Goth (21 page)

Saeki hurriedly put his shoes back on and went outside. He would run to the park—it was too close to bother driving.

Before he went out, Saeki decided to say something to the girl. He walked around from the entrance through the trees on the side of the house to reach the garden by the porch. As he neared the bamboo poles along the wall, he stopped dead in his tracks.

From the bamboo poles, he could hear the girl laughing like a broken record.

In all their conversations, the girl had never let herself get carried away. She had never screamed, instead speaking calmly to him, in firm control of her emotions.

But now she was laughing. The pain occasionally caused the laughter to give way to groans, but she couldn’t stop herself from laughing anyway.

In the box underground, had her fear driven her to madness? She had been so quiet all this time that the laughter was all the more unsettling. In the end, Saeki went back the way he had come without daring to say a word.

iii

When he reached the road by the park, it was already noon. If it had been a clear day, the sun would’ve been high overhead, but today a layer of thick clouds covered it, and a cold wind was blowing.

The park was a cozy little number, nestled in the middle of a residential area.

There was a chain-link fence around it, to keep children from running out into the road. As Saeki walked along the sidewalk, he glanced through the fence into the park. There was a playground in a clearing.

Someone was sitting on a swing. He was facing the other side of the park, his back to Saeki, so all Saeki could make out were his black clothes.

Certain there was no one else around, Saeki relaxed. He had been worried that the police would already be there investigating, but apparently that was not the case. More than anything else, he’d been afraid that someone else would find the badge before he did.

Trees were placed at intervals along the sidewalk. There were no cars on the street; it was just the quiet, empty road.

With every breeze, dry leaves fell—not dancing on the breeze, but falling straight down, like dry rain. They’d just cleaned there the day before, but the sidewalk already was covered in leaves. There were fewer on the road, because the wind from passing cars kept that area relatively clear, but there were big piles against the curbs.

Saeki looked around the ground where he’d stopped his car the night before, where he’d grappled with the girl. But he didn’t find his badge. There wasn’t anything but leaves, which blanketed the ground. Perhaps the leaves had covered his badge, hiding it from the eyes of people passing by.

Saeki got down on his knees and began pushing around leaves. There was no need to search the entire sidewalk; he knew the badge would be where he had grappled with the girl. He was sure he would find it quickly.

As he gently turned over the fallen leaves, the wind caught them, carrying them away. Saeki watched them, thinking about the girl.

It was dark where she was, in that box. If she peered through the pole stuck into the lid, she could see the light of the world outside as a tiny dot, but that was the only light she had. In that tiny, dark space, she had no choice but to gaze directly on her own death. Yet still she claimed her boyfriend would not let her die alone.

Finding that out had shaken Saeki. He couldn’t understand it, and that made him anxious. How could you believe in someone when you were trapped in a box underground, with the promise of eternal isolation hovering over you?

There had been a comfortable fog over his mind all night; as he’d thought about how powerless the girl he had buried was, it had given him ripples of pleasure, like honey on his tongue. But when he’d heard those words, it was like being dragged from his slumber by someone slapping his cheek.

He knew exactly what he had done to the girl now. He remembered every horrifying word he had said to her.

Feeling dizzy, Saeki fell to his knees in the leaves. His vision blurred, and the layers of leaves seemed to ripple like the surface of the sea. He could barely breathe, his lungs gasping for air.

When had he begun to relish such sadistic actions like he was eating candy?

Once, he had been a good citizen. He had worked hard, and he had been nice to those around him, greeting people he knew as he walked around, always stopping to chat.

Every time the notion of burying someone alive had floated into his mind, he’d struggled to banish the thought. He’d told himself that no one should ever do such a thing and that he should be satisfied with digging holes in his garden. He was a human being. He could never do anything as diabolical as enjoying burying someone alive …

But ever since he’d buried Kousuke and killed him, a vital gear inside him had gone out of whack. In a terrifying way, his feelings of superiority over the helpless girl in the ground had made him feel like he was finally alive … Could he still call himself human?

Despite his dizzy spell, Saeki never once stopped pushing the leaves around as he continued looking for his badge. Sweat rolled down his nose, falling onto the dry leaves.

No matter how hard he looked for it, there was no sign of his badge. He had even checked the leaves well away from where he had struggled with the girl, just in case, but it was nowhere to be found. Saeki was starting to panic.

A newspaper swept up against his legs, carried by the wind. When he stood up, kicking it away, he realized someone was standing against the fence, looking at him through it. He’d been so preoccupied with his search that he hadn’t seen the figure approaching.

The swing was swaying empty in the distance. The person sitting there must have come over to him.

Standing on the other side of the fence was a boy who looked like a high school student. He wore a black uniform, and he stood staring at Saeki with both hands in his pockets. Saeki assumed today had been a half day at school, so the boy had come from school directly to the park.

Saeki met the boy’s eye, and there was an awkward silence. The boy broke it first, bowing his head. “Sorry, I just … wondered what you were doing.”

He must’ve been a sight to behold.

“Did you lose something?” the boy asked.

“Erm,” Saeki stammered, not sure how to answer. He wanted the boy to go away, but it seemed too strange to come right out and say so. Perhaps he should leave himself, coming back to look some more when the boy was gone.

“You live around here?” the boy asked, when Saeki failed to respond.

“Yes, I do.”

“May I ask your name?”

Without really thinking about it, he told the boy the truth.

“Saeki? Mind if I ask you a question? It might be a strange question, but …”

“A strange question?”

“I won’t take up too much of your time. About the scream last night … do you know anything?”

Saeki felt like someone was pressing ice against his heart.

“Scream … ? What scream … ?”

“At around nine o’clock last night, someone was heard screaming near here. I know someone who lives in the area who told me about it; but it seems like your house was too far from here for you to have heard it,” the boy concluded, after carefully observing Saeki’s reaction.

Saeki was more than willing to go along with this, so he nodded.

“You see, one of my classmates never came home last night. Today was a half day, but my classmate didn’t come to school.”

Saeki could not stop himself from looking away. The boy was at least ten years younger than him, but his eyes terrified Saeki. He could feel himself sweating under his clothes. The boy was talking about that girl …

“My classmate walks this way to school every day, so I wondered if the scream last night was connected …”

It was her, the girl Saeki had buried alive. “You know her well?”

“I suppose,” the boy said, indifferent. Was this the boy the girl had mentioned?

From the way he answered, no. He was very calm, and he spoke of her like she was a stranger. It was hard to believe they were close.

“So you came here worried about your missing classmate?”

“Oh, no. This is more like sightseeing.”

“Sight—?”

“At the police station, they have a map of the city with red marks all over it.”

“Places where fatal accidents have occurred?”

“Yes, you know it? I didn’t think anyone had noticed but me. My hobby is going to each of those red marks and standing on the spots where people have died—standing over the spot where their lives ended, feeling the asphalt under my shoes … Coming here was simply an extension of that hobby. I like looking at places where horrible things have happened, and it also occurred to me that, if I were lucky, I might run into the perpetrator returning to the scene of the crime.”

The boy removed his hands from his pockets and took hold of the chain-link fence. The fence shook, emitting the sound of grating metal. The boy was staring directly into Saeki’s eyes.

The boy’s words had almost made Saeki’s heart stop. Was he saying this in full knowledge that the man he was talking to had kidnapped the girl in question? Saeki dismissed the idea. That was out of the question.

But his heart took no comfort from this, and he remained anxious.

He heard the sound of a bird flying overheard and looked up. A lone crow was flying under the cold sky, its black beak pointed right at Saeki.

Wait. Saeki had an idea.

Perhaps the boy had found the badge—had linked the badge to the girl’s scream and had guessed that the culprit might come back here soon …

Now the boy was keeping the badge hidden, testing him. But was that really possible?

“So this missing classmate of mine … where do you think she is?” the boy asked. Once again, he appeared to be coldly observing Saeki’s reaction.

Saeki wanted to run. The boy was on the other side of the fence and would have to run over to the park entrance before he could follow. But in that case … if he really had picked up the badge and he reported Saeki’s suspicious behavior to the police …

“Do you know anything?”

“No, nothing.”

“Oh? I thought you would somehow.”

“Why … ?”

“Perhaps I was overthinking it. You see, you said you hadn’t heard the scream.”

“So what … ?”

“That doesn’t make sense. I only mentioned a scream, but when I mentioned my missing classmate, you asked if I knew her. You used the word ‘her.’ But I never mentioned anything that could identify my classmate’s gender. Saeki, how did you know my missing classmate was female?”

“Ah, I do have a reason for that. There’s a high school girl I pass every morning here, but this morning I didn’t see her. That’s all. I just assumed you must’ve been talking about her.”

The boy nodded. “A thin girl with long hair?”

“Yes—pale skin, with a mole under her left eye,” Saeki said, remembering the photograph on her student ID. But how long would he be able to hold up his end of this conversation? The boy clearly suspected him. He was getting more and more uncomfortable, as if there was an arm slowly tightening around his neck.

“Are you okay? You look pale.”

“I’m not feeling all that hot, no.”

“Wait there—I’ll be right over.”

The boy left the fence, walking quickly toward the park entrance. On the way, he picked up his school bag, which he’d left next to the swings. Once out on the road, he came back toward Saeki, looking concerned.

Saeki wiped the tension-fueled sweat from his brow with one sleeve.

“Since yesterday … I’ve been feeling pretty sick.”

“I do apologize for making you talk with me in such a condition. I said I wouldn’t take up much of your time, but it seems I have … Perhaps we should find someplace where you can sit down?”

“Yes …” Saeki pretended to think about it for a moment, but he already knew what he would answer. “I suppose my house would be closest.”

He planned to take a few steps and feign a dizzy spell, almost falling over. The boy would come running over, and he would take advantage of this, convincing the boy to help him home. Then Saeki would kill the boy, checking the boy’s pockets at his leisure. But he didn’t even need to do any acting.

“You don’t look well—should I walk you home?” the boy frowned, not wanting to tax Saeki unduly. Convenient.

“Please. This way …”

They walked together, Saeki with his shoulders hunched and shivering occasionally. He did feel pretty terrible, so it wasn’t hard for him to pretend he was sick.

As they walked, Saeki tried to figure out just who this boy was. He had apperared in front of him out of nowhere, and he was now walking with him. What should he do when they reached the house? How should he kill the boy?

Once again, Saeki felt himself getting dizzy. Before he even knew it, he had started thinking about killing the boy with the same methodical detachment he used when he thought about work.

There was a pure part of his heart begging him not to do anything else this horrific. But if the boy had picked up his badge and guessed at the connections between him and the girl, then Saeki had no choice—he had to kill him. Otherwise, the world would find out about the horrible things he had done.

What would people he worked with think when they found out the real Saeki was a terrifying monster? That the man who had brought flowers in from his garden to brighten up the office was really a killer, a creature not worth spitting on? Would this knowledge sadden them? Infuriate them? His ears echoing with their revulsion, Saeki would be so overcome with shame that he would only be able to stare at his own feet, the flames of shame burning all around him.

He could never let that happen. The boy had to die. He squeezed his eyes shut, telling himself this again, trying not to cry.

They were at his home in no time. He didn’t remember what they had talked about on the way there, but he felt like they had both avoided anything significant.

“Nice house,” the boy said, looking up at it.

“Yeah, but an old one. Come on in.”

They went through the gate. It was always open so the car could get in and out. The boy stopped in the driveway, looking at the garage next to the house. The garage doors were open, and the front of a black car was facing them. Saeki had cleaned all trace of the girl from the back seat. There was no blood, no hair, nothing left. He had left the garage door open afterward.