by Jeremy Bates
Mel and Nina and I huddled side by side throughout the night, falling in and out of sleep. By first light one of the surviving boys—the one who had been first to throw up—was responsive enough that Oshima could communicate with him. We asked him if he knew where Hiroshi’s cabin was, which he did, and whether he could take us there, which he could.
The walk took twenty-five minutes. Nothing remained of the cabin except for charred ruins. To our great relief a police officer was there to greet us. He cleaned and patched up the wound in my back with supplies from a first-aid kit, then radioed the officers searching for us. When they returned, most went with the boy to Akira’s camp, while two escorted us on a fifteen-minute hike to where several police cars were parked at the end of the access road Hiroshi had told us about. They drove us to Yaminashi Red Cross Hospital, located on the outskirts of Kawaguchiko. Mel, Nina, Oshima, and I were taken to separate rooms, where we were looked over by doctors, then questioned incessantly by the police. I repeated my story to several different detectives and, later, to men I believed worked for one of Japan’s intelligence agencies. I was told John Scott and Neil had been airlifted to a hospital in Tokyo. John Scott wasn’t going to lose his leg, but Neil remained in critical condition.
When I was finally left alone, I fell asleep and woke in the middle of the night with a scream lodged in my throat, terrified by a nightmare I couldn’t recall.
As I lay awake in the dark hospital room, I was bombarded by memories of Ben and Tomo and all the horrors of the last two days.
I closed my eyes against these graphic images, but I couldn’t sleep or forget, and for the second time in my life I heard the degenerate whispers of escape that suicide promised.
EPILOGUE
Winter in the Napa Valley was nothing like it was in Wisconsin, but on some days it could get downright cold. Today was one of those days. A wind battered the windows of the study, some of the stronger gusts rattling the entire frame. The sky was gray and overcast. It would be Christmas in a few days, though without snow on the ground it didn’t feel like the iconic holiday. This didn’t bother me. I had become used to snowless Christmases during my time in Tokyo.
It was 7:45 p.m. I was seated in an armchair in the study of Mel’s mother’s house, watching an animal documentary on the small television set. My mind, however, was wandering, as it often did these days, and unsurprisingly I found myself thinking about Japan and Aokigahara Jukai.
Following our deliverance from the forest, Mel, Nina, and I had remained in police custody for close to two weeks. We had not been lauded by the Japanese authorities for putting an end to the reign of one of the worst serial killers in Japan’s history. Instead we were threatened with criminal charges, the detectives interviewing us suggesting we had established control of the situation before killing Akira, thus it was no longer self-defense/justifiable homicide, and we had gone beyond the definition of “reasonable force” when we did what we did to him. I’m not sure how long they would have held us for, or whether they would have actually prosecuted us or not, but we never had to find out thanks to my parents. When I was finally allowed to call them, they relayed our story to a regional TV network. Immediately after it was broadcast it was picked up by the national news. Amid a firestorm of international attention, the police, or the politicians pulling their strings, decided to save face and released us.
Mel, Nina, and I boarded the first flights we could to LA, Tel Aviv, and New York City respectively. After spending a few weeks at the farm with my parents—decompressing, I guess you could say—I took a Greyhound bus from Madison to San Francisco, then a shuttle van to a popular winery in St. Helena, where Mel picked me up.
Mel’s mother’s house was a couple miles outside the town on five acres of rolling hills. Initially I enjoyed the peace and quiet the location offered. I spent the cool sunny days mowing the grass, repainting the guesthouse, weeding the gardens, fixing roofs and fences, you name it. But as I always knew would happen, I inevitably became cagey with cabin fever. This was exacerbated by the fact I found myself unemployable. When the local high school began advertising teaching positions in the newspaper for the new school term, Mel and I applied and were turned down a week later. No explanations were given, though the ads continued to run for another two months.
I wasn’t completely surprised. Although the media had labeled Mel and me heroes upon our return to the States (we had been bombarded with requests for television and radio interviews, all of which we turned down), we were not the kind of heroes who had rescued a family from a burning building; we were the kind who’d committed ghastly atrocities in the name of injustice and survival.
In other words, not the type that parents—especially those in a small, close-knit community—wanted around their children. In fact, most of the townspeople shared this attitude. You’d think Mel and I had contracted leprosy the way some of them treated us when we went to the supermarket or the cinema or a restaurant.
I began pestering Mel daily about moving to LA or somewhere else where we could fade into anonymity and find work, but I stopped after her mother had the accident. One day she had been cleaning the basement and had sprayed a chemical disinfectant too close to the ancient oil furnace. Part of it blew up, causing third-degree burns on much of her body and rendering her bed-bound.
The amazing spirit and resilience Mel had displayed in the aftermath of Suicide Forest immediately left her. It was as if the accident had been the final straw, one nudge too many. She became depressed and rarely did more than sleep or clean or sit with her mother. Even the unexpected news that she had fallen pregnant didn’t snap her out of her downward spiral. Both John Scott and I had tried to convince her to see somebody, to get help, but so far she has stubbornly refused.
Speaking of John Scott, we kept in touch regularly, and he was now a good friend of mine. Following his release from the hospital in Tokyo, he was redeployed from Okinawa to Fort Bragg in his home state of North Carolina, where he recently made sergeant—and where he was dating a waitress from the Hooters restaurant chain. He was still on my back about proposing to Mel, something I was now more than ready to do…as soon as I found work and could afford a ring.
And the others? Neil recovered from the food poisoning and remained in Japan, where the Japanese public had raised him onto an almost god-like pedestal. The last I’d heard his mug was starring in print advertisements of all sorts, and he was doing commercials for BOSS coffee, alongside Tommy Lee Jones. Nina moved in with her parents and was back in school studying fashion. In a recent email she asked me how “my girlfriend” was doing and mentioned she still wanted to visit the US sometime. I told her if she ever made it to the Napa Valley to come say hi. I doubted she ever would, and that was probably for the best.
There was a knock at the door.
I turned and saw Mel standing at the threshold. She wore gray track pants and an extra-large T-shirt to cover her extended belly.
“Hey,” I said, smiling. “What’s up?”
“Nothing much.” She returned the smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Want to watch some TV?”
“What is it?”
“A NatGeo thing on cheetahs.”
“No, thanks. I have to do the dinner dishes.” She hesitated. “I—I felt him kick.”
I was immediately on my feet. “Really?”
“Earlier this afternoon. Just once.”
I went to her, putting my hand on her belly. It was strange, I had reflected numerous times since she’d become pregnant, how quickly events could change your priorities. A year ago the last thing I had wanted was a kid. Now the idea of raising a baby filled me with excitement and purpose.
“You see any more jobs?” she asked.
I shook my head. “There’s that bartending thing in Oakville. But they told me I need a certificate or something to serve alcohol.”
“Why don’t you take the course?”
“I might. But I’m waiting to hear from the c
onstruction company in Rutherford first.”
“We don’t have any money, Ethan. And when the baby comes—”
“I know, Mel,” I said gently. “I know. I’m looking every day. I’ll find something soon. It’s just that there’s not much around here—”
“Oh shoot!” she said suddenly. “I forgot to give Mom her medication earlier. She’s going to wake up in pain.”
She retreated down the hallway. I watched her go. Then I went back to the armchair and continued watching the animal documentary.
I was just getting back into the narrative when Mel screamed.
I ran to Mel’s mother’s bedroom, from where Mel continued to scream. Stepping through the door was like stepping into the past, and I came to an abrupt halt, as if I had collided with a wall. Mel’s mother had tied an orange extension cord around her neck and hanged herself from an exposed beam in the cathedral ceiling. Her head was cocked to one side, her neck purple and swollen, her pajama bottoms soiled.
“Oh fuck no,” I breathed.
My attempts to comfort Mel were to no avail, so I ran to the kitchen and called the police. While I spoke to the dispatcher, I heard myself telling her that I didn’t know why Mel’s mother had hanged herself, but that wasn’t true. Your boyfriend murdered by your ex. Your daughter labeled a villain by the town in which you’d lived your entire life. Your face and body disfigured almost beyond recognition by third-degree burns.
Sure I knew why she’d hanged herself.
Nevertheless, I didn’t feel pity for her; I felt compounding anger.
Why did she have to choose this way to do it—knowing what her daughter had gone through?
I hung up the phone and ran back to the bedroom. Mel had stopped screaming and was now sitting on the edge of the bed. Her hands were resting on her lap. In them she cradled a matte-black .44 caliber pistol. It was her mother’s. She’d bought it years ago, fearing her ex-husband might somehow break out of prison and come after her.
“Mel,” I said, starting slowly forward, “set the gun down.”
She raised the barrel to her right temple.
I stopped. “Mel…”
“I’m sorry, Ethan.”
“Don’t do this, Mel, don’t do this, think about what you’re doing.”
“It’s never going to end, is it?” she said softly, wistfully.
She cocked the hammer.
“Mel!” I said. “Don’t—the baby! Mel, the baby. You do this, you kill the baby. Please don’t do this. Don’t kill the baby.”
She frowned.
“It will be all right. I promise you. It will be okay. Think of the baby.”
Tears welled in her eyes, then overflowed, pouring down her cheeks. She lowered the pistol. I crossed the space between us quickly and removed the weapon from her hand. I returned it to the top drawer of the dresser, then led her to the living room, where I pulled her against me.
As sobs shook her body my mind ran at a ferocious pace. I thought about the words she’d spoken—it’s never going to end, is it?—and told myself she was wrong. We would put Aokigahara Jukai behind us once and for all. As tragic as her mother’s death was, it meant we were no longer tied to St. Helena. We would move somewhere else. We would get jobs. Both of us. Good jobs. We would start over. I’d done that before, I’d do that again, only this time with Mel at my side. We would start over together, and everything would turn out okay.
I rocked Mel and stroked her hair and listened as the sirens approached.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeremy Bates is the author of the number #1 Amazon bestseller White Lies, which was shortlisted for the 2012 Foreword Book of the Year Award. He is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario with a degree in English literature and philosophy.
For a limited time, visit www.jeremybatesbooks.com to receive a free copy of The Taste of Fear.
