Tales of Crow- The Complete series Box Set

by Chris Ward

  It was a little late in the year, but he knew a stand of red pine deep in the woods where he’d been claiming the sparse crop of matsutake mushrooms as his own since he was barely more than a sapling himself. None of the other farmers knew its location, but the fungi he could sell for as much as twenty thousand yen apiece came late in the year because of the orientation of the hill. No one ever thought to search once the snow had begun to fall. While he despised the taste of the nasty, musty little things himself, the profits from his secret crop would keep old Wooden Knees drunk for the rest of the winter.

  But the weather was turning. It was December the sixth, as the calendar read, but closer to New Year by the look of the sky, almost groaning above him as it ached to dump its load of accumulated moisture down upon his head. Masanori glanced upslope towards the last crest before he reached his secret spot, wondering whether it might be better to cut his losses and run. Getting caught out here in heavy snow didn’t bear thinking about.

  For a few minutes he stood in contemplation, staring upslope for a while, then looking back the way he had come, through a skeletal glade of leafless trees, the brown curls of their shed skin heaping up on either side of the trail he had made with his heavy boots and heavier bag. He could be home and stretched out under his heated table in a couple of hours, a glass of sake in front of him and some quiz show playing on the television. But if he soldiered on for just another hour there could be a basket of money sitting inside the front door.

  In the end it came down to simple economics. This was almost certainly his last foraging trip of the year. A good crop now and he could rest easy for the winter. His mouth curled up in a thin, wrinkly sneer as he considered the other uses for the money.

  ‘A reward,’ he muttered, in that reedy whine that ended conversations quickly. ‘A little reward for my efforts.’

  He’d make this one count, put in an extra half an hour to really go over the ground, then splash out on one of the younger girls who hung around at the end of the shopping arcade late on Saturday nights. The younger ones wouldn’t touch an old bag of bones like him unless he could pay way over the going rate, but even the prettiest girls had their price, and perhaps if he took a trip to the pharmacy beforehand he could get something that would make him able to do a little more than just leer as they took their clothes off. Yes, he thought, it’s time for old Wooden Knees to do some proper knocking.

  Feeling a little bulb of arousal bouncing around down in his pants, he slung his bag back over his shoulder and started up towards the rise.

  His legs started to shake and his knees to knock together long before he reached the crest of the hill, but, huffing and puffing like an old steam locomotive, he finally made it, leaning against a tall sapling to catch his breath. The stand of pine was just ahead; hopefully with it several dozen litres of sake and a couple of lustful nights reliving his youth.

  He started off, stumping through the trees towards a large boulder poking out of the ground that marked the edge of the red pines. Just beyond it, also benefiting from the prolonged warmth of the hillside’s westward-facing orientation, was a thicket of bamboo. It stretched around the area of pine, a natural barricade, making this the only way in.

  Spotting a small hump in the undergrowth at the foot of the nearest pine, Masanori grunted in satisfaction, dropped his bag down on the rock, and got down on his knees to brush away the pine needles and humus beneath.

  The flat head of a matsutake mushroom peered up at him. ‘Huh,’ old Wooden Knees muttered. ‘A hand job and a litre of sake to wash it down with. Good start.’

  As he cupped a hand underneath it to work it out of the ground, something moved in the undergrowth to his left.

  Masanori froze. A bear, maybe? It was rare that Japanese brown bears attacked hikers unless they were suckling young, but breeding season came in the spring and the summer had been plentiful, so unless it had some kind of disease…

  Behind him came the crunch of a footfall, lighter than a bear but too heavy for a deer. Masanori let out a slow breath. Could someone have followed him? He cursed under his breath. ‘If that’s one of you fuckers…’

  A sudden zipping sound, like a jacket being undone in a hurry, came from just beyond his shoulder. His head jerked around, his vision blurring as his old eyes took a moment to catch up, then something heavy and black was swinging towards him out of a background of bare forest. Like black wings it seemed to open out to fill his whole world, then something was closing over his head, drawing in around his neck. Masanori scrabbled at his face and tried to roll backwards, but strong hands on his back shoved him forward, his knees knocking together with that familiar wooden clump.

  He pushed his hands down on the cool, grainy turf and started to rise.

  Something heavy struck the back of his head and his senses switched off like the last electric bulb in a dark hallway.

  His knees seemed far too close to his face. As he came to, Masanori realised he was clutching his legs to his chest and pushed them away, stretching out the old muscles in his back as he peered into the gloom around him.

  He felt floorboards under his feet; the absence of a breeze suggested he was inside. Groaning, he pushed himself up into a sitting position. His eyes slowly adjusted to reveal the insides of a single-roomed log cabin. There appeared to be no windows and only a single night-light in the ceiling, pushing back the darkness with a dim, orange hue. A tiny red LED light flickered alongside it.

  Behind him was a wall, so he leaned back against it, pulling his knees up in front of him again. Directly opposite him was a closed door. He lifted one hand and touched the back of his head, immediately pulling his hand away as a blunt pain shuddered through him. Gingerly touching it again, he found no blood but a thick, meaty lump.

  ‘Where am I?’ he shouted. ‘Someone let me out!’

  In answer, there was a click and the door swung open, letting in a chill wind that swirled and wrapped itself around him. Masanori gasped and tried to shrivel up into the wall, but the door stayed open. After a few seconds he climbed to his feet, hobbled across and tried to close it, but it was stuck firm.

  He peered out into the gloom and saw the shifting shadows that were the nearest trees of the forest outside. He felt a great sinking feeling that this was some sort of a game. Few people in the town liked him, but Masanori didn’t much care. He didn’t make trouble, or spread gossip, or screw people over. He just did what he did with a sneer instead of a smile.

  It was also quite clear that he couldn’t stay here. A cabin in the woods where the doors opened of their own accord … nope. Not his idea of a good time.

  If whoever had jumped him and left him here wanted him dead, he would be dead already. Whatever sick kind of a joke this was, it was clearly meant to rattle him. ‘Won’t get the better of me, you bastards,’ he muttered. ‘When I find out who’s behind this there’ll be trouble.’

  He leaned out into the dark. The grey cloud had departed to reveal a partial moon smiling down on him, giving him just enough light to see. Glancing to the right, he could make out a shadowy ridgeline some way above him. So, they’d taken him down into the valley. The stupid fools. Masanori knew this forest better than he knew the varicose veins on his thighs. It was dark and it was cold, but he was hardy inside the battered suit age had left him with. It was only a mile or so downhill towards where he had left his little truck. The key was inside the rim of the front right tire, waiting for him. The angle of the moon told him it was past midnight, but in a couple of hours he could be home having a hot bath.

  And in the morning he’d start figuring out who was behind this.

  Masanori lurched out into the dark.

  He’d gone no more than a few feet when he heard a rustling sound over the wind, and a deeper, thicker sound that could only be…

  A pair of shining crimson lights appeared through the trees ahead of him, bobbing at a height that was above his head. Masanori didn’t stop to consider the impossibility of it. He turned
and rushed back towards the cabin as something huge and fearsome charged out of the trees.

  He was within a couple of feet of the door when it slammed shut on him. He heard something whirring and looked up to see a blinking LED light just above the door. Then it was gone as something thick and sharp and furry gripped his legs and wrenched him backwards.

  He didn’t see the bear’s teeth as they closed over his waist, because his eyes were shut against the pain, but he felt the sensation of one body becoming two as the creature separated his chest from his hips, and for a moment he felt a strange sense of weightlessness. Then the pain washed over him like a tsunami, and the snarling, ripping claws and the glowing crimson eyes became Masanori Kojima’s last memory.

  Part I

  Clouds Roll In

  1

  The students arrive at British Heights

  The bus stopped on the corner of the winding mountain road. To their right the forested hillside rose steeply upwards; to their left it dropped away, pencil-straight pine trees poking out of sparse undergrowth, branches already laden with early season snow. The driver and Kirahara-sensei were getting off, pointing and talking in loud voices about something in front of them on the road. Jun Matsumoto leaned back in his seat, sighed, and tried not to think about Akane. He could hear her voice near the back of the bus, telling that meathead clown Ogiwara to stop doing whatever he kept trying to do. Beside Jun in the third row seat, Kaede reached out and pulled his hand towards her thigh. He went through the motions as he always did, running his fingers over her soft, pliable skin, wishing he felt the same desire as all the other boys, especially knowing firsthand how quick she was to take off her clothes.

  ‘I hope I’m rooming with Michiko,’ Kaede whispered into his ear. ‘I can pass her off easily. Then we can be alone.’

  Jun forced a smile. ‘I can’t wait,’ he said.

  Kaede’s face turned sour, her narrow eyes bunching forward into a frown, her lips curling up. She had one of those faces that drew boys like a magnet, bitter and unforgiving, but knowing … so, so knowing. Yet Jun, who had seen the other side of that sneering smile, knew what lay there, and it was nothing. She was a good lay, but once the sex was over … their relationship was hollow, empty. She had nothing to talk about, no opinions on anything other than who was hip right now in the gossip magazines, which pop star was cheating on which actress.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she spat at him. ‘You not interested all of a sudden?’

  ‘It’s been a long journey. I’m just tired, that’s all.’

  Kaede glared at him a moment longer. ‘You better not be tired later. Long journeys have an effect on me too. And if you aren’t interested, Jun—’

  Kirahara-sensei was back on the bus and tapping on the microphone for attention. ‘Sorry about that,’ the teacher said. ‘We’ll be continuing on now.’

  He put the microphone down and started whispering to the driver again as the bus pulled off, steering out and around whatever had caused them to stop.

  ‘Fucking hell!’ shouted Ogiwara from the back of the bus, thumping on the window. ‘Look at that! The whole fucking mountain is about to come down!’

  ‘Ogiwara, that’s enough!’ Kirahara-sensei shouted into the microphone, causing a boom of feedback that made the students groan and cover their ears. ‘Sit down.’

  ‘Sir, we’re all going to die!’

  Ogiwara’s fellow judo club members, taking up the back two rows of the bus, joined in with his Satanic laughter, thumping the armrests and stamping their feet like a crowd of hungry monkeys.

  ‘Sit down, boy!’

  ‘What’s he shouting about?’ Kaede said, leaning over Jun’s front to peer out of the window as they moved around the obstruction. Jun found himself staring down her cleavage at the mounds of two pert breasts. Trying not to stare, he turned towards the window.

  A huge rent in the tarmac ran right down the middle of the road. It looked like an earthquake fissure, but up here in the mountains it was much more dangerous. The bus had been winding its way up the twisting and turning mountain roads for what felt like hours, and they had seen several scree slopes dipping away from the road, held up by walls of thick concrete. When the rain got into the earth and froze in the winter, great sections of the hillsides could just slew away. Every year there was something on the news about some mountain village or other that had been wiped off the face of the earth by a rushing wave of mud and vegetation.

  The crack was subsidence.

  Kaede’s hand was on his thigh, just inches from his crotch. He didn’t feel remotely aroused, which made it lucky she was more interested in the situation outside. Break up with her, a little voice whispered to him. You don’t even get along. Do it now and save yourself the trouble of doing it later.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘There are no cones, nothing. It must have just happened.’

  The bus rounded a corner, leaving the huge crack in the road behind them. A collective sigh of relief went up from the judo boys in the back, and several began to laugh. Within moments, they were making macho remarks and crude puns about cracks and crevasses and filling holes, while the girls whined at them to shut up. Jun looked back between the seats to see Akane roll her eyes at something Ogiwara had just said.

  When he turned back, Kaede was glaring at him. ‘What are you looking at? Something more interesting than me?’

  ‘No, nothing.’

  She shrugged and twisted around to face the front. ‘Good.’

  Jun suppressed a sigh and looked out of the window.

  Twenty minutes later the bus crested a rise and a lumpy line of snow-covered hills appeared in front of them as the road flattened out. A sign reading BRITISH HEIGHTS appeared on their left, and the driver swung them in through a cast iron gate and down a long, wide avenue between several Medieval-style British buildings. Three or four storeys tall, they were all wooden-framed with overhanging eaves and ornate doors and windows. The students began to um and ah as they passed a building that resembled a castle, complete with a cannon outside standing in a few inches of snow, and a tumbledown church on the other. Jun knew from the guide leaflet each student had received that it was all fake—bought in England, dismantled and shipped over before being rebuilt up here in the Japan Alps—but the look of authenticity was impressive. Glancing up at a wood-framed building that looked similar to pictures he’d seen of Shakespeare’s birthplace, Jun couldn’t help but wonder how romantic the rooms might be … except he was sharing a twin with Ogiwara. He wouldn’t even be able to toss one off in peace.

  The bus turned a corner, drove past a large Christmas tree sitting on a traffic island in the middle of the cobblestone road, and pulled up in a courtyard outside another building that looked like a castle. A main turret in front of them housed the entrance, with two-storey arms reaching around to encircle them on either side.

  Kirahara-sensei stood up, the microphone in his hands. ‘We have arrived,’ he said. ‘Take your bags and head into reception, straight up the stairs there.’

  Kaede’s hand had found its way into Jun’s, and he found himself jerked into the aisle, right in front of Akane, with Ogiwara pushing her from behind. Akane gave him one quick look with those lovely oval eyes, her mouth opening slightly as if to sigh, then she looked down at her feet as she waited for him to move.

  ‘Come on, lovebirds, hurry up,’ Ogiwara laughed. ‘You can do some porking later. Let the rest of us get off the bus first.’

  Jun glared at him but kept his mouth shut. He had despised Ogiwara even before Akane had fallen leave of her senses and taken up with him, but the other boy outweighed him by several kilograms and was captain of the judo team. Picking a fight now—or indeed at any time—was an especially bad idea, particularly as they had to spend the next three nights in each other’s company.

  A wide set of stone steps led up to the main entrance, a Medieval-style stone arch with Japan’s Rising Sun flag fluttering alongside the Union Jack above it. As th
ey started up, a rotund middle-aged Western man with receding hair, a red-tipped nose, glowing cheeks, and comically large fluffy white sideburns came bursting out of the doors, strode to the top of the steps and spread his arms wide.

  ‘Welcome, welcome! Welcome, friends! Welcome to British Heights!’

  Kirahara-sensei led the students up the stairs as the bus drove off to park in a corner of the courtyard. ‘We are from Kagawa Commercial High School,’ the teacher said, in passable English that was good enough to draw whoops of surprise from several of the boys. ‘My name is Kirahara Makoto. It’s nice to meet you.’

  ‘Rutherford Forbes,’ the blustery man said, scooping up Kirahara-sensei’s hand in two hairy, liver-spotted paws of his own and shaking it like a dog ragging a beloved toy. ‘I am the owner of British Heights. Its founder, its beacon, its architect.’

  Jun knew the words but the meaning was starting to lose itself. Kaede was hanging on to him with one hand and sniggering into the other, so he tried to glance back towards Akane, but she had her back to him in the middle of a group of other girls. He sighed and looked back at Forbes, who looked like an out-of-costume alcoholic Santa Claus as he huffed and puffed his way through a conversation which, from the confused frown on Kirahara-sensei’s face, had already out-Englished their teacher.

  A few minutes of formalities later, they found themselves crowded into an ornate reception area, all wood-paneling and intricate carving, the walls adorned with old paintings of British countryside scenes. A sweet-smelling log fire burned in a wide grate opposite a more modern reception desk, while at the back of the entrance room a wide staircase wound up past a mock stained glass window to the floor above. A large chandelier that looked plastic, and lights set into alcoves on the wall, left everything in a dim, twilight glow. Clearly a mixture of authentic British artifacts and carefully designed modern fittings, Jun had to look at the PCs on the reception desk to remind himself that he hadn’t stepped back into some Olde Worlde Britain.