The minutes seemed like hours as Kaede stared up at the gruesome sight, quite unable to place the whole thing in reality. He swore he saw the arm move once or twice, beckoning him to release the occupant of the coffin, or else face its wrath in the form of the held dagger. He had never felt such fear as he felt at that moment.
Sendoh, on the other hand, was possessed by curiosity rather than fear. He had decided that the sight before their eyes was no illusion, contrary to Kaede, who spent all his energy trying to convince himself otherwise.
It was Sendoh who finally broke the silence.
“This skeleton... I’m guessing the only explanation to its existence is the ’87 massacre. Before that this place was packed with students. Surely a skeleton could not have gone undetected for long.
“But 1987 was just twenty-one years ago... Could a corpse have turned into a skeleton in just twenty-one years, without any help? To my knowledge, it usually takes a hundred years – sometimes more – before decomposition reaches such an advanced stage.”
Kaede hadn’t uttered a word during Sendoh’s morbid musings. He took in everything Sendoh had been saying, but fear permitted him to comprehend little.
“Well, there’s just one way to find out what really happened,” Sendoh said, clapping his hands together in preparation for action. “We’ll have to remove that coffin from its bonds, and examine it on the floor.”
Kaede had feared something like that would cross Sendoh’s mind. As if being in an abandoned dormitory late at night wasn’t enough to be worried about.
“Kaede, I want you to stand on my shoulders, and undo those bonds on the coffin.”
Kaede was most taken aback.
“You’re lighter than me.” Sendoh grinned a little sheepishly.
Kaede wanted very much to protest, but the words seemed to have stuck in his throat. It appeared that he was left with no choice. He took off his shoes, and hoisted himself up onto Sendoh’s shoulders as the latter bent down.
Sendoh rose unsteadily, hands pressed against the walls on either side of the narrow passageway for support.
Kaede was never much of an acrobat, but his steadiness, even as he stood on Sendoh’s shoulders, was decidedly catlike, a comparison that he would probably not have minded very much.
Kaede carefully placed one hand on one end of the coffin, and undid with the other the rotting ropes that bound the coffin so precariously.
The coffin was too heavy for Kaede to hold, so he quickly pushed it to a side as the last pieces of rope snapped, causing it to fall to the floor with a resounding crash some distance away from where they were standing. Sendoh started at the noise, lost his balance, and fell to the floor, where he and Kaede lay side-by-side next to the coffin.
Sendoh rubbed his elbow as he rose wearily. The eblow had taken most of his weight.
Kaede brushed the dust off his clothes wordlessly, and put his shoes back on.
The coffin had fallen so hard that it had fallen apart at each of its faces. Sendoh cautiously moved the top of the coffin to one side, and gasped.
Kaede was by him in a flash, although his conscious self had never intended for him to do so.
Within the coffin, where there should have been an entire skeleton, there was only a single arm – the arm that held the dagger.
The rest of the coffin was filled with all kinds of junk, ranging from shoelaces, to old toys, to photographs, and practically a little of everything one might expect to see at a junkyard.
Kaede was pleased, for he had been expecting to see human remains of the most gruesome kind.
Sendoh, on the other hand, was greatly distressed by the senselessness of it. His brow was furrowed, and he had lost his usually cheerful demeanor.
Silence enveloped the building yet again.
Elsewhere in the building:
“Calm down, Kiyota.” Maki held Kiyota tightly by the shoulders in a vain attempt at calming him down.
Kiyota could not get over the skeleton that fell out of the closet. The hairs on the back of his neck were on end as he recalled over and over again the feeling and texture of the bones against his skin, and was shaking as if he had just seen a ghost, which was just one small step from reality.
“I wish I had a tranquilizer or something right now,” Maki muttered to himself.
Uozumi was debating whether or not to reach out and touch the skull when a loud crashing was heard from outside.
Everyone froze. Even Kiyota stopped moaning and shaking.
“What do you think that was?” said Takenori once the reverberations had died out.
“It sounded to me like an atomic bomb going off,” said Mitsui.
“I thought it sounded like something falling,” said Ikegami skeptically.
Kogure was cheerful.
“I read in a book once that ghosts consider themselves superior to humans – they like to make flashy, even theatrical appearances.” What he neglected to mention was that the book had been a children’s book.
Kiyota, already scarred for life by the skeleton, was driven nearly to madness by the crash, eyes wide and uncomprehending, as if his brain had fled his head.
“Let’s go and see what it was.” Jin strode calmly toward the door. Few would have suspected him of such intrepidity.
When they got out into the hallway, they noticed two silhouettes standing at the other end, bending over what appeared to be a shapeless pile of junk.
“Who’s there?” Maki called out.
One of the silhouettes raised its head.
“Maki!” said a familiar voice.
“Sendoh!” everyone exclaimed.
Kaede was relieved to be back in the midst of mortals and non-adventurous folk.
“What on earth happened to you guys?” Uozumi thumped Sendoh on the back.
“I have no idea. But let me tell you, we saw strange things. We followed these tracks all the way to a coffin that was hanging from the ceiling over there. Kaede and I tried to get that coffin down, but we sort of lost control, and it fell and broke.” Sendoh smiled sheepishly.
Kogure was a little disappointed that he would not be receiving any visits from theatrically minded spirits.
“The curious thing is that the coffin contained a human arm – just a human arm – clutching a dagger,” Sendoh went on.
Jin stifled a gasp with his hand.
“What happened?”
All eyes were on him, while Jin’s own eyes were wide with shock.
“I just remembered something! I’ve heard that a few months prior to her death, Mrs. Marilyn’s arm had to be amputated!”
Maki shook his head, and smiled weakly.
“Mrs. Marilyn was really quite eccentric. I believe she told the doctor she never wanted to part with her arm, so the doctor carved out all the flesh, embalmed the bone, and gave it to her in a giftwrap.”
Kiyota peered cautiously into the broken coffin, and looked away, green in the face.
“So, Maki, have you found your flashlight?” Sendoh asked.
“No, I haven’t. We did, however, stumble upon a skeleton. Actually, I stumbled upon the skull, but Kiyota was stumbled upon by the rest of the skeleton.” Maki gave a bark of a laugh.
Kiyota didn’t look as though he wished to be reminded of his recent ordeal, and was studying his fingernails intently.
“Let’s keep searching,” said Maki after making sure that nobody else was missing.
They entered the room directly next to the one in which the skeleton had been discovered. This room was vastly larger than the other, with half a dozen beds arranged neatly along the walls, with room to spare for two couches and an armchair in the middle.
Uozumi and Takenori unceremoniously slumped onto a couch each, making them sag several inches with a hiss.
The rest went on searching for Maki’s flashlight, with hopes of finding it growing dimmer and dimmer with each passing moment. The two couch potatoes joined them a few moments later with some reluctance.
Sendoh pushed aside the couch on which Uozumi had been sitting a minute ago, and made a providential discovery.
“Hello, what’s this?”
“What’s what?” Hanagata drifted closer to Sendoh, and adjusted his glasses.
“It’s a piece of paper of some kind.” Sendoh squinted. “I think it has something written on it. Can’t tell: it’s too dark to read.”
It was decided a few minutes later that Maki’s flashlight could not have possibly been in that room. A couple more rooms later, the group was much too tired to continue searching, and so sat down on the floor. Fujima, not wanting to ruin his designer pants and shirt, sat on a frowning Hanagata’s lap. Ayako, the lady that she was, refused to sit on the dirty floor, and refused also to sit on a blushing Ryota’s lap when the offer was made. She remained standing.
Mitsui cradled his cell phone like a dead baby, and whimpered softly.
“You know, I’m sick and tired of looking for your stupid flashlight.” Fujima frowned.
“We’ll find it soon, I’m sure of it.” Maki did his best to keep everyone focused on the search.
“But what if we don’t? What if something bad happens?” Ayako chimed in, pessimistic as ever.
“For the last time, this place only looks scary. There’s nothing that could actually happen to us.” Maki was exasperated.
Ryota jumped to his feet.
“Don’t you dare talk to Ayako like that, you old geezer!”
Several veins twitched in Maki’s temples as he clenched his fists in an attempt to control his temper.
“So what do we do if we find more skeletons along the way?” said Uozumi.
“We’ll just leave them be. They’re dead after all,” said Maki.
Kiyota had cupped his hands over his ears to block out all talk about skeletons.
“You’ve been really quiet, Uekusa,” Sendoh turned to the Ryonan point guard.
“I was just wondering,” Uekusa began. “It’s more of a personal opinion, really.” He cast an apologetic glance at the Kainan team. “But Miyamasu said earlier that ‘Mrs. Marilyn’ was wearing a blue suit. In all the photographs and portraits of her I’ve seen so far, she always wore a dress. And mind you, there is a hell of a lot of pictures of her around here.”
Everyone looked accusingly at Miyamasu, who shrugged.
“I’m only telling you what I saw back then.”
“You know what? I don’t think we’re going to find that damned flashlight if we look for it forever.” Fukuda placed his hands behind his head, and leant against the wall.
“We’ll find it soon, I promise,” said Maki. “And then we can get the hell out of here, and get some well-deserved sleep.”
Hanamichi yawned loudly, making everyone yawn in turn.
Kaede had fallen asleep, as usual, head lolling gently from side to side with every snore.
Everyone was dreadfully sleepy, and struggled to keep their eyes open. The harder they tried to battle the sleepiness, the sleepier they became. There couldn't be much harm in taking a little nap, could there? Just five minutes... or ten, not more...
And slowly everyone drifted off in to a deep slumber.
Sendoh yawned and stretched his hands as he opened his still-sleepy eyes. He glanced at his watch. It was almost four in the morning. He looked out the window. It was twilight. He looked at everyone around him. Most of them were still asleep. He smiled at the sight of Kanagawa’s greatest basketball players sleeping like babies. That’s right, all these otherwise fierce-looking basketball players were innocently asleep. Wait, where’s Ayako?
Sendoh stood up.
Maki’s eyes fluttered open.
“What is it, Sendoh?”
“Where’s Ayako.”
There was no sign of her.
Kiyota awoke with a start at the sound of Ayako’s name, and began calling out to her frantically.
“Ayako! Ayako! Where are you?”
◄ Chapter 3 ● Nights at Kainan ● Chapter 5 ►
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