Nen (14 page)

At the doorway, Kenso stopped and took a last glance at the dead man on the armchair before he switched off the overhead and shut the door behind him.

CHAPTER 22

Sarah Tan dumped her handbag on the ground and glanced at the ghostly two-story building that stood before her. She had moved away from the group who were starting to argue among themselves whether they should go inside the barrack for the night. The temperature had dropped significantly out there and Sarah could feel her face and her lips getting numb from the frigid night air that seemed to circulate non-stop in that military facility.

What an unbelievable, horrible day
, she thought. She shifted her gaze away from the building and unfolded her clenched fist to study a piece of luminous leaf lying in her palm, a piece of ‘souvenir’ that she had picked from a bush in the crystal cave. The leaf continued to glow amazingly bright at various parts even though it had been dead for some time.

“Weird, isn’t it?” Howard’s manly voice startled her. Sarah turned and saw Howard walking toward her.

“The weirdest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Hey, are they still arguing about where to spend the night?” Sarah asked.

“Your fiancé somehow managed to convince Mr. Park and the rest to move into the barracks.” Howard said with a smile. “He’s quite persuasive, you know.”

“Huh, he is a sales manager, and a pretty successful one. I bet he had utilized all his sales tactics to convince those guys.” Sarah said with a chuckle.

“Yep, sure he did. I was worried at first that Mr. Park would insist on staying out in the open. They’re starting to pack their belongings now. Oh man, it’s getting cold out here.” Howard said, rubbing his hands to keep warmth.

“Cannot blame those people, they were terrified after they heard about the mangled skeletons in the barrack storeroom. No one would feel comfortable sleeping next to a room full of corpses.” Sarah said.

“Sarah, I hope you understand why I withheld some of these grisly findings. In situations like these, we have no choice but to tell a white lie. If we relate every single bad encounter, we’d create panic among the group and take away their hope, and hope is a very dangerous thing to lose now.” Howard said.

“I understand, Howard. I did a module on psychological panic and extreme anxiety responses in med school. And I can say that we are having a very vulnerable group here.” Sarah said.

Howard nodded his head and said in a serious tone, “Fear is a very powerful emotion and it can drive ordinary people to do insane things.”

There was a moment of silence. And then Sarah spoke. “Well, is that creepy storeroom easily accessible from the living quarters?”

“I’ve asked Paul to lock up that room, just in case anyone accidentally steps into it.” Howard said.

“Speaking of Paul, what’s taking him so long?” Sarah asked.

“Speak of the devil. Here he comes.” Howard said, raising his eyebrows and pointing his thumb at the two-story building behind Sarah. Sarah spun around and she saw Paul and his buddies returning from their scouting trip with Kenso-san trotting behind them. Paul was holding a samurai sword in his hand. A bulky haversack and two rifles were slung over his back. His two ‘lieutenants’ Nelson and Johnny were carrying at least two rifles each and there were heaps of canvas bags and haversacks under their muscle bulging arms. Amusingly, Kenso-san was half dragging two green military jerry cans that seemed to be too heavy for him.

“What are these for? You guys starting a war?” Sarah asked sarcastically.

“Only as a precaution, Dr. Sarah.” Paul answered nonchalantly. The three Singaporean men dumped the ridiculous load that they were carrying on the ground. The greasy rifles and ammunition bags produced a loud metallic clanking sound when they hit the floor. The three other canvas bags that dropped to the ground were unsealed and they contained scores of peach fruits, green apples and pumpkins!

Nelson rubbed his neck and shoulder with his trembling hands and said amiably, “Howard, we plucked some juicy fruits from the fruit trees in that vegetable garden. There’s also fresh water from a small well beside it.” He pointed to the two jerry cans of water that Kenso had volunteered to lug all the way from that well to the spot where they stood.

“The water should be drinkable as there are aquatic plants and the usual pond insects thriving in it. Anyway, all four of us had already drunk from it.” Johnny said, his lips curled upwards to form a cheeky smile.

“Are you sure the well water is drinkable?” Sarah asked.

“It looks clear and normal, no luminous plants or fishes or anything weird in that well.” Paul said, pouring some water from one of the jerry cans into an empty plastic water bottle that had his name sticker-labeled on it. “I’ve also added my water purification tablets into the jerry cans. Here, take a look.” He passed the half-filled bottle to Sarah who couldn’t wait to examine it. Sarah peered into the crystal clear water for a moment and took a few sniffs near the brim of the water bottle.

“It seems okay, but you never know.” said Sarah. “Do you mind?” She held up the water bottle in front of Paul. “No, not at all.” Paul said, motioning her to drink from it. Sarah took a few sips at first, and then she gulped down whatever remained in the plastic bottle.

Howard smiled affably and shifted his gaze from the Arisaka rifles and ammunition bags on the ground back to Paul and his buddies. “Did you guys manage to establish the way out?” he asked.

Paul shook his head and there was a resigned look on his face that made Howard and Sarah’s heart sink with despair.

“The annex buildings in the North are a mess. We can’t get near the debris behind those buildings, it’s too dangerous. Unless we could penetrate through the tons of debris, it seems like no way out from there. Anyway, we went into one of the annex buildings and found a room that looked more like a morgue than a laboratory to me. Johnny, why don’t you share our findings with Howard and Sarah?” Paul said.

“Sure.” Johnny answered, pulling his sweaty hair that was plastered on his forehead backwards and said, “Howard, you will never believe what we saw in that laboratory. There are all these gurneys and surgical equipment in that big hall. There’s also a scary looking hand. If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed that this place could have been a biological warfare unit of the Imperial Japanese army.”

“A scary looking hand?” Dr. Sarah asked, finding it not too hard to accept Johnny’s uncanny findings in that peculiar campsite. Johnny and his buddies nodded their heads in synchronicity, like young boys owning up to their mischiefs.

“Yes, a hand that has small plants growing on it, and it glows like those trees in the crystal cave. For once we thought it was alive.” Kenso said.

Sarah pursed her lips. She thought of the luminous leaf in her palm and she was not overly surprised when she heard Kenso and Johnny talking about the creepy hand floating in a glass box filled with formalin and how it seemed to twitch and move at one point.

When Johnny finally stopped talking, Paul peered into Howard’s sparkling eyes and asked, “By the way, have you ever heard of any military project codenamed NEN, Howard?”

“No, Paul, I have no idea what Project Nen is.” Howard shook his head, ransacking his mind but that project name did not ring a bell.

“What about it?” Howard asked.

“We were all in that big laboratory room staring at that creepy hand that floats in smelly formalin. Then we stumbled upon a metallic box with a Japanese engraving on it, it reads Project Nen according to Kenso.” Paul said.

“Yeah, and there’s a Japan destination address on it as well, the Imperial Biological Headquarters in Mount Atago, Kyoto. Sorry but we didn’t open the box though.” Kenso said.

“We were too freaked out to open it!” Nelson interjected.

“With all these crazy things that we’ve seen here, I wouldn’t have open it either.” Howard said.

“Talking about crazy things, that building behind us was the mother ship of all crazy things.” Johnny said, shrugging his shoulders and jerking his thumb towards the two-story building.

“What’s in that building?” Sarah asked.

“There’s a big hall and some office rooms on the ground level. We believe the rooms were used as the command center for this military facility.” Nelson said.

“And there’s a small prison on the second level. We saw skeletons of high ranking Imperial Japanese Officers in some of those prison cells. They had apparently put bullets into their own skulls. One thing unique about those skeletons is that they were not mutilated like those we had seen earlier. Almost all of them had locked themselves up in those cells and committed suicide. Some of them probably starved themselves to death even though they had the keys to open their cell doors.” Paul added.

“That’s horrible. Why did they do it?” Sarah commented, throwing a glance at the dark outlines of that building.

“Something terrible happened here, I must say, but it’s the best shelter we can find.” Howard murmured, “Please keep all these to ourselves for the time being.” Everyone nodded their heads and agreed unanimously that any more divulgence of unfavorable news would not be beneficial for the group’s survival.

“We haven’t quite finished our horror stories yet.” Nelson said, throwing his glance at Paul and Kenso.

“There are more horrible things?” Sarah asked in disbelief.

Kenso nodded his head and said, “In the command center room, we encountered a mummified body of a Japanese soldier sitting in an arm chair. Looks really creepy with his entire lower jaws missing. For a moment, he really scared the hell out of us as we thought he was alive. He moved his head for Christ sake! Then we realized that his movement was caused by rats rustling in his stomach and moving up his throat.”

“Yes, I counted six filthy rats popping out of that zombie’s broken jaws and Paul was quick enough to squash some of them with his hatchet.” Nelson said with a disgusted look.

“That’s weird. Are there any more mummified corpses like him?” Sarah asked.

“No, he’s the only one, the rest are all reduced to clean skeletal bones. Strange isn’t it?” Paul said, “Sarah, maybe later you could help to examine that mummified corpse and also that scary severed hand that we saw in the Annex block.”

“I’m glad to do anything to help, Paul. Hopefully, things around here would turn for the better.” Sarah said.

“Well, there isn’t all bad as we found some useful stuff as well.” Paul said, gesturing to Nelson to remind him on something.

“Oh yes, we found these.” Nelson knelt down before a canvas sack and untied it. He took out a handie talkie set and brandished it in front of Howard and Sarah. “This thing frigging works!” He said.

“And in the command center, we came across a complete radio station. Nelson might be able to get it working.” Paul said with a smile.

“That is marvelous news, Paul. If Nelson can get that radio up, I may know a way to send a message out for help.” Howard said, his voice rising in excitement.

“Howard, that’s not all, we also found some machines in the command center that may be useful for us.” Johnny said.

“What kind of machine?” Howard asked, surprised that there could be more good news coming from Paul’s scouting team.

“I don’t believe it at first, it’s an innovative rock boring machine! The soldiers here must have invented it during the war and they probably used it to carve the tunnel passage leading to the crystal cave!” Johnny said, balling his fists in delight and his animated facial expression reminded Howard of one of the three stooges in the TV shows.

“That’s it. If the boring machine works, we could use it to dig a hole at that arched entrance!” Howard said, pointedly gesturing at the demolished entrance at the other side of the parade square.”

“Can we do that? Kevin said that entrance was blown down by the soldiers using explosives and was completely sealed off?” Sarah asked.

“Yes we can, Dr. Sarah, there is a chance that they had blown down only the front part of the arched entrance. If a truck or a tank can come in through that entrance, I think it is likely that there is a huge tunnel behind the entrance.” Johnny said.

“A tank? What tank are you talking about?” Howard was puzzled.

“Oh, we missed that didn’t we, there is a Panzer IV German tank in that building as well. If the boring tool doesn’t work, we can use that armor tank to blow a hole out!” Nelson said, grinning from ear to ear.

“Provided that Panzer still works, Nelson. We really can’t tell.” Paul said.

“Johnny, could you bring me to the rock boring machine right away?” Howard asked. To which, Johnny face brightened and he said in a blissful voice, “Sure, come with me.”

“I’ll go too. Kenso-san, could you and Sarah bring the jerry cans and fruits to the group?” Paul asked.

“No problem, I don’t feel like going back there anyway.” Kenso said.

“Nelson, I think we need you to come along as well.” Howard asked, thinking that with a techie like Nelson around, lots of technical questions could be answered or resolved.

Before the four men walked off with their rifles slung across their backs, Howard remembered something and he said to Sarah in a serious tone, “Sarah, like what Kevin and I had discussed, I need your help to bring the rest of the group into the barracks. There is enough living quarters for everyone. It’s getting too dark and too cold out here.”