Suicide Forest (36 page)

“Maybe they’re trying to scare us.”

“But why?”

“Maybe to scare us out of the forest.”

“Murder two people to prevent them from
camping in their forest? There has to be another reason.”

“Maybe it’s how they get their kicks. Maybe
they’re part of a suicide cult or something—”

A loud knock on the front door caused us to
jump.

I got up and padded cautiously across the
room.

“Hiroshi?” I said, using the name the ranger
had told us before he left.

“
Hai!
”

I unlocked and opened the door.

Hiroshi entered, carrying a plastic bucket
of water. He went to the sink and filled two glasses. Mel and I
drank them quickly, refilled them, and drank more. I’ve read that
when you’re suffering from dehydration or heatstroke you’re
supposed to drink slowly and moderately to avoid throwing up or
becoming sick, but right then I couldn’t help myself. The water was
an elixir.

Finally, when we had our fill, Mel and I set
our glasses aside. We grinned stupidly at one another, our chins
dripping wet, two kids who had just received a forbidden treat and
had enjoyed the heck out of it.

For the first time in what seemed like ages
I was starting to feel almost human again—and then my phone
rang.

I
stared at Mel, my
puzzlement reflected in her eyes. I was suddenly terrified that she
was a figment of my imagination after all, that I really was crazy,
because this was impossible, there was no way my phone could be
ringing.

But Slash kept on fingerpicking and Axl kept
on singing.

“That’s your ringtone!” Mel exclaimed.

The ceramic plate Hiroshi had been holding
dropped to the floor and shattered into a dozen shards. He looked
like a man who’d just cut off his own hand—and that’s when it all
came together.

“You!” I said, pointing at him.

He moved quickly, darting for the door. I
tackled him from behind and dragged him to his knees, slipping my
arms around his chest so I had him in a bear hug. He jerked and
twisted, but I held him in place.

“Ethan!” Mel said. “It’s him!”

“Get something to tie him up!”

“There’s nothing here! What should I
use?”

Hiroshi flung his head back, his skull
striking my nose. I went woozy and tasted blood. Hiroshi sprang to
his feet, lurched for the door. I grabbed his left foot and tugged
hard. His hand slipped off the doorknob, and he dropped to his
stomach with a wild, frustrated screech. I scrambled onto his back,
pinning him down with my weight.

“Get the phone, Mel!” I said. “Answer
it.”

She ran to the other room, disappeared from
my view, and after a moment shouted, “It’s locked! There’s a chest
or something in here. It’s locked.”

I pressed Hiroshi’s face against the floor,
one hand on his temple, above his ear, one on his cheek. He was
breathing quickly and with effort, his lips puckered into a fish
mouth.

“Where’s the key?” I demanded.

He blurted a sound that may or may not have
been a word.

“Key! Where’s the key?”

He scowled defiantly.

The phone stopped ringing.

Mel reappeared. “I couldn’t get it.”

“Come here,” I told her.

She approached cautiously.

“Reach under him and undo his belt.”

“To tie him up?”

“Yeah, do it.”

I rocked forward onto my knees, so my weight
was off his back and fully on his shoulders. Mel tried to slip her
hands beneath him.

She said, “He’s pressing his stomach against
the floor.”

“You can’t get your hands under?”

“Hold on. Ow—no! He’s crushing them.”

I lifted Hiroshi’s head by the hair, then
slammed it down.

“Don’t,” I told him. “Don’t.”

“
Kono yaroou
.”
You shit
—or
something along those lines.

“Can you get it, Mel?”

“I’m trying…”

I slid an arm under and around Hiroshi’s
neck and twisted him onto his side, locking my legs around his
waist. He tried to reverse headbutt me again. I flexed my biceps,
squeezing his throat tighter. My face was in his hair, which
smelled faintly of wet dog and apples.

Mel crouched in front of us. He kneed her in
the thigh.

“Watch his legs!” I said.

She fumbled with the belt buckle and said,
“Got it!” She grabbed one end, stood, and pulled the length of
leather free. I heard at least one belt loop tear, then she was
holding it in front of her, at arm’s length, as if it were a dead
snake she had proudly killed.

I yanked Hiroshi to his feet, keeping him
locked in a chokehold, walked him to a chair, and shoved him into
it.

“Tie his wrists, Mel,” I said.

She crouched next to us and grabbed one of
his arms. He yanked it free.

“Stop it or I’ll snap you neck,” I hissed,
applying more pressure to his throat.

On the second attempt Mel was able to pull
both his arms behind the back of the chair and secure them with the
belt.

“Is it tight?” I asked her.

“I think so.”

I released Hiroshi, ready to tackle him
again if he tried to take off. He didn’t.

I examined Mel’s handiwork. The belt was
wrapped around his wrists so tightly the edges of leather bit into
his skin. If we left him unattended, he would be able to work
himself free. But with both of us present he wasn’t going
anywhere.

“Good job,” I said.

Mel nodded, wary, keeping her eyes on
Hiroshi, as if he could still pounce at any moment.

I crouched in front of him. “Where is the
key for that chest?”

He sniffed.

I slapped him across the face. “Where’s the
key?”

He raised his eyes. They glittered darkly,
insolently.

I stood. “Watch him,” I told Mel, and
crossed the room.

“Wait! Where are you going?”

“I’ll be right back.”

I unlocked the front door, opened it,
scanned the night. I dashed to the cutting block, yanked the ax
free, and returned inside, locking the door again.

Mel’s eyes widened at the sight of the ax,
but she didn’t say anything as I walked past her and Hiroshi and
entered the bedroom. I grabbed the chest by an end handle and
dragged it into the main room, where I examined the locking
mechanism. It was polished brass and attached flush to the wood
with an old-fashioned keyhole in the center. I gripped the ax like
you do a baseball bat and swung it horizontally, striking the lock
plate. Sparks flew and wood splintered. I repeated this three more
times until the lock dangled brokenly.

I set the ax aside and lifted the lid of the
chest. Inside were at least fifty wallets of all shapes and sizes,
mostly men’s, black and brown, though there were larger female ones
as well. None were new, and most were fat with bank cards and IDs
and yen notes. Sprinkled among these were dozens of shiny
wristwatches, a smorgasbord of multicolored cell phones, wedding
bands, a couple glittering diamond rings, and several pieces of
other jewelry such as gold and silver necklaces and jewel-encrusted
broaches.

I was trying to make sense of what I was
seeing—I think I did understand, but my mind was overloaded and
sluggish and struggling with the eureka! moment—when Mel said, “He
loots the bodies.”

“Damn, you’re right,” I said. “He’s a
fucking grave robber.”

“He took our phones while we were searching
for Ben.”

“But did he
kill
Ben?” I shouted at
him: “
Did you kill our friends?
”

He only stared at the fire.

Mel touched my arm. “What about the
teens?”

The teens. The goddamn teens. “What’s going
on?” I blurted. “What the hell is going on, Mel?”

“We’ll find out soon. The police—”

“Shit!” I reached inside the chest and
grabbed my cell phone. On the display, under missed calls, was
Derek’s number.

I called it.

Derek answered on the second ring.
“Childs!”

“Listen to me, Derek,” I said, “and listen
closely.”

I
summarized
everything that had happened, beginning with our arrival at the
base of Mt. Fuji and meeting Ben and Nina and ending with finding
my cell phone in the ranger/grave robber’s cabin. At first Derek
thought I was having him on and kept interrupting, but soon he fell
silent and listened without saying a word.

“Jesus Christ, man!” Derek said when I’d
finished. “This is—I don’t know what to say. What do you want me to
do?”

“Is Sumiko with you?”

“She’s right here. We were about to grab
something to eat.”

“Get her to call the police. Tell them they
need to bring medicine for Neil and antibiotics and painkillers for
the other guy. Then tell them to call me and trace my number and
get out here.”

“She’s going to call them right now. This
better be no joke, Childs.”

“It’s not. Call me back after you talk to
them.”

“We’ll call you back right away.”

We disconnected.

“
You
think he was tricking us?” Mel said,
nodding at Hiroshi. “When he was on the walkie-talkie, you think he
was talking about the weather or something?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know what his
connection is with everything that’s been going on. He could be a
simple thief, or he could be… I don’t know.”

Hiroshi said something quietly.

I turned to him. “What’s that?” I said.

He began to chuckle to himself.

“Motherfucker,” I said, and walked purposely
toward him.

“What are you doing?” Mel asked me,
alarmed.

“Getting some answers.” I crouched in front
of Hiroshi and grabbed the front of his shirt with both hands.
“Who’s out there?” I demanded. “Who are those kids who killed our
friends?”

His lips parted in a thin smile.

“The police are coming. I’m going to tell
them everything. I’m going to tell them
you
killed my
friends if you don’t tell me who’s out there.”

He spat in my face.

I yanked him toward me, causing the chair to
topple forward. His knees struck the floor first, then his
forehead. He cried out.

I kicked him in the gut. Mel told me to
stop, but I ignored her. I kicked him again, harder, then swung him
and the chair back into an upright position.

“Ethan, enough,” Mel pleaded. “You’re going
to get in trouble.”

I whirled on her. “Tomo’s dead, Mel! And
this guy knows something. Fuck trouble!”

I tore at the laces of Hiroshi’s left boot,
whipped the boot off, then retrieved the ax.

Mel went into a total fit. “Ethan, don’t!
Don’t do this, think, please, Ethan, don’t do this.”

I stepped on Hiroshi’s big toe to prevent
him from moving his foot.

He was no longer chuckling or smiling.

I choked the ax so I was gripping the haft a
few inches below the head. I raised it and said, “Who’s out
there?”

He tried kicking me with his free foot.

“Who’s out there?”

He muttered something.

I swiveled the ax in my hand so the blade
faced the ceiling and swung the head like a hammer. The flattened
butt crushed his little toe and every bone in it.

A scream exploded from his mouth. His eyes
were manic, tearing up, his nostrils flaring, perspiration popping
out all over his face.

I raised the ax again, the blade facing
downward this time.

“Tell me!”

Nothing.

I swung. The blade sliced through flesh and
bone and cartilage cleanly, severing his ruined toe. He wailed and
thrashed against his restraints as blood pooled onto the floor.

“Stop it, Ethan!” Mel shrieked. “He doesn’t
understand!”

“I can do this all night,” I told him,
ignoring her. “One, two—”

“Okay!” he said. “Okay!”

I lowered the ax, but only reluctantly.

“
You
know history? You know Japanese history?”
Hiroshi asked me after he had pulled himself together and we had
plugged his toe-stump with a dishtowel.

I stared at him in amazement. Although his
cadence was choppy and almost Yoda-like without the backward
syntax, he spoke with a slight British accent, indicating he had
likely lived overseas at some point.

In other words, he had played us as
suckers.

“No?” he added impertinently. “Nothing?”

I grabbed him by the hair and jerked.
“Talk!”

He tried to pull his head away, but I held
firm.

“Long time ago,” he said, his eyes boring
into me, “many Japanese do
ubasute
.”

I recognized the word—and then recalled that
Honda had mentioned it back out front the train station. I said,
“Families would abandon those who couldn’t feed themselves.”

He raised his white eyebrows. “Maybe you not
dumb, huh?”

I jerked again.

“Okay—I talk!” He worked his mouth, as if to
generate saliva. “Most Japanese, they stop
ubasute
one
hundred, two hundred years ago. Most stop. Not all. After last war,
it very difficult for Japanese. Very difficult. Many suffer. One
family, they don’t have food for children, so they bring them to
Jukai, tell them go play. Then they leave them to die.” He smacked
his lips. “I’m thirsty. I talk. You get me water.”

“You watch him,” Mel said. “I’ll get
it.”

She went to the counter, filled a glass from
the plastic bucket, and handed it to me. I tipped it against
Hiroshi’s mouth, half expecting him to make a sudden move. He
swallowed, then turned his head away. Water spilled down his chin
and onto his shirt.

“My hands hurt,” he said. “You untie?”

“I don’t think so,’ I said.

“Where I go?”

“Have you lived overseas?”