Shiki Novel Translations 3.16.3

[sinnesspiel]

Planning to take night watch duty, Akira opened his bedroom window and sat watching the road in front of the house. That was how he planned to spend the night but in the end, at some point, it seems he fell asleep. Opening his eyes to the cold mist of dawn, the night had done past and even Kaori who was at his side was asleep.

Clicking his tongue, Akira went downstairs. He had coaxed his mother to move to the tatami room. He had laid out her futon in front of the Buddhist altar, stuck ofuda on the storm shutters, and positioned the hamaya, but when Akira arrived downstairs he saw one of the storm shutters was opened.

His mother was pale faced as she slept. Her condition was worse than yesterday. Not a single one of the ofuda he had stuck up were left, and even the centerpiece and the incense burner were gone from the altar, to say nothing of the hamaya.

"Mom, any idea what happened to the ofuda?"

Akira tried to shake his mom awake but she shook her head with some trouble.

Akira hurried out into the garden. He searched the neighborhood, but couldn't find any of them. There was only traces of ashes in the garden left behind, maybe scattered from the incense burner.

He had no choice but to determine that fuda and hamaya couldn't stop them. Kaori stayed behind with their mother who continued asking for water as Akira skipped school to head to the us stop. This time it was Akira who would go to the shrine in Mizobe. He knew that those things couldn't stop the attack. But just the same he couldn't leave things as they were. What stuck in his mind was that they had disappeared. If they didn't do anything at all, then they probably would've just left them there. It was worth getting them out of their way, so they might have at least managed to frustrate them.

As he walked along in thought, a voice called out to him. It was from the front of Takemura.

"Where you going at this hour?"

He didn't know the old man who called out to him, but he did know that it was Satou Oitarou. He was pretty sure the old man did carpentry in Mizuguchi. He was always loitering around the front of Takemura.

"About time for you to be in school, inn't?"

"Mom sent me to take care of some things."

Well my, Oitarou said, eyes widening. "Even skipping school?"

The one who spoke with a certain know-it-all look was Shimo Sotoba's Ohtsuka Yaekko. "Your mother's sick, you say?"

"Yeah."

"And your father had just passed away too; how dreadful. And even so, a death doesn't keep the chores from piling up at all."

Aah, right you are, oitarou murmured, showing his yellowed teeth with a smile. "I see, that sounds rough. How's your old Ma holdin' up?"

"....I don't know."

That right, Oitarou said with a sense of despondence. Yaeko even took some pains to rise up from her seat and stroke Akira's back.

"This year's been a cruel one. In a way I just can't get a hold on. At times like these, Akira-chan, we need you to be strong. You are a boy, after all."

Akira stayed quiet and nodded. Akira's resolution was firm on that point already.

"I really can't make any sense of it. One death after after another and all," Oitarou sighed. "The wife from the hardware shop done passed, even Tatsu-san's relatives just had a funeral here the other day. Even though they were so healthy."

Enough, came a low voice from Takemura Tatsu. Oitarou seemed to realize what he was doing and looked to Akira.

"No, that's. .... I mean, I hope at least your Mom gets better."

Akira nodded and then looked to the elderly. "But I wonder if it's something that gets better."

"It'll get better," Yaeko said, shaking his shoulder. "You shouldn't say something so ill omened like that."

"But is there anyone who has got better? Since summer, all you hear about is someone who's got that sickness. But not a single story about a single one of them getting better."

Cornered by Akira's accusation, the elderly were forced into silent. Tatsu let out a light sigh.

"...That's exactly right."

"Now, Tatsu-san!" Yaeko cried out, flustered, but Tatsu paid her no mind. She gave a grave nod to Akira.

"It's just as you've said."

"People are dropping dead like dominoes. One after another taken down. So why aren't the adults going anything? Why are they just letting it go?"

Tatsu said nothing. It's not like we're letting it... Oitarou began looking down. Yaeko still had her hand on his shoulder, looking clearly uncomfortable. Akira couldn't bear it.

"This village, it's weird. Something's obviously wrong. All these people are dying, and yet no adult's doing anything. Why won't somebody do something! They're always acting so full of themselves, saying they're adults, they're so grown up! Then I wanna see them DO something!"

Oitarou was on the verge of saying something sullen, but Yaeko overtook him. "You did just lose your father didn't you? And with your mom being ill too, it's normal for you to feel that way. But it's not as if we haven't been thinking of anything at all either."

He hated Yaeko's pity-laden voice. Akira stuffed both of his hands into his pockets and moved to walk past the Takemura store front.

"You say that, Yaeko-san, but is there anything we can do?" Oitarou lamented. "It is indeed weird, this village. But even the Junior Doc over at the Ozaki's can't do anything about it. And on top of that, what's to make of that, the houses here and there coming up empty, and just when you wonder about that, suddenly people are coming back into 'em. Even at Ikumi-san's place!"

Akira's feet stopped as he turned around. He half listened to what Oitarou had to say.

"Well after that humiliation, the mother and daughter both would have to leave town , wouldn't they? It's obvious what happened there isn't it?"

"Not talking about that. There's that strange rumor, haven't you hear? Lately, seems there's someone coming and going. And in the middle of the night. Of course it's not Ikumi, not her daughter Tamae neither. The old lady Tamaru was saying it looked like the Maeda's Iwao-san."

"How silly!" Yaeko laughed, waving her hand. "The old girl's just weak minded. There's no way it could be Iwao-san now could it? He died back at the start of the month."

"Exactly right. That's why it's so creepy. It's no joke, I don't want involved no way no how in this kind of creepy stuff. Now, if they said it was a robber or something like that, I might find myself wanting to do like I did when I was young, though."

Akira looked at his shadow cast along the ground he stood on. Maeda Iwao---an old man from Shimo Sotoba. He remembered he had a hard, rock-like face, just like his name, Iwao for a boulder or a cliff crag. Yeah, he had heard that he'd died. And now there was a house it sounded like a shadow of that Iwao was coming and going from.

"Where's that at?" Akira called to the elderly. Oitarou had forgotten he was there, answering in surprise that he had been talking about Ikumi-san's place.

"Mizuguchi's Ikumi's house. Furthest one down, one house all by itself. Right near the statue of the three monkeys."

Right, Aira murmured, turning his eyes towards the other side of the river. Between the river and the mountain on that thin patch of land was a row of houses.

Akira turned back on the road. Oitarou shouted something after him, but he ignored it and ran back to the house. Kaori came out see if it was him coming in, but he ignored her and ran up to the second story.

He didn't have a mallet. What he did have was the hammer in his dad's toolbox, but no doubt that'd do the trick. Akira reached under the desk and pulled it out, taking out two stakes. It took him all day yesterday to make seven of them.

He put them in his day pack together with the hammer. For good measure, he took a mamori fuda and placed it in his breast pocket.

"I'll do it." Akira's nervous, trembling hand pressed against his pocket to confirm the contents and calm himself. "I'll get revenge for Nii-chan."

This is what he should do, he'd have said to him, if Natsuno were here. Akira clutched his day pack and hurried down the stairs. Without paying any attention to Kaori, he rushed out of the house.

Akira went straight to Mizuguchi. Only Tatsu saw Akira cross the Sanno Hashi bridge.



He knew the house Oitarou was talking about straight away. Beyond the Mizuguchi neighborhood, in a small, wild looking bamboo thicket was a building with its back to the mountain. That wild and wastelaid look went for the Ikumi house itself, too. It looked like it'd been dilapidated for a long time now. With an unsettled feeling, Akira put a hand on the warped glass door of the entryway.

Naturally, the glass door didn't open. Akira looked over his surroundings, confirming that nobody was around before going to the back. Right along the damp and muddy road he found a backdoor, but that wasn't unlocked either. Not only wouldn't it open, the back windows and even the glass on the back door were covered up with wooden boards. Akira went further back, surveying the side of the building facing the mountain slope. There were two windows, and both of those were, as now expected, boarded up from the inside.

Akira looked at his watch. It was still just a little past noon. Too early for them to be getting up. He had plenty of time.

Even so he stopped to take so many deep breaths, checked his surroundings so many times as he took the hammer out of his day bag. While convincing himself of it one more time, he took a deep breath and raised the hammer overhead.

Maybe it was because he'd been nervous about it, but the glass made a small sound as it began to crack. using the nail puller side, fragments fell down in between the frame and the floor. Steeling his nerves, he brought down the hammer several times. The pane of glass completely shattered, and while he tried to reach an arm in, with the boards in the way he couldn't. But it seemed the board was merely plywood, and it gave way when he pushed at the center.

Akira took another deep breath. From there, he swung the nail puller part of the hammer into the plywood. The board made a cracking noise, and the pointed end pushed in. Akira gradually grew more bold. Making proper use of both ends, he used all his strength in prying off the frame and tearing out the board. He soon had the board taken out, the frame broken off, and had made a hole that Akira could get in through.

When did he start breathing enough to shake his shoulders. He wiped his sweat with the collar of his uniform, climbing in the window. Bits of glass cut into the palm of his hand, making him wince. Sticking his head in the hole, he started by first looking around. With the light coming in the window, he could see the dark room within. It was a musty living room.

Akira climbed the wall to sneak in. The house was dark. The windows were boarded up with plywood from the inside, and almost like weather stripping, there was tape fastened over the crevices. If not for the light that came in when he peeled it away, it really might have been pitch black.

Akira took a flashlight out of his day pack. Shining a light, he could tell the inside of the house wasn't in shambles enough to call it dilapidated. He was sure there'd be dust and mold and something rotting here and there like he'd imagined, but it was unexpectedly tidy. No doubt it was old, but, as if someone were still living here, the feel of it being a "home" still lingered, enough he felt awkward to still have his shoes on, even.

(Someone lives here......)

Where and how he couldn't say. But someone was living here, he could feel it. There were two doors to the living room. One was the glass door, facing the kitchen, and it was open. When Akira shined his light towards it, he saw a pile of boards and plaster on the ground. On the other side was a door that lead to the room next door. The aged stained sliding door was firmly closed.

Akira at last put his hand on the sliding door. The door didn't slide smoothly, bt when pushed, it let out a sound and opened. Carefully turning the light into the room, he could spy a futon when he peeked in. He tried to shine the light around from where he was, but he couldn't see who was in the futon.

It didn't seem there were any windows in this room. On one side was a plain wall, and on the other side appeared to be a sliding door to yet another room beyond that one. On the fourth wall was a large shelf of what looked to be a household altar but there were no scrolls or statues or the like to be seen. With things piled up and shelves and drawers in place, there wasn't much space on the floor for anything but laying out a futon. And there was indeed a futon looking as if someone had slept in it without putting it up.

(But you're telling me nobody's here.....?)

Akira thought as he stepped on the futon to cross the room. He put his hand on the door to the room even further in. It was somewhat anticlimactic to not see anybody. Gingerly, but more easily than the last one, he slid open this door.

The small house only seemed to have three rooms. The six matt room had boards on the windows from front to back, so it seemed like this room was facing the front. It was sealed off perfectly, making the inside of the room perfectly cloaked in darkness. With the flashlight, he could tell that there was a chest of drawers and a desk and chair, and that there was a mess of thins piled up between them.

There were sliding glass doors that opened to the entryway, and a hallway that went to the kitchen. The entryway's glass was also boarded up, and thoroughly weatherized. On the floor were cardboard boxes and a pile of things but nothing that could be identified as distinctly suspicious. Across the room on the opposite side was a curtain that seemed strangely new. Reaching out to touch it, it felt like it was coated in rubber, and was black on the other side.
Behind this curtain was not a window but a sliding door.

Akira tilted his head. Because of the storage space above he had thought it was probably a closet, but why was there a curtain hung over it. Akira opened the sliding door and shone the light in, jumping back before he could think twice.

An unvoiced scream built in his throat. A person was laid out in the upper section of the closet. There where the folded blankets would normally be stored, a human was laid out in dark clothing. His hand rested on top of his stomach but there was no movement. ---Yes, there was absolutely no reaction.

Akira turned the light on the body with a shaking hand. Indeed the figure did not move. With the edge of the flashlight he pushed open the door. He could see the sleeping man's face. It was a crag-faced old man, a face Akira remembered seeing.

(Maeda's... Iwao-san.)

It is him, he thought. The rumors were true. An old man who should have been dead was laid out here. Akira turned the light on his face, which remained fixed in its expression with no movement. He was deep in sleep. ----Or something else.

Akira nudged the old man with the tip of the flashlight. Indeed, there was no reaction. Two steps, three steps, he drew closer. The man did not move an inch, and he couldn't hear any of his sleeping breath. When he tried timidly poking the hand resting on his stomach, it was cold. You could say he was dead, by all rights.

(He's...)

Akira swalloed a breath. The inside of his mouth was dry. Even when shaking him lightly there was no response. He tried pinching that hand, picking it up and letting it go, to see it drop down. He was deep in the unconscious of sleep---or else, it was the case that he really was dead.

Akira was so tense that he could almost laugh. He was laid out, unresponsive as a doll. This was his father's---Natsuno's revenge. This was the ringleader sprinkling death throughout the village and tearing Akira's world apart.

So it really is the case that they can't do anything in the daytime, he thought. He hid away in a dark place like this and slept. Unable to move, unable to even wake to the world around him. At least until the sun sets, Akira had satisfyingly confirmed.

"I found you." Akira's voice came out. After all, the old man was laid out like a rag doll. "I'm gonna do you in. .... All of you."

Akira placed the flashlight down on top of the man's stomach, next to his sinewy hand. He took a stake out from his day pack. He took the hammer from his belt. Bending forward, he gripped the stake while trying to peer into his face. The tip trembled, he couldn't hold it in place.

They're murderers, Akira argued with himself.

"Nii-chan and Dad are both dead. They were killed by you all. So, even I don't think I'm doing nothing cruel here, you hear me!"

Yes, he had no sympathy. He had no mercy. This was justice, a privilege of the living.

"You're all oni."

He pushed the tip into the old man's chest. Holding it at an angle, it shook pathetically.

I'm doing it, Akira scolded himself. This sinister bunch, right now while they couldn't resist. Right now, the oni couldn't resist. He couldn't hurt Akira. Unable to stop Akira from swinging his hammer down, his life would end and he would turn to ash and disappear, more than likely.

Despite telling himself this, the hand with the hammer didn't move. Akira tried to force himself, tried to remember his father's dead face, or Natsuno's face the last time he had seen him. His laid up mother, abandoning their father's dead body, his mother in her unrestrained anger, and his own helplessness. His uselessness and despair, anger and bitterness, the source of all of Akira's pain.

".....I'm doing it."

The sun was still high, now was the time.

---Akira was completely oblivious to Tatsumi's existence. The idea that there was one who could show himself in the daylight had never occurred to him. That was why he couldn't even imagine that behind him, someone was easing closer, hiding their presence. Akira's attention was entirely on the trembling tip of the stake held in his hand, on the hammer that stubbornly refused to move.

Broad arms loomed out. Meaty hands stretched to the left and right of Akira's shoulders, but those hands gave off now scent nor sign of their presence. The hands in place then suddenly closed, seizing Akira around the neck and clutching to close his throat off. There was no scream, no whimper, only the dull sound of the stake and hammer dropping.


---Something, suddenly, dropping in around him, he remembered.

Realizing someone was tapping his shoulder, Akira opened his eyes in a daze. As if it dropped down on him, along with pain and shock, he felt something hard hit his head. Akira didn't understand what was going on, didn't know why it felt like the blood had been drained out of him. And now, he didn't understand why it was that his throat hurt so.

Akira blinked. He was in a dark room. There was a light in the lower portion of his field of vision. It was the light from his flashlight. Dully following the light his eyes came to the watch. The ticking of the second hand made a harsh sound.

Akira instantly came to his senses, thrashing his body as if struck. He broke out into a sweat. He could get out a muffled voice, but nothing so much as a scream. His mouth was firmly sealed shut.

In the dark room, the room which Akira had snuck into. Directly nearby, he could see the curtain just barely opened and the sliding door beyond it. The crevice was dark but he knew that the faint hints of light and shadow he could barely make out peeking beyond them were the shadow laid out.

He tried to move his body but couldn't. Akira looked around, twisted his body and looked at himself. Something like tape was sealed over his mouth, and he confirmed it was rope holding him down in a seated position, to a pillar or something like that. Both hands were fastened together, falling between his spread out legs. The flashlight was placed (or had fallen?) on the floor between his feet, and it wasn't much light, but it lit up a rectangular alarm clock set upon the tatami.

(......A clock.)

Akira stared absently at that, and then his eyes opened wide. A voice tinted with a terrified scream leaked out, but caught up in his stopped up throat, it instead sent Akira into a coughing fit. Unable to do even that much, Akira for a time suffered the feeling of knowing he may have suffocated and choked on his own coughing.

Tears welled from bitter agony. As he somehow managed to get his coughing under control, he caught sight of the numbers on the clock. The light was shone on it as if to mock him, showing the long needle between the six and the even, and the short one denoting the hour between four and five.

Akira struggled with all his might but his bonds showed no sign of loosening, and instead he felt the additional pain digging into his arms. He looked between the clock and the opening of the closet in despair. Muffled screams continuously leaked from his stopped up mouth. His feet kicked at the tatami, stomping. Like death throes. The impact on the floor caused the flaslight to roll but the light remained on the dial.

---Four thirty seven.

Letting out a stiff sound, the second hand moved like a cogwheel. One second at a time.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, no, it's finally happening

8D

[(Anonymous)]

OH SHIT NOOOOOO