The number of cars was staggering.
The further back Taryn and Robert went, the older the car, the heavier the rust. It kept going so far back until it became it went from old cars to horse-drawn carriages, or what was left from the decay of the wood. For nature seemed to have taken hold of the oldest ones and began to turn them into dirt.
Robert sat down in the midst of it all, his mind whirling as he tried to come to terms with it as Taryn merely wandered this makeshift car graveyard. Looking around, with what little mobility her injured neck had to offer as she would look at some particular cars, peeking inside before moving on. How the heck could she remain so composed in all of this?
A dumb question, really.
It wasn’t the first time she had to deal with some crazy shit. During their first year of high school when she found the body of the missing girl that went to their school, she left school for a while because of the shock. Her uncle came not too long after and scooped her up to go to Ireland for two weeks. Probably to lessen whatever stress she had. It didn’t seem to help much since he heard that she had found another body while they were visiting a castle during the trip. He didn’t know much of the details about it, though. When she returned to school, some of the students started to give her the unfortunate nickname of Dead Girl.
One that she seemed to detest significantly. It got to a point where even Robert got pissed at the masses going in on the so-called fun. It went so far that Robert slugged one guy who didn’t know how to keep his damned mouth shut—going on about how she must have enjoyed it and purposely looking for those who died in obscure places—even going so far as to ask if she collected dead people in her parent’s basement.
Recalling it still left a bitter taste in his mouth. Even Paul seemed to find it kind of funny. How in the world was it even funny? It was clear she hated it.
With a violent shake of his head to push those thoughts away, he slowly looked back to Taryn. Like I’ve been any better. He thought to himself. It was ironic, if his younger self saw him now, he’d be appalled, and probably try to beat the shit out of his older self for it too. Not that he didn’t deserve it.
His gaze remained on her as she kept looking through the rusted cars but avoided touching any of them, before finally calling out. “What are we going to do?”
Taryn, however, remained quiet. Deep inside her head.
“Taryn!” he called out again but remained seated. “Hey, Taryn, you hear me?”
This drew her out of her thoughts as she turned her body to look at him since she still couldn’t do much with her neck. “What’d you say?”
“What are we going to do?” he repeated his question.
She fell quiet, eyes shifting about as she thought it over before finally answering. “Let’s head back to the car. You were able to unlock it, right? We might find some stuff in there.” With that said, she began walking back, no longer looking at the massive heaps of metal and rust. As if there was no longer a reason to do so.
Robert looked back at the sea of rust and metal, as a sudden weight pressed on his chest. This discovery was probably going to get even worse. With a heavy sigh, he got up and followed after her. Though as he did so, he found himself wondering. How in the world could she have seen the cars from atop the slope when he couldn’t see a thing? What was it that made her see it? It couldn’t have been the sun; it was still too early for that.
He was about to ask before she turned to him and offered him her right hand; when he looked at it, confused, she said. “Don’t you want help to get back up the slope? It’s rather steap. Unless you want to struggle all on your own?”
She had a point. Robert’s shoes weren’t all that great for excursions like this, Taryn’s were. Without a word, he grasped her hand and squeezed, not enough to hurt her, but enough to show her trust.
The climb back up the slope was slow, using the trees that they could grab onto and pull themselves up as a makeshift ladder. It looked to Robert that Taryn was struggling, given the strain she was putting on her shoulders and neck. Yet she didn’t even offer a single complaint.
When they were back atop the slope, Taryn headed back to the car and looked inside. “Did you touch anything after opening the door?”
“Other than removing the wire, not a thing.” He replied as he looked over her shoulder to see the interior, then glance at her neck again. With her throat covered in crisp white bandages, he couldn’t tell how much damage the attacker might have caused.
Taryn looked at him, puzzled. “Aren’t you going to check that other locked compartment?”
“Oh, uh… yeah. I’ll do that. Let me know if you find anything.” He paused when reaching the trunk to look back at her. The look in her eyes seemed to have changed before she went to sit on the passenger’s side. Since in this part of the world, it was the right side where the steering wheel resided. Something he never really got used to. His gaze then fell to the now locked compartment, considering what they had just found, Robert was now equally doubting that they’d find something as they did back in high school. “Here’s hoping it’s not a dead body…” he muttered to himself. Even though he knew that this compartment was far too small for something like that, he got to work.
Taryn rummaged inside the car, looking into the back seats, the overhead and even the glovebox, but nothing came of it. The vehicle had been completely emptied. With a tired breath, she leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. It just came down to trying to get into the trunk’s hidden compartment. It was a good thing that Robert came in the end; he had the tools to do so. If she hadn’t let him come, then there was no other way to progress.
She felt exhausted; her body was still aching. Her neck and shoulders were screaming from having to go up the blasted slope while helping a man who weighed twice her own. With a reluctant breath, she opened her eyes, only to notice something in the rear-view mirror. Someone was sitting dead center in the backseat.
No one was there; she knew that, meaning only one thing.
It was June. And for once, with just how close she was in the mirror, Taryn could see the woman’s face. Dark eyes and matching hair, her skin pale and deathly as there seemed to be faint red markings along the skin of her throat. Eyes hollow and empty, like that of a dead fish with how cloudy they looked. All the while, she had remained silent as the grave and stared intently back at Taryn. Many did that when she’d seen one. But not all…
What do you want from me? Taryn thought, not bothering to say it aloud as she looked into the car’s rear-view mirror. It’s not like I can do anything for you. It’s not like I can put your soul to rest.
“There’s only so much the living can do for the dead.” Norman’s words echoed in the back of her mind from a time when she was young. “Sometimes it can be small, but most often than not it is something that we can never truly give them… even if we want to.”
“Would you have kept pestering me if I couldn’t see you?” she whispered to herself. “Would you even care? If it hadn’t been us, would you have still tried?” she glanced away from the rear-view mirror. Sometimes she wished that she could hear the dead, but really, Taryn was glad that she couldn’t. Seeing the dead was one thing. Hearing them was something else entirely. She recalled stories from Norman, of those who died after going completely insane. Those who had been locked away for hearing voices in their heads telling them to do things before ultimately ending their own lives. Like her Mother’s brother…
“Taryn?” Robert’s sudden hesitant call pulled her from her thoughts as she no longer felt June’s presence before getting out of the car and heading over to Robert. She didn’t bother asking what it was that he had found. The locked compartment was now open, and inside were piles of information, an assortment of documents, a small laptop, and another notebook. This one looking considerably older than the one that she found in her bag for it seemed to be bound in an old-fashioned way. Something that hadn’t been done in many years.
Atop it all was another note. As if waiting for someone.
The moment she touched it, Taryn saw June and Yoko.
“Must you do this?” Yoko asked in Japanese as Taryn watched, realizing that this time, it was through someone’s eyes. This was new. “You have all this, why not just go back home? Leave and bring this to light?”
“I can’t,” came an unfamiliar voice, a voice that must have belonged to June. “As much as I want to just pack up and go, I can’t bring myself to do it. I know Ai is somewhere in that mansion, or if not, then in the tunnels. I need to do this.”
“Even if it costs you your life?” Yoko’s expression became dour. “What’s down there is not something that anyone should look for. You would not like what you’ll find.”
“People have gone missing here, this isn’t like with what happened four years ago, and you know it. This is different! I’m aware of what you’ve risked to get me this information alone, and I’m grateful for it. But I need to know what’s going on. If I don’t see the truth with my own eyes, with what happened to Ai. I’ll never forgive myself. Damn the consequences.”
Yoko released a slow breath, her shoulders sagged with apparent defeat, knowing that this other woman had no intention of backing out of whatever this was. “Very well, then I won’t stop you. Just please, try to be careful Suchiko-san.”
“Taryn?” Robert’s worried tone pulled her out of the memory. “What’s wrong? You went weirdly quiet there.”
“It’s nothing,” she said to him before opening the note and reading it.
I don’t think he’s realized I’ve taken it. He’s pissed, though.
Initially, I thought that if I could find some text to know more, given how old this village is. But instead of finding a document, I found this journal in a room that no one uses. Yet it was kept completely clean from dust. It was odd.
The journal is old, decades old, maybe a century even. Given the age, I thought it would be of use and still do. Though I’m not sure as of how yet.
I didn’t expect the mansion owner to be so angry and over one old journal. Why would that even be, though? There isn’t any connection, not one that I could find since I have yet to read the journal thoroughly. But a lead is a lead.
I have no intention of stopping with how far I’ve gotten.
I also discovered that there are underground tunnels, but as it turns out, these tunnels stretch all across the village, to the mansion and even the mountain’s surrounding area like a maze. It should be impossible, but it seems that it was from a time long before the village had initially been burned down in a blaze of fire by this so-called “Priestess” out for vengeance.
I honestly don’t believe in those types of stories. But I know that there can be some truth to it even if it seems impossible.
I still look at it with a high amount of skepticism.
The original village had a custom of some kind, one that took place underground. What it is I don’t know; there was a path that led to some type of altar or underground shrine. But I don’t even know where to start looking. So far, all I’ve found was a path leading to a dead end. And another way near it, leading to a pond.
I need to find a way into those underground tunnels. Perhaps from the outside, since there are areas that could lead to something. From there, I don’t know what, but if it brings me one more step in finding out what happened to Ai, then I’m all for it.
Yoko told me to leave, but I can’t. I just can’t.
Besides, I don’t think I have anything to worry about for now.
Dolls can’t come to life.
Taryn’s grip tightened on the note when she reached the end, how wrong she was. But then, she would have thought the same as June, if not for witnessing it herself.
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
“Uh, Taryn, what does it say? I can’t read Japanese.”
Taryn paused; she had gotten so used to both Stephanie and Rachael understanding Japanese that she had forgotten that Robert couldn’t really read it and only understood very little of the language.
“It tells about how there are underground tunnels throughout the village.” Then added flatly as her gaze flicked to his. “Don’t you say it.”
He looked at her with an unamused stare. “Oh, come on. Even you thought for the smallest of seconds that it reminded you of Fatal Frame 2. Or is it Project Zero 2?” she gave him a droll stare; Robert dropped it immediately. “Anyway, what’s next? Do we go to these tunnels mentioned or…?”
“I still need to check the road.” She said, looking past Stephanie’s van. “I keep hearing people talking about landslides, and I need to be sure there aren’t any or at least ones that have been laid as a trap.” Rachael agreed to go and talk to the villagers about another way to leave. Or at least the ones willing to speak to her. The elderly man she met before and the children would probably be fine, but would any of the others be willing to talk to an outsider?
“I’ll go and check the road,” Robert stated, causing Taryn to frown. “Look, you’re still injured. And as much as you pretend to act like you’re okay, you’re clearly not.” He then nudged her a few times and got her to sit in the front passenger seat of June’s car. “I know you don’t like to worry people. Especially your parents and Isaac. And your scary as fuck uncle who I’m sure still wants to kill me…”
Yeah, pretty much. Taryn’s uncle practically declared over the phone that he’d hunt Robert down for what he did and relish ripping him into pieces. Not that her uncle would do… okay, no, he definitely would. No point in telling Robert that. “What’s your point, Robert?”
“My point is that I get it, I don’t like making my Mom worry either,” he gave a sad smile. “I’m her son, and I know she will always worry. But she’s my Mom, and I hate it when she worries when she has enough to deal with already.”
Taryn fell silent. She knew just how much Robert loved his Mom, even with all that happened. His mother was always someone who had a smile on her face. Now that she thought about it, Taryn had never seen the woman cry either. It seemed like there was nothing that could take this woman down from her positivity and cheer.
“Not to mention having a grandkid on the way…” Robert continued only to pause and then add. “God, I hope I don’t turn out like your uncle.”
“I think you’re safe,” Taryn said plainly. “I doubt anyone could be like him, one in a million as I’ve heard people say.” Whatever the hell they mean by that. “But okay, since you’re so adamant, go for it. Just be careful, if you think you feel anything off, then just come back. I’ll read this over while you’re gone, just don’t go too far, all right?”
“Let’s just see how far I get before it becomes too far.” He stated trying to joke. “Enjoy your reading.” Then he headed off down the road in a light jog.
Taryn watched as Robert’s form become smaller and smaller before he disappeared around the far bend. Glancing at the many things that June had collected and left, she really couldn’t understand why Robert was so willing to help after everything that happened.
But for now, she had some needed reading to do.
* * *
Two hours had gone by with the sun now shining brightly with the waking world, making the nearby trees’ shadows even more prominent than before. However, Taryn had become engrossed in the many documents that June hid away that she didn’t even notice.
The documents in question were about the history of the village after it had been rebuilt, of the insuring wars that seemed to engulf the whole of Japan. And how, in certain instances, several people from the village simply vanished with no discernible dates. Said unnamed people simply thought as having fled or died from ensuing battles. It was just guesswork and conjecture than anything else, for they held no real connection besides being from the village.
That was until the next page, when dates of unexplained deaths, along with abbreviated details of said deaths, were given.
At the turn of the twentieth century, the body of a local farmer was found dead partly submerged in the Dark Pond in the fall of 1913. A large quantity of blood, but nobody, was discovered in the winter of 1922. Several references of soldiers, both Japanese and German, came to the village during World War Two. With how a few of them disappeared without a trace from 1940 to 1945. At least in June’s notes, one that seemed to be of great interest was of a German officer named Otto Kiefer. Known to be a talented painter in his own right, he simply up and vanished in 1942 while staying in the mansion.
Then a group in 1946 was found in an abandoned village near this one, where a Japanese lieutenant named Chihiro Abe, a number of his men from his unit and his only son, Hachiro Abe, were found in a charred heap of a home that had been deliberately burned. All the bodies showed varying signs of torture with sharp implements and a few bullet wounds. With Hachiro seemingly getting the worst of it all, it was almost impossible to identify with how badly the body had been mutilated.
Indecently, Hachiro committed a malicious crime, the brutal rape and murder of one unnamed soldier’s wife in Tokyo when said soldier was away. Leaving the young six-year-old daughter of the family, the only witness, traumatized by seeing such an event. Hachiro, in question, managed to get off scot-free because of the bombings that had taken place the day after Hachiro attacked the other man’s wife, along with the assistant backing of Chihiro. The Japanese government didn’t have the time to deal with one solitary case of violence when thousands of people had just been incinerated off the planet by Americans’ hands.
Chihiro, who was found dead amongst the others, with only a singular shot to the back of the head as the cause of death, the fire seemed to have barely touched him, meaning he had come into the home long after the others were killed. Why they were all there in the first place was a complete mystery and would never be solved.
While the unnamed soldier had disappeared without a trace, labelled as dead from the bombings’ aftermath. June had marked it with several question marks, clearly wondering if there had been some connection to the village or the mansion as a whole but didn’t seem to go much further into it.
Taryn frowned at this, this wasn’t near what took place here, from the looks of it, it was in a neighbouring village that had since been consumed by the forest and the land as a whole.
In her notes, it even indicated that June tried to find the building in question but came back empty-handed. Why would she travel to this unnamed village only to come back, what was the significance of this place? The notes didn’t indicate anything as to why.
The documents’ final unsolved and questionable death was in the late 1970s when the body of a middle-aged man was found along the edge of the village, mangled to an unrecognizable form. Yet, not a single drop of blood was at the scene of the crime. The limbs had been twisted to an unnatural state before death from cardiac arrest. His death was viewed as an accident since no one could figure out how the man died. Known as a horrible drunk, no one seemed inclined to find out.
The man’s name was Takeshi Satou.
Satou? Taryn frowned. That name was oddly similar to Sato’s, the guide who led them to the village. The name’s kanji was similar, and when Taryn wrote the name out in English, it only had one added letter. Was Sato somehow related to the man who had died back in the seventies? Or was that just a coincidence? She knew that people, regardless of where they were from, could share the same surname but hold no relation to one another, especially here in Japan, so it was possible.
The rest consisted of the names of tourists staying in the mansion. Notably, not all of them had gone missing. The disappearances seemed to be getting fewer and fewer the more it came up to date. Could that have meant this was slowly coming to a halt? What would cause the decline?
Taryn then turned her attention to the laptop; after turning it on, she saw that it was password protected. The hint to it was, “Who is your best friend?”
Typing in Ai’s full name, for it was all Taryn could think of, the computer unlocked. The home screen came on, and many digital documents, and articles, really too much to absorb all at once, appeared after it had finished loading. It was of things that June had written, of notes that took place four years ago. Through a brief alliance with the Yakuza and Police force working together, they had finally been able to end a sudden string of murders with an unnamed foreigner’s assistance.
But these didn’t have anything Taryn was looking for; she did pause on one particular photo that caught her attention. It was of June, an officer from the Tokyo police department wearing glasses to her right with a rather serious expression, a guy with an eyepatch to her left that seemed all too happy to pose for the photo in question and a third. Whoever it was, discreetly stepped out of view—not wanting their face to be shown to the world.
Currently, Taryn didn’t have the time to do a long search on someone else’s computer, and as of now, it seemed of little help to her current search, so she turned it off to save whatever battery life was left. Her attention then turned to the old journal, and upon opening it, she came to the fast realization that she really couldn’t read any of it. But then she hadn’t learned how to read the older styles of text either.
She flipped through the pages hoping to find a clue; something she could understand. As she did so, something fell out from the pages landing delicately like a butterfly on her lap. It was an old black-and-white photo of a woman that appeared to be in her mid to late forties. The photo was torn; it looked as though someone was with her by her side, the person’s face missing, but the body of that person clearly showed that it was a man. Maybe a family member?
Something was written along the back, and it was something she could read.
My Dearest Chiyoko.
“Chiyoko,” she repeated the name, just thankful that she could understand. But now she had more questions than answers. On top of which, this photo looked to have been from the 1800s when photography was just starting in Japan and its popularity exploded.
She tapped her fingers along her leg with her right hand since her left hand held the documents, the thing with the name Satou was what kept her attention most, along with the list of deaths that were never fully explained.
And this Chiyoko woman. Something about it began to nag at her, but Taryn wasn’t sure why that would be.
“Taryn!” Robert called out, drawing her attention. He came running back round the bend, looking exhausted and out of breath as he waved to her. Taryn quickly got up and headed towards him, so he didn’t have to keep running far. He slowed down considerably before stopping with his hands on his knees as he kept taking in deep breaths. “I am not a fit human being…” he gasped when she reached him. “Should have taken… Steph up… on that fitness offer… God, I suck at running.”
“Are you okay?” Taryn asked as he then went to squat, arms on his knees.
“Yeah, yeah, just… just lamenting… at my crap stamina. Mine’s probably worse than yours, and I don’t even have asthma.” He laughed to himself. “I’d be so dead if I tried to join the army like Roy and that friend of his…”
“Just how far did you go?”
“Oh, that…” he jabbed his thumb back towards the dirt road. “Till I hit the asphalt.”
Her eyes went wide, that was back on the main road. At least a twenty-minute jaunt by car, and getting here by the dirt road was at least fifteen. No wonder he was gone for so long. But that still made her wonder. “Why’d you go that far?”
He kept panting for breath. “You mentioned landslides, so I thought… if I kept going, I might come across something like it. But I never did. I didn’t see squat, not even anything that would tamper with the road either. Whatever these guys are playing at, I don’t think there would be a need to go this far. I mean, if they did, it’d just draw attention, right?”
That was true, not to mention it would draw attention to the village itself, but she wasn’t sure if they were in on it with the mansion or not. From those she had spoken to, it would suggest that they didn’t, but she wasn’t sure even then. With how many viewed outsiders as something as a hindrance, the villagers could be either or really. And she currently had no way to tell if that was the case or not.
He stood up with a faint groan; he probably didn’t want to move just yet but knew he had to do so. “But this is good, right? One less thing to worry over, isn’t it?”
It was, and yet... “You didn’t see anything at all along your way up the road?”
He shook his head. “Not a thing.” Robert then asked. “What about you? Find anything in that stack of information we found in the car?” She told him what she found regarding the strange deaths, which then led him to ask. “Think it might be connected to the mansion?”
Taryn held up her hands since she couldn’t shrug just yet. “No idea. Some of it seems odd, though. Especially what took place in another village, it’s been abandoned for years, but June’s note seems to think that there was something important. I’m just not sure what it is.”
“Journalist intuition?” Robert offered as they made their way back to the car, then added.“You’ve got two types, don’t you? Lawyer and Police intuition?”
She looked at him blankly. “That is not a thing.”
“Yeah it is,” he retorted. “You always seem to be finding stuff. And I do mean always. The only reason I know that is that I’ve watched some of the videos of you exploring abandoned places. Some of the things you found, you normally have a rule for not taking anything, but the few times you do is when you track down and return it to people who are still alive and related to someone who was in that abandoned place. If that’s not some type of intuition, I don’t know what is.”
Taryn didn’t say anything in response as she continued to collect the documents and files, she kind of figured that he had continued to watch what she posted online since he had made that accusation in one of their spats. “You think it’s wrong of me to do that?” she asked him.
“Well, I know it’s an ethical thing. You never take anything all willy-nilly. It’s always something that holds great value, at least to the person you return it to. What’s with that anyway? You were like that in school too.”
She kept her back to him as she answered. “Wouldn’t you want something you have to go to someone that you cared about if you died suddenly, or if you had lost it and couldn’t find it?”
That was a no-brainer. “Of course, I would.”
“Then, there you go.”
Robert fell silent as he ran a hand through his hair. Did he piss her off again? “Taryn? Are you… still pissed at me?”
She stopped short and looked at him. “What? No, no, I’m not. Did I sound mad?”
“Yeah, you kind of did. Something wrong?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t mean to sound agitated, it’s not towards you.”
“It’s fine,” he kind of guessed that this whole thing would make anyone on edge, considering some crazy bastard attacked her. Thinking about it, he recalled the several times she had been physically and verbally attacked just because of who her parents were and what her family was. Or even the mere fact that she was born. He couldn’t even imagine what that kind of life was like, even though he knew her for many years. There was a lot he didn’t know.
A lot of things she probably kept to herself because she didn’t want to bother anyone with it. Pushed people back, yet some seemed to stay close to her regardless, Rachael was one of them. The fact that the two became such close friends in such a short amount of time was kind of surprising. Besides both being artistic people, just in different fields, it was hard to imagine how they could have been so quick into becoming close.
“So, what are we going to do with all that stuff?” he asked, pushing himself away from a topic he wasn’t ready to delve into just yet.
“I’d like to put it somewhere, but I know we can’t just bring it back to the mansion.” Before her attention went to Robert, who now held up another set of keys in his hand, one that belonged to Stephanie’s rental car.
“I figured you might be planning to find something. So, I thought if we did find something, what better place than to hide it in plain sight?”
She frowned. “Why would you do that?”
“Precautions,” he said to her. “Something about this place bugged me. And no, before you ask, I wasn’t thinking of driving off and leaving you guys. I was worried that something… something else might happen.” His eyes remained looking in the direction of where they had found all of those cars. “Guess I was right to worry.”
He then tossed her the keys nonchalantly; she caught them midair before unlocking the car and discreetly placing what they had found underneath one of the van’s seats. She then paused, glancing at the rear-view mirror, and saw June. She was standing outside, pointing back towards the village. Making it pretty clear what she wanted them to do next.
Taryn would have to find a way down that well.