Ring

by Kōji Suzuki

  Ryuji wormed his body into the space between the top of the well and the floorboards, wrapped the rope around his hands, and slowly let himself down. Soon he was standing on the bottom. His legs were submerged up to his knees. It wasn't very deep.

  "Hey, Asakawa! Go get the bucket. Oh, and the thin rope, too."

  The bucket was where they'd left it, on the balcony. Asakawa crawled out from underneath the cabin. It was dark outside. But it still felt far brighter than under the foundation. What a feeling of release! So much pure air! He looked around at the cabins: only A-l, by the road, emitted any light. He made a point of not looking at his watch. The warm, friendly voices spilling from A-l seemed to constitute a separate world, floating in the distance. They were the sounds of dinnertime. He didn't have to look at his watch to know what time it must be.

  He returned to the lip of the well, where he tied the bucket and shovel to the end of the rope and lowered them down. Ryuji shovelled earth from the bottom of the well into the bucket. From time to time he'd crouch and run his fingers through the mud, searching for something, but he didn't find anything.

  "Haul the bucket up!" he shouted. With his belly braced against the edge of the well, Asakawa pulled up the bucket, then dumped the mud and rocks out on the ground before lowering the empty bucket back down into the well. It seemed that quite a bit of dirt and sand had drifted into the well before it had been sealed. Ryuji dug and dug, but without turning up Sadako's beautiful limbs.

  "Hey, Asakawa." Ryuji paused in his labours and looked up. Asakawa didn't reply. "Asakawa! Something wrong up there?"

  Asakawa wanted to reply: Nothing's wrong. I'm fine.

  "You haven't said a word this whole time. At least, you know, call out encouragement or something. I'm getting a bit melancholy down here."

  Asakawa said nothing.

  "Well, then, how about a song? Something by Hibari Misora, maybe."

  Asakawa still said nothing.

  "Hey! Asakawa. Are you still there? I know you didn't faint on me."

  "I'm… I'm fine," he managed to mutter.

  "You're a pain in the ass, that's what you are." Ryuji spat out the words and jammed the tip of the shovel into the water. How many times had he done this now? The water level was slowly dropping, but still there were no signs of what they were looking for. He could see the bucket climbing more and more slowly. Then, finally, it stopped. Asakawa let it slip out of his hands. He'd had it raised about half the height of the well, and now it plunged back down again. Ryuji managed to avoid a direct hit, but he got splashed from head to toe with muddy water. Along with anger came the realization that Asakawa was at the limit of his strength.

  "Sonofabitch! Are you trying to kill me?" Ryuji climbed up the rope. "Your turn."

  My turn! Shocked, Asakawa stood up, banging his head hard on the floorboards in the process. "Wait, Ryuji, it's okay, I'm alright, I've still got some strength left," Asakawa stammered. Ryuji poked his head out of the well.

  "No you haven't, not an ounce. Your turn."

  "Just, just hold on. Let me catch my second wind."

  "We'd be here 'til dawn."

  Ryuji shined the light in Asakawa's face. There was a strange look in his eyes. Fear of death had stolen his reason. One look told Ryuji that Asakawa was no longer capable of rational judgment. Between shovelling muddy water into a bucket and hauling that bucket four or five meters straight up, it didn't take much to see which was the harder job.

  "Down you go." Ryuji pushed Asakawa toward the well.

  "No-wait-I-it's…"

  "What?"

  "I'm claustrophobic."

  "Don't be silly."

  Asakawa continued to cringe, unmoving. The water at the bottom of the well trembled slightly.

  "I can't do it. I can't go down there."

  Ryuji grabbed Asakawa by the collar and slapped him twice. "Snap out of it. 'I can't go down there.' You've got death staring you in the face, and you might be able to do something about it, and now you say you can't do it? Don't be a worm. It's not just your own life at stake here, you know. Remember that phone call? You ready to take sweet babykins down into the darkness with you?"

  He thought about his wife and daughter. He couldn't afford to be a coward. He held their lives in his hands. But his body wouldn't obey him.

  "Is this really going to work, though?" But there was no purpose in his voice; he knew it was pointless to even ask the question now. Ryuji relaxed his grip on his collar.

  "Shall I tell you a little more about Professor Miura's theory? There are three conditions that have to be met in order for a malevolent will to remain in the world after death. An enclosed space, water, and a slow death. One, two, three. In other words, if someone dies slowly, in an enclosed space, with water present, then usually that person's angry spirit will haunt the place. Now, look at this well. It's a small, enclosed space. There's water. And remember what the old lady in the video said."

  … How has your health been since then? If you spend all your time playing in the water, monsters are bound to get you.

  Playing in the water. That was it. Sadako was down there under that black muddy water playing, even now. An endless, watery, underground game.

  "You see, Sadako was still alive when she was dropped into this well. And while she waited for death she coated the very walls with her hatred. All three conditions were met in her case."

  "So?"

  "So, according to Professor Miura, it's easy to exorcise such a curse. We just free her. We take her bones out of this nasty old well, have a nice memorial service, and lay her to rest in the soil of her native place. We bring her up into the wide, bright world."

  A while before, when he'd crawled out from under the cabin to get the bucket, Asakawa had felt an indescribable sense of liberation. Were they supposed to provide Sadako with the same thing? Was that what she wanted?

  "So that's the charm?"

  "Maybe it is and maybe it isn't."

  "That's pretty vague."

  Ryuji grabbed Asakawa's collar again. "Think! There's nothing certain in our future! All we can hope for is a vague continuation. But in spite of that, you're going to keep on living. You can't give up on life just because it's vague. It's a question of possibilities. The charm… There might be a lot of other things Sadako wants. But there's a good possibility that taking her remains out of here will break the curse of the video."

  Asakawa twisted his face and screamed silently. Enclosed space, water, and slow death, he says. Those three conditions allow the strongest survival of an evil spirit, he says. Where's the proof that anything that fraud Miura said is true?

  "If you understand me, you'll go down into the well."

  But I don't understand. How can I understand something like this?

  "You don't have time to dawdle. Your deadline is almost here." Ryuji's voice grew gradually kinder. "Don't think you can overcome death without a fight."

  Asshole! I don't want to hear your philosophy of life!

  But he finally began to climb over the rim of the well.

  "Attaboy. You finally think you can do it?"

  Asakawa clung to the rope and lowered himself down the inner wall of the well. Ryuji's face was before his eyes.

  "Don't worry. There's nothing down there. Your biggest enemy is your imagination."

  When he looked up, the beam of the flashlight hit him full in the face, blinding him. He pressed his back against the wall; his grip on the rope began to loosen. His feet slipped against the stones, and he suddenly dropped about a meter. His hands burned from the friction.

  He was dangling just above the surface of the water, but couldn't make himself go in. He extended one foot, putting it in the water up to his ankle, as if he were testing the temperature of a bath. With the cold touch of the water came gooseflesh, from the tips of his toes to his spine, and he immediately retracted his foot. But his arms were too tired to keep hanging onto the rope. His weight pulled him slowly down, and eventually he couldn'
t endure anymore so he planted both feet. Immediately the soft dirt below the water enveloped his feet, submerging them. Asakawa still clung to the rope in front of his eyes. He started to panic. He felt as if a forest of hands were reaching up from the earth to pull him into the mud. The walls were closing in on all sides, leering at him: there's no escape.

  Ryuji! He tried to scream, but he couldn't find his voice. He couldn't breathe. Only a faint, dry sound escaped his throat, and he looked upward like a drowning child. He felt something warm trickle down the insides of his thighs.

  "Asakawa! Breathe!"

  Overcome by the pressure, Asakawa had forgotten to breathe.

  "It's alright. I'm here." Ryuji's voice echoed down to him, and Asakawa managed to suck in a lungful of air.

  He couldn't control the pounding of his heart. He couldn't do what he needed to do down here. He desperately tried to think of something else. Something more pleasant. If this well had been outside, under a sky full of stars, it wouldn't be this horrible. It was because it was covered by cabin B-4 that it was so hard to take. It cut off the escape route. Even with the concrete lid gone, there were only floorboards and spider webs above. Sadako Yamamura has lived down here for twenty-five years. That's right, she's down here. Right under my feet. This is a tomb, that's what it is. A tomb. He couldn't think of anything else. Thought itself was closed off to him, as was any kind of escape. Sadako had tragically ended her life down here, and the scenes that had flashed through her mind at her moment of death had remained here, still strong, through the power of her psyche. And they'd matured down here in this cramped hole, breathing like the ebb and flow of the tide, waxing and waning in strength according to some cycle that had at some point coincided in frequency with the television placed directly overhead; and then they'd made their appearance in the world. Sadako was breathing. From out of nowhere, the sound of breathing enclosed him. Sadako Yamamura, Sadako Yamamura. The syllables repeated themselves in his brain, and her terrifyingly beautiful face came to him out of the photographs, shaking her head coquettishly. Sadako Yamamura was here. Asakawa recklessly began to dig through the earth beneath him, searching for her. He thought of her pretty face and her body, trying to maintain that image. That beautiful girl's bones, covered in my piss. Asakawa moved the shovel, sifting through the mud. Time no longer mattered. He'd taken off his watch before coming down here. Extreme fatigue and stress had deadened his vexation, and he forgot the deadline he was laboring under. It felt like being drunk. He had no sense of time. Only by the frequency with which the bucket came back down the well to him, and by the beating of his heart, did he have any way of measuring time.

  Finally, Asakawa grasped a large, round rock with both hands. It was smooth and pleasant to the touch, with two holes in its surface. He lifted it out of the water. He washed the dirt out of its recesses. He picked it up by what must once have been ear holes and found himself face to face with a skull. His imagination clothed it with flesh. Big, clear eyes returned to the deep, hollow sockets, and flesh appeared above the two holes in the middle, forming itself into an elegant nose. Her long hair was wet, and water dripped from her neck and from behind her ears. Sadako Yamamura blinked her melancholy eyes two or three times to shake the water from her eyelashes. Squeezed between Asakawa's hands, her face looked painfully distorted. But still, her beauty was unclouded. She smiled at Asakawa, then narrowed her eyes as if to focus her vision.

  I've been wanting to meet you. As he thought this, Asakawa slumped down right where he was. He could hear Ryuji's voice from far overhead.

  Asakawa! Wasn't your deadline 10:04? Rejoice! It's 10:10!

  Asakawa, can you hear me? You 're still alive, right? The curse is broken. We're saved. Hey, Asakawa! If you die down there you'll end up just like her. If you die, just don't put a curse on me, okay? If you're going to die, die nice, would you? Hey, Asakawa! If you 're alive, answer me, damnit!

  He heard Ryuji, but he didn't really feel saved. He just curled up as if in a dream, as if in another world, clutching Sadako Yamamura's skull to his chest.

  PART FOUR - RIPPLES

  1

  October 19-Friday

  A phone call from the manager's office woke Asakawa from his slumber. The manager was reminding them that checkout was at 11 a.m., and asking if they'd prefer to stay another night. Asakawa reached out with his free hand and picked up his watch beside his pillow. His arms were tired, just lifting them was an effort. They didn't hurt yet, but they'd probably ache like hell tomorrow. He wasn't wearing his glasses, so he couldn't read the time until he brought the watch right up to his eyes. A few minutes past eleven. Asakawa couldn't think of how to reply right away. He didn't even know where he was.

  "Will you be staying another night?" asked the manager, trying to suppress his annoyance. Ryuji groaned right beside him. This wasn't his own room, that was for sure. It was as if the whole world had been repainted without his knowing it. The thick line connecting past to present and present to future had been cut into two: before his sleep and after it.

  "Hello?"

  Now the manager was worried that there was nobody on the other end of the line. Without even knowing why, Asakawa felt joy flood his breast. Ryuji rolled over and opened his eyes slightly. He was drooling. Asakawa's memories were hazy; all he found when he searched his recollections was darkness. He could more or less remember visiting Dr Nagao and then heading for Villa Log Cabin, but everything after that was vague. Dark scenes came to him, one after another, and his breath caught in his throat. He felt like he did after waking up from a powerful dream, one that left a strong impression even though he'd forgotten what it was about. But for some reason, his spirits were high.

  "Hello? Can you hear me?"

  "Uh, yeah." Asakawa finally managed to reply, adjusting his grip on the receiver.

  "Check-out time is eleven o'clock."

  "Got it. We'll get our things together and leave right away." Asakawa adopted an officious tone to match the manager's. He could hear a faint trickle of water from the kitchen. It seemed someone hadn't turned the faucet tight last night before going to sleep. Asakawa hung up the phone.

  Ryuji had closed his eyes again. Asakawa shook him. "Hey, Ryuji. Get up."

  He had no idea how long they'd slept. Ordinarily, Asakawa slept no more than five or six hours a night, but now he felt like he'd been asleep for much longer than that. It had been a long time since he'd been able to sleep soundly, untroubled.

  "Hey, Ryuji! If we don't get out of here they're going to charge us for another night." Asakawa shook Ryuji harder, but he didn't wake up. Asakawa raised his eyes and saw the milky-white plastic bag on the dining room table. Suddenly, as if some chance happening had brought back a fragment of a dream, he remembered what was inside it. Calling Sadako's name. Fulling her out of the cold earth under the floor, stuffing her into a plastic bag. The sound of running water… It had been Ryuji, last night, who had gone to the sink and washed the mud from Sadako. The water was still running. By then, the appointed time had already passed. And even now, Asakawa was still alive. He was overjoyed. Death had been breathing down his neck, and now that it had been cleared away, life seemed more concentrated; it began to glow. Sadako's skull was beautiful, like a marble sculpture.

  "Hey, Ryuji! Wake up!"

  Suddenly, he got a bad feeling. Something caught in a corner of his mind. He put his ear to Ryuji's chest. He wanted to hear Ryuji's heart beating through his thick sweatshirt, to know he was still alive. But just as his ear was about to touch Ryuji's chest, Asakawa suddenly found himself in a headlock, held by two powerful hands. Asakawa panicked and started to struggle.

  "Gotcha! Thought I was dead, didn't you?" Ryuji released his grip on Asakawa's head and laughed an odd, childlike laugh. How could he joke around after what they'd just been through? Anything was liable to happen. If at that instant he'd seen Sadako Yamamura alive and standing by the table, and Ryuji tearing at his hair dying, Asakawa would have believed his eyes. He suppres
sed his anger. He owed Ryuji a great deal.

  "Stop fooling around."

  "It's payback time. You scared the bejeezus out of me last night." Still on his side, Ryuji began to chuckle.

  "What did I do?"

  "You collapsed down there at the bottom of the well. I really thought you'd gone and died. I was worried. Time was up. I thought you were out of the game."

  Asakawa said nothing, just blinked several times.

  "Hah. You probably don't even remember. Ungrateful bastard."

  Now that he thought about it, Asakawa couldn't remember crawling out of the well on his own. Finally he recalled dangling from the rope, his strength totally spent. Hauling his sixty kilogram frame four or five meters straight up couldn't have been easy, even for someone of Ryuji's strength. The image of himself hanging suspended reminded him somehow of the stone statue of En no Ozunu being pulled up from the bottom of the sea. Shizuko had gained mysterious powers for fishing out the statue, but all Ryuji had to show for his troubles were aches and pains.

  "Ryuji?" asked Asakawa in a strangely altered voice.

  "What?"

  "Thanks for everything you've done. I really owe you."

  "Don't start getting mushy on me."

  "If it hadn't been for you, I'd be… well, you know. Anyway, thanks."

  "Cut the crap. You're going to make me puke. Gratitude isn't worth a single yen."

  "Well then, how about some lunch? I'm buying."

  "Oh, well in that case." Ryuji pulled himself to his feet, staggering a little. All of his muscles were stiff. Even Ryuji was having trouble making his body do what he wanted it to.