The Foragers

by Katherine Nader

  The cigarette fell out of Masaki’s mouth.

  “You brought a soldier into the forest?!” he yelled.

  “No, no, no, he’s a friend.” I crossed both hands over each other several times to explain to the soldier. “He’s not going to harm you.”

  “I can’t believe you brought a soldier into the forest!” Masaki loosened a kunai from the chain around his wrists and flicked it open in his right hand. “Stay back, Ossan.”

  “Oh, like a knife is going to do anything,” I mocked, as I took a step closer to the soldier. “Calm down, sunny, he’s just a friend. He’s going to help us find Soo Hyeon. Remember? Soo Hyeon.”

  “Soo Hyeon?” the soldier asked.

  “Who the hell is Soo Hyeon?” Masaki spun the blade on the end of his chain. His head spun in all directions, and his dilated eyes searched for anyone or anything to attack. “Do I have to kill her too?”

  The soldier aimed his rifle at Masaki.

  “No, no, no.” I stood between them. “No one’s going to kill anybody. I told you, we’re going to help you.”

  “Who’s going to help him?” Masaki yelled. “Me? Ossan, you have lost your mind. Do I need to kill you, too?”

  “Shut up, Masaki,” I snapped back at him. “That’s the venom talking. I’m trying to calm him down, and you’re about to get us all killed.”

  “Soo Hyeon?” the soldier asked again.

  “Yes, yes,” I nodded. “The girl with the long black hair.” I gestured over my head. “Now put the gun down and come over here slowly.”

  The soldier hesitated and nodded toward Masaki’s spinning blade.

  “Where is she?” Masaki yelled hysterically.

  “Put the blade down, Masaki.”

  “Shiksho.”

  “Masaki, put the blade down.”

  Masaki released the chain and the blade struck the ground. “This is all your fault, old man. You and your god damn hare. Vegetarian? Pfft.” Masaki spat.

  “I can get rid of that for you. The taste of metal. It’s a side effect of the drug.”

  Masaki unclipped his blade from the chain.

  The soldier lowered his gun and approached us slowly.

  “See? That wasn’t so bad.” I turned to the soldier.

  Masaki sprinted over to the soldier and punched him to the ground.

  “You little—”

  “Hey!” I caught Masaki’s fist. “He’s got a military phone on him and those things come with a tracker. What if his platoon comes looking for him? We can’t have his dead body lying around here.”

  “Who are you?” Masaki clutched onto the soldier’s collar, yanked him up and then threw him to the ground again.

  I grabbed the soldier’s arm, helped him to his feet and slapped the dust off him.

  “What are we going to do?” Masaki paced back and forth. “We are so screwed!”

  “He’s looking for his girlfriend,” I told Masaki. “Once he finds her, he’ll be on his way. It’s no big deal.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me! Listen, Ossan, I had no part in this, okay?! There’s only so much time left before the round is over so this place better be cleared out before then…including him! I don’t care where he’s from or why he’s here. There better not be any more soldiers like him trespassing like this, or I’m going to personally end you!” Masaki shoved me with his shoulder and climbed over the fence. When he was no longer in sight, I bent down to pick up the soldier’s rifle, strapped it around my shoulder and packed his bag.

  “You have to get out of here.” I searched the ground for anything else.

  “Soo Hyeon?”

  “There is no Soo Hyeon, okay?” I yelled at the soldier. “Go back to your country!”

  “No!” The soldier remained still. “I-I can’t go back. I ran away from my service. You know what happens to South Korean soldiers who run away? They get sentenced for a life time in prison…e-even death.”

  “Well, it’s your fault you came here.”

  “Please, I have to find Soo Hyeon.” The soldier took out a GPS from his backpack where red dots blinked on the map. “These are the places she visited in the past year.”

  “Listen bud, she probably just left you, okay? Just move on, there’s nobody here except her cell phone—doesn’t mean it was her who visited all these places. Things get moved around a lot.”

  “No, that’s not true. Soo Hyeon would never leave me. After I got called in for my service, Soo Hyeon had to find a job. We were supposed to get married.” The soldier grabbed my shoulders. “When she found out how much money the winners of the contest are awarded, she took a boat here from South Korea last year and—”

  “Wait, your girlfriend was a contestant?”

  The soldier nodded. “I only found out recently that her parents have been looking for her for the past year.”

  “I should’ve known.” I slapped my forehead continuously and walked past him. “You idiot, how are you going to explain this to him? That his girlfriend might be dead?” I turned back to the soldier. “Look, uhh…what’s your name?”

  “Tae Won,” the soldier replied.

  “I don’t think we’ll be able to find your girlfriend. All the winners from last year either disappeared or…”

  “Or what?” Tae Won shook me by the shoulders.

  “Or…I’ll tell you what, why don’t you join the contest yourself and see where the M— I mean the owners take the winners after?” I rummaged through my jacket pockets. “Here.” I handed him two badges, pulled out a yellow sticky note and scribbled a number. “At least now you don’t look like you trespassed. You are going to have to give me something else in return.”

  I took the black phone from the bag and kissed it. “Yes! I can finally have my phone call. Where are you going? You can’t join the game looking like that.” I gestured for Tae Won to come back, took off my jacket, pants and boots and handed them over. “Now give me your clothes…and your backpack…no, I won’t touch the things inside, I promise. Now give it to me…that a boy.”

  Tae Won held onto his rifle tightly. “You can pick it up after the contest is over. I promise. It’ll be just over the bridge.”

  Tae Won nodded and handed over his military clothes. He followed the path Masaki disappeared in.

  On the way back, I found a footprint similar to the one Tae Won and I found on the other side of the lake. The front sole of the print pointed to the water of Aoike Lake. The one on the other side of the lake had the heel coming out of the water.

  Did someone walk in and out of this lake?

  I pushed the thought away. The Mori children always played around here anyway. I stared into Aoike Lake. I couldn’t see my reflection, not from this end.

  I climbed the slope to the bridge, crossed to the other side where the garbage bags lay, hauled them over my back and headed home. Two large red pillars of Cypress wood stood on opposite ends of the tori gate. A black rectangular head board connected them at the roof. A shimenawa rope stretched from corner to corner of the roof holding a picture of a white God in the center—a Shirakami.

  I followed the dry path under the gate and headed to the wooden steps that led to the main hall of the square shaped temple. Four red pillars on each corner supported the black-shingled roof. I kicked the screen door to the side, dropped the bags on the matted floor, sat down with my back facing them and untied my muddy black boots to keep them outside.

  A light turned on in the hall, the heavy scent of incense flooded my nose, and I rose to my feet. A tall white man with wet blonde hair stood in front of the hearth, holding one of my matches.

  “Who are you?”

  “I came to see the forager.” The white man dropped something onto the center of the table. The light went out and the man lit another match. I peered under the light and saw American dollar bills held together with an elastic band.

  “Now, where’s badge number nine?”

  Chapter Five

  Nick

  A clock
ticked behind me. I tried to get up, only to be pulled down by handcuffs that shackled my wrists to a table. Grey concrete walls caved in on me. There was nothing but a locked door and a black window. A man, with a shirt buttoned tightly around his belly, walked in with a stack of files tucked under his arm.

  “Good, you’re awake,” he said.

  Flashing colors blinded me and my head throbbed around my skull.

  “You really know how to take a hit, don’t you?” the man said.

  “Captain?” I squinted from the fluorescent lights. I felt like someone had bashed my head in.

  “I’m not your captain anymore, Nick.” He sighed. “It’s over.” He opened the files onto the table to reveal a lawsuit. “I warned you, Nick. I told you to stay away from the big fish. These people are going to keep coming after you until you’re dead.”

  “On what charge?” I yelled.

  “You name it. Trespassing, defamation, even felony.” The captain spread out the pictures in front of me. Each one had depicted a crash, one in the surveillance room, another in the labs. “Now, are you going to tell me that that’s not you?” The captain tapped his fingers against the last picture.

  I saw my face in the corner of it and squeezed my eyes shut.

  “Get him some coffee, will you?” The captain knocked on the window.

  “I heard someone call for help,” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah, we checked the entire premises, there was no one there.”

  I cleared the table with both hands, banging my fists down. “No! They’re lying! They’re not just a biotech company, the experiments, the bio-weapons…they call themselves the Kan! I got it all at my place. Just take a look.”

  “Already did, Nick. We got nothing. You got nothing. As far as we know,”—the captain pointed a thumb at the window behind him—“you’re making it all up. I understand, Nick. You want their attention to be on the screens, watching the crowd’s praise. You want to be America’s hero who saves the day. We all do. But not this time.”

  “What’s it going to take to drop the charges?”

  “You drop your case against them—”

  “No, you don’t understand—”

  “No, Nick. You don’t understand. It’s over. I’m going to need your badge and your gun.”

  ***

  Beep. Beep. The cab honked in the middle of New York City’s busiest street.

  “I’ll get out here.” I dropped ten bucks onto the passenger seat, opened the door, and hit the car next to me. “Sorry.” I waved, coffee in hand, and crammed myself out the small space. The sun scorched down my back as I crossed onto the sidewalk and headed into a ten-story building.

  “Nick, Nick.” A man in a suit and tie stopped me at the door. “You can’t be here.”

  “I’m here to get my stuff, Jim.”

  Jim blocked my way into the elevator. “Don’t.”

  “Sorry.” I kneed him in the stomach and shoved past him into the elevator.

  “I need all men on guard,” Jim ordered into his receiver.

  I tapped the button furiously as the doors closed. My hand instinctively reached for my waist. “Crap.” I loosened a metal bar from the wall of the elevator and hid by the door. The elevator opened and two men scuttled in. When they turned, I jammed the bar into one’s face and knocked out a gun from another. The bar cracked down on one’s shoulder and he crashed into the other. I slipped between doorways and corners, finally reaching my corridor. An armed man in a suit guarded the door to my apartment. I pulled one of the men’s receivers to my mouth. “One man down. I repeat: one man down.”

  The man at the door picked up the signal and scurried down the corridor past me.

  I dashed into my apartment. It had been torn apart from corner to corner. Boxes were emptied out on the floor, and the wind from the window blew papers into a pile. I pulled down the yellow tape and turned down a hall to my bedroom. My wall had been punched in, leaving a pin board hanging on one angle. All my research was gone. The captain was right. I stepped into a pile of clippings. One caught my eye. A giant smile was plastered on a girl’s freckled face as she stood in a forest holding a check. The header read: “We have a winner.”

  ***

  Silvery rays penetrated the dense canopy above. Birdsong came in lulls and bursts, and my fingers came away dry from the soft and damp moss beneath me. The water flowed quietly and black trunks against a bluish charcoal sky surrounded me. I pulled myself up. The path I was once on had become a deep brown. I rapidly breathed in the cool air and my head throbbed. I rubbed the back of my head to find dried blood on my fingers and jerked around to the tree and wires hanging from a branch.

  He was gone.

  Darkness pressed in on me from all sides. He must have somehow cut himself loose and knocked me out with a rock. Muffled sounds came in from a distance. I searched the black ground and came across my bag, pulling out a receiver.

  A number of voices spoke in Japanese, tuning in and out.

  “Subete Juniko ni kuru,” a voice ordered.

  “Shima,” I whispered. I shoved my things into my bag and headed towards the sound of the river. Taking a few gulps, I saw an orange glow from within the trees and smelled smoke. I came across a narrow path down a hill, uneven by knotted roots. Songs and cheers permeated from the trees. A twig snapped under my foot and a strap wrapped around my ankle. I bent down to find a camera.

  “Yes,” I whispered, turning it on. A video started playing on the screen and I let the LED light shine the way through the forested path. A girl with long black hair appeared on the screen. She talked into the camera and then turned it to show an older man with a scruff. He sat on a couch with a newspaper in hand.

  “Oto-san,” she said. The man looked up and smiled at the camera. They exchanged with each other in Japanese, and the girl kissed her father on his cheek. The video skipped to the girl in a helicopter talking to the camera. She jumped out the door, a man strapped behind her. She dropped through the air with the camera shaking as snippets of the forest and the mountains came into view. The video cut out when they landed and skipped to the line-up at the base. I let it play while I used the light to take my steps carefully. The orange glow in the distance got bigger and bigger.

  “Welcome to the Shirakami-Sanchi forest,” the voice said. I looked at the video to see the girl standing in front of a familiar backdrop. “It’s known as Japan’s White-God Mountain or, as I like to call it, the place where you come to die.” She laughed. “Ok, let me try again. Scan lines cut through the video. “Welcome to the Shirakami-Sanchi forest.”

  “Welcome, brother,” a voice hissed at me in the dark. I pointed the camera up to find a man peering down at me. He grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me into an open area by a bonfire.

  “Hey!” A crowd cheered as I stumbled in.

  “Come, come and join us.” A man with broad shoulders and arms as thick as a boulder ushered me closer.

  “Oh-kay?” I shut off the camera and tucked it into my bag. “What’s going on here?”

  “It’s Iyomante,” he said. “The sacrifice for the Gods!”

  I felt the air lodge into my throat. I watched people huddle around the bonfire, singing and biting meat off bones.

  “You hungry?” the man asked. He brought a bone close to my face. I grabbed it and bit into the chunk of meat.

  “He-hey!” the crowd cheered.

  I held the bone up in the air. “Th-thanks.” I grabbed a seat next to a woman on a log.

  “I’m Tami.” She shook my hand.

  “Nick.” I swallowed. “This is really good, what is it?”

  “Kuma,” she said. “Uh…bear.”

  I choked. A man passed by and I lowered the bone into his plate.

  Tami laughed. “Is this your first time in Japan?”

  I nodded. The man with broad shoulders grabbed the head of the bear and raised it above his head.

  “Rawr!” he shouted to his friends. They all laughed.

&nb
sp; “That’s Goro,” Tami said. “He likes to be called the leader around here.”

  “And what do you call him?”

  “My brother.”

  “Tami.” A man approached with a rifle slung around his shoulder. He had a receiver strapped to his chest.

  “Shinriki?” Tami embraced him. They held each other’s banded hands.

  “It’s Keitaro,” Shinriki said.

  “Stay here.” Tami turned to me. She walked over to a tree where a man lay on the ground, and pressed two fingers against his neck. “Goro, I need some help over here.”

  Goro put down the bear head and gestured for another man to come with him. They lifted the body on the ground and brought him closer to the fire.

  “You made it, Keitaro!” Goro cheered. Keitaro gave them a weak smile as he lay by the fire.

  “Hardly,” Tami warned. “He shouldn’t have jumped over that fence and forced his way in.”

  “Yeah, but we had your husband to thank.” Goro nodded to Shinriki.

  My eyes landed on his hunting gear. “You’re a Kuma Hunter.”

  “Yes, he is,” Tami answered. She lifted Keitaro’s legs onto a log, pulled out a pocket knife, and cut his shirt open. Rashes and bumps crowded his chest. “When did you get bit?” Tami slapped Keitaro awake.

  “What happened to him?” I asked Goro.

  “It’s the wasps. They’re massive and pack a deadly punch here. See that guy over there?” Goro pointed to a young man with a vest. “He lost a finger.”

  Keitaro yelped as Tami smudged berries on his chest.

  “How’d you manage to sneak him into the contest?” I asked Goro.

  “Tami’s husband helps a lot around here.” Goro tapped Shinriki on his broad back. “He’s our eyes.”

  “Are you all this big around here?” I asked. “It’s just cause you’re all about the same size, dark-skinned, and look very different from Japanese people.”