Summertime of the Dead

by Gregory Hughes

  ‘First sign of madness,’ I called. But she stuck her nose in the air and looked away. ‘You won’t ignore me when you’re hungry.’ And she wouldn’t either. A bowl of beef fried rice would put things right. She was easily bought.

  I stood in the doorway, which stunk of pee, and watched the Korean trying to entice people into his massage parlour, which stood at the end of a brightly lit road. Most people turned back before they reached the Korean’s place, because it was on the outskirts of the Kabukicho and all the streets after it were dark. But some didn’t – they came all the way to the end, and when they did the Korean would approach them. He’d hold out his hand to foreign tourists, and if they took it he’d hold on to it. Or if they were Japanese he’d bow and follow them for a bit. No one was interested, but he didn’t care; he was a real creep.

  I liked it that the Korean was connected to the yakuza. I mean, assaulting my mother was a good enough reason to kill him, but working for the yakuza made him more of a legitimate target. But the question now was how to get away once it was done. If I attacked him in the street it would be a quick bolt back to the bike, which was parked down a side street. But that meant that people would see, and some might give chase. If I waited for him to go inside, which he did from time to time, I could follow him in. But just like with the Tanakas’ place, I didn’t know who else was in there.

  I scanned the outside of the massage parlour. It looked like a small shop except that there was a curtain drawn across the window. I figured there wouldn’t be much room inside to swing the sword, and so I thought about a kendo term called ma-ai. In general it refers to the distance between the tips of the opponents’ shinais when held in the chudan stance, but it also refers to space. The swordsman needs to assess his surroundings and place himself in a position where he has the advantage. If I followed the Korean inside, the first thing I’d have to do was check the height of the ceiling. If it was too low, I wouldn’t be able to raise the sword. And I’d have to look out for things like posts and lamps and anything else that could get in the way.

  He spat and went inside. I pulled my hood over my head, and keeping the sword close I crossed the street. Before I knew it I was opening the door and stepping inside. It felt strange, like being in a dream, but the first thing I noticed was that the place was empty. I drew the sword and held both pieces behind my right leg. Then I went down three steps and stood there with my heart banging. It was like a basement inside and the ceiling was low, but there was plenty of space otherwise.

  There were racks of smutty DVDs and magazines against the wall, and there was a counter by the window. And there were partitioned cubicles with beds in them and curtains at the side. When I heard someone coming down a flight of stairs my stomach turned. A bookcase moved and the Korean came from behind it. ‘Welcome, welcome. Take a seat and let’s see what we can do for you!’

  I should have killed him then, but I hesitated and he moved behind the counter. He looked more creepy close up. He had a bit of a beard, because he couldn’t be bothered to shave, and his skin was as greasy as his hair.

  ‘You’re a bit young, aren’t you? Is that why you have your hood up, trying to hide your age? Don’t worry, everyone has to start somewhere.’ He peered under my hood. ‘I know you from somewhere, right?’ The smile left his face. ‘What’s that you’ve got behind your back?’

  I felt dizzy. For a second I thought I was going to faint. He came out from behind the counter.

  ‘Who are you? What is that?’

  ‘A sword,’ I said.

  His face froze into a puzzled look. ‘Is this a joke?’

  Suddenly I dropped the mounting and took the sword in both hands. He turned to run, but I jumped forward and slashed down. The blade hacked into his back and cracked his ribs. He dropped on to one knee. I heard someone scream behind me. I swung the sword as I turned. A woman raised her hand and her fingers fell to the floor. Her eyes widened as she looked in horror at her missing digits. She collapsed and clutched her bleeding hand. Then a guy came through the front door. I hit him with the back of the sword and he cried out and cowered. Then another guy came in. How many perverts does Tokyo have? I beat him with the sword and he roared and ran out. Then the woman without the fingers started to scream. I heard an almighty crash and the Korean jumped through the window. I grabbed the mounting and ran outside. The Korean had collapsed on the pavement. People were running to his rescue. Then that yakuza biker pulled up on his chopper. A woman screamed and a man tried to grab me. I pushed him away and ran.

  I sprinted down the street, and taking a right I ran down a darkened road. But then I heard the chopper coming after me. I put the mounting on a bonnet, and standing between two parked cars I got ready. And then, just as he passed, I swung the sword. I spun around and landed on the bonnet of the car. But the rider was still going down the street. The blade hadn’t made contact! But then I noticed blood, as fine as mist, spraying from his neck.

  The sirens were far away at first and then they were close. I grabbed the mounting and ran for the bike. I pushed the sword under the seat, jammed on my helmet and rode away. Then I heard a crash, and reaching the lights I saw what it was. The biker’s mangled body was crushed between a car and his chopper. The shocked driver held his head in his hands, while a woman threw up at the side of the road.

  I cut through Shinjuku, where thousands of revellers were enjoying their night out, and passed by Shinjuku station, where a long-haired band was blasting away. I followed the overhead down towards Sangubashi station. Before I knew it I was riding into my street.

  I stopped before I reached my house, and turning off the engine I pushed the bike into the garden. The air crackled with electricity and a bolt of lightning lit up the sky. I opened the front door, and climbing the stairs I went straight to my room. I never even got undressed. I just threw down the bedroll and pulled the duvet over my head. Then I lay there, shocked and shivering. I didn’t want to think about the woman without fingers, or the biker crushed under the car. But they were all I could think of. And then thunder rocked around the sky. It was like the gods were angry at me. And if that wasn’t bad enough, I started to feel like someone was watching me. Slowly I pulled the duvet from my head. A flash of lightning lit up the room.

  ‘Argh! What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘Lightning!’ said the Lump.

  ‘You scared the hell out of me, you dummy!’

  The Lump stroked the Om’s ugly head. ‘Don’t like!’

  I sat up and held my head in my hands. Could this night get any scarier? ‘OK, put your stuff over there and go to sleep.’

  She ran out, and coming back with her bedding she laid it out at the far end of the room. A loud clap of thunder sent her diving under the duvet. Then her hand came out and she placed that ugly head so it was facing me.

  ‘Night, Om,’ said the Lump.

  I pulled the duvet over my head and tried to sleep. And I found myself wishing I’d never wake up. And I mean never.

  11

  I threw the paper on the seat in front of me and watched the land go by. But I could still see the headlines. ‘More Killings in the Kabukicho … Dead Biker Rides into Traffic …’ The article said that the woman who’d lost her fingers was a poor Chinese girl, and that they’d already been sewn back on. I was relieved that she was going to be OK. I really was. But I still felt agitated. I’d slept badly, and when I did I had bad dreams. And they revolved around that Korean. I thought I’d be glad that I killed him, but I wasn’t, and I couldn’t understand why. But then once again I saw him assault my mother. ‘You should be proud, Yukio, that you defended your family’s honour. Stop being weak.’

  There were a lot of eyewitness accounts, but no one had seen my face. One guy guessed my age at about thirty-five. Another guy said I was only five foot six. How could they get it so wrong? And the police had nothing else to go on because there was no CCTV inside the massage parlour. But now they were saying that the Psycho Killer was starting
to look like a vigilante. They must have known that the biker was yakuza, and that the Korean was connected to them.

  There was another headline as well: ‘Summertime of the Dead’. It was about the suicide rate, which was still rising. One psychiatrist said that it was because Japanese people saw suicide as an honourable death. But the head of the Rinzai school, which is a Buddhist sect, said that it was because people were having trouble seeing their true identity in today’s fast-moving society. He said that most people live their whole lives lost. I don’t know if they do, but the headline stuck in my mind because it summed up what the summer was turning into. And what it meant to me. It really was the summertime of the dead.

  As the train rolled into the station the Lump pressed her face to the glass. I’d decided to take her to Kamakura for the day. Partly because I was supposed to take her places, and partly because I wanted to get out of the city. I felt under pressure now that the killings were getting so much attention. They were on every TV channel and radio station and on the front page of every paper.

  Kamakura was Japan’s capital at one time and it was a real tourist trap. Thousands of people came here and I couldn’t stand the crowds. But I knew the Lump would like it. There were dozens of temples and shrines and she was dying to see the Great Buddha, which was a bronze statue as big as a house. So much so that she’d put on her rucksack three stops back and as soon as the train stopped she was off.

  We made our way through the old station, which was packed with school trips and day trippers, and headed down to the Great Buddha, which was only a mile or so away. But the Lump couldn’t wait to get there. She kept running ahead and looking back, irritated because I wouldn’t hurry up. Then, crying out, she ran behind me and pushed me to make me go faster. But I just laughed.

  When we got to the site we paid to enter, and as soon as we did we saw the Great Buddha of Kamakura. I was always impressed when I saw him. He had broad shoulders and a big head and he was meditating in the lotus position. And he had such a tranquil face that he made you feel calm. What’s more, he was highlighted by the green hills behind him. It was like he’d been placed there for that purpose, which he probably had. Zen monks always think of things like that.

  The grounds were packed with picnicking families and tourists taking photographs, but the Lump didn’t care. She bolted in front of the Great Buddha, and bowing her head she started to pray. I took a seat on one of the large rocks and waited for her. But then I saw a group of girls laughing at her. They were older and mean-looking, and I could tell by their faces that they were saying nasty things. I saw then why she was bullied at school. It wasn’t because she was slow or stupid. It was because she was different. And people don’t like it when you’re different. I think it frightens them.

  I gave the girls a look and put my hand on the Lump’s shoulder. Her eyes opened and she looked at me. ‘Praying,’ she said.

  ‘I know, but I was getting bored by myself. Come sit next to me.’

  The Lump liked this, and sitting on the rock we looked at the Great Buddha.

  ‘Smiling,’ said the Lump.

  She was right. I’d seen that Buddha a dozen times before, but it was only then that I saw he was smiling. The Lump was strange like that. She could make you see things that you hadn’t seen before. She pulled the Om from her rucksack and placed him on the rock so he too could see the Great Buddha. ‘Om very happy,’ said the Lump.

  ‘Why is he?’ I asked.

  The Lump folded her arms and studied him. Then she looked up at me. ‘Just is,’ she said.

  She made me laugh sometimes. ‘Well, we have a lot of temples to see today. Shall we take him to see some others?’

  The Lump’s face grimaced at the thought of leaving the Great Buddha.

  ‘I’ll take you to see him again,’ I said. ‘Next time you visit.’

  The Lump was happy at the thought of more visits. ‘OK,’ she said, and we moved on.

  The next temple we went to was up the side of a hill with a view of the sea. There were two golden Buddhas housed in their own temples, and outside there were hundreds of small Buddhas lined up like soldiers. They were to show that anyone could become a Buddha. And where there was one Buddha, hundreds more would spring from him. At least that’s what the monk told my class the last time we were here.

  I followed the Lump as she strolled around the gardens with her hands behind her back. There was nothing she didn’t stop to inspect. She looked up at the sunlight that was shining through the leaves in the trees. Then she stepped across the stepping stones to watch the water run down the rocks. She frowned as it bubbled in the perfectly shaped pond and she smiled at the fish that were floating there. After the fish the flower beds caught her attention. She gazed at the yellow, orange and blue flowers and at the bees that were buzzing inside them. And then she held out her hand for a bee to land on.

  ‘Don’t blame me if it stings you,’ I said.

  ‘It won’t,’ said the Lump, and it didn’t. It just crawled around for a bit and then it flew away.

  ‘Come on.’

  The Lump scurried after me and we climbed up the decaying stone steps that went up the hill. The path cut through a clump of trees, and through the foliage we could see stone statues with faded faces. They looked as if they’d been there for hundreds of years. Further up we saw small lizards clambering up trees and we saw scary spiders waiting in their webs. It was like being in a small jungle.

  It was a hard climb in the heat, but we got a great view once we reached the top. We could see the sea and the town, and the Great Buddha, who was now as small as a snail. And we saw red fishing boats on the beach. And in the distance we could see the coastline like a rocky arm reaching out to the sea.

  ‘Thirsty,’ said the Lump.

  We made our way back down to the temple, and getting a couple of Cokes from the cafe we sat in the plastic chairs. I could never understand why they made such an effort with the temple and then put out cheap plastic chairs for people to sit on. And they were hot in the heat.

  ‘Why don’t you take off your coat?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t want,’ said the Lump. She drank her Coke and checked her cell. And then she frowned at it before putting it away.

  ‘What do you want to do now?’

  The Lump smiled. ‘Beach,’ she said.

  We headed down the hill and followed the road to the sea. But when we got to the beach it was bad. The water was more brown than blue, and the dirty sand smelled of oil. Not only that, but there were wooden shacks that looked like they were falling apart. No wonder it was deserted.

  But the Lump couldn’t see it. She was running around like she was stomping on the golden sands of Okinawa. And she was staring at dirty shells like they were jewels. But I found it depressing and so I imagined Kamakura in the old days, when the beach was beautiful and geishas strolled along its shores.

  ‘Castle,’ said the Lump.

  The Lump had found an old bucket, and kneeling in the sand she’d made a castle, leastways she’d made a mound. And there she was looking for praise.

  ‘Are you kidding? That’s the worst castle I’ve ever seen! Here, this is how you do it.’

  I grabbed the bucket and made four mounds. Then I built a wall between them, to keep out the enemy, and then I put shells in the towers for windows. I took a brick out the centre and threw it away, but it hit the Lump’s castle and a section came down. The Lump looked at me like I’d done it on purpose. She picked up the brick and threw it at my castle, but she missed. And so I threw it back at hers, which then collapsed. The Lump looked livid. She jumped up and stamping on my castle she ran down the beach.

  ‘You’re dead!’ I said.

  The Lump laughed as she ran and I laughed as I chased her. And there we were like a couple of madmen running around in the heat.

  When we were tired of the beach we went to the tunnels. They were cut into the rock with caves and candles inside, and they’d been turned into a sort of shrine.
The last time I was here our teacher told us that an old hermit had made them. If that was the case, I wish he’d made them bigger. I had to stoop really low inside, but the Lump was like a gopher. She ran down one tunnel and appeared in another. Then she’d make sure she could see me before running away again. But I didn’t like the tunnels so much and I was tired of having to stoop. ‘Come on. Let’s go,’ I shouted.

  The Lump ran around a bit more and then she followed me outside.

  We headed up to the river and followed it upstream. Sometimes we’d have to walk on the road, but other times we could use the stepping stones to continue along its banks. There were small brown fish in the shallow water and brightly coloured dragonflies hovering above it. The Lump liked the dragonflies and she stopped to stare at them, but then she’d end up daydreaming.

  ‘Will you hurry up?’

  She ran past me then, with her rucksack bouncing, and scouted ahead.

  We crossed a stone bridge and headed up into the trees and the hills, and the hiking trail than ran over them. We couldn’t see much once we were up there because the foliage was so thick. But every now and then it cleared and we got a good view. But the Lump didn’t care about the view. She only cared about running along the trail, which went up and down like waves. She’d run to the top of one peak and wait for me to catch up. Then running to the next she’d wait again. When the trail was blocked by fallen trees she took great joy in clambering over them. It was fun to watch her, and before long I forgot about things. My war with the yakuza seemed far away and the thought of killing someone seemed obscene. And so I didn’t think about it. I just watched the Lump having fun.

  We came down from the hiking trail and rejoined the road that ran alongside the river. But as we did it started to rain. It was only drizzle, but the clouds were getting darker and the wind was picking up. I turned to see the Lump with her mouth open. She was trying to catch raindrops. ‘Hurry up.’