by Jeremy Bates
Nina yelled something in Hebrew at us, then marched off into the trees.
“Nina!” I sprang to my feet and ran after her. I caught her quickly and positioned myself in front of her. She tried to push past me. I grabbed her by the shoulders. “Nina, stop! You can’t leave.”
“I am not staying here!”
“It’s just a woman.”
“You know that is not true.”
“It’s just a woman.”
“Let go of me!”
“You’ll get lost.”
She tried to shake my hands from her shoulders. I held her firm.
She took a deep breath, composing herself. “Ethan,” she said with a frosty confidence, “move out of my way right now. You cannot hold me against my will.”
“Where are you going to go?”
“Away from here!”
“Where?” I gestured violently at the dark trees. “In there? By yourself?” Doubt flickered in her eyes, and I pressed on. “You’re no safer out there than right here.”
“I cannot stay here.”
“Just until morning. It’s only a few hours until dawn. You don’t have to go to sleep. You can stay awake by the fire. We’ll all stay awake. It’s only a few hours.”
“No,” she said, and tried to shake my hands off her again, though she wasn’t trying very hard this time.
I let her go. “Come back to the fire, Nina. It’s safe there.”
Although her eyes glistened with terror, with each passing second I could see the panic that had gripped her begin to loosen its hold.
Losing some inner debate, she wrapped her arms around me and mumbled something into my chest. We remained like that for a good minute until she released me.
We returned to camp. Nina zippered herself inside her tent without a word to anyone. I sat back down. The next few minutes seemed slow and blurred and dreamlike, like I was underwater. I kept expecting to hear the scream again, but it never came. Amazingly Tomo remained asleep. Neil hadn’t stirred either.
Sobs from Nina’s tent broke the silence. They grew louder, more miserable. John Scott stared at her tent, his face unreadable. Mel rubbed her eyes, and I realized she was crying as well.
“Go back to sleep,” I told her quietly.
“Was it really just a woman?”
“Yeah.”
“It wasn’t…?”
“Positive. Now go back to sleep.”
“Come in the tent with me.”
“I can’t. It will be my watch soon.”
“I’ll stay up with you.”
“Go back to sleep. The sooner you do, the sooner it will be morning.”
That apparently was too tempting for her to pass up. She kissed me on the cheek and returned to the tent, leaving the door flaps open.
Nina’s sobs became muffled, then stopped altogether. John Scott shifted his gaze past her tent, to the forest, in the direction the screams had come from. I wanted to talk with him, toss some more theories back and forth. But Nina and Mel would hear us. This wasn’t the time.
I lay back down, my head on Mel’s backpack, and glanced at my wristwatch. One hour until my shift. I closed my eyes, hoping for sleep, knowing it would be an impossibility, but trying nonetheless. I saw a woman flopping around on the ground, limbs spasming, body convulsing, a pale-faced yūrei floating forlornly through the trees, head thrown back, mouth gaping open in an obtuse hole, a dozen other scenarios to explain what we’d heard, and then I shut off and was thinking no more.
CHAPTER 25
Eventually I gave in to my discomfort and awoke during the early morning between dark and dawn. My eyes cracked open, but I didn’t move. The night’s cold had penetrated deep into my bones. The ground had been like concrete, and I had tossed and turned constantly. Pressure had built in my bladder until it was a sharp pain, but I had refused to get up to relieve myself, knowing if I did I would remain awake until morning.
The world was an ethereal bruised-gray. Through the curdling mist I could see the vague outlines of the craggy branches netted together overheard. I pushed myself up onto my elbows. The fire had died down to a smokeless bed of red embers. John Scott lay next to it, snoring, bloated from the clothes he had layered beneath his leather jacket. Tomo’s spot was empty. I assumed he had retired inside his tent. Smart guy. I should have returned to mine. I could have climbed under the emergency blanket and pressed myself against Mel, sharing our body heat.
For a moment I wondered why I hadn’t done that, why I was out here, then I remembered we had agreed to take watch. Tomo, John Scott, then me. But why hadn’t John Scott woken me? Had he fallen asleep? I looked at him again. Probably.
I got to my feet, hating the cotton taste in my mouth and the icy feel of my clothes against my skin. God, I hoped it wasn’t overcast today. I would give anything to see a bright blue sky and golden sun.
Now that I was up and moving, the pressure in my bladder intensified tenfold to a kidney-stone level of pain. I moved toward the trees—and caught sight of Ben. He was exactly how we’d left him, on the litter, beneath his sleeping bag. His body was still under the eerie control of rigor, twisted at the waist, knees bent. I assumed it had another day or two before decomposition set in and it began to relax.
Thinking about this I felt oddly indifferent. Just another dead person. It was how I’d felt following Weasel’s death, and Stag’s death. Shock when I first heard the news, an empty, queasy feeling all day—but then, the next morning, nothing. Either I was one cold-hearted son of a bitch, or the human brain had a remarkable ability to cope with death—at least, the death of little-known acquaintances.
Despite my pincushion bladder I detoured from my path so I could check on Neil quickly. I knelt beside him, and for a horrible moment I thought he was dead. He looked like a corpse. His face was gaunt and white and smudged with dirt. There were flecks of dried sick on his skin and chin which I wanted to brush away but couldn’t bring myself to touch. Nevertheless, when I leaned close—getting a whiff of his sickly, putrid stench—I heard him breathing. It was faint and phlegmy, as if there was too much fluid in it.
I let him rest and walked two dozen yards away into the forest, careful to avoid the patches of vomit or feces that seemed to be everywhere, as strategically placed as landmines.
I stopped near a maple tree, unzipped, and aimed at a helpless shrub. Steam rose from the arc of urine. Afterward I surveyed the pre-dawn forest. The fog drifted languidly between the trees, almost like some amorphous, sentient life form, sniffing out its prey.
No chirruping insects or cheerful morning birdcall greeted the new day, only that deep and expectant silence I had become uneasily familiar with.
The mist parted and I saw someone standing fifteen feet away from me.
I likely would have cried out if my chest hadn’t abruptly locked up. This knee-jerk reaction passed in a flash, however, replaced with a magical kind of awe as I realized what I was staring at was not a person but a deer.
It stood statue-still, staring directly at me. Its eyes were a liquid black, timeless, and if you didn’t know better it would have been easy to believe they held some sort of secret, ancient wisdom. The scuffed ears were alert, like two small satellite dishes, nestled at the base of a majestic set of velvety antlers. The licorice-black nose glistened, the nostrils flaring noiselessly. It was more compact and dainty-legged than a North American stag and sported white spots along the mahogany pelt. The fluffy tail twitched once.
We stared at each other for a long time. I had an almost irresistible urge to move forward, to get closer to it, though I knew it would bound away if I tried. Instead I raised my hands slowly, showing I was unarmed. Its nose tested the air.
“Hey there,” I said. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”
A billow of fog drifted between us, thick and gray, and when it dispersed the stag was gone. I scanned the crooked trees, astounded that the deer could depart so silently—as silent as a ghost, a voice suggested from an ig
nored corner of my mind—and I had to convince myself I had really seen it.
For several long minutes I refused to move, unwilling to let go of the experience. It had been unlike anything I would have anticipated. During those few seconds our eyes connected, a transcendent peacefulness had settled over me, fuelled by an intoxicating sense of freedom, as if I could shed my civility and do anything I wanted in a world where there were no worries, no decisions to make, no consequences of actions, no concept of past or future.
I had been completely in the moment, blissfully, ignorantly alive.
Back at camp everyone was still sleeping, so I sat down quietly, did my best to ignore my hunger and thirst, and played over the ghastly screams of the previous night. Now, with darkness marching a hasty retreat, what we’d heard seemed more perplexing than terrifying, a mystery to be solved rather than a superstition to be feared.
Had John Scott been right? Had the screams come from a woman who had botched her suicide? I figured most people who couldn’t stomach hanging themselves would opt for washing a handful of Valium down their throat with a bottle of booze. This, of course, would not elicit the screams we had heard. But if Woman X didn’t have access to such pills, she might have tried something more creative and dangerous such as, say, drain cleaner, or rat poison. If she didn’t consume enough of either to kill herself quickly, she very well could have suffered a slow, agonized death as her internal organs were eaten away. I could almost see her slumped against a tree stump, her gums and nose bleeding, her body thrashing, the tendons in her neck bunching like cables as she belted out those horrible wails.
While waiting for the others to wake I kept myself occupied with a half dozen other gruesome scenarios, one of which had Woman X slitting her wrists while unknowingly disturbing a colony of fire ants, just as I had done, only she lacked the strength to brush them off or move away.
Gradually the eddying mist thinned and evaporated altogether, revealing the empty, lifeless forest in all its green glory. My wish did not come true. The sky did not clear but remained swollen with the dirty clouds keeping at bay direct sunlight. This meant there was no need to attempt a belowground sill—which I don’t think I would have dug even had the sun been out in full force for the same reason I hadn’t bothered to collect dew on rags tied around my shins or piss in a bottle.
I was cold, thirsty, hungry, and spent. I no longer had the energy or desire to entertain worst-case scenarios. I wanted this nightmare trip to be over with; or, more accurately, I wouldn’t accept that it could go on any longer. The police were coming. They would be here in a few hours. Noon at the latest. I no longer gave a damn about the potential statements and interrogations. All I wanted was to be in a heated room with a hot plate of food and a coffee before me.
And if for whatever reason the police failed to show, we would leave here on our own. I didn’t care if I had to carry Neil on my bloody back all afternoon. One way or another, we were leaving Aokigahara today.
John Scott was the first to wake. He stirred, opened his eyes, but like me earlier, he didn’t move. He saw me watching him and closed his eyes again.
“You didn’t wake me last night,” I said.
He grunted.
“Why didn’t you wake me for my shift?”
“Fell asleep,” he mumbled.
Mel must have heard us talking because a few moments later there was a rustling from within our tent and she emerged. Her hair was a tousled blonde mess, and she appeared younger, more vulnerable with most of her makeup now smudged off her face. She glanced at the remnants of the fire and frowned slightly, as if she had expected to see a kettle seated in the embers, the water boiling for a cup of morning tea. She shifted her gaze to me, then John Scott, then me again. “What time is it?” she asked tiredly.
“Half past six.”
“When will the police be here?”
“Probably not for a few hours.”
She shivered, hugging herself, then turned back toward the tent, as if she had decided to return to bed.
“Come with me,” I said, standing. “We’ll find some more wood for the fire. The exercise will warm you up.”
We spent the next thirty minutes or so scouring the surrounding area for tinder and deadwood, then built a fire. I stood so close to the licking flames they scorched my bare skin, though I didn’t move. The heat rejuvenated my spirit and made me forget temporarily about Ben’s body and Neil’s sickness and my empty stomach.
Nina stuck her head through the door flaps of her tent and surveyed the camp. She reminded me of a prairie dog peeking out of its burrow, wary of a circling hawk. When we made eye contact, she looked quickly away. I couldn’t decide whether she was embarrassed about her attempted escape from the forest the night before or whether she was mad at me for stopping her.
John Scott poked a stick at the fire. Sparks exploded. I had to jump backward to avoid getting hit.
“Did we finish all the food?” Mel asked. She was sitting on the ground, her knees pulled to her chest, looking miserable.
I said, “There’s still Ben’s ration from yesterday’s breakfast. It’s not much.”
“Break it out, dude,” John Scott said. “What have you been hoarding it for?”
“I haven’t been hoarding it,” I said. “I’ve been holding on to it until we really needed it.”
I withdrew the ration from Mel’s backpack. I had sealed it in a plastic Ziploc baggie that one of the sandwiches had been in. She set six paper plates on the ground. I divided the food into six even portions: a tablespoon of nuts, half a tablespoon of dried fruit, a thin slice of browning banana, and a small pile of dried ramen noodles.
The sight of it made my stomach growl noisily.
“What about the grapes?” John Scott asked, eyeing the eleven grapes I hadn’t doled out.
“I think Neil should have them,” I said. “He needs the liquid.”
“You think Neil can eat?”
“It’s up to him to decide, not us.”
John Scott shrugged. Mel and Nina nodded.
“Okay, Mel,” I said. “Choose.”
She took the portion closest to her. Nina took hers, then John Scott. He tossed the nuts and fruit into his mouth, chewed quickly, then inhaled the noodles from his hand. He finished everything in under ten seconds. Mel, Nina, and I ate our portions more slowly. I deposited the nuts in my mouth a few at a time, savoring the crunch and texture. I sucked on the sweet squares of mandarin, apricot, and apple until I could tease myself no more and swallowed. The banana was mushy but delicious nonetheless. I consumed the noodles like John Scott had, all at once, crunching them between my teeth until they were a paste, surprised at how good something so plain could taste.
John Scott watched us silently, most likely regretting wolfing his food back so quickly. He reminded me of a dog hanging around the table for scraps.
I told Mel to wake Tomo and give him his portion, then I brought Neil’s to him. If he’d looked bad when I woke, he looked doubly so now in the budding morning light. His eye sockets were shadowed, his cheeks cadaverous, his mouth slack. He seemed somehow shrunken, like a mummy.
“Hey, buddy,” I said. “You up?”
He opened his eyes. They were rheumy and distant and unfocused.
“I have some food for you. You hungry?”
He said something, but it was so quiet I could barely hear.
I lowered my head. “What was that?”
“…wadda…”
“We don’t have any. But the police are going to be here soon. They’ll have water.”
He closed his eyes.
“Do you want food?”
A barely perceptible shake of the head.
“Have a grape. They have water in them.”
No reply.
“Neil?”
“…no…”
“Here.”
I pressed a grape against his mouth. His lips parted and the grape disappeared inside.
“Chew, Neil. You hav
e to chew.”
He worked his jaws slowly. A rill of juice spilled out of his mouth.
“Swallow now. Okay? Swallow—”
He coughed, rolled laboriously to his side, then vomited, though the only thing that exited his mouth was the butchered purple grape. He continued to dry retch. The sound was abrasive and dusty and strained.
I remained at his side, frustrated at my inability to assist him in any way.
John Scott shouted Tomo’s name. I glanced over my shoulder, confused. John Scott was turning in a circle, surveying the forest.
“Tomo!” he called again.
Neil flopped onto his back and closed his eyes. Tears streaked his pale face.
“I’ll be back,” I told him, then returned to the campfire. “What’s going on?”
“Tomo’s gone Elvis,” John Scott said.
“What?”
“He’s missing,” Mel said. “He’s not in his tent.”
The words hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest. I looked at his tent. The door was now unzipped, the inside empty except for his sleeping bag and backpack.
“He’s fine,” I said automatically. “Probably woke early and did some exploring.” But even as I said this I doubted my sincerity. I had been up for nearly an hour now, almost since first light. Where would Tomo have been for all that time?
“Tomo?” I shouted.
The only reply was the echo of my own voice.
“This is seriously fucked up,” John Scott said.
“He’s fine,” I repeated, unable to come up with anything else, even as panic built inside my chest. I kept thinking, Not Tomo. Come on. Give me a fucking break. Not Tomo.
Mel said, “Where would he go? Why would he go somewhere?”
“Maybe he’s looking for the ribbon,” I said.
“Without telling anyone?” Mel shook her head. “That’s not like him.”
“Well, where do you think he went?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. I saw it in her eyes.
“He didn’t hang himself.”
