Читать книгу The Complete Ring Trilogy: Ring, Spiral, Loop - Koji Suzuki - Страница 23

It was ten when Asakawa got home. As soon as he entered the apartment, he softly opened the bedroom door and checked the sleeping faces of his wife and daughter. No matter how tired he was when he got home, he always did this.

There was a note on the dining room table. Mr Takayama called. Asakawa had been trying to call Ryuji all day long, but he hadn’t been able to catch him at home. He was probably out and about on his own investigations. Maybe he has something, thought Asakawa as he dialed. He let it ring ten times. No answer. Ryuji lived alone in his East Nakano apartment. He wasn’t home yet.

Asakawa took a quick shower, opened a beer, and tried calling again. Still not home. He switched to whiskey on the rocks. He’d never be able to get a good night’s sleep without alcohol. Tall and slender, Asakawa had never in his life had an illness worth the name. To think that this was how he was sentenced to die. Part of him still felt it was a dream, that he’d reach ten o’clock on October 18th without having understood the video or figured out the charm, but in the end nothing would happen and the days would stretch out before him as they always had. Oguri would wear a mocking expression and expound on the foolishness of believing in superstitions, while Ryuji would laugh and say, “We just don’t understand how the world works.” And his wife and daughter would greet their daddy with these same sleeping faces. Even a passenger on an airplane falling from the sky can’t shake the hope that he’ll be the one to survive.

He drained his third glass of whiskey and dialed Ryuji’s number a third time. If he didn’t answer this time, Asakawa was going to give up for the night. He heard seven rings, then a click as someone picked up the receiver.

“What the hell have you been up to all this time?” he shouted, without even checking to see who he was talking to. Thinking he was addressing Ryuji, he allowed his anger full vent. Which only served to emphasize the strangeness of their relationship. Even with his friends, Asakawa always maintained a certain distance and carefully controlled his attitude. But he had no qualms about calling Ryuji every name in the book. And yet, he’d never once thought of Ryuji as a truly close friend.

But surprisingly, the voice that answered wasn’t Ryuji’s.

“Hello? Excuse me …”

It was a woman, startled from having been yelled at out of nowhere.

“Oh, sorry. Wrong number.” Asakawa started to hang up.

“Are you calling for Professor Takayama?”

“Well, ah, yes, as a matter of fact I am.”

“He’s not back yet.”

Asakawa couldn’t help but wonder who this young, attractive voice belonged to. He figured it was a safe bet she wasn’t a relative, since she’d called him “Professor”. A lover? Couldn’t be. What girl in her right mind would fall for Ryuji?

“I see. My name is Asakawa.”

“When Professor Takayama returns, I’ll have him call you. That’s Mr Asakawa, right?”

Even after he had replaced the receiver, the woman’s soft voice continued to ring pleasantly in his ears.

Futons were usually only used in Japanese-style rooms, with tatami-mat floors. Their bedroom was carpeted, and had originally had a Western-style bed in it, but when Yoko was born they took it out. They couldn’t have a baby sleeping on a bed, but the room was too small for a crib and a bed. So they were forced to get rid of their double bed and switch to futons, rolling them up every morning and spreading them out again every night. They laid two futons side-by-side and the three of them slept together. Now Asakawa crawled into the open space on the futons. When the three of them went to bed at the same time, they always slept in the same positions. But Shizu and Yoko were restless sleepers, so when they went to bed before Asakawa, it was less than an hour before they had rolled around and sprawled all over. As a result, Asakawa ended up having to fit himself into whatever space was left. If he was gone, how long would it take for that space to be filled, Asakawa wondered. It wasn’t that he was worried about Shizu remarrying, necessarily. It was just that some people were never able to fill the space left behind by the loss of a spouse. Three years? Three years would be about right. Shizu would move back home and let her parents take care of the baby while she went to work. Asakawa forced himself to imagine her face, shining with as much vitality as could be expected. He wanted her to be strong. He couldn’t stand to imagine the kind of hell his wife and child would have to live through with him gone.

Asakawa had met Shizu five years ago. He had just been transferred back to the main Tokyo office from the Chiba bureau; she was working in a travel agency connected with the Daily News conglomerate. She worked on the third floor, he worked on the seventh, and they sometimes saw each other on the elevator, but that was the extent of it until one day when he’d gone to the travel agency to pick up some tickets. He was traveling for a story, and as the person handling his arrangements wasn’t in Shizu had taken care of him. She was just twenty-five and loved to travel, and her gaze told how much she envied Asakawa being able to go all over the country on assignments. In that gaze, he also saw a reflection of the first girl he’d ever loved. Now that they knew each other’s names, they started to make small talk when they ran into each other on the elevator, and their relationship rapidly deepened. Two years later they married, after an easy courtship with no objections from either set of parents. About six months before their wedding they had bought the three-room condo in Kita Shinagawa—their parents had helped with the down payment. It wasn’t that they’d anticipated the spike in land value and had therefore rushed to buy even before the wedding. It was simply that they wanted to get the mortgage paid off as quickly as possible. But if they hadn’t bought when they did, they might never have been able to afford to live in the city like this. Within a year, their condo had tripled in value. And their monthly mortgage payments were less than half of what they would have been paying to rent. They were constantly complaining that the place was too small, but in truth it constituted quite an asset for the couple. Now Asakawa was glad he had something to leave them. If Shizu used his life insurance to pay off the mortgage, then the condo would belong to her and Yoko free and clear.

I think my policy pays twenty million yen, but I’d better check, just to be sure.

His mind was clouded, but he mentally divided up the money in different ways, telling himself that he must write down any financial advice that might occur to him. He wondered how they’d rule his death. Death by illness? Accident? Homicide?

In any case, I’d better reread my insurance policy.

Every night for the past three days he had gone to bed in a pessimistic mood. He pondered how to influence a world he would have disappeared from, and thought about leaving a sort of last testament.

October 14—Sunday

The next morning, Sunday, Asakawa dialed Ryuji’s number as soon as he woke up.

“Yeah?” answered Ryuji, sounding for all the world like he’d just woken up. Asakawa immediately remembered his frustration of the night before, and barked into the receiver.

“Where were you last night?”

“Huh? Oh. Asakawa?”

“You were supposed to call, weren’t you?”

“Oh, yeah. I was drunk. College girls these days sure can drink. Sure can do other stuff, too, if you know what I mean. Whoo-whee. I’m exhausted.”

Asakawa was momentarily at a loss: it was like the past three days were just a dream. He felt foolish for having taken everything so seriously.

“Well, I’m on my way over. Wait for me,” said Asakawa, hanging up the phone.

To get to Ryuji’s place Asakawa rode the train to East Nakano and then walked for ten minutes in the direction of Kami Ochiai. As he walked Asakawa reflected hopefully that even though Ryuji had been out drinking the night before, he was still Ryuji. Surely he’d found something. Maybe he’d even solved the riddle, and he’d gone out drinking and carousing to celebrate. The closer he drew to Ryuji’s apartment the more upbeat he became, and he began to walk faster. Asakawa’s emotions were wearing him out, bouncing back and forth between fear and hope, pessimism and optimism.

Ryuji opened the door in his pajamas. Unkempt and unshaven, he’d obviously just got out of bed. Asakawa couldn’t take his shoes off fast enough; he was still in the entryway when he asked, “Have you learned anything?”

“No, not really. But come in,” said Ryuji, scratching his head vigorously. His eyes were unfocused and Asakawa knew at a glance that his brain cells weren’t awake yet.

“Come on, wake up. Drink some coffee or something.” Feeling like his hopes had been betrayed, Asakawa put the kettle on the stove with a loud clatter. Suddenly he was obsessed with the time.

The two men sat cross-legged on the floor in the front room. Books were stacked all along one wall.

“So tell me what you’ve turned up,” said Ryuji, jiggling his knee. There was no time to waste. Asakawa collected everything he’d learned the day before and laid it out chronologically. First he informed Ryuji that the video had been recorded from the television in the cabin beginning at 8 p.m. on August 26th.

“Really?” Ryuji looked surprised. He, too, had assumed it had been made on a video camera and then brought in later.

“Now, that’s interesting. But if the airwaves were hijacked as you say, there should be others who saw the same thing …”

“Well, I called our bureaus in Atami and Mishima and asked about that. But they say they haven’t received any reports of suspicious transmissions flying around South Hakone on the night of August 26th.”

“I see, I see …” Ryuji folded his arms and thought for a while. “Two possibilities come to mind. First, everybody who saw the transmission is dead. But hold on—when it was broadcast, the charm should have been intact. So … And, anyway, the local papers haven’t picked up on anything, right?”

“Right. I’ve already checked that out. You mean whether or not there were any other victims, right? There weren’t. None at all. If it was broadcast, then other people should have seen it, but there haven’t been any other victims. Not even any rumors.”

“But remember when AIDS started to appear in the civilized world? At first doctors in America had no idea what was going on. All they knew was that they were seeing people die from symptoms they’d never encountered before. All they had was a suspicion of some strange disease. They only started calling it AIDS two years after it had appeared. That kind of thing happens.”

The mountainous valleys west of the Tanna Ridge only contained a few scattered farmhouses, on the lower reaches of the Atami-Kannami Highway. If you gazed south, all you could see was South Hakone Pacific Land, isolated in its dreamy alpine meadows. Was something invisible at work in that land? Maybe lots of people were dying suddenly, but it just hadn’t made it into the news yet. It wasn’t just AIDS: Kawasaki Disease, first discovered in Japan, had been around for ten years before it was officially recognized as a new disease. It was still only a month and a half since the phantom broadcast had been accidentally caught on videotape. It was quite possible that the syndrome hadn’t yet been recognized. If Asakawa hadn’t discovered the common factor in four deaths—if his niece hadn’t been among them—this “illness” would probably still be sleeping underground. That was even scarier. It usually took hundreds, thousands, of deaths before something was officially recognized as a “disease”.

“We don’t have time to go door-to-door down there talking to residents. But, Ryuji, you mentioned a second possibility.”

“Right. Second, the only people who saw it are us and the four young people. Hey, do you think the grade-school brat who recorded this knew that broadcast frequencies are different from region to region? What they’re showing on Channel 4 in Tokyo might be broadcast on a completely different channel out in the country. A dumb kid wouldn’t know that—maybe he set it to record according to the channel he watches in Tokyo.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Think about it. Do people like us, who live in Tokyo, ever turn to Channel 2? It’s not used here.”

Ah-ha. So the boy had set the VCR to a channel a local would never have used. Since they were recording while watching something else, he hadn’t actually seen what was being recorded. In any event, with the population so sparse in those mountains, there couldn’t be too many viewers in the first place.

“Either way, the real question is, where did the broadcast originate from?” It sounded so simple when Ryuji said it. But only an organized, scientific investigation would be able to determine the transmission’s point of origin.

“W-wait a minute. We’re not even sure your basic premise is right. It’s only a guess that the boy accidentally recorded phantom airwaves.”

“I know that. But if we wait for hundred-percent proof before proceeding, we’ll never get anywhere. This is our only lead.”

Airwaves. Asakawa’s knowledge of science was paltry. He didn’t even really know what airwaves were: he’d have to start his investigation there. There was nothing to do but check it out. The broadcast’s point of origin. That meant he’d have to go back there. And after today, there were only four days left.

The next question was: who had erased the charm? If they allowed that the tape had been recorded on-site, it couldn’t have been anybody but the four victims. Asakawa had checked with the TV network and found out when the young storyteller, Shinraku Sanyutei, had been a guest on The Night Show. They’d been right. The answer that came back was August 29th. It was almost certain that the four young people had erased the charm.

Asakawa took several photocopies from his briefcase. They were photographs of Mt Mihara, on Izu Oshima Island. “What do you think?” he asked, showing them to Ryuji.

“Mt Mihara, eh? I’d say this is definitely the one.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Yesterday afternoon, I asked an ethnologist at the university about Granny’s dialect. He said it wasn’t used much anymore, but that it was probably one found on Izu Oshima. In fact, it contained features traceable to the Sashikiji region on the southern tip of the island. He’s pretty cautious, so he wouldn’t swear that that was it, but combined with this photo I think we’re safe in assuming that the dialect is Izu Oshima’s, and the mountain is Mt Mihara. By the way, did you do any research into Mt Mihara’s eruptions?”

“Of course. Since the war—and I think we’re probably okay in limiting ourselves to eruptions since the war …” Considering developments in film technology, this seemed a safe assumption.

“Right.”

“Now, are you with me? Since the war, Mt Mihara has erupted four times. The first time was in 1950–1951. The second was in ’57, and the third was in ’74. The fourth time I’m sure we both remember well: the autumn of 1986. The ’57 eruption produced a new crater; one person died and fifty-three were injured.”

“Considering when video cameras came out, I’d guess we’re looking at the ’86 eruption, but I don’t think we can be sure yet.”

At this point Ryuji seemed to remember something, and started rummaging around in his bag. He pulled out a slip of paper. “Oh, yes. Evidently this is what she’s saying. The gentleman kindly translated it into standard Japanese for me.”

Asakawa looked at the scrap of paper, on which was written:

How has your health been since then? If you spend all your time playing in the water, monsters are bound to get you. Understand? Be careful of strangers. Next year you’re going to give birth to a child. You listen to granny now, because you’re just a girl. There’s no need to worry about local people.

Asakawa read through it twice, carefully, and then looked up.

“What is this? What does it mean?”

“How should I know? That’s what you’re going to have to find out.”

“We’ve only got four days left!”

Asakawa had too many things to do. He didn’t know where to start. His nerves were on edge and he’d begun to lash out.

“Look. I’ve got one more day to spare than you. You’re the point man on this. Act like it. Give it your all.”

Suddenly misgivings began to well up in Asakawa’s heart. Ryuji could abuse his extra day. If, for example, he came up with two guesses as to the nature of the charm, he could tell Asakawa about one, and wait for Asakawa’s survival or death to tell him which one was right. That single day could turn into a powerful weapon.

“It doesn’t really matter to you if I live or die, does it, Ryuji? Sitting there calmly like that, laughing …” Asakawa wailed, knowing as he did that he was becoming shamefully hysterical.

“You’re talking like a woman now. If you’ve got time to bitch and whine like that you ought to use your head a bit more.”

Asakawa still glared at him resentfully.

“I mean, how would you prefer I put it? You’re my best friend. I don’t want you to die. I’m doing my best. I want you to do your best, too. We both have to do our best, for each other. Happy now?” Midway through his speech Ryuji’s tone suddenly became childish, and he finished with an obscene laugh.

As he laughed, the front door opened. Startled, Asakawa leaned over and peered through the kitchen at the entry hall. A young woman was bending over to remove a pair of white pumps. Her hair was cut short, brushing the tops of her ears, and her earrings gleamed white. She took her shoes off and raised her gaze, her eyes meeting Asakawa’s.

“Oh, pardon me. I thought the Professor was alone,” said the woman, covering her mouth with her hand. Her elegant body language and her pure white outfit clashed utterly with the apartment. Her legs below her skirt were slim and willowy, her face slender and intelligent; she looked like a certain female novelist who appeared in TV commercials.

“Come in.” Ryuji’s tone had changed. The vulgarity was concealed beneath a newfound dignity. “Allow me to introduce you. This is Miss Mai Takano from the philosophy department at Fukuzawa University. She’s one of the department’s star pupils, and always pays close attention in my classes. She’s probably the only one who really understands my lectures. This is Kazuyuki Asakawa, from the Daily News. He’s my … best friend.”

Mai Takano looked at Asakawa with some surprise. At this point he still didn’t know why she should be surprised. “Pleased to meet you,” said Mai, with a thrilling little smile and bow. The kind of smile that made any onlooker feel refreshed. Asakawa had never met such a beautiful woman. The fine texture of her skin, the way her eyes glowed, the perfect balance of her figure—not to mention the intelligence, class, and kindness she radiated from within. There was literally nothing to find fault with in this woman. Asakawa shrank back like a frog from a snake. Words failed him.

“Hey, say something.” Ryuji elbowed him in the ribs.

“Hello,” he said finally, awkwardly, but his gaze was still transfixed.

“Professor, were you out last night?” asked Mai, gracefully sliding her stockinged feet two or three steps closer.

“Actually, Takabayashi and Yagi invited me out with them, so …”

Now that they were standing next to each other, Asakawa could see that Mai was a good ten centimeters taller than Ryuji. She probably only weighed half as much as he did, though.

“I wish you’d tell me if you’re not coming home. I waited up for you.”

Asakawa suddenly returned to his senses. This was the voice he’d spoken to last night. This was the woman who’d answered the phone when he’d called.

Meanwhile, Ryuji was hanging his head like a boy scolded by his mother.

“Well, never mind. I’ll forgive you this time. Here, I brought you something.” She held out a paper bag. “I washed your underwear for you. I was going to straighten up here, too, but you get angry when I move your books.”

From this exchange Asakawa couldn’t help but guess the nature of their relationship. It was obvious that they were not only teacher and student, but lovers as well. On top of that, she’d waited here alone for him last night! Were they that close? He felt the kind of annoyance he sometimes felt when he saw a badly mismatched couple, but this went far beyond that. Everything to do with Ryuji was crazy. Then there was the love in Ryuji’s eyes as he gazed at Mai. He was like a chameleon, changing his expression, even his speech patterns. For an instant, Asakawa was mad enough to want to open Mai’s eyes by exposing Ryuji’s crimes.

“It’s nearly lunchtime, Professor. Shall I fix something? Mr Asakawa, you’ll be staying too, won’t you? Have you any requests?”

Asakawa looked at Ryuji, uncertain how to respond.

“Don’t be shy. Mai’s quite the chef.”

“I’ll leave it up to you,” Asakawa finally managed to say.

Mai immediately left for a nearby market to buy ingredients for lunch. Even after she had gone, Asakawa stared dreamily toward the door.

“Man, you look like a deer caught in the headlights of a car,” said Ryuji with an amused leer.

“Oh, sorry.”

“Look, we don’t have time for you to space out like this.” Ryuji slapped Asakawa lightly on the cheek. “We have things to talk about while she’s gone.”

“You haven’t shown Mai the video.”

“What do you think I am?”

“Okay, then. Let’s get through it. I’ll go after we eat.”

“Right, now the first thing you have to find is the antenna.”

“The antenna?”

“You know, the spot where the broadcast originated.”

He couldn’t afford to relax, then. On the way home he’d have to stop by the library and read up on airwaves. Part of him wanted to rush down to South Hakone now, but he knew it would be quicker in the long run to do some background reading first, to get an idea of what he was looking for. The more he knew about the characteristics of airwaves, and about how to track down pirate broadcasts, the more options he’d be able to give himself.

There was a mountain of things to be done. But now Asakawa felt distracted, his thoughts somewhere else. He couldn’t get her face, her body, out of his mind. Why was Mai with a guy like Ryuji? He felt both puzzled and angry.

“Hey, are you listening to me?” Ryuji’s voice brought Asakawa back down to earth. “There was a scene in the video with a baby boy, remember?”

“Yes.” He chased Mai’s image from his mind momentarily and recalled the vision of the newborn, covered in slippery amniotic fluid. But the transition didn’t go well; he ended up imagining Mai wet and naked.

“When I saw that scene I got a strange sensation in my own hands. Almost as if I were holding that boy myself.”

Sensation. Holding someone. In the arms of his imagination he was holding first Mai and then the baby boy, in blinding succession. Then, finally, he had it—the feeling he’d had watching the video, of holding the infant and then throwing both hands up in the air. Ryuji had felt the exact same sensation. This had to be significant.

“I felt it too. I definitely felt something wet and slippery.”

“You too, huh? So what does it mean?”

Ryuji got down on all fours, bringing his face up close to the television screen as he replayed that scene. It lasted about two minutes, the baby boy giving his birth-cry all the while. They could see a pair of graceful hands beneath the child’s head and bottom.

“Wait a minute, what’s this?” Ryuji paused the video and began to advance it a frame at a time. Just for a second the screen went dark. Watching it at normal speed it was so brief as to be hardly noticeable. But watching it over and over, frame by frame, it was possible to pick out moments of total blackness.

“There it is again,” cried Ryuji. For a time he arched his back like a cat and stared at the screen intently, and then he moved his head back and his eyes darted around the room. He was thinking furiously—Asakawa could tell by the movements of his eyes. But he had no idea what Ryuji was thinking. In all, the screen went dark thirty-three times during the course of the two-minute scene.

“So what? Are you telling me you’ve been able to figure something out just from this? It’s just a glitch in the filming. The video camera was defective.”

Ryuji ignored Asakawa’s comment and began to search through other scenes. They heard footsteps on the outside stairs. Ryuji hurriedly pushed the stop button.

Finally the front door opened and Mai appeared, saying, “I’m back.” The room was once again wrapped in her fragrance.

It was Sunday afternoon, and families with children were playing on the lawn in front of the city library. Some fathers were playing catch with their boys; others were lying on the grass, letting their kids play. It was a beautiful clear Sunday afternoon in mid-October, and the world seemed blanketed in peace.

Faced with the scene, Asakawa suddenly wanted nothing more than to rush home. He’d spent some time on the fourth floor in the natural sciences section, boning up on airwaves, and now he was just staring out the window, looking at nothing in particular. All day he’d found himself drifting off like this. All sorts of thoughts would come to him, without rhyme or reason; he couldn’t concentrate. Probably it was because he was impatient. He stood up. He wanted to see the faces of his wife and child, now. He was overcome with the thought. Now. He didn’t have much time left. Time to play with his daughter on the lawn like that …

Asakawa got home just before five. Shizu was making dinner. He could read her bad mood as he stood behind her and watched her slice vegetables. He knew the reason, too—all too well. He finally had a day off, but he’d left her early that morning, saying only, “I’m going to Ryuji’s place.” If he didn’t look after Yoko once in a while, at least when he had a day off, Shizu tended to feel swamped by the stresses of raising a child. And to top it off, he’d been with Ryuji. That was the problem. He could have just lied to her, but then she wouldn’t have been able to contact him in an emergency.

“There was a call from a realtor,” said Shizu, not missing a beat with the knife.

“What about?”

“He asked if we were thinking about selling.”

Asakawa had sat Yoko on his knee and was reading her a picture book. She most likely didn’t understand, but they were hoping that if they exposed her to a lot of words now, maybe they’d accumulate in her head and then come flowing out like a burst dam when she got to be two or so.

“Did he make a good offer?”

Ever since land prices had begun to skyrocket, realtors had been trying to get them to sell.

“Seventy million yen.”

That was less than before. Still, it was enough to leave quite a bit for Shizu and Yoko, even after they paid off the mortgage.

“So what did you tell him?”

Wiping her hands on a towel, Shizu finally turned around. “I told him my husband wasn’t home.”

That’s how it always went. My husband’s not at home, she’d say, or I’d have to talk it over with my husband first. Shizu never decided anything on her own. He was afraid she’d have to start soon.

“What do you think? Maybe it’s about time we considered it. We’d have enough to buy a house in the suburbs, with a yard. The realtor said so, too.”

It was the family’s modest dream: to sell the condo they were living in now and build a big house in the suburbs. Without capital, a dream was all it would ever be. But they did have this one powerful asset: a condo in the heart of the city. They had the means to make that dream come true, and every time they spoke of it now it was with excitement. It was right there—all they had to do was reach out their hands …

“And then, you know, we could have another baby, too.” It was perfectly clear to Asakawa just what Shizu was seeing in her mind’s eye. A spacious suburban residence, with a separate study room for each of their two or three kids, and a living room large enough that she needn’t be embarrassed no matter how many guests dropped in. Yoko, on his knee, started to act up. She’d noticed that her daddy’s eyes had strayed from the picture book, that his attention was focussed on something besides herself, and she was registering her objections. Asakawa looked at the picture book once more.

“Long, long ago Marshyland was called Marshy-beach, because the reed-thick marshes stretched all the way down to the seashore.”

As he read aloud, Asakawa felt tears well up in his eyes. He wanted to make his wife’s dream come true. He really did. But he only had four days left. Would his wife be able to cope when he died of unknown causes? She didn’t yet know how fragile her dream was, how soon it would come crashing down.

By 9 p.m. Shizu and Yoko were asleep as usual. Asakawa was preoccupied by the last thing Ryuji had brought up. Why did he keep replaying the scene with the baby? And what about that old woman’s words—“Next year you’re going to have a child.” Was there a connection between the baby boy and the child the old woman mentioned? And what about the moments of total blackness? Thirty-odd times they occurred, at varying intervals.

Asakawa thought he’d watch the video again, to try and confirm this. Ryuji had been looking for something specific, no matter how capricious it had seemed at the time. Ryuji had great powers of logic, of course, but he also had a finely-tuned sense of intuition. Asakawa, on the other hand, specialized in the work of dragging out the truth through painstaking investigation.

Asakawa opened the cabinet and picked up the videotape. He went to insert it into the video deck, but just at that moment, he noticed something that stayed his hand. Wait a minute, something’s not right. He wasn’t sure what it was, but his sixth sense was telling him something was out of the ordinary. More and more he was sure that it wasn’t just his imagination. He really had felt something was funny when he touched the tape. Something had changed, ever so slightly.

What is it? What’s different? His heart was pounding. This is bad. Nothing about this is getting any better. Think, man, try to remember. The last time I watched this … I rewound it. And now the tape’s in the middle. About a third of the way through. That’s right about where the images end, and it hasn’t been rewound. Somebody watched it while I was away.

Asakawa ran to the bedroom. Shizu and Yoko were asleep, all tangled up together. Asakawa rolled his wife over and shook her by the shoulder.

“Wake up. Shizu! Wake up!” He kept his voice low, trying not to awaken Yoko. Shizu twisted her face into a scowl and tried to squirm away.

“I said, wake up!” His voice sounded different from usual.

“What … what’s wrong?”

“We have to talk. Come on.”

Asakawa dragged his wife out of bed and pulled her into the dining room. Then he held the tape out to her. “Did you watch this?”

Taken aback by the ferocity of his tone, Shizu could only look back and forth from the tape to her husband’s face. Finally, she said, “Was I not supposed to?”

What’re you so mad about? she thought. Here it is Sunday, and you’re off somewhere, and I’m bored. And then there was that tape you and Ryuji were whispering over, so I pulled it out. But it wasn’t even interesting. Probably just something the boys in the office cooked up anyway. Shizu remained silent, only talking back in her mind. There’s no call for you to get so upset about it.

For the first time in his married life, Asakawa felt a desire to hit his wife. “You … idiot!” But somehow he managed to resist the urge and just stood there, fist clenched. Calm down and think. It’s your own fault. You shouldn’t have left it where she could see it. Shizu never even opened mail addressed to him; he’d figured it was safe just leaving the tape in the cabinet. Why didn’t I hide it? After all, she came in the room while Ryuji and I were watching it. Of course she’d be curious about it. I was wrong not to hide it.

“I’m sorry,” Shizu mumbled, discontentedly.

“When did you watch it?” Asakawa’s voice shook.

“This morning.”

“Really?”

Shizu had no way of knowing how important it was to know exactly when she watched it. She just nodded, curtly.

“What time?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Just tell me!” Asakawa’s hand started to move again.

“Around ten-thirty, maybe. It was right after Masked Rider ended.”

Masked Rider? That was a children’s show. Yoko was the only one in the family who’d have any interest in that. Asakawa fought desperately to keep from collapsing.

“Now, this is very important, so listen to me. While you were watching this video, where was Yoko?”

Shizu looked like she was about to burst into tears.

“On my lap.”

“Yoko, too? You’re saying both of you … watched … this video?”

“She was just watching the screen flicker—she didn’t understand it.”

“Shut up! That doesn’t matter!”

This was no longer just a matter of destroying his wife’s dreams of a house in the suburbs. The entire family was threatened now—they could all perish. They’d all die an utterly meaningless death.

As she observed her husband’s anger, fear, and despair, Shizu began to realize the seriousness of the situation. “Hey … that was just a … a joke, right?”

She recalled the words at the end of the video. At the time she’d dismissed them as just a tasteless prank. They couldn’t be real. But what about the way her husband was acting?

“It’s not for real, right? Right?”

Asakawa couldn’t respond. He merely shook his head. Then he was filled with tenderness for the ones who now shared his fate.