A protracted silence followed as everyone tried to rationalize the mystery: How could a door swing shut all by itself like that, under the influence of no external force whatever? In the absence of objective evidence, theories were all they had.
Maki had already come up with a theory, and decided to put it to the test. He confidently walked over to the door, pulled it open, and then shined the light of Mitsui’s cell phone, which seemed to have a little more life left in it, onto the doorframe. Then he burst into laughter – the kind of laughter that Archimedes must have burst into, when he jumped into his bathtub, and exclaimed, “Eureka!”
“He’s finally lost it,” Uozumi grumbled, shaking his head.
“See this?” said Maki. “An old hydraulic door closer!”
“So,” Ayako began. The mystery gradually began to clear.
“Obviously this door hasn’t been opened in years, so the hydraulic system probably got rusty. And when Miyamasu opened it and left, the system was unable to shut the door. But at some places on the door, the potential energy seems to overcome the friction, allowing the door to swing inwards gradually. Toward the end, the frictional resistance was probably very little, allowing the door to swing in with full force,” Maki explained, almost in one breath, a triumphant look on his face.
Hanamichi began laughing loudly.
“You’re not bad, old man, but try and keep up with the genius! You see, I knew that all along. I just wanted to see how long you amateurs took to figure it out!”
Everyone groaned, and a vein twitched in Maki’s temple at being called an old man.
They were all convinced that Maki was the real Sherlock Holmes, but poor Ryota still thought it was Ayako.
“Way to go, Maki, so you’ve solved the mystery. Now, can I have my cell phone back?” Mitsui groped for the device, but Maki held it out of his reach.
“Not just yet. We still need to find my flashlight first.”
Everyone groaned, and Mitsui whimpered, because he had neglected to bring with him his phone’s charger.
Maki shut the door carefully behind them once they had exited the office.
“Right. To the fourth floor now.”
He strode toward the stairwell whence they had come.
Something caught Sendoh’s eye in the dim moonlight. He bent down, and saw that it was a second trail in the dust. He gestured to Kaede.
“What do you think this is?”
Even in the dim light, it was obvious that it wasn’t another rat. The trail was too wide. What it could be, however, was the track left by a body being dragged… a human body.
“It looks like a body was dragged down this hallway,” said Senodoh.
Kaede’s breathing became heavier as his imagination ran wild.
“Hey, Maki,” began Sendoh, turning around to face the Kainan captain, but he found himself staring down an empty corridor. “Guys?”
Apparently they were all alone. Kaede had realized this, too, because his eyes were wide, and his heart was beating faster than usual.
Sendoh sighed.
“Oh well, I guess it’s just you and me, then, Kaede. We’re going to follow these tracks, and see what it might lead to, and join with everybody else later.”
‘That is exactly what I was afraid you’d say,’ Kaede said to himself, following Sendoh in spite of his misgivings, because the alternative would be to try to find the rest of the group all by himself.
The tracks wound through the corridors, ultimately leading to the base of a second staircase.
“The body, or whatever, looks to have been dragged upstairs.”
Sendoh began climbing the staircase without a second thought.
Kaede, on the other hand, hoped that they would lose the trail when they reached the next floor. His wish was not granted. Since the third floor windows were above the tops of most of the trees outside, and the moonlight entered them with little obstruction, the tracks on the floor became even more distinct. More noticeable was the fact that there were slashes on the carpet in places.
“It appears as if the victim was still alive, and was attempting to free himself from whatever it was that he was being dragged with with a knife.” Sendoh passed his fingers thoughtfully over the edges of the slashed carpet.
“So,” began Kaede, wanting very much to suggest that they go look for the others instead of chasing after a knife-weilding madman, but he found it excruciatingly difficult to say something like that.
“So what? We keep following these tracks.”
Sendoh got up, and they resumed the wild-goose-chase, as Kaede hoped it would prove.
Kaede knew that Sendoh would go on even if he were alone. He, however, didn’t want to be alone, and so was forced to stick with Sendoh.
The poor victim seemed to have been dragged up another flight of steep stairs, and up to the fourth floor. With excitement rising within Sendoh with every moment that passed, and fear within Kaede, they seemed to have forgotten that the others had also been heading for the fourth floor.
“This way to the fourth floor.” Maki led the group up the stairs. He turned around abruptly to face them. He had a strange feeling that something was amiss. Then he realized. “Where’re Sendoh and Rukawa?”
Only then did anyone seem to realize that the two were missing.
“I thought they were with us all along.” Fujima shrugged.
Hanamichi shook his head.
“Poor Sendoh.”
The rest of them nodded.
“Yes, to be lost in a place like this.” Koshino was grim.
Hanamichi shook his head again.
“That isn’t what I meant. I meant: Poor Sendoh, he’s stuck with Kaede.”
Kiyota nodded his approval. Then the two of them sighed, and shook their heads gravely.
“Why are we still standing here when two of our people are lost?” Uozumi boomed like an army general talking about his subordinates.
“Well, we’re looking for my flashlight. When we find it, it’ll be much easier to look for them,” Maki rationalized.
The Kainan team stared at him with suspicion.
“Oh, really?” said Takasago, eyes narrowed.
Meanwhile Sendoh and Kaede had arrived on the fourth floor.
“Huh?” Sendoh’s voice was incredulous.
“What is it?” Kaede asked urgently.
“The tracks,” Sendoh began. “They’re gone.”
A part of Kaede wanted to rejoice at this piece of news, but another part reasoned that this only made matters worse.
“How could they have just disappeared?” Kaede asked.
“I... don’t know.” Sendoh shook his head. “Unless...” He stared up at the ceiling and gave a yelp of surprise, jumping away from where he was standing, pulling Kaede with him.
Kaede was panting as if he’d just run ten miles, although he still didn’t know why Sendoh reacted in that way. Sendoh’s eyes were wide, and still staring at the ceiling above the spot where they had been standing a few moments ago.
Curious, Kaede, too, looked up, and what he saw nearly made him scream – that is, if he were capable of screaming. It was a coffin. Yes, an old coffin, supported from the ceiling by chains. The chains did not seem to be holding the coffin very securely, for the coffin was tilted downwards slightly, as if any external force would send it crashing.
Sendoh cleared his throat, and turned to Kaede, whose heart rate had not diminished in the slightest.
“So,” Sendoh began. Kaede tore his gaze away from the coffin. “Let’s get this straight: We’ve been following the trail left by a coffin all the way up from the second floor. The metallic edges of the coffin cut through the carpet on the third floor, and whoever it was that was pulling the coffin brought it up to the fourth floor, only to chain it up to the ceiling of the landing?”
None of it made the slightest sense.
Sendoh placed a hand on his chin, brow furrowed.
“I just don’t get it. The metallic edges of the coffin aren’t nearly sharp enough to slash a carpet so finely just through contact.”
Sendoh mused for a minute, while Kaede’s unblinking gaze returned to the coffin.
“You know what, Kaede? I think I’m going to take another look at the third floor carpet. This is just too intriguing to ignore.”
‘Intriguing? He finds all this intriguing? Hasn’t he ever learned that people are meant to be afraid of coffins?’
Once again, Kaede followed Sendoh wordlessly, in spite of his better judgement.
Around the same time, the rest of the group reached the fourth floor as well, using the main staircase.
“So, Miyamasu,” Maki began, staring down the corridor to his left and right. “Which way did you go first?”
“Let’s see.” Miyamasu tried remembering. “I think I went that way first.” He pointed down the corridor to his right.
“This way it is then.” Maki started down the corridor.
Incidentally, this corridor ended right in front of the staircase Sendoh and Kaede had used to go downstairs mere minutes ago. More curious was the fact that nobody seemed to have noticed the large casket dangling precariously overhead.
“Where does this staircase lead to?” Fukuda pointed to the one at the end of the corridor.
“I don’t know. It’s really none of our concern right now, since we’re only looking for Maki’s precious flashlight, and I remember distinctly never having used that staircase,” said Miyamasu with a touch of peevishness.
Maki ignored him.
“Right. So we’ll start at this room, and keep looking until we find the flashlight. Then we’ll look for Sendoh and Rukawa.”
“What if they’re already dead by then?” asked Ayako.
“Why are you so pessimistic, Ayako?” Maki sighed.
“It’s not that I’m pessimistic. It’s just that you’re too optimistic for your own good – or rather, for Sendoh and Kaede’s good.”
“Relax. We’ll find them, I promise.”
Down on the third floor:
“I was right!” exclaimed Sendoh, running his fingers over the tear on the carpet over and over again. “This couldn’t have been caused by anything but a knife.”
Kaede didn’t share Sendoh’s enthusiasm.
“In fact,” Sendoh went on, “the edges of the coffin were old and worn out, whereas this cut is relatively fresh.”
“Way to go, Sherlock Holmes, now can we go already?”
“Okay, so the coffin seems to have been dragged down this corridor relatively recently. The slashes made by the knife also seem to be pretty recent. What’s the connection between the two, I wonder? Assuming the edges of the coffin were sharp enough to have caused this, why are the slashes in a pattern?” Sendoh had noticed that the slashes were of equal length and equally spaced throughout the length of the corridor.
“Well, that’s just coincidence, isn’t it?” Kaede suggested irritably. ‘He thinks way too much!’
“I’m afraid it’s not just coincidence.” Sendoh rose. “Something is very wrong here, and we need to find out what.”
Kaede suppressed the urge to roll his eyes.
Meanwhile, Maki and the rest of the group had already been through every nook and cranny of the first three dorm rooms on the fourth floor.
“Fuck this!” Maki kicked over a trashcan.
“Really, Maki, instead of swearing, you could at least help us out.” Mitsui did not like to search high and low for Maki’s property while Maki himself just stood around.
“Holy shit!” Maki exclaimed even louder than earlier.
“Really, Maki, it would really be helpful if you used all that energy in helping us search.” Fujima scowled at his rival.
“What I meant was, HOLY SHIT!” Maki screamed the last words at the top of his lungs, making everyone stop what he was doing. He pointed at the waste paper basket he had just overturned with his foot, and tried to speak. All that came out from his mouth were unintelligible stutters.
Everyone thought Maki had seen a large ferocious rat or some such things.
“HOLY SHIT!” everyone exclaimed, approximately in unison, when their eyes fell on the erstwhile contents of the trashcan: a pearl-white skull.
“B-b-but…” Ryota stuttered. “How…?” was all he managed to get out.
“Relax, Hisashi, it’s just a skull,” Mitsui kept saying to himself, in a vain attempt at calming himself down.
“You know, I really don’t think there’s any reason to panic.” Maki’s eyes passed calmly over everyone’s face.
“Oh, yeah, Maki, let’s all sing Joy to the world…” Uozumi grunted.
“Come on, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” said Maki. “It’s obviously the head of one of the students who was killed during the ’87 massacre.”
“But where’s the rest of the body—?” Hanagata was interrupted by a crashing noise from behind.
Kiyota screamed.
“I guess that answers your question,” said Maki.
Kiyota had opened a closet on the back wall, and a headless skeleton had fallen out.
Meanwhile, Sendoh and Kaede had returned fourth floor. Kaede lost his footing on one of the steps, and something caught his eye. He gasped.
Sendoh too looked up, too.
“I guess that explains certain things.”
They stood in silence for a couple of minutes, staring blankly up at the side of the coffin they hadn’t seen before. This side had a large hole in it. The arm of a human skeleton stuck out of the hole, holding tightly in its dead clutches a large dagger.
◄ Chapter 2 ● Nights at Kainan ● Chapter 4 ►
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