by Jeremy Bates
I couldn’t tell.
“We’re leaving,” I said. “Okay? We’re leaving.”
“You in my foresssstttt. You dieeeeeeeee.”
Finally I spied the speaker. He was perhaps twenty feet away. A spectral figure standing tall between two trees. In his hand a blade glinted sharply.
Mel, presumably seeing this too, tugged me so hard I almost fell over backward.
“Run,” I instructed her under my breath. “Don’t stop.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll be right behind you—now go!”
I heard her take off. I remained facing the speaker, wanting to give her a head start.
Then I turned and fled as well.
I only made it two-dozen feet before an icy pain spread throughout my back. I staggered to my knees, regained my feet clumsily, and continued forward, all the while reaching over my shoulder for the dagger I knew was stuck in my back.
My fingers touched the handle. It was below my left shoulder bone. The blade had gone straight through Mel’s backpack, which had likely protected me somewhat. I gripped the handle tightly and yanked hard. I grunted and almost blacked out, but the jolt lasted for only a moment.
I knew I couldn’t keep running. If I did, I would get another dagger in the back. I whirled about, holding the bloody weapon high in front of me.
Three pursuers were directly behind me. They appeared almost identical to one another. Gray robes, black eyes, black hair falling in tangles around ephemeral faces. I was shocked to discover they were young, teenagers only, though they were lean and muscular and didn’t appear to have an ounce of fat shared between them.
They stopped now, as if we were playing a life-or-death game of Red Light Green Light.
Then, without a word, they began spreading out, slinking silently from tree to tree, apparently intent on flanking me. I shone the flashlight from one to the other, following their progress, not wanting them to get out of my direct field of vision.
“Stop!” I shouted, needing to buy some time.
Amazingly they did.
“Do you speak English?”
They stared at me, their pale faces almost glowing in the harsh beam of the flashlight. They didn’t seem fazed in the least that I was bigger than them, or that I was holding a bloody dagger in my hand and had several spears poking from my backpack, within quick reach.
I didn’t blame them either. It was three against one. I was injured and weak from hunger and thirst.
“English?” I said. “You spoke it before. Can you understand me?”
They began moving again.
“Stop!”
They didn’t obey this time.
I swung the beam back and forth. They were fanning out too quickly. I would be surrounded in seconds.
I aimed the light directly in the eyes of the tallest one, then launched the dagger at him. The blade deflected off his shoulder and spun away into the night.
Nevertheless, the blow knocked him down, and the other two moved to his aide.
I shuffled backward, never taking my eyes off them, and only when I’d put several trees between us did I feel safe enough to turn around.
In the distance Mel began screaming.
CHAPTER 33
The flashlight beam bobbed madly ahead of me. Branches raked my face. I didn’t care or feel any pain, not even the wound in my back.
Mel continued to scream, and I tried not to think what was happening to her.
I don’t know how long I ran for, or how far I’d gone. This would require some sort of analytical reasoning, numbers, mathematics. And none of that existed right then. I was too jacked up, too in the moment.
I had never before experienced the desperation that drove me right then. If a sheer-sided canyon appeared directly before me, I probably would have plunged right off it, for in control now was one overriding directive: FIND MEL! And below this, repeating over and over like the tickertape at the bottom of a Breaking News report: There’re more of them, she’s going to die, there’re more of them, she’s going to die…
I could almost accept my death. I could see me falling, the teenagers catching up, smashing my skull in, the blackness that would ferry me away. This I could almost accept in a detached, nihilistic way because I have seen myself grow old, I have contemplated my own mortality, and I have come to understand that one day I’m going to die. But I’ve never envisioned Mel’s mortality or death. Never, not once. I’ve always seen her as she is now: youthful, beautiful, full of life. She couldn’t die. It was unfathomable.
How was this happening?
I realized I was praying, praying I found Mel, praying she was okay, praying we got out of this, got away. I didn’t know what I was praying to, didn’t care, but I was praying to something bigger than me.
Then, all at once, I came upon a scene from hell. A writhing mass of gray robes and hands and feet piled high in a football scrimmage—and Mel’s legs sticking out from the bottom, kicking at nothing.
One of the attackers reared up with a large rock in his hand and raised it over his head. For a moment bodies parted and I glimpsed Mel’s face, stormy eyed and terrified.
“Stop!” I roared without slowing, running straight at the throng, consumed with an insane rage. I was going to destroy them, every last one of them, I was going to beat them to puddles of blood, or I was going to die trying.
But they dispersed before I could reach them, escaping effortlessly into the trees, leaving Mel curled into a protective ball on the ground, still kicking at nothing.
I scooped her into my arms. She screamed and hit me.
“Mel!” I shouted. “It’s me!”
She stared at me, deer-like.
I carried her in an arbitrary direction until she regained her wits and could move on her own. We ran. Arms swinging, legs bounding uncoordinatedly, we were staggering parodies of two kids being chased by the biggest, meanest dog on the block.
Soon we were both panting for breath, lurching as if moving through snow or shallow water, but we didn’t stop. Because even though we had gotten away, I didn’t think it was over. Those teens would regroup. They would come after us again. They would—
In the distance I saw a glow flickering in and out between the trees.
The campfire?
“Look!” Mel cried ecstatically.
“I see it!” I said.
We redoubled our efforts.
CHAPTER 34
I had been wrong all along. There was no campfire awaiting us. No tent. No hiker, no suicide guy, no killer. For ahead of us was an old, roughly built cabin with a wood exterior. My eyes took in everything at once—the weathered bench out front, the chopping block with an ax lodged into the top surface, the saw leaning against a neatly stacked woodpile—then we were clambering up the front stoop. Mel reached the door first and began pounding her fist against it, shouting for whoever was inside to open up. I was about to try the handle when the door swung open.
A clean-shaven man in his fifties appeared. He was wearing beige khaki pants, a brown leather belt, and a mustard-colored button-down shirt. He raised bushy white eyebrows in surprise and said something in Japanese, a question, I think.
I shoved Mel past him, then I followed, slamming the door closed behind us.
The interior of the cabin was a spartan affair and smelled faintly of wax and creosote and soot. Aside from a scuffed table and two chairs, the only other furnishing was a wood cooking stove. Basic foodstuff, mostly instant noodles and canned goods, were visible in an open-faced cupboard. A pot and pan and dishes rested on a short counter, while a broom and dustpan hung on the wall. There was no sink, which implied no running water. Nor were there any electric lights or wall sockets. The light that had guided us here had been provided by the crackling blaze in the stone fireplace to our left and several large candles the size of cookie jars.
I went immediately to the lone window and looked out. I could see little aside from the floating red refle
ctions made by the candle flames.
The man had a look of astonishment on his face. He’d likely never entertained company here before, let along two crazed foreigners acting as if they had just seen the devil himself.
“Do you speak English?” I asked him. I wiped a shaking hand across my lips, which were velvet dry. My chest was still so tight it hurt to breathe, and I couldn’t stop glancing at the door and window.
Mel slumped into one of the chairs and cradled her head in her hands and stared mutely at the table.
“English?” I repeated harshly. “Do you speak English?”
He blinked. “Yes—no. Skoshi.” He pinched his forefinger and thumb together. His posture was stooped, and I couldn’t decide if he was cowering or permanently bowing.
“There are—there are some people in the forest. They attacked us.”
“People?” he repeated.
“Kids!” Mel cried, still staring at a spot on the table.
“Kids?”
“An entire group of them,” I said. “Pale faces, long black hair. They attacked us. Our friend is still out there. She’s badly hurt. We need your phone. Do you have a phone?”
“Phone?”
“A phone! We need to call the police.”
“Police?”
What the fuck was wrong with the guy? I grabbed him by his shirt and shouted, “Where is your damn phone?”
“Phone? No phone.”
I stared at him in disbelief, then realized I had no idea why he was out here, in this cabin. I released him, stepped back, studied his clothes. I couldn’t tell whether it was some sort of uniform or not. “Are you a forest ranger?”
“Ranger, hai.” He attempted an uncertain smile.
“How do you keep in touch?”
He looked at me blankly.
“Talk? Base? Other rangers? Talk?”
He shook his head.
I glanced around the room. There was a door opposite the wood stove. I went to it, threw it open. A bedroom. Next to a twin bed, on a small table, was a handheld two-way radio.
I felt as if I’d just fallen in love.
“Hey!” I said. “You! Come here.”
Both he and Mel came over.
“A walkie-talkie!” Mel exclaimed.
I gripped the man’s arm and pointed to the radio. “You call help. Okay?”
“Help, hai.”
“Tell them my friends are dead.”
“Friends?”
“Tomodachi, dead.” I drew a hand across my throat. “You call. Okay?” I made a phone with my pinky and thumb. “You call. Get help.”
“Me call.”
“You don’t understand a fucking word I’m saying, do you?”
He looked at me blankly.
Cursing, I crossed the room to the radio, deciding I was going have to call the base station myself and hope to hell whoever answered could do more than parrot everything I said.
The ranger followed me and took my arm just as I picked up the radio. He shook his head. “I call,” he said. “Help. Okay?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” I shoved the radio at him. “Call.”
He twisted a knob, depressed the push-to-talk button, and said something in Japanese. He released the button and waited. There was a burst of static, then someone replied.
Mel squawked with joy.
The ranger and the dispatcher spoke back and forth for less than a minute. I listened closely, trying and failing to identify certain words that might give me some clue as to what they were saying. Finally he set the radio back down on the table.
He nodded. “Help, okay.”
“How long?” Mel asked quickly.
“Long?”
I tapped my wristwatch. “Time. How long? Help?”
He held up one finger.
“One hour?” I said.
“One hour, hai.”
“How will they get here so fast?” Mel asked. “Is there a road? Ask him if there’s a road.”
I pulled open the top drawer in the table and discovered a small stenographer’s notepad and a sharpened pencil. I drew a quick map of the area, including Mt. Fuji, the town of Kawaguchiko, Lake Saiko, Aokigahara Jukai, and our position, which I marked with an X.
It took a few minutes of prodding and clarification, but eventually I determined that the cabin was accessible by a dual combination of access road and hiking trail.
Mel and I embraced, almost sinking into one another, while the ranger watched us with a perplexed expression.
CHAPTER 35
“You can’t go back,” Mel said to me. “What if they’re still out there?”
We were seated at the table near the warmth of the fireplace. The ranger had left to fetch us water, which I assumed he drew from a nearby well. I cautioned him not to go outside, but he insisted, and I relented. This was his forest after all. While he was gone, Mel had found a first aid kit in the cupboard and had cleaned and bandaged the puncture in my back. Although it hurt, it was not as deep as I’d feared.
“We can’t leave John Scott and Neil,” I said.
“The police will go get them.”
“What if they can’t find them?”
“They can follow the crosses we left just as well as you can. And maybe they’ll have dogs. It’s going to be a big rescue party, right?”
“We don’t know who’s coming.”
“But the rangers would have called the police, who already know we’re missing. They’ll send everyone they have.”
“I hope so.”
She frowned. “Well?”
“What?”
“Why wouldn’t they send everyone they have?”
“I never said they wouldn’t.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I am, I’m sorry, I am. I was just thinking.”
“About?”
“How this has to be a dream or something. I keep expecting I’m going to wake up at any moment, and we’ll be back at the campfire, and Tomo will be there, and Ben, and John Scott and Neil will be fine.”
“It’s not a dream.”
“I know.”
The fire crackled and sparked.
“Who are they, Ethan?” Mel said. “Why are they doing this? They’re just…how old were they?”
“The ones I saw? Seventeen. Eighteen. I couldn’t tell. Which means there’re adults around too.”
She blanched. “You think so?”
“Has to be. There’s no way teenagers are living out here by themselves.”
“Maybe they’re feral kids?”
Feral kids?
A vague tickling feeling bubbled inside me.
“You know,” she added, “like those kids you read about who are raised by wolves or bears or some kind of animal.”
That tickling was in my chest now, sneaking up my throat—it was Mel’s expression as much as the subject matter that was causing it; she looked so serious, so stone cold sober, while she talked about kids being reared by animals—then the tickle exploded from my mouth in a burst of laughter that I couldn’t control.
“Ethan, stop it,” Mel said. “Stop it.”
I couldn’t reply; I was in fits.
“Ethan, you’re scaring me!”
I shook my head. My eyes watered.
“Ethan!”
I held up a hand.
“Ethan!”
“I’m…fine,” I managed, getting hold of myself.
“What’s so funny?” She was not pleased.
I breathed deeply and steadily.
“What’s wrong with you?” she pressed.
“I’m okay.”
“Talk to me.”
I looked at her and said, “Are we…?”
“Are we what?”
“Crazy?” I wiped my eyes. “Are we going crazy, Mel?”
“You’re certainly acting like it.”
“Are we?”
“No, we’re not. Absolutely not. Besides, we both couldn’t be crazy. Only one of us could be. If
this was all in my head, then you would be in my head too. You’d be a figment of my imagination.”
“I’m not a figment,” I said, biting back more zany laughter.
“I’m not either.”
“Then I suppose we’re not crazy.”
We were silent for a stretch.
“You know what I don’t get?” I said. “Why they’re playing with us. Why hang Ben and Tomo? Why not simply leave their bodies where they’d killed them?”
“Maybe they’re trying to scare us.”
“But why?”
“Maybe to scare us out of the forest.”
“Murder two people to prevent them from camping in their forest? There has to be another reason.”
“Maybe it’s how they get their kicks. Maybe they’re part of a suicide cult or something—”
A loud knock on the front door caused us to jump.
I got up and padded cautiously across the room.
“Hiroshi?” I said, using the name the ranger had told us before he left.
“Hai!”
I unlocked and opened the door.
Hiroshi entered, carrying a plastic bucket of water. He went to the sink and filled two glasses. Mel and I drank them quickly, refilled them, and drank more. I’ve read that when you’re suffering from dehydration or heatstroke you’re supposed to drink slowly and moderately to avoid throwing up or becoming sick, but right then I couldn’t help myself. The water was an elixir.
Finally, when we had our fill, Mel and I set our glasses aside. We grinned stupidly at one another, our chins dripping wet, two kids who had just received a forbidden treat and had enjoyed the heck out of it.
For the first time in what seemed like ages I was starting to feel almost human again—and then my phone rang.
CHAPTER 36
I stared at Mel, my puzzlement reflected in her eyes. I was suddenly terrified that she was a figment of my imagination after all, that I really was crazy, because this was impossible, there was no way my phone could be ringing.
But Slash kept on fingerpicking and Axl kept on singing.
“That’s your ringtone!” Mel exclaimed.