Kombinis are Always there for You

You ever woken up with the taste of burnout in your mouth? And, I don't mean you ate some bad sushi, or got wasted the night before. But I mean that sensation of bitter, gray, emptiness – a sensation that tastes the way gravel looks. I have that… I have that real bad. My tongue feels heavy and my jaw tight like a mechanical children's toy that was wound so tightly the locking mechanism snaps and its forever stuck in that pent up state.

I suck in an breath of fresh air through my nose, and become conscious of a slimy layer of sweat that has built up on my brow and between my armpits.

I know where I am. I remember what happened yesterday. But it feels like if I don't open my eyes, if I don't acknowledge it, then for a few more minutes I am back in my LDK apartment. The streets of Chiba are outside, and people… well people exist and monsters don't.

I soon realise that I am never going to open my eyes without a bit of forceful encouragement. So I push my tongue — rough as cement — in-between my teeth and chomped down on it. The sudden rush of pain splits my eyelids apart and I muffle out a strangled grunt. This is a trick I learnt back when I worked at ekaiwa school that often hand me only getting home at 1:00am and then back in the office at 9:00am the next morning. It is a morbid technique — sure. But it always gets the job done.

Now that the world is visible my whole body seems to become conscious of the environment around me. I'm lying on my side. The hard wooden beams of the bench beneath me dig into my hips and shoulder. My right arm is thick with pins and needles from have I have been sleeping on it. I also have become aware of how badly I need to pee. I'd drunk a decent amount of water since waking up on the train after all.

'Fuck…' I groan. Then I jerk myself upright, and slap my dead right arm a couple of times with my left hand to try and get the blood moving in it again.

As feeling starts to crawl back into my numb limb in a wave of prickling sensations, I look around. It is revoltingly humid, and the sun is high in the sky. But I can tell from the light level it is still early — I'd guess it is no later than 5:00 or 6:00 o'clock in the morning.

I sigh, then flex the finger on my right hand. They are still tingling pretty bad, but they are responding normally. I stand up, stretch out my arms and legs, then crack my neck and walk over the edge of the platform.

I look both left and right — but I honestly have no idea why I bothered.

No fucking train is coming through here… I let that thought really sink in. I am not getting out this way. But what the hell else am I going to do?

I look back over my shoulder at the station and through the glass doors to the town beyond it. It is impossible to ignore. I have to go back out there. It is my only option. Maybe there are some other people in there hiding from the finger creatures? Or maybe I could get a car I could started and use it to drive… well I guess literately anywhere away from here.

With a strong feeling of resignation, I snatch up my bag and throw it over my shoulder. My arms and legs are heavy with fatigue, my feet hurt, and yet my nerves are buzzing. I quickly pee in the station bathroom. Then I walk out of the station and onto the street. The I pause on the steps that connect the station to the road. The bridge is directly in front of me, with the camping supply store a little to the right. There is not a souls present — not even that damn cat.

This is hardly a surprise though. As I mentioned earlier, it is probably only around 5:00am. Japan never really adopted the idea of 24 hour businesses. It can be a struggle to get as mush as your morning coffee before 10:00am. However, there is one major exception to the "business hours only" rule — Kombinis. Convenience stores are a fabulous thing in Japan. If anywhere was going to have life this early, it would be the Seven Eleven I had seen on the town map the day before.

I remember it is only a little ways over the bridge, so I shoulder my bag. Then trudge down the stairs.

It is a peaceful walk — for what that is worth. As much as the quiet disturbs me I also feel a little relived that I'm probably not going to get jumped by one of those weird finger creatures I had encountered the night before. At least not in the middle of the road. Soon enough I find myself standing in front of the Seven Eleven. My stomach turns. It didn't look good. I step up to the doorway and look through the glass. The lights are off and the register is abandoned. As much as I have started to expect it, I can't stop my heart plummeting at the sigh of the lifeless building.

However, what really shocks me is the shelves. They are all fully stocked with bentos, candy packets and other snacks. On the far wall I can even see a glowing fridge light that reveals countless cans of liquor, soda and bottles of tea. That seems bizarre to me. Whether from looters or panic buyers, surely the shelves should have been picked clean, right?

As I stare at all the food I suddenly feel my stomach gurgle and I am reminded that I haven't eaten anything other than a protein bar in — well who the hell knows how long?

I examine the door. It is a sliding double door made of glass. At around the height a doorknob would normally be there was a small pressure pad. I shrug, 'guess it can't hurt to try...' I mutter. Then I push down on the pressure pad. Instantly the doors slide open with a soft "shummm" sound.

'Huh…' I can't help commenting, and naturally step inside. The lights must be on a motion detector. Because they flicker on as I enter. I pause in the doorway and wait. No alarm sounds, so I assume I'm okay.

'Hello?' I ask the shelves. 'Any people or… Like weird finger monsters… or whatever… in here?'

There is no answer. My stomach rumbles and my eyes naturally settle on the onigiri in a small refrigerated area near the register. Before I have the time to even consider it, I cross the room, grab the first rice ball I set my sights on, rip off the plastic, and tear into it. Is is filled with seaweed and soy sauce and in that moment tastes better than anything the finest sushi chef could produce.

As I eat I let myself close my eyes and my whole body gets taken by the sounds and tastes of chewing the saltiness of the seaweed mixes with the bitterness of the vinaigrette rice that has a warm familiar place in my heat. However, as I munch away, something else creeps into the corners of my consciousness and pulls me away from the food. A sound – specifically the distant rattling of plastic wheels and metal. I swallow the mouthful of rice and seaweed, then turn around. There is nothing there. But I can definitely hear something.

I snatch up a few more of the onigiri from the shelf and toss them into my bag before walking out onto the street. I follow the sound with my eyes and look to my right (the opposite direction to the train station). About two dozen meter away I can see a kid… Rolling down the street with a super market shopping cart. He is short, skinny and seems to be wearing nothing but cargo shorts and some kind of blue helmet on his head. His bare feet slap against the street and his shirtless chest looks concernedly red in the summer heat, burnt and blistering around the shoulders.

He is heading my way — though if he has seen me he is showing no signs of it.

For the brief moment I remember the hand creature that had attacked me the day before. I'm reminded that things are not… well… normal here. Still that was some gross finger creature. This is a kid. What trouble could he cause? I raise my hand to try and grab his attention — when I pause for a moment as I realise the blue hat the kid is wearing, is a plastic mop bucket. The same kind you could get in any super market. It covers his whole face and I find my tongue getting caught in my throat… right up until I see three other similarly dressed kids — the only real difference between the new kids and the one I have been watching is the new kid's buckets were made of dull grey steel. The tree metal head kids kick open a door from a house that was directly between us, and come running out, screaming in a language that I know isn't English — but seriously doubted is any kind of Japanese either.

I am stunned silent and can do nothing but look on in terror, as the three kids with the metal buckets, all raise makeshift weapons as they come at the kid with the plastic bucket. The kid with the plastic helmet shrieks at the sight of his three attackers, and abandons his trolley, trying to sprint away. The trolley is full of what looks like food — so as the kid with the plastic helmet starts to make tracks; I thought that the conflict would end as soon at it had started. The kids with the metal helmet would take the plastic kids supplies, and return to their hideout.

But my stomach turns in knots as I see all three of the metal head bandits pick up the pace as the plastic head kid starts to break into a proper run! The are clearly targeting the kid, not his food, but why?

They sprint past the trolley without even a second glance. The first of the metal head kids raises his weapon — an old tire iron, flaked with rust — high over his head, and hurled it at the plastic headed kid.

The tire iron spins in the air before it pounds into the plastic kids back with a fleshy crunch that makes my toes curl. The plastic headed kid topples over. I would have been shocked if he didn't have at least a few broken ribs after a hit like that.

I have no idea what this conflict is about — in all honesty I can't even be sure that the kids I am looking at can even really be considered human. But in the eyes of empathy they look human, enough. They look like kids no older than seven, and there is something very uncomfortable about seeing something so primal and violent being done to and by such young kids. Yet all I can do is stand back an watch. I know this might seem cowardly, but these are not my three-year-old students. They are not my kids. And though they may look mostly human, I can't help but feel they are something else. Something with ways and customs I cannot begin to understand. Not to mention, they are armed and clearly serious. Instinctively I find myself ducking behind the burnables bin that is out the front of the kombini. Sweat drips down my brow from both the heat and terror as I desperately try to control the volume of my breathing. But unable to tear my eyes away I peer out around the side of the bin to see what happens next.

I think the second of the kids is a girl. It is hard to tell with how young they looked, and with no faces to go off. But she has is wearing a ragged pink shirt with what like Hello Kitty printed on the front. She is holding a rope, and she throws herself down to her knees next to the fallen frame of the kid with the plastic bucket. She moves with the kind of speed that only came with a great deal of practice. She loops the rope around the kids legs and binds it into something that looks like a hog tie.

At that point I assume that the kid with the plastic bucket on his head must be unconscious. But as the girl starts to bind him he begins to thrash and kick — screaming out in that language that sounds like nothing that could be formed in a human throat. It is difficult to explain what the noise is exactly. Like I said, there is no natural human noise to compare it too. The best I can do is say it is almost like the sound you would hear when you picked up a phone 20 years ago, only to find out someone is using the internet in the next room. Then your eardrums would be promptly destroyed by the screeching, clicking rattle of the dial-up modem. Anyone born in the nineties knows what I am talking about.

Anyway, the victimized kid is kicking and thrashing in the grip of the metal head girl, as her male partner is dashing off to retrieve his weapon from where it landed. This is when the third member of the gang steps in. This one is long and if I had to guess a few years older than the others. He carries an aluminium pole with a hook at the end. These a pretty common in Japan. They are called sasumata and are mainly used in schools to protect against intruders.

He thrusts the hooked end of his sasumata down on the plastic bucket head kid's midsection — pinning him to the road. The bigger boy laughs cruelly, as the girl continues to tie their prey up. The kid with the tire iron has returned from collecting his weapon, and starts to thump the end of his bare foot into the kids side, kicking the boy so hard that his cries and shouts turned into a noise that I realise makes sense in any language. He was whimpering.

The girl lashes the kid's hands together and she and the boy with the tire iron heave him up onto their shoulders. Finally the big kid with the satsumata draws his fist back and cracks it over the head of the boy with the plastic bucket. The boy, bloodied and beaten, goes limp. For a moment I assume that last hit must have finished the job and that he had to be dead. It gave me a strange sense of morbid relief. Certainly it would be tragic. But I wouldn't keep feeling the urge to help if there was no one left to help... right?

However, then a more rational part of my brain questioned the jumps in logic I was making. After all, why keep him alive while they tied him up, only to kill him the moment they finish the job?

If they do what him alive, what do they want him for? Of course the obvious question crawls in the corners of my mind.

The gang of metal heads turn my way and start to stride down the street — laughing and hollering with a giddy excitement that matches their age far better than the actions I have just seen. It is only when they come within about ten meters that it really occurs to me how terrible my hiding place is...

The air is caught in my throat as I shuffle around the sign and crouch down to be as small as I possibly can make myself. I can't see them any more. But I can hear them… They jeer and wail to each other in that bizarre, inhuman language. It causes my skin to crawl and the hair on my neck to prickle up sharp and cripplingly cold.

I stop breathing, and tighten my grip around my hatchet. I want it in my hand. I want to feel its weight. I want to know that even if they come for me, I will go down swinging.

I start to slip the axe out slowly. But my nerves get the better of me and I feel my wrist start to shake. My jittering shoulder bumps into the plastic Seven Eleven sign, it tonks with a hollow, plastic noise. My heart plummets in my chest. The voices of the metal heads is cut off.

'Keketang…' one say, his voice nasally and filled with a twig like scratching.

'Zoukzzzt,' comes a second voice. This one is a little more airy and I assume it is the girl.

'Bahchchchungta,' comes a third. This one is a little deeper and commanding.

I tighten my grip on the axe all the more. I'll jump out and attack! I'll get the surprise attack! I say internally, trying to psyche myself up. The minute they come over here I'll be ready and waiting...

However, that is when I hear the footsteps start once more – heading in the opposite direction. A wave of relief comes over me, my blood feels both hot and cold as it trickles through me to bring life back into my frozen limbs. I can breath again.

After a while longer — when I am confident that they have well and truly passed me — I crane my neck out in the direction they were heading. They are still trundling along. That poor plastic bucket kid still limp and slung over their shoulders. I feel my heart twist in my chest at the sight. But what can I do? I mean I still doubt any of them — metal or plastic — are really "human" – as strange as that is to consider. I don't have any obligation to help them. And what would I even do if I wanted to help? They out number me and don't seem to have any kind of concerns when it come to fighting dirty.

I try to turn and leave in the opposite direction… but my feet won't turn.

'Fuck…' I hiss to myself – realizing no matter how much I try to rationalize it. Three years of working at a preschool has left me incapable of abandoning a child in distress. Then — as quiet as I can — I creep after them.