A/N: All dialogue comes directly from the translated the manga.

Lucky Hills Game Center

Players: 4 - 0 dead

Staff: 1 - ? dead

As the de-facto leader of the group, no one had argued with Yoshioka when he'd suggested the detour. They had places to go, weapons to steal, zombies to dismember, but the three of them followed his whim without question.

Lucky Hills Game Center was abandoned when they arrived. The doors left open, the video games and pinball machines noisily ran through demos with bells, whistles, and flashing lights, giving it the appearance of a carnival after hours. Where once children and teenagers played, now the only inhabitants were Yoshioka's ghostly memories.

It was hard to see, given that the beating had partially closed his right eye, but he knew where the keys were hidden, and after a second of feeling around behind the register, they slipped into his hands like they had a thousand times before.

Inviting the others to play as they saw fit, Yoshioka settled his hip bones on the top edge of the pinball machine, his fingers flexing on the flippers as he waited for the ball to drop.

"Yoshioka?" Iwakura asked Yoshioka's deceptively feminine back.

"Come on," he casually answered, "I said just one game."

"Bastard!" Iwakura's growl almost made him lose the bonus, but Maeda intervened, pointing out the English name of the center.

"Yoshi means lucky," Yamanoi told them. "Oka means hill."

That dumb bitch had to go and name this place after me. What the hell was she thinking naming something so good and fun and pure after a complete asshole like me?

"This was my mom's store," he confirmed, playing the angles and ringing the bell in the middle of the playing field. The ball sunk into one of the little recesses, and then shot across and bounced directly into the gap between his flippers.

Yoshioka leaned forward, resting his head on the table for just a second, before pulling back the plunger and starting again. The points racked up as he told the old story.

"Before I knew it, I found myself doing the same things as that worthless father of mine. But my mom didn't close down this old arcade and she just waited for me here," he said.

Ignoring the three sets of eyes that burned holes into his back, his inner vision shifted to the past, to the times when he had to stand on a stool just to reach the table, and the smell of his mother's warm perfume came back to him. He felt her standing there, just to his right, outside of the vision possible with the swollen eye.

Any moment now she'll reach out and ruffle my hair like she'd done countless times before… but that's stupid. The doors are open, the money's in the register, and my mom… she wouldn't have left this place because of her promise to wait for my return.

The front window cracked, but Yoshioka didn't look up.

"But I guess I can't stand around here playing this forever," he said, turning, with a fleeting hope of seeing his mom alive one more time.

The glass gave way, and the horde shambled into the front of the arcade, suddenly bring the place to life once more. Moans drowned out the bells.

You disgusting pieces of shit, how dare you bleed in my mother's place, he thought, picking up the baseball bat he'd propped against the wall earlier.

"Yoshioka-kun, you can keep doing that for a bit longer," Maeda said, his chin tilted down, resolve mudding his child-like face. "This mess here… the three of us will deal with it somehow."

Iwakura chambered a round and Maeda held the golf club like he was swinging for the long game. Yoshioka's laughter was lost in the sound of Yamanoi firing up the chainsaw.

Yoshioka ignored the blast of the pump-action shotgun as Iwakura danced around the room. The backswing of Maeda's club lifted his hair and he shivered, thinking once again of his mother. The teeth of the chainsaw slowed down momentarily as it rent rotting flesh.

Blood splattered across the glass of the machine and Yoshioka let go of one flipper long enough to rub the offending matter clear. He played on, his score rising 46,772 and climbing…

He waited for his mother's voice to drift from the second story, nagging him that the dinner she worked so hard to prepare was getting cold.

Those damn zombies, if they'd just shut the fuck up, maybe I could hear her voice one last time. I've never wanted to be screamed at so badly in my entire life.

But it didn't come. There was no need to beg for one more game. The ball dropped and playtime was over. He exhaled, and dropped his head back, stretching the muscles that hadn't been used in far too long.

"I'm done," he said, turning from the machine to see Yamanoi, his dripping chainsaw slung over his shoulder, leaning casually against the chair of a racing game his mother must have bought after he'd been locked up. "I got a new high score."

At Yamanoi's feet, stacked three deep, scores of bodies lay, unmoving.

"We've set a new high score here, too," Maeda said, his innocent face splattered with sweat and gore.

Lucky Hills Game Center

Players: 4 - 0 dead

Staff: 1 - 1 dead

My thanks to MissScorp, my first reader and my inspiration to continue writing this demented tale.