Taryn couldn’t respond, her mind trying to process what she had just heard. Trying to remember everything within that short amount of time when finding Robert dead on the tatami floor, body ripped open. Organs and even bits of flesh, blood and bone were strewn about.
His heart.
Was his heat missing then when she found him?
She couldn’t remember. Her mind was too wrapped up in what Robert left behind to think of anything else.
Why? Why though? Why rip out his heart?
Her mind raced, trying to recall all that she learned over the years in her research regarding the dead and the heart.
The heart had a vast number of meanings and symbolism, depending on the culture or religion. In Islam, it meant the seat of life, emotion, reason, will, intellect, purpose or the mind. Signifying truth, conscience or moral courage in many religions, the temple or throne of God. In comparison, the Judeo-Christians thought it to be the divine center, the atman, also known as the third eye, of transcendent wisdom in Hinduism. The diamond of purity and essence of the Buddha; the Taoist center of understanding.
For the ancient Egyptians, the heart was the seat of emotion, thought, will, and intention. They believed that it was the key to the afterlife so it would be left alone during the mummification process, that it was conceived as surviving death in the nether world, where it gave evidence for, or against, its possessor. And why Anubis, one of the Egyptian Gods of the Dead, would perform a ceremony called Weighing of the Heart to see if the possessor of said heart was worthy to transcend to the realm of the Gods and into the afterlife. Where their heart would be weighed on a scale with a feather from the Goddess Maat, but if found unworthy, then that person would be eaten whole by the Goddess Ammit.
But none of that correlated with what happened to Robert.
“Taryn? You still there?”
Hearing Stephanie’s voice snapped Taryn out of her train of thought.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m still here. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m sure it’s a lot to take in, given that you found him.”
Taryn didn’t respond right away. “Are you sure he was alive when it happened?”
“From the sounds of it, it’s what the autopsy crew believe.” She paused. “You don’t think… you don’t think that thing eats people, do you?”
She thought about it, but it didn’t feel right to her. “I don’t know what to think at this point, but things like cannibalism are very far and away from my list of possibilities right now with the police coming back.”
That brought Stephanie pause but only for a moment. “You sound like you’re planning something.”
Taryn didn’t answer.
Stephanie’s tone turned to worry. “Taryn, what are you doing?”
“A way to get out.” She began to walk again, picking up speed only to feel something pull against her right ankle. Then be suddenly yanked from something underneath, causing her to lose not only her footing but dropping her phone as she is pulled by her ankle. Acting quickly, she took hold of a nearby wooden pillar to keep herself from going any further. Ignoring the pain in her neck, she looked back to see that a dark red rope was now tightly around her ankle, trying to drag her towards an opening from within a wall at the end of the hallway. She wrapped her arms around the wood to grasp each other to keep herself in place as she grit her teeth, fighting off the sudden pain. She wasn’t sure how long she could remain holding on to the wood like this in her current state.
From the distance she was now at, she could still hear Stephanie’s voice. “Taryn? What was that noise? Are you okay?”
The rope pulled tighter, causing Taryn to nearly gasp in pain, as her grip slowly began to give. “Fuck…” she breathed; her hold wouldn’t be able to last much longer.
Not far from her phone, a sliding door opened from an adjoining room as Sato stepped into the Engawa. She hadn’t seen him since the beginning of their trip here; tension rose in her body as she fought against the pull of the rope.
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He didn’t even seem to notice her as he went to pick up the phone as Stephanie began to plead and demand a response on the other end before he cut the call.
He looked at her then, chilling everything inside of her, Sato’s eyes seemed almost empty. As though he were someone else entirely as he made his way towards her. And with an arrogant smile, he lifted his foot and bought it down on her hand and arm. From the sudden force and the pain from both ends, she found her hands had instinctively let go as she was yanked into the darkness of wherever this new opening would lead.
* * *
It had been well past the time that Taryn said she would be back, making Rachael start to expect the worst.
Don’t panic. Rachael told herself. Don’t panic; she might just be late. She thought as she looked to the garden with the red hydrangeas, now much closer than she was before from the previous day, as a feeling of dread rested along her shoulders. Finding that it was not only those flowers but also red spider lilies, white lilies, red and white gladioli, white carnations and white chrysanthemum flowers amongst the tall red flowers. Almost all of them have a similar connection that made the hair on Rachael’s neck stand on end.
Death.
In one way or another, those flowers could represent death and mourning, depending on where they came from.
She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat, she didn’t have anything that Taryn did, and even still, Rachael couldn’t help but feel unnerved by them—being as close as she was now made her skin crawl. Rachael could only imagine what kind of effect it would have on Taryn if she were to be this close.
No, she wouldn’t even be willing to go this close. Knowing that the fact that Taryn would be willing to risk her health, or whatever it would entail, spoke volumes. She shook her head. She was regretting letting Taryn go and follow Toya like she had. Rachael didn’t trust that man. Not at all, not after discovering that painting in his room.
At first, she thought it a little strange how he seemed almost captivated by her friend—always staring at her from afar.
Watching her.
When Rachael saw the painting for the first time, it suddenly clicked. Now thinking back when Toya looked at Taryn, the many, many times, he seemed to speak with her first than anyone else, as if the others were secondary, wanting to get close to her. It was just too creepy.
Even his smile. As though he knew something.
She shook her head again; she should have just grabbed her friend by the wrist and yanked her away from Toya. That way, maybe, Taryn’s act would have been far more believable.
Unable to take it anymore, Rachael turned towards the mansion. To hell with it, she’d find Taryn and get her away from that man. Make up some excuse about the police and make a run for it back here.
“Where is she?” a man’s voice speaking in Japanese suddenly caused her to stop in her tracks. “You did say that she was around here? Right?”
“Yes,” said another. “They said that the girl’s friend should be near the gardens.”
A sudden feeling of panic ran through her, striking Rachael like a bolt of lightning, from the sound of the voices they looked to be coming from the direction of the mansion, as footsteps began to come closer and closer.
Feeling like there was no other choice, Rachael ducked into the large bushes of Hydrangea flowers to remain hidden. With how tall and large the flowers were, they could keep her concealed from those looking for her.
The moment she had, two Japanese men came out from the mansion and began to look around the garden’s grounds.
Keeping still, Rachael watched them as they searched.
“You think it’d be easy to find one Westerner.” One grumbled as he looked around with an annoyed expression. Before glancing at the garden. “You don’t think she’d get close to this garden, do you?”
The other man frowned. “No, there’s no reason she would. Why would you think that?”
“Because of the flowers.” Hearing that made Rachael stiffen. “Why else? Remember the journalist? It’s because of her that we had to be more careful when these people came.”
She took a step further back when the one who just spoke moved closer towards the Hydrangeas, stepping on something, snapping underneath her foot. Her whole body winced with dread when she had.
“What was that?” asked one of the men, only to see a cat suddenly jump out of another part of the hydrangea. “It’s just a cat,” he said as the cat yawned then ran off across the grounds to another part of one of the many gardens.
“Forget about it. We need to find that girl. Let’s look elsewhere.”
When the two men left, Rachael let out the breath that she was holding but remained where she was hidden just in case. She didn’t want them to spot her by chance.
Only a sudden feeling of realization dawned on her as she cast her eyes downwards and suppressed the urge to let out a gasp of shock. For what had snapped underneath, her weight was not a branch of a tree or root.
But the dark skeletal remains of a human arm.
People were buried here.
And judging from the amount of decay and lack of flesh, it had been there for a while.
Her breathing hitched in her throat as she tried to move back, afraid to hear more cracking and snapping of whatever bones might else be underneath her. But her feelings of remorse and regret of stepping on the dead came to a crashing halt when she felt her back press into something warm.
Hands that were not her own coming around to cover her mouth and nose with a cloth, she didn’t get the chance even to shout. As she looked up, what greeted her were those familiar jade green eyes and long dark hair.
No… was all that came to Rachael’s mind as she fell back into the arms of the man she wanted to desperately avoid before feeling herself being taken away from the broken shambles of a garden filled with the dead.