Chapter 3.4

Seishin headed north along the road at the riverbank. Passing through Kami-Sotoba which he had just left shortly before, the car drove on towards Yamairi. Once out of Kami-Sotoba, the shoulders of the road faded, making the road all the more narrow. The road was detoured, curving around the base of the northern mountain that housed the temple. It became a gently rising roadway.

On one side of the road was a dense forest of firs, drawing up all the way to the point where the mountain was shaved away to level the road. The retaining wall that held the structure up was made of old raw ore from the river, covered in moss and ferns. On the opposite side of that structure was the roadside row of firs, and beyond it flowed the mountain stream. However, this point was rather high up on the river canyon, so the surface of the water couldn't be seen from here. That mountain stream became thinner bit by bit until it was at last separated from the road. At that point, there was little to see to be called a road, the space between the trees minimal enough that two cars could collide in passing. There was nothing to serve as a guard rail nor was there a center line.

The firs locked in all fields of view, only the trunks cutting through the monotony of green. Just around the curve was an interruption in the forest, a valley---no, not a valley, a community, opened within a basin between mountain. Along the detour around the northern mountain to its northern face, there it was. That was Yamairi.

The road met the woodland path, becoming thinner still, leading up towards the neighborhood. The slim hill road was a separation between rice fields, dotted with houses. In the past the community was the point of entry into the mountains but as forestry declined, so too did the population, down to two households, with only three people living there.

Yamairi was quiet as if sleeping. Only the voices of the cicadas and a faint breeze came in through the open car window. It had always been a quiet place but Seishin felt as if he'd lost his way in an abandoned house. The day when it would at last be truly abandoned may not have been far off. The married Murasako Hidemasa and Mieko and Ohkawa Gigorou were advanced in age, to the point where it wouldn't be unheard of for something to happen to them.

How much longer will there be a Yamairi to come to, Seishin wondered as he surveyed the community. The hill road weaved between two slopes, continuing on narrowly beyond the curve. There were around ten homes visible but of them most were dilapidated, only two of the buildings having any inhabitants. Amongst the houses abandoned long ago were buildings with their roofs warped and caving in. A house without a master was quick to fall to ruin. In one of the lower six communities, a house like that would find a buyer if only out of idle curiosity but likely not so in Yamairi. ----The neighborhood was to be swallowed up by the firs.

It was as he was thinking such a thought that his eyes stopped over one particular house. Over the closed storm shutter was a fresh plank of wood hammered into place. While giving a thought to its peculiarity, Seishin went on past that, displaying some skill in driving up to a certain house. If they weren't answering the phone, they must have been in the mountains but for prudence's sake he entered the Murasako property.

Each of the houses in Yamairi were quite tall. Whittling into the mountain, houses were built of packed stone walls. They were surely constructed in tandem with that road that entered and left the mountains. He stopped on that slope and for the time being headed for the entryway. While lingering on how to convey the news of the deceased, he called out as he opened the entryway. As he pulled the sliding storm door facing the front yard half open, he recalled how strange it was for a front door to be closed in this summer's midday heat, when an offensive smell took hold of him in that entryway. It was the smell of something or another rotting. A bad feeling struck him.

"Murasako-san?" Seishin called out one more time but there was no answer. Disturbed, he left the entryway, further into the house itself to look about. "Murasako-san, are you in?"

Something clawed at his senses as Seishin called out into the house. Only adding to that premonition was the fact that there was no response from anywhere within. No face poked out from the back, nobody came out from the outhouse. All of the front windows had been closed, the curtains tightly drawn. In the village, even when going into the mountains or the fields, people did not lock their doors. Moreover when it was summer. Not wanting the hot air to stagnate, houses were left open for the breeze.

Ohkawa Gigorou may know something, he thought as he went to the back of the house for good measure. He found the kitchen door and tried opening it.

"Murasako-sa---" Mid-word, Seishin suddenly cut off. The instant the door was opened, the smell came barreling out as if bludgeoning him in the face.

On the concrete spread beneath the clay floor, shoes were scattered, dark red stains spreading, splotching out. Above the stain flies swarmed, rising to a spiral as if surprised by the wind before returning to the stain.

(...Blood?)

That looked like a bloodstain. Seishin held his breath lightly, timidly peering in.

There was a rather large step up from the doorway and another one up into the kitchen. There was a small table set, a dinning-kitchen style set up but one chair was toppled, diagonal, as if pushed away from the table by somebody. The vinyl tablecloth was half off, the odds and ends on the table fallen and scattered. With the floor littered with things thrown down over it, it left the impression of terrible chaos. Seishin thought it had looked as if a child had just finished playing but what were scattered about were not toys.

That was when he saw pelt of fur, off of a dog or something else. Scattered over the cleaned portions of the floor were splotches of black-red dying every which way. And, that vehement smell.

"This is..." As the words slipped out, he covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve without thinking. The smell of rot streamed into the back of his throat, as if to choke him into a coughing fit. That feeling was now accompanied by nausea. That relatively large pelt looked like it was torn from the body of a dog or something, or perhaps like a foot. It could have been the foot from a small brown rabbit but it was tumbled in the entryway. Here and everywhere about it, insects gushing, a tightly packed crowd of flies.

"Murasako-san, hello...?!"

He shouted out but all that came of it were the flies jumping. Seishin retreated. He knew himself how pale he had become.

Something happened. If not, there was no way that they would leave things in that state, was there? How many were there? It was impossible to tell with only one look. There was no way to tell what they were originally. There were probably several if not more animals whose bodies had been torn to bits and left to rot.

What came to mind first was wild dogs. The only time bears were heard about in Sotoba were in folklore or other fake stories told by the elderly. It seemed there were rumors that dogs had gotten lost in the woods forming a great number of wild dogs, but setting whether there were enough to properly call a great number or not aside, there were many who had seen dogs in the mountains, many who had heard them crying.

Seishin remembered the dilapidated house he'd passed. It had the sliding storm door boarded over. Could not the wild dogs have been nesting in the abandoned house? And then those wild dogs intruded even into the homes where people were living and---.

(Intruding, and then?) A tremble shot through him from the soles of his feet. (A dog could lay waste to a young man in a house. ....There'd be nobody there to stop it.)

"---It can't be." Saying it to himself, Seishin looked over his surroundings. Finding a broom toppled over in the garden by the doorway, he picked it up. Now armed, he headed towards the back yard. A wild beast could come charging, so he kept his guard up, changing the position of the broom in his hands countless times.

While calling out "Murasako-san!" time and time again, he came to the back yard, piled with useless heaps. Drawing near to the back of the house, a narrow garden sat between the building and a cliff, largely unreached by the sun's rays. He spied the sliding glass doors on the garden veranda, narrowly opened.

Seishin peered in through the half opened door. The sliding shouji door inside the glass he peered through was just faintly opened from the right hand side. He opened the glass until he could see in, an unobstructed view of a pair of eyes gazing straight up at him.

[TL/N:- Shouji -Sliding wood framed doors with paper rather than solid wood or other materials. If you've ever seen a traditional Japanese setting in a movie, anime, manga, etc., you've seen them, but here's a note in case you didn't know what they were called.]

The one splayed out in the room appeared to be peeking out through the shouji with vacant, open eyes. The cloudiness of those eyes did not go unnoticed by Seishin. Unblinking, and face discolored with black and blue, the muscles moving not an inch. And---that rotting smell.

Shouting "Murasako-san!" as he peered at that face from beyond the shouji, he could recognize it as Mieko. Behind Mieko's stretched out form could be seen a Buddhist family altar, and before it were spread two futons. On one of them, the summer bedding was rolled up at the foot end. In the other there appeared to be a person lying but at that beside swarmed a pillar of flies, gathering, swirling, engulfing.

Over the tatami leaked a sickly, tawny liquid from the futon with someone still inside. He knew that somebody was lying in that futon but who that was he did not know. The bedding formed an ovular lump, a disgusting color as if melting with what was beneath it. Above the tatami were splotched, smeared stains, and above them countless flies stopping on and flying about.

[TL/N:- Tatami - Straw wound floor mats. Similarly, you've probably seen them, they're the most common Japanese home setting's flooring but in case you don't know what they're called, now you do. It's common to give room size descriptors by how many tatami mats it fits, with the standard tatami length being twice the width]

As Seishin gaped at the sight before him in a daze, a fly came to a stop on Mieko's open eye ball.

He leaped back. His voice wouldn't come, much less in a scream. He by no means had the mind to step inside, rather, Seishin forced his legs to pump through the feeling of having had his insides drawn out, rushing to the front yard.

The front of the house was, in a somehow satirical way, bathed in rays of sunlight.

The sun was strong, reflecting white rays off of the concrete spread over the slope, between deep black crevices. The land and the concrete were both so bright it stung the eyes.

(What a sight)

Seishin quickly left the yard, going to higher grounds, towards Ohkawa Gigorou's house. Feeling too impatient to get in, turn the key, and drive, he was in no state to use the car.

There was no sound nor presence throughout the neighborhood. The voices of the cicadas filled the emptiness, as if closing in. The sunlight reflected off of the asphalt and the stone wall just a ways ahead along the narrow road, an intricate reflection, a mirage as if the air itself were radiating light.

He stormed the dried grounds, shouting as he ran up to the front porch, the porch where Seishin smelt that atrocious, rotting smell. Unlike the Murasako home, Gigorou's house's storm door was left open, the shouji pulled back, a cool breeze flowing into the clearly visibly, unmanned living room. Nevertheless, as if the inside of the house were faintly echoing the clamor outside, that awful mephitis was stagnant.

"Ohkawa-san, Gigorou-san!" Seishin called out, but there was no answer. Even if nerves had drawn his voice higher pitched, the monk's voice carried well. Nevertheless, no matter how many times he called out there was, of course, no answer, no sign nor hint of anyone moving. Slightly hesitant, Seishin stepped up into the living room. As soon as he stepped in, there was a telephone rack.

(Two, possibly three people.)

And, Yamairi only had three people. ---Yes, if by chance Gigorou was safe, he would have peeked in on the Murasako household when they'd gone unseen. If he had done so, he couldn't have missed that disastrous scene, he couldn't have failed to contact somebody about it.

Seishin grasped the phone receiver. His own hand trembled violently with his realization.

He looked upwards to regain control of his breathing, the scene outside staggering him. The neighborhood baking in the sun. It was originally mostly empty houses, but it had immediately become entirely empty houses. The stone walls, the gardens, the roads, everything here had lost all meaning. The dying community had truly died. ---Yamairi would be swallowed up by the firs.

The voices of the cicadas in the mountains were thunderous. The voices of the birds mingled with them. Outside of the houses, sunlight radiated, the firs were green, and the clear blue sky was serenely stretched above the mountaintops.