by Adam Millard
She was on top, her back arched, rocking gently back and forth. Her back shimmered with sweat; her long dark hair was painted to her neck and shoulders. I couldn’t see the man, other than his twitching feet. He grunted something in Japanese, to which she responded: “Yesssssssss.”
Forbidden love, perhaps? An Englishwoman and a Japanese man escaping to the forest to consummate a marriage? More likely, I was witnessing an illicit affair at its most primal moment. Maybe he had a wife, or she a husband, and Aokigahara was the last place on earth anyone would discover their infidelity.
How wrong they were.
I took a photograph, saw it was blurry and deleted it before raising the camera once again.
The woman had pushed herself up onto her knees and was slowly lowering herself down onto the man’s impressive shaft. Up and down, up and down, sliding and moaning. I realized I hadn’t breathed in almost a minute and let out a slow, deliberate gasp. My own erection was uncomfortable, and I had to shift position, being careful not to give myself away.
I took another picture. This time the image was sharp. So sharp that I could make out the small, dark tattoo on the woman’s right shoulder. No, I mouthed, my heart racing, but as I zoomed in on the tattoo, my fingers almost too slippery with sweat to hit the correct button, I saw that it was a tribal ohm. No, I mouthed again, though this time a whisper escaped my lips.
I knew that tattoo; had seen it a thousand times before, but it couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible, and it certainly made no sense.
I raised the camera again. I watched the viewfinder as my right thumb slipped around the zoom button. The image got larger and larger, out of focus, in focus, until I could see the individual strands of hair clinging to the woman’s neck and shoulders.
And then she slowly turned her head, as if she had known I was there all along, and the smile stretching across her face seemed to be mocking me as she continued to ride the mystery man. Something inside me died, like a candle’s flame being snuffed out at the end of the night.
Kelly?
She quickened her pace, her eyes still focused on mine, and the man bucked beneath her, grunting and groaning longer and harder now, and I no longer cared if they heard me or saw me. I leapt to my feet and rushed across the clearing to where they fucked, and still she smiled, and rode, and moaned.
Even when she saw the knife in my hand…
I grabbed her by the throat and threw her backwards, uncoupling them, toppling her from the man whose eyes were shut tight in pure ecstasy.
The happy camper? No, this guy was older—a lot older—but I didn’t care as I plunged the knife downwards into the sonofabitch’s throat. Blood geysered up into my face as I hacked away, slashing at the fucker’s neck and head with my miniature lock-knife. He never once opened his eyes, and I wondered if he even knew what was happening.
“Fucking! Bitch! Again!” I screamed. I would deal with Kelly in a moment, but for now my rage was reserved for the Jap. “You! Cunt! You! Cunt!” I drew the knife across the bastard’s throat again and again, until the head was only connected in one or two places. I was determined to cut all the way through, to separate this fucker’s head from his body. Out here, I could get away with it. Out here, dead bodies were ubiquitous. It didn’t matter that this one would be sans head. I didn’t give a fuck!
I was almost through the final sinew of the prick’s semi-detached neck when I noticed the blood was no longer spraying out. His eyes were open now, though, and his mouth contorted into a terrible smile. “Sudeni shinde,” he said, despite the fact I had reduced his vocal cords to tattered ribbons. As if he knew I didn’t speak Japanese, he translated it for me in the same breath.
“Already dead.”
I turned, searching for answers, expected to find Kelly lying there with an expression of shock and disgust at what I had done painted across her face, but she was nowhere to be seen. My heart thumped inside me as I realized she had run away from me, from what I had done to her lover. I had to find her, to ask her, “Why? Why would you do this to me again?”
When I turned back to the man whose throat I had decimated, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, for what lay there was not a man—at least, not anymore—but the bones of something that had passed away a long time ago. Dirt and decay covered its skull; the throat I had been slashing at was nothing more than broken vertebrae sitting atop a shattered clavicle. I hadn’t done anything to this body; the damage had been done long before I came along.
“No, no, no, no,” I said as I fell backwards onto the dirt, pinching at the bridge of my nose; an awful headache was beginning to take shape. “What the fuck? What the fuck?”
I had seen them, though. I had seen my wife straddling…whatever the fuck this was. Hell, I had proof of it on my…
I grabbed the camera which was dangling around my neck and frantically worked the buttons on the tiny console. “FUCK!” My sweaty, filthy hands made it almost impossible to hit the right buttons, but I had to see! I had to know!
The camera bleeped and its screen darkened before revealing to me the last photograph I had taken, but there was no Kelly now. No shoulder tattoo. The only feet in the image were skeletal, protruding from the leg-holes of a pair of tattered and partially rotten trousers. I squinted, my eyes stinging as if I’d been pepper-sprayed, and zoomed in on the image of the body lying there in the middle of the forest, alone, as it always had been. I stared at the picture for the longest time before realizing I had the real thing just a few inches away from where I sat.
That thing inside me that had died a moment ago?…well, that would never spark back into life, no matter how much I willed it to. I had to get out of the forest; it was doing something to me, something terrible, and yet I had known all along that it would.
That’s why people come here, a voice inside my head said. If not to die, then why?
I had to get back to the car, back to Kelly, and away from this dreadful place before it consumed me. I could feel it searching my memories, trying to locate the bleakest retentions so that it could use them against me. It wanted me to die here and would do whatever it could to keep me.
This wasn’t a forest. It was purgatory; a place for psyches to grow unsure, to question mortality. That was how it had claimed so many souls over the years. It drew people in, like lemmings, before tossing them off a cliff.
I had to get out!
I had to…
I scrambled to my feet. Fuck the rucksack! I left it in the dirt, for it would only slow me down. My head pounded, and I felt suddenly light-headed; for a moment I thought I was going to pass out. I grabbed the nearest tree, clinging to it as if it were an old friend. Once the giddiness subsided, I went to pocket the knife before changing my mind. I didn’t want it anywhere near me, not now I understood what was happening. The temptation to use it on myself would be too great. Sure, I was in control now—just about—but if the forest had its way that wouldn’t last.
I buried the knife in the dirt beside the skeletal remains, only a few inches deep, hoping that I never came back to this spot again.
And then I ran, and even though I wasn’t sure I was going in the right direction, I promised myself I wouldn’t stop until I reached my wife.
7
It was getting harder to breathe, and her legs were starting to protest beneath her, but Kelly knew she had to carry on. The feeling of helplessness, of complete vulnerability, had grown considerably in the last fifteen minutes, as had the sensation of being watched. Every time she stopped to catch her breath, she scanned the trees, searching for that bright yellow swatch of cloth. And part of her wanted to see it again, just so she knew she wasn’t going crazy.
Once, when she was a little girl, Kelly had wandered off in a packed supermarket. The lure of the toy aisle was just too much, and so she had drifted away from her mother—there was, after all, nothing enticing about courgettes or Ragu—in search of that vividly-colored gangway, where she could admire the rows of dolls and playthings, mi
niature plastic kitchens and utensils, strollers and ride-ons. When she found the aisle, just a few minutes after leaving her mother’s side, she realized she had made a terrible mistake. There were too many people there, reaching for colorful boxes, handing pull-along cars to whining children, and Kelly got buffeted along the aisle like a leaf in the wind. It was then that panic set in. What if she never saw her mother again? What if one of these people—the guy clutching the giant Elmo or the woman smacking the ass of her recalcitrant toddler—saw that she was alone and snatched her up, plonking her in their own trolley? What if Mommy left the store without her and sped away in their car, glad to be rid of her? In that moment, Kelly did the only thing she was really good at. She screamed. Confused parents turned, for Kelly’s shrill cry was so loud that it drowned out the incessant whining of their own children and the irate rants of the other parents. They looked at her as if she was feral, some filthy urchin that had accidentally stumbled into the store from the street. And then an elderly lady, no doubt spoiling her grandchildren (as was her wont), limped toward Kelly on a wooden stick. For some reason, the old lady terrified Kelly more than the thought of never seeing her mother again. The woman had parchment skin, and it seemed to be stretched tightly over her skull, drawing her lips back into a perpetual sneer. Feathery gray hairs sat atop her lip, and a huge brown mole with hairs of its own protruded from her chin. The first word that came into Kelly’s head was ‘witch,’ and though it seemed a terrible thing to think now, back then she absolutely believed it. Kelly screamed again, and the slight smile creasing the witch’s lips vanished and was replaced by a puckered O of shock. It was then that a hand pulled Kelly backwards, and a voice she recognized reprimanded her for straying. Her mother had found her, saved her from the wicked witch of the toy aisle, and even though she was in trouble, she instantly felt better.
“Witch,” Kelly muttered breathlessly, squinting at the trees. She knew there was no such thing as witches, that the old lady in that toy aisle all those years ago was probably a very nice person, but out here she felt just as she had back then. Lost, confused, and frightened of something intangible…
Just then, something rustled in the treetops above her. Kelly snapped her head back, gasped as she realized what she was looking at.
The yellow…
A child in a plastic raincoat skittered along a thick branch. Leaves rained down as the tiny form crawled on all fours, almost like a monkey, toward the trunk of the tree upon which it was climbing. When it reached the trunk it stood up, holding on to the thick bole for dear life, and stared down through the treetops toward Kelly, who was mesmerized. She couldn’t see its face, for the raincoat had a hood, and the child was making good use of it, despite the intolerable heat.
“Hello?” she said, taking a few steps back so that she could see the child more clearly through the coiled branches between her and it. “You shouldn’t be climbing,” she said. “Where are your parents?”
The child didn’t speak, just let go of the tree-trunk and folded its arms across its chest, as if it were toying with her—the strange woman who had no right to be telling it what to do or when to do it.
Kelly motioned with her hand. “Come on down from there,” she said, somewhat relieved that she wasn’t losing her mind, that the thing watching her all this time had, in fact, been an intrigued child. “Are you lost? You shouldn’t be out here on your own.” The irony of her words were not lost on Kelly. The child had a better chance of finding its way home without her help. Perhaps, she thought, the kid was local, knew its way around the woods better than the wardens. It could show her the way to her car. Why do I keep referring to it as ‘it’? she thought.
The child sat down on the branch; the plastic raincoat squeaked as it moved. There was something abnormal about the way he/she moved. Jerky, almost unnatural. It reminded Kelly of an old movie, one in which certain frames had been lost or eschewed.
“So you’re just going to sit there?” Kelly said. It wasn’t quite a question. “You’re just going to sit there staring at me?” She smiled, hoping the child saw the gesture from up there and realized she was no threat. “Look, it’s really hot out here. If you’re not going to come down, at least take your coat off and talk to me.”
The child shook its head. Beneath the hood, Kelly was almost certain she made out the unmistakeable features of a little boy. Then again, it could have been anything.
“Fine.” Kelly marched across to the trunk and gave it a little kick, as if testing it for sturdiness. “You’re not going to come down here, I’ll come up there and we can have a little chat. Hm? See if we can find your parents?” Awful parents, whoever and wherever they were.
Kelly hadn’t climbed a tree for many years—there wasn’t much call for it as an adult—and so it was no surprise that she hadn’t a clue where to start. The trunk was too smooth; there were no offshoots onto which she could step, no crevices into which she could plant her foot. There was no way she was even getting off the ground, which seemed to cheer the child up, for it sniggered. It was then that Kelly knew it was a boy.
“Oh, that’s funny, is it?” she said, stepping back into the clearing. “Silly lady doesn’t know how to climb a tree. Well, you can stay up there for all I care.” She turned and walked purposefully away from the tree and the boy sitting in its branches. She had no intention of leaving him up there, but she had to get him down somehow.
A few years ago, before Samuel even knew what meningitis was, he had got stuck up in a tree. It was such a ‘little boy’ thing to do; he had climbed so high into a tree, so recklessly, that he forgot to take notes on how to get back down. At the top he had frozen, which wasn’t far from the truth as it was cold and windy that morning. Kelly remembered it quite well as it had threatened to rain, and yet Samuel had insisted on playing outside. They had come to some sort of arrangement—a prerequisite that if he wore his coat, he could play for an hour and then come in for a bath. Samuel was happy with that, and took off with a skip, across the street where all the best trees were.
Getting stuck had not been on Samuel’s itinerary that morning, and coaxing her son down with the promise of warm milk and as many cookies as he could manage had not been on Kelly’s, but that was how it turned out, with Kelly standing underneath the tree, urging her son to jump, for it wasn’t that high and she was positive that she could catch him. It seemed like they were there for the longest time, mother and son, both terrified, neither willing to give in. The wind was getting worse, and Kelly had had visions of her son blowing away. She remembered thinking that he had to jump soon, or she would have had no choice but to call Dan at work. It never came to that, but it could have. “Just trust me,” she’d told him, holding her arms up high. “I won’t drop you, I promise.”
And she hadn’t dropped him.
She’d caught him by the scruff of his yellow…
Before Kelly could move, the kid in the tree pushed off from the branch and began his rapid descent to the forest floor. It all happened so quickly, and yet Kelly had time to wonder how she was going to put the child back together again, for he would certainly shatter upon impact. There was no saving this one; there was only damage limitation.
The boy—she was certain now that was what it was—hit the ground with a meaty thump. Kelly didn’t know whether it was the twigs and sticks beneath it or the boy’s legs which noisily snapped. She rushed across to where he lay, motionless. Part of her didn’t want to look. What if he was dead? What if his neck had snapped, or his back had broken? There would be nothing she could do to help, except to cry for him and lie to him—“Everything is going to be all right!”
“Please be okay!” she whined as she dropped to her knees beneath the immobile yellow shape. “Can you hear me?” She reached in, grabbed a handful of plastic raincoat, and eased it slowly away from the stock-still child, only—
“No!” she gasped, for there was no child beneath the coat. There was nothing but dirt and shoots. One step away from insa
nity, Kelly froze as she tried to make sense of what had just happened. She had seen the child fall, drop from the tree like an overripe peach. She had watched him collide with the ground, heard his tiny legs snap like tinder in a fire.
She tried to convince herself that the boy had scurried playfully away, but that would have been impossible on shattered legs. She scanned the forest for movement, knowing that she would see none. She called out to the boy, pleaded with him to answer, but knew that she would be met with silence.
She wiped the stinging sweat from her eyes and closed them for a moment. Running her fingertips over the synthetic smoothness of the raincoat, she couldn’t help feeling that she had been transported back in time, to the moment Samuel had jumped from his tree. She had caught him by the scruff of the neck, and momentum had taken them both to ground where she’d almost smothered him to death with kisses and hugs.
Back in the forest, Kelly opened her eyes and glanced down at the yellow raincoat in her hands. She knew…and yet it couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. But as she turned the raincoat over and slowly lifted the collar, a sense of inevitability washed over her.
There, in thick, black permanent marker, was a name. Kelly recognized her own handwriting immediately; the way her M looked more like a W, and the way the final letter—L—looped back on itself to underline the name.
Samuel…
8
Trees are the castles of the woods, and I felt that every sprawling tree I passed under was lined with ancient sentinels. I had been a fool to think myself alone after Kelly had left. Here, in Aokigahara, there were eyes everywhere.
Voices, too. I could hear them now. The sonorous, haunting ballad of the forest came to me as I rushed over the huge roots spread-eagling the ground, threatening to trip me with every frantic step I took. Coils of vaporous mist had descended from seemingly nowhere. I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t, for it had been sunny a moment ago, yet I knew the terrifying purpose of the mist.