by Tim Marquitz
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Boots slapping on the wet mud, Ro hurried away from the gnomes and Lilly's shop. Puffing his pipe as he went, an extra wreath of flowers was nestled under his scarf. Mud splattered and flecked his trousers, and Ro winced as the droplets of cold sludge slowly seeped through onto his legs. Disgusting!
"Tommy," he yelled, as people parted and gossiped about the odd-looking, wild-eyed beanpole in a top hat. "Tommy, I’ll need the help of the local guvnor. You’ll need to come with me." Making sure he said it loud enough for the gawping crowd to hear, Ro prompted a knot of weasel faced men ahead to stop and turn. Among them was Tommy.
"I told you I'm a godly man. I don't deal in devilry," Tommy said when a breathless Ro caught up to him.
"Don't tell me the guvnor can't look after his own streets. What about your fellows?" Coughing up a thick clot of smoke, Ro patted one of the weasel men on his back. "Maybe this one could do the job of guvnor instead?"
The words hit the right nerves. Smirking, then spitting into the mud, Tommy said, "I'll do it then. No problem. But you better make sure I'm protected." His pupils swelled; a rabbit's eyes on hearing the hounds bark.
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Old rainwater plip-plopped from moldy roofs and echoed through the empty narrows of the Cockroaches' Castle. A cold night wind blew sulfurous taint into the rookery, whipping rags and peelings into the rubbish and slop heaped corners. Ro tugged his coat when the wind struck into his bones. Even though he stomped on garlic cloves like he had bare feet in hellfire, it didn't do enough to warm him up. At least the narrow alleys were warded now, safe from the evil which threatened to spill from the main alley-square.
Behind Ro, Tommy shivered. He clutched a meat cleaver in one hand, and a small tub of thick yellow mustard in the other. Yet Tommy didn't wince and groan at the cold, instead he fixed his face stoic. The muscle bound governor couldn't risk a show of weakness at such natural trivialities as cold, but Ro knew it was a farce.
"I'm starting to get a little pissed-off with all your mucking about, Mr Wine. She'll be out soon," Tommy said.
"Patience. Nearly done," said Ro, slathering his stiletto blade in eye-weeping mustard and flicking globs over the massacre of garlic. "We'll trap her surely now. Oh, I nearly forgot." Un-tucking the cloth primrose wreathe from behind his scarf, Ro gave it to the big man. "The protection you asked for. Keeps the evil away." Relief flushed over the big man's face. He almost dropped the wreath in his eagerness to wrap it around his neck.
A gentle hustle of foot-steps bounced against the narrows, movement from the main alley where Lily's shop once tended business. Then a sharp sneeze shot through the quiet. Rattling coughs came after. A symphony of sickness played its way in ever greater noise. "It's starting," said Tommy.
Both men moved into the main alley. In this more open space a frost cold-seared the men's faces. Gas lamps flickered in pathetic dying throes, yet the full moon cast ghosts in every shadow.
"Well, I'll be damned," said Ro.
A dozen or so grey silhouettes juddered spastic in their movement, retching between coughs and sneezes. All abandoned to another night of wasting illness, half-possessed, they begged for help. "Water. Sleep. Please. I just want to sleep. Or die." All drawn here by some dammed plague-curse.
Fiddling in the gloom, Ro dug under his cloak for his pipe. In shaking hands he lit it and inhaled a fog of smoke. But he breathed too deep, started coughing as Tommy stood by.
"She's coming, I tell you. Do something. Else I'll be the one to do you."
Their little commotion drew unwanted attention; the near-corpses lumbered over, gyrating almost lewdly to the irregular snaps of coughs and sneezes. A young lady, with imploring blood-shot eyes, stuttered as she spoke, "She slashed all the others who come to help…I begged my father' to leave me, else he got the sickness. Please, I can't take it anymore."
Tommy drew up his cleaver, but Ro placed a hand on the big man's chest halting him. "Listen, she's calling you," he said. Even as the young lady dropped into the mud at their feet, pleading as she coughed, a shrill voice carried through the alleys.
"Tommy Brown. Deceiver."
"I told you, she wants to enslave me. Haunts me." In panic Tommy spun around several times, desperate to see the source of the voice.
Just outside Lily's store the mud started sucking and glugging like a strangled man needing to breathe. Grey hands reached from under the earth, scrabbled for purchase, wildly thrashed and churned the mud. Lamp light flashed off a frenzy of viscous talons.
'Tommy Brown, you owe me your blood.'
Still the dozen or so sick-dancers flopped and shook with greater mad-purpose, their bodies racked with a plague of coughs and sneezes. Fear sharpened Ro's mind, but for a moment so sharp that it cut the cord of common sense. Dropping his pipe, he found himself grabbing Tommy's arm and clutching it like a scared child. Galileo didn't have to walk on the sun to know the planets orbited it. I'm one of those who are better with books and laboratories, in nice room-temperature conditions.
"Get off, you…" said Tommy. But before he had time to finish, a bent, awkwardly angled thing burst from the ground. A blur in the night, grey with whips of white hair.
'Tommy Brown, you owe me your blood.'
In a heartbeat both men turned, barging against each other as they ran back into the narrows. Chased by a chill wind, every footstep ushered more cold, more frost. Their breath fogged in the night.
Tommy pushed ahead and Ro stumbled at the kick back of his heels. A second later, icy-cold racked across his back followed by the hot flush of blood. Ro screamed, expecting the talons to rip into him again. Freezing breath pricked the hairs of his neck. But the waft of primrose staid the rabid mouth of the banshee for long enough. Leaping forward the last few feet, crossing the precipice of crushed garlic and mustard, Ro still screamed.
Whispers hissed into his ears, his heart beat into his ribcage quicker than he had ever known. "Stop," Ro yelled up the alley at Tommy still running for his life. With numbness throbbing across his back, Ro looked at the creature raging just a few feet away.
A nightmare screeched behind the ward-line, pestilence pulsed around it like some unholy halo. Grey as rot, her body thrashed into crippled angles. Her eyes were just black hollows which somehow pulsed with madness. The banshee slashed her talons, trying in vain to reach Ro. Yellowed spit frothed as she spoke.
'Tommy Brown. Deceiver.'
Despite the fear clawing in his stomach and the faintness in his mind Ro couldn't help but feel pity for Lily. Sliding a hand under his coat, he withdrew a pistol. Without a word he aimed it at the creature's shoulder at near point blank range. Gunshot cracked through the narrows.
The banshee lurched, hitting a pock-marked brick wall, sliding down hard against the mud. Yet no blood came from the withered thing. Instead a change washed over it as the garlic and mustard remedy soaked in, a lightening of the grey, a hint of red blushing the cheeks. A visage of Lily the elfin lass shone through, but still the black hollows-for-eyes remained.
Now at Ro's side, Tommy jumped with nervous energy. "Haunt me, would you? That's what you get. Go to hell."
But Ro ignored him and crouched closer to Lily. Voice gentle as he could make it, he said "Lily, I'm Ro. What set you this way?"
Lilly, sounding childish and sweet, spoke. "I felt sorry for Tommy Brown, laying in the gutter by a pile of corpses, drunk and helpless. I took him in for a day, fed him. When he got some strength back he took an interest in my potions and remedies, begged for help.' Please help me be a 'big man'. I'll be forever in your debt"
Taking a tentative step over the ward, with his cleaver raised, Tommy said, "Don't listen, Mr Wine. She's a thing of lies, and all that."
"Leave her be for now." Taking the remaining pistol out from his belt, holding it shakily, Ro said "Please continue, I am listening."
"Well now, with my soft heart, of course I said I'd help. I could always use fresh ingredients, and humans rarely give us their parts while ali
ve. So I made a deal. I told him what I needed, but asked for extras in payment. I took a few teeth, two fingernails, and a head of hair. With just a pinch of each, I mixed it with the mud from his feet. I planned to make him the big man of the alley. Just one alley mind. So I magicked him strong on his outsides, gave him an aura of admiration. But I needed something from the insides to make him better through and through. I asked him for a pint of blood, and then he ran away like the coward he really is."
"Lies." Stomping back and forth, Tommy puffed angry air through his nostrils.
"The next day he came back, all smiles, sloshing blood in a mug. When I tasted the blood, to get his essence for the spell, it tasted of death. He gave me the blood of a fresh plague-corpse from the gutter! And then he just looked as I collapsed, saying how sorry he is but that he couldn't allow me to tell anyone of his little secret. He must have buried me, for the next thing I knew was scratching myself out the earth, feeling so hungry. So very, very hungry…"
"Lies. I said it's all lies." Brutal in his force, Tommy lashed out, kicking Ro so hard that the man sprawled heavily against the brick with a loud sick-snapping thud. Then the big man slashed his cleaver down at Lily.
Clutching his ribs as the world spun, Ro shouted, "The primrose he wears, it isn’t real."
Through Tommy's flurry of cleaver Lily sneezed, the spray burning up into the man's face. Stumbling back, moaning blindly, Tommy was helpless as rabid talons sunk into his flesh. Ro covered his eyes to the blizzard of red.
When next he dared to uncover his eyes Lily stood over him, almost glowing with darkness, brimming with murder. A black tongue slathered over a bloody talon, slurped nastily at the collected pulp. Her face cracked wide, a smile of predatory death.
"You have no purpose anymore. Your vengeance is fulfilled." With madly trembling arm, Ro pointed his pistol. Another crack of gunshot, a garlic bullet sent straight into the creature's forehead, flipping back Lily's head. As the banshee collapsed Ro laced his wreathe around her neck. Crumbling away into a fine grey powder, in mere moments Lilly was no more.
With the world spinning and blacking out, Ro scrabbled to his knees and scooped up what he could of the powder into a little vial. Everything went still and silent, night held its breath. Then a soft thumping echoed up from the main alley. With one hand pressing against the wall for balance, Ro limped, then fell and half crawled out of the narrows. He tried to ignore the bloody handprints left on the wall behind him, tried to forget Tommy's corpse spread across the alleyway.
Inside the alley-square all the sick-dancers had collapsed. Exhausted, they now slept, a sleep so deep it tottered on the edge of the abyss. The stench of illness fouled the air still, but it was receding. Everything should slowly get better now. Until the next plague arrived from the docks anyway.
With no strength to stand, Ro crawled across the mud, patchy with frost-scabbed hard spots. He gasped in relief when he found his pipe, silver rings reflecting the moonlight. Cleaning off the mud and frost with his frock coat, he stuffed the bowl with fresh tobacco, sprinkling a little of the banshee-powder on top; of a banshee who died after just consuming the blood which completed a ritual of inner strength.
As all the right thinking folk knew, one of the best ways of keeping coughs and sneezes at bay was to have a smoke. Better to be safe than sorry. So Ro lit his pipe, admired the colorful blue sparks of banshee powder, and then engulfed blue clouds. Immediately the pain in his back dulled. Strength surged through his veins and he got to his feet.
With big strides Ro walked through the narrows, heading back to his lab to tend to his wound properly. Such a shame, with Tommy dead there'd be no pouch of silver. But still, and even better, he had a near-full vial of banshee. What fun might I be able to have with that? If only Tommy wasn't such an idiot, I could have settled things in a far more satisfactory manner.
"To err is human," Ro said aloud, before spluttering on a harsh draft of smoke. He nestled his top hat under his arm and let his eyes shine bright and his hair sheen rosy in the light of gas-lamps. The watching shadows of the Cockroach's Castle somehow knew not to mess with that one and let him go safety on his way.
Secret Suicide
Amy Braun
“You can’t be serious about this,” Toshi said.
I looked and my best friend, trying to hold back my glare. I was glad to have him with me, but if he made that statement one more time, I was going to hit him.
I took a deep breath to compose myself. Kenshin would have disapproved of my reaction. He had been a good brother. Thinking about him reminded me why I had come to this dreadful forest in the first place.
“I’m very serious, Toshi,” I repeated, ducking my head under a low tree branch. Night had fallen by the time we made it into Aokigahara. I had been here once in the daylight, but never after sunset. It was a haunting place to be. The spirits of the dead were said to wander, moan, and weep for the mistakes they made in life. The mistakes that burdened their souls too much to continue living.
Another pang of heartache filled my chest as I thought about Kenshin.
I stopped in the clearing, looking at the tree where I’d found my younger brother hanging a year ago. I was the one who identified Kenshin’s body to the police. I was the one they questioned, especially when they discovered his last call had been to me. I told them the truth. I didn’t know why Kenshin sounded so frightened and guilty. I didn’t know why he wouldn’t let me find him and fight whatever was terrifying him.
I stared at the tree, and even in the dark I could see his body dangling from the middle branch, his face as blue as the suit he’d been wearing over his scrawny body. The long hair I always teased him about hung over his eyebrows, nearly covering his sightless eyes. The noose around his neck that he used to take his life.
The grief threatened to swallow me whole. I blinked, wishing my eyes would dry.
“I need to know, Toshi,” I whispered. “I need to understand.”
My best friend watched me, knowing he couldn’t talk me out of this. Toshi and I had been friends for nearly thirty years. We lived next door to each other, went to the same schools, worked in the same building. He was as much a brother to me as Kenshin had been. He mourned as much as I did.
“All right,” said Toshi. “Then we’d better get started. I don’t want to be here longer than we have to.”
I nodded and let Toshi set up the spirit board. He had a fascination with the supernatural, so I knew he would have the equipment needed to speak with the dead. We tried to speak with Kenshin’s spirit at my house, but we weren’t able to connect with him. My brother’s suicide had come too abruptly and left too many unanswered questions. It was my decision to try the ritual again at the place of his death.
Toshi had balked when I told him I wanted to try again at Aokigahara, commonly known as the Suicide Forest. It was a forest located and the base of Mount Fuji, and was commonly inhabited by those who wanted to take their own lives. During the day, the forest looked old. Tall, lithe trees stretched to the sky, the bark on them chipped and yellow like bad teeth. The shrubs and leaves were a faded green in the sunlight. The earth was covered in dry soil and dead grass. There was no wildlife to be seen, but the occasional bird could be heard.
At night, the forest was much different. The trees were black, twisting shadows against a dull blue background. The shades of the shrubs and leaves resembled clumps of barbed wire and razors. The soil was hard and unforgiving. The air was unnaturally silent. It was like stepping into a padded room that stretched for miles.
Plenty of people came to Aokigahara at night. Most of them wanted to commit suicide, but some teenagers looking for a good scare. Others were paranormal investigators looking for a ghost. Except for the suicides, many of those people came out alive.
They were never the same afterwards.
“Everything’s ready, Kaz,” Toshi said.
I sat down on the hard soil across from my friend. He’d set up the black spirit board with w
hite letters and numbers. Beside the board were three dimly burning tea-lights, a lit stick of incense, and smoking sage. In the middle of the board was a wooden planchette. We placed our fingertips on the planchette and looked at each other.
Toshi was nervous. His thin lips were turned down in a hard frown, his dark brown eyes narrowed in concentration. I could see tiny beads of sweat near his shaved hairline. Before I could tell him I could do this alone, he spoke up.
“Greetings, spirits of Aokigahara,” his voice sounding much calmer than I expected. “We are looking for Kenshin Sakemoto. Kenshin, if you are here, please make yourself known to us.”
For a minute, nothing happened. Then the planchette began to move under our fingers. We watched it point to different letters, and finally we had a short sentence.
I am here.
My heart began to race. I looked at Toshi. I knew better than to overload myself with excitement. The spirit might not even be Kenshin’s. It could belong to a spirit who wished to taunt me. If it was Kenshin, I couldn’t ask him too many questions.
“Can you show yourself to us?” I asked.
Again, nothing seemed to happen at first. As the minutes went by, the air seemed to drop in temperature. The cold was sinking into my bones until I could see my breath. Toshi was the same across from me. Our shaking breaths and chattering teeth echoed in the forest.
The planchette began moving again.
You must leave.
I squinted at the letters Kenshin’s spirit had spelled. I didn’t understand them. The planchette continued to move.
He is coming.
Toshi and I exchanged an uneasy glance.
“Who’s coming, Kenshin? What happened to you?”
It was a mistake to ask more than one question at once, but I came here to find out what happened to my brother. Had he really committed suicide, or had someone killed him?
A few months before his death, Kenshin had been distancing himself from everyone, even me. He went out with a new friend who I found suspicious. He always wore a black suit with a red tie, carried a cane despite being no older than me, and had a scar around his throat like someone had cut it with a blade. I met him once and was grateful he could communicate through sign language so Kenshin could understand him, but I was hesitant to trust him. I asked Kenshin about him, but only said that he was thinking about taking his life in another direction, that he would do something to truly honor our family. As the mute second son in a traditional family, Kenshin was often swept aside so more room could be made for me. I never put him down or challenged him, but as work and life began to steer us in opposite directions, I could not spend as much time with him as I used to. I held my doubts at bay, thinking I was just being paranoid.
