After the explosion, Gantzuke felt the greatest relief he had ever known in his life when he heard the screams of all three girls still alive.
"Tiger, it looks like they're in bad shape,"even though Lemo said that over the radio, Gantzuke thought to himself that nothing could be worse than if Meenda and Mari had died in the blast.
He started to move.He crept out from his spot, moving like a wildcat.Crossing the floor past dead zombies lying prone, he headed toward the left-side room on the second floor.
At the end of the hallway, two windows let in faint yellow streetlight.Cautiously, Gantzuke peered out.
"Tiger, are you still there?""Still here. Did they all run away?"
"We'll get to that—"
Suddenly, Lemo's voice cut out, leaving only silence.
"Damn it, don't go dead on me now,"Gantzuke cursed under his breath, irritated but forcing himself to stay calm.
He crept softly out of the room, stepping past the bloated zombie corpse riddled with bullets, and moved toward the last room at the end of the hall — the door there was open.
Inside, there was only a large bed, an open wardrobe, and a desk littered with celebrity gossip magazines.One of them even had Meenda Keenamoon posing in a racy swimsuit on the cover, but Gantzuke didn't notice.
Lowering his gun slightly, he grabbed a compact monocular and cautiously approached the window to scan outside.
What he saw made his heart stop.
Down the street, less than a hundred meters away, was the Purple Giant.
The monstrous figure was walking toward a house near the center of the village, surrounded by zombies raising their arms like drugged-out teenagers at a rock concert.Gunfire and muzzle flashes erupted from the house.
Gantzuke watched the flashes of gunfire shift — from the ground floor up the stairs, then to the second floor.Then a black-clad soldier — one who looked vaguely Chinese — hurled himself out of a second-story window, miraculously landing in a garden pond below.
Zombies swarmed him immediately but didn't bite or scratch him.Instead, they dragged him — flailing — toward the Purple Giant who had just arrived at the house's front gate.
The giant's golden metallic pants made Gantzuke think of an Egyptian pharaoh.
Moving his scope to the house again, he noticed the gunfire upstairs had fallen silent.
Suddenly—
"Aaaagh! L-let me go! P-please let me go!"the Chinese-looking soldier screamed as two massive zombies forced him to kneel on the asphalt.
Then the Purple Giant stepped forward.It pried open the soldier's mouth with one monstrous hand.Something slithered from the Giant's throat — a dark brown, spider-like creature with eight legs but no pincers.
It hovered at the soldier's eyes for a moment... then wriggled inside his open mouth.
"AAAAAARGH!"The soldier writhed on the ground, foam spewing from his lips, as if being electrocuted.
"Lemo... Lemo, do you copy?"Gantzuke whispered desperately into his radio.
No reply.Only dead static.
"Shit..."he cursed, clenching his teeth.
His hand instinctively touched the two grenades strapped to his belt — feeling comforted by their solid weight.
He turned his monocular toward another scene off to the left about a hundred meters away.
More zombies were dragging five other black-clad soldiers to kneel before the Purple Giant — like captives about to be executed by ISIS.
Among them stood a familiar-looking gray-haired man.
Fear and confusion knotted in Gantzuke's gut.He felt numb at the lips.
...That bastard... who the hell is that?he thought, frowning.
The answer surfaced in his mind like a nightmare waking.
His eyes widened.
"Gray Hadfield,"Gantzuke mouthed silently.
He gripped the grenades tighter.
And he felt ready for whatever came next.