Kage

by Tara A. Devlin

  There was a scream. I turned. It was coming from the car. I scrambled to my feet and ran over, unable to stop myself. The man was attacking her. Regardless of what she was doing or whatever her intentions were towards me, she was being attacked and I couldn’t let that happen.

  “Leave her alone!” I opened the door and grabbed the back of the man’s shirt. His jacket was lying on the driver’s seat and his shoes were on the floor, but he was otherwise clothed. Aya’s eyes went wide as she saw me, but I didn’t care. I yanked the man as hard as I could and he tumbled onto the concrete ground, swearing and cursing.

  “What the fuck? Who the fuck are you?” His words slurred together and his eyes struggled to focus.

  “I should be saying the same to you, asshole.” I punched him in the throat and he rolled over, coughing. My one and only move. If he stood up to attack, that was all my ideas spent. I turned to Aya. “Are you okay?” She was huddled in the backseat, her dress torn and looking at the man on the ground. I held a hand out towards her. She tentatively reached forward, and I pulled her out.

  “W-what are you doing here?” Her eyes flitted between the man rolling on the ground, holding his throat, and me.

  “I left work early because I wasn’t feeling well, and I saw you leaving the building, so… I’m sorry.” It was the truth. Most of it. No point pretending otherwise now. She shook her head.

  “No, you have nothing to be sorry about. I… I…” Her eyes grew wide again. She gripped my arm hard enough to draw blood with her nails and hid behind me. “No… not again… no…”

  “What-” Then I saw it. Rising out of thin air in the back seat of the car. The same spot Aya was just huddled in. It slowly took shape, forming a head, shoulders, arms and torso. Aya pulled on my arm and I stumbled backwards. The man yelled and jumped to his feet.

  “Alright, you mother fuckers.” He pulled a gun. Oh good. Yakuza. Because the night couldn’t get any worse. He didn’t notice the darkness rising beside him, his focus entirely on the two of us. “I paid damn good money to your brother and I was promised-”

  He noticed it out the corner of his eye. He turned and shrank back in horror. Aya pulled on my arm even tighter.

  “Megu! We need to go!” She was running before I could stop her. I was frozen on the spot, unable to tear my eyes away. The man fired. The bullet went through the car seat. He fired again, the next one breaking through the window. Two more shots. They hit nothing, because there was nothing to hit. Just darkness, stepping out of the car on fully formed legs and rising to two metres in height. It towered over the man, looking down at him like a god at an insect.

  “Megu!” Aya’s voice rang out in the distance. My feet were rooted to the concrete. The shadow lowered itself upon the man. He fired, again and again, and then threw his gun in the air, towards the shadow’s head. It landed on the ground behind the car.

  “Get the fuck away from me! What the fuck?”

  Dark hands reached inside the man’s chest. His eyes widened. He coughed. His nose crinkled and his mouth deformed into a horrifying grimace. He opened his mouth but only chokes escaped, followed by a dribble of blood. Blood started to trickle out of his ears, and then his eyes.

  Footsteps approached behind me. I heard my name being screamed somewhere in the distance, and then I realised it was Aya. Only she was beside me again.

  “Megu! We need to go!” She pulled on my arm and finally my feet were uprooted. They carried me away of their own volition, my eyes stuck on the dark hands squeezing the man’s heart inside his chest. The shadow leaned down, further and further, smothering the man’s screams as finally it smothered him. The flesh around his chest and face exploded in a shower of red. Aya pulled me around the corner and the link was broken. I shook my head and I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. Aya nodded.

  “Don’t say anything. Just run.”

  26

  “Taxi!”

  We ran down the street and I called for the first taxi I saw. It pulled over and I pushed Aya inside. I told the driver the address and we sat in the back seat in silence. Aya wrapped her arms around her shoulders, hiding her torn dress and shivering.

  “Here.” I took my sweater off and put it around her shoulders. She nodded her head in thanks but said nothing. I went to put a hand on her shoulder but thought better of it. I looked out the window instead. There was no doubt that the shadow was the cause of all these deaths, and I’d now seen first-hand how it did it. But why? What did it want? Where was it coming from? Was it working alone or did someone summon it? I had so many questions and so few answers. But one thing was for sure. The shadow wasn’t gone. It was still killing.

  The taxi pulled up in front of my apartment building. I paid the driver and helped Aya out. We took the elevator up. It rocked and jerked and Aya stared at the floor the entire time. I guided her towards my apartment and locked the door behind us.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. I shook my head.

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  She sat on the couch. I scratched the back of my head.

  “We both saw that, right?” Of course we did. But I didn’t know what to say or how to broach the subject with her. She nodded.

  “It’s getting stronger.”

  “What?”

  She looked up. “I-I’ve never seen it do anything like that before. Usually just… someone dies. A heart attack. That’s it. But it’s getting worse. It’s…”

  I sat down next to her and grabbed her hand. She looked up at me, tears in her eyes.

  “Ever since I was a kid, it’s been there, you know?” She choked on the words. “Not always visible, but I could always feel it. Even now I can feel it. I don’t know where it is, but… it’s there. I was five or six the first time I saw it. Then when I was seven, it… it killed my mother.” Tears ran down her cheeks. I wanted to pull her tight and hug the pain away, but I knew that was stupid. It never worked that way, as nice as the thought was.

  “She was lying in bed. It was the morning of my birthday. She-” Aya choked back a few tears and wiped her face. “She had a bruise, right here.” She pointed to her left eye. “I asked her what was wrong, and she said nothing. Then daddy came into the room. He was dressed and ready for work. He didn’t see I was standing there.”

  I squeezed her hand. Aya took a deep breath.

  “He threw something on the bed. I didn’t see what it was, not immediately. I later realised it was breakfast. He was unhappy with his breakfast. It wasn’t to his liking, he said. That was it. He didn’t like his breakfast. He slammed the door behind him and walked over to the edge of the bed. I was standing in the corner at that point, and I don’t know if he didn’t see me or if he just didn’t care, but he… he grabbed her by the front of her nightgown and pulled her up…”

  She stopped and rubbed her eyes.

  “You don’t have to-”

  Aya shook her head and continued. “He hit her. Again, and again. It wasn’t like him. I mean, he harmed her face, you know? That was evidence. People would know. But she did nothing. She took it. Didn’t complain. Didn’t cry out. I thought he was going to kill her. I guess he’d been doing it for years. Probably since before I was born. But then something changed in the room. That’s the only way I can describe it. It got cold. The air seemed to crackle. I remember it like it was yesterday. In the opposite corner of the room, I saw this darkness stand up like a man. It was not very tall. Only about as tall as my brother, perhaps. But it walked like a man, and it reached the bed where my father was hitting my mother, and then he stopped. And my mother stopped moving.”

  She let out a deep breath.

  “Father took a few steps back. ‘What the hell?’ Those were his exact words. ‘What the hell?’ And then it was gone. Just like that. And my mother never moved again. The autopsy said it was a heart attack. Her heart just stopped. But it wasn’t that. I was there. I saw it. The darkness killed her. To this day I still don’t know why, and after that, things just got worse fo
r me. It… it won’t leave me alone. It’s been torturing me for the last twenty years. Whenever things start to go well, even just briefly, it’s back again, tearing my happiness down.”

  She stopped and looked up at me, squeezing my hands.

  “I saw it when you were fighting with my father. It was there the whole time. Just watching. It didn’t step in and do anything, it just watched. Do you know what that means?”

  I didn’t.

  “It wants me to suffer. It’s going to come for me, of that there’s no doubt. But before then, it wants me to suffer. It waits. It bides its time. It allows me to forget about it, just briefly, and think that I can live a normal life. And then it returns and destroys everything and I can’t escape it. It’s going to come for me one day. When it’s had enough fun. And I don’t know how I can stop it.”

  I pulled her close and ran a hand over her hair.

  “Don’t worry. It’s okay.” It wasn’t okay, but what else could I say? “We’ll figure something out. Together, okay?”

  She sobbed. “It’s coming, Megu. It’s coming. And it’s getting stronger. What are we going to do?”

  I kissed her forehead. “I’m not gonna let anything happen to you. We’re gonna figure this out. Together.”

  I had no idea where to even start.

  “That man…” Aya suddenly looked up at me with her eyes wide. She shook her head. “You don’t understand. That man… he was an important business contact for my brother. Oh god…” She put her head in her hands. “It’s all over. As soon as he finds out he’s dead, it’s all over. He’ll know it was me. He’ll know and… oh god…”

  I squeezed Aya’s hand. “Hang on, slow down. What do you mean?”

  Aya looked up from her hands. “We need to get away from here. Right now. You don’t understand.” She stood up.

  “Well help me to understand. You haven’t explained anything. Before we go running into the night again, why don’t you let me know what’s going on. Maybe I can help.”

  She shook her head. “No. No-one can help. Not now. Not ever. We need to go. Maybe we can head to Tokyo. Or Osaka. Nagoya. Some big city. Anywhere that isn’t here. If we leave now, we can be gone before he finds out. We can be gone before-”

  I grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Aya! Snap out of it! Calm down.” She looked at me, fear in her eyes. “Stop. Take a deep breath. Talk to me.”

  “He… Tatsuya… My brother… That man was a business contact. I was supposed to… entertain him, you know?” Her eyes pleaded with me. I nodded. I understood what that meant. “Make him look upon my brother a little more amicably.” She closed her eyes for a moment and sat back down. “That’s the way it’s always been. Tatsuya needs a deal, he finds the best man for the job, usually someone not quite on the right side of the law, and I go in and help to… let’s just say butter things up. If I don’t, well…”

  “If you don’t, then what?”

  She shook her head.

  “You can tell me.”

  She sighed.

  “Our father was cruel, you know? I always knew that, even as a child. It was confirmed the day I saw him beating our mother. The day that thing… the day she died. And every single day after that he was cruel to me instead. Just verbally at first, but over time it became… physical.”

  She looked around the room as though to check her brother wasn’t there. Or perhaps her father.

  “But Tatsuya, he’s something different entirely. If my father was a cruel man who possessed a soul, Tatsuya was born without one. There’s a darkness in him that knows no bounds. It scared me as a child and it scares me now. At first it was small things. He-” her voice was choking up “-he brought a puppy home one day, said he found it on the street. Father said nothing, of course. If his precious little boy wanted a puppy, he could have a puppy. He waited until I grew attached to it, which was maybe two or three days later. We would play together in the yard, and he let me feed it. When we got home from school one day and the puppy came running towards us, Tatsuya picked it up and he… and he…” She broke down.

  “You don’t have to…”

  “He killed it.” She forced the words out through her sobs. “Right in front of me. There was this smile on his face. It was the first time I’d seen him smile like that. He wasn’t just enjoying it. It was something more than that. It was like he’d found his purpose. His reason for being. That was just the start of it. Over the years he tested his limits; what father would let him get away with, what the law would let him get away with, what… I would let him get away with.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I held my tongue so I didn’t say something stupid and instead placed a hand on her knee.

  “There’s no soul inside him. No love. Just cruelty and darkness. And when he finds out that his important business partner is dead, and I’m not there, he’s going to find me. It won’t take him long. It never does.”

  “He found you here, didn’t he? Not long after that day with your father?”

  She nodded. Well, that explained that, if nothing else.

  “He has eyes and ears everywhere. Nothing escapes him. Do you understand now? We can’t stay here. The moment he realises what’s going on, he’ll be busting in here to find out why, and that’s not going to end well for either of us… or anyone else who might see him. Do you understand?”

  I nodded. I understood perfectly well. Aya rubbed her arms over and over. The room was pleasantly warm. Her eyes flitted around, waiting for shadows to jump out at her. I stood up.

  “Come on. Grab your coat and let’s go.”

  She nodded and stood up. I grabbed my jacket, bag and phone and locked the door behind us. I had a feeling that would do little good if her brother decided to show up, but what else could I do? I gave Aya a kiss on the forehead and forced her to look at me.

  “I’m going to keep you safe, okay?”

  She nodded.

  “He’s not going to hurt you.”

  She nodded again. Her eyes told a different story though.

  “We’re gonna get out of here. Get a hotel for a few days or something, just until we can sort something else out, okay?”

  Another nod.

  “You’re not the one at fault here.”

  Silence.

  “We’ll sort something out, okay?” I repeated the words, trying to make myself believe them. I had no idea how to deal with a man like that, and this family feud was way above my level. But first things first. Simplify. That was what my father always said. When shit hits the fan, simplify. And the first step to simplifying the situation was to step away from it. We could grab a hotel for a few nights, somewhere outside of town, gather our bearings and think about what to do next. It wouldn’t last forever; my savings were starting to flash big red warning lights at me. But first things first. Simplify.

  “Come on. Let’s go get a taxi.”

  27

  As much as I hated leaving Aya in the hotel room, I couldn’t get out of work the next day.

  “Get your ass in here or you’re fired! I don’t care whether you have to drag yourself on two broken legs!”

  I also had a computer class afterwards that I couldn’t miss. I had to hand in some pieces for the final assignment. Miss that and I would fail the course. All the money I spent would be down the drain.

  “I’ll be fine. I don’t plan on going anywhere today,” Aya said. She sat in the corner, huddled in a chair, flicking idly through the TV with the curtains drawn. I told her I’d do my best to hurry back, and with one final look went out the door.

  Work was work, and as usual, I ran out the door late to my computer class. I got there after class began, but the teacher smiled and let me in.

  “Glad to see you remembered today,” she said.

  “I would never forget!” My voice was a little too cheery. Rein it in. Act normal. I smiled and picked an empty computer. Most of the pieces for the final assignment were already done, and after finishing up the last piece, I found
myself typing Tatsuya’s name into a search engine. I looked around the room to make sure no-one else was looking and hit ENTER.

  Page after page showed up in the search results for his name. Fujie Tatsuya. Second-in-command to the CEO of a rather important financial corporation. They hadn’t reached national status, not like the big boys in Tokyo, but their rise was “catastrophic,” as one article described it, and many attributed that success to Tatsuya. He was a child prodigy. He had a keen business mind and a unique way of “viewing the battlefield.” They made him out to be a reincarnation of Sun Tzu or something.

  “Never before have we seen the metaphoric rise of one so young and so talented.” “A true prodigy, ready to shake up the business world.” “This is the man Japan has been waiting for. The man that can take Japan out into the world and bring about a second wave of Japanese industries dominating the international sector.”

  I could taste the vomit in my mouth. Laying it on a bit thick didn’t even begin to cover it. He was the business world’s second coming, apparently.

  Articles going back years detailed all the certificates he had won from contests around the country; he held first grade in various tests like Chinese characters, flower arrangement, and calligraphy. He was a man of culture, and that made him beloved. There were even more articles detailing his community service awards. Always happy to lend a hand, and get those hands dirty if needs be. Never turned down his neighbourhood cleaning duties, and even contributed his own funds to local building projects and charity donations.

  The man was a true saint.

  I dug a little deeper, looking for what I actually wanted. The man behind the public mask. An opinion piece from several years earlier detailed his epic rise. I clicked the link.

  “Fujie Tatsuya, a native of Shobara, rose to prominence when he was just 19-years-old. Through a series of fortunate, or perhaps unfortunate events, depending on your point of view, several big players within Mitsuhada Corporation met with horrific accidents just months before they were up for promotion. Coincidence, or just bad luck? There can be no denying that Fujie is a gifted businessman and a team player. His rise can be attributed to nothing more than his skills and determination, both of which have been proven over and over again. But would that rise have been so fast if this terrible string of accidents hadn’t occurred not long after Fujie started working for Mitsuhada?”