“What happened?”
Hisoka chewed her lip. “Turns out it was harder living without him than it was being with him. I was sick to my stomach the entire month. Just heartbroken. He must have felt the same way, because one day when I left work he was there in the parking lot with an ashen look on his face waiting for me.”
“What did he say?”
“He just walked up and hugged me, and I bear-hugged him back. Finally, he looked at me and said, ‘I’m not a bad guy.’ I said, ‘I know.’ And just like that we were back together. That whole period made me realize that being with him is tough, but being apart from him is unbearable. The only thing that scares me about being with him now is losing him.”
When Hisoka finally arrived home, exhausted and with her legs aching from spending the night on her feet, all she wanted to do was to crawl into bed. But as soon as she saw Satoshi huddled in the corner she knew that that possibility was gone. He only ever sat in the corner like that when something had gone wrong. Wordlessly, she walked over to him and sat beside him. He hugged her tightly.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
There was a long pause. “Yes, but …”
“But you can’t.”
“Sorry.”
She sighed and sat with him like that until they both fell asleep on the ground in each other’s arms.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“You’re full of shit, Goshi.”
“Oh, tough talk coming from a fifth grader,” Goshi snorted. “If you’re so sure they don’t exist, why don’t you come underground with us next time?”
“Fine, I will!”
That stupid boast on the walk home from school Monday rang in Jung’s ears now, haunting him. How could he be so stupid to agree to go underground? All he could do now was keep a stiff upper lip and try not to look scared. He was kicking himself as they wound their way down the abandoned train tracks snaking their way to Tokyo Station.
Once they arrived at the station building, they climbed up onto the platform, then made their way over to an entrance boarded up with warped plywood.
Formerly one of the city’s largest transportation hubs, the station now lay dormant. One day, the other stations on the line located underground had flooded. One of the nearby reservoirs in Tokyo’s underground flood management system, already overwhelmed, had suddenly burst, flooding the deeper tunnels almost at once. The whole line had been shuttered overnight. When he’d asked if anyone had been riding the trains when it happened, his parents had just looked away without answering. Since then, he had heard rumors that sometimes they would find the bloated bodies of homeless people and others who had drowned when flash floods swept through the lines.
“Scared?” Yori asked with a wicked grin as he held the plywood open.
“I ain’t scared!” Jung said.
It was a lie; he was terrified of actually going down there. But he couldn’t back down now, not in front of his older friends.
“After you, then!” Yori said.
Jung clicked on his flashlight and stepped into the darkness. His friends followed right behind. They walked down the stairs to the train lines below. The station had an underground arcade attached to it, which featured several restaurants and shops branching off from the underground train lines. This was where they were headed now.
Jung’s flashlight swung around from side to side as he tried to illuminate everything at once. There was trash scattered all over the grimy floors, and the walls were caked with filth. As the light played over the wall, he saw the poster again. The one with the skeleton priestess that had been pasted all over town.
They walked down to the empty underground mall, which had fallen into disrepair. Roots and earth had burst through the tile floors and concrete walls in places. Every surface was slick with a grimy dampness that seemed to chill the air. Dark mold spores appeared in patches on the damp walls, and covered puddles that had formed. At one point he stepped on a patch covering a puddle, soaking his foot in filthy water.
“Don’t touch the mold,” Goshi warned. “It’ll make you see things.”
“Is that trancespore?” Jung asked with wide eyes.
“Yeah. I heard my parents talking about it. They said it makes people go crazy. Lots of people end up killing themselves when they’re on it.”
Yori just shook his head. “Scary. You see that shit everywhere now.”
“The Invited use it for their rituals,” Goshi said.
“Did you see them last time you were down here?” Jung asked. “Did you see any of the Invited?”
After a pause, Goshi said, “No, but we heard things.”
“And there’s definitely some weird stuff under here.”
“Like what?” Jung asked.
“You’ll see.”
They soon entered a former UNIQLO clothing shop. The showroom was nearly empty, save for a few scattered hangers and overturned clothing racks. Jung noticed several skeletons hanging against the back wall. There were three of them, human by the looks of it. They had been nailed to the wall by the hands and now grinned down at him with gaping mouths and empty eye sockets.
“There’s more in the back,” Goshi said, pushing through the door to the back area.
Jung followed him into a narrow corridor with storerooms branching off of it. The hallway itself was lined with bones along the floor and walls, while others hung suspended from the ceiling. The smell was horrific, as some of the bones still contained putrefying bits of flesh on them. Yori pushed through it, however, and took them to one of the empty storerooms.
Here there were more bones and complete skeletons, which looked like they had been arranged in tableaux. Most of them were clearly animal in origin; others appeared human.
“What do you think they do down here?” Goshi asked.
Jung didn’t answer. He didn’t want to think about it.
“Hey, check this out!” Yori called out from somewhere further down the hallway.
The other two hurried after him. They found him standing in the doorway to another storeroom.
“This was locked the last time we were here,” Goshi said.
“Look at this!” Yori said in awe as he walked into the room.
There were several large mounds on the ground, each covered with what looked like trancespore. Jung had never seen such enormous clumps of it before. Dense purple-black tufts crowded over one another in pentagonal patches. The clumps differed from the trancespore they had seen further up. These ones had spores that looked like hooked fingers sprouting from them, almost beckoning them.
“Have you ever seen those things coming out of them?” Yori asked.
Goshi shook his head.
“I’ve never seen it get that big before, either.”
Jung was afraid to get too close for fear that even breathing it in would make him start seeing things. He saw one of the mounds pulsate as if it were breathing, and jumped back.
“Let’s get out of here, guys. I don’t like it down here.”
“What happened to all that tough talk from back on the surface?” Goshi said with a smile.
Jung said nothing; he just glanced around uncomfortably.
“Give us a few more minutes,” Yori said. “Let’s see what else is down here.”
The three of them walked back out into the mall hallway. Jung wanted nothing more than to leave this place, but he was afraid to go alone. So he was stuck walking down deeper into the mall with the others.
“Shh! I hear something!” Goshi said.
Jung listened carefully in the still air trapped underground. He heard it too. Voices. Coming from up ahead.
“Sounds like it came from that room!” Yori said. “Turn off your lights!”
They crept to the doorway of another semi-boarded-up store and peered inside. In the large open area of the store, Jung saw a mass of huddled figures leaning forward as if in prayer. At the back of the room was an elevated platform once used to display products. Now, it was hos
t to a ritual of some sort, illuminated only by flickering candlelight.
Jung and his companions looked on from the relative safety of the darkness. He saw a thin man, wearing a red leather vest that was open to reveal a scarred chest. His face was painted white, save for large black circles around his eyes and on the tip of his nose. Black marks that looked like stitches covered his mouth and extended up his cheeks. When he moved his head, the markings almost seemed to shift and change, as if taking on a different expression.
Off to the side, he could just make out the head of another man. He appeared to be crouching down, which would mean that the man was at least six feet tall. Next to the first man stood a young woman, who was naked from the waist up. She and the other converts in the audience listened to the man in rapt attention.
“… for truly she is the Mother of Life, as well as the Mother of Death. For in the birth of her child Kagu-tsuchi she perished, consumed by the flames of the newborn. Her spirit passed to Yomi, the Shadowlands of the Dead, where her beloved found her.
“And so too must all of the Invited pass through death to reach life. Are you ready to be tested?”
“I am ready,” the woman replied.
“Those that pass through Death may return to the living, while those that remain in Yomi give the living new life. Are you ready to be tested?”
“I am ready.”
“Then let us begin!” the priest said.
He produced a gleaming metal knife. Light glinted off the blade and the jewels embedded in the handle and hilt as he waved it aloft. Now the crouching giant stood and took the knife from the priest. He was easily a head or two taller than the others, with powerful muscles painted black.
“Do not fear the Mother of Death,” the speaker said. “For she welcomes you, as she welcomes us all!”
With that, the giant held the knife up before plunging it into the woman’s stomach carefully, almost tenderly. The woman never flinched. She fell over backwards into the waiting arms of two men who rose from the shadows.
Jung screamed.
The huddled converts turned to face them. An enormous smile broke out upon the priest’s face.
“Ah, welcome children! Come, join us! For you are invited!”
Jung stood petrified in place, but Yori yanked his arm to get him moving. Goshi was already sprinting down the hallway towards the exit. As Jung started running, he could hear the man still calling out after them.
“Do not run, children. She beckons for you! For you are invited! We are all invited!”
When he returned home, Jung crept to his room and fell into a feverish sleep. The dreams he had were some of the most terrifyingly real visions he had ever seen, presided over throughout by the skeleton priest. As nightmarish visions played out in his mind, he could hear screaming coming from somewhere, which only made him more afraid.
He awoke with a start to realize that his parents were in the room comforting him. It took him a moment to realize that he was still screaming. He tried to stop himself, tried to tell himself he was safe.
But it was no use. Now he knew that they were out there. Hiding in the dark, just out of sight. Now Jung would never feel safe again.
He screamed all the louder.
Chapter Twenty-Six
When Satoshi awoke the next day, everything was wrong. It wasn’t just the sick feeling in his stomach from Takeshi’s death. It was like the world itself was coming apart.
He pulled back the curtain in his bedroom to see that the sky was a whirling vortex, a widening gyre of ash and dust spiraling out of control. Flashes of lightning briefly illuminated it even as the dark deepened. The clouds in the sky above were thick and black. They crashed over one another like waves borne aloft by a great tide, with flashes of lightning that periodically illuminated the churning.
Not bothering with his protective gear, he walked outside. The morning was eerily deserted, more than he had ever seen in this city. He began walking aimlessly, without really knowing where he was heading. Soon, he began to sense that he was being followed. Several times he looked back, but there was nothing there in the empty streets. So he pressed on, hoping the feeling would pass. But it didn’t. The sense of being followed blossomed from a creeping paranoia into a suffocating dread within his chest.
Whatever it was was always there behind him. Just out of sight, out of reach. Every time he turned back, it would be there, just a corner away. Slip up and it would be on him. Stumble and it would devour him. His breathing grew labored and his pulse quickened as he struggled to stay one step ahead of the creeping madness devouring everything behind him. It was as if every alley, building, and person he left in his wake was just sucked backwards into its gaping maw. Soon he would make a wrong step, and it would devour him too.
He wanted to stay away from home. He didn’t want to go there, for reasons that weren’t quite clear to him. But the longer he was out, the longer he was pursued, the more it kept pulling him. After a while, it started to feel inevitable, like he was running out of side streets and back alleys to run down. Before long, he knew that he had no choice. That he had to go home, that the way out lay there.
And so, unable to avoid it any longer, he opened the door to the home he shared with Hisoka and fell inside. He lay panting on the ground, sucking in air in ragged gulps. He looked up when he heard someone gasp. He saw her there—Hisoka. Staring at him with eyes huge with terror. He got up and went to her, but she just shrank away. One of her thin arms instinctively covered the recent bulge of her belly, the other feeling the wall as she backed away from him.
And then the rage filled him with a white-hot intensity. As she recoiled, he advanced, until he was looming over her. She was shaking her head and mouthing some feeble protest. But it was no matter. Because right now, he wanted to hurt someone he loved. And the way to do that was right in front of him. He reached out and took Hisoka by the neck as his other hand brought up the blade. She began to scream, and the darkness that had been just out of reach swallowed him.
When it was over, he sat there, neither happy nor sad. The only feeling in him was that it was done. He looked from the crumpled body at his side to his blood-soaked hands. He felt like he should feel something now, but nothing came. No, that wasn’t quite right. He felt like the scales had been balanced. Like a wrong had been … not righted, but avenged.
He realized then, as he stared at his shaky hands sticky with hot blood, that he was the horror lurking in the shadows.
And there was no escaping him.
Satoshi stood in the massive courtyard to the sprawling temple complex. Sengaku Temple was in the middle of Tokyo, but it might as well have been a different world. It was an oasis of calm, self-reflective quiet and peace within a hive of people and concrete. He looked up and saw skyscrapers looming in from every direction, wreathed in the heavy fog that blanketed the sky.
He was still shaken from Takeshi’s death. And the dream he had awoken to this morning had unnerved him further still. It was sometimes like that after using Dextro-MXE, but usually not that bad. He must have taken too large of a dose. That would explain the jittery, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Then again, maybe that was just nerves. After all, he was going to see Masa today for the first time in a long time. He wasn’t looking forward to the encounter.
Of course, he still had no idea whether Masa would even show up or not. Regardless, he passed through the brilliant red temple building that led into the grounds. He never remembered any of the temples being this showy when he was growing up, but lately it seemed that every temple, shrine, and torii gate had been given a bright paint job to make it stand out. He figured it was because the added splash of color helped to make up for the constant gray from the skies above. Or possibly so the holy wouldn’t be entirely obscured by the mundane.
Once inside, he walked over to the water fountain and picked up the ladle. He washed his left hand, then his right, then rinsed his mouth and spat the water onto the ground. Once cleansed, S
atoshi began wandering through the temple grounds, following the concrete paths that led around the inner courtyard. He walked for several minutes, silently wondering how long he would wait for Masa to show.
The inside of the temple grounds was largely deserted, save for a few priests. Even these figures barely seemed real, barely more than phantoms in the mist. The dense fog hanging heavy in the air made it impossible to see the opposite side of the courtyard.
After a few more minutes, Satoshi came to a twisted pine tree ensconced behind a low fence made of bamboo tubes that had been lashed together. The tree was warped beyond all recognition, its black trunk and branches tracing a torturous path through the air. Its nettles were more ash-gray than green. He was starting to hope that Masa wouldn’t show.
As he stared at the twisted tree, the temple bell sounded a deep and solemn tone that startled some birds to flight from a nearby tree. Satoshi turned at the noise and watched them depart, and as did he became aware of a figure approaching him through the mist.
He heard the crunching of feet over the gravel as the person came directly at him, eschewing the concrete path in favor of the direct route. After a moment, the wind blew and the fog cleared enough to reveal the approaching figure. Even with his heavy overcoat and respirator mask, he was unmistakable.
Masa.
Masa stopped in front of him and pushed his respirator aside to reveal his face. It was the same face Satoshi had known since childhood, though older now, and more deeply scarred. Masa stood almost a full head shorter than Satoshi, with close-cropped hair that was creeping away from his forehead. His eyes, at times lively and impish, were now impassive and cloudy. His skin had a dark tint that was almost Okinawan. A deep scar started up just under his left eye and traveled the length of his face before ending halfway down his neck, right above where his tattoos took over.
The two of them stood there for a long moment, staring at one another without speaking.
Tokyo Noir: The Complete First Season Page 16