Suicide Forest (39 page)

A distant scream rose into the night.

I sprang to my feet.

“That was Nina!” John Scott exclaimed. He
pointed past me. “That way!”

It’s the direction I’d thought as well. I
snatched the spear and flashlight he’d brought with him off the
ground.

John Scott struggled to his feet.

“Stay here,” I told him. “Wait for the
police.”

“Fuck no!”

“You can’t walk!”

“I’m not missing this.”

I didn’t have time to stick around debating
with him. I started away.

“Ethos! Wait!” he said, conceding to the
reality of the situation. “Take this.” He held forth his rucksack.
Three tent poles protruded from the top of the main pocket. “I’ve
already hammered the ends into points.”

I slung the bag over my shoulder.

“Thanks…John,” I said.

“Stay frosty, dude. And kick some fucking
ass.”

Forging
a path with
the flashlight, I picked my way through the multitude of trees as
fast as I could, dodging branches and roots and volcanic rocks. I
knew Mel wouldn’t have gone with Akira willingly. So had he carried
her away kicking and screaming? Or had he knocked her out cold,
which seemed to be his modus operandi? John Scott had said he’d
heard her screaming, but had that been while I was interrogating
Hiroshi, or later, while I was unconscious? I almost hoped she had
been knocked out, because at least that meant she would be
relatively safe for the time being. Akira wouldn’t rape her in that
state, would he? Not to mention she would be spared the knowledge
of being kidnapped and held captive deep within Suicide Forest by a
gang of savages.

Nina, unfortunately, hadn’t been so lucky. I
was positive that had been her macabre scream ten minutes or so
ago. So what had happened? Had Akira begun to violate her? But if
that was the case, why had there only been one scream? Wouldn’t she
keep screaming and screaming and screaming until it was over—and
maybe long after that as well?

Twenty
minutes now.
My lungs and throat, already tender from smoke inhalation, felt
seared, while my legs, my thighs specifically, burned with
exertion. I had drifted into some kind of auto-pilot. One foot in
front of the other, exhale on every third step, bat away branches,
repeat. I tried not to think about how much farther I had to go, or
whether I was still heading in the correct direction. This would
only lead to second-guessing, hesitation, and ultimately inaction.
The only option was to run and keep running. Run until I caught up
to Mel and Nina, run regardless of the pain, run, run, run.

How
long? How long
had it been now? I had no idea. I was beyond exhaustion. The air
was acid, my legs deadweights, my feet dragging. I stumbled forward
zombie-like, on the verge of defeat. I should have waited for the
police, should have done this properly, now I was lost, unable to
help—

The ground vanished beneath me. For one or
two impossibly long seconds I sailed through the air, my mind
anticipating the inevitable collision with whatever lay beneath
me—then impact. The pain was excruciating. It felt as if someone
had swung a frying pan at my face. Stars burst across my vision.
Blood gushed into my mouth, far more than when Hiroshi had struck
me. I remained on my chest, stupefied by what had happened,
coughing, spitting out blood, though my mouth kept filling up with
it, thick and syrupy.

The blackness around me was overwhelming. I
blinked, thinking my eyes were closed. They were open. I must have
dropped the flashlight in the fall, jarring the batteries loose, or
breaking the bulb.

I tried to push myself into a sitting
position and groaned. Something was wrong with my left arm or
shoulder, I couldn’t tell which. That side of my body throbbed,
everywhere and nowhere specific. I tested my other arm. It worked.
I brought my hand to my face. It was tender and pulsing. My fingers
came away coated with slimy blood. I explored my mouth, my numb and
sausage-sized lips. Then I became aware of my breathing. It was too
loud and…large. In fact, it sounded as if it was originating
outside my body—

My breath hitched in my throat. I held it
there. The other breathing continued, coarse and close.

It’s not mine
.

I lurched to my feet, my good hand swatting
the rocky wall behind me, preventing me from falling back over. I
staggered blindly along the wall of what must have been one of
those massive craters. When I came to a spot where I could climb, I
scrambled frantically up the jagged shelf of rock, slicing my good
hand and both knees and not caring. I kept expecting something to
grab my ankle and not let go.

Then I was pulling myself up and over the
crater’s lip. I glanced into the opening and made out a large black
shape next to where I’d landed.

It’s a deer
, I thought, sagging with
relief.
Just a deer, lying on its side
.

Perhaps I had startled it, and it had
bounded into the hole. Or perhaps it had fallen in by itself and
had been there for a while.

It grunted.

I stumbled away from the lip of the crevice
and slumped against the trunk of a tree. I examined my left arm. I
hadn’t broken it, as I’d feared. In fact, most of the feeling had
returned. Nevertheless, that was the extent of my good news. My
body was a wreck. I was operating on willpower alone, and now that
was all but gone—because my pursuit had become hopeless.

I no longer had any clue in which direction
I had been heading.

I began to sink into despair. I could feel
myself giving up, my mind shutting off. Maybe I’d just lie down,
close my eyes, and…go away. No more pain, no more suffering. Mel
was gone, who was I kidding, she was gone, and I was never going to
find her—

A second scream tore through the night.

I snapped my head upright. I was on my
knees.

Why was I on my knees?

The scream resumed, part-terror,
part-pleading, part-anger.

And originating from somewhere close by.

I
stumbled away
from the tree—straight into a huge spider web. It was thick and
sticky. I wiped hysterically at the silky strands, bumbling through
more and more webs, unable to avoid them in the black night.

While brushing the latest one away—
where
had they all come from? Was this real? Have I finally lost
it?
—my hand stroked something on the back of my neck. I grabbed
it without thinking, knowing it was a spider before I glimpsed
it.

It was huge and plump and hairy. I flicked
it away in utter revulsion.

Two
minutes later,
once more questioning my sanity, whether I’d really heard the
scream at all, I saw the glow of a distant fire.

I
approached as
silently as possible. I was electric with fear. Not fear of Akira
or his devilish brood but fear of what I might find. I could all
too easily imagine Nina or Mel hanging from a knobby tree branch by
a string or ribbon, their bodies as limp as ragdolls, swinging in a
nonexistent wind.

I forced the hellish images aside and
concentrated on the fire ahead. I could only see the black
silhouette of one person tending it. I didn’t know what to make of
this.

Where was everyone else?

I paused behind a tree. I had lost the tent
pole I had been carrying when I fell into the crater, and now I
reached back over my head and extracted a new one from John Scott’s
rucksack, leaving me with two backups. I tested the point. It was
sharp. Still, I felt foolish and vulnerable. Hiroshi had been
right: Akira was one hardcore son of a bitch. And his sons were no
pushovers either. These would have been challenging odds had I been
healthy and rested. In my present condition they were so
overwhelming no bookie in Vegas would have bet on me.

I peeked around the tree. The solitary
figure hadn’t moved.

I stole forward again.

Three long branches, I noticed, stood
teepee-like over the fire, suspending a cooking pot above the heat.
The person stirred the contents with a stick. He wore a tattered
white robe with straight seams and wide sleeves.

This was wrong. Every fiber of my being told
me this. I’d heard Nina scream. It had come from right around here.
So where was she? And Mel? And Akira? And who was this lone person?
He appeared too small and frail to be Akira. One of the kids then?
But why was he by himself?

I tripped on something and blundered
forward. When I regained my balance, I froze. The person was
staring in my direction.

It was a female. She had to be about
forty.

The firelight didn’t reach me, so she
couldn’t see me. However, she had heard me and knew I was there. I
tensed, ready to charge if she attempted to raise an alarm. But she
didn’t do anything except stare—seemingly right at me—and I began
to think that perhaps she could see me after all.

I raised my hands, a redundant gesture
because I was in fact armed, and approached. After ten paces the
shadows began to peel away from me. I moved into the jittery
light.

The woman would definitely be able to see me
now, though she didn’t react to my appearance—

She had no eyes. Where they should have been
was only ragged scar tissue.

I came to an abrupt halt, horror and pity
warring within me. I lowered my hands.

“
Sumimasen
,” I said quietly.
“
Gomen nasai
.”
Excuse me
,
sorry
. It didn’t
make any sense, but I had to say something.

She didn’t reply.

“
Eigo o hanashimasu ka?
”
Do you
speak English?

Nothing.

I glanced behind me, suddenly positive she
was a diversion so someone could sneak up on me. No one was there.
When I turned back, she was bent over the pot, stirring again.

“Akira?” I said.

She raised her head.

“Akira?” I repeated, more insistent.

She pointed to the right. I followed her
finger and noticed for the first time another crater similar to the
one I had fallen into, only this one was much smaller, less than
ten feet across, and a perfect circle.

Was this a trap after all? Was Akira hiding
there, preparing to attack?

Holding the spear above my shoulder like a
javelin, I crept toward the hole.

I
stared in
amazement. It wasn’t an isolated crater. It was more like the
entrance to a ground-level cave, as a tunnel appeared to continue
beyond the skylight into blackness.

Did Akira and his children
live
down
there?

I glanced back at the woman, pieces of the
puzzle clicking into place. She would be one of Akira’s captives, a
poor soul who came to Aokigahara to find death but instead found
rape, mutilation, and slavery. It appeared Akira had broken her to
the extent she had become a zombie, capable of no real autonomous
thought or action, existing solely to mother his children and serve
him.

The fate he had planned for Nina and
Mel
.

A frantic urgency filled me. I started down
the breakdown of boulders and small rocks that created a ramp
connecting the forest floor and the crater floor. At the bottom I
squinted ahead into the mouth of the cave—and saw a soft orange
light perhaps fifty feet ahead.

They did live down here. They lived
underground like rodents
.

I stepped into the cave. The air turned cool
and damp and stale. I couldn’t see my hands in front of me. I
raised one over my head. My fingers brushed the ceiling of molten
rock that had crusted over the original lava channel to form this
conduit. It was ropey, the texture irregular.

I felt my way forward with my feet,
straining my ears but hearing nothing.

This was madness, I thought. I was burrowing
beneath the skin of Aokigahara into its very veins with no game
plan in mind, no clear idea of what awaited me.

I was gripped, I suppose, by the same type
of do-or-die mentality that soldiers experience when ordered to
storm the enemy. There’s simply no alternative.

The light ahead drew me closer, growing
brighter and brighter, until I realized it was coming up through
another hole.

I heard voices—faint and echoing, either
excited or angry.

I dropped to my knees, peered over the lip
of the window in the floor, and found myself staring into a drained
magma chamber. It was easily the size of a movie theater, the rock
walls spectacularly colorful, likely something to do with
oxidation.

Several of Akira’s kids were huddled
together on the rock-strewn floor, playing a Gameboy. This, like
the lantern next to them, would have been scavenged off suicides,
or, more likely, acquired in a trade with Hiroshi.

The Russian folk music of
Tetris
played beneath their quick, guttural exclamations.

I didn’t see Mel or Nina anywhere, nor Akira
or the remaining boys. I could, however, make out the mouth of
another tunnel.

I clenched my jaw. How far did this this
subterranean world extend for? It could be labyrinthine in its
complexity, extending for miles and miles with any number of lava
tubes and fissures and caverns. And how could I get past the kids
without them raising an alarm and bringing everyone to me? The only
way down was to descend the talus deposit that extended away from
the window at a steep angle. However, they would surely see me
coming. My one advantage, the element of surprise, would be
forfeited.

I moved away from the hole—and wondered if I
could stage an ambush outside. I’d initially believed the zombie
woman would bring the food she was cooking inside. But she was
likely too weak, the pot too big, to do that. She could make
several trips, but it made more sense that everyone would return
outside to eat. And if this was true, and I could surprise and kill
Akira instantly, then there would only be the kids to deal with, of
which no more than three were old enough to constitute serious
threats. It would be a difficult contest to win but not impossible.
Not to mention if they did overwhelm me, and I had to retreat, I
wouldn’t be trapped down here with nowhere to go.