The Monster on the Road Is Me

by JP Romney

  “Hai,” we said.

  “Wakatta?” he yelled.

  “Hai! Wakarimashita!” we yelled back.

  “Let’s go.”

  Now, you might be thinking that a field trip to a cultural center sounds like about as much fun as a trip to a library or a prefectural government office, and you wouldn’t be that far off. Look at all the fun things to do, you might say. Look at that bench. You could, like, sit on it and stuff.

  Good point, good point. Who wouldn’t love that?

  Exactly. And look over here! Paintings! By elementary school students! Isn’t this awesome?

  Well, I got bored of elementary school paintings in about eight seconds. Ikeda-sensei tried to act interested as he walked us by wall after endless wall of watercolor paintings, but it was a losing battle. Farms. Zoos. Families. Pets. More farms. More pets. Smiling faces. I’m so bored. Look. Another room of watercolors. Farms. Zoos. Families. Pets. Gods, get me out of here, please. What did I ever do to deserve this?

  “Stay with the group,” Ikeda-sensei barked at a delinquent kid. He thundered past me to snatch the wandering punk by his collar.

  Now’s your chance, my brain said.

  “Chance for what?”

  Your chance to get out of here. There has to be cooler stuff than this. Kids suck at painting.

  “To be fair, you suck at everything when you’re six years old.”

  Let’s go!

  “Shut up, brain.”

  Seriously, who’s going to notice if you sneak off?

  “Um, that giant ex-sumō who likes knocking kids through walls.”

  He’ll never see you. He’s too fat and slow.

  “Ooh, if he heard you say that, he’d slap you right out of my head.”

  Now! He isn’t looking!

  “You go. I’ll stay here.”

  Just say you were looking for the bathroom, my brain said. Do you really want to stay here? Look up ahead. There are nine more rooms of these watercolors.

  “That can’t be right. Oh, wait, yes it is.”

  Now look over there. Tell me what you see.

  “Shodō?”

  That’s right. Calligraphy.

  “We’ll get there eventually,” I said.

  Will we? After the watercolors, then comes the pottery, then the mobiles, then the who-knows-what. By the time we get to the shodō exhibit, it’ll be too late. We’ll have to go home. We’ll miss it.

  “I guess I could say I was looking for the bathroom.”

  Besides, you’d hear Ikeda-sensei coming from across the building. He’s so fat. And ugly. And stupid. Go! Right now! Hurry!

  I stepped out of the line. Yes, I’d lost an argument. With myself. It wasn’t the smartest thing to do if I was trying not to get punched through walls, but it was shodō. Old-style Japanese calligraphy does look pretty cool. Stupid brain with its observations and reasoning.

  A couple of the kids around me started whispering. I ignored them and scurried off around the corner. They might tell Ikeda-sensei, but I doubted it. What prison inmate rats out an escape plan to the guard everyone hates? Besides, it’d be more fun to see Ikeda-sensei punch me through something, so they’d probably let me skip out for as long as I could and then laugh while I was broken and bleeding. School friends are really the best kind of friends.

  I quickly and quietly jogged over to the shodō display. The walls were lined from top to bottom with bright white papers and deep black ink.

  I took my time walking through the calligraphy exhibit. Most of the kanji were painted by students from high schools in the prefecture. Some showed real craftsmanship and skill. Others were rushing to get their assignment done.

  I stopped. From across the room I saw it. The one kanji I love more than any other. Okay, “love” is a strong word to use for a symbol painted on a piece of paper. But, no, I think I might actually be in love with this kanji. I want to marry it.

  飛

  Tobu.

  To fly.

  It looked like an airplane to me. Two wings with rudders. A seat. A steering column. It was all there. Ready to take off from the paper at any moment. So complex. So beautiful. I reached out to feel it. Someday, I’d climb into one of those things. I’d point the nose right at the sky and I’d just fly up and away from everything. I’d keep going and going until I broke through to the other side. I’d fly past the gods and goddesses and on to the place where lost souls go. I’d look down and watch for people I know. People like Aiko and Ichiro and little Taiki. I’d look for—

  “Omae, nani shiten da yo?”

  I flipped around.

  “I said, what the hell do you think you are doing?” Ikeda-sensei yelled.

  I hate my brain right now.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I was just … looking for the bathroom.”

  “Did you find one? On that piece of paper?”

  “No … I just saw it and thought—”

  “You thought you’d stroll over and deface a work of art!”

  “I wouldn’t really call this one art. I mean, it was a good effort…”

  A few of the visitors in the exhibit looked at me and then quietly slipped around the corner.

  “Koda, get out,” Ikeda-sensei whispered. “Now.”

  “Okay.”

  I put my head down and hurried toward the exhibit door. If he hits me, brain, he’s going to get you first, I thought.

  But Ikeda-sensei didn’t knock my head into a wall as I walked past. Instead I heard a thousand talons scuffling in the ceiling above me. I stopped and looked up.

  “Sensei?” I said.

  “Caw,” the ceiling answered.

  My gym teacher’s giant hand locked on to my shoulder. Without a word, he lifted me off my feet and threw me into the brass handlebar of a side exit. I couldn’t keep myself from yelping like a puppy before crumpling to the ground.

  “Sensei?” my teacher repeated. “Sensei?” he mocked again. “Oh help me, sensei. The scary birds are coming to get me, sensei.” He dragged me through the door and tossed me against a wall. “Disgusting man-child.”

  Ikeda-sensei turned back to the exit and slammed the door behind us.

  25

  “Let me in!” Ikeda-sensei roared, shoving my head against the outside wall of the cultural center.

  “Yamete kudasai! Please!” I screamed.

  Ikeda-sensei’s fingers dug into my face, squeezing my eyeballs shut.

  “You’re breaking my head,” I cried, beating at his arms and face.

  “Nothing will break this head! Where is it? Where is the part that keeps me out? I’m going to find it. I’m going to dig around in your brains until I can pull it out with these fingers.”

  I kicked and jumped but couldn’t break his iron grip. “Please, Ikeda-sensei, please,” I cried. “I’ll give you whatever you want.”

  “I want this mind!” Ikeda-sensei screamed.

  My thoughts raced around like mice trying to escape a fire. This is it, I thought. I’m going to die. Just like Aiko and Ichiro and Taiki. I’ll be the fourth. A possessed sumō is going to smash my brain and I’ll become one of the Yamabuki mountain-breath-kids.

  I clawed at Ikeda-sensei’s arm and shook my head until I was able to open one eye.

  “Let me in!” Ikeda-sensei bellowed.

  But my gym teacher’s voice suddenly sounded distant. His bloodshot eyes transformed the world around us. Heaven didn’t look the way I’d always imagined. I don’t know what I’d thought, really. More light. Less freezing air. A few floating Shintō temples in the background. A sun goddess or two. Heaven looked more like walking into the kitchen of a cold apartment building.

  The front door slid open, but the wintry temperature remained the same. I jumped back as Ikeda-sensei stumbled into the room. He was dressed in a pair of boxer shorts and a robe.

  “Father, please,” he said.

  I looked around but didn’t see anyone else in the room.

  “I swear to you, Father, I haven�
�t been bad. I make tribute to your shrine every night. Just like you asked. Fish and seaweed. Every night. I promise.”

  As soon as he said it, the stench of Ikeda-sensei’s apartment cut through the freeze and overpowered me. I stumbled back to cover my face. In the corner there was a small mountain of rotting fish. Dripping with ooze. Sliding off the bone and plopping onto the stained floor below. Above it all stood a single crow, cawing at the ex-sumō.

  “Please, Father, no,” Ikeda-sensei begged.

  Eat, came a dark voice from somewhere in the frigid shadows.

  “No, I don’t want to eat tonight. Please, I ate last night.”

  Go to the shrine. Kneel down before my face and eat.

  “Father.”

  Do this and you shall sleep another night.

  “Please.”

  Do it not, my son, and I will come for you. I will come tonight and I will tear out your soul.

  Ikeda-sensei fell forward and dropped to his knees in the sludge and the slime.

  “No,” I whispered.

  But Ikeda-sensei couldn’t hear me. He reached out his huge hands and plunged them deep into the mountain of rot. As he lifted a fistful of slime to his face, the voice called out again.

  You are a disgrace, Nobu. You are a filthy man. And so you will eat filth before my face for all of your days.

  Ikeda-sensei chewed through the thorny bones until his mouth bled.

  Abandoning your mother to become sumō. You are no hero! You are a rotting sack of meat! You have dishonored me. And so you will kneel before my shrine and eat nothing except rotting flesh.

  Black slime oozed out of Ikeda-sensei’s mouth and dripped down his chin.

  You should have stayed by our side, Nobu. You never should have left her to die alone. Money and fame and whores were all you sought. So now you will kneel and feast on the only thing you gave her in return.

  “Father,” Ikeda-sensei blubbered.

  Open your mouth and eat death, my son.

  “Caw,” cried the crow above him.

  Ikeda-sensei collapsed next to the mound of runny meat and moaned like a child.

  “Koda!”

  The smell of rotten fish disappeared.

  “Koda!”

  I opened my eyes.

  “Koda, get up! We have to go!”

  “Moya? Where am I?”

  “Stand up!”

  My head was groggy, but I could hear Ikeda-sensei moaning on the ground near the wall. His arm above the wrist was burned, like it had been yanked over a bonfire.

  “You have to get out of here,” Moya said, lifting me to my feet.

  “Where are we?”

  “Can you walk? You need to run. Get away from here.”

  “But his arm. What did you do to Ikeda-sensei?”

  “Go!”

  “Where?”

  “Down the hall. Into the restroom.”

  “The restroom?”

  Moya opened the door and pushed me inside. “Go! They’re coming.”

  Outside the door, Ikeda-sensei continued to moan. “Father,” I heard him say. “Oh, Father, what have you done?” Above me, the ceiling filled with tapping and scraping. I ran back to the door and peered through the open crack.

  Moya the girl was gone. Hundreds of crows poured from the outside vents and swarmed a snarling, writhing white fox. It twisted on the ground, snapping its teeth and tearing at the flock. All the while a silent mist of fumes snaked across the ground. Then, in a single flash, the crows burst into roaring flames. In the midst of it stood the white fox, untouched, enveloped in fire, licking its stained fur.

  “Kitsune,” I whispered.

  The fox looked up and growled at me. I slammed the door and ran down the hall.

  * * *

  “What. Was. That?” I yelled when Moya slipped into the men’s restroom.

  “I’m sorry, kid. I had to let Kōtenbō make his move. What did you see?”

  “What did I see? I saw Ikeda-sensei trying to tear my head off my body!”

  “Skin and bones can be fixed, Koda. Did he have a memory that would help us?”

  “Did you kill him, Moya? Did you kill my gym teacher?”

  “No! I don’t kill innocent people. Even huge jerk-faced innocent people. His arm’s just a little singed.”

  “That was a third-degree burn!”

  “Second-degree at most. His mind was so scrambled he won’t remember how he got it, anyway. Did you find a memory?”

  “And why are we meeting in the men’s room? You’re not a man. Or a human. Someone could just walk in here!”

  Moya marched to the door and slapped her palm on the frame, melting the metal and welding it shut.

  “There,” she said.

  “The lock, Moya! Use the lock on the door!”

  “What did you see in there?” she asked again.

  “Gods,” I breathed out. I walked over to the mirror and held on to the sink. “Ikeda-sensei believes his father’s ghost is punishing him,” I started. “And Shimizu-sensei thinks he’s being followed by dead ancestors. But it’s not true, is it? They’re both on the Tengu Road.”

  “You need to focus, Koda.”

  “Are they going to die?” I asked through the mirror.

  “Probably.”

  “Can we stop him? Can we stop Kōtenbō?”

  “We might have a chance if you find me the memory I keep asking for.”

  “I don’t get it. Why use crows? He’s a tengu. Why doesn’t he just stroll down from the mountain and murder us all?”

  Moya walked up behind me and leaned against the wall. “He could have done that at one time, sure, but not anymore. He’s hiding.”

  “Right. But why doesn’t he stop hiding? He’s a tengu!”

  “He’s a blind tengu. And from what I can tell he’s mostly blown up.”

  “What?” I said, looking into the mirror.

  “I blew him up the last time we met,” she said nonchalantly. “It didn’t work.”

  “Didn’t work? You mean the explosion at Ōmura Shrine? How does an explosion not stop a tengu?”

  “Well, you jerk, this one is not so easy to kill.”

  I turned around. “Why me, Moya? I’m not a threat to anyone! Maybe to bicycle helmets and my own face, but not to a mountain demon.”

  “You’re a suri,” Moya said. “And from what I can tell you have an unusual talent for it. Most suri only ever lift feelings from their victims. Maybe they see colors or hear weird tones. Sometimes, with enough practice, they can learn to capture an image or two. But you, Koda, you lift entire memories from people’s minds. You break inside their heads and clip whole conversations. You steal interactions, spy on what you should not be able to spy on. You’re a potential danger to anyone you come in contact with—especially people who don’t want to be found.”

  “Then why doesn’t Kōtenbō just possess me and walk me into Route 33? I wouldn’t be that hard to kill!”

  Moya smiled. “You’re like a kaki tree, Koda. You might look weak on the outside, but believe me, there is great strength inside you. You are a very dangerous little mind-thief.”

  “Not against Kōtenbō.”

  “Kōtenbō is just a more dangerous mind-thief.”

  I looked up at Moya. “Kōtenbō is a suri?”

  She nodded. “Was, anyway, at one time. It’s the only thing that explains his ability to possess humans.”

  “Wait, can I possess people?”

  “Afraid not, kid. That is some dark magic. Kōtenbō embraced the Tengu Road a long time ago. It’s hard to say for sure, but he was likely a priest. Or maybe a pilgrim who wandered mountain paths to separate himself from the traumatic memories of man. At some point, though, Kōtenbō changed. He began to thirst for strength and power.”

  “Or he could have just been lonely. You know, isolating himself to protect the people around him and then marching all over the countryside with no one to talk to. I can see how that could break a person’s mind.”
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  “Okay, do not sympathize with the bad guy, please,” Moya said. “If you’re having trouble with that, try counting the number of urns he’s created since Kōtenbō entered the Tengu Road. His humanity withered away until all that had once been good was replaced by hate and despair. Whatever man Kōtenbō was doesn’t exist anymore, and hasn’t for hundreds of years. He is a suri on the Road. And when suri enter the Road, they become something else. Their minds turn viciously on the human race, which had once been their own. They start not only to steal memories but to manufacture ones in their place. And worst of all, when Kōtenbō cracks open a human mind, the Tengu Road comes rushing in. The Road invades places that were never meant to be invaded. It infects them. Breaks them down from the inside. The Road fractures their hold on reality, and in the end it almost always destroys them.”

  “But my mind is different.”

  “Suri cannot invade the minds of other suri. That is why Kōtenbō doesn’t walk you into Route 33. He thought he was powerful enough to break into your mind. He’s now realizing how wrong he was.”

  I slid down along the wall to the floor.

  “The tengu is changing tactics,” Moya said. “He’s desperate. He’s trying to use his puppets to reach you.”

  “Why doesn’t he just use you to kill me, then? I can steal memories from people who are not so human, so why doesn’t Kōtenbō just use his crows to force you into barbecuing me?”

  “I feel like you said ‘not so human’ in a way that means ‘less than human.’”

  I looked up at her. “That’s obviously not what I meant, since you can start bonfires out of thin air. That’s ‘more than human’ to me.”

  Moya paused for a moment. “The Tengu Road doesn’t affect us like it affects you. I think it’s because we accept the inevitability of an end. Humans—they cling to life with both hands. They dig their nails in like they’re terrified of what comes next. A large part of the madness of the Road involves loosening that iron grip.