by Jeremy Bates
“I am too. I was searching for Mel.”
I looked at him. A smile ghosted his lips, though it didn’t reach his eyes, which were distant.
“You still saved me.”
“You would have done the same.”
Would I have? I wondered. I hoped I would have.
“How did you find us?” I asked.
“I heard you guys shouting and screaming and shit. Mostly Mel and Nina, but I think I heard you too.”
I could barely recall the ambush in the forest. It was as if I had been so focused on the immediate threats I’d ignored all the details, or hadn’t had the time to store them properly.
“You can walk okay with that?” I nodded at the forked branch-cum-crutch near his feet.
“Not easily.”
“You followed the crosses we left?”
“Until they stopped.”
“That’s when we ran.”
“I was lost for a bit, but Mel started screaming again. I ended up here.”
A support beam collapsed inside the burning cabin, causing a large portion of the roof to fold in upon itself with a thunderous crack.
I remembered the shōchū in my pocket. I withdrew it, uncapped it, and took a long belt. I passed it to John Scott. “For your leg—and the pain.”
He accepted the bottle and downed a large mouthful.
He said, “Mel told me about you, you know.”
“Yeah?”
“Your brother. He was shot.”
I didn’t reply.
“That sucks.” A pause. “My older bro died too.”
I looked at him.
“Both him and his wife. Did Mel tell you that?”
I shook my head.
“They were walking down a street in Charlotte. We grew up in Raleigh, but he moved there for work. They were downtown. It was a windy day. A wall blew over and killed them.”
“A wall?”
He took another swig of the booze. “A fucking shitty brick thing along a footpath. There were cracks in the bottom of it. It just blew over. Crushed them.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It happened eight years ago. He was a lot older than me. Still, it changes you. It makes you…hesitant.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“At least for a while anyway.”
“What do you mean ‘hesitant?’”
“About life. The choices you make.”
“What kind of choices?”
“Life choices. The big ones.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Because you haven’t made any yet.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Mel’s a good girl. You two are good together.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Don’t let her get away,” he said.
“I’m not planning on it,” I said tightly.
“That’s the thing, dude. You’re not planning anything. You’ve been together for, what, four years? Why haven’t you proposed to her?”
“I’m not ready.”
“Do you love her?”
Was I really talking to John Scott about this?
“Do you, dude?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Just because you lost your bro doesn’t mean you’re going to lose Mel.”
“I don’t think that.”
“Yeah, you do. I know. I’ve been there. Some people, after losing someone, they become scared of being alone. They get clingy, settle down, try to hold onto everything in their life. Others, like you, like me, we’re the opposite. We become scared of getting close. We get indifferent toward life. We push people away. We figure we can’t get hurt again if there’s no one else close to lose.”
I’ve heard all this pop psychology before, but hearing it again now, after everything I’d been through in this forest, with Mel potentially lost from me forever, I realized how true it was.
I’ve been pushing Mel away, or at least a life with her away. I’ve been so focused on the future, so scared of what might or might not happen, I’ve failed to live in the present and appreciate what I had now—
A distant scream rose into the night.
I sprang to my feet.
“That was Nina!” John Scott exclaimed. He pointed past me. “That way!”
It’s the direction I’d thought as well. I snatched the spear and flashlight he’d brought with him off the ground.
John Scott struggled to his feet.
“Stay here,” I told him. “Wait for the police.”
“Fuck no!”
“You can’t walk!”
“I’m not missing this.”
I didn’t have time to stick around debating with him. I started away.
“Ethos! Wait!” he said, conceding to the reality of the situation. “Take this.” He held forth his rucksack. Three tent poles protruded from the top of the main pocket. “I’ve already hammered the ends into points.”
I slung the bag over my shoulder.
“Thanks…John,” I said.
“Stay frosty, dude. And kick some fucking ass.”
CHAPTER 42
Forging a path with the flashlight, I picked my way through the multitude of trees as fast as I could, dodging branches and roots and volcanic rocks. I knew Mel wouldn’t have gone with Akira willingly. So had he carried her away kicking and screaming? Or had he knocked her out cold, which seemed to be his modus operandi? John Scott had said he’d heard her screaming, but had that been while I was interrogating Hiroshi, or later, while I was unconscious? I almost hoped she had been knocked out, because at least that meant she would be relatively safe for the time being. Akira wouldn’t rape her in that state, would he? Not to mention she would be spared the knowledge of being kidnapped and held captive deep within Suicide Forest by a gang of savages.
Nina, unfortunately, hadn’t been so lucky. I was positive that had been her macabre scream ten minutes or so ago. So what had happened? Had Akira begun to violate her? But if that was the case, why had there only been one scream? Wouldn’t she keep screaming and screaming and screaming until it was over—and maybe long after that as well?
Twenty minutes now. My lungs and throat, already tender from smoke inhalation, felt seared, while my legs, my thighs specifically, burned with exertion. I had drifted into some kind of auto-pilot. One foot in front of the other, exhale on every third step, bat away branches, repeat. I tried not to think about how much farther I had to go, or whether I was still heading in the correct direction. This would only lead to second-guessing, hesitation, and ultimately inaction. The only option was to run and keep running. Run until I caught up to Mel and Nina, run regardless of the pain, run, run, run.
How long? How long had it been now? I had no idea. I was beyond exhaustion. The air was acid, my legs deadweights, my feet dragging. I stumbled forward zombie-like, on the verge of defeat. I should have waited for the police, should have done this properly, now I was lost, unable to help—
The ground vanished beneath me. For one or two impossibly long seconds I sailed through the air, my mind anticipating the inevitable collision with whatever lay beneath me—then impact. The pain was excruciating. It felt as if someone had swung a frying pan at my face. Stars burst across my vision. Blood gushed into my mouth, far more than when Hiroshi had struck me. I remained on my chest, stupefied by what had happened, coughing, spitting out blood, though my mouth kept filling up with it, thick and syrupy.
The blackness around me was overwhelming. I blinked, thinking my eyes were closed. They were open. I must have dropped the flashlight in the fall, jarring the batteries loose, or breaking the bulb.
I tried to push myself into a sitting position and groaned. Something was wrong with my left arm or shoulder, I couldn’t tell which. That side of my body throbbed, everywhere and nowhere specific. I tested my other arm. It worked. I brought my hand to my face. It was tender and pulsing. My fingers came away coated with slimy blood. I explored my mouth, my numb and sau
sage-sized lips. Then I became aware of my breathing. It was too loud and…large. In fact, it sounded as if it was originating outside my body—
My breath hitched in my throat. I held it there. The other breathing continued, coarse and close.
It’s not mine.
I lurched to my feet, my good hand swatting the rocky wall behind me, preventing me from falling back over. I staggered blindly along the wall of what must have been one of those massive craters. When I came to a spot where I could climb, I scrambled frantically up the jagged shelf of rock, slicing my good hand and both knees and not caring. I kept expecting something to grab my ankle and not let go.
Then I was pulling myself up and over the crater’s lip. I glanced into the opening and made out a large black shape next to where I’d landed.
It’s a deer, I thought, sagging with relief. Just a deer, lying on its side.
Perhaps I had startled it, and it had bounded into the hole. Or perhaps it had fallen in by itself and had been there for a while.
It grunted.
I stumbled away from the lip of the crevice and slumped against the trunk of a tree. I examined my left arm. I hadn’t broken it, as I’d feared. In fact, most of the feeling had returned. Nevertheless, that was the extent of my good news. My body was a wreck. I was operating on willpower alone, and now that was all but gone—because my pursuit had become hopeless.
I no longer had any clue in which direction I had been heading.
I began to sink into despair. I could feel myself giving up, my mind shutting off. Maybe I’d just lie down, close my eyes, and…go away. No more pain, no more suffering. Mel was gone, who was I kidding, she was gone, and I was never going to find her—
A second scream tore through the night.
I snapped my head upright. I was on my knees.
Why was I on my knees?
The scream resumed, part-terror, part-pleading, part-anger.
And originating from somewhere close by.
I stumbled away from the tree—straight into a huge spider web. It was thick and sticky. I wiped hysterically at the silky strands, bumbling through more and more webs, unable to avoid them in the black night.
While brushing the latest one away—where had they all come from? Was this real? Have I finally lost it?—my hand stroked something on the back of my neck. I grabbed it without thinking, knowing it was a spider before I glimpsed it.
It was huge and plump and hairy. I flicked it away in utter revulsion.
Two minutes later, once more questioning my sanity, whether I’d really heard the scream at all, I saw the glow of a distant fire.
CHAPTER 43
I approached as silently as possible. I was electric with fear. Not fear of Akira or his devilish brood but fear of what I might find. I could all too easily imagine Nina or Mel hanging from a knobby tree branch by a string or ribbon, their bodies as limp as ragdolls, swinging in a nonexistent wind.
I forced the hellish images aside and concentrated on the fire ahead. I could only see the black silhouette of one person tending it. I didn’t know what to make of this.
Where was everyone else?
I paused behind a tree. I had lost the tent pole I had been carrying when I fell into the crater, and now I reached back over my head and extracted a new one from John Scott’s rucksack, leaving me with two backups. I tested the point. It was sharp. Still, I felt foolish and vulnerable. Hiroshi had been right: Akira was one hardcore son of a bitch. And his sons were no pushovers either. These would have been challenging odds had I been healthy and rested. In my present condition they were so overwhelming no bookie in Vegas would have bet on me.
I peeked around the tree. The solitary figure hadn’t moved.
I stole forward again.
Three long branches, I noticed, stood teepee-like over the fire, suspending a cooking pot above the heat. The person stirred the contents with a stick. He wore a tattered white robe with straight seams and wide sleeves.
This was wrong. Every fiber of my being told me this. I’d heard Nina scream. It had come from right around here. So where was she? And Mel? And Akira? And who was this lone person? He appeared too small and frail to be Akira. One of the kids then? But why was he by himself?
I tripped on something and blundered forward. When I regained my balance, I froze. The person was staring in my direction.
It was a female. She had to be about forty.
The firelight didn’t reach me, so she couldn’t see me. However, she had heard me and knew I was there. I tensed, ready to charge if she attempted to raise an alarm. But she didn’t do anything except stare—seemingly right at me—and I began to think that perhaps she could see me after all.
I raised my hands, a redundant gesture because I was in fact armed, and approached. After ten paces the shadows began to peel away from me. I moved into the jittery light.
The woman would definitely be able to see me now, though she didn’t react to my appearance—
She had no eyes. Where they should have been was only ragged scar tissue.
I came to an abrupt halt, horror and pity warring within me. I lowered my hands.
“Sumimasen,” I said quietly. “Gomen nasai.” Excuse me, sorry. It didn’t make any sense, but I had to say something.
She didn’t reply.
“Eigo o hanashimasu ka?” Do you speak English?
Nothing.
I glanced behind me, suddenly positive she was a diversion so someone could sneak up on me. No one was there. When I turned back, she was bent over the pot, stirring again.
“Akira?” I said.
She raised her head.
“Akira?” I repeated, more insistent.
She pointed to the right. I followed her finger and noticed for the first time another crater similar to the one I had fallen into, only this one was much smaller, less than ten feet across, and a perfect circle.
Was this a trap after all? Was Akira hiding there, preparing to attack?
Holding the spear above my shoulder like a javelin, I crept toward the hole.
I stared in amazement. It wasn’t an isolated crater. It was more like the entrance to a ground-level cave, as a tunnel appeared to continue beyond the skylight into blackness.
Did Akira and his children live down there?
I glanced back at the woman, pieces of the puzzle clicking into place. She would be one of Akira’s captives, a poor soul who came to Aokigahara to find death but instead found rape, mutilation, and slavery. It appeared Akira had broken her to the extent she had become a zombie, capable of no real autonomous thought or action, existing solely to mother his children and serve him.
The fate he had planned for Nina and Mel.
A frantic urgency filled me. I started down the breakdown of boulders and small rocks that created a ramp connecting the forest floor and the crater floor. At the bottom I squinted ahead into the mouth of the cave—and saw a soft orange light perhaps fifty feet ahead.
They did live down here. They lived underground like rodents.
I stepped into the cave. The air turned cool and damp and stale. I couldn’t see my hands in front of me. I raised one over my head. My fingers brushed the ceiling of molten rock that had crusted over the original lava channel to form this conduit. It was ropey, the texture irregular.
I felt my way forward with my feet, straining my ears but hearing nothing.
This was madness, I thought. I was burrowing beneath the skin of Aokigahara into its very veins with no game plan in mind, no clear idea of what awaited me.
I was gripped, I suppose, by the same type of do-or-die mentality that soldiers experience when ordered to storm the enemy. There’s simply no alternative.
The light ahead drew me closer, growing brighter and brighter, until I realized it was coming up through another hole.
I heard voices—faint and echoing, either excited or angry.
I dropped to my knees, peered over the lip of the window in the floor, and found myself staring into a
drained magma chamber. It was easily the size of a movie theater, the rock walls spectacularly colorful, likely something to do with oxidation.
Several of Akira’s kids were huddled together on the rock-strewn floor, playing a Gameboy. This, like the lantern next to them, would have been scavenged off suicides, or, more likely, acquired in a trade with Hiroshi.
The Russian folk music of Tetris played beneath their quick, guttural exclamations.
I didn’t see Mel or Nina anywhere, nor Akira or the remaining boys. I could, however, make out the mouth of another tunnel.
I clenched my jaw. How far did this this subterranean world extend for? It could be labyrinthine in its complexity, extending for miles and miles with any number of lava tubes and fissures and caverns. And how could I get past the kids without them raising an alarm and bringing everyone to me? The only way down was to descend the talus deposit that extended away from the window at a steep angle. However, they would surely see me coming. My one advantage, the element of surprise, would be forfeited.
I moved away from the hole—and wondered if I could stage an ambush outside. I’d initially believed the zombie woman would bring the food she was cooking inside. But she was likely too weak, the pot too big, to do that. She could make several trips, but it made more sense that everyone would return outside to eat. And if this was true, and I could surprise and kill Akira instantly, then there would only be the kids to deal with, of which no more than three were old enough to constitute serious threats. It would be a difficult contest to win but not impossible. Not to mention if they did overwhelm me, and I had to retreat, I wouldn’t be trapped down here with nowhere to go.
Decided, I started back.
CHAPTER 44
The blind woman didn’t look away from the earthenware pot when I emerged from the crater. I glanced around the clearing, deciding how I was going to stage the ambush. Given that I would be vastly outnumbered, close combat was not ideal. Unfortunately, the spears were too light to use as effective projectiles. Instead I scrounged several chunks of rock the size of baseballs, which I could launch from a short distance. I slipped off John Scott’s rucksack and was about to toss the rocks inside the main pocket alongside the two extra spears when I paused. There was something in the bottom of the bag. I stuck my hand in and pulled out a number of rubbery, stringy items which turned out to be the psychedelic mushroom John Scott had picked. The caps were a light brown color, the gills dark.
