In the morning, while driving a forest road toward our work site, a hiker walking ahead of us stepped aside to the edge of the road, so I nodded in greeting through the window.
My partner in the driver's seat asked, "What are you doing?"
When I replied, "I'm just nodding because they stepped aside. Even if someone's walking, you don't even slow down," he said, "There's nobody there."
I looked back, and sure enough, there was no one. There were no places to hide, no side paths. Both the mountain side and the valley side of the road were sheer cliffs.
While driving through a somewhat long tunnel as we usually did, I heard the roaring sound of a turbo engine from behind.
"Man, they're really tailgating us," I thought, looking in the rearview mirror, but there was no vehicle following us.
Though there was no shadow of a car, only the irregular roaring sound like a street racer's closely followed us.
Partner: "Can you hear it…?"
Me: "I can hear it…"
Partner: "There's nothing behind us, right…?"
Me: "Nothing at all…"
"Whoa-ah-ah-ah!" Letting out overlapping screams, we slammed on the brakes to slow down—though stopping in the middle of a tunnel was also terrifying—and only the sound of the turbo engine overtook our mini-truck.
The next day, having regained our composure, the two of us concluded:
"Yesterday's thing must have been the sound of our own mini-truck echoing inside the tunnel."
"We thought we were being overtaken because once the mini-truck passed the halfway point of the tunnel, the direction of the echoing sound changed. It's just like an ambulance siren where you can't tell if it's coming or going."
We reached this conclusion, and for some reason convinced ourselves, "We should hear it today too," so we drove through the same tunnel at the same time.
Needless to say, that sound was a one-time occurrence.
I will never forget it: October 13th, an incident at the Fukiage Tunnel in Nariki, Saitama Prefecture.
While I was pruning branches, I heard the voices of what sounded like two women talking about twenty meters below me. They were laughing happily.
Even though a hunter with dogs would occasionally wander into the area, it was not a place where ordinary hiking middle-aged women could walk.
Of course, there were no paths.
I thought I was just hearing distant human voices carried by the wind, but there were no hiking trails on the ridge either.
My partner heard this too, and it gave him the creeps.
During summer weed-clearing, an elderly man of small stature once stood quite still in the corner of the work site, staring right at us.
I felt neither goodwill nor ill will from him; it simply felt like he was watching us work.
Even when I nodded to him, he acted completely indifferent.
I asked my partner, "Do you know that old man?", but I was the only one who could see him.
That day was a drizzly day close to the rainy season, but that old man must have stayed there for four to five hours.
He was dressed like a farmer, leaving the impression that he was an old-time local.
Something like this happened at another weed-clearing site, too.
While clearing near the edge of the property, I heard the loud sound of a weed trimmer coming from the neighboring plot across the boundary.
It was the sound of heavy revving, as if the engine were running poorly.
However, no workers had entered that adjacent plot of land.
The sound stopped immediately and was never heard again, so I brushed it off as hearing things and continued working.
Before long, I felt like having a smoke, thinking I would take a break at a good stopping point, when someone whispered right next to my ear, "Let's take a smoke break."
Panicking, I looked for my partner, but I could see him far in the distance, swinging his weed trimmer as a tiny figure. It was nowhere near a distance where a voice could reach.
"I get it, so please don't talk to me," I inadvertently said out loud.
After that, the voice continued to whisper "Let's take a smoke break" to me three or four times.
After coming down the mountain, I asked the people in the village at the foot of the mountain if any workers had died there in the past, but apparently nothing like that had happened.
Who on earth was the owner of that voice…?
At yet another weed-clearing site, I was surrounded by 'three people' and completely panicked.
Only that time did I feel intense malice and harmful intent with my entire body.
I had no idea what they didn't like, but feeling that 'something was going to be done to me,' I shouted out loud, "I'm working! I'm busy! Please, leave me alone!!"
Thinking he had been called, my partner turned off his engine and said, "Did you call meee?"
It was mid-afternoon in the middle of summer, and the temperature was over 40 degrees Celsius (104°F), but let me tell you, I broke out in a cold, sticky sweat.