"Whoa!" My friend Shoji suddenly cried out. "W-What is it, all of a sudden...?" I stopped in my tracks, startled. We were on our way back from our part-time jobs, just approaching the intersection on the main avenue. "Hey, look over there. Can't you see it?" He pointed toward the opposite side of the intersection. *Not this again,* I thought. Shoji seemed to have a strong sixth sense and frequently "saw" things. However, I couldn't "see" or feel anything when I was with him. This time was no exception. "Ah! No, no! That's bad. Let's get out of here, fast." Ignoring my confusion, Shoji made up his mind and strode ahead. Walking fast to catch up with him, I asked, "What's your problem? What did you see?" "...There was a person lying right in the middle of the roadway. But cars were just driving right through, not stopping at all, passing right through the body. When I looked closer, it only had an upper body." "You mean the lower half was missing?" "Well, it looked like it had been ripped off. Then, as I stared at it, our eyes met..." "Is that bad?" "Bad, really bad. It might have put a curse on me." "Seriously? What are we gonna do about that...?" "The best thing is to get away from here quickly. Let's go, let's go." We hurried toward the subway entrance.
After grabbing a bite to eat in front of the station, Shoji insisted that he was too scared to go back to his own room, so the two of us went to a nearby izakaya to drink. "...You'll be fine, it's been a long time already." At the pub, I was trying to persuade Shoji, who still didn't want to go back to his room. I had to work a morning shift the next day, after all. "Well, we took the train and moved around. I don't feel like anything is attached to me, so I think I'm okay, but..." Leaving him muttering complaints, I handed him money amounting to our total bill divided by two minus 500 yen, and practically fled back to my own room, arriving a little past 11 PM. I was completely exhausted, so I skipped taking a bath and headed straight for my futon... Just then, my phone rang. I checked the caller ID and saw it was Shoji. "Hello." "Yeah, it's me. Listen, I still get this awful, creepy feeling around my room, I'm genuinely terrified..." "Huh?! (Angry)" "What do you think I should do?" "How the hell should I know, jerk!" I slammed the phone down. After a while, it rang again, but when I ignored it, it stopped after about ten rings. Just as I was finally falling asleep, my cell phone rang this time. I hesitated on whether to ignore it, but ended up answering. "Hello." "I'm coming over..." Click. The line went dead. I checked the call log, and it was Shoji, as expected. It was just past midnight. The trains weren't running anymore. He only had a moped—was he really going to come all this way in this freezing cold? I was too sleepy to care anymore, so I went back to sleep. Even so, it must have been lingering in the back of my mind, because I half-woke up when I heard that sound.
The sound of footsteps coming up the stairs right outside my room. Ah, the guy actually came. I checked the clock. 4:30 AM. *What is he thinking...* I felt a deep, bottomless exhaustion and crawled out of my futon. Shoji was still climbing the stairs. Slowly, slowly up to my room on the second floor. Did he wipe out on his moped and get hurt or something? Feeling a little worried, I opened my room's door and looked toward the stairs on the right. The stairs formed a right angle with the hallway in front of my room, so I couldn't see them directly. *Thud... slap... thud-thud...* A slow sound was coming from the direction of the stairs. It wasn't the sound of shoes walking up the stairs. It sounded more like something heavy being dragged along...? A sudden chill ran through me. Was the person coming up the stairs really Shoji? *Slap... thud-thud... thud...* The sound was getting closer. *I see—if you pull yourself up using just your arms, it makes a sound like that...* I stood there, forgetting to even step back inside my room, staring fixedly at the corner where the stairs ended. *Thud-thud... thud... slap.* I saw a pale hand slowly appear over the floor of the hallway. I slammed the door shut with all my might, locked it with trembling hands, and pulled the futon over my head. I strained my ears. *...Thud.* The sound seemed to stop right in front of my door. Since I didn't know any Buddhist chants, I just kept repeating inside my futon, *Don't come, don't come.*
How long had I stayed like that? Eventually, through a small gap I nervously opened in the futon, I could see that the outside was turning pale with dawn. Then, the newspaper slot in the door made a light *clack* sound. The paperboy is here! I felt a wave of relief so strong it almost brought tears to my eyes. Thank you! Thank you! I'm so glad I subscribed to the morning paper! I genuinely thought that. *Slide... thump.* A sound like heavy meat dropping came from the genkan foyer. *Huh? That's not the newspaper...* He got in! He got in! He actually got in! I felt like I was losing my mind. *Why did he fit through such a narrow slot?!* I felt a flash of angry disbelief, but there was nothing I could do. I pulled the futon back over my head and could only shiver violently. *Scrape... slide...* Something was crawling across the floor. *Shoji, you idiot!* I cursed tearfully. *Thud-thud... slide...* The sound was getting closer. *Shoji, I'm sorry! If I hadn't gone home that time...* Unable to think past that, I just kept apologizing to Shoji. *So please, God, help me! Help me!* I felt the edge of the futon being peeled back. A foul, raw stench. And the presence of something right in front of me... *No! Don't open your eyes now!* Even as I told myself that, I ended up opening them anyway... What I saw was a hazy, reddish color, spreading out to fill my entire field of vision. *What is...* The moment I thought that, my vision focused. Right there, three centimeters from my eyes, was a face a chaotic mixture of hair, flesh, and yellow fat.
Comments (-)