by Ash Masters
*
Katou hid in the corner near the rotten, black bags and the smell flooded her nostrils, forming a ball of filth in her stomach that made her want to gag.
The room was surprisingly big and it took some time to fully explore the place, made hard by the poorly isolated boiler at the end of the room which served to make the atmosphere thick and humid, forcing the bags’ contents to grow mouldy, break down and evolve into something far worse than it already was.
She could hear the footsteps echo over the grumbling of the boiler. They were close. They were going to finish the job.
‘Hey, where are you!? I know you’re still here. C’mon where’s my punching bag!? Masaru yelled.
No... N-No... Katou could barely think as pain filled every space in her mind.
Katou had found the key to the boiler room lying under the window-sill where that boy had died. Upon picking it up her curiosity took over, leading her to the restricted part of the school building where after taking the small staircase into the basement discovered not only the powerful boiler working at the end of the room but piles of black bags to be discarded at the end of the week and boxes filled with remarkable items that she wasted no time before inspecting them; busted desktop hard drives that she could no-doubt fix, spare parts for her laptops and PCs at home, pens, old books and so on. Her own small paradise. If only her sister in America could see what she had seen, it might have convinced her to come and visit her.
She thought that after school the next day she could come down to find new things to pack up and take with her. Taking the key off its tagged ring she went into town to get a copy made and since coming down to the boiler room she had experienced a new feeling in her chest, a feeling she couldn’t describe. She realised right then from the rawness of the feeling – the newness that it was a feeling unlike any other. Joy, solace, excitement.
Going down to that room to indulge her technological and quizzical mind finally gave her something to look forward to and excite her.
That was until those boys found her.
She knew she was in trouble when she heard the old, wooden stairs creak and the chuckle of the boys’ laughter flooded her ears. As quickly and quietly as she could she scrambled under the hollow frame of the stairs, raising her knees to her chin to make herself small. The only light came from two small industrial lights in a cage on the ceiling but these lights were underpowered, lighting the room but giving it a murky look like staring into dirty water.
They boys’ banter grew louder, steadily dying down when they saw the internal organs of the hardware sprawled across the floor for inspection, motherboards, chips, inferior graphics cards, disk drives, floppy disk slots, CD drives, wires, cables, screws and different sized glass panels from monitors. They then saw Katou’s notebook with the inventory written in her clearly feminine writing and her bag making them realize that in the dark underground of the school, they weren’t alone.
In an instant they became predators in the night.
‘Alright, spread out and find her. She has to still be in here. Masaru, stay at the door so that she doesn’t leave.’
‘Gotcha, Daisuke.’
‘Time to have some fun! Fumio you take that corner and I’ll take this one.’ Eagerly he clapped his hands, bouncing on his feet. ‘Right let’s do this!’
The hunt began.
‘Argh, look at all this crap... She must be some kind of sewer rat.’ Fumio remarked.
‘Sewer girl...’ Laughed Masaru.
‘More like garbage gnome...’ Commented Daisuke.
The trio laughed.
Meanwhile under the stairs Katou curled up into a ball, forehead pressing against her knees while her arms held her. Just be quiet they’ll soon leave. She thought reassuringly.
‘This is getting boring man, we don’t even know if she’s here.’ Masaru called.
‘Yeah? Well where else would she be, dumbass?’ Fumio patronised.
‘Well I don’t know, maybe she left before we even came in!’ Masaru retorted.
‘Cool it you two. She’s obviously not here. Let’s go.’
Fumio and Daisuke regrouped at the foot of the steps and the three made there way upstairs, leaving Katou alone. She stayed as she was was for a few heart-pounding minutes just to make sure that they were gone and when Katou was confident that they wouldn’t return she crawled out of the space, hurriedly and tearfully collecting her things, unsure if she should pack up the components that she desperately wanted to adopt. I have to get out of here! They’ll beat me up I know it!
‘See I told you.’ Fumio sneered.
Katou froze, heart beating furiously in her chest. Her hand had reached out to pick up a motherboard but she just stopped in shock, fear clamping her muscles.
‘Fumio here said that if we left for a while then you’d be here when we returned. And here we are...’ Daisuke explained to Katou almost to punish her for finding peace in the strangest of places.
Katou gradually lowered her hand, leaning back to sit on her legs with her hands placed firmly on her lap, arms rigid to stop themselves from shaking. ‘Please...’ She mumbled. ‘Please... Don’t hurt me...’
‘“Please don’t hurt me!” She says!’ Daisuke mocked, grabbing Katou by the roots of her hair, lifting her onto her feet as she screamed in discomfort. He turned Katou to see her face clearly showcasing her agony. ‘Stupid, dirty bitch.’ He spat.
‘Garbage Gnome.’ Daisuke chuckled.
‘Yeah... Garbage Gnome.’ Masaru parroted.
‘Sewer girl.’ Said Fumio.
All three began to laugh, Katou began to cry.
Masaru went to the parts scattered on the floor, inspecting them with interest.
‘Man, I wish she’d shut up. Hey Daisuke, tell her to shut up.’ Fumio complained, arms folded.
‘I have a better idea.’ Masaru announced, swinging around to smash the glass monitor screen over Katou’s head.
Katou was brought down to her hands and knees, eyes wide with shock and horror so severe that she had forgotten how to breathe, gazing at the concrete floor that was steadily becoming the victim to a downpour of blood. Her blood, she realised when she held her hand before her hands, watching blood drip onto it uncontrollably.
‘Masaru! What the hell man!?’ Fumio cried, outraged.
‘Man, that felt really good. I feel better somehow. You guys should try it.’ He tossed aside the shards left over in his hands.
Katou coughed blood all over the parts on the floor then did her best to stand, using Daisuke as support, clawing her way up to lean against his body, meeting his panicking eyes.
‘Oh shit! She’s got glass sticking out of her head! Why did you do that Masaru.’
Swatted by another glass monitor screen, Katou was brought to the ground again where she twitched in her blood, fighting to stay awake.
‘M-Masaru!’ Daisuke stuttered.
‘You won’t be making fun of me anymore will you?’ he asked.
‘N-No!’
Masaru turned to Fumio. ‘You won’t call me stupid any more will you? Or dumbass. I’m not the idiot of the group anymore. Got it?’
‘No! I swear!’
‘I’m leader of this group now. You’ll see what I can do. Now let’s go.’
With that the three left Katou dying on the ground.
‘Y-Yoko...’ Katou sobbed as she struggled to remember how to move her body. Rather than move her body twitched. ‘Yoko, help me.’ She wished that her sister were still around but she hadn’t seen her in years. Somehow Yoko had escaped Japan when she could and was living another life in America. Katou had e-mailed her telling her about what she had found but she hadn’t gotten an e-mail back. She had to survive to see Yoko’s excitement for she too was fascinated with technology – something inherited from their parents.
Yoko came to her in a dream. Her form was blurry but she descended like an angel to pick her up and take her away, t
ake her somewhere safe. ‘It’s alright Katou.’
‘Yoko, you came back for me.’ Katou smiled.
In reality Katou had found the strength to move herself into a corner where she would wait to die.
But she had awoken. Still alive.
And Masaru had come back to finish the job.
Katou knew that many students turned to violence to get out the frustration that built up in them, the frustration of being doomed to become like those drones walking the streets without any will of their own, living a wretched life with no way to mitigate the pain that burdened their hearts. She was just another victim in a long list of bullied students, another case that would never be solved, another entry in the newspaper like Hatsuo Seiya and Kimura Daichi, the boy who had murdered his mother before killing himself.
But at least Katou could die surrounded by the things that had briefly put a smile on her face. That didn’t stop her from being scared.