The Waking (26 page)
Cats hadn’t done this.
Ketsuki
, she thought.
The ketsuki killed him and left him to the cats
.
Breathing through her mouth to keep from throwing up, she started to scream but cut herself off. Turning away, she clutched the phone and spun around, searching for the demon that had nearly taken her from her own house the night before.
“Kara, what—”
“He’s dead,” she whispered.
“Who?” Miho asked.
But by then she could hear them coming and turned to see Miho and Hachiro running across the grass toward her, pale in the moonlight, almost two-dimensional themselves against the black silhouette of the dorm.
Hachiro carried an aluminum baseball bat.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” Miho said, running toward Mr.
Matsui.
Stupidly, both girls still had their phones against their ears.
“Don’t look,” Kara warned her.
Miho faltered, looked at her. They both closed their phones and stashed them in their pockets as they hurried toward each other.
“Are you okay?” Miho asked.
“Not even close.”
Hachiro stood by the corpse, staring down. Then he backed away as if afraid it would jump up and follow him. When he’d nearly bumped into them, he turned, and the three of them huddled together.
“Did you see anyone?” Hachiro asked.
Kara shook her head. “Just a bunch of cats.”
“Where’d they go, then?” he went on.
Miho and Kara exchanged a knowing glance.
“The shrine,” Miho said.
“Or what’s left of it,” Kara replied, nodding.
Hachiro slung his baseball bat over his shoulder as the three of them turned and started to run.
They followed a path that had become so familiar to them, diagonally across the field toward the east side of the school and the woods that bordered the grounds there. Over the years, generations of feet had worn a trail right down to bare earth, like the running path of a baseball diamond.
Instinctively, they kept off the dirt track, their footfalls quieter on the grass. Running felt good and right, and it allowed Kara to chalk her rapid-fire heartbeat up to exertion rather than the terror that had nestled inside her.
None of them spoke. Their chuffing intakes of breath sounded so loud in her ears—her own most of all. Far away, a car horn blared. Something rustled high in the trees off to the right and she glanced up, telling herself it had to be some silent night bird. Cats couldn’t climb that high. Still, she scanned the branches and the tree line for the slinking shapes.
Hachiro glanced at her and Kara picked up her pace. But when they came to the back corner of the school, Miho slowed down, and they quickly followed suit. The three of them stalked hurriedly alongside the building, wary of the woods.
Miho stopped, staring at the ancient prayer shrine that abutted the woods on the right, just ahead. Hachiro looked around, holding the bat with both hands, ready to swing.
At least a dozen white candles were burning on the altar of the ancient shrine, ringed in a carefully arranged circle and surrounded by freshly picked cherry blossoms. The smell of the flowers wafted to them on an errant breeze.
Kara peered past the old shrine into the woods, then looked ahead, toward the front lawn of the school and the bay beyond. Who had done this, and what did it have to do with the ketsuki? With Akane? With any of this?
In the darkness at the lee of the school, someone struck a match.
Kara turned to see Sakura’s face illuminated in the corona of light as she put fire to the tip of her cigarette and drew in a lungful. She shook out the match, but the cigarette glowed orange in the dark.
“Sakura—,” Miho started.
“What are you guys doing out here?”
Hachiro didn’t lower the bat. “We were worried about you,” he said.
Sakura had her fuku uniform on, the jacket inside out the way she’d worn it the first day Kara had met her. All of her patches and pins were showing. Her hair was feathered and jagged at odd angles, fresh from the pillow, and though she wore socks, she had no shoes on. She looked more than a bit crazy, like she’d been in a trance.
No
, Kara thought,
she looks like something out of one of my dreams. Or a nightmare
.
A terrible thought occurred to her.
“You know this isn’t a dream, right? You’re awake. This is real.”
Sakura stared at her, taking a long pull from her cigarette and then exhaling, letting it plume in twin streams from her nose.
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I know I’m not dreaming. I wouldn’t dream this.”
“Where’s Ume?” Hachiro asked.
“Having a chat with Akane,” Sakura replied, gesturing north toward the bay, down the slope to where they had ruined the shrine the students had built for the dead girl.
“That thing isn’t Akane,” Kara said.
“How can you be so sure?” Sakura asked.
“Because we knew her,” Miho said. “And she wouldn’t have done this. Not ever.”
“Maybe not before they killed her,” Sakura sneered. “I’m pretty sure being murdered might change your attitude.”
“Sakura, listen,” Kara said. “You can’t let this happen. It’s wrong.”
The girl curled her lips in disgust, about to argue.
“Yes, I know, she killed Akane,” Miho snapped, and Kara had never heard her speak to Sakura that way before. “Or you think she did. But if you don’t do something, you’re just as bad.”
“And when Ume’s dead,” Kara said, pleading with her to understand, “it’s going to come for us. You’re the one who brought this thing to life! Your grief, your rage. Just like in the story.”
Hachiro took a step away from them, headed down the slope for the ruined shrine to Akane.
Sakura blocked his way, flicked her lit cigarette at him.
“You’re wrong. I know you’re afraid, but you don’t need to be. She won’t hurt you, or me.” Emotion contorted her face and Sakura shook her head, looking at each of them. “Don’t you get it? What’s going to happen
has
to happen so Akane can finally rest.”
Miho hesitated. Kara saw in her face how difficult this was for her. They were roommates, and Miho struggled with her love for Sakura. But Kara hadn’t known them as long. She couldn’t just stand there.
“Get out of the way, Sakura,” Kara said, starting forward.
Sakura shook her head, her mouth a tight, expressionless line.
“You can’t stop us,” Hachiro warned.
Sakura swore and spit at him. Then her calm broke and she began to cry, balled her fists up and shook them like a toddler having a tantrum.
“Please,” she said, looking from Miho to Kara, ignoring Hachiro now. “Don’t interfere. This has nothing to do with you.”
Miho hesitated. Kara looked at Hachiro. She didn’t want to hurt Sakura, but she was ready to force her way past the girl.
A cry of terror rose into the night, startling all four of them and rousing an owl, which took flight from a tree and vanished over the roof of the school.
The cry became a scream.
Ume had woken from her sleepwalking dream into a nightmare.
A
s they started to run toward the sound of that scream, Sakura grabbed Miho’s arm.
“Leave her alone, please!” Sakura said. “This has to happen!”
Miho struggled, and Kara and Hachiro both faltered, starting to go back for her.
“You’re hurting me!” Miho snapped.
Sakura must have seen something in her eyes then that jolted her out of her grief and obsession, must have remembered this was Miho, her roommate and best friend, who’d always stood by her. She let go, pulling her hands back as though burned.
“I’m sorry,” Sakura said. “But—”
“No,” Miho said. “Wake up! It’s not Akane!”
Then she ran to catch up to Kara and Hachiro and they raced down the slope toward the bay and the ruin they’d made of Akane’s memorial.
More screams tore at the darkness, cries for help and for forgiveness. Kara’s thoughts grew darker. For Sakura’s sake, they’d been fighting the idea that the bloodthirsty thing killing their classmates could be Akane.
But maybe it is
, she thought now.
In a way
.
Maybe part of what Kyuketsuki used to create the ketsuki was the murdered spirit of the dead girl, weaving Akane’s anguished ghost into the fabric of a nightmare, right along with her sister’s grief. The story from the Noh play was just a version of the tale, like all legends. The reality might be more complex. Kara knew it was only a theory, but if it held any truth, that meant Akane might be part of the ketsuki, but a tainted, awful version of herself that the dead girl never would have wanted.
But Sakura had tortured herself enough over her sister’s death. Kara wouldn’t make it worse by suggesting such a thing.
Sakura hesitated only a second before sprinting after them.
“Kara, stop,” she begged, in English.
“You helped create this thing, Sakura. You have to let go of your hate and grief or more people are going to die.” She stopped and spun to face Sakura, who nearly collided with her. “And I’m going to be one of them.”
Sakura only gaped at her, shaking her head in denial.
Kara swore in frustration and turned to run. The screaming had stopped and that frightened her. Hachiro and Miho had gotten ahead of her, and as she looked past her friends, down the slope toward the bay, she saw two moonlit figures at the water’s edge.
The ketsuki stood like a tiger on two legs, seven feet tall at least, even with its back arched. Its tail rose up from the bay, casting off diamond droplets of water as it dragged Ume along beside it, one clawed hand hooked through her clothes. It had the face of the Noh mask Miss Aritomo had shown them, but terrifyingly real.
The grief-forged thing threw back its head and cried out, and its voice reminded Kara of the terrible sounds she’d heard sometimes at night, when animals had fought in the woods behind her house. It was a scream, but nothing like Ume’s.
The air was thick with the scent of cherry blossoms.
“Do you smell it?” Kara called to Miho.
Wide-eyed, staring at the demon, the other girl only nodded.
“Be careful. Don’t all approach at once,” Hachiro said, waving her and Miho back with one hand as he raised the bat.
“We destroyed the shrine and that did nothing,” Miho said. “How do we fight it?”
As she spoke, Kara glanced over at the memorial the students had built for Akane. Her eyes widened. “Look.”
The shrine had been restored, but only partially. Bits of letters and photos had been carefully arranged. A single red candle burned in the center. Rain-soaked stuffed animals and moldy beanies sat together the way they might on a little girl’s pillow.
Kara shook her head. Had the ketsuki done that?
“Akane, it’s all right,” Sakura called, walking past them, headed for the revenant, the monster. “You can rest now.”
It yowled that terrible, spine-raking noise again and tossed Ume onto the shore. The girl lay there, unmoving, and Kara hated herself in that moment. They were too late. Sakura had slowed them just enough that it had cost Ume her life. The ketsuki had drowned her. Kara wondered if Ume had done the same to Akane.
And then it hit her.
The rebuilt shrine. The candles at the ancient prayer site.
“Jesus, Sakura, you did this!” Kara said. “We took its power away, and you gave it back, on purpose!”
Sakura ignored her, not even turning now. She kept walking toward the ketsuki, hands out as though the thing might embrace her. But Kara didn’t need a reply; she knew it was true.
You can rest now
, Sakura had said. She thought she was doing this for her sister.
“No more,” Miho said, running for the rearranged shrine. “It has to stop now.”
Kara bolted after her, knowing what she meant to do.
The ketsuki cocked its head, long ears perked up, and it hissed at them. In that moment, jaws wide, lips curled back from its gleaming red teeth, Kara thought it looked nothing like a cat, except for the green, feline eyes.
“It’s okay, sister,” Sakura said softly, in a small, little-girl voice. “She was the worst one, and she’s gone now.”
Kara and Miho tore into the shrine, first with their hands and then kicking and shouting and dragging their shoes through the wreckage of it. Miho cried out prayers to God and her ancestors and Kara could hear in her voice that she was weeping with fear and panic.
The ketsuki lunged across the ground, dropping onto all fours and springing toward them. Sakura shouted at it, tried to grab for its tail, but missed and was left staring at her empty hand.
“No, Akane, stop!” Sakura shouted. But she didn’t move, only stood there, such a strange figure in the moonlight, almost like a ghost herself.
It would have barreled into Kara, ripped her open like it had Mr. Matsui, but Hachiro took three sure, firm steps to intercept it, cocked his arms, and swung the bat with such force that he let out a yell. Kara could hear the aluminum whistling through the humid air.
The ketsuki tried to dodge, but not quickly enough. Hachiro struck it in the side of the head with a terrible crack and the dream-walker, the vampire, lost its footing. Its momentum drove it forward, tumbling into a mass of limbs and flashing claws.