by Jeremy Bates
The officer asked me if the bicycle was mine. I told him it was. He checked the registration sticker. This was something else I didn’t know then. It was compulsory for cyclists to register their bikes and attach a sticker to the frame. The officer called in the number on his radio. My ride turned out to belong to a woman named Kimiko Kashiwa. He asked me if I was Kimiko Kashiwa. I told him, no, I wasn’t.
The police station was a big white building where everyone spoke Japanese to me. One cop eventually attempted English. It was good enough that I could guess at his questions. What is your name? Where did you get the bike? Why did you take it? Where do you live? Where do you work? Then he got into the weird questions. How much money do you earn? What do your parents do? Where did you grow up? What school did you go to? When they ran out of irrelevant things to ask, they made me sit in an uncomfortable seat for the next five hours, though I could see no purpose to this. Finally, after filling out a bunch of forms I couldn’t read, having to redo several pages because my penmanship went outside the provided boxes, they set me free with an ominous-sounding warning I didn’t fully understand.
Given how serious they had reacted to the theft of a crappy fifty-dollar bike, I could hardly imagine how they would treat a case involving a questionable death.
I had done my research after this late-night encounter, to determine whether I’d been illegally detained, and learned there’s no habeas corpus in Japan. The police can hold you for up to twenty-three days without charging you with a crime and without allowing you access to legal counsel or counselor assistance.
I flexed my fingers again. Now it wasn’t just my right hand that was hurting. My biceps and shoulders had started to ache. How long had we been walking for? Thirty minutes? Longer? How far was it to the red ribbon? No more than forty minutes. Which meant another ten minutes before we could rest.
I continued to stare ahead at John Scott’s back. I wondered if he was tiring as well. He had to be. He wasn’t Superman, though he might like to believe he was. Strangely, as much as I disliked him, I felt bad for him. Because he, of course, had the most to be anxious about. The rest of us had done nothing worse than trespass, if even that. He had given Ben the mushrooms, had taken them himself, which could be proven with a urine test. And drugs, even soft drugs, were a big no-no in Japan. Paul McCartney had once been locked up here for nine days, the Wings tour cancelled, because he had been caught with marijuana at Narita Airport. The Stones had struggled for years to enter the country because the band members had previous drug convictions. And then there were all the stories you heard about concerning friends of friends. One off the top of my head involved a Brit who was arrested for smoking a joint in his own home. Ten cops searched his apartment and found some cannabis seeds in a box and a few grams of pot in the freezer. He was sentenced to eighteen months in prison.
And this was just for possession. If John Scott was convicted of supplying a controlled substance and involuntary manslaughter, he could be looking at a long, long time behind bars.
He might be an American soldier, but his crime was committed off-base. There was nothing Uncle Sam could do for him if he was already in Japanese custody.
Finally I could continue no further. I was about to tell John Scott to hold up, but he beat me to it, calling for me to set down the litter.
I did so quickly and wrung out my arms, which felt like overcooked noodles. Mel, Tomo, Nina, and especially Neil all seemed grateful for the break.
“So where is it?” Mel said, brushing back the hair that had fallen in front of her face. “Where’s the ribbon?”
“That’s why I stopped,” John Scott said. “I think we’re lost.”
CHAPTER 21
“We can’t be lost,” I said, surprised that he would make such a fear-mongering statement. “We just haven’t reached the ribbon yet.”
John Scott shook his head. “We’ve been walking for forty-five minutes. The walk in was only thirty.”
“It was longer than that.”
“I kept track.” He tapped his wristwatch. “Thirty, thirty-five, tops.”
“We’re carrying Ben. We’re not walking as fast.”
“We’re keeping the same pace, dude. Now listen to me. We should have come to the ribbon at least ten minutes ago. We haven’t.”
Mel frowned. “So we’ve been going in the wrong direction?”
“We strayed somehow.”
“No way,” I said. “The ribbon continued for hundreds of feet in both directions from where it intersected the string. There’s no way we strayed around it.”
“Then we’ve gotten totally turned about.”
I glanced about at the forest, a sinking feeling in my gut.
“I think him right,” Tomo said. “We walk too long.”
“I knew this was a bad idea,” Mel said.
“Knew what?” I asked, well aware her comment was directed at me. I’d been the one who’d confidently stated we wouldn’t get lost.
“Heading off without the string to follow.”
“What should we have done, Mel?”
“Does anyone have a compass?” she asked.
“They don’t work here,” Tomo said. “The rock fuck them.”
“The rock what?” John Scott said.
“The rock. The iron. Fucks them. It true.”
“Bullshit.”
“Did anyone bring a compass anyway?” I asked. When no one replied, I added: “So what does it matter?”
“Maybe Ben took it,” Mel said.
I looked at her. “The ribbon?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s really unlikely, Mel,” John Scott said.
“Well, he took the string, didn’t he?”
“Because he needed it to, you know.”
“Where is the rest of it?” Nina asked.
We all turned to her. She’d been quiet until now. Her face was expressionless, her eyes unreadable. She seemed small, fragile, under the weight of her backpack.
“Ben did not need a kilometer of string to hang himself,” she went on. “So what did he do with the rest of it?”
“He must have tossed it away somewhere,” John Scott said.
“Why would he reel in so much string? Why not cut off what he needed and leave the rest where it was?”
“Who knows? He was fucked up.”
Neil, I noticed, was shuffling off into the trees. The others watched him go too. A moment later we heard him retching.
“He needs water,” Mel said.
I glanced up and could make out dark patches of storm clouds between breaks in the canopy. I wanted to tell her that it might rain, that we could collect rainwater, but I didn’t. The need to resort to such a measure would be an admission we were not leaving the forest anytime soon.
“So what we do?” Tomo asked.
“We have to find our way out of here,” I said.
“No kidding,” John Scott said.
“What do you suggest?” I said. “If we keep walking, and we’re going in the wrong direction, then we’re screwed. We’ll get more lost.”
“We will stay here,” Nina said, slipping off her backpack. “We will call the police.”
Mel said, “How will they find us if we don’t even know where we are?”
“They can track the phone’s signal,” John Scott said.
“They can do that? Track a mobile phone?”
I was skeptical as well.
John Scott nodded sagely. “Sure. Why not?”
“So we just wait here for them?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
He was right, I decided. “Okay, Tomo. Can you call them?”
“What I say?”
“Tell them someone is dead and someone is very sick. Tell them we’re lost in Aokogihara Jukai. We need them to come find us.”
Tomo dumped his backpack on the ground and began fussing through it. He started with the top pouch, then moved on to the main pocket. Soon all his clothes and comic books w
ere scattered around him on the ground. He patted down his jacket and pants. “Shit, man,” he said. “Where my phone?”
John Scott dug through his rucksack, looking for his, while I checked Mel’s pack, where I had stuck mine the night before.
They were both missing.
“This is ridiculous,” I said. “There’s no way we’ve all lost our phones.”
“I dropped mine in the crevice,” Mel reminded me.
“But where are Tomo’s, John Scott’s, and mine?”
John Scott looked pissed. “Seriously, if someone is playing a joke, you got us. Now where the hell are they?”
“Would Ben have taken them?” Mel asked.
“Why would he do that?” Nina said.
“He was tripping,” John Scott said. “Maybe he thought they were teleportation devices that could beam him home. The fucker!”
“Ben did not take them,” Nina said firmly. “He was tripping, yes. But he was not crazy.”
“He took the goddamn string, didn’t he?”
“Should we go back?” I suggested.
Mel looked at me. “To the camp?”
“He might have stashed them somewhere.”
John Scott was shaking his head. “We don’t even know which way the camp is anymore.”
We stood there silently, all perplexed faces. Would Ben really have taken our phones? I wondered. It seemed so unlikely.
I felt Nina’s eyes on me. I met them and immediately knew what she was thinking. The swinging crucifixes, the apparition-like blur in the photograph, the mysterious phone call. I contemplated the possibility that something supernatural was going on, I believed it for a moment—but only for a moment. Ghosts didn’t exist. There was no such thing as a haunted forest. I shook my head. She turned away from me.
I lifted Ben’s backpack off the litter and went through it. “What the…?” I said, holding up a copy of the Complete Manuel of Suicide.
“That’s the book that was at that woman’s gravesite!” Mel exclaimed. “Why would Ben have a copy—” She caught herself. “That’s hers, isn’t it? He took it.”
She was right. It was old and weatherworn, the same condition Yumi’s had been in.
“Did you know he had this?” I asked Nina.
“I—no.” She shook her head. “No, I had no idea.”
“Why would he take it?” John Scott said.
“For souvenir?” Tomo suggested.
“Tell them what you told me,” I said to Nina. “Last night, in the woods. Tell them why Ben wanted to come to Suicide Forest.”
She appeared uncomfortable.
“Spill it,” John Scott said.
“Ben,” she said reluctantly, “he knew someone who killed themselves. He has been obsessed with suicide ever since.”
Silence.
Then John Scott: “See—it wasn’t the mushrooms. He was planning suicide all along.” He wasn’t so much having a revelation as stating a fact for our benefit. That Ben’s death was a premeditated suicide got him off the hook. Goodbye manslaughter charge, thank you very much.
“That is not true,” Nina hissed.
“Sure it is,” John Scott continued triumphantly. “He was obsessed with suicide. You said so yourself. Everyone here heard you.”
She was seething. “You are a pig.”
“Whatever. I just want answers. Also, this proves Ben took the phones.”
“How does it do that?”
“He’s a thief.”
“He is not a thief. Do not call him that.”
“The book was in his bag. It didn’t belong to him. That sounds like a thief to me.”
Neil emerged from the trees, interrupting the argument. He sensed the animosity in the air and said, “Sorry. I can’t control it.” He sank to the ground, holding his stomach, grimacing. “I don’t think I can go any farther.”
“Can I check your bag for your phone?” I asked him.
“Why?”
“We need it.”
He withdrew his phone from that pouch he kept on his belt, which had been hidden by his jacket. My exclamation of elation was lost in everybody else’s.
Neil frowned at us, confused.
“We need to call the police so they can come get us,” I said simply.
I took the phone—it was a basic flip model from DoCoMo—and glanced at the tiny monochrome display. There were two reception bars and one battery bar.
“It’s almost out of battery,” I said and passed it to Tomo. “Call the police, quickly.”
He punched in the three-digit number and a moment later was speaking Japanese to someone. After a couple minutes he turned to us and said, “They want call back.”
John Scott was outraged. “Why?”
“She need talk someone else.”
“Well, tell her to go get him! Now!”
Tomo relayed the message. He shook his head. “He’s not there. She need call the guy.”
“Tomo,” I said evenly, “tell her the phone’s battery is almost dead. Tell her we can’t wait.”
He spoke to the dispatcher again for several minutes.
I paced, furious with the police, cursing, probably unfairly, their ineptitude.
“How much battery is left, Tomo?” I asked, interrupting him midsentence.
He checked. “Empty square.”
“Tell them to hurry up!” John Scott bellowed. “Where is this guy? The fucking moon?”
Tomo spoke for another two minutes, his voice rising in frustration.
Then he hung up.
“Well?” I said, knowing it was going to be bad news.
“They call phone company first, then us. Phone company trace.”
“How long is that going to take?”
“Don’t know. They call back.”
John Scott scoffed. “What good is that going to do if the phone is dead?”
“I try, man.”
“So what should we do?” Mel asked.
“What can we do?” John Scott said. “Hope they call back before the phone dies.”
“Turn it off,” I said promptly.
Tomo frowned. “Huh?”
“Turn the phone off. Save the battery. We’ll call them in a few hours. They should have things sorted by then and be standing by to get the trace going quickly.”
Tomo looked at the others.
“It might not come back on,” John Scott said.
“That’s a risk we have to take,” I said.
He weighed that, shrugged. “This is your call, Ethos.”
I glared at him. He was willing to go along with my suggestion, but if it didn’t work out, he was making sure the onus would be squarely on me while he remained blame-free for being too chicken shit to make a decision.
“Do it, Tomo,” I said.
He powered off the phone.
CHAPTER 22
Our situation had gone to hell remarkably quickly, I mused as I sat on my own, away from the others. Ben had hanged himself, we were lost, and Neil was getting sicker by the minute. My thoughts were bunting around inside my head, and I tried to slow them down, sort them out. There was nothing we could do for Ben, so I pushed him to the backburner. Deciding to remain where we were was probably a smart move. The last thing we wanted was to get more disorientated. It was a two-hour-plus hike to the parking lot, which put us in a very remote spot. Hopefully the police would be able to triangulate our position and come get us. If not, they knew we were here, we were lost, and we had one dead and one sick. They would coordinate a search party. In the meantime we would have to sit tight and try to find a water source.
Which led to the most pressing concern. Neil. I’d had food poisoning once when I was eight years old. My parents had been away for the weekend. Gary had been tasked with looking after me and making my meals. The first evening he cooked chicken burgers on the barbeque on the back deck. The chicken breast was mushy inside and unappealing. Gary, only thirteen then, told me to add more onions and other toppings to it, which I di
d, masking the unpleasant taste. The next morning—God, the abdominal cramps. I was positive an alien was growing inside me, ready to burst forth from my gut. I spent the entire day in bed, making regular visits to the bathroom, never knowing what end stuff was going to come out. Eventually I became too weak to make the trips and plopped down in front of the toilet. Gary remained with me the entire time, bringing me glass after glass of water so I could rehydrate. If it hadn’t been for him, I don’t know what would have happened in a worst-case scenario. I’d heard of fit and healthy people dying from food poisoning, even when they had access to water and medicine. Really, it came down to the toxicity of the poisoning.
So how toxic was the virus or bacteria inside Neil? Would he be able to wait out another day or two if it came to that?
I glanced over at him. He was lying on his back, his hands on his stomach, his knees pointing toward the sky. He appeared almost peaceful. I thought he might be asleep until he convulsed suddenly, crying out gruffly, as if someone had struck his abdomen with a golf club.
The others either ignored him or eyed him helplessly.
What could we do?
I concentrated on the mystery of the missing phones. I tried putting myself in Ben’s frame of mind. Seeing the body, in the stage of decomposition it had been in, had obviously flipped a switch inside him. I know how easily that can occur while you’re on magic mushrooms. It happened to me once during college. After eating a chocolate brownie laced with three grams of mushrooms, I was having one of the best times of my life, experiencing enlightenment after enlightenment, or what I’d thought were enlightenments.
Then the bad trip kicked in.
While floating around my dorm room, I called a girl named Amy I had met at a pub-crawl the day before. She lived off-campus at her parents’ home. When her mother told me Amy was out, I asked if she had already gone to the party I was planning on attending later, some toga thing at a frat house. Her mother said no, she was at a friend’s, and what was this party anyway? Although it was an innocuous question, I freaked, believing I’d gotten Amy in trouble. I hung up on her mother and soon found myself pacing up and down my residence’s corridors. In my warped thinking I was convinced Amy must have lied to her mother about the party, told her she was going to her friend’s for the evening, and I had blown the whole subterfuge wide open. Amy would come home tomorrow to her screaming parents, and she would blame it all on me. The more I thought about this, the more I convinced myself of the severity of the problem. Soon it was a full-scale disaster in my mind. Amy would be grounded for weeks. She’d tell me to go to hell, then blabber to everyone what I’d done. People would think I was an asshole and begin avoiding me. My freshman year would be ruined.
