by Kōji Suzuki
“So the baby’s gone night-night?” Ryuji asked with an air of disappointment.
“Shhh,” said Asakawa, putting a finger to his lips. Shizu wasn’t going to wake up from something like that, but then again he couldn’t swear she wouldn’t sense that something was different from usual and come out after all.
Asakawa connected the output jacks of one of the video decks to the input jacks of the other, and then inserted the video. Before pressing play, he looked at Ryuji as if to say, do you really want to do this?
“What’s wrong? Hurry up and play it,” urged Ryuji, without taking his eyes off the screen. Asakawa pressed the remote into Ryuji’s hand and then stood up and went to the window. He didn’t feel like seeing it again. Really he should watch it over and over, analyzing it cool-headedly, but he couldn’t seem to find the will to chase this thing any further. He just wanted to run away. Nothing more. Asakawa went out onto the balcony and smoked a cigarette. He’d promised his wife when Yoko was born that he wouldn’t smoke inside the apartment, and he’d never broken that promise. Although they’d been married for a full three years, he and his wife had a relatively good relationship. He couldn’t go against his wife’s wishes, not after she’d given him darling Yoko.
Standing on the balcony, he peered into the room: through the frosted glass, the image on the screen was flickering. The fear quotient was different watching it here, surrounded by three people on the sixth floor of a downtown apartment building, compared to watching it alone at Villa Log Cabin. But even if Ryuji watched it under the same conditions, he probably wouldn’t lose his head and start crying or anything. Asakawa was counting on him to laugh and fling abuse as he watched, even turning a menacing gaze toward what he saw on the screen.
Asakawa finished his cigarette and went to go back inside. Just at that moment, the door separating the dining room from the hall opened, and Shizu appeared in her pajamas. Flustered, Asakawa grabbed the remote and paused the video.
“I thought you were asleep.” There was a note of reproach in Asakawa’s voice.
“I heard noises.” As she said this Shizu looked back and forth between the TV screen, with its distorted images and staticky sound, and Ryuji and Asakawa. Her face clouded over with suspicion.
“Go back to bed!” said Asakawa in a tone of voice that allowed for no questions.
“I think we ought to let the missus join us, if she’d like to. It’s quite interesting.” Ryuji, still seated cross-legged on the floor, looked up. Asakawa wanted to yell at him. But instead of speaking, he balled all his thoughts up into his fist and slammed it down onto the table. Startled by the sound, Shizu quickly put her hand on the doorknob, then narrowed her eyes and bowed ever-so-slightly and said to Ryuji, “Please make yourself at home.” With that she turned on her heel and disappeared back behind the door. Two guys alone at night, turning videos on and off … Asakawa knew just what his wife was imagining. He didn’t miss the look of disdain in her narrowed eyes—disdain not so much for Ryuji as for male instincts in general. Asakawa felt bad that he couldn’t explain.
Just as Asakawa had expected, Ryuji was still utterly calm after he’d finished watching. He hummed as he rewound the tape, then set about checking it point by point, alternately fast-forwarding and pausing it.
“Well, it looks like yours truly is mixed up in it now. You’ve got six days left, I’ve got seven,” said Ryuji happily, as if he’d been allowed to join in a game.
“So what do you think?” asked Asakawa.
“It’s child’s play.”
“Huh?”
“Didn’t you use to do this sort of thing when you were a kid? Scare your friends by showing them a spooky picture or something and saying that whoever looked at it would come to harm? Chain letters, that sort of thing.”
Of course Asakawa had experienced that kind of thing, too. The same sort of thing had come up in the ghost stories they’d told each other on summer nights.
“So what are you getting at?”
“Nothing, I guess. Just, that’s how it felt to me.”
“Was there anything else you noticed? Tell me.”
“Hmm. Well, the images themselves aren’t especially frightening. It seems like a combination of realistic images and abstract ones. If it wasn’t for the fact that four people had died exactly as dictated in the video, we could just snort and pass it off as an oddity. Right?”
Asakawa nodded. Knowing that the words on the video were no lie was what made the whole thing so troublesome.
“The first question is, why did those poor fools die? What’s the reason? I can think of two possibilities. The last scene on the video is the statement, ‘he who watches this is fated to die,’ and then immediately thereafter, there was … well, for lack of a better word, let’s call it a charm. A way to escape that fate. So the four erased the part that explained the charm, and because of that they were killed. Or, perhaps they simply failed to make use of the charm, and that’s why they were killed. I suppose even before that, though, we have to determine if it was really those four who erased the charm. It’s possible that the charm had already been erased when they watched the video.”
“How are we going to determine that? We can’t just ask them, you know.”
Asakawa got a beer from the refrigerator, poured a glassful, and set it in front of Ryuji.
“Just you watch.” Ryuji replayed the end of the video, watching closely for the exact moment when the charm-erasing mosquito coil commercial ended. He paused the tape and began to advance it slowly, frame by frame. He’d go past it, rewind it, pause it, advance it again frame by frame … Then, finally, just for a split second, the screen showed a scene of three people sitting around a table. For just the briefest moment, the program which had been interrupted by the commercial was resuming. It was a late-night talk show broadcast nightly at eleven on one of the national networks. The gray-haired gent was a best-selling author, and he was joined by a lovely young woman and a young man whom they recognized as a traditional storyteller from the Osaka region. Asakawa brought his face close to the screen.
“I’m sure you recognize this show,” said Ryuji.
“It’s The Night Show on NBS.”
“Right. The writer is the host, the girl is his foil, and the storyteller is today’s guest. Therefore, if we know what day the storyteller was a guest on the show, we know whether or not our four kids erased the charm.”
“I get it.”
The Night Show was on every weeknight at eleven. If this particular episode turned out to have been broadcast on August 29th, then it had to be those four who erased it, that night at Villa Log Cabin.
“NBS is affiliated with your publisher, isn’t it? This ought to be an easy one.”
“Gotcha. I’ll look into it.”
“Yes, please do. Our lives may depend on it. Let’s make sure of everything, no matter what. Right, my brother-in-arms?”
Ryuji slapped Asakawa on the shoulder. They were both facing their deaths now. Brothers in arms.
“Aren’t you scared?”
“Scared? Au contraire, my friend. It’s kind of exciting to have a deadline, isn’t it? The penalty is death. Fantastic. It’s no fun playing if you’re not willing to bet your life on the outcome.”
For a while now Ryuji had been acting pleased about the whole thing, but Asakawa had worried it was just bravado, a cover for his fear. Now that he peered into his friend’s eyes, though, he couldn’t find the smallest fragment of fear there.
“Next: we figure out who made this video, when, and to what end. You say Villa Log Cabin is only six months old, so we contact everybody who’s stayed in B-4 and ferret out whoever brought in a videotape. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to limit the search to late August. Chances are it was somebody who stayed there right before our four victims.”
“That’s mine, too?”
Ryuji downed his beer in one swig and thought for a moment. “Of course. We’ve got a deadline. Don’t you have a buddy you c
an rely on? If so, get him to help.”
“Well, there is one reporter who’s got an interest in this case. But this is a matter of life and death. I can’t just …” Asakawa was thinking about Yoshino.
“Not to worry, not to worry. Get him involved. Show him the video—that’ll light a fire under his ass. He’ll be happy to help out, trust me.”
“Not everybody’s like you, you know.”
“So tell him it’s black-market porn. Force him to watch it. Whatever.”
It was no use reasoning with Ryuji. He couldn’t show it to anybody without figuring out the charm first. Asakawa felt he was in a logical culde-sac. To crack the secrets of this video would require a well-organized search, but because of the nature of the video it would be next to impossible to enlist anybody. People like Ryuji, willing to play dice with death at the drop of a hat, were few and far between. How would Yoshino react? He had a wife and kids himself—Asakawa doubted he’d be willing to risk his life just to satisfy his curiosity. But he might be able to help even without watching the video. Maybe Asakawa should tell him everything that had happened, just in case.
“Yeah. I’ll give it a try.”
Ryuji sat at the dining room table holding the remote.
“Right, then. Now, this falls into two broad categories: abstract scenes and real scenes.” Saying this, he rewound to the volcanic eruption and paused the tape on it. “There, take that volcano. No matter how you look at it, that’s real. We have to figure out what mountain that is. And then there’s the eruption. Once we know the name of the mountain, we should be able to find out when it erupted, meaning we’ll be able to ascertain when and where this scene was shot.”
Ryuji unpaused the tape again. The old woman came on and started saying God knew what. Several of the words sounded like some sort of regional dialect.
“What dialect is that? There’s a specialist in dialects at my university. I’ll ask him about it. That’ll give us some idea of where this old woman is from.”
Ryuji fast-forwarded to the scene near the end with the man with the distinctive features. Sweat poured down his face, he was panting while rocking his body rhythmically. Ryuji paused just before the part where his shoulder was gouged. It was the closest view of the man’s face. It was quite a clear shot of his features, from the set of his eyes to the shape of his nose and ears. His hairline was receding, but he looked to be around thirty.
“Do you recognize this man?” Ryuji asked.
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Looks faintly sinister.”
“If you think so, then he must be pretty evil indeed. I’ll defer to your opinion.”
“As well you should. There aren’t many faces that make this kind of an impact. I wonder if we can locate him? You’re a reporter, you must be a pro at this sort of thing.”
“Don’t be funny. You might be able to identify criminals or celebrities by their faces alone, but ordinary people can’t be located that way. There are over a hundred million people in Japan.”
“So start with criminals. Or maybe porn actors.”
Instead of answering, Asakawa took out a memo pad. When he had a lot of things to do he tended to make lists.
Ryuji stopped the video. He helped himself to another beer from the refrigerator and poured some into each of their glasses.
“Let’s drink a toast.”
Asakawa couldn’t think of a single good reason to pick up his glass.
“I have a premonition,” said Ryuji, his dirt-colored cheeks flushing slightly. “There’s a certain universal evil clinging to this incident. I can smell it—the impulse I felt then … I told you about it, right? The first woman I raped.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“It’s already been fifteen years since then. Then, too, I felt a strange premonition tickling my heart. I was seventeen. It was September of my junior year in high school. I studied math until three in the morning, then did an hour of German to give my brain some rest. I always did that. I found language study was perfect for loosening up tired brain cells. At four, as always, I had a couple of beers and then went out for my daily walk. When I set out there was already something unusual budding in my brain. Have you ever walked around a residential neighborhood late at night? It feels really good. The dogs are all asleep. Just like your baby is now. I found myself in front of a certain apartment building. It was an elegant wood-framed two-story affair, and I knew that inside it lived a certain well-groomed college girl that I sometimes saw on the street. I didn’t know which apartment was hers. I let my gaze roam over the windows of all eight apartments in turn. At this point, as I looked, I didn’t have anything definite in mind. Just … you know. When my eyes came to rest on the southern end of the second floor, I heard something crack open in the depths of my heart, and I felt like the darkness that had sent forth its shoots in my mind was growing gradually larger. Once more I looked at all the windows in turn. Once again, in the same place, the darkness began to whirlpool. And I knew. I knew that the door wouldn’t be locked. I don’t know if she just forgot, or what. Guided by the darkness that was living in my heart I climbed the apartment stairs and stood in front of that door. The nameplate was in Roman letters, in Western order, given name first: YUKARI MAKITA. I grasped the doorknob firmly with my right hand. I held onto it for a while, and then forcefully turned it to the left. It wouldn’t turn. What the hell? I thought, and then suddenly, there was a click and the door opened. Are you with me? She hadn’t forgotten to lock it at all: it unlocked itself at that very moment. Some energy was being exerted on it. The girl had spread her bedding beside her desk and gone to sleep. I had expected to find her in a bed, but she wasn’t. One of her legs poked out from under the covers …”
Here Ryuji interrupted his story. He seemed to be replaying the ensuing events agilely in the back of his mind, staring down distant memories with a mixture of tenderness and cruelty. Asakawa had never seen Ryuji look so conflicted.
“… then, two days later, on my way home from school, I passed in front of that apartment building. A two-ton truck was parked in front of it, and guys were hauling furniture and stuff out of the building. And the person moving was Yukari. She was standing around aimlessly, leaning on a wall, accompanied by a guy who looked like he must be her dad, just staring at her furniture as it was being carried away. I’m sure her dad didn’t know the real reason his daughter was moving so suddenly. And so Yukari disappeared from my life. I don’t know if she moved back in with her parents or got another apartment somewhere and kept going to the same college … But she just couldn’t live in that apartment a second longer. Heh, heh, poor thing. She must’ve been awfully scared.”
Asakawa found it hard to breathe as he listened. He felt disgusted even to be sitting here drinking beer with this man.
“Don’t you feel the least bit guilty?”
“I’m used to it. Try slamming your fist into a brick wall every day. Eventually you won’t even feel the pain anymore.”
Is that why you go on doing it? Asakawa made a silent vow never to bring this man into his home again. At any rate, to keep him away from his wife and daughter.
“Don’t worry—I’d never do anything like that to your babykins.”
Asakawa had been seen through. Flustered, he changed the subject.
“You said you have a premonition. What is it?”
“You know, just a bad feeling. Only some fantastically evil energy could come up with such an involved bit of mischief.”
Ryuji got to his feet. Even standing, he wasn’t much taller than Asakawa was when sitting down. He wasn’t even five-three, but he had broad, sculpted shoulders—it wasn’t hard to believe he’d medalled in shot-put in high school.
“Well, I’m off. Do your homework. In the morning, you’ll be down to five days left.” Ryuji extended the fingers of one hand.
“I know.”
“Somewhere, there’s this vortex of evil energy. I know. It makes me feel … nostalgic.”
As if for emphasis, Ryuji clutched his copy of the tape to his breast as he headed for the entry hall.
“Let’s have the next strategy session at your place.” Asakawa spoke quietly but distinctly.
“Alright, alright.” Ryuji’s eyes were smiling.
The moment Ryuji left, Asakawa looked at the wall clock in the dining room. A wedding gift from a friend, its butterfly-shaped red pendulum was swinging. 11:21. How many times had he checked the time today? He was becoming obsessed with the passage of time. Just like Ryuji said, in the morning he’d only have five days left. He wasn’t at all sure if he’d be able to unlock the riddle of the erased part of the tape in time. He felt like a cancer patient facing an operation with a success rate of almost nil. There was debate over whether cancer patients should be told they had cancer or not; until now Asakawa had always thought they deserved to be allowed to know. But if this was how it would feel, then he preferred not knowing. There were some people who, when facing death, would burn brightly with what life they had left. Asakawa couldn’t manage that feat. He was still alright for the moment. But as the clock chipped away at his remaining days, hours, minutes, he wasn’t confident he’d be able to keep his wits about him. He felt like he understood, now, why he was attracted to Ryuji even while being disgusted by him. Ryuji had a psychological strength he just couldn’t match. Asakawa lived his life tentatively, always worried about what people around him thought. Ryuji, meanwhile, kept a god—or a devil—chained up inside him that allowed him to live with complete freedom and abandon. The only time Asakawa felt his desire to live chase away his fear was when he thought of how his wife and daughter would feel after his death. Now he suddenly worried about them, and softly opened the bedroom door to check on them. Their faces in sleep were soft and unsuspecting. He had no time to shrink in terror. He decided to call Yoshino and explain the situation and ask for his help. If he put off until tomorrow what he could do today, he was bound to regret it.