The Foragers

by Katherine Nader

  “Let me guess, another one of their experiments?”

  “They’re calling it the seventy-seventh Emperor. You know the one who put an end to the assassins and established the royal samurai clan? I can’t remember what they’re calling him but all I know is that he’s deadly.” I pulled on the bandages around Makoto’s eyes and heard a crash. I pulled myself up on my elbows. A scream followed.

  “What was that?”

  “That’s Nurse Yu.” Mrs. Mori released me and felt the floor.

  “I don’t suppose you will be needing this?” I handed her the cane. “You swept me off my feet pretty quickly.”

  She grinned, retracted her blade, sheathed it in the cane and walked out through the sliding door. We strode to the end of the west wing and followed a crowd of staff to the entrance of a bedroom.

  “Oji-san!” Makoto ran from my side, through the crowd and to the old man in the bed. She felt for his pulse. I sighed and pushed through the little assassins.

  “He’s dead.” I looked at his eyes. “I would say around an hour ago. He’s still warm.” I raised the bed sheet, found a long yellow strand of hair on the body, sniffed it, looked down and found two small puncture holes in the middle of a swollen white circle on the old man’s chest. “A bite mark?”

  “I-I found the container open, Mrs. Mori,” Nurse Yu stuttered. “The sp-spider, its gone!”

  Makoto slapped the nurse across the face. “What were you thinking?!” She kicked the nurse to the floor and raised her cane to beat her.

  I grabbed the cane. “I think what the nurse here is trying to say, is that a little girly, possibly blonde, was here.” I searched for the phone in my pocket and flipped it open.

  “It was that Kan girl. I know it was her!” Makoto grabbed my arm. “If only Nurse Yu had arrived on time to wake Oji-san up, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  Nurse Yu cried on her knees.

  “I know a guy,” I said. Everybody looked at me. I recognized many of them as contestants from the past decade.

  “No, no cops,” some whispered. They looked at me with wide eyes as though scared for their lives. I wondered how many crimes the Mori Clan would get accused of, how many of those children in front of me would spend the rest of their lives in jail. Makoto would find anyone to pin this on. I dialed the number on my phone. “We have a situation …”

  “Where’s my husband?” Makoto cried. Takeshi walked in the second after.

  “Oto-san! Oto-san!” He ran to the bed and shook the body. “What happened?” He looked at Nurse Yu crying and his eyes followed the cane nearby till they landed on Makoto.

  “I heard Nurse Yu scream and I came here as soon as I could—”

  “Where were you?” Takeshi snapped.

  “She was with me,” I explained, covering the mouth piece on my phone.

  “We were in the middle of a meeting—a shareholder’s meeting,” Makoto continued, ”and Oji-san was lying so still.” She shook her head. Makoto was never sad.

  “I found this hair.” I showed the strand to Takeshi. “I know a guy who’s very discrete. He’ll get it scanned at the police station just like that.” I snapped my fingers. “He won’t say a word.”

  “No, no. I don’t want any police on my property,” Takeshi said quickly. “I don’t want them to poke their noses around here. This is private property.” Sweat trickled down his forehead. Was he nervous?

  “Moshi, moshi …” a voice answered the phone.

  “Can I call you back?” I cupped my mouth. “Ok, ok.” I hung up. “Do you have a DNA gel electrophoresis?”

  “Hideki-san, Mori Group is a biotech company. You can find everything you need at our research facilities downstairs. I will take you.” He raised the white sheet over the body, paused at the head, closed his eyes and released it. I followed him through the crowd and took one last look at Makoto sitting by the side of the old man’s bed, resting her head on the cane.

  “It just doesn’t make sense,” Takeshi said with an upturned mouth, a tense look in his cold eyes and a wrinkled forehead. “Everyone in this family was raised with Moris. We’ve all been bitten, we’ve all become immune, and even one bite wouldn’t kill this fast. Something’s wrong.”

  “Well there are two possibilities here. Either this Kan girl, Mak—the one Mori-san keeps talking about—injected your father with a higher dose and staged it to make it look like it was the spider, or …”

  “Or what?” Mr. Mori walked me away from the door and gestured for me to keep going as we went down the west wing.

  Or this whole crime was staged by your wife...

  “Look, I’m no doctor here, but I know when there’s been a struggle prior to death. I watch a lot of contestants die, Mori-san. I study them, examine every condition and trace every single injury back to its kill. If your father is as immune as you say so, there wouldn’t be any swelling. But there was. It was cardiac inflammation.”

  “What does this mean?”

  “Many autopsy results report cardiac inflammation in heart attack victims. I’m sorry, Mori-san, but I believe that based on my analysis of his condition—”

  “You think he died from a heart attack?!”

  “Yes.”

  Takeshi seemed impressed by my deduction.

  “Does your father take sleeping drugs by any chance? One bite of a spider like this combined with the drug effect can induce a heart attack. There are many forces at play here and I suppose the person this hair strand belongs to will have the answers.”

  Takeshi grabbed a receiver off a guard passing by.

  “Send forensics from the lab to scan for any fingerprints,” he ordered into the device and tucked it into the guard’s trouser pocket. He turned around the end of the west wing and headed down the corridor that led to the elevator, giving orders to a few approaching men as they bowed and took their leave. A door from the east wing opened to a garden. A figure shifted among the bushes. More guards ran past me, followed by forensics in blue face masks, yellow gloves and white uniforms.

  “Mind if I smoke outside?” I took out my pack. “I know where the lab is. Here, it’ll only take a minute.” I handed forensics the strand of hair. One of them locked it in a plastic bag. Takeshi continued down the dark and torch-lit corridor. I watched him till I could only see his mere shadow turn at the corner. I tapped the pack against the side of my leg. One cigarette popped out. I tucked it between my lips, headed to the open door and smelled Mantema flowers along with a mix of matcha.

  “It’s time to speak up,” I heard a whisper. “Where’s my son?”

  The figure sat on a white stone, and I gradually recognized it as Makoto.

  “Everything I do is for you. I want to go home, Makoto. I regret ever working in the labs, ever creating this game with you. T-this forest … all it has ever done is cause harm to these contestants, we have been causing them harm. It’s enough. No more games, Makoto.”

  I lit the Seven Stars cigarette.

  “Your son is Minoru, Haruki,” Makoto said. She took a sip of the basin water with the bamboo dipper, her shoulders lay calm, her stand lay firm and her face lay without expression.

  I puffed.

  “Is this a joke?”

  “He’s turning eighteen soon.” The bamboo dipper dropped into the water basin. “It’s been almost eighteen years, Haruki.”

  I puffed.

  “All this time… All this time you have been lying to me.” A shadow dispatched from underneath the golden spruce tree and joined Makoto’s shadow. Long hair fell from his head, torn clothes from his body, and the stench of garbage hung in the air. “I only have one son, Makoto, and his name is Shouta. I have a wife waiting for me. I haven’t seen her in ten years! My son was just a little boy when I left him. You lied to me! You said you’d give me information about my family, but you’re not my family, Makoto.”

  “Your wife is dead,” Makoto said. The shadow trembled and leaned against the fence.

  “I dispatched one of m
y children to locate her in Aomori.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “She died two weeks ago … I’m sorry.”

  “You’re lying!” The shadow shook Makoto. “You’re lying!”

  “Shhh … keep your voice down.”

  “What about my son? My son Shouta.” He shook her again. “Did you kill him too?”

  I threw the cigarette and crushed it into the ground with my foot until all the tar squeezed out. I had been trying to quit but I didn’t think I’d be able to now. Makoto shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. The man released his hold of her shoulders. “Villagers say he went searching for you.”

  The man pushed Makoto away.

  “Haruki?” she called after him. He climbed up the tree and over the fence. “Haruki?”

  “Hideki-san?” a voice behind me called. I turned around to see a young forensic girl speak from a white mask around her face. “Mori-san is waiting for you.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Enura

  “How much longer?” Eli hugged her knees close to her face. She rocked back and forth with an empty cup of ramen by her feet. “I can’t hold it in much longer.”

  “She’ll be here soon,” I assured her, putting out the fire.

  “Why can’t you take me? My brother always does it,” Eli pouted. “I can just hide behind a bush. It won’t take long.”

  “When Maya comes back, she will take you,” I insisted.

  “Take her to do what?” a voice echoed in the cave as Maya appeared.

  “To pee,” Eli and I answered at the same time.

  Maya slowly put down a metal case of USW; her blades clinked against each other at her side.

  “A sonic weapon?” I turned my back to Eli and whispered to Maya, “Wouldn’t that cause a blast?”

  “Not if we set it up correctly,” she explained.

  “I really need to go,” Eli complained.

  Maya knelt down and opened the case. “It’s got a variation of frequencies.” She revealed a circular device. “Even the lowest frequency can make them go crazy. With the venom coursing through their veins, their senses will be enhanced enough to pick it up. The rest of us won’t hear a thing.”

  “How do you know all this?” I asked.

  “Think of it this way: When they come too close to the light, they’ll drop like flies. They’re not called the Kan for nothing, you know. K-a-n, the sight—”

  “The Ki.”

  “Hello?” Eli urged. “Guys!”

  “What?” We both jerked our heads around.

  “Let’s go!”

  “Right.” I rolled up my sleeves, flinching from the pain in my shoulder, and bent down to pick up the case.

  “I’ve got it.” Maya smiled.

  We clambered down the ridge and back into the maze. We followed the rocky path almost a mile before it went out into the forest. Eli skimpered to the nearest bush while Maya kept watch. I sat on a nearby rock sharpening my blades.

  “I wonder where Celio is,” Eli said from behind the bush. “We shouldn’t have let him go by himself.”

  “He’s a big boy now; he can take care of himself,” Maya said, her arms crossed and her back toward Eli. “Besides, once the initial round is over, I’m putting you on a plane.”

  “With Celio?” Eli complained.

  “With or without him. You and your brother made a big mistake coming here.”

  “If you’ve been looking out for us this whole time, where were you when I was kidnapped?”

  “I was there the whole time. I wanted to see what your brother was like in the field, and I came to the conclusion that he’s got what it takes to make it out of here. You don’t. If he wants to be found, then so be it, but he shouldn’t risk your life for his mistakes.”

  “I’m not going without him,” Eli insisted. “If I go, he goes.”

  “We’ll see about that. Are you done now?”

  “Yup. Can I have a tissue?”

  “Enura,” Maya called as I set up another trap. “You got any tissues?”

  “In the bag,” I said, not moving. Maya marched to the fence, bent down to my bag, and picked up a packet of tissues. “I really hope this works,” I said, eying the case.

  “It will.” Maya squeezed my hand. When she tried to let go, I squeezed back.

  “Maya, you know I would do anything for you, right?”

  I recalled the time when the alarms went off in The Mori Residence seven years ago. How the building had shook and the floor had collapsed under my feet. The pain of my head whacking the ground. The ringing in my ears. A good dozen men went down with me. I’d squinted through the smoke and dust to see Maya, just a girl, and a boy climb their way out of the vault...

  “After them!” Guards ran down the other side of the corridor. The hole in the floor kept them at a distance as they tried to find a way to cross over. They aimed their guns through the smoke and debris. “Shoot at everything that moves,” one of the guards had ordered.

  A boulder trapped my leg as I tried to crawl free. My eyes found a blade in the distance and I stretched my fingers toward it. Maya and the boy limped past. She kicked the blade away, shots rang out, and they disappeared around the corner.

  Blood spilled next to me from a man’s arm as he groaned.

  “We got five men down!” I shouted. In the thick cloud of dust, I reached my hand up towards the guards. “Don’t shoot...”

  The bulletfire stopped and I exhaled in relief.

  “Keep shooting!” someone barked. “We can’t let the intruders get away. It’s their lives for ours. Get me security on the line. I need to see where this corridor leads.”

  Gunfire reverberated through the residence.

  “No!” I yelled, ducking my head. Cold hands brushed under my arms and heaved. I turned around to see Maya. “Let me go,” I grunted, squirming out of her grasp.

  “I’m trying to save your life,” she said.

  I kicked the boulder with my other foot as she dragged me across the floor and to the corner. She dropped me down against the wall, the boy next to me on the verge of losing consciousness. I saw her whisk away a bundle of blades from the waist of a stiff body. Shots halted one by one. Turning my head down the corner, I saw Maya disarm all the guards. She ran back to my side, lifting the boy up by the arm.

  “Why did you do that?” I asked, feeling faint from my bleeding leg.

  “I don’t want anyone dying because of me,” she said.

  “Enura?”

  I jerked back into the present.

  “Thank you,” Maya said unsteadily as she drew her hand away and trudged back to the trees. “Here you go,” she bent down behind the bush. “Oh, no.”

  “What?” I turned around, carrying the case.

  “She’s gone.”

  I rushed to Maya’s side to find the bushes clear.

  “We have to find her!” Maya panicked, her hands rubbing against her head. “We don’t have time for this.”

  “Here.” I handed her the case. “You go do your thing. I’ll find her.”

  “No, I should do it,” she said. “I already failed them once. I can’t do that again.”

  “Hey.” I put the case down and rested my hands on her shoulder. “Everyone’s lives are at stake here. Only you know how to set up these traps. I’ll find her. She couldn’t have gone far. Now, go.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Minoru

  For the past three mornings, Shirakawa did a hundred and fifty push-ups, a hundred chin-ups from a tree branch, and amputated trees with a number of blows. Sometimes he stopped to do a plank for an hour, the bear tooth drooping from around his neck, but most of the time he walked. He never slept, and would sit cross-legged at night near the lake, his arms crossed, eyes closed, and his long black hair dangling down his back. He never ate and, if he did, I never saw him. He eyed moving objects and smelled them from a distance, but never approached them. Shirakawa lived
a dull life. He could spend hours staring into the water, never drinking from it. For three days, my life had been all about Shirakawa. Shirakawa did this, Shirakawa did that. No weapons stood out on him, no badges, no food, money or any other kind of accessory. Shirakawa was just Shirakawa.

  I watched the setting sun and its reflection in the lake. Ossan taught me this trick when it came to reading the time by examining the sun and its reflection in the water. The lake’s circular shape and concaved edges reflected things around it at a certain angle. Ossan used this trick to locate objects or even people that fell in. It must have been almost eight o’clock at night. Soon, the moon would appear and darkness would mask everything around us.

  I remembered when Mother would walk across the bridge trail over the lake at night. Mother loved to see it, but only at midnight did the black water lake shine.

  Shirakawa took longer than usual this time, watching the water and waiting. I crawled slowly over the tree, the pointed blades from my soles pushing me up. I peered over the branch to look into the water. Shirakawa’s reflection smiled at me. A poison needle swept past me and pierced the bark of the tree I crawled on. My ear almost touched it. I covered my nose and mouth and jumped from the branch, coming face to face with Shirakawa.

  “That was very smart of you,” Shirakawa grinned. “Had you moved any later, one sniff of that would’ve killed you. Omoishiroi ne?”

  I drew all six kunai, each hand trembling for blood, and paced around my prey. Every time he had kneeled by the water, he waited. He waited for me to attack. That’s what he watched for. I lunged at him from all directions. His black trousers tore above the knee and behind the calf. His sleeve tore from his shirt, and the kunai screeched against his shoulder blades, leaving three wide red marks in the center of his chest. I grabbed a tree branch and swung myself over it to watch my prey fall. Shirakawa stabbed me with his deep black eyes but held no expression. The wound on his arm from the torn sleeve closed and his chest healed. He didn’t shed a drop of blood.