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

Did you retrieve all the bodies?
Every last one. That time, after Tokachi-dake, I dug for three days. The heads I always separated;
most of the time I just burned them, but at Tokachi-dake, I threw them into the volcanic crater
where Oyamatsumi’s 6 rage could purge their stench. I did not completely understand why I
committed these acts. It just felt correct, to separate the source of the evil.
The answer came to me on the eve of my second winter in exile. This would be my last night in
the branches of a tall tree. Once the snow fell, I would return to the cave where I had spent the
previous winter. I had just settled in comfortably, waiting for dawn’s warmth to lull me to sleep,
when I heard the sound of footsteps, too quick and energetic to be a beast. Haya-ji had decided to
be favorable that night. He brought the smell of what could only be a human being. I had come to
realize that the living dead were surprisingly bereft of odor. Yes, there was the subtle hint of
decomposition, stronger, perhaps, if the body had been turned for some time, or if chewed flesh
had pushed through its bowels and collected in a rotting heap in its undergarments. Other than
this, though, the living dead possessed what I refer to as a “scentless stink.” They produced no
sweat, no urine, or conventional feces. They did not even carry the bacteria within their stomach
or teeth that, in living humans, would have fouled their breath. None of this was true of the
two-legged animal rapidly approaching my position. His breath, his body, his clothes, all had clearly
not been washed for some time.
It was still dark so he did not notice me. I could tell that his path would take him directly
underneath the limbs of my tree. I crouched slowly, quietly. I wasn’t sure if he was hostile, insane,
or even recently bitten. I was taking no chances.
[At this point, Kondo chimes in.]
KONDO: He was on me before I knew it. My sword went flying, my feet collapsed from under me.
TOMONAGA: I landed between his shoulder blades, not hard enough to do any permanent damage,
but enough to knock the wind out of his slight, malnourished frame.
KONDO: He had me on my stomach, my face in the dirt, the blade of his shovel-thing pressed tightly
against the back of my neck.
TOMONAGA: I told him to lie still, that I would kill him if he moved.
KONDO: I tried to speak, gasping between coughs that I was friendly, that I didn’t even know he was
there, that all I wanted to do was pass along and be on my way.
TOMONAGA: I asked him where he was going.
KONDO: I told him Nemuro, the main Hokkaido port of evacuation, where there might still be one
last transport, or fishing boat, or…something that might still be left to get me to Kamchatka.
TOMONAGA: I did not understand. I ordered him to explain.
KONDO: I described everything, about the plague, the evacuation. I cried when I told him that Japan
had been completely abandoned, that Japan was nai.