Reiko

by James Avonleigh

  I could feel a slow churning in my stomach, as though somewhere in the depths of my entrails, the truth was dawning. I glanced at the picture of Reiko’s four friends having their dinner at Mrs Azuma’s house. What was happening? What was Etsuko saying?

  ‘Reiko wa yonnin no tomodachi o oikoshite, sorekara koroshite shimatta… Reiko pursued her four friends and then killed them.’ Etsuko’s hands were trembling so violently that she couldn’t hold the paper still enough to read Kenji’s testimony.

  Another draught, more violent than the last, swept through the room, extinguishing more candles, including the large temple candle on the desk. Simultaneously a scream echoed through the building, closer and more piercing than the last. Etsuko let the piece of paper fall to the floor and put her head in her hands, sobbing.

  I fumbled for the matches and set about re-lighting some of the extinguished candles.

  Etsuko was rocking back and forwards, distraught. I reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, painfully aware that I had dragged her into my own private nightmare. As for Josh and Shinichi, we hadn’t heard a squeak from them in ten minutes. Surely they’d heard the latest scream.

  ‘What else does it say?’ Sarah asked, determined to get what she could in spite of Etsuko’s discomfort. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s so important.’

  Etsuko lifted her head to look at Sarah. Then, hands trembling, she picked up the piece of paper again. For a moment she read in silence, taking it all in. Finally she took a deep breath and spoke with a physical effort. ‘He says that Reiko’s spirit cannot sleep. He says that his mother keeps Reiko’s body and spirit. He made them eat her. And Reiko was angry because they ate her. So Reiko took revenge and killed them all.’

  ‘He’s insane,’ I said. But the knot in my stomach was growing tighter.

  Etsuko lifted her eyes. ‘He said that now he understands the truth, he wants to die.’

  I looked up at Sarah, who had been very quiet and controlled as she listened to Kenji’s horrifying testimony, and I saw there were tears rolling down her face. ‘Don’t you understand?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

  ‘You’re the ghost hunter. You of all people should understand.’

  ‘You can’t believe this stuff. This is a deranged teenager talking. None of it makes sense.’

  ‘Maybe he is deranged. Maybe madness runs in the family. But I don’t believe he’s making it up. I believe he’s telling the truth.’

  ‘That his mother killed Reiko and fed her flesh to her friends?’

  Sarah nodded, her face puffed up with tears. ‘She hated Reiko, because her son was obsessed with her and his grades at school were suffering and God knows what else. She hated her friends, because they refused to let her son into their circle. I know her. I’ve known her for nine months. I know she’s been kind to me, but I also know she’s consumed by hatred. Odagiri-san was right.’

  ‘You think she killed Reiko’s friends too? Is that what you’re saying?’ I felt a wave of anger and frustration. Not at Sarah, but at the sheer insanity of what we were discussing. I couldn’t admit to myself that possibly, just possibly, Kenji was telling the truth.

  Sarah looked at me, her eyes filled with horror. ‘Mrs Azuma didn’t kill the friends. Reiko did.’

  From somewhere deep in the building came the sound of glass shattering. It sounded like a window pane blown in by the wind.

  Etsuko looked about her with wild eyes, ready to turn and flee the room. ‘Can we stop talking about this? Can we go and find Shinichi and Josh? They’ve been so long.’

  But things had gone too far. I couldn’t think about Shinichi or Josh. I had to hear Sarah out. ‘How could Reiko have killed them?’

  ‘You know what happened. You just don’t want to hear it. She killed Reiko, just like in your dream, just like in Charlie’s dream. She killed her in the woods, by that old rock. She brought her body back and stored it in the chest freezer. Just like you dreamt.’

  ‘It was just a dream,’ I cried, willing her to stop talking.

  Sarah picked up the photograph of the five students and waved it at me. ‘This was no dinner party. Look at those plates of raw meat on the table. That was no horse meat. Don’t you get it?’

  ‘No,’ I shouted, beginning to strain under the pressure.

  ‘That was Reiko’s flesh, served up to her friends. Her son doesn’t eat raw meat, she told us. Her body was never recovered because it was served up to her friends.’

  I couldn’t fight it any longer. Sarah was right. I knew why Reiko was following me, even if I couldn’t accept it. I knew why she had followed Charlie before me. I knew why her four friends had had to die. And I knew why Charlie had had to die too.

  In that moment, with the wind shaking the foundations of the building and Sarah and Etsuko looking at me with tear-stained faces, I understood.

  I closed my eyes and saw it happen.

  I saw the five of them sitting round the table in Mrs Azuma’s living room, looking subdued and uncomfortable, Mrs Azuma hovering above them, encouraging them to eat. I saw the plate of raw horse meat, that I too had had before me. Except it wasn’t horse meat. It was something quite different.

  In quick succession, a montage of images flashed before me. Reiko, in the school at night, looking down from the steps, watching impassively as Kanae fell to her death. Reiko, at the door to class 3C, looking on as Jun fought his way across the room, upending chairs and desks, and plunging through the window to his inevitable death. Reiko, looking down at the busy expressway, her red ribbon fluttering in the wind, watching Hideki step into the path of an oncoming vehicle. And Reiko, standing by the side of Saori, as she bled to death at the window of her bedroom.

  She took them all, even if she didn’t know why she did it. Her flesh for their flesh, a simple enough exchange.

  Another image flashed before me like some hellish foretaste of what awaited me. Charlie, in his dormitory room, standing by the window, fixing his dressing gown cord to the handle, his eyes filled with tears. Charlie, looking over his shoulder towards the door, fixing this makeshift noose around his neck with shaking hands. Unknowingly, Charlie had eaten her too.

  I opened my eyes. Sarah and Etsuko were still there, watching me, their eyes filled with terror. A draught blew in, extinguishing all but a few of the remaining candles.

  ‘It’s not your fault, James,’ Sarah said.

  ‘I ate her,’ I said. ‘I ate her flesh. Oh fuck, I didn’t know what I was eating. Oh fuck.’

  ‘You didn’t know. You couldn’t know’

  ‘She’s inside me. I ate her flesh and now she’s inside me. That’s why she’s following me. That’s why she followed Charlie and that’s why she killed him.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean it has to happen to you.’

  I passed my hand over my face several times, my stomach churning violently. ‘Why me? What did I do? What did I do to deserve this?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter now. We have to try and keep calm.’

  As if on cue another scream echoed through the corridor, closer than the last. It was Reiko, announcing her arrival. She was close. She had caused the power to fail; she had entered the building; and now she was closing in. I looked to Sarah for reassurance, but for the first time she had none to give. All I saw was fear and confusion, her realization that she was powerless to protect me.

  I didn’t know whether to stay put or run. But how could I run from Reiko? How could I run from something that was inside me? Where, in all the rule books, did it tell me what to do? Even Charlie, the scholar, had not been able to escape. Even Charlie, with all his learning, had not outwitted her.

  And sitting there in this dark room in a strange country, I was overcome with sadness. Sadness for the life that I’d tried so hard to love, sadness for the friends I’d made and lost, for the opportunities seized and then spurned. Sadness for my parents, who’d raised me and guided me and seen me drift away. How would they cope when they heard that the young
boy in whom they’d invested so much had come to such a terrible end? If only I could meet them once more and say how sorry I was and how I wished it had all been different. But I was certain I would never see them again. I was certain I would never leave the building again.

  I would sit there with Sarah and Etsuko watching the candles go out one by one, waiting for the axe to fall.

  28. REIKO

  Suddenly there were footsteps in the corridor.

  For several minutes we had sat in silence and near-darkness, huddled in a little group, waiting for something to happen.

  ‘It must be one of the boys,’ Sarah said. ‘About time.’

  The steps were slow and hesitant and it didn’t sound like either Josh or Shinichi. But if it wasn’t them, who else could it be?

  I bowed my head and waited. If it proved to be my pursuer, then I was ready for her. I would not shy away from this confrontation. I may not have amounted to much in my life, but I resolved not to go meekly into the stormy night.

  The footsteps drew near and I fumbled for the matches to re-light some candles. Maybe it was a conceit, but light promised security.

  ‘Hello.’

  Professor Atami stood framed in the door, dishevelled and dripping wet.

  ‘Hello.’ I felt a surge of relief. This was not what I’d expected.

  ‘I’m sorry to come like this,’ he said.

  ‘How did you know where to find us?’

  ‘I followed the candlelight.’

  ‘We’re having trouble keeping them lit.’

  Professor Atami turned to Sarah and Etsuko, acknowledging them with a formal nod of the head. He stood there awkwardly, his shadow flickering on the wall of the corridor, while I tried to fathom why he had come.

  ‘Did you see anything on your way up?’ Sarah asked.

  Professor Atami shook his head, distracted.

  ‘We heard some sounds downstairs, so our two friends went to look. They haven’t come back,’ she added.

  Again Professor Atami shook his head, then stepped through the door, and surveyed the room uncertainly. Under his arm he was carrying a bag.

  ‘I came to give you something,’ he said at last, motioning to the bag. ‘I came to give you this.’

  We all watched and waited, but he still seemed reticent.

  ‘Can we see?’ I asked.

  ‘I told you before that I met Charlie,’ he said, with a sudden resolve. ‘I told you I met him the night he died.’

  As we waited for him to say more, we again heard the sound of breaking glass from somewhere in the building. Etsuko jumped to her feet in distress.

  ‘It’s just the wind,’ I said, even though I knew it wasn’t.

  A draught swept through the room and snuffed out the candles I’d just lit.

  Professor Atami continued. ‘I don’t know why I came here tonight. I don’t know why I’m bringing you this.’

  He paused, still waging some inner battle.

  ‘Charlie told me that night he had found a solution. He didn’t tell me what it was, but I think this is it.’ Professor Atami took the bag out from under his arm. ‘It was found on his desk. Of course his parents didn’t want it when they came to collect his personal items. Just like his file, I should have thrown it away, but I didn’t. I kept it.’

  ‘Please tell me.’ I couldn’t bear the suspense.

  ‘Charlie said something followed him back from Izumi. Something was trying to kill him.’

  ‘You believe that? You believe that’s what drove him to do it?’

  Professor Atami looked me straight in the eye. ‘Do you have that feeling? Do you feel that something has followed you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. All cards on the table.

  He didn’t say anything, but headed over to the desk and pushed the candles away to create some space. He opened the bag and pulled out what looked to be a homemade rag doll and laid it out flat. It was crude and hideous, sewn together in a hurry from pieces of ordinary fabric with bits of felt stuck on for its facial features.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, dismayed that Charlie’s solution took the form of a tattered rag doll. Did Professor Atami really think it could help me?

  ‘It’s a doll,’ he said quietly.

  ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’ It just seemed so stupid. What did it matter if Charlie had left a rag doll on his desk?

  ‘Charlie was trying to do something with this, I’m sure. He said he had a solution. He said he knew how to kill the beast.’

  ‘What beast? What beast was he trying to kill?’ I realized I was shouting at him, partly to make myself heard above the din of the rain, partly out of frustration. I knew Professor Atami was trying to be helpful. I knew he’d weathered the storm to bring me this ghastly creation. But I didn’t want to spend these vital minutes examining a ridiculous doll.

  ‘I don’t know. He didn’t tell me. I only know that it was female.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this? Charlie was insane. I’ve read his file. He’d lost touch with reality. All the stuff about a beast, that’s all part of it. He was insane.’

  Professor Atami sunk into the desk chair with a defeated air. ‘You saw it, didn’t you? You saw the same thing Charlie saw. You know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I ranted, all composure leaving me. ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying. I don’t understand what Charlie was trying to do.’

  Professor Atami was about to reply when a bloodchilling scream pierced the air. It had come from somewhere close and echoed round the corridor.

  Sarah stepped out of the room. ‘I don’t see anything,’ she said.

  Professor Atami got up. ‘I’ll go and look.’

  I grabbed his arm. ‘You warned me. You told me not to go. I’m so sorry.’

  He touched my arm, almost tenderly. ‘If this is a Japanese ghost, I’ll know what to do.’

  ‘What about the doll?’

  ‘Remember Charlie’s thesis. Remember what he believed. All cultures and traditions share common themes.’

  Professor Atami patted my back and left the room. I watched him go, wondering what he would find out there, praying to God he wasn’t in the same danger as me. As his footsteps retreated down the corridor, I turned my attention to the doll.

  Sarah came over and examined it with a grimace.

  ‘What the hell do we do with this?’ I asked.

  She grasped it in her hands. ‘We need to think. We need to think about the beast. We need to know who the beast is.’

  ‘You mean Reiko?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s Reiko.’

  ‘Why are you saying that? She’s followed me halfway across Japan. I know what I’ve seen.’

  ‘Reiko’s not the beast. Reiko was an innocent victim. Her vengeance is blind. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.’

  The conviction in Sarah’s tone silenced me. While my thoughts were all at sea, Sarah was managing to be calm and rational, even in the eye of this deadly storm. With her at my side, I still believed there was hope.

  ‘Can I see Charlie’s file?’ she asked. ‘I read something in there about dolls.’

  She was right. I remembered it now. I’d seen a sketch of a rustic doll, but I’d paid it no heed at the time.

  Another scream rang out from somewhere close, which Etsuko echoed with a scream of her own.

  ‘I’m calling the police,’ she said, taking out her mobile phone. She took one look, then cursed and hurled the phone across the room. There was no signal. It was a terrible thing she’d been drawn into – screams echoing through the corridor and her boyfriend lost in the bowels of the building.

  I fumbled in my bag, pulled out Charlie’s file and slammed it down on the desk next to the doll. I tried flicking through the pages, but my hands were shaking too violently. Sarah took over and swiftly found what we were looking for – a diagram, with arrows and annotations all round it. At the top of the page the word ‘voodoo’ caught my eye. At least I reali
zed where Charlie was going with the doll.

  I heard some movement from the door and looked round to see Etsuko leave and run down the corridor. She’d had enough and was taking her chances on the outside. I felt desperately sorry, but I remained convinced that I was the only one in mortal danger. I was the one who had eaten her flesh. I was the one she was after. I hoped Etsuko would catch up with Professor Atami on the stairs and together they would escape the Tower.

  As I tried to focus on Charlie’s annotations, I felt my eyes grow faint so I left Sarah to read what he had written. I tried lighting a match to give us more light, but my hands were trembling too much and the box dropped to the floor.

  As the wind grew wilder and the rain more vicious, I saw the room spin around me. Sarah was bent over the file, squinting to read Charlie’s impenetrable scrawl. But I had no confidence left. How could we hope to succeed where Charlie had failed? What could we do that he hadn’t done?

  There was another scream, so close that it must have been somewhere outside in the corridor and it occurred to me that this time it might be Etsuko.

  I closed my eyes, seized with the hopelessness of the situation. Maybe now it was time to turn and run. But how do you outrun a ghost? Wherever I ran, she would find me.

  I began to prepare myself. Did I have the strength to face death? Would I pass over to other side quietly or would it be with a wrenching pain?

  I saw Sarah shaking her head in reaction to something Charlie had written, but I was beyond taking it in. I wanted to say goodbye and have done with it.

  ‘We don’t have it,’ she said.

  I wondered if this was how Charlie had felt in those last moments, as he wound the noose around his neck.

  ‘There must be something,’ I heard her say, but whatever it was it no longer seemed important.

  I went over to the door, as if drawn by an unseen hand, and stepped into the corridor. She was there just as I expected she’d be, standing in the stairwell entrance, her eyes bearing down on me. Though the corridor was in darkness, she seemed to glow, like a will-of-the-wisp. For the first time I saw her with absolute clarity. I looked straight at her and she at me. She was as beautiful as her photograph and more: an unearthly beauty that brought a sigh to my lips, even in this moment of reckoning. After all the evasion, there was a strange sense of relief to finally come face to face with my tormentor. This was no fleeting glance in the mirror or refection in the window of a train. I had no need to close my eyes or turn away. I saw her high cheekbones, her almond-shaped eyes, her delicate mouth. I saw the stripes on her collar, her pleated skirt and knee-length socks. And the crimson-red ribbon, like her softly beating heart.