then…then I stopped,
frozen, as motionless as a photograph. That’s what had caught my attention, one last photograph
that was on the bare wall in his bedroom. It was black and white, grainy, and showed a traditional
family. There was a mother, father, a little boy, and what I guessed had to be the old man as a
teenager in uniform. Something was in his hand, something that almost stopped my heart. I bowed
to the man in the photograph and said an almost tearful “Arigato.”
What was in his hand?
I found it at the bottom of a chest in his bedroom, underneath a collection of bound papers and the
ragged remains of the uniform from the photo. The scabbard was green, chipped, army-issue
aluminum and an improvised, leather grip had replaced the original sharkskin, but the
steel…bright like silver, and folded, not machine stamped…a shallow, tori curvature with a long,
straight point. Flat, wide ridge lines decorated with the kiku-sui, the Imperial chrysanthemum, and
an authentic, not acid-stained, river bordering the tempered edge. Exquisite workmanship, and
clearly forged for battle.
[I motioned to the sword at his side. Tatsumi smiles.]
KYOTO, JAPAN
[Sensei Tomonaga Ijiro knows exactly who I am seconds before I enter the room.
Apparently I walk, smell, and even breathe like an American. The founder of
Japan’s Tatenokai, or “Shield Society,” greets me with both a bow and
handshake, then invites me to sit before him like a student. Kondo Tatsumi,
Tomonaga’s second in command, serves us tea then sits beside the old master.