Nathan Pedde - Tokyo Tempest

Sakiko nodded and went to work.

Darren walked down the hall to Yuki.

Darren kept his voice to a whisper.

“What’s going on?” Darren asked.

“They’re talking next to the door.” Yuki said, “Not sure what they’re talking about.”

A couple loud bangs echoed from the overhead door. It was followed by the clanking of chains.

“It begins,” Darren said.

Darren picked up the jugs of kerosene and opened up all but one. He threw the opened jugs onto the pile. Darren opened up the last one, and he shoved a rag into the top of the jug.

He picked up the lighter.

“This is it,” Darren said.

A loud bang erupted as the overhead door began to give.

Darren lit the rag and tossed the jug onto the pile. Flames erupted from the spilled kerosene.

Another loud bang, and then many followed as the overhead door flew off its rollers.

“Time to leave,” Darren said.

Darren and Yuki ran to the fire escape. Sakiko sat on a bike with a child carrier and waited for them.

Darren hoped onto the second child carrier-bike.

“Let’s make like a tree,” Sakiko said.

“And get the fuck out of here,” Darren said.

Yuki opened the door with a kick and Darren saw outside. It was still night out, and the alleyway was dark. The only light came from the stars on a clear night lit the way. Thankfully Darren spent most of his time in the dark storage building, and he found he could see pretty well.

Parked cars were scattered everywhere. The back alley was very full of random debris. It was much fuller than Darren had thought.

“Shit.” Darren said, “I should have scouted. This isn’t an easy escape.”

Yuki butted her head out the door.

“There’s a small path that way,” Yuki said pointing to the other end of the alley.

“Let’s try it,” Darren said.

Darren, Yuki, and Sakiko left the storage building and escaped into the alley. The smell of smoke and ash filled his nostrils, Darren coughed on the sudden smell. Smoke billowed out of the storage building as other kerosene jugs caught fire and exploded with flames. Darren could hear the screams of the thugs as they retreated from the inferno of flames.

Darren weaved his way slowly around a small path of parked cars, dead bodies and other random debris. They slowly made their way out of the alley and onto a more cleared road.

They rode in silence in the darkness. No one made a lot of loud noises or showed any lights. Darren didn’t want to give away their position.

A loud bang exploded from the storage building. Flames erupted from the building as something very flammable caught fire inside the building.

Yuki looked at Darren and Sakiko with a worried look on her face.

Darren shrugged his shoulders as he rode forward in silence.

He followed behind Yuki and Sakiko as they rode their bikes away from the storage building. The road was covered in debris and vehicles. Darren could see the distinct shapes of a few bodies amongst the rubble. A few buildings showed signs from the recent fires, while a few others showed signs from the earthquake. Even in the dark, the level of destruction scared Darren.

In the darkness, they heard the roar of an engine. The engine noise was deep and loud. Darren scanned the area for someplace to hide. They hadn’t been out of the building for more than twenty minutes, and they had to hide once more. Darren looked over and saw that there was an alley that ran between two buildings.

“Vehicle coming. Into the alley.” Darren said.

Yuki led them into the darkness of the alley. Darren dismounted from his bike as they sheltered behind a tipped over dumpster.

Bright lights lit up the road as a pair of military armored vehicles roared by followed by a passenger van. Darren wasn’t sure what the passenger van was doing following the armored vehicles. Part of him didn’t want to know.

“It looks like the JDF has the main routes patrolled.” Darren said, “Those are headed to your dad’s storage unit.”

Yuki nodded.

“I think I might know some ways through the alleys.” Yuki said, “Lets see if we can get past the patrols.”

Darren and Sakiko followed Yuki through the alleys. The alleys were full of debris that it made getting past them difficult at best. They had to bypass and work their way around piles of rubble. After they stopped at the end of another alley, Darren began to get frustrated. The end of the lane had been entirely blocked by a couple wrecked cars and a dumpster.

To Darren, it almost seemed like the piles of debris were placed there for a reason. Like it was to keep people in. Like a prison wall.

“This is stupid.” Darren said, “We’re blocked in.”

Sakiko walked over to a door to a nearby building. “Maybe we can go through this building,” Sakiko said.

Darren took a look at the building. The building was a large office building that stretched up six stories. It was built of bricks and concrete.

“That doesn’t look like it goes past the roadblocks,” Darren said.

“But the upper floors of it will allow us to see over the building in front of it.” Yuki said, “Great idea. Sakiko.”

Darren pulled out his handgun from his jacket pocket, opened the door, and walked in. Behind the door was a concrete stairwell that stretched up into the building.

“It goes up,” Darren said.

They carried the bikes up the stairs. It was painful to do it quietly. Darren had no idea if there was anyone in the building or if it was abandoned. They took the child carriers off the two bikes, then they carried each part up to the next landing. It was a slow and painful process. They reached the top floor and Darren’s legs burned from walking up and down the stairs a half-dozen times. After a moment of rest, Yuki re-attached the child carriers.

Darren tried the door handle. It was unlocked. He pulled the door open slowly. The door was unlocked not because it had been left unlocked, but because the locking mechanism had been smashed apart from the other side. Someone had left in a hurry.

The hallway was pitch black. Darren pulled out his small flashlight. He needed to risk it to see what was in the hall. Debris was clustered in corners and edges. The hallway was empty otherwise. A distinct shape of a body lay at the other end of the hall.

Darren walked down the hallway and jiggled the door handles as he walked. A door handle fell off the first door, and the door creaked open.

“Someone smashed their way through here,” Darren said.

A sign was attached to the door. Japanese letters scrawled across the sign.

“The sign is for a lawyer’s office,” Yuki said.

Darren nodded as he opened the door. The room was messed up. Most pictures were knocked off the walls and lay on the ground where they fell. The rest of the office looked the same. Chairs were knocked over and piled haphazardly. There was no sign of any life in the office. An extensive set of windows stretched across the far wall. The glass panes had been smashed out. A brisk wind blew through them into the office.

“This one will work for now,” Darren said as he turned off his flashlight.

“It looks like all the doors are broken into,” Yuki said.

Sakiko pulled the bikes into the small office as Yuki cleared some space for them to sit.

Darren looked out the window. The sun was creeping its ways up the horizon. The reddish glow of the sun seemed dimmer to Darren. A light sprinkling of ash fell from the sky. It made it look like it was snowing, but Darren knew that it wasn’t snow.

Darren could see for miles, and he saw the extent of the damage. He saw smoke rising from the storage unit, as well as smoke from a dozen fires that burned across the city of Tokyo. No building that he looked at was spared damage. They were all damaged in some way. Some had been partially collapsed, while others had lost parts and pieces. To Darren, it seemed like even four days since the earthquake and tsunami, that the extent of the damage was even worse than it was before.