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  Copyright © 2017 Koji Suzuki

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Vertical, Inc., New York

  Originally published in Japan as Esu by Kadokawa Shoten, Tokyo, 2012, and reissued in paperback in 2013.

  Cover Design and Illustration by Peter Mendelsund

  Ebook ISBN 9781939130495

  Vertical, Inc.

  451 Park Avenue South, 7th Floor

  New York, NY 10016

  www.vertical-inc.com

  v5.1

  a

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  CHAPTER ONE A Distant Memory

  CHAPTER TWO Guided

  CHAPTER THREE Ring

  CHAPTER FOUR Nightmare

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Prologue

  The room was a little over 200 square feet in size. There was a desk set against one of the walls, and on top were a black rectangular object that looked to be a chestnut red bean jelly, a cup of green tea with steam coming out of it, and a notebook.

  Pulling out the chair, Kashiwada sat down and closed his eyes.

  The notebook was one thing, but he didn’t feel like reaching for the jelly or the tea at all. Sweet things weren’t his favorite, and he wasn’t in the habit of drinking green tea. To be one of those people who can be satisfied with drinking tea and eating snacks in their final moments on earth—that was the last thing he wanted.

  Facing his imminent death, he needed to clear his mind. This ordeal was something he’d gone through once before. I’m like an ant falling into a pit trap…but I’m not scared. I just feel empty.

  Wait a minute. What’s giving the room this unusual mood?

  His nose twitched as he sniffed the room, and when he opened his eyes, it suddenly hit him.

  It’s the color.

  What dominated the room was this nice, soft color rising from the floor around his feet. As he felt the softness of the carpet through the soles of his shoes, it seemed like his vision was being enveloped by a purple veil. He wanted to know why the color of the carpet was purple, if there was a reason.

  Maybe the color purple was associated with the underworld, on the other side of the Sanzu River or the Styx. When this room was designed and built, and the carpet color was chosen, the builder’s intention must have been involved somehow. Why was purple chosen? What did the color stand for?

  Kashiwada’s pet theory was that symbols were important, always.

  On his right side, a Buddhist painting of the bodhisattva Kannon was hanging on the wall, with an altar placed in front. He clicked his tongue when he saw the Amida Buddha figure enshrined on the altar, but the sound didn’t reach the head prison guard, the prosecutor, or the prison chaplain.

  Kannon, Amida Buddha…those were also symbols, no doubt.

  The notebook on the desk was all blank inside, and he was free to write anything he wanted. Maybe he could draw a picture, or write something down, he supposed.

  He snapped off the lead of his sharpened pencil and licked it with the tip of his tongue, as if he were breathing life into it. He licked the pencil to make it round, and after it had absorbed his saliva and softened enough, he put it to the paper.

  He started drawing a curve, moving his hand slowly from top to bottom.

  It looked like a snake wriggling, but also like a hangman’s rope that had come undone.

  When they’d asked him whether he had any last words, he’d lowered his head to show his intent, and so they’d given him this notebook. What he wrote in it was a large letter “S.”

  It was nothing but a little act of mischief. He wanted to ask every person there if they could understand what the symbol meant.

  The head prison guard Sahara peeked in at Kashiwada’s notebook, and almost at the same time, looked down at his wristwatch.

  Guess it’s about time, huh?

  Still gripping the pencil, Kashiwada had already stopped moving. In Sahara’s eyes, the figure written in the notebook looked like the letter “S” for sure, but it was so big that it seemed weird somehow. Or maybe Kashiwada had tried to draw some meaningful figure, but he’d just stopped drawing before finishing it…

  Sahara tried to ignore his curiosity about what Kashiwada really wanted to say. If the last words he wanted to leave in this world before dying were just one letter, he must have put a number of meanings into the shape. He must have boiled all his thoughts down into an abstraction.

  Wanting to know more about it stressed him out. If he could get rid of his curiosity, his mind could be at peace.

  After Kashiwada’s arrest and the commencement of the court trial, tests had been conducted repeatedly by more than ten psychiatrists and clinical psychologists. Even having spent almost ten years on him, on studying his mental condition from various angles, they’d never been able to reach a unified judgment.

  Ironically, it seemed like the harder they had questioned him to get at his motive for the crime, the deeper the truth had gotten lost in the darkness. As if reflecting this, all the newspaper headlines had run the same set phrase.

  “The darkness of his mind only grows deeper…”

  Even now, his motive for the crime remained unsolved. At the very least, no one in the judiciary believed he had done it to satisfy his selfish sexual urges. They’d needed to be able to explain his motive in words that everybody could understand, or else he’d be declared innocent on the grounds of mental illness. If the court couldn’t judge him to have been responsible for his actions and deliver a death sentence, the people wouldn’t have accepted it. There would have been a storm of public criticism directed at the authorities, and so the doctors had needed to take that situation into account in concluding their evaluation. It had been clear as day that a death sentence would be handed down if they could just get him to be deemed accountable.

  That was how much Seiji Kashiwada was despised by the masses. Over the span of one year and three months, he’d kidnapped four girls and killed them, cutting off a piece of their bodies.

  Sahara had two daughters of his own, and seeing the crime scene photos had made him even more determined to close this case as soon as possible.

  If the victims’ families were here, they would no doubt be feeling a murderous hatred for him. Sahara could understand that emotion and accept it. But as he had no connection to those victims, his feeling toward Kashiwada wasn’t hatred. It was awe…or maybe more like a fear, that Kashiwada could have the outward appearance of a human being yet have a demon lurking inside him. Sahara knew that when people wanted to eradicate the object of their fears, they tended to do things like stab their enemy repeatedly or smash the body up into little pieces. That’s why he admonished himself. Stay cool. The best thing is to do your job calmly, with a clear head.

  When the sentence was carried out, it would mean the end of an existence that went beyond understanding, and a bottomless abyss would be no more.

  “Well, it’s almost time,” Sahara whispered in Kashiwada’s ear, urging him to stand up.

  Three prison guards approached Kashiwada from behind. They placed his hands behind his back, handcuffed him, and covered his eyes with a white cloth.

  With his hands restrained and his vision gone, there was nothing Kashiwada could do except focus all of his nerves on what he heard.

  He sensed that the airflow had changed ever so subtly. They thought they were being considerate to the condemned when they quietly opened the accordion curtain in front of him, trying as best they could to avoid making any sound. Theirs was a contemptible, shallow sense of concern. Even if both of his eyes were covered by the white cloth, for instance, as long as he still had use of his other sensory organs, he could easily tell exactly what was g
oing on.

  He was being pushed from behind, and with each step forward that he took, his reality was being reflected in his retinas. In that world, he could see little purple spots flickering.

  His footing didn’t feel any different, so he knew that the carpet had been laid out in the same thickness on the floor leading to the hanging chamber. A purple corridor was leading him to the middle of this place of execution.

  Finally, he arrived at the center of the room. Dead center. The flooring beneath his feet lacked the firmness of a solid foundation.

  He could sense that a number of people were in motion. A few of them were descending the stairs from the execution space on the first basement level to the room beneath the hanging chamber on the second basement level. They were going down there to watch him die. So, he thought, you want to see a person hanging from the ceiling like a piñata? Goddamn, that’s vulgar. It’d feel good to scatter my urine and feces over these guys’ heads. That’d make one hell of a parting gift.

  Then, the door on the left opened. At the same time that the security chief gave the signal, one of the guards crept up from behind, tied up his legs, and placed a rope around his neck.

  The process was quick, and afterward he sensed that the three prison guards were quietly taking their leave.

  Beneath where he was standing was an endless hell. The floorboard—a three-foot square—had a mechanism where a hydraulic system would cause the door to open. It was about a ten-foot fall. There wouldn’t even be any time to suffer before his consciousness was gone. He simply wouldn’t feel anything at all.

  He told himself to maintain his concentration, to prepare for death, which would be visiting him in but a few seconds.

  Once they pushed the red switch on the wall in the next room and turned on the electricity, the floorboard would open and his body would fall. In that one moment lay his only chance. He’d already done this brilliantly once before. He couldn’t afford to forget that he was in the same situation now. The will that you emitted in the moment of death was so very powerful. He knew that from his own experience. Narrow down your target, concentrate your mind, and just pray like hell.

  He felt that he was being gazed at from one spot in the room, by something that wasn’t human. Diagonally upward from him, there was an observer present. It wasn’t a person. It wasn’t a living eye that was watching him, but a machine. It had to be a security camera, he thought. Executions were always recorded by a video camera. That was because they wanted to keep a record so that if any problems occurred, they could deal with them right away.

  Where is it? Where’s the camera? Is it in the corner of the wall on the right, or on the left…Find it. The interface is right there. Focus on it!

  The moment his eyes focused on it, the floorboard gave way with a crashing sound and his body fell. He was released from gravity…though it lasted less than a second, he felt like he’d keep on falling forever.

  Seiji Kashiwada’s body fell ten feet, and then the winch turned on and slowed his descent. Once his body stopped two feet from the ground, the recoil caused it to bounce up and down several times. When his body started to spin with his neck as the pivot, the curtain opened, and the medical officer and a prison guard came in and took hold of his body, which was still swinging.

  For Honjo—the prison guard—it required more muscle than usual. Kashiwada must have come in at about 150 pounds. And yet his still-dying body had an unnatural weight. Some enigmatic force was at work on the body, pulling it downward. A body wasn’t supposed to swing like this—it was impossible. Honjo had never needed so much strength to hold a body before.

  When the spinning stopped, somehow the blindfold came off, and Kashiwada’s eyes were revealed. His pupils turned upward, moving slowly as if they were focusing on one spot on the ceiling.

  Honjo unconsciously followed Kashiwada’s line of sight. There was a camera installed on the wall next to the stairs.

  Kashiwada’s eyes were fixed on the camera as if they were engaged in a staring contest with the lens.

  His hands were cuffed behind his back and his feet were tied with rope. The disablement of his hands and feet made the death-throe spasms look so odd. It was not unlike the movements of a measuring worm trying to climb up the trunk of a tree.

  Though his consciousness was gone, his body continued to move by reflex. The area around his crotch was wet and turning black, and for about a minute after that, the air kept leaking from his lungs.

  In the hanging-chamber basement, where silence reigned, the lone sound of the air escaping his lungs echoed ominously. This breath was coming from something that had once been alive, yet it lacked any warmth, resembling more the whooshing of a machine.

  Soon the sound of his breathing trailed off, the tips of his fingers moved only subtly, and all biological reactions stopped as far as they could see.

  Condemned prisoner Seiji Kashiwada, convicted for committing a series of kidnappings and murders of young girls, was executed on May 19th at 10:04 a.m., and his death was confirmed.

  Everyone there, having watched this demonic soul die, was immersed in deep sentiment, each in their own.

  Only the eye of the camera sitting there on the wall kept on watching. Void of all feeling, retaining perfect objectivity, it continued recording the cells in Kashiwada’s body as they passed on from this world.

  CHAPTER ONE A Distant Memory

  1

  Akane Maruyama glanced around at the women seated in the OBGYN waiting room at the general hospital, and gave a sigh. She thought this was a cruel place.

  Some of the women here may have been happy to know they were pregnant, but there also had to be women who wished that the positive marker on their pregnancy test had been wrong. Others might have come here for reasons that had nothing to do with pregnancy, because of a gynecologic disease they had.

  Regardless of the department, hospital waiting rooms were places for people in more or less the same situation to gather, though of course some patients would be in more serious conditions than others. But with obstetrics and gynecology, the gap was too great. While one woman knew the healthy joy of being blessed with a child, the woman beside her was suffering from hardship.

  Akane had been examined by a gynecologist before. One time when she was a high school student, her menstruation had stopped, and she had been taken to see the gynecologist by the facility director.

  While she’d been sitting waiting for her name to be called, her unease had gradually grown and developed into something closer to fear.

  Compared to the unease she’d experienced as a high school student waiting to be examined, Akane now felt she was blessed.

  She’d missed her period and was experiencing nausea akin to morning sickness, and when she’d checked her pregnancy test it had been positive.

  There was no doubt that she was pregnant. She needed this examination in order to give definite shape to an uncertain future and to allow her to rearrange her work plans.

  A present concern was that she was supposed to lead the mountain climbing class to be held during summer vacation. The school was scheduled to go on break at the end of next month. Now that she was pregnant, it would be impossible for her to lead them, and she’d be forced to have one of her senior teachers take her place. They’ll all hate that for sure. Who can I hand this pain of a job off to? Well, I guess it’s the principal’s job to bell the cat.

  When Akane wondered whom to tell first about the results of today’s exam, the principal and his bald head came to mind. What am I thinking? she asked herself, and banished his face from her thoughts straightaway.

  The first person should be the father of the baby growing inside her, Takanori Ando.

  Takanori had said he’d accompany her to the hospital, but something urgent came up at work and he simply couldn’t get away from the office in the end. Right now, this very moment, he was probably waiting for the news with his cell phone in one hand.

  First, she’d get in touch w
ith Takanori, and then she’d have to submit their marriage registration right away, then inform the school of her situation, and then get her future plans in order…That’s what she needed to do once she knew for certain she was pregnant.

  This summer would be hectic, with all kinds of things going on. The scenes of her future self that flickered in her mind were terribly noisy, as if somebody were tramping loudly in her head. Meanwhile, the waiting room in the hospital where she currently found herself was so quiet.

  The waiting room and exam rooms were partitioned by a wall, on the other side of which was a narrow interior corridor where three exam rooms were lined up. Once her name was called, she would enter the corridor and take a seat, and that meant she would be seen next.

  When the woman next to her dropped the bookmark from the book she was reading, Akane bent to pick it up. At that moment, her ears caught an odd sound.

  She couldn’t figure out what it was at first. It sounded like drumming that was leaking from an iPod, but soon she knew that it had nothing to do with music. It was an inorganic sound, like something was being polished. What could it be? Is somebody polishing a wall with sandpaper?

  The source of the sound was right behind her, and Akane turned around unconsciously.

  Despite it being an OBGYN waiting room, she saw a boy sitting there who looked to be about ten years old.

  The sandpaper sound was coming from him as he scratched a sheet of paper with a pencil.

  The boy was putting all his force into his fingers, and the strain was traveling through his wrist to his upper arm, elbow, and shoulder, causing his back to quiver. The harder he drew, the more it looked like his soul was slipping out from his back; his presence was so unbelievably thin that it was almost terrifying.

  He had his B5-size sketchbook spread out and was drawing a picture with the pencil, his head shaking as he carried on intently.

  Twisting her body into an uncomfortable pose, Akane tried to peek at the sketchbook.