by Jeremy Bates
“Ben—”
“Ben was on drugs!” I said.
“All right, everyone calm down,” John Scott said. “We’ll go look right now. He’s around here somewhere. He has to be around here somewhere.”
Ten minutes later we found him.
CHAPTER 26
I spotted red thirty yards away from me. It was the same rich crimson as the vertical stripes on Tomo’s motorcycle jacket, and I likely would have missed it if it didn’t contrast so strongly with the surrounding verdant foliage. At first I told myself it was my imagination. I was projecting. I had been expecting to find Tomo’s body hanging from a tree, I had morbidly convinced myself of this when he failed to respond to our repeated calls, so here I was, my mind playing tricks, confusing a cluster of wild berries for racing stripes. But that didn’t stop me from charging forward, bending and snapping branches out of my way.
It had been no act of the imagination. It was Tomo. His back was to me, his body suspended in the air by his Louis Vuitton scarf.
I smashed the final branches away from my face and pulled up three feet short of him. I attempted no heroic rescue this time. I had known Ben was dead when we saw his dangling body, of course I had known, but I gave into false hope and tried to save him. Not again. I had come to expect the horrors that Aokigahara had on offer, and to believe in their authenticity.
Tomo’s hair was, as always, even in death, fashionably unkempt. The biker-style collar on his sheep-leather jacket was upturned, how The Fonz sometimes wore his in Happy Days. I’d been with Tomo when he’d bought the jacket in a retro shop in Kitchijoji. I’d told him not to get it because I didn’t like the oversized, in-your-face American eagle embossed on the back, which I was staring at now. Above it were the words LIVE TO RIDE and below it RIDE TO LIVE. Derek and I had nicknamed Tomo “Easy Rider” for a few weeks, though this didn’t stick because Tomo either missed or ignored the sarcasm, which made the teasing redundant.
His left Converse All-Stars had fallen off his foot, revealing his foot in a bright yellow sock. The blue canvas shoe rested on the ground below him, eerily reminiscent of the lone Nike we came across on our way into the forest.
People say your life flashes before your eyes when you’re on the cusp of death. I believe this to be possible because I experienced a similar phenomenon right then, only the kaleidoscope of images were not of me but of Tomo. I thought of the first time Derek and I met him drinking the tallboy at Shinagawa station, and he greeted us with a ridiculous sounding “G’day mate!” taught to him, we learned later, by an Aussie friend. I thought of his twenty-second birthday party which, for reasons known only to him, he decided to hold at a club in which all the patrons were sweaty, dancing Nigerians and young hip hop girls who were into sweaty, dancing Nigerians. Tomo and his Japanese friends fit in well enough, but Derek and I stood out in a bad way and almost got beaten up for being white. I thought about the yakitori restaurant in Shimokitazawa that he had taken me to where, to his grand amusement, I unknowingly filled up on pig’s heart, liver, tongue, and uterus.
In this brief moment when time seemed to have ground to a halt, I thought of a dozen other occasions I’d shared with Tomo, but one stood out above the others. The day I spent with him and his younger sister and the way he had so patiently and expertly dealt with her autistic episodes. It reminded me of his future, or, more precisely, of his lack of future. He would never begin his residency at the hospital. He would never become a psychiatrist, never start his own practice, never help anyone with their problems. Never get married or have kids. Never travel overseas. Never have grandchildren. Never, never, never, never. He would never do any of those things again nor a thousand others. He was dead. The end. Game over. Gone.
I touched a hand to his shoulder. His body turned slowly toward me, rotating, like a side of beef on a butcher’s hook. His eyes were open and blank. His skin, like Ben’s had been, was pale and patchy with burst capillaries. To my horror, a beetle scuttled out of his parted lips and up his face.
This has to be a dream, I told myself. I’m dreaming. No way this is real. It can’t be.
Mel, who I realized was standing beside me, didn’t move, didn’t cry, didn’t speak, didn’t react at all. I think I might have been waiting for her to scream, and if she did that, I probably would have screamed too. But she didn’t. She was likely in shock. I was likely in shock as well. Then she broke her paralysis and gripped me in a fierce hug, burying her face in my shoulder.
God almighty, life could be an awful mess sometimes.
I was still holding Mel when John Scott and Nina arrived. John Scott went immediately to the scarf and hacked through it with a sharp rock he’d been carrying. The ready-to-use rock surprised me, making me wonder if he had been expecting to find Tomo hanging from a tree branch. The scarf snapped with a sharp rip and Tomo collapsed inelegantly to the ground. This was perhaps the most horrible sight yet: seeing my friend crumple the way he crumpled. It reinforced the idea he was no more, nothing but a torso and limbs, raw meat, not unlike the nose-to-tail cuts of pork you find in the supermarket’s frozen section.
I released Mel and knelt beside Tomo, straightening him out, providing him whatever dignity I could. I drew my fingers over his eyes, closing his eyelids. I had only seen this done in movies and on TV before, and it was something I never wished to do again. Then, in the next instant, I was consumed with a scorching rage. I was going to find out who did this, and I was going to make them pay.
I stood, my hands balled into fists. Mel touched my shoulder. I flinched away.
“Who did this?” I demanded. “Who the fuck did this?”
No one answered, and I realized I was likely scaring them.
I took a deep breath, stepped backward to gain space, held up my hands. “Tomo didn’t kill himself,” I said quietly.
“Neither did Ben,” Nina said.
I glared at her. She stared back, defiant. I was about to remind her that Ben had been on drugs, Tomo hadn’t been, there was a difference—when I realized how senseless that would sound. Two suicides in less than twenty-four hours. Of course there was a connection. Their deaths were linked as inseparably as blood and bone.
“Okay,” I said.
Nina bit her lower lip, which had begun to tremble. I was confused, wondering how she could have misinterpreted “okay”—unless she was simply relieved. For the past day she had been the outsider, on her own. No one would believe what she had inherently known—and she must have inherently known Ben hadn’t killed himself, just as I inherently knew Tomo didn’t kill himself.
What assholes we had been to her.
“So who did it?” John Scott asked. “Who killed them? We’re out here by ourselves.”
“We don’t know that,” I said.
“You’ve seen someone?”
“Someone killed Ben, and someone killed Tomo. That means there’s someone out here.”
Nina was staring at me. I knew what she was thinking.
“No,” I said.
“Why not, Ethan? Why will you not—”
“Because there are no such things as fucking ghosts!”
“How could someone make him hang himself? We would have heard him shouting. We would have heard a struggle—”
“Check,” Mel said.
“What?” I said.
“Nina’s right. Tomo couldn’t have been hanged without a struggle. Check.”
I looked at Tomo’s body. Mel dropped to her knees. She cupped Tomo’s head in her hands, turned it from side to side. She parted his hair, bit by bit, how chimpanzees groom their offspring for lice and other parasites.
“See!” she said suddenly, excitedly. “See!”
I knelt beside her and saw a blood-crusted contusion.
Nina ran back toward camp. I wasn’t sure what she had planned—I suspected, but I wasn’t sure—so I chased her down. She went directly to Ben’s body.
“Nina!” I said. “Wait—”
She tugged the sleepi
ng bag back and recoiled, spinning around, her cheeks blown out. Her head bobbed back and forth like a regurgitating pelican, then she vomited onto the ground. When she finished, she immediately covered her nose with the crook of her arm.
I pulled my shirt up over my lower face and joined her next to Ben. The stench coming off him was as nauseous as garbage left out in the sun for a week. His face was yellowish now, the blood having drained from it to settle and pool in the lowest portion of his body. His tongue still protruded from his mouth, though it had darkened further to an eggplant purple. His neck was covered with red abrasions and contusions.
Using her free hand, Nina began parting his hair for signs of blunt-force trauma. Her fingers focused on a spot near the back of his skull. She leaned closer. I did too.
The bump was nearly identical in size and location to Tomo’s.
CHAPTER 27
I pulled the sleeping bag back over Ben’s corpse and stood on suddenly rubbery legs. I took Nina’s hand and led her to Mel and John Scott, who were emerging from the trees opposite us.
“Ben has the same injury as Tomo,” I said.
“So…someone killed them?” Mel said dubiously. “Both of them? How?”
“He obviously hit them on the back of the heads with something,” John Scott said.
“But why?”
“Because whoever it is, he has fucking problems, that’s why.”
I was staring at John Scott, my mind sluggish, still struggling to come to terms with what was going on—and that’s when pieces clicked into place. How indifferent John Scott had been to Ben’s death, only concerned about diverting the blame from himself. How little Suicide Forest had seemed to bother him thus far. How he’d been carrying the rock to cut Tomo down—as if he’d known we were going to find him strung up.
“Why did you have a rock?” I asked him.
He frowned at me. “What?”
“When we went looking for Tomo. You were carrying a rock. You used it to cut him down. You knew he was dead.”
“What are you talking about?”
I stepped toward him. “You knew.”
“Ethos, I think you better cool down.”
“You killed them, didn’t you?”
“Have you fucking lost it?”
I swung at him. He dodged the blow and landed an uppercut beneath my jaw. But I didn’t go down and used my height and weight advantage to pull him into a headlock. He pummeled my body with short jabs, and somehow the headlock became a front facelock/reverse headlock. I lost my balance and dropped to my rear, keeping my hold around his neck, driving his head into the ground.
Mel and Nina, both yelling, tried to pull us apart. I was almost crazy enough to go after them too—almost, but not quite.
I released John Scott, bringing my knees to my chest, ready to kick out at him if he tried anything. He rocked back on his ass and spat dirt from his mouth.
“What the fuck, dude?” he said, wiping at his lips.
Mel stared at me. “Ethan, what is wrong with you?”
“He killed Ben and Tomo,” I said.
“Why would I want to kill them?” John Scott barked.
“Why are you here? Why did you come on this trip?”
He flicked a hand. “Mel invited me.”
“I know about you two. Yeah, I know about your past. You fucked her in college. Are you still fucking her?”
“You’re mad, Ethos.”
“Ethan, please,” Mel said.
I shoved myself to my feet and whirled on her.
“Are you?” I demanded. “Are you still fucking?”
“No, we are not! Okay?”
I backed away from them. I didn’t believe her. I didn’t trust anyone.
I bumped into Nina.
“Ethan—” she began, touching my arm.
I wrenched free. “Did you and Ben know John Scott from before too?”
Nina frowned. “From before? From before when, Ethan? Before we met you randomly at the train station?”
“Was it random?”
John Scott whistled, like I was crazy.
“Shut up,” I told him. “I’ll break your fucking face. I swear I will.”
“You’re upset about Tomo, Ethan,” Mel said. “We all are. But you have to get a hold of yourself. You’re not making any sense.”
“You three always stuck together,” I said to Nina. “You, Ben, and John Scott. You did mushrooms together. You’re telling me you’ve never, ever met before this weekend?”
“That is exactly what I am telling you, Ethan. And I did not do mushrooms.”
“You’re lying.”
“Ethan, think back! You first approached Ben and me. You did. No one else.”
I shook my head in frustration, because I knew she was right. Still, I couldn’t let this go. John Scott had something to do with all of this. I ran my hand through my hair and paced back and forth.
“Who killed Tomo then?” I said, glaring at each of them. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. Who the fuck killed him?”
No one had an answer to that
I stalked off deeper into the forest. I didn’t want to be around anybody right then. Mel, however, came running after me, telling me I shouldn’t be on my own. I tried to ignore her, but she latched onto my arm.
“Let go of me, Mel,” I said dangerously, and for the first time ever I contemplated using my strength against her.
“I know you’re mad at John,” she said, almost tripping over her words to get them out, “and you’re mad at me, but you shouldn’t be. John and me—I lied. We never slept together.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We never slept together. I made that all up.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s true, Ethan. I swear to you. I’m so sorry.”
“You made it up?” I frowned, confused. “Why?”
“Shelly—she really bothers me, Ethan. She’s so pretty. You had those pictures of her on your computer, then she calls you on your birthday. Then the messages. Then her calling you here—I don’t know. I had almost put her behind me, but that was too much. I couldn’t deal with it. I was so mad at you. I knew you didn’t like John. So I made up…that stuff about us. And, well, it all seems so stupid now, doesn’t it?”
“So why’s he here then?” I said. “Why did you invite him?”
“I told you the truth before. We’re just old friends. He called, wanted something to do. I mentioned we were going to Fuji and suggested he come. That’s it.”
“Jesus, Mel,” I said, at a loss for words. I wasn’t sure if I was more angry at her for the deception, or relieved there was nothing going on between her and John Scott.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Really, I am. It was stupid. And—and I love you, Ethan. I love you so much. I would never, ever…”
The wall I’d thrown up finally crumbled. I pulled her against me, kissing her on the top of the head.
“I love you too, Mel,” I whispered.
Back at the campfire, with a cooler head than before, I acknowledged the conclusion that everyone else had already accepted. Somebody was in Suicide Forest with us, stalking us, somebody we didn’t know anything about. He was the predator in the dark. The bogeyman in the closet. The cancer in your cells. A threat you knew little about, couldn’t see, couldn’t predict—and thus against which you could do little to defend yourself. Understanding this, Aokigahara now seemed not only ominous but sinister. It had become a co-conspirator in Ben and Tomo’s deaths, both holding us captive and concealing a murderer.
Mel, who was sitting next to me, holding my hand, said, “Where are the police? What’s taking them so long? We need to get out of here right now.”
“It’s only a bit past eight,” I told her. “They’re likely just getting to the parking lot.”
“How long’s it going to take them to find us?”
“I don’t know, Mel.”
“Maybe they do not come,” Nina said.
�
��Why wouldn’t they come?” Mel said. “We called them, right? They know we’re here. They have to come. Don’t they, Ethan? They have to come?”
“They should be coming,” I said.
“But what if they do not?” Nina pressed. “We cannot remain here any longer. Your friend is very sick. We must go.”
“She’s right,” John Scott said. “We can’t spend another night here.”
“What if the police arrive after we’ve left?” Mel said. “What if we can’t find our way out of here on our own?”
“Yesterday you were all for leaving.”
“And you were all for staying. That was then. This is now.”
“We’ll wait until noon,” I stated decisively. “That will give the police another couple of hours to reach us. If they don’t show for whatever reason, then we’ll still have four or five hours of light to find our way out of here. Anyone have a problem with that?”
No one did.
John Scott and I discussed making a second litter, but elected to wait first to see what the police brought with them. Instead we used Ben’s litter to transport Tomo back to camp. The sight of the two bodies lying next to each other reminded me of how developing countries would line up bodies side by side on a hospital floor for identification by family members after some disaster, such as a tsunami or collapsed building. It was impersonal, indecorous, and hit home the fragility of human life. You could win a hundred-million-dollar Powerball jackpot one day, then drive your brand-new Ferrari headfirst into an oncoming Mac truck the next. Death isn’t picky, doesn’t play favorites. It doesn’t care in which country you were born or how much money you had amassed in your brief existence or how happy you are. It’s supremely patient and rightly so, for it knows you can’t escape its reach. One day you too would be lying on that hospital floor or on a stainless-steel gurney in a morgue.
It had already won. It would always win. In other words, we were born to lose.
I rubbed my eyes with my fingers. I was bumming myself out with these depressing thoughts, but I couldn’t help it. Tomo’s death had dragged me down to a low I had only experienced after Gary died—a low I’d told myself I would never allow myself to sink to again.
