Boogiepop At Dawn

by Kadono. Kouhei

  “…………”

  The question had taken Makiko by surprise. She could not have explained why. But...

  “Well...maybe I was just a coward,” she said, before she knew it.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Analysis...part of it involves taking apart indescribable fears. I was a huge coward when I was younger, and always wondered why there was such a thing as fear. Maybe I ended up here in the hopes I'd be able to answer that question...”

  “Hmm...then, maybe...” Nagi started to say.

  But the loudspeaker came on.

  “Kirima-san, come to window number three.”

  Nagi broke off, and stood up.

  “They're calling me. See you again, Doctor.”

  She waved.

  “Yes. Goodbye, Nagi-chan,” Makiko said, waving back.

  That was the last time they ever met inside the hospital.

  ...the next time they met, it would be in darkness.

  ***

  Once she knew that the medicine brought about a change in living things, Makiko lost all interest in figuring out just what it was -- there was something else that preyed upon her mind.

  In particular, What would happen if I injected a human?

  She did not have particularly advanced facilities, so there was no way she could try it on a monkey. The basement wasn't large enough.

  So. . .a patient?

  When she caught herself seriously considering the idea, it was enough to rattle her.

  But we have some patients who are like living corpses. They show no reaction no matter what you do to them...

  ...no, no, no, no, no, no! How can I even think that? !

  She wondered if she should just abandon her research and tell the world about the medicine.

  But then there was the question of who had manufactured it. If a medicine this astonishing existed and no one knew about it...

  It's been kept a secret.

  That was the only explanation. So why was it in Kirima Nagi's room?

  That question dogged her, but every time she thought about it, she always found herself thinking instead:

  So if is a secret..then can I use this without getting caught?

  And use it...on myself?

  Medicine that granted immortality...to her.

  The idea became steadily more intriguing.

  “Whenever you are hiding something

  from other people the world is hiding

  ten times that much from you.”

  -Kirima Seiichi.

  The Proliferation of 'Dunno'

  2

  A string of grisly murders had been committed in town.

  Teenage girls were being murdered, one after the other. The string of murders was noteworthy because of the manner in which they were killed.

  The victim's skulls had been torn open.

  The maxilla and the mandible had been pried apart, and the spinal cord had been yanked out of the head. The skin on the face had been pulled open without being pared away from the bone. Inside the head there was nothing left; everything had been removed as though a dog had cleaned it out.

  Investigators could only conclude that the contents had been sucked out through the foramen magnum and other smaller natural openings into the skull.

  But how?

  What reasons could anyone have to kill like this?

  There were various theories regarding the method of the killings, but everyone on the case agreed that the murderer must be insane.

  ***

  “It's possible the killer holds some extreme superstitious beliefs about the brain, and believes he can absorb their knowledge...” droned an expert on TV.

  Kisugi Makiko giggled.

  “What?” asked the intern sharing the staff lounge with Makiko. Interns were generally the lowest ranking people in the hospital, constantly running errands for everyone else, but Makiko's position was not much higher, so they were on friendly terms.

  “Nothing, I just thought he looked good on TV,” she said dryly.

  The doctor on screen was an associate professor at a large university. He had written a number of books and was often called to comment on cases like this one.

  “Ha ha, true enough. If you're good looking, you don't have to actually say anything, as far as TV's concerned,” the intern said, laughing. Then he grew serious.

  “Dr. Kisugi, what's your take on the case? I can't even begin to understand it...”

  Makiko gave him a pained smile.

  “The director would advise specialists not to get interested in such extreme cases,” she said.

  He winced. The case was something of a taboo around the hospital. Partly because of their proximity to the murders -- the police had come by asking if they had any patients who might be capable of such an act. It had caused quite a lot of disruption.

  “I dunno, maybe the TV doctor's right.”

  “An obsession with the brain? That doesn't sound right, somehow. Maybe I've seen too many brains,” he chuckled. The hospital had a number of brain samples pickled in formaldehyde. They were only about the size of two human fists, lumps of gray meat with no mystic aura around them. They were certainly nothing like the vivid objects seen in horror movies. Those props might have been able to inspire the sort of superstition they were chattering about on TV, but real brains were nothing more impressive than what you could find at a butcher's shop. That's why most superstitions tended to revolve around the skull, instead.

  “But you need fairly advanced knowledge to take apart the skull like that. The killer must be using tools. That person must also be a maniac!” His cheery tone made him sound like the maniac. Looking at the crime scene images on TV, he added,

  “Maybe the damage itself is his purpose. Perhaps he enjoys breaking the skull open...what do you think?”

  “No idea,” Makiko said, glancing sidelong at the intern. The look in her eyes was cold enough to raise goosebumps.

  Her tongue cracked like a whip inside her mouth.

  He’s too sweet to bother with. No matter how much I scare him, it'll never have much taste.

  She could tell exactly how mentally strong other people were, now. It was as though she could reach out and touch it. No, it was more like she could reach out and lick it.

  The stronger someone was, the more “bitter” the person would appear to her; if they were weak, they seemed “sweet.”

  The sensation went well beyond instinct or imagination. The knowledge was as clear and definitive as an ice cube in the hand is cold. Her skills also made it very easy to discover what a human's weakness was.

  For example, this intern...

  “But if the killer turns out to be a doctor, there'll be no end of trouble,” he said cheerily.

  “Like jumping into a snake's nest,” Makiko said absently.

  The intern twitched, turning to look at her. He had gone pale.

  “Wh-what?!” his voice trembled.

  “That's a common expression, isn't it? Or was it a hornet's nest?” Makiko said, innocently.

  He recovered somewhat.

  “Oh, right. Just a figure of speech.”

  “You don't like snakes?”

  'N-not as such,” he said, breaking into a cold sweat.

  Makiko could not tell if this man had ever had a traumatic encounter with a snake. But she could tell that he had had some sort of sexual trauma. He had been violated by something resembling a snake-like a male sexual organ. Or perhaps his encounter with that pedophile had been his first sexual experience.

  Either way, to Makiko's eyes he appeared to have a snake wrapped tightly around his lower body.

  ***

  What Kisugi Makiko had obtained from the medicine surpassed healing abilities impressive enough to allow her to pull out her eyeball and put it back in.

  Sensing enemy strength, perceiving their weak points...these were the most impressive of Makiko's newfound abilities.

  On a basic level, they were nothing mo
re than the traits any animal needed to survive in the wild. They had simply been elevated to extreme proficiency.

  Of course, she had already put these abilities to use. The hospital director was already incapable of saying no to her. She had had several of the snottier nurses fired, but had soon tired of that. She had begun to believe this ability was not to be wasted on such trivial affairs. It would be easy to take over the hospital, but she had ultimately decided against it.

  True, if she used her abilities carefully, she could do anything. But she was cautious.

  She had to be wary of the medicine's creators. They would know of her ability, or of similar abilities, and have countermeasures in place. This was one reason for her caution.

  But there was another reason. A side effect -- the real reason she could not use her abilities openly. If her new talents became public knowledge, the entire world would be against her.

  ***

  “Bad experience with snakes?” Makiko said, still toying with the intern.

  Every time she said the word, he blanched.

  “Nno...not really. Just...they're creepy, that's all.”

  There was no trace of the cheer he'd displayed earlier while talking about the serial killings.

  “According to the outdated theories Freud put forth, snakes are a metaphor for male genitalia,” Makiko said, blithely.

  The intern went white as a sheet and started to tremble.

  “L-like I said, it was not like...I've never...”

  The tip of Makiko's tongue could taste the sourness of his fear. It was pathetically weak.

  “…………”

  A violent urge rose up within her. She felt a sudden desire to shred the frail life-form in front of her.

  She wanted to terrify him to the brink of madness and toy with him before tasting his blood. No, that was understating what she wanted -- what she needed. She longed to stick her head right into his mouth and suck out all the chemicals in his brain.

  She wanted to do to him what she did to those high school girls...

  “Wh-what’s happening... ... ?”

  “This is a dream, a nightmare...it must be...”

  “Nothing like this was ever meant to happen...”

  “Help! Somebody help me... ... !”

  Voiceless screams, death throes, and the delicious chemical secretions terror released into the body.

  Human fear was the ultimate pleasure for her.

  But...

  But now was not a good time. If she killed this man here, she would leave evidence behind. And even if she drove this man to the height of fear she would never get any real pleasure from it. She would have to exercise forbearance.

  She acknowledged the urge as one of ravenous desperation; it would eventually demand release.

  But not now.

  “Are you okay? You look pale?” she said, shifting her tone and looking at the intern with concern.

  “You've had so many emergency patients recently...are you drinking vegetable juice?”

  “Oh, the one the assistant director keeps hyping? Honestly, it's just not my thing,” he said, obviously relieved that she'd changed the subject. He looked like he'd escaped within inches of his life.

  Makiko, of course, knew that that was precisely true.

  ***

  The stronger the better.

  Makiko became aware of that principle shortly after she began her activities. The depth of flavor to the fear was not even comparable.

  In the last three months, she had already taken apart the skulls of five people, and every one of them had looked to have an incredibly strong will. Checking up on them later was easy since the media was reporting their information in great detail. It appeared that all of the girls had unusual personalities. Their youth might've had something to do with their apparent fearlessness.

  Makiko had little interest in pondering the matter further. It was transparently obvious, after all. She did not need to look hard to find additional prey. She could find her victims just by wandering around town.

  Almost none of them were men. She began to suspect that the kind of strength she sought might not be a male trait. Men typically started shaking with fear instantly, ruining their taste. There were scores of tall, physically imposing men who, when confronted by Makiko, were no stronger mentally than an average three-year-old. The few who were unafraid were severely lacking in mental stability.

  But the nice part about the unstable ones was that they were quite easy to control.

  She could toy with the long term patients, nibbling at their fear, and none of them showed any inclination to fight back. It was so easy. However, such low-hanging fruit did little to sate her hunger. They were more like a snack-not truly satisfying.

  All the weaker people did was fuel her desire to find the real thing.

  But I must figure out something to do with the bodies...

  She attacked when the urge drove her to it, and the aftermath was rather gruesome. If she didn't keep a low profile, whoever had made the medicine would eventually notice.

  I must do something...

  There had to be a good way to dispose of them.

  She had to think of something safer. She needed a technique, like the contraception methods used during sex.

  And she would have to frame someone else for the earlier murders. The media and police seemed to believe the killer was male, so she could easily find an appropriate scapegoat. That would keep anyone who could threaten her from hunting her down.

  She chose her course of action carefully and cleverly.

  But despite her cunning, she still was unsure why the medicine had granted her new powers-along with these violent urges.

  There may have been some distorted fate, a massive, unstable tendency behind the uncanny birth of Kisugi Makiko, who might well have remade the world...but there was no one on Earth who knew about it.

  At least, not yet.

  ***

  “I'm home,” Kisugi Makiko announced as she walked in.

  Her mother met her at the door.

  “You must be tired. I've drawn you a bath.”

  “I'll eat first.”

  They sat down at the table, just as they always did. On TV, a news anchor was providing the latest updates on the Skull Dissection Murders.

  “My, how terrifying. Makiko-san, you really have to be careful out there. Such a terrible thing, and only happening to girls...” her mother shivered dramatically.

  “Yeah,” Makiko said, absently.

  Ironically, Makiko was the source of her aging mother's weakness. The idea that anything might happen to her beloved daughter was a source of unbearable fear.

  It would be so easy, so very simple. All she had to do was tell her mother the truth, and it would destroy her world.

  It was so easy Makiko had never bothered.

  “…………”

  Occasionally she would glance at her mother's profile as they watched TV, and wonder what she would taste like. But she'd never done anything more than wonder. So far.

  The news shifted subjects, and the president of some other country came on screen. He was surrounded by a small army of imposing bodyguards.

  “…………”

  Makiko could detect every one of their weaknesses. A single threat could make them all her slaves.

  Recently, Makiko's abilities had begun operating on a greater scale, well beyond individual weaknesses.

  She could now see holes in the policies of a large corporation, for example. Humans did not live in isolation, but in communities, and she had learned to detect what the weaknesses of those groups were. She used her newfound skills to place several organizations under her thumb. She began to use them to gather information for her.

  Including some clues as to the medicine's creators.

  It would not be long before she'd be able to determine the weakness of an entire nation just by looking at its president.

  What would it taste like when an entire nation scream
ed, writhing in fear?

  Maybe something even larger existed, an existence beyond her imagination.

  “…………”

  She said nothing to betray her thoughts, simply moving her chopsticks as her mother shook her head and complained about the state of the world.

  It was not yet time for action.

  “If you are a warrior, born to fight,

  then the object of your life's purpose

  exists only within the enemy.”

  -Kirima Seiichi,

  Isolation and Faith

  3

  Kisugi Makiko sat in the hospital examining room by herself, looking at a file concerning a certain individual. There was a headshot clipped to the side, and the file looked like a patient's chart at first glance. However, this person was not staying at the hospital. In fact, she had never even been there.

  She was just a girl Makiko had seen on the street.

  She had been in a coffee shop, comforting a crying friend. It seemed her friend had just been rejected by a boy. But this girl was not comforting her friend with blind pity and meaningless reassurances. Instead, she patiently explained that while the boy had certainly handled it badly, her friend was partially to blame for the breakup as well. And her friend accepted the explanation. Makiko was impressed. Most brokenhearted girls were much too upset to listen to any explanations regarding why they had been rejected. A casual observer would not have noticed, but Makiko could tell this girl was extremely intelligent, and very persuasive.

  And very strong.

  Astoundingly so.

  Imagining her quivering in fear was so exciting Makiko almost attacked her right then and there, but she managed to restrain herself.

  She arranged for one of the men under her control to investigate the girl. She was surprised to discover she was still in junior high. She's only thirteen! The youngest victim so far had been a high school junior.