by Chris Ward
‘Is it much further?’ he asked the driver, the young man who had been working behind the pub bar.
The man shook his head and shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. This is insane. I’ve never seen a storm like this. It snows hard up here every year, but it’s rare to maintain this intensity for this long.’
Kirahara-sensei glanced back towards the students. He was happy that he couldn’t see them in the dark of the back seats; that way he could pretend the groans belonged to more than just three or four, that they were all likely to make it to the hospital safely and wake up tomorrow in a warm bed.
The truth was that it looked like several would never make it.
‘An hour?’ he asked, trying to remember how long it had taken them to get up to British Heights just that morning.
The driver gave a frustrated grimace. ‘Look, I don’t know. Maybe, if the roads going down are clearer. They’re a little more sheltered by the trees, so there’s a chance we’ll make better progress then. This thing will only go twenty kilometres an hour and its ten to the nearest town. We’re not off the crest of the headland yet.’
Kirahara-sensei tried to think about the other students he had left behind to take his mind off those in the back. Matsumoto was a decent kid, if misguided. He just needed a little more self-worth. He seemed to be fighting against feelings that didn’t really exist, and it would ruin him. Ogiwara was a lost cause. The kid had a brain, but he was hell bent on wasting it. He was the prefectural judo champion, which was quite an achievement, but he’d failed in the first round of the national finals last year and that had been his last chance. If he was able to focus himself long enough to get into a college he might be able to take it up again, but otherwise he was destined for a production line somewhere.
Mishima was a decent kid, but a follower. He had no initiative, no drive of his own. Kaede Maruyama was what she was, a playgirl. She had future hostess written all over her, but at least hostess jobs paid well.
Akane Yamaguchi … she was the interesting one. Freakishly talented but plagued by tragedy, the poor girl didn’t really know whether she was coming or going. She spent way too much time hanging around with lowlifes and not enough with nice boys like Matsumoto, who complimented her well. They would make a nice couple, Kirahara-sensei thought, if they could only get over what happened. Still, they were young, he figured. There was time.
The snowmobile pitched forward. Kirahara-sensei grabbed the dash to stop himself headbutting it, and heard the students shifting around in the back.
‘We’ve started the descent,’ the driver said. ‘Hang on. This looks like it could be a bit bumpy.’
‘What about the students?’
‘They’re strapped in, aren’t they? I’ll go as carefully as I can, but this isn’t easy.’
Kirahara-sensei watched with nervous apprehension as the trees closed in, high up on the embankment to the left of them, sloping away steeply into a ravine to the right. Snow was piled erratically depending on the angle of the wind and the cover of the trees, and at times the snowmobile seemed to rise up so high on one side as it dug its way over a drift that he thought they might just go tumbling down into the valley.
The snowmobile’s engine whined and then they came to a stop, idling in the road. Kirahara-sensei looked across at the driver and saw a bead of sweat running down the young man’s face.
‘Why did you stop?’ he asked. ‘Come on, get us moving again. What are you waiting for?’
The driver turned towards him, his face ashen. ‘Don’t you hear it?’ he said, so quietly that Kirahara-sensei could barely hear him. ‘Don’t you hear it coming?’
‘What? Damn it, man, talk to me.’
‘That rumbling noise.’
Kirahara cocked his head. The young man was right; there was something. A low growling … like an angry dog, or an approaching train…
‘What is it?’
The look of hopelessness in the young man’s face chilled Kirahara-sensei to the core, as if someone had dropped his heart into a bucket of ice.
‘Landslide.’
Then the roar was everywhere, filling the air around them, and the snowmobile became a rolling, tumbling, bouncing thing as a wave of trees, snow, and earth came rushing down on top of it. Kirahara-sensei screamed, but there seemed to be no sound as the hillside’s battle cry drowned out everything.
13
Jun finds Akane
‘So what do we do now?’ Ogiwara said, hands on hips.
‘We should—’
‘Shut up, Matsumoto. I wasn’t asking you.’
‘The games room is open until eleven,’ Mika said, sounding like the welcome video they had watched in the main hall. ‘The pool will close at half past ten.’
‘Shut up. I wasn’t asking you either.’
At Ogiwara’s tone, the girl shrank away, disappearing back behind her desk.
‘Ogiwara, you’re a real—’
Ogiwara stepped forward. ‘Not another word, Matsumoto.’ He turned to Akane. ‘Perhaps we should retire to a room somewhere?’
‘Get lost, you pig.’
Ogiwara glanced at Mishima, rolled his eyes, and started to laugh. He took a step forward, but Akane just stalked off down the corridor, back towards the dining hall. Ogiwara began to follow, but Jun stepped in front of him.
‘Leave her alone.’
‘This could end badly for you, Matsumoto.’
Jun didn’t move. ‘Leave her alone,’ he repeated.
Ogiwara clenched a fist and swung it, pulling it short just in front of Jun’s face. Jun tried not to flinch. ‘We’re not done yet,’ Ogiwara said through gritted teeth.
They stared at each other for a moment, then Ogiwara started to laugh again. He turned back to Mishima, who was standing back by the door, shifting from foot to foot.
‘Come on, Mishima,’ he said. ‘Since you’re not a pussy like the rest of them, what say we go gatecrash the snooker room upstairs and have ourselves a couple of games?’
Mishima gave a nervous laugh. ‘Okay, let’s go.’
Jun watched them reach the stairs at the end and climb up out of sight. Several dark stains on the carpet seemed to jump out at him, a reminder of what had happened. Behind him, Mika was busying herself with wiping the vomit from one of the sofas.
Jun turned around, looking for Akane, but she had disappeared. He knew she wasn’t going to get sick, but he didn’t want her to be on her own, so he trotted off down the corridor to look for her.
Outside, the snow was still pelting down. Jun briefly wondered what had happened to Kaede, because no one had seen her since just after dinner, but if she had been with Ogiwara then she wouldn’t have got sick. Probably she was making trouble somewhere for someone.
Leading off the corridor were several rooms. Jun tried a couple of doors, and found himself peering into the dark interiors of classrooms decked out in classical British stylings: high-backed, ornate wooden chairs, wide, heavy-looking tables, and framed prints of old hunting scenes and country landscapes hanging from the walls. He wished he could appreciate the detail and the beauty of British Heights, but he was too worried about Akane.
At the end of the corridor, a wide double door on the left opened on to the lecture theatre where they had sat through the orientation video. On the right was the glass-framed door into the dining hall. Just in front of it were two more entrances, one leading outside to the covered walkway down the east wing that led to the pub and the shop, and the other heading upstairs to the second floor.
The lecture room was locked. Jun glanced through the outside door, looking for Akane’s footprints. The snow drifting in through the open side was untouched, so she hadn’t gone that way. The dining hall was also locked, leaving just the stairs.
Jun hurried up, past more framed paintings on the walls, around a curve in the staircase where a window looked out on the wide courtyard below. He paused for a moment. Their bus was still there, buried in snow above its wheel arches.
Alongside it was Plastic Black Butterfly’s van. He wondered what had happened to them too; the lights of the pub were still on so they were likely finding comfort in a few drinks. Outside the pub, lights that had been hung in the trees to light the place up like a fairground were dulled beneath a coating of snow.
Is it ever going to stop?
He ignored a sign marked PRIVATE to push through the door at the top of the stairs, and found himself in the museum area, modeled on an old British manor house. The wide corridor led right along the top of the north wing of the Grand Mansion. In the middle was a staircase that came out in reception. Nearest to Jun were two rooms labeled King’s Bedroom and Queen’s Bedroom. Both were locked. On the other side of the staircase, two doors were labeled Library and Study. Jun gave a wry smile. He felt like a player in a giant game of Cluedo.
Who committed the murders? Who murdered all those kids?
Jun pushed the voice out of his mind. ‘No one murdered them,’ he muttered. ‘They’re all still alive.’
‘Is that what you think?’
Jun jumped, for a moment thinking the voice was still in his head. He spun around and found Akane standing behind him, the door to the library just clicking shut.
‘They’ll all be fine,’ he said. He reached out for her hand, but she pulled it away.
‘No, they won’t,’ she said, her voice empty, hollow. ‘You saw them. They’re all going to die long before they make it to a hospital.’
‘Akane…’
‘There are no happy endings, Jun. You know that.’
He started to reply, but she turned and disappeared through the library door, closing it behind her. Jun took a deep breath, trying to think of something that might make her feel better, then went in after her.
He found himself in a room right out of 18th Century Britain. The library and the study—adjoining through a wide archway—were filled wall to ceiling with musty leather-bound books. A series of antique desks, sofas and easy chairs were scattered about the room. Akane was sitting behind a desk in one corner, one leg crossed over the other, an old dial telephone in front of her and a feather-pen in a holder on the other. When Jun approached, the light from a dim lamp behind her illuminated a large map of ancient Britain pressed under a pane of glass. Akane had one hand resting on a book called The Book of the Home 1921 1st Edition, while a newspaper dated just a few days before looked a little out of place beside the telephone.
‘It’s pretty, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘This place? It gives me the creeps. I could quite imagine Ogiwara’s monsters after coming in here.’
Akane sighed. ‘Please don’t talk about that … moron. That was a mistake and I don’t want to think about it.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Akane sighed and leaned back in the chair. She put her legs up on the table. ‘I feel like a foreign diplomat,’ she said. ‘Could you imagine me as a diplomat, Jun?’
He smiled. ‘I think you’d be a great one,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘Anything to get out of this country.’
‘I know what you mean.’
Akane’s head jerked up. ‘Do you, Jun? Do you really? After all, everything’s fine and dandy for you, isn’t it?’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘Why isn’t it?’
She sighed again. She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, propping her chin on her hands. She was so naturally beautiful that he couldn’t look away, but those dark, knowledgeable eyes were not the same as the happy-go-lucky youthful eyes they had once been. Too much tar had been poured into the river of Akane’s life, poisoning the water that had once flowed pure and clear.
‘You’re a wannabe, Jun. You want to have problems so you can lament to the world about them. You go out of your way to be disliked, and you upset people because then you have a reason to be miserable. It’s a choice. That’s one reason I can’t stand you anymore.’
Her words were like a knife cutting across his throat. ‘That’s not fair.’
‘You don’t understand, Jun,’ she said. ‘You don’t know what it feels like to be scarred. To be scarred inside.’
He sat down across from her. ‘I can’t change things.’
‘You can appreciate what you have. You have parents that love you and care for you. You have … parents.’
He slammed a fist down on the table. ‘It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t ask to be there that day!’
Akane sighed and looked away, back towards the window behind her.
‘I know, Jun. But you were.’
He had left his history textbook at Akane’s house the night before. Jun, thirteen years old, in the first grade of junior high school, had an assignment due the next day. Akane had piano practice, but she wouldn’t mind him stopping by. It was Thursday, so there would likely be no one home, but Jun knew where the spare key to the house was kept, in a drawer inside the garage.
The night before they had been studying in her room. As always, Jun had felt a little disconcerted with the shrine of photographs to her mother which watched him from a noticeboard above her desk, but it was impossible for him to understand the feelings she was going through. Losing her mother had broken her heart, but Akane was burying herself in studying and her piano practice. Four nights a week she went to a local piano school, where she stayed for three or even four hours, just practicing. Sometimes, she said, if she knew her father would be drunk again, she didn’t want to come home.
The sky was spitting rain as he approached their street, a small suburban cul-de-sac with his own house facing the main road and Akane’s house tucked in around the corner. Hers was a pretty little two-storey house, made of prefab plastic in a Norwegian style, with high windows and a tall, pointed roof. It had been reformed just two years before, and her mother had kept it spotless. Now the grass had grown up on the little front lawn, and a couple of bags of beer cans and sake bottles stood outside the front door. There was no car in the drive—it had been wrecked in the accident that had killed her mother, and Akane’s father had vowed never to step inside one again—but Jun was surprised to see Akane’s father’s bicycle lying on its side just in front of the garage door.
On the surface her father had coped admirably well with her mother’s death, continuing to get up each day and go to his company job, but while he had always liked a drink, now he liked half a bottle pretty regularly. Most nights he brought home some packaged bento from the supermarket for Akane and himself, then drank himself to sleep in front of the television. He would always exchange pleasantries with Jun, but as soon as the bottle opened the words dried up, and Jun often heard him crying downstairs in the living room while they studied upstairs together. Jun had once made the suggestion that they study at his house, but Akane had got angry at the idea of leaving her father alone, and he had never mentioned it again.
The bike, despite a kick rest, was lying on its side as if thrown down. Jun glanced up at the window of his own bedroom in the house next door and really wanted to just go home. Something was wrong.
There were two entrances to the garage, a wide door for the car at the front which was always locked, and a small door at the back for a person, down a thin alleyway between their two houses. Jun opened the latch of the little gate at the front and made his way down along the side of the garage. Akane’s back garden was in a similar state to the front. There was no Western-style lawn, just some ornamental pines and maples growing between several large stones. The little patio outside the door was overrun with weeds though, and the windows were grimy. Jun wished he could help more, but Akane always turned a blind eye to the gradual decay of her home, and any mention of it would bring vitriol forth in a flood.
The back door to the garage was slightly ajar. Jun’s legs trembled, and in that instant he realised it was cowardice that would make him step through that door. Bravery would be to turn and walk away, but the fear of not knowing would make him push that door open at the same time as others banged shut forever. He was too afra
id to walk away.
The single bulb inside the garage was on, but a long shadow hung over the entrance, parting the light like two curtains drawn back. In the centre something large hung from the ceiling, something black and rectangular, stock still like a giant sleeping bat.
Akane’s dad had put on one of his daughter’s hooded tops and zipped it up. The yellow electric cord that he had looped over a hook that might have once hung up a drill or an electric saw poked out from the side of the hood covering his face like a line of twirled-up police tape. On the ground, tipped over on its side, was a kitchen chair with a single broken leg. The broken piece had been sawn almost all the way through. A workbench where the deed had been done was set up inside the front door, a little halo of sawdust spreading out around it.
From the stench and the puddle beneath him, Akane’s father had shit and pissed himself. His face, puffy from asphyxiation but pale and blue from rigor mortis, looked down on Jun at a crooked angle, his dead eyes staring blankly into Jun’s own. That gaze said a thousand things; it was accusatory, regretful, and compassionate at the same time.
Jun’s legs fell out from under him. He hit the ground hard, his head striking the hard concrete of the garage floor, knocking him out.
When he came to a few seconds later, he had rolled over away from the dangling corpse, facing the back wall. It took him a few seconds to realise what had happened, what he had discovered, but the fear of seeing those dead eyes gazing on him for one more second made something break in his mind. He pulled his knees up to his chest, squeezed his eyes shut, and waited for it all to go away.
That was how Akane found them both, more than an hour later. Her father hanging dead, her best friend curled up in a whimpering ball on the ground.
It didn’t matter that Jun had nothing to do with it, or that it appeared her father had left work at lunchtime and been dead for several hours at the time of Jun’s discovery. None of that mattered. He had been there. He had been at the scene of her father’s suicide, and she would forever associate the horror of that moment with her best friend’s face.
