Ring Read online

  "I'm sure you recognize this show," said Ryuji.

  "It's The Night Show on NBS."

  "Right. The writer is the host, the girl is his foil, and the storyteller is today's guest. Therefore, if we know what day the storyteller was a guest on the show, we know whether or not our four kids erased the charm."

  "I get it."

  The Night Show was on every weeknight at eleven. If this particular episode turned out to have been broadcast on August 29th, then it had to be those four who erased it, that night at Villa Log Cabin.

  "NBS is affiliated with your publisher, isn't it? This ought to be an easy one."

  "Gotcha. I'll look into it."

  "Yes, please do. Our lives may depend on it. Let's make sure of everything, no matter what. Right, my brother-in-arms?"

  Ryuji slapped Asakawa on the shoulder. They were both facing their deaths now. Brothers in arms.

  "Aren't you scared?"

  "Scared? Au contraire, my friend. It's kind of exciting to have a deadline, isn't it? The penalty is death. Fantastic. It's no fun playing if you're not willing to bet your life on the outcome."

  For a while now Ryuji had been acting pleased about the whole thing, but Asakawa had worried it was just bravado, a cover for his fear. Now that he peered into his friend's eyes, though, he couldn't find the smallest fragment of fear there.

  "Next: we figure out who made this video, when, and to what end. You say Villa Log Cabin is only six months old, so we contact everybody who's stayed in B-4 and ferret out whoever brought in a videotape. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to limit the search to late August. Chances are it was somebody who stayed there right before our four victims."

  "That's mine, too?"

  Ryuji downed his beer in one swig and thought for a moment. "Of course. We've got a deadline.

  Don't you have a buddy you can rely on? If so, get him to help."

  "Well, there is one reporter who's got an interest in this case. But this is a matter of life and death. I can't just…" Asakawa was thinking about Yoshino.

  "Not to worry, not to worry. Get him involved. Show him the video-that'll light a fire under his ass. He'll be happy to help out, trust me."

  "Not everybody's like you, you know."

  "So tell him it's black-market porn. Force him to watch it. Whatever."

  It was no use reasoning with Ryuji. He couldn't show it to anybody without figuring out the charm first. Asakawa felt he was in a logical cul-de-sac. To crack the secrets of this video would require a well-organized search, but because of the nature of the video it would be next to impossible to enlist anybody. People like Ryuji, willing to play dice with death at the drop of a hat, were few and far between. How would Yoshino react? He had a wife and kids himself-Asakawa doubted he'd be willing to risk his life just to satisfy his curiosity. But he might be able to help even without watching the video. Maybe Asakawa should tell him everything that had happened, just in case.

  "Yeah. I'll give it a try."

  Ryuji sat at the dining room table holding the remote.

  "Right, then. Now, this falls into two broad categories: abstract scenes and real scenes." Saying this, he rewound to the volcanic eruption and paused the tape on it. "There, take that volcano. No matter how you look at it, that's real. We have to figure out what mountain that is. And then there's the eruption. Once we know the name of the mountain, we should be able to find out when it erupted, meaning we'll be able to ascertain when and where this scene was shot."

  Ryuji unpaused the tape again. The old woman came on and started saying God knew what. Several of the words sounded like some sort of regional dialect.

  "What dialect is that? There's a specialist in dialects at my university. I'll ask him about it. That'll give us some idea of where this old woman is from."

  Ryuji fast-forwarded to the scene near the end with the man with the distinctive features. Sweat poured down his face, he was panting while rocking his body rhythmically. Ryuji paused just before the part where his shoulder was gouged. It was the closest view of the man's face. It was quite a clear shot of his features, from the set of his eyes to the shape of his nose and ears. His hairline was receding, but he looked to be around thirty.

  "Do you recognize this man?" Ryuji asked.

  "Don't be stupid."

  "Looks faintly sinister."

  "If you think so, then he must be pretty evil indeed. I'll defer to your opinion."

  "As well you should. There aren't many faces that make this kind of an impact. I wonder if we can locate him? You're a reporter, you must be a pro at this sort of thing."

  "Don't be funny. You might be able to identify criminals or celebrities by their faces alone, but ordinary people can't be located that way. There are over a hundred million people in Japan."

  "So start with criminals. Or maybe porn actors."

  Instead of answering, Asakawa took out a memo pad. When he had a lot of things to do he tended to make lists.

  Ryuji stopped the video. He helped himself to another beer from the refrigerator and poured some into each of their glasses.

  "Let's drink a toast."

  Asakawa couldn't think of a single good reason to pick up his glass.

  "I have a premonition," said Ryuji, his dirt-coloured cheeks flushing slightly. "There's a certain universal evil clinging to this incident. I can smell it-the impulse I felt then… I told you about it, right? The first woman I raped."

  "I haven’t forgotten."

  "It's already been fifteen years since then. Then, too, I felt a strange premonition tickling my heart.

  I was seventeen. It was September of my junior year in high school. I studied math until three in the morning, then did an hour of German to give my brain some rest. I always did that. I found language study was perfect for loosening up tired brain cells. At four, as always, I had a couple of beers and then went out for my daily walk. When I set out there was already something unusual budding in my brain. Have you ever walked around a residential neighbourhood late at night? It feels really good. The dogs are all asleep. Just like your baby is now. I found myself in front of a certain apartment building. It was an elegant wood framed two-story affair, and I knew that inside it lived a certain well-groomed college girl that I sometimes saw on the street. I didn't know which apartment was hers. I let my gaze roam over the windows of all eight apartments in turn. At this point, as I looked, I didn't have anything definite in mind. Just… you know. When my eyes came to rest on the southern end of the second floor, I heard something crack open in the depths of my heart, and I felt like the darkness that had sent forth its shoots in my mind was growing gradually larger. Once more I looked at all the windows in turn. Once again, in the same place, the darkness began to whirlpool. And I knew. I knew that the door wouldn't be locked. I don't know if she just forgot, or what. Guided by the darkness that was living in my heart I climbed the apartment stairs and stood in front of that door. The nameplate was in Roman letters, in Western order, given name first: YUKARI MAKITA. I grasped the doorknob firmly with my right hand. I held onto it for a while, and then forcefully turned it to the left. It wouldn't turn. What the hell? I thought, and then suddenly, there was a click and the door opened. Are you with me? She hadn't forgotten to lock it at all: it unlocked itself at that very moment. Some energy was being exerted on it. The girl had spread her bedding beside her desk and gone to sleep. I had expected to find her in a bed, but she wasn't. One of her legs poked out from under the covers…"

  Here Ryuji interrupted his story. He seemed to be replaying the ensuing events agilely in the back of his mind, staring down distant memories with a mixture of tenderness and cruelty. Asakawa had never seen Ryuji look so conflicted.

  "… then, two days later, on my way home from school, I passed in front of that apartment building. A two-ton truck was parked in front of it, and guys were hauling furniture and stuff out of the building. And the person moving was Yukari. She was standing around aimlessly, leaning on a wall, accompanied by a guy w
ho looked like he must be her dad, just staring at her furniture as it was being carried away. I'm sure her dad didn't know the real reason his daughter was moving so suddenly. And so Yukari disappeared from my life. I don't know if she moved back in with her parents or got another apartment somewhere and kept going to the same college… But she just couldn't live in that apartment a second longer. Heh, heh, poor thing. She must've been awfully scared."

  Asakawa found it hard to breathe as he listened. He felt disgusted even to be sitting here drinking beer with this man.

  "Don't you feel the least bit guilty?"

  "I'm used to it. Try slamming your fist into a brick wall every day. Eventually you won't even feel the pain anymore."

  Is that why you go on doing it? Asakawa made a silent vow never to bring this man into his home again. At any rate, to keep him away from his wife and daughter.

  "Don't worry-I'd never do anything like that to your babykins."

  Asakawa had been seen through. Flustered, he changed the subject.

  "You said you have a premonition. What is it?"

  "You know, just a bad feeling. Only some fantastically evil energy could come up with such an involved bit of mischief."

  Ryuji got to his feet. Even standing, he wasn't much taller than Asakawa was when sitting down. He wasn't even five-three, but he had broad, sculpted shoulders-it wasn't hard to believe he'd medalled in shot-put in high school.

  "Well, I'm off. Do your homework. In the morning, you'll be down to five days left." Ryuji extended the fingers of one hand.

  "I know."

  "Somewhere, there's this vortex of evil energy. I know. It makes me feel… nostalgic." As if for emphasis, Ryuji clutched his copy of the tape to his breast as he headed for the entry hall.

  "Let's have the next strategy session at your place." Asakawa spoke quietly but distinctly.

  "Alright, alright." Ryuji's eyes were smiling.

  The moment Ryuji left, Asakawa looked at the wall clock in the dining room. A wedding gift from a friend, its butterfly-shaped red pendulum was swinging. 11:21. How many times had he checked the time today? He was becoming obsessed with the passage of time. Just like Ryuji said, in the morning he'd only have five days left. He wasn't at all sure if he'd be able to unlock the riddle of the erased part of the tape in time. He felt like a cancer patient facing an operation with a success rate of almost nil. There was debate over whether cancer patients should be told they had cancer or not; until now Asakawa had always thought they deserved to be allowed to know. But if this was how it would feel, then he preferred not knowing. There were some people who, when facing death, would burn brightly with what life they had left. Asakawa couldn't manage that feat. He was still alright for the moment. But as the clock chipped away at his remaining days, hours, minutes, he wasn't confident he'd be able to keep his wits about him. He felt like he understood, now, why he was attracted to Ryuji even while being disgusted by him. Ryuji had a psychological strength he just couldn't match. Asakawa lived his life tentatively, always worried about what people around him thought. Ryuji, meanwhile, kept a god-or a devil-chained up inside him that allowed him to live with complete freedom and abandon. The only time Asakawa felt his desire to live chase away his fear was when he thought of how his wife and daughter would feel after his death. Now he suddenly worried about them, and softly opened the bedroom door to check on them. Their faces in sleep were soft and unsuspecting. He had no time to shrink in terror. He decided to call Yoshino and explain the situation and ask for his help. If he put off until tomorrow what he could do today, he was bound to regret it.

  3

  October 13-Saturday

  Asakawa had thought of taking the week off work, but then decided that using the company's information system to the full would give him a better chance of clearing up the mysteries of the videotape than holing up in his apartment pointlessly cowering. As a result, he went in to work, even though it was a Saturday. "Went in to work," but he knew full well that he wouldn't get any actual work done. He figured the best policy would be to confess everything to his editor and ask that he be temporarily taken off his assignments. Nothing would help more than enlisting his editor's cooperation. The problem was whether or not Oguri would believe his story. He'd probably bring up the previous incident yet again and snort. Even though he had the video as proof, if Oguri started out by denying everything, he'd have all sorts of other arguments arrayed to support his view. He'd skewer all sorts of things his way to convince himself he was right. Still...it would be interesting, Asakawa thought. He'd brought the video in his briefcase, just in case. How would Oguri react if he showed it to him? More to the point, though, would he even give it a glance? Last night he'd stayed up late explaining the whole sequence of events to Yoshino, and he'd believed. And then, as if to prove it, he'd said he absolutely didn't want to see the video-please don't show it to him. In exchange, he'd try to cooperate however he could. Of course, in Yoshino's case, there was a firm foundation for that belief. When Haruko Tsuji and Takehiko Nomi's corpses had been discovered in a car by a prefectural road in Ashina, Yoshino had rushed to the scene and felt the atmosphere there, the stifling atmosphere that had the investigators convinced that only something monstrous could have done this, but that kept them from saying so. If Yoshino hadn't actually been there himself, he probably wouldn't have accepted Asakawa's story quite so easily.

  In any case, what Asakawa had on his hands was a bomb. If he flashed it in front of Oguri's eyes threateningly, it ought to have some effect. Asakawa was tempted to use it out of curiosity, if for nothing else.

  * * *

  Oguri's customary mocking smile had been wiped from his face. Both elbows were planted on his desk, and his eyes moved restlessly as he went over Asakawa's story once again with a fine-toothed comb.

  Four young people almost certainly watched a particular video together at Villa Log Cabin on the night of August 29th, and exactly a week later, just as the video had predicted, they died under mysterious circumstances. Subsequently, the video had caught the eye of the cabin manager, who had brought it into the office where it calmly waited until Asakawa discovered it. Asakawa had then watched the damned thing. And now he was going to die in five days? Was he supposed to believe that? And yet those four deaths were an indisputable fact. How could he explain them? What was the logical thread to connect all this?

  Asakawa's expression, as he stood looking down at Oguri, had an air of superiority that was rare for him. He knew from experience just what Oguri was thinking right about now. Asakawa waited until he thought Oguri's thought process would have reached a dead end, and then extracted the videotape from his briefcase. He did it with exaggerated dignity, theatrically, as if laying down a royal flush.

  "Would you like to take a look at it? You're quite welcome to." Asakawa indicated with his eyes the TV by the sofa under the window, flashing a composed, provocative smile. He could hear Oguri swallow loudly. Oguri didn't even glance in the direction of the window; his eyes were fixed on the jet-black videotape that had been placed on his desk. He was honestly trying to decide what to do.

  If you want to watch it, you could just press play. It's that easy. C'mon, you can do it. Just laugh like you always do and say how stupid it is, and shove it in the video deck. Do it, give it a shot. Oguri's mind was trying to issue the command to his body. Stop being such an idiot and watch it. If you watch it, doesn't it show that you don't believe Asakawa? Which means, right, think about it now, it means if you refuse to watch it, you must believe this cock-and-bull story. So watch it already. You believe in modern science, don't you? You're not a kid afraid of ghosts.

  In fact, Oguri was 99% sure that he didn't believe Asakawa. But still, way back in a corner of his mind, there was that what if What if it were true? Maybe there were some niches in this world that modern science couldn't reach yet. And as long as there was that risk, no matter how hard his mind worked, his body was going to refuse. So Oguri sat in his chair and didn't move. He
couldn't move. It didn't matter what his mind understood: his body wasn't listening to his mind. As long as there was the possibility of danger, his body would keep loyally activating his instincts for self-preservation. Oguri raised his head and said, in a parched voice:

  "So, what is it you want from me?"

  Asakawa knew he had won. "I'd like you to relieve me of my assignments. I want to make a thorough investigation of this video. Please. I think you realize my life is on the line here."

  Oguri shut his eyes tightly. "Are you going to get an article out of it?"

  "Well, regardless of how I may appear to you, I'm still a reporter. I'll write down my findings so everything isn't buried with Ryuji Takayama and myself. Of course, whether or not to print them is something I'll leave up to you."

  Oguri gave two decisive nods. "Well, it can't hurt. I guess I'll have a cub take your feature interview."

  Asakawa bowed slightly. He went to return the video to his briefcase, but couldn't resist the temptation to have a little more fun. He proffered the tape to Oguri once again, saying, "You believe me, don't you?"

  Oguri gave a long sigh and shook his head. It wasn't that he believed or disbelieved; he just felt a tinge of uneasiness. Yeah, that was it.

  "I feel the same way," were Asakawa's parting words. Oguri watched him walk out and told himself that if Asakawa was still alive after October 18th, then he'd watch that video with his own eyes. But even then, maybe his body wouldn't let him. That what if didn't feel like it was ever going to go away.

  In the reference room Asakawa stacked three thick volumes on a table. Volcanoes of Japan, Volcanic Archipelago, and Active Volcanoes of the World. Figuring that the volcano in the video was probably in Japan, he started with Volcanoes of Japan. He looked at the colour photos at the beginning of the book. Mountains belching white smoke and steam rose gallantly into the sky, sides covered with brownish-black lava rock; bright red molten rock spewed into the night sky from craters whose black edges melted into the darkness; he thought of the Big Bang. He turned the pages, comparing these scenes to the one seared into his brain. Mt Aso, Mt Asama, Showa Shinzan, Sakurajima… It didn't take as long to locate as he'd feared. After all, Mt Mihara on Izu Oshima Island, part of the same chain of volcanoes that included Mt Fuji, is one of Japan's more famous active volcanoes.