Maohden Vol. 1

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  The carpenter transformed like this every time he fucked her mother. There were devotees of the drug among the establishment’s customers as well, including the ones who made a drinking game out of showing off how far they could mutate.

  “Take a look at this,” said the carpenter. He reached down to his crotch and held up its hot, dripping, brutish shape, a match for nothing in Mayumi’s knowledge. The tawny flesh, like rough leather, was crisscrossed with veins. His own hand wasn’t enough to fully encircle its girth, an organ guaranteed to render any woman breathless with ecstasy.

  “You want a taste too, Mayumi-chan? No need to beg. Cop a feel and see for yourself. Your father’s dead. I’m your daddy now. We’re all okay with that, right? There’s plenty in my reservoirs left to share. I’ll fill you up to the brim.”

  His face flushed, his voice climbing in pitch, turning himself on with the lewdness of his own propositions. Mayumi didn’t move. The transformations of the carpenter didn’t frighten her. She couldn’t have cared less either way.

  The carpenter stood in front of her and thrust the spout of his thick hose in her face. “Take a good, long look, baby.”

  Mayumi’s eyes didn’t budge, only fixed on an empty point in space. The carpenter grabbed her hair and pulled her mouth in front of his cock. Mayumi turned her face to the side. He held her firmly with both hands. She shook her head. The carpenter wasn’t giving up on his goal so easily.

  He pinched her nose. A long second later, she opened her mouth. He plunged into her with a triumphal cry, burying his whole length inside the seventeen-year-old girl. She felt a sharp stinging across the bridge of her nose from the feral bristles of his pubes.

  When she struggled for breath, he released the hold on her nose. “No biting, see, or there’ll be hell to pay.”

  His hips rocked forward and back. Mayumi had no choice but to go along, as if her dainty lips had swallowed a python coiled around the carpenter’s waist. The king of the apes had kicked out Tarzan and was having at it with Jane.

  “Hey, but if you want to bite, go ahead, and I’ll do the same to you, and then your mother. C’mon, put your tongue into it. I bet you’ve packed a lot of experience into those seventeen years.”

  The hairs of the man-beast stood on end. “Oh, fuck—yeah, baby—knew it wasn’t the first time for you—just like your mama—she knows how to go down on a man too—”

  Stroked by Mayumi’s warm, wet tongue, excited by his own perverse pillow talk, the carpenter grew hotter and harder, exposing, in a sense, his true essence.

  “Man, I’d take you down there too, but don’t rightly want to end up like your daddy. Put on that virginal face and then get me off like that, shit, that’s a Shinjuku girl for you—whoa—whoa—holy—”

  His voice rose to a hoarse cry as he came in Mayumi’s mouth. He pulled out and delivered the next shot an inch away from her nose. A creamy sensation and the musky odor coated her face and dripped from her cheeks.

  “That’s a good girl,” the carpenter panted, half-crazed by the thrill of having his way with a teenager the age of his own grandchild. “Show daddy the nice present he gave you. No throwing it away, now. Let’s see.”

  Mayumi shook her head.

  “I haven’t got all day,” said the carpenter, his voice tinged with menace. His hand tightened around her chin. Her cheekbones creaked beneath the brutish strength. When he relaxed his hold, the viscous bodily fluids welled up at the corners of her mouth.

  “Good, good,” he growled, his eyes glazed in ecstasy, oblivious that he’d started jerking his own self off. He’d had the girl in his sights for a while, had fantasized about doing her like this. His dream had come true. He’d never gotten turned on so fast, so easy, or come to such a satisfying conclusion.

  The carpenter scooped up a bit of his handiwork dribbling down her chin and stuck it into Mayumi’s mouth.

  “Now we’re going to finish off with a bang and you’re going to drink it all down. I wanna see that cute throat of yours throb. Down there in your stomach, my boys are gonna invade your whole body. Dirty sons a bitches. ’Cause I ain’t human, see. I’m a beast. Once the beast is in you, it never lets go. That’s daddy’s special cock sauce for you. Hurry up. Do your thing.”

  She didn’t have a choice and she didn’t give a damn. He poured himself into her and she swallowed down the beastly seed.

  “Fucking-A!” the carpenter moaned.

  A maddening desire burned inside him. The feeling of an itch that could not be scratched crawled down his shaft.

  “Once more, baby. Once more. Get a little hand action in there this time.”

  “Oh, give it a break,” Mayumi said in a weary voice. Her face was covered with come and her lips coated with milky cream. She was disgusted with her own disgusting state.

  The carpenter grabbed her hand and curled it around his member and pumped it back and forth. Two ragged breaths later, he threw his head back beneath the overhead fluorescent light. Followed by the strangled sound of trying to force air down his throat.

  Mayumi fixed her indifferent gaze upon him as his face darkened and turned purple. She watched the same thing happen a week ago. That time, it was her father, his cock growing big and hard inside her mouth. Then grabbing it, glistening with her saliva as he gasped for air, his back arched in the last moments before suffocation.

  The carpenter was whacking himself off. On the verge of his heart stopping, all he wanted to do was come.

  A sound like the report of a machine gun exploded from his throat. His back bent to the breaking point. With his last breath, the thick, white thread flew through the air and splashed across Mayumi’s mouth and chin.

  He had completed his conquest, just like her father.

  Mayumi lay back and listened to the carpenter crumbling onto the tatami mats like a rotted out tree. The strange aroma stuck to her face and coated the inside of her mouth.

  She got up and went to the kitchen and ran the water in the sink, filled a glass, and rinsed out her mouth. Ten times. She washed her face. The hand soap was out so she used dishwashing liquid instead, and scrubbed herself until she smelled of disinfectant.

  “Ma—Mayumi—”

  A voice like that of a disembodied ghost rose up behind her. She didn’t turn around. It was her mother.

  “What did you do—to poor Kanauchi-san—what—what happened—?”

  Mayumi didn’t answer. Hardly a question her mother needed to ask. Once she had passed out, the carpenter’s intentions toward her daughter should hardly have been a mystery to her. And what would become of him then.

  “Just like my father,” Mayumi intoned.

  “What are you saying?”

  “Just like my father. He just fucked me different. The results are the same. Mom, why do you bring such dirt bags home with you?”

  “Why—” She hesitated. Her daughter’s words stung. In the moment of silence, darker thoughts welled up. “Kanauchi-san cares about us. How were we going to keep this place going after your father died? Half of our customers came here just to see him. With him gone, we didn’t have a choice but to keep somebody like Kanauchi-san around!”

  “Bullshit!” said Mayumi, whirling around, her body and voice trembling.

  She stopped and stared. The pink negligee her mother was wearing was stained red from the chest down. In the faint light, the outlines of her body stood out clearly against the wet fabric.

  All the buttons were undone, exposing her ample thirty-six inch bust and damp thighs and the dark triangle between her legs.

  “Mom—your breast—”

  Her mother’s right hand rose to her chest and touched the torn flesh. “This? Kanauchi-san took a bite out of me. It’s nothing. A little artificial skin and it patches up fine. You should know by now, a man likes to eat a woman in more ways than one. Yeah, normally they settle for licking and sucking, but they really want to sink their teeth into us. Kanauchi-san says I taste real good.”

  “But—like th
at—and more than once—”

  “It’s no big deal. I shoot myself up before going to bed. It stings a bit but a little acting takes care of the rest. You get it, don’t you? After this, I’ll do what I have to do to raise you. That’s why Kanauchi-san was so important. And you couldn’t put up with a little roughhousing—”

  A little roughhousing—? The cool fluorescent light glimmered off Mayumi’s cheeks. She could almost believe she was crying.

  “You killed your father the same way.” Sensing weakness in her daughter, her mother’s voice took on a high-handed tone. “You kept mum to that doctor, but you’ve killed four. Your father and three after that.”

  Mayumi shook her head, but without conviction. There was no use denying it. Before she knew it, her mother had silently crossed the threshold. She loomed over her. Mayumi retreated until her back was against the sink.

  “Mom—stop it—”

  “Relax.” Her mother smiled. A strange light sparked in her eyes. “I’m not going to do anything to you. Only I’m going to have you fixed by this doctor I know. We’re not going back to that quack, Mephisto. A real underworld doctor. The sooner we see him the better, no?”

  She seized Mayumi by the wrist. For the first time in her life, Mayumi felt the full force of her mother’s strength. She tried to shake herself loose. Her mother yanked her closer, her countenance like hot coals, her breath licking at Mayumi’s cheeks like a blowtorch.

  Mayumi felt a cold shock of fear run through her veins. This was the face of a she-devil. Mayumi pushed back, her hand digging into the raw wound in her breast.

  Her mother reeled backwards, crashing into the table and then falling to the floor. Mayumi whirled around. The kitchen door and the fire escape were only a few feet away. She took a step—

  A claw-like hand clamped around her ankle. She was only lucky enough to keep from falling on her face.

  “Little bitch—do you think you can just run away?” her mother hissed, her fingers curled around her leg.

  These weren’t the words of a mother to a daughter, but those of a demon guarding the gates of hell.

  Chapter Two

  Mayumi stared back at her mother. She had transformed. Her eyes became a pair of red slashes beneath her brows. White fangs jutted from her mouth.

  “Ma—yu—mi—” she growled.

  The inflection of her voice was completely different, her vocal cords having mutated as well. The carpenter wasn’t the only one availing himself of drugs for “improved” sexual performance.

  Only dabbling at first, the side effects hadn’t manifested themselves in the past, but were probably drawn to the surface by her elevated emotional state. In any case, it was hard to imagine how such a mother and such a daughter could share a life now.

  Mayumi screamed. She tried to kick free. Her mother held on like a vise. Mayumi abruptly turned cool and composed. She knew what she had to do. She and her mother would never see eye to eye again. The path ahead of her was crystal clear.

  She twisted her body, planted both hands on the edge of the sink and hoisted herself up. Right in front of her were the stove and the knife rack.

  Which one would be right for the job—a chef’s knife for slicing off a limb, a long, thin sashimi knife for close combat.

  She grabbed the latter just as her mother released her hold on her ankle and started to stand up. Her shoulders were almost twice their normal width, her arms practically reached the floor. The hard, grating sound came from her teeth grinding together. A frightful loathing radiated from her eyes.

  Mayumi wasn’t frightened. The sashimi knife glinted in her right hand. As she lumbered to her feet, her mother’s throat was exposed and unprotected.

  Mayumi swung the knife with all her might. She felt the gruesome impact. A slit opened its mouth like a crescent moon beneath the double chin and smiled at her. Blood welled up at the corners and spilled down her chest like a dam giving way.

  Mayumi felt a fresh and exhilarating surge, as if the knife had also severed the bonds entwining her. She turned on the faucet and washed the gore off the blade. Not in the manner of a criminal covering up a crime, but simply wanting to tidy up before she left.

  Her mother still stood there, her mouth flapping open but no sounds coming out, as if she’d mounted the stage and forgotten her lines and was frantically trying to improvise.

  “I don’t want to hear what you have to say anyway, Mom.”

  Mayumi slid the knife back into the rack. Her mother didn’t move. As she frantically tried to regain her voice, Mayumi pulled on her sneakers and left. She didn’t hurry and she didn’t look back.

  The condo was over the bar her mother ran. At the moment, she couldn’t remember the name. If she ever did again, she’d do her best to forget it.

  Not sparing either a second look, she wheeled the folding scooter out of the rear entrance to the building and onto the street.

  Shinjuku at night revealed the true face of Demon City in all its gaudy glory.

  The glare of the neon lights and bass beat of the music flowing out of the bars and clubs turned the high streets of Kabuki-cho and Shinjuku Nichome into a mad province of hell, prowled by addicts desperate to the point of violence to score some change, with monsters lurking in the dark shadows in the abandoned buildings waiting for the right pedestrian to pass close by.

  When the night fell, the regular beat cops retreated to the station and manned the phones while the commando police took to the streets.

  Even wearing heavy combat suits and armed with laser cannons on loan from the SDF, this elite corps of battle-hardened soldiers still saw several go missing every month. They weren’t casualties of violent confrontations. Rather, they simply vanished into thin air during patrols.

  Not even the strongest man dared venture down the gloomy side streets without packing a submachine gun at the bare minimum.

  The most dangerous areas in the city were Ichigaya-Kawada, Toyama, West Waseda, and the west entrance to Chuo Park, though a good twenty others were considered too great a risk for average folk.

  The four areas marked as general safety zones were Shimo’ochiai, Shinanomachi, Okubo, and Kagurazaka.

  The special housing blocks designated by the ward were surrounded by security barricades charged to fifty-thousand volts and guarded by Doppler radar systems, heavy machine guns and 90 mm rocket launchers.

  These districts were restricted to ward government VIPs only, such as doctors, lawyers, academics and other notables who had “contributed to the progress and welfare of the city” (to the tune of fifty million yen).

  Everywhere else, it went without saying, the watchword was caveat emptor.

  Research specimens that had escaped from the Ichigaya Genomic Research Center had since grown by leaps and bounds and prowled about the city at night. Working twenty-four seven, complete eradication was currently projected to take another 9,250 years.

  Organisms with DNA tweaked to increase aggressiveness and physical size propagated in the wild. Or perhaps several years afterwards, the native species had incorporated them, their natural plasticity assimilating those characteristics.

  • Carnivorous rats a foot long and weighing over two pounds.

  • Poisonous snakes wended their way through the city streets, with no respect to natural boundaries or time of day.

  • Birds of prey had taken up residence in the ruined skyscrapers, swooping down on anything weighing up to sixty pounds.

  • Squids and jellyfish of unknown constitution and form inhabited the sewer systems and reached up from every manhole in the city to snare careless pedestrians.

  • Spiders a yard wide with fangs that could puncture sheet metal and weaving sticky webs that could stop a tank in its tracks.

  Based on firsthand accounts, over four hundred dangerous species of unknown origins and capabilities. The city’s Bureau of Statistics calculated that a new species spawned every five hours. The only saving grace in the numbers was that the vast majority
weren’t fit enough to survive this strange environment and went extinct almost immediately.

  But the totals still came to over four hundred. Wandering about every day and every night, with only four districts where “public safety” could actually be assured, the most secure street in the city could never truly be secured.

  Mayumi grabbed the rear wheel of the folding scooter and yanked it out, then unfolded the handlebars. The 50 cc one horsepower engine gave it a top speed of forty miles per hour. She climbed on the scooter, twisted the throttle, and took off with a puff of gray exhaust.

  She had no place to go, nobody to run to. She had killed her father. She was the kind of girl who belonged here. In a place where the literal act was hardly out of the question, there were a thousand ways to skin a cat. That’s why it was called Demon City.

  She’d look for work in Kabuki-cho first. Mayumi steered the scooter toward Okubo Avenue.

  The bar was in Kikuicho, not far from the Shinjuku power station. Several years before, a certain “religious rite” triggering a certain “glacier panic” had broken out there. Everything was back to “normal” now, or at least that was the official line that everybody was sticking to.

  Mayumi sped along at forty miles per hour. The street was devoid of traffic, and she reached Okubo Avenue several minutes later.

  Once upon a time, she could have proceeded straight to Meiji Avenue and then into Shinjuku proper. But Toyama—one of the most dangerous places in the city—was now smack dab in the way. Detour through Wakamatsu and Ichigaya-Kawada was smack dab in the way. All the other routes would take her too far out of the way.

  Mayumi chose the Wakamatsu corridor.

  A three-hundred-foot-long snake was said to occupy the Fuji Television studios in Kawadacho. Maybe she should make herself its next meal. She was a man-eater herself. The carpenter, her father—four men altogether. Any man who left his seed inside her died.

  Except for her father, they’d been patrons of the bar. They all said they’d been hankering to do her. One was on his way home from high school. Another came after her when she was asleep, helping himself to the inventory and her while her father was away.