Reek, page 21
Sato seemed to take it upon himself–the man's favorite thing to do, solve things as he saw them–to try and coax Kojima out of whatever state he was in. She could not have cared less. There was almost no light in the kitchen yet she felt as though she was being watched. There was no one else, just the three of them and Kojima would not make eye contact. When Sato had attempted to swivel the crazy bastard around, he had yelled and slapped him hard. All the more reason to stay back. Then there was also the faint smell of food going bad.
Makes sense, she thought. Place this old, in a kitchen like this. She was cold and desperately needed to pee. Once they were outside–she hoped they would be going outside, they had to be–she would find a spot away from the men and take care of herself. “Can we leave now?”
Sato shook his head once. “No, not without Mr. Kojima.”
“Look at him, he's not going anywhere. Let's leave now and try to wave down a passing boat. You've still got your lantern. Why not-” Sato winced, holding his stomach; his face twisting in pain. His stomach had been making noises a lot recently. “Mr. Sato, are you OK?”
He looked up, eyes fixing on her.
SHIT!
In that moment she wanted to turn and run as fast as she could. He stared at her with a hungry gaze, mouth hung open slightly; tongue working at the teeth inside. “M-Mr. Sato?” His eyes moved around in their sockets, looking her up and down. She pressed down in her shoes, readying herself.
Go, go NOW!
Sato blinked furiously, running his hands over his face. He coughed, working his lips into a smile. “Excuse me, Yui,” he said, voice slurred, “I seem to be very...tired. I haven't eaten anything recently and my stomach is playing games with me. I apologize.” She relaxed, letting the energy go from her legs. He was right, she couldn't remember the last time anyone ate. “Mr. Kojima,” Sato started, “no one has come back. The team is scattered and we need help and medical attention. I would like to suggest that-”
“Traitors, all of you, traitors!” Kojima yelled, his face arched up at the ceiling, startling her.
Running seemed real good all of a sudden. “See? If we don't leave soon, I'll..” She wanted to add that she would go by herself but after what had happened to Okada she couldn't bring herself to utter the words. There was that smell again. Not so offensive as to wrinkle your nose up in disgust, but present nonetheless. Another reason to scram.
“This is progress. He answered me, in a manner of speaking. I'm certain that-”
Yui screamed. Something was standing next to Kojima.
Sato was spooked, knocking his chair aside as he jumped up. “Damn it!”
“There's-” Yui stopped, pointing at Kojima.
There was nothing, just shadows. The small hairs on the back of her arms stood up as she sensed being watched again. “I-I thought I saw something, I-I...” Sato walked over to her. She held her breath, remembering his look earlier.
“I know you are scared. We all get a little nervous in the dark, it's part of our genetics.”
“I want to get out of here. Please, can't we just go?”
With a shudder, she noticed that Kojima had turned in his chair. No sound, no squeak of the chair; he was suddenly facing them both. His eyes, small and almost black in the light, bore down on her. He was whispering, a tiny smile on his face. His head nodded, as though he was affirming his gibberish. Sato hadn't answered her.
A quick intake of breath. A sniff. He was swaying slightly, like a man walking in his sleep.
“Mr. Sato?”
He shook his head abruptly, hands over his eyes. Pressing against his eyes. “Yui,” he said. “Ple-please go and get the lantern. It's over there by Mr. Koji...” He swayed again. “Mr. Kojima. Please get the lantern. Let's leave. You're right.” His hands remained on his face, but the swaying stopped.
“Are you-”
“Fine. Jus...tired. Hungry. Need t'go.”
Yui moved, happy to be away from him. Once she had the lantern and was outside, she would leave him, run away as fast as she could. It was clear Sato was acting weird, just like Kojima.
All I need is the lantern, why didn't I realize it before? Just take it and leave them behind.
Kojima continued to gawk at her as she started to walk over. A few steps forward, feet flat against the chipped floor. He was nodding faster now; neck working so hard she could see muscles straining.
Get the lantern, that's it. Sato's back there, this guy's front of you. Everything's OK.
Yui moved forward. The lantern lay at Kojima's feet.
“Nyeh, nyeh. Seeitseeitseeit,” he whispered. Slowly, she stepped over the chair Sato had knocked over. Almost there. A few more steps. “Nyeh, nyehhhhh.”
Yui swallowed, not taking her eyes off him. He returned the favor. This man was responsible for everything. He was the one who started the project to save his crappy career. He was the one who interviewed her, acting big and mighty. He was the one who chose the island. Him. Now he had lost his mind and it was up to her to look out for herself. She bent down, trying to work out the best way to grab the lantern and be able to run if the crazy freak jumped at her. Her hands shook, fingers numb. Kojima's eyes watched her stepping in, watched her every twitch and blink. She outstretched her hand, groping for the lantern. She did look away from Kojima, couldn't risk it.
Her fingers sailed through air, finding no purchase.
Shit.
She blinked as fast as she could, certain he would time it so that she was mid-blink when he attacked. Yui leaned in closer, putting her weight on her right leg, the knee cracking. She reached out, hoping. Kojima stared right in the center of her pupils, nodding.
“Seeitseeitseeeeeeit.”
Yui reached. Her middle finger grazed the metal of the lantern. She took her chance, jerking forward, metal sliding into her grip.
YES!
That was when Sato took a bite out of her.
11:58:14:20
“NO!”
Jin shot up, heart beating so hard his throat pulsed in time with the beats. He was in the foyer, where he had left himself.
“You OK?” Anno asked, concern bright and clear across his face like a neon billboard. “You looked like you were having some kind of spasm. Almost shit my pants. You're not diabetic or anything?”
“I, what?” The question seemed so out of place when their lives were on the line, on an island hundreds of miles from home. “Diabetic?” He burst out laughing, the pain in his chest immediate, but good. He would gladly take it over the alternative just moments ago. Anno shared a grin. The guy had just saved his life and didn't even know it. Thanks to him, Jin had been able to go against his instincts and drown.
It was a fail-safe some did with the Gift when things got too intense. It came with a price though. Drowning pulled you out too fast. You stood a fair chance of your heart stopping; the strain too much for the muscle to bear. He was sure this was to be his fate, believed it as soon as he started to drown but was glad to be proven wrong.
“Anno, th-thank you.” He saw him going to brush it off, to laugh and downplay it. “No, listen, I'm serious. Thank you.”
Anno blushed, a nice deep shade of pink. “Ah, yeah, no problem,” he said. “Anytime.” First Mai and now him. The list was growing longer with people to care about. Anno's eyes lit up as he smacked his head. “Stupid me, I got some of the stuff working. You're going to want to see this. There's some fucked up shit.”
“No,” Jin said, grabbing some salt. “First you have to seal the breaches. We're sitting ducks otherwise.” Anno looked around, seeing the ruined salt lines. “I'll help, you start at the other end.” Jin went to move when the pain stabbed down his front; thousands of scissors making tiny cuts deep inside where no one could reach. “Son of a bitch!”
“You stay down. Rest,” Anno said, taking the salt and moving across the foyer; a small trail of white following him. Jin lay flat against the cool floor, the cold slowly working its way inside, seeping into the ache.
“I misjudged you, Anno. Thought you were a real ass when I met you.” He looked up at the ceiling, treasuring the odd angle. “That's not the truth. I thought everyone was a dick. Thought it was safer that way.” As he said the words, the ache receded, little by little. He had been carrying a lifetime's worth of issues and pain. It was time to let go. Before time ran out on all of them. “I came here prepared to die. It's a funny thing to talk about, but it's true, my time is almost up. Only, I realized I'm not ready to gi-” He realized the silence in the foyer. “Anno?” Jin listened, nothing reaching his ears but the building and its constant protests of age. He sat up, ignoring the dizziness he felt.
Anno was gone; a line of white disappearing down a far hallway. Running water reached his ears: the shower room.
Upon entering the building when they first arrived, they had come across the showers. Dismal, the floor had fallen through, with the shower heads themselves little more than bent, rusted copper pipes ending in a mashed spout. Jin thought he had never seen such a lonely place before. Water had not graced the room in half a century, any fool could have seen that. But he could hear water nonetheless.
“Anno! Don't be fucking stupid! Get back, it's-”
He went to move, to get up and run over. His arm was cocked, ready to slap the idiot strongly across the face. Spots appeared in his eyes, every ounce of energy rushing from him. He fell, the back of his head cracking against the floor, the world warping into a mass of wavy lines. He had drowned, almost having a heart attack in the process and still the Gift demanded payment. His view became a pinhole, Anno's salt trail in front of his nose. The pinhole became a series of eyelashes.
Eyelashes became darkness.
11:59:46:23
The most terrifying sound in the world is the one you don't expect. A noise which by all rights, should not happen. You are comfortable, safe. Master of the moment, you control all. Until that sound. Until your heart leaps in your chest. Your world becomes dangerous; all your little defenses you thought were unbreakable are dashed into equally little pieces. The most terrifying sound in the world, is the one that forces you to your knees, acquiescent and humbled.
Anno heard such a sound, a small squirt of urine spreading out across his underwear.
Someone was talking. A man's voice; calm as a humid summer day.
“It...-urt.”
Anno's gray and white sneakers squeaked closer to the shower entrance.
It's OK, he told himself. I have the salt. Jin said it stopped monsters or something like that.
It wasn't that he was brave, a trait he knew he was still lacking. It was more along the lines of confirming. If you knew where the danger was coming from–front, to the left, behind you–you were that much more prepared.
What if it's some horrible thing, worse than what we've seen so far? Didn't Jin talk about ghost types? What if it's the big daddy ghost? Some ultra-ghoul? What if salt doesn't work?
“-ine now. Honestly.”
There it was. The man's voice, all soft and reassuring. A cough, once, twice. It sounded like an ordinary old man; the type sitting on a train, taking a quick nap despite the people jammed in around him.
Could be a trick!
Anno gripped the salt tighter. The edge of the door frame was a few inches away. A quick look. He would jut his head out; eyes recording. No matter what kind of man or unimaginable creature, he would throw the salt in and run as fast as his thirty-seven year old body would move.
“-elling you. I feel...”
Another cough. Anno's fingers shook, breath held, pins and needles threading their way up his legs. One peek. The lip of his sneaker slid close to the door, the sound of running water making his throat work. A glass of cool, fresh water would be amazing. Sato had drunk the last of the unopened bottles. Anno swallowed, trying to focus. Just a peek. His temple grazed against the frame. In and out. Throw and run. His heart boomed in his ears.
Ready? Hand on the door frame. OK, g-
The running water stopped as soon as his face peered around. The shower room was empty, as disused and pathetic as they had last seen it. Not a soul inside.
Except for the naked old man at the far end of the wall.
He turned to Anno with a smile. “You see?” the man said, arms wide, palms facing Anno, his skin sagging and mottled. “It doesn't hurt anymore. I'm fine now.” In one hand, the man held a jiggling mass of flesh. Anno froze on the spot when he saw it for what it was. The old man's penis flopped in his hands, blood pumping out from torn arteries.
“Honestly, I'm OK. You'll see. You'll be OK too, a porker like yourself.”
Anno screamed, his body turning, salt whizzing through the air. The granules landed on the man's face, the effect instant, causing such damage he may as well have thrown a brick. The old man's face was pulverized, falling in on itself. Anno whirled, the hallway ahead.
The old man was there, face no more than ears on both sides and a chin; tongue slapping away in the ruin.
“NNN'OK!”
It ran at him, blotchy hands out, tongue lolling in a mist of gore. Anno ducked, ripping his cargo pants as he slid along the dusty floor. The ghost smashed into the wall above him, wads of meat and blood raining down on his face; bits plopping down his shirt, trailing down the spine.
It hollered above him, “NNN'OK! HNARR!”
Anno saw how stupid he had been; the realization a bitter, cold taste in his mouth.
How impossibly long the hallway ahead was. How he had no chance to make it back to Jin. How the old man's fingernails dug into the soft part of his shoulder.
12:00:00:00
Someone was in the room with her, Mai knew that much, darkness be damned. She froze, crouched and struggling to keep her breathing as quiet as possible; short, inadequate breaths. Before she could pull out her phone and turn on the camera light, she had heard scratching noises followed by crying. It was ahead of her, small, broken sobs of exhaustion and despair.
“Not fair,” a voice said, a woman's. Very close. “Not fair, curses, NO!”
Mai's lungs ached, lack of air searing her insides. She couldn't see anything, not even her own body.
Gotta breathe.
Slowly she inhaled, lungs greedy for air, body fighting to draw the oxygen in quietly. The crying stopped.
“Oh,” the woman's voice said. “What have you done?”
A scuff of shoes, as though someone had stopped in their tracks. As though they had seen something, seen her. Mai started to shake, readying for the attack; the inevitable bite. A rank, pungent smell filled the room. It was all over. She had survived the first attack just to come back and die in the neighboring room.
“What is this? It is not clean,” the voice said with anger that made Mai wince.
More scratching noises. Just as she was about to cry out, a small light flared off to her left. Mai dared not to look, sure that if she did her eyes would see a horrible thing rise; all teeth and spoiled flesh. The light remained, golden warmth pushing its way past her eyelids. Her chest could hold on no longer, the pain too great. She exhaled, gazing at the light source. Candles were piled on top of each other, crude wax shapes with big, thick wicks. No one in sight. Mai could see some of the room as her eyes adjusted. Above her, there was a hole, a room above that. She had heard the team talking about an upstairs room, a hole in the center of the floor; too dark to see what was down there. Under her, the floor was covered in filthy rugs; frayed and burnt around the edges. The candles ahead pressed against a wall, heat and time blackening the surrounding wood. Mai blinked, her vision blurry.
There was another hole. A jagged circle of sorts, cut into a wall, rough and dark but big enough for a person to fit in. Where it led, Mai didn't want to think about. Clustered around the candles were rags, heaped in a great pile almost as big as her. The place gave Mai the impression of a shrine.
Shrine for what?
She had just got her breathing under control when there was movement in the corner of her eye. As still as possible, Mai watched as something slid its way out of the hole in the wall. The smell was profound, clogging the air. It fell to the floor, rising at an awkward angle. The thing looked human, in as much as it walked and had arms. It was beyond thin, as white as foam on the ocean. It had its back to her, focused on the pile of rags, moving in a strange waddle as it shuffled around the candles.
“Not clean,” the thing wailed, digging into the rags. The owner of the voice from earlier. It picked up the rags gingerly, licking each one and setting it aside, creating a new pile. Mai checked the room again. As far as she could see, there were only two options. The door she had entered, or the hole. It gaped ahead; inviting. Come on inside.
Like hell, Mai thought.
The thing moaned, licking along the length of the rag. By candlelight, she saw the ghost had no forehead, the top of it stopping just above the mouth. Marbled with rot, she could see the brain and bone inside its skull, like an X-ray cross-section.
Blind, she thought as she tried not to look at the ruined face, feeling the mirror shard in her hand. It would be no use, save stabbing the ghost. Can't smell either, probably the only reason I'm still alive.
Its mouth was like dried jerky; lips no more than tight strips of skin. Large and bulbous ears–lower half at least–flapped against the skull as the ghost cocked its head at the sound of its own voice.
Noise. It senses noise.
The ghost licked the rag again. Something spilled out, dangling in the candlelight. It was an arm. A child's arm, half of the hand missing. Mai felt a scream coming as she noticed her initial mistake. It was no pile of rags, but bodies; small, misshapen things stacked up in a mound of flesh and bone.
“Poor child,” the woman screamed, “curse, CURSE!”
Her mind linked the smell to the corpses, the stink of them sucking down her throat. She couldn't breathe, couldn't stop blinking furiously. Her arms stung, the wounds tingling; desperate for the bandages to be torn free so she could dig her fingers into the gashes and relieve the sensation. Everything was too much, assaulting her at once, the room constricting, the bodies and the thing next to it growing larger, huge, filling up the small space.
