17. Horse and Manual Pump

Stepping out from behind the broken shutter, the outside air was cold and faintly damp.

Under a cloudy sky, the sun peeked through faintly.

Hayato took a deep breath, inhaling fresh air free of dust.

The air, after zombies spread and vehicle traffic ceased, was clearer than it had been three years prior. Compared to the world he had come from, it was not so bad.

"Good, next."

Having just finished business at the auto parts store, Hayato decided to look for equipment to obtain gasoline, his next objective.

To retrieve gasoline from the underground tank, a hose and manual pump were necessary.

The auto parts store had no hose long enough to reach the underground tank.

But the Home Center would have one.

—Hoses don’t get eaten, after all.

What had been taken and what remained was very clear.

Hayato pulled out his bicycle and mounted it.

He briefly recalled the tent he had tossed into the car parts store, then pushed the bicycle forward.

Pedaling, the bicycle moved steadily forward.

Zombies might be hiding in the blind spots of abandoned vehicles. Hayato veered widely, aiming for the Home Center as remembered.

Traveling by bicycle was quiet. The outskirts were just as quiet.

Eerie. A sudden thought surfaced: 'a city where people have died out.'

Still, survivors remained.

Yui. Refugees from Kirioka North High School, expelled by Yui. Hayato's trading partners at Kirioka Agricultural High School. And the people trading with Kirioka Agricultural High School, as mentioned by Omori.

"Then there are the politicians."

Hayato thought of energetic Japanese politicians as he pedaled the bicycle.

The evacuation site might be an isolated island, but besides Izu Oshima, Hachijō-jima, and the Ogasawara Islands, where else could it be?

Water, food, safety—safety meant not being bitten by a zombie.

If bitten, it made no difference whether electricity or gas was available.

Zombies could not reach the place, so fleeing to an island they could not swim across was a reasonable choice.

—Could newly turned zombies operate a ship's engine?

If a drunken human could, then a newly turned zombie could too.

Even so, one zombie approaching an island would not win if it faced the Self-Defense Forces.

—There was no point in thinking about it.

Hayato could not go to the island, nor did he wish to be used there.

At present, he thought a place on Honshu where spring water could be obtained might be best, but he could not determine which location.

As he pondered which prefecture was famous for its pure water, the Home Center came into view.

Hayato stopped his bicycle nearby and checked the entrance.

The shutter was half broken, several items had fallen, and signs of intrusion remained.

After scanning the surroundings and confirming no people or Zombies were present, he approached the damaged shutter.

Inside, the space was dim, with fallen shelves making the floor treacherous.

From the spatial storage, Hayato retrieved a lit oil lamp.

The warm light of the lamp illuminated the interior, bringing the dim space into focus.

"Where is it?"

Lifted the lamp, swept the light across the shop, scanning for the target hose and manual pump nearby.

On the floor, valueless items such as lighting requiring electricity are scattered haphazardly.

In their place, items such as batteries and flashlights had vanished from the display shelves.

Hayato moved forward from the entrance, deeper into the space.

—They don’t come here often.

Male high school students in the general course do not frequently visit the Home Center.

He had not been here often, and had not come in the past three years, so he could not possibly know where anything was located.

But even so, they would not leave large items at the store’s entrance. Moving deeper into the aisle, scanning the section lined with clearly distinct stationery, Hayato advanced step by step.

Where, indeed, were the horses and pumps located?

Some Home Centers have gardening sections outside, but unfortunately, no hose was available outside.

Only useless electrical devices, trash bins, tables, and chairs were present. The tables and chairs required assembly.

Hayato sensed he had come from the wrong direction. He turned on his heel and headed toward the opposite side.

"Horror."

The dimly lit store, silent and still, was unsettling.

Shelves and tables were present, but they did not block the entrance. No survivors were inside.

That did not mean zombies were absent.

A survivor might have fought a zombie inside, knocked over a shelf, pinned the zombie beneath it, and escaped.

The pinned zombie could not move. If Hayato passed without noticing, the zombie might grab his ankle—exactly horror.

While thinking how foolish it was to fear oneself, Hayato reached the far end of the store.

There stood the tool section—exactly what he had come for.

Coiled hoses lined up, several fuel hoses remaining.

Next to it, there were hand-piston fuel pumps and pump parts.

The items spread before Hayato were a mountain of treasure in the present world.

At the tool corner, several hoses and pumps are lined up.

The hose laid out first showed a variety of types: fuel hoses, pressure-resistant hoses, oil-resistant pressure hoses, arranged side by side.

A hose suited for transferring lubricating oil and mixed oil, not the familiar water hose.

The hose was labeled as having high transparency, allowing visual inspection of the fuel within.

All could be used, but length is needed, that's the issue.

According to Kobayashi, the depth of the gasoline station's underground tank is approximately three meters.

Five meters were necessary for surface operations. Seven meters was the recommended margin for safety.

The hose was more than seven meters long, giving Hayato a choice.

Still, he did not know which was optimal.

He decided to secure all types at various lengths.

——Good thing we left the tent behind.

Storage space had ample room.

Next, he examined the pump. Several types remained.

Pumps included manual, siphon, and electric varieties. Electric was unusable, and siphon had been reported ineffective.

Hayato considered inserting the hose into the underground tank of the gasoline station.

He had been told that siphon effect would not work when drawing gasoline from a high point above ground, so he abandoned that option and settled on the manual pump.

Manual pumps included hand pumps and piston pumps.

A hand pump was a pump that drew fluid by manually moving a handle.

What Hayato found was a type that rotated a drum, capable of handling gasoline, kerosene, light oil, and heavy oil A.

Piston pumps worked by moving the piston up and down to draw in fluid.

The mechanism lifted and pushed liquid by vertical motion. Something like a bicycle tire pump, perhaps.

When collecting gasoline from elevated positions, Hayato had been taught that hand pumps lacked sufficient suction, making piston pumps preferable.

"Was Mr. Kobayashi a science teacher, or something similar?"

Or perhaps he attended an agricultural high school, where he might have learned to refuel large agricultural machinery with heavy oil.

There was ample space in the storage unit, and multiple units of both types had been collected.

As expected in a shop, the related parts were stored together, so Hayato also collected the pump fittings needed to connect hoses and pumps.

Hayato held up the lamp, searching for anything else.

But even so, there was no gasoline canister.

To siphon fuel from a parked vehicle, a gasoline canister was required.

Some of the hose fittings were missing too—someone had already collected them.

Seven meters or more of hose was too long to use for siphoning fuel from a vehicle. That was probably why so much remained.