The boys do not yet know that they are about to die.
Still in their high school uniforms, they watch television. They laugh and tell tall tales and trade stories as the night wears on. They pass around bottles of beer (twenty-seven) that they pour and drink from small glasses (six), and empty instant noodle packages (seven) litter the floor. The room is none too clean, a small and rundown Tokyo apartment no bigger than an average American walk-in closet, but the boys feel comfortable here.
Every now and then, one will excuse himself and leave to use the bathroom at the end of the narrow corridor leading out the room. While the boisterous laughter from his companions continues, he enters the washroom, pushes the dead girl’s body away from the entrance with a foot, and uses the urinal, too drunk for the moment to care about the rancid smell and the stink of burnt flesh beginning to permeate through the air, or about the blood splashed against the walls, the red liquid circling the drain, dripping, dripping down the girl’s naked body. He zips up, washes his hands like the good boy he’s supposed to be, and slides out, rejoining his fellows and leaving her alone in the darkness.
The corpse’s arms and legs are severely burnt in several places, her breasts and genitals mutilated. One lifeless eye stares up at the door. The other is swollen shut.
The sixteen-year-old girl is their first kill and still freshly dead. To the boys, she was nothing more than an experiment, a small price to pay for the thrill of taking a life.
The night wears on, and I bide my time. My experiences with Tarquin and Callie do not
crush them take them break them
still the hungers, the malice that bubbles within.
I am who I am.
“What are we going to do with her, Hiroshi?” One of the boys, an emaciated-looking teen with acne scars, asks after some time has passed, when they can no longer pretend that the smell does not bother them. “The stench’s making me lose my appetite, and she’s gonna stink up the house for days.”
A tall boy with a shaved head shrugs. “Well, we gotta get rid of her soon, anyway. Get your old man to clean up the mess once we’re done, Jo, but we gotta figure out a way to dispose of the body without anyone else noticing.”
“There’s a small concrete factory just down the block, right?” Another one of the boys speak ups, this time a silver-haired youth with a tiger tattoo on his neck. “We could dump her into one of those cement barrels.”
“Get some garbage bags, Shinji,” says the Shaved Head, who is in charge. “Tetsuo, Koichi—you guys help him. Jo, go to the kitchen and get some sharp knives. A saw, if you got one. Ya-chan, help him look.”
The boys disperse. The acne-scarred teenager and his companion, a boy with a bright purple Mohawk, head downstairs, where an old man and a frail woman sit quietly before a small table, their tea lying untouched before them and slowly growing cold.
“Hey, you,” Acne Scars tells his father. “Go find us a saw or something. We need to get rid of the girl.”
“Jo-chan. You can’t…” his mother begins, pleading, but she is interrupted by the Mohawk. He slams a hand down onto the table, causing the cups to rattle, tea slopping out onto the wood.
“Didn’t I say you are not to disagree with us?” he spits out. “Do I have to keep reminding you old fags who I am every fucking time? I’m good friends with people from the yakuza, bitch. One word from me, and they’ll slit your throats. Hey, maybe the next time you speak up I might just kill you myself! Fucking old crone!”
Shaking, the father leaves the room and returns with a large circular saw. The mother begins to cry. Their son says nothing.
The boys return to the second-floor landing, where the others are waiting. “Better lend me some old clothes to wear while I cut her up, Jo,” Shaved Head says. “I don’t want to wash no fucking blood off my shirt.”
Acne Scars flips the light switch as they enter the bathroom. The bulb overhead sputters and dies out.
Shaved Head swears. “What the fuck is wrong with the light? Jo, go get a new one.”
“Mom only changed it yesterday,” Acne Scars whines, but he obediently trots off to look for a replacement. One of the other boys, with unkempt hair and a scraggly beard, turns on a penlight, splaying the beam across the bathroom walls.
“Hey, Hiroshi,” he says hesitantly. “I can’t find the body.”
“What?” Shaved Head grabs the light and shines it around. The girl’s corpse is nowhere to be seen. He swears again.
“Who the fuck do you think you guys are, playing pranks on me? Whose fucking idea was it to hide the body?”
“We didn’t do it, Hiroshi!” a boy with glasses protests. “We were with you this whole time.”
“And we were downstairs looking for the saw,” Mohawk adds hastily, for Shaved Head is known for his foul temper. “I swear, Hiro, we never moved the body!”
“Well, I want you all to start looking for it soon, because I’m losing my patience. Where the hell is Jo with the light?” Shaved Head flips the light switch on and off again, then punches his fist into the wall, his frustration apparent.
“Go look for Jo,” he barks out. “And see if the old farts downstairs had anything to do with this.”
His companions rush to carry out his orders, leaving him scowling at the small, smudged mirror in the bathroom. “Idiots,” he mutters, smoothing out his rumpled shirt collar.
And stops. A peculiar dark spot in the mirror is growing slowly in size as he looks on, though the darkness makes it difficult for him to see clearly. Frowning, he scrunches up his eyes and draws closer to the mirror, trying to determine what this is.
The black spot increases, spreading across the mirror’s surface like an ugly paint splotch, until Shaved Head can barely see his own reflection.
“What the hell?”
Two discolored arms shoot out from the mirror, and it is only from reflex that Shaved Head is able to throw himself away from their reach, hitting the wall behind him hard instead. He gapes at the mirror, where a long-haired woman’s head begins to push itself out. From underneath her hair, eyes like twin black holes bore into the now-terrified boy’s face, and from her wide, scarred mouth she gurgles low.
“Shit!” Shaved Head bursts out of the bathroom, skidding across the narrow hallway. “Jo!” he yells. “Shinji, Tetsuo! Where the fuck is everybody?” He runs toward where he last saw the boys, halting beside the room they previously occupied. The room is empty, though the TV still plays. A strange screeching noise makes him stop in his tracks.
A variety show program is on: Japanese comedians on a game show. But the television screen occasionally flickers into a different image—barely more than a few tenths of a second at first, but growing longer each time, until Shaved Head finds himself looking into the face of the murdered girl. Her skin has been warped from burn marks and stretched over her horrific skull.
Blood begins to spill in rivulets down the walls of the room, soaking through the curtains. At the same time, something drops from the ceiling behind him and hits the floor.
They are Purple Mohawk and Tiger Tattoo, both unrecognizable if not for their brightly colored hair. Their legs are twisted behind them, like all bone had been leached from their limbs. Tiger Tattoo is obviously dead. His features are an ashen gray, tongue lolling out. But Mohawk is still dying. Half of his face is bloated and swollen, and he flops helplessly across the wooden carpet, a gutted fish out of water.
“Hlllp,” he croaks. “Hiroshhhhhhi.”
Something
gurgles
by his side. Shaved Head sees me standing on the ceiling for the first time, watching him with my pupil-less eyes and my hollow, open mouth.
Shaved Head flees, ignoring his dying friend’s garbled pleas. He races through the hall. “Tetsuo!” he screams. “Koichi, where the hell are you guys? Fuck!” He shoves open the door leading into a small storage room but steps back, frightened, when two of the other boys come tumbling out.
Both are also dead. Scraggly Beard’s eyes are rolled so far into his head that only the whites are showing, and Glasses suffers from deep claw marks that rake across his face and tear through his clothes. Like the Mohawk, both their faces are putrefied, decomposing.
“Hiroshi!” Acne Scars is running toward him, and Shaved Head is relieved to find him still alive, though every inch as terrified as he. “What’s going on, Hiro?” he wails. “Yasushi-chan’s dead! I…” His voice trails off as he stares down, shocked, at the two other dead boys at his feet.
“There’s nothing we can do for them now! We gotta get out of here!” Shaved Head dashes down the stairs, Acne Scars tripping and stumbling behind him. The old man and woman are still sitting by the table, though they are now clinging to each other, terrified by the commotion.
“Did you do this to fuck around with us, you old prick?” Shaved Head grabs the old man’s shoulders and shakes him hard. Acne Scars loses his balance, landing noisily on his rear by the small wardrobe. The old woman shrinks back, covering her eyes with her withered hands. “Answer me!”
But the old man does not look at him. He is looking over his shoulder at something that drains all the blood from his face.
Slowly, Shaved Head releases the old man and turns.
The wardrobe door has opened, and another pair of arms encircle Acne Scars’ neck. Half my body leans out, my hair brushing against the boy’s cringing face.
Acne Scars’ gaze is locked onto Shaved Head’s, realization dawning alongside terror on his ugly, pockmarked face.
“Hiroshi,” he whimpers. It is the last thing he will ever say.
I
dr
ag
him into the confines of the wardrobe, the door sliding shut behind us.
Shaved Head sinks to his knees. The tiny wardrobe rocks hard against the wall as terrible screams ring out from within. For some minutes these continue, until they finally cut off abruptly.
For a long moment there is silence.
Then from inside the closet the scratchings start up again. So do the low, gurgling sounds.
Shaved Head runs past the frightened couple and snatches a metal baseball bat.
“I’m not afraid of you!” he shouts. “I’m gonna kill you! I’m gonna kill you!” Crazed, he brings the bat down on the sides of the wardrobe with a strength that belies his lanky build. “I’m gonna kill you! I’m gonna kill you!” Over and over again he attacks it, and the cheap wood slowly gives way.
He smashes the doors, battering at the wardrobe until the frame shatters from the repetitive blows, until the hinges break free and the plywood splinters to reveal that there is nothing inside the wardrobe but clothes—not Acne Scars, not anything else. But the boy does not stop. He grabs at the sides of the wardrobe and pulls it down onto the floor, destroying it completely.
Shaved Head pauses, panting heavily from his exertions. “Did I kill it?” He wheezes and then starts laughing hysterically. “Hahahaha! I killed it, didn’t I? I killed it! Sonofabitch!”
He levels a kick at what remains of the wardrobe, still giggling maniacally. “You’re not going to get me, bitch,” he crows. “You’re not going to get me!”
But his laughter falters when he hears the scratching again despite everything to the contrary—a scratching coming from underneath the broken planks of wood.
Frenzied, like a man possessed, he begins to pull the heavy pieces of timber away from the floor. When most of the wood scraps have been discarded, he burrows into the pile of clothes, pawing through them until something snags his foot, forcing him to land on a
body.
It is the body of the dead girl, arms folded across her naked chest.
Her eyes open. Her bloodied hands reach up to cup either side of the boy’s cringing face, almost caressingly. She even smiles.
But those same bloody hands tighten inexorably around him, and Shaved Head is yanked forward into her waiting mouth.
It is hours before either of the old couple can be persuaded to leave their table. But when the aging man sweeps the strewn clothes away with a trembling hand, there is no trace of either the boy or the dead girl.
• • •
It is her decision.
Unlike other souls that I have saved, this girl does not glow, does not rise up to the sky. Unlike with other souls, the prolonged violence of her death has warped her into the creature of malice standing before me.
Unlike other souls, she is much like me.
She has not changed. Her skin still bears the marks of the torture she went through in the moments before her death. This is clear in the lacerations on her body, in the ruins of her face. Like me, she has exacted her revenge against her tormentors, but her loss of innocence from such actions ensures that she cannot cross into the light. Like me, she cannot leave and is instead doomed to wait forever on dark shores, straining for glimpses of stars.
She understands this. Still, a smile curves along what is left of her mouth. She bows to me, for even spirits can understand gratitude, and turns to leave, the night soon swallowing her up.
I should not feel sorrow that she chose of her own volition to take the same path I now walk. But I do. I am beginning to understand that there are better things than retribution.
I, too, leave this terrible place, this little apartment of bodies. There are no souls to save here. Anything worth redeeming left this place many, many years ago.
Instead, I wait for the break of dawn. I find an empty shed washed clean from the stink of the living and slip back into hibernation. Briefly, I contemplate returning to Tarquin’s apartment instead, but I do not. For the first time in as long as I can remember I feel unclean. Impure.
Uneasy.
So it is in this little shed in Tokyo that I wait for Callie to arrive.
• • •
Tarquin Halloway and his father are there when she steps out into the waiting area of Narita International Airport in Tokyo, and Callie is stunned by how Tarquin looks. She expected him to look sick from their email exchanges where Tarquin recounted his health, sometimes deprecatingly, but nothing prepared her for the hollowness of the tattooed boy’s cheeks or the pallor of his skin or the feverish brightness of his dark eyes. Despite his now-frail condition, there is energy to the teenager still, and he closes the needed distance to exuberantly throw a thinner arm around Callie’s shoulder.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he says, his smile a mere ghost of what it could have been. “I look fantastic.”
“Oh, Tark!”
He laughs at her fears. “Don’t worry. I’m a lot stronger than I look. But I’m glad you’re here, cuz.”
“He’s been growing worse every day,” his father tells Callie later, as he drives the rented car into the thick of Tokyo. Tarquin is nestled against warm blankets in the backseat of the car, fast asleep. In spite of what he says, his burst of enthusiasm exhausted him quickly. “I’m at my wit’s end what to do. I’ve been to several different doctors and they’ve run two dozen tests, but no one seems to know what’s been making him sick.”
It is the woman in black, Callie knows, but she does not tell the father this.
“I’ve gotten two rooms at the Garden Rose Hotel. The hospital is only a block or so away, so we can be there quickly, in case one of the doctors calls again.”
After unpacking, Callie heads to the room across from hers, where she manages to wake Tarquin long enough to spoon hot chicken soup into him, while his father conducts business with his mobile phone. By the time he is done, Tarquin has drunk most of the nourishing meal, in between halfhearted protests that he could feed himself without her assistance, and fallen back asleep.
“He sleeps most of the time now,” his father says, worried. “They have the results of his most recent blood test, and they still haven’t found anything wrong with him.”
“Maybe it’s not as serious as it looks,” Callie says, trying to be encouraging, though she knows the deceit of her own words.
“I hope so.” The man sinks into a nearby armchair. “God, I’m tired myself. I’ve been running around Tokyo all day, settling Yoko’s affairs and trying to finish the rest of my work in between talking to doctors. I’ve got several meetings with Mitsubishi and Itochu in the next few weeks. I don’t think I’ve had more than a few hours’ sleep since arriving here.”
“Maybe a rest in the countryside would help both of you,” Callie suggests.
“Yes. Whenever he feels better, Tarquin pores through every guidebook and map of Aomori we can find. I think it’ll be good for him, too. Thank you again for coming with us. Tarquin’s been looking forward to the trip.”
“Did Aunt Yoko have family there?”
“I’m a little fuzzy on that myself. Yoko never talked much about any relatives she might have had. I know that her parents died before we’d even met, but if she had any other siblings or cousins, other than the older sister she mentioned, I’m as much in the dark as you are. She never liked talking about her past, insisting that she was done with that part of her life.”
The man gestures, and Callie sees with a start that the urn bearing the ashes of Tarquin’s mother stands atop one of the room’s dressers.
“Yoko mentioned in her will that she wanted her ashes scattered at the Chinsei shrine near Osorezan. I’ve never heard of the place. I’ve asked a couple of people, but the closest thing to a temple that they are aware of is the Bodai Temple on the Osore grounds. I suppose we can always ask some of the locals at Mutsu once we get there.”
The man’s phone rings and he excuses himself to answer. As he talks, Callie steals across the room to gaze down at the small urn on the dresser. She wonders briefly how Tarquin must feel, traveling with his mother in this macabre manner.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” she tells it softly. “I don’t know what I can possibly do. But I promise to do whatever I can to help protect Tark.”
She turns away, back toward the room.
Something rattles behind her.
Callie looks back just in time to see the lid slide off the urn, dropping with a noisy thump onto the carpeted floor. From inside, a jumble of hair rises out of the opening, inch by slow, protruding inch. As she watches, horrified, a drooping eye emerges from underneath that matted hair, and then next, a gaping mouth. It is
Yoko Halloway’s head
peering up, and Callie claps a hand over her mouth, stifling the urge to scream. But the dead woman’s eyes seem every inch as pleading, a peculiar desperation in that bloodied face. Her torn lips move wordlessly with an entreaty that Callie neither hears nor understands, before the head falls out of the urn and hits the floor, rolling toward her.
“Callie?”
The girl jerks back into the reality of the room, only to find Tarquin’s father peering down at her anxiously. “Are you all right?”
In the older man’s presence, there is nothing out of the ordinary. The seals on the urn’s lid remain perfectly in place. Yoko Halloway’s head does not stare up at her from the floor.
“Are you all right?” the boy’s father asks again.
No, Callie thinks. No. I am not all right.