Suicide Forest (35 page)

I didn’t blame them either. It was three
against one. I was injured and weak from hunger and thirst.

“English?” I said. “You spoke it before. Can
you understand me?”

They began moving again.

“Stop!”

They didn’t obey this time.

I swung the beam back and forth. They were
fanning out too quickly. I would be surrounded in seconds.

I aimed the light directly in the eyes of
the tallest one, then launched the dagger at him. The blade
deflected off his shoulder and spun away into the night.

Nevertheless, the blow knocked him down, and
the other two moved to his aide.

I shuffled backward, never taking my eyes
off them, and only when I’d put several trees between us did I feel
safe enough to turn around.

In the distance Mel began screaming.

The
flashlight beam
bobbed madly ahead of me. Branches raked my face. I didn’t care or
feel any pain, not even the wound in my back.

Mel continued to scream, and I tried not to
think what was happening to her.

I don’t know how long I ran for, or how far
I’d gone. This would require some sort of analytical reasoning,
numbers, mathematics. And none of that existed right then. I was
too jacked up, too in the moment.

I had never before experienced the
desperation that drove me right then. If a sheer-sided canyon
appeared directly before me, I probably would have plunged right
off it, for in control now was one overriding directive: FIND MEL!
And below this, repeating over and over like the tickertape at the
bottom of a Breaking News report:
There’re more of them, she’s
going to die, there’re more of them, she’s going to die…

I could almost accept my death. I could see
me falling, the teenagers catching up, smashing my skull in, the
blackness that would ferry me away. This I could almost accept in a
detached, nihilistic way because I have seen myself grow old, I
have contemplated my own mortality, and I have come to understand
that one day I’m going to die. But I’ve never envisioned Mel’s
mortality or death. Never, not once. I’ve always seen her as she is
now: youthful, beautiful, full of life. She couldn’t die. It was
unfathomable.

How was this happening?

I realized I was praying, praying I found
Mel, praying she was okay, praying we got out of this, got away. I
didn’t know what I was praying to, didn’t care, but I was praying
to something bigger than me.

Then, all at once, I came upon a scene from
hell. A writhing mass of gray robes and hands and feet piled high
in a football scrimmage—and Mel’s legs sticking out from the
bottom, kicking at nothing.

One of the attackers reared up with a large
rock in his hand and raised it over his head. For a moment bodies
parted and I glimpsed Mel’s face, stormy eyed and terrified.

“Stop!” I roared without slowing, running
straight at the throng, consumed with an insane rage. I was going
to destroy them, every last one of them, I was going to beat them
to puddles of blood, or I was going to die trying.

But they dispersed before I could reach
them, escaping effortlessly into the trees, leaving Mel curled into
a protective ball on the ground, still kicking at nothing.

I scooped her into my arms. She screamed and
hit me.

“Mel!” I shouted. “It’s me!”

She stared at me, deer-like.

I carried her in an arbitrary direction
until she regained her wits and could move on her own. We ran. Arms
swinging, legs bounding uncoordinatedly, we were staggering
parodies of two kids being chased by the biggest, meanest dog on
the block.

Soon we were both panting for breath,
lurching as if moving through snow or shallow water, but we didn’t
stop. Because even though we had gotten away, I didn’t think it was
over. Those teens would regroup. They would come after us again.
They would—

In the distance I saw a glow flickering in
and out between the trees.

The campfire?

“Look!” Mel cried ecstatically.

“I see it!” I said.

We redoubled our efforts.

I
had been wrong
all along. There was no campfire awaiting us. No tent. No hiker, no
suicide guy, no killer. For ahead of us was an old, roughly built
cabin with a wood exterior. My eyes took in everything at once—the
weathered bench out front, the chopping block with an ax lodged
into the top surface, the saw leaning against a neatly stacked
woodpile—then we were clambering up the front stoop. Mel reached
the door first and began pounding her fist against it, shouting for
whoever was inside to open up. I was about to try the handle when
the door swung open.

A clean-shaven man in his fifties appeared.
He was wearing beige khaki pants, a brown leather belt, and a
mustard-colored button-down shirt. He raised bushy white eyebrows
in surprise and said something in Japanese, a question, I
think.

I shoved Mel past him, then I followed,
slamming the door closed behind us.

The
interior of the
cabin was a spartan affair and smelled faintly of wax and creosote
and soot. Aside from a scuffed table and two chairs, the only other
furnishing was a wood cooking stove. Basic foodstuff, mostly
instant noodles and canned goods, were visible in an open-faced
cupboard. A pot and pan and dishes rested on a short counter, while
a broom and dustpan hung on the wall. There was no sink, which
implied no running water. Nor were there any electric lights or
wall sockets. The light that had guided us here had been provided
by the crackling blaze in the stone fireplace to our left and
several large candles the size of cookie jars.

I went immediately to the lone window and
looked out. I could see little aside from the floating red
reflections made by the candle flames.

The man had a look of astonishment on his
face. He’d likely never entertained company here before, let along
two crazed foreigners acting as if they had just seen the devil
himself.

“Do you speak English?” I asked him. I wiped
a shaking hand across my lips, which were velvet dry. My chest was
still so tight it hurt to breathe, and I couldn’t stop glancing at
the door and window.

Mel slumped into one of the chairs and
cradled her head in her hands and stared mutely at the table.

“English?” I repeated harshly. “Do you speak
English?”

He blinked. “Yes—no.
Skoshi
.” He
pinched his forefinger and thumb together. His posture was stooped,
and I couldn’t decide if he was cowering or permanently bowing.

“There are—there are some people in the
forest. They attacked us.”

“People?” he repeated.

“Kids!” Mel cried, still staring at a spot
on the table.

“Kids?”

“An entire group of them,” I said. “Pale
faces, long black hair. They attacked us. Our friend is still out
there. She’s badly hurt. We need your phone. Do you have a
phone?”

“Phone?”

“A phone! We need to call the police.”

“Police?”

What the fuck was wrong with the guy? I
grabbed him by his shirt and shouted, “
Where is your damn
phone?
”

“Phone? No phone.”

I stared at him in disbelief, then realized
I had no idea why he was out here, in this cabin. I released him,
stepped back, studied his clothes. I couldn’t tell whether it was
some sort of uniform or not. “Are you a forest ranger?”

“Ranger,
hai
.” He attempted an
uncertain smile.

“How do you keep in touch?”

He looked at me blankly.

“Talk? Base? Other rangers? Talk?”

He shook his head.

I glanced around the room. There was a door
opposite the wood stove. I went to it, threw it open. A bedroom.
Next to a twin bed, on a small table, was a handheld two-way
radio.

I felt as if I’d just fallen in love.

“Hey!” I said. “You! Come here.”

Both he and Mel came over.

“A walkie-talkie!” Mel exclaimed.

I gripped the man’s arm and pointed to the
radio. “You call help. Okay?”

“Help,
hai
.”

“Tell them my friends are dead.”

“Friends?”

“
Tomodachi
, dead.” I drew a hand
across my throat. “You call. Okay?” I made a phone with my pinky
and thumb. “You call. Get help.”

“Me call.”

“You don’t understand a fucking word I’m
saying, do you?”

He looked at me blankly.

Cursing, I crossed the room to the radio,
deciding I was going have to call the base station myself and hope
to hell whoever answered could do more than parrot everything I
said.

The ranger followed me and took my arm just
as I picked up the radio. He shook his head. “I call,” he said.
“Help. Okay?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” I shoved the radio at him.
“Call.”

He twisted a knob, depressed the
push-to-talk button, and said something in Japanese. He released
the button and waited. There was a burst of static, then someone
replied.

Mel squawked with joy.

The ranger and the dispatcher spoke back and
forth for less than a minute. I listened closely, trying and
failing to identify certain words that might give me some clue as
to what they were saying. Finally he set the radio back down on the
table.

He nodded. “Help, okay.”

“How long?” Mel asked quickly.

“Long?”

I tapped my wristwatch. “Time. How long?
Help?”

He held up one finger.

“One hour?” I said.

“One hour,
hai
.”

“How will they get here so fast?” Mel asked.
“Is there a road? Ask him if there’s a road.”

I pulled open the top drawer in the table
and discovered a small stenographer’s notepad and a sharpened
pencil. I drew a quick map of the area, including Mt. Fuji, the
town of Kawaguchiko, Lake Saiko, Aokigahara Jukai, and our
position, which I marked with an X.

It took a few minutes of prodding and
clarification, but eventually I determined that the cabin was
accessible by a dual combination of access road and hiking
trail.

Mel and I embraced, almost sinking into one
another, while the ranger watched us with a perplexed
expression.

“
You
can’t go back,” Mel said to me. “What if
they’re still out there?”

We were seated at the table near the warmth
of the fireplace. The ranger had left to fetch us water, which I
assumed he drew from a nearby well. I cautioned him not to go
outside, but he insisted, and I relented. This was his forest after
all. While he was gone, Mel had found a first aid kit in the
cupboard and had cleaned and bandaged the puncture in my back.
Although it hurt, it was not as deep as I’d feared.

“We can’t leave John Scott and Neil,” I
said.

“The police will go get them.”

“What if they can’t find them?”

“They can follow the crosses we left just as
well as you can. And maybe they’ll have dogs. It’s going to be a
big rescue party, right?”

“We don’t know who’s coming.”

“But the rangers would have called the
police, who already know we’re missing. They’ll send everyone they
have.”

“I hope so.”

She frowned. “Well?”

“What?”

“Why wouldn’t they send everyone they
have?”

“I never said they wouldn’t.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I am, I’m sorry, I am. I was just
thinking.”

“About?”

“How this has to be a dream or something. I
keep expecting I’m going to wake up at any moment, and we’ll be
back at the campfire, and Tomo will be there, and Ben, and John
Scott and Neil will be fine.”

“It’s not a dream.”

“I know.”

The fire crackled and sparked.

“Who
are
they, Ethan?” Mel said. “Why
are they doing this? They’re just…how old were they?”

“The ones I saw? Seventeen. Eighteen. I
couldn’t tell. Which means there’re adults around too.”

She blanched. “You think so?”

“Has to be. There’s no way teenagers are
living out here by themselves.”

“Maybe they’re feral kids?”

Feral kids?

A vague tickling feeling bubbled inside
me.

“You know,” she added, “like those kids you
read about who are raised by wolves or bears or some kind of
animal.”

That tickling was in my chest now, sneaking
up my throat—it was Mel’s expression as much as the subject matter
that was causing it; she looked so serious, so stone cold sober,
while she talked about kids being reared by animals—then the tickle
exploded from my mouth in a burst of laughter that I couldn’t
control.

“Ethan, stop it,” Mel said. “Stop it.”

I couldn’t reply; I was in fits.

“Ethan, you’re scaring me!”

I shook my head. My eyes watered.

“Ethan!”

I held up a hand.

“Ethan!”

“I’m…fine,” I managed, getting hold of
myself.

“What’s so funny?” She was not pleased.

I breathed deeply and steadily.

“What’s wrong with you?” she pressed.

“I’m okay.”

“Talk to me.”

I looked at her and said, “Are we…?”

“Are we what?”

“Crazy?” I wiped my eyes. “Are we going
crazy, Mel?”

“You’re certainly acting like it.”

“Are we?”

“No, we’re not. Absolutely not. Besides, we
both couldn’t be crazy. Only one of us could be. If this was all in
my head, then you would be in my head too. You’d be a figment of my
imagination.”

“I’m not a figment,” I said, biting back
more zany laughter.

“I’m not either.”

“Then I suppose we’re not crazy.”

We were silent for a stretch.

“You know what I don’t get?” I said. “Why
they’re playing with us. Why hang Ben and Tomo? Why not simply
leave their bodies where they’d killed them?”