The Patients of Darkness
It was an exceptionally hot summer’s night. A lone candle’s flame flickered atop a dining table in a dark apartment, its weak orange light casting eerie shadows on the walls.
A mixed group of four—three girls and one boy—sat around the table. Their expressions were uniformly serious, and sweat beaded on their foreheads. The air around them was thick and heavy. Only the voice of a girl, who was reciting a story, broke the silence.
A scary story...
“And then,” Chidori Kaname hissed out, “disbelieving, she opened the box of shumai dumplings again and again. Each time she did, one more of the dumplings had vanished. In the end, all twelve of them were gone...” The candle flickered, making her otherwise beautiful face appear strange and distorted.
The scent of creeping tension and fear permeated the room as one member of the group, Inaba Mizuki, swallowed hard. “What happened then?” she asked.
Kaname allowed for a long pause, her face pale. “Yes... In the end, she realized—the vanished dumplings... were all stuck to the underside of the lid!”
The cra-pash of the old Mito Komon eyecatch echoed through the room (or at least, it would have been appropriate if it had).
“No!”
“No... no, no!” Mizuki and the other girl, Tokiwa Kyoko, let out a collective shriek of despair, clinging to each other in fear.
“Shh! It’s not over yet! For you see, there’s more to this story...” Kaname said, pressing a finger to her lips.
Mizuki and Kyoko quickly stifled their screams. “More? How can there be more?!” Kyoko asked.
Kaname spoke again, with all the gravity she could muster. “Let us have a change of scene. Once, there was an old man who loved shumai dumplings. He ate them almost every day. One day, he choked on one... and died.”
“Oh...”
“They held a grand funeral service for him, and all the offerings were shumai dumplings...”
The girls listened in horrified silence.
“Before they were to bury the coffin, the attendants came to the front of the funeral parlor to pay their respects one last time... their final goodbye. And there, they opened the coffin’s lid. Slowly... ever so slowly, it creaked. And when at last it was open...”
“When at last it was open...?”
As the rest of the group held their breath, Kaname reached the conclusion of her tale. “The old man’s body was gone.”
Mizuki and Kyoko both turned pale.
“Oh no,” said Mizuki. “Don’t tell me... don’t tell me...”
“He was stuck to the lid?!” Kyoko gasped.
Cra-pash! That same strange sound seemed to echo out of nowhere once again (or at least, it would have been appropriate if it had).
“Oh, God!”
“No! Nooooo!!!”
Mizuki and Kyoko became half-crazed in their fear, weeping and screaming.
Kaname, Kyoko, and Mizuki... The three of them had decided to have a slumber party here on this midsummer night. Since Kaname lived alone, her apartment tended to be the stage for such things. Incidentally, Mizuki and Kyoko never used to hang out before but had been doing so lately thanks to their mutual association with Kaname.
In contrast, the lone boy who was with them—Sagara Sousuke—merely sat there in silence, invisible question marks hovering over his head. His presence in Kaname’s apartment was easily explained: he lived just a minute’s walk away, so they had invited him in the spirit of mischief.
“What do you think of the story, Sousuke?” The three girls looked at him, brimming with curiosity, waiting to see what he made of it.
He merely looked at them, his gaze impassive, his mouth still downturned. “I don’t really understand...” he said in confusion.
The three girls released out a mutual sigh and slumped over in disappointment.
“Ugh... That story won’t do it either, huh?”
“Does he have the sensitivity of a reptile or something?”
“Well, the story about shumai dumplings might be a little too surreal to qualify as a scary story...”
All three had tried to tell Sousuke scary stories about different things, but none of them had invoked the desired reaction.
This was entirely understandable. He’d been raised in war-torn regions overseas, after all, and had probably lived his life in closer proximity to death than most people ever did. It was natural that creaky old ideas about paranormal phenomena simply wouldn’t register with him.
“Sagara-kun, you really aren’t scared?”
“I don’t think I understand these ‘scary stories.’ The stories you told about the slit-mouthed woman playing the harmonica, or the fast-moving Giant Baba, all seemed like nonsense to me. If you want to hear a more dangerous and mysterious story, I know several myself.”
“Oh? Tell us, then. Go on,” Kaname said with a challenging air.
Sousuke let out a confident snort. “Very well,” he replied. “Prepare yourselves.”
“Gulp...” The three girls let out a nervous noise.
“Yes... it all started when I was on a scouting mission in Cambodia,” he began. “I had been separated from my comrades, left to wander the jungle alone. There, I happened to encounter a passing platoon of a hundred guerrillas. I was almost out of ammunition, and my transceiver was broken. If they caught me, I was dead. That’s when I—”
“Arrrgh!” Kaname and Mizuki shouted angrily.
“Nobody asked for your old war stories!”
“What is the matter with you?!”
The criticism caused Sousuke’s shoulders to slump. “But it was dangerous...”
“There’s definitely something dangerous here...”
“And it was mysterious as well,” he argued defensively. “Why was a gang supposedly being armed by Eastern powers in possession of American-made Stinger missiles, as well as the latest anti-AS mines—”
“Nobody cares!” Kaname interrupted. “That’s not the kind of scary story we’re talking about, okay? It’s more like... Oh, damn it. Fine, I’ll bring out the one I’ve been saving. It’s gonna scare the pants off of you. I call it, ‘French kiss between the faceless man and the slit-mouthed woman’...”
“That seems physically impossible,” Kyoko whispered.
Meanwhile, Mizuki waved her hand in annoyance. “Forget it, Kaname. It’s totally pointless. The guy’s just got no imagination. I’ll bet he doesn’t understand fiction at all.”
“Ugh...”
“I agree,” said Kyoko. “Maybe he’d be scared if we could show him a more concrete ghost.”
“Now... there’s an idea,” Kaname said thoughtfully, folding her arms. She really wanted to see the stone-faced man actually express fear of something, for once. Was there anything at hand she could use? The thought brought a faint memory back to her. “Now that you mention it...”
“What?”
“There’s an old abandoned hospital the next town over,” she suggested. “It’s all rundown and desolate...”
The building in question was a roughly fifteen-minute bike ride from Kaname’s apartment. It had once been a perfectly functional hospital, but there’d been a deadly fire there about ten years prior, apparently due to the hospital director’s decision to skimp on preventative measures for tax purposes. The resulting lawsuits, when combined with the economic downturn caused by the bubble’s collapse, meant they hadn’t bothered to rebuild. The hospital had lain abandoned ever since.
“Hmm... Sounds fun,” Mizuki whispered.
But Kyoko looked a little bit nervous. “Don’t tell me, Kana-chan...”
“Yeah. How about we take Sousuke to that hospital? Give him a taste of a real ghost story.” Kaname grinned, and cast a glance at Sousuke.
He, in turn, looked skeptical. “An abandoned hospital?”
“Wanna go see?” she proposed.
“I don’t object. But what do you expect to find there?”
“Heh heh heh... Terror, of course!” Kaname grinned wickedly.
But Kyoko began tugging on her sleeve. “Hey, Kana-chan... could we not? I’ve heard scary things about that hospital.” She sounded completely serious, with none of her usual laid-back manner. “They say the hospital director committed suicide and people have seen him standing in front of the hospital... Middle school students who have gone in to mess around were never seen again...”
“People always say that stuff about spooky abandoned buildings,” Kaname told her scornfully. “We’ll be fine!”
“But what if there really is a ghost?!”
“Then that’s what we want, isn’t it? We’ll finally scare Sousuke.” With that, Kaname stood up with a smile and prepared to set out.
Kyoko, though, remained seated. “I don’t want to go,” she said.
“What, seriously?” Kaname and Mizuki were both shocked by this.
“Yeah. I’ll hold down the fort, so you guys go on without me.” It was rare to see Kyoko so steadfast about anything.
“Oh... okay, then,” Kaname said uncertainly. “How about you, Mizuki? Sounds fun, right?”
“Sure thing. I’m in.” While Mizuki was putting on her cardigan, Sousuke checked the bullets in his handgun.
Taking two bicycles, the trio soon ended up in front of the hospital in question. There was an old, broken-down fence and a ‘Do Not Enter’ sign, beyond which a rundown hospital building made of reinforced concrete towered, still covered in soot from the fire.
A humid wind blew past, feeling like a sudden chill in the otherwise sweltering air.
“It looks like the site of a bombing,” Sousuke observed, looking up at the four-story building.
All of the windows were broken, and the walls closest to the ground were covered in graffiti. They read things like ‘Ready to Rumble!’ and ‘Musha Gundam Suicide Squad’ and ‘Bonta-kun Was Here,’ all spelled out in unnecessarily intricate kanji characters. The work of some delinquents, most likely.
“I always wondered... how do your stereotypical uneducated punks know how to write such complicated phrases?” Kaname mused.
“Maybe they always have a kanji dictionary on hand,” said Mizuki.
The graffiti also included a traditional Buddhist temple manji mark, the symbol egregiously misappropriated by Nazi Germany for their iron cross. Yet there was no sign of life around the hospital, outside or in. Although it wouldn’t have been unusual for other young people to be doing the same thing right now, given the season and time of day...
“Anyway, let’s go in,” Kaname said excitedly, slipping through a hole in the fence. Sousuke followed after her with a hand on the holster on his back.
Mizuki, though, remained outside, a nervous sweat forming on her brow.
“What’s wrong, Mizuki?” Kaname asked.
“O-Over there...” Mizuki pointed to the fourth floor of the hospital, the second room from the right. “I thought I just saw... a strange old woman, in that window... looking down at us...”
“Huh?” Kaname followed her gaze to the window in question, but didn’t see any trace of an old woman. “You’re pulling my leg.”
“I saw her! I just saw her! She was looking at us and smiling!” Mizuki shouted, sounding utterly crazed.
“You know what? Nice job,” said Kaname. “You’re setting the mood perfectly. This is gonna be great!”
“Wh-What? What are you talking about?! This place is really dangerous. I mean it. There’s someone there... I s-saw them!” said Mizuki, stammering in fear.
“Huh? Hey, come on, it’s fine. It was just your imagination,” said Kaname, laughing with a dismissive wave.
But Mizuki spun on her heel. “I’m leaving!”
“Huh?”
“You’d have to be crazy to go in there!” she shrilled. “I won’t do it!”
“Wait—” Kaname tried to say, but there was no time to stop her before Mizuki got on her bike and swiftly rode back in the direction she’d come from.
“Sheesh, what a bunch of weenies...” Kaname muttered as she began walking through the narrow yard, which had long since gone to seed. “Are they cowards, or just that superstitious? You’re supposed to at least go inside before you start acting like that. Bunch of wet blankets...”
“I don’t understand, though.” Sousuke said from behind her. “Why was Inaba so afraid?”
“You got me there,” Kaname told him.
“All the old woman was doing was standing there,” he pointed out. “It would be another matter if she’d been holding a sniper rifle or a rocket launcher.”
There was a brief moment of silence—a necessary one, for Kaname to process Sousuke’s words. “What did you say?” she asked at last.
“I said that the old woman in the window was unarmed.”
Kaname gulped. “You... You saw her too?”
“Yes,” he replied. “It would have been impossible for Inaba to see her if I couldn’t have done so as well.”
He seemed completely unfazed. If he’d been anyone else, she’d have assumed he was joking. But Sousuke definitely wasn’t the joking type. Which meant... there really had been an old woman in the window. Not even Kaname could keep the chill from running up her spine.
“What’s the matter, Chidori? You’re looking ill,” Sousuke said in surprise.
“A-Aren’t you scared?”
“Scared of what?”
“You know! A place like this, at a time like this?” she hissed back. “Don’t you think it’s weird there’d be an old person there?!”
“Perhaps a local senior with dementia went for a walk and got lost,” Sousuke suggested. “We should find her and take her to the local police.”
“I... I guess that’d be the most reasonable explanation...”
There was no sign of fear in Sousuke’s face at all. His sheer level of calm was utterly infuriating. “You don’t want to go in, then?”
“What?”
As Kaname hesitated on the hospital threshold, Sousuke said, “I don’t understand why you’d be afraid, but if you are, you can go. You shouldn’t subject yourself to unnecessary mental stress.”
“Geh... ugh...”
“You look extremely frightened to me,” he continued. “You’re lacking in your usual energy.”
“Mmgh...” Kaname knew he didn’t mean any harm by it, but his choice of words still pissed her off. It was things like this that really got her stubbornness going. After all, she’d brought Sousuke to this hospital to scare him. If she got scared and asked to turn back now, she’d never live it down... Which meant they’d have to wander all around the hospital until Sousuke was too scared to remain. Or if not scared, exactly, she at least wanted to get him looking nervous...
So in the end, Kaname steeled her nerve and said, “I-I’m totally fine! Let’s go on in!”
“What are you so angry about?” Sousuke asked in confusion.
“I’m not angry... Now, come on!” said Kaname, stepping onto the rubble around the entrance and going into the empty lobby. The light from the street lamps outside was able to permeate nearer to the entrance, but deeper inside it was pitch black.
Kaname stopped in her tracks. “Hang on,” she said.
“What is it?”
“M-Maybe you should go first,” she said, and quickly got behind him.
They’d decided to head for the patient’s room on the fourth floor, the room where he’d seen the mysterious old woman. But since the front stairway was in disrepair, they aimed for one further down a long hall, lined with dark portals, its depths completely draped in black. They couldn’t see anything... And yet, something was present.
A faint breeze brushed across Kaname’s cheek, then traveled down her hair and the back of her neck.
Meanwhile Sousuke, holding his Maglite in a reverse grip, continued down the hall. In his right hand, he held his black pistol. His posture was extremely guarded.
“Why’d you draw your gun?” she asked.
“Safety purposes,” said Sousuke, his voice calm.
A foul smell permeated the first-floor hallway, and the light of the Maglite flickered in the darkness. A broken wheelchair lay on the floor, close to a scattering of abandoned syringes and a porcelain doll with no legs. It was a truly desolate atmosphere, and pretty damned...
“S-Scary, right?” Kaname asked.
“What is?” Sousuke responded, more confused than anything. He seemed to be completely unaffected by the eerie atmosphere.
“Ugh. Guess he’ll need more than entry-level spookiness,” Kaname fretted to herself.
Just then, Sousuke turned his light to a bend in the hallway about ten meters ahead and let out a questioning noise.
A boy wrapped in bandages had poked his head out from around the corner. His head hovered there, close to the ceiling. His eyes didn’t narrow in response to the light, but simply looked down at them impassively. One side of his face was swollen with what looked like a concussive wound.
Kaname stood there in silence, staring.
Then suddenly, there was a crash behind them. They turned and saw fragments of a glass bottle littering the middle of the corridor. Had it fallen through a hole in the ceiling? Or had it been thrown in through the window? There was no sign of anyone nearby, and when they looked back at the bend, the child’s head was... gone. Simply gone. Neither hide nor hair of him was visible.
The ruins were now back to their previous silence.
Sousuke drew Kaname closer to him, and spoke first. “Strange,” he said, in a casual tone that suggested he might have just as easily been talking about a news story about bonsai trees becoming trendy with female high school students.
“‘Strange’? Did you just say ‘strange’?!” By contrast, Kaname’s voice was hysterical. Honestly, the fact that she hadn’t immediately run off screaming was laudable in itself. “Is that it?” she continued. “You don’t think anything other than that? There was just... a child! And then the glass!”
“As I said, strange.”
“It’s terrifying, isn’t it? It’s super weird! Aren’t you scared?!” Kaname insisted, forcing back the urge to beg him to take her home.
But Sousuke merely tilted his head in confusion. “I’m afraid not,” he told her. “It’s just a child, while I’m a fully armed man. I don’t see how he’s a threat to me.”
“Argh!” Kaname kicked the nearby wall. “There is... something wrong with you! After seeing something like that... how can you... how can you... How can you be the usual idiot you always are?!”
This gave Sousuke pause. “I don’t entirely understand, but that manner of speaking was very offensive...” Greasy sweat rose on his temples, and he waited for Kaname to calm herself down through sheer force of will. “So, what now?” he asked then.
“Huh?”
“I’m still concerned about the old woman on the fourth floor,” he reminded her. “If you’ve lost your nerve and can’t move on, you’re free to leave without me.”
His choice of words irritated her deeply. “Grr...” Kaname glared at Sousuke, and after mussing up her hair, she said—partly to give herself courage—“D-Don’t be silly! I’m totally not afraid! I was just a little startled!”
“I see. Let’s proceed, then.” And with that, Sousuke continued walking unconcernedly.
They peered around the corner, but found just an empty hallway. There was no sign of anything the child could have been standing on, either.
For some reason, the stairway to the second floor was littered with mannequins. They all had the word “grudge” written on their chests in red paint, which really added to the creepiness. As Kaname and Sousuke tried advancing further to the third floor, they found it blocked by piles of old beds and lockers.
“The way is blocked,” Kaname observed.
“We’ll have to find another,” said Sousuke.
They turned back and came out into the second floor hallway. Having to take the long way to the fourth floor meant it would take even longer to get back in the end; they wouldn’t be able to simply run back outside if something bad went down. She felt like they were being drawn further and further into a dungeon.
After a bit of walking, they found the hallway blocked by beds, desks, and medicine cabinets, just like the stairs had been.
“L-Looks like a dead end,” Kaname said nervously. “Maybe we really should—”
Sousuke tried pushing in a nearby door, which creaked open in response. “We can get around through this room. There’s a door on the other side,” he said, peeking into the room. “Let’s go.”
Kaname said nothing.
The room within must have originally been some kind of an office. There were soot-covered desks and chairs scattered all around, mountains of smelly old papers, a beat-up sofa... A fluorescent light swayed back and forth, dangling from the ceiling.
“S-Seeing something like this still doesn’t scare you?” she asked incredulously.
“As long as I’m careful, I’ll be able to notice the presence of any land mines or explosive tripwires,” he responded.
“Seriously, that’s not what I—” Just then, a tremendous sound shook the room. There was an old phone lying on top of the nearby desk... which had suddenly begun to ring.
“Wah...”
“Stand back,” Sousuke ordered. Kaname was bolted to the spot, but he pushed past her to approach the phone. He carefully inspected it as it continued to ring. Then he took a few steps back and threw a nearby coffee cup at it. The cup hit it, knocking the receiver out of its cradle. Then... silence.
“Wh-What are you doing?” Kaname asked.
“For caution’s sake. One might pick up the phone out of curiosity and set off a bomb rigged beneath it,” he told her. “I’ve seen traps like this before. One took out a comrade of mine in a similar abandoned building in Lebanon.”
Kaname fell silent.
“But this one doesn’t seem to be trapped,” Sousuke continued.
“Of course it’s not...” she grumbled.
Ignoring Kaname’s words, Sousuke picked up the receiver and put it to his ear. He listened, silently. His reaction was as impassive, as if he were calling in for the time or the weather report. Then he said, slowly, “I’m sorry, but this hospital has been closed for several years. If you need emergency care, you should dial 119. An ambulance will come and assist you... Hello?” he tilted his head. “I don’t think they’re listening.”
“I-Is there someone on the line?” she asked.
“Yes. Do you want to talk to them?” He held out the telephone receiver, which Kaname trepidatiously put to her ear. Masked by a sound like radio static, she heard a person’s voice.
“Can’t breathe... so hot... help me... hurts... hurts... hurts...” it was a child’s voice, agonized. Behind it, distant screams rang out.
“Eek!” Kaname turned pale and threw the receiver away. “Wh-What the hell was that?!”
“An emergency patient, I expect,” said Sousuke. “They were calling a hospital about their breathing difficulties, after all. I suppose they didn’t realize it had closed down—”
“That is not what’s going on!” Kaname exploded. “Don’t... Don’t you think it’s weird?!” The old person in the window, the child in the hallway, and now, the phone call... It was all obvious paranormal phenomena. They’d experienced a lifetime’s worth of ghostly happenings in one night. And yet...
“It is quite strange, yes,” Sousuke agreed neutrally.
“Then why don’t you look scared?! These are ghosts! We’re meeting ghosts in this hospital!” Kaname screeched, flexing her hands for emphasis.
“Really?”
“Yes, really! It’s a damned ghost parade!” she declared, her shoulders heaving.
Sousuke just peered at her calmly. “Are you sure you don’t want to leave? I think you may be tired,” he said softly. His gaze seemed concerned, almost pitying.
“Oh, dammit,” she snarled. “That look in your eyes makes me so pissed off!”
He tilted his head in confusion. “I’m just worried about—”
“Shut up! And spare me your concern!” Kaname yelled. “Fine, let’s keep going! And no more talk about leaving! Dammit...” She was starting to feel unreasonably angry about the paranormal phenomena they were encountering. Why do I have to be the only one getting scared?! she was thinking. These little parlor ghosts aren’t going to scare Sousuke! Why can’t you take a different tactic, a more powerful one, and really scare the pants off of him?! He’s not going to understand any of this! Just think about it a little more! she wanted to shout.
“It just isn’t fair!” Kaname muttered as she strode along, while Sousuke kept looking at her in confusion.
They proceeded from the second floor to the third. The stairway to the fourth floor was once again blocked, so they walked down the third-floor hallway instead.
Suddenly, Kaname saw something pass outside the window. She’d only seen it in her peripheral vision, so all she perceived was some kind of white ball. “Did you see that?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Sousuke. “It appeared to be a human head. A flying one, at that.”
“A head?” she asked incredulously. A flying head... But instead of feeling scared, Kaname just felt annoyed. Talk about cheap! she thought to herself. Do they really think a stupid flying head will be enough to scare Sousuke?! She glared out the now-empty window and said aloud, “Well, how do you feel? Were you scared?”
“No,” Sousuke responded. “I’m just relieved it wasn’t a grenade.”
Kaname glared up at the ceiling and shouted, “See? This crap’s not working on him?! Go on, try again!”
“Who are you talking to?” he asked curiously.
“Shut up! Let’s keep going!” Kaname clenched her fists and took the lead down the hall once more.
They found the stairway to the fourth floor and had just started to climb it when mysterious laughter rang out. Heh heh... heh heh heh heh... The voice echoed around them, its origin impossible to pinpoint. Heh heh... ha ha ha... he he... It seemed strangely mixed with static, but it was certainly a creepy laughing voice.
At the same time, though, a new idea entered her mind: Is this really paranormal phenomena? Aloud she asked, “What about now? Scared yet?”
“I can’t understand why I would be. It’s just laughter,” Sousuke said apologetically.
Kaname clicked her tongue, let out a sigh, then cried out again, “Another miss, guys! C’mon, get it together! Are you even trying?!” At this, inexplicably, the laughter disappeared. “Hmph,” she grumbled. “Cowards!”
“Really,” said Sousuke, “who are you talking to?”
“Oh, shut up! Next!” Ghost, specter, whatever you are! Would one of you please just scare this guy?! Kaname thought, even as she strode forward.
The fourth floor was in bad shape when they reached it. The concrete in the wall had crumbled, creating holes. The floor was in tatters, with scrap boards laid down here and there in a pathetic attempt at reinforcement.
They proceeded forward until they came to a large hospital room, where a girl about ten years old stood in the doorway across from them. She was dressed in pajamas and her face was pale. Her arms hung limply at her sides, and she held a bloodstained hammer in one hand. Her sunken, empty eyes stared at Kaname as she stood there, silent and gruesome.
Then, her small mouth moved. Get out... die... get out... die... The whispering voice echoed through the room.
Neither of them moved.
“W-Well? What about now?!” Kaname asked, sounding extremely annoyed.
Sousuke put his hand to his chin and thought for a moment. “It’s more difficult... But a hammer still isn’t much of a threat,” he decided. “If she had some incendiary grenades, perhaps...”
“Oh, come on!” Ignoring the ghost girl, Kaname began stamping on the floorboards. “It’s not about the weapons! There is a little girl covered in blood, right there! It’s freaky! Most people would be creeped out by it!”
“Hmm.” Sousuke frowned.
Kaname groaned, and pointed at the girl who was standing in their way. “And you! Quit grumbling and figure out a new trick! Blow out some poison gas, or do a weird dance! You’ve got options, remember?!” she shouted.
The girl’s mouth curled upwards at this. It definitely was a bone-chilling smile, but...
“Ugh... Come on, that’s just stupid!” It just made Kaname angrier. She strode up to the girl, cracking her knuckles.
“What are you doing?” Sousuke asked as he watched her go.
“I’m gonna grab her by the scruff of the neck and give her a talking to! I’m sick of being the only one scared!” Kaname didn’t even think about whether it was actually possible to grab a spirit by the scruff of the neck; she was acting purely on momentum. When a person reached the point of no return with their fear, there were generally two emotions they could reach: resignation or anger. Kaname was currently experiencing the latter.
“It’s not safe, Chidori. You shouldn’t—”
“Shut up!” As Kaname advanced, the girl whipped around and disappeared through the door. “Wait up, you!” she shouted and started to run. Then...
Suddenly, her body sank.
“Huh...?”
The ground below her feet—weak flooring not even covered by tile or linoleum—gave way. She was sent falling to the floor below, accompanied by broken boards and building material.
“Ah—”
Slam! Suddenly, Kaname hit the ground, knocking the air out of her lungs. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. She knew she was back on the third floor, but her consciousness was hazy. “H-Huh?” Her fingertips were numb, and she was coughing. She felt something wet spreading from the back of her head to her neck. It was red. Probably blood. And it was spreading.
There’s so much blood, it could be a horror movie. And it’s flowing from my head. It must’ve been a bad fall...
“A-Am I going to die?” she wondered hazily.
“Ch-Chidori?!” someone was shouting. “Chidori! Wake up! Say something... No, don’t talk! Don’t move! I’m coming!” The voice was obviously gripped by fear.
Who’s that? she wondered as she looked around, and saw a pale face coming towards her in the dark.
“Chidori!” Someone lifted her up. His eyes were wide open, sweat pouring from his brow, his lip trembling slightly.
Why’s he so scared? After all those ghosts... didn’t even faze him... she wondered idly as she said the man’s name aloud. “Sousuke? What happened?” This time, her voice came out properly.
Then the man—Sousuke—spoke up, relieved, “Chidori. Were you injured? Are you all right?”
“Oh? Think I’m fine... just hit my back... ow, ow...” she responded, then looked around. She was lying in a hospital room on the lower floor, surrounded by a mess of painting supplies, cardboard, tools, timber, and extension cords. A prop head on the end of a fishing pole—the same child’s head model they had seen on the first floor—also lay nearby, accompanied by an old telephone, a CD player, an amp, a car battery, and more. The clutter must have acted to cushion her fall. She had a few cuts and bruises, but was otherwise uninjured.
“And what’s... this?” Kaname pawed at the liquid on her neck. It was indeed red, but it wasn’t blood. It was fake blood, the kind used in special effects makeup.
“Hey... are you okay?” came a voice from the hole in the ceiling. It was the ghost girl from before, but her expression was no longer hauntingly creepy. She just looked worried.
Then another boy, elementary school aged, stuck his head out too. “Aw, the green room is ruined!” he lamented. “C’mon— Wait. That you, Sagara-san?” With intelligent eyes and a checkered bandanna, this was a face which Kaname and Sousuke recognized.
“Yoshiki?”
“Yeah, it’s me,” the boy admitted quickly.
And from next to him came a seedy-looking middle-aged man. “Hello? Are you all right?” he asked.
The man wore black-rimmed glasses, had shaggy hair and a beard, and was dressed in ragged clothing. He gestured at some nearby chairs. “Go on, sit down,” he urged.
Sousuke and Kaname dusted off the seats, then hesitantly did as they were told. A small group of elementary school students all sat down behind them.
They were next to the fourth-floor hospital room from before. This was another room with more stable flooring, the home of the homeless man who had made a dwelling for himself in the old hospital. He had a collection of cooking utensils and instant food, as well as piles of books, a bed, and a table. It was a pretty comfortable space, really.
“I’ve got plum wine. Want some?” he offered. “It’s clean.”
“No, thank you...” Kaname and Sousuke said together, politely turning him down.
“So you’re saying, Yoshiki... You and your friends put on this act to help this old man?” Kaname asked, and the boy—who seemed to be their leader—nodded.
The boy’s name was Akutsu Yoshiki, and he’d ended up meeting Kaname and Sousuke completely by chance during a separate incident. “That’s right,” he said. “Neighborhood couples and delinquents come by here all the time. They bully Gen-san and mess up his room.” Gen-san must have been the name of the bespectacled homeless man with the reggae style. “We thought if we spread a rumor that there really were ghosts here, they’d stop coming, so we rigged some stuff up.”
“Aha,” said Kaname.
“I was against it, but the kids were really into the idea, so I ended up helping. And I guess it must’ve worked, because people don’t come here so much anymore. I really appreciate it.” The homeless man had a curiously intellectual air about him.
“Most people run away by the time they get to the phone call on the second floor. But you broke through everything we threw at you. We didn’t know what to do. But now that I know it’s you two, I guess it makes sense,” Yoshiki said with a laugh.
“Hmm... psychological warfare, then?” said Sousuke. “Like Hanoi Hannah and Baghdad Betty. I think I finally understand.”
“What are those?”
“A kind of psychological warfare; broadcasts designed to degrade enemy morale. A woman’s voice whispers, ‘you’re all going to die’ or ‘the squad next to yours has been wiped out.’ Every military does something similar. It’s a true battlefield tradition...” Sousuke said, his gaze distant.
“Sounds like a pretty creepy tradition... But Yoshiki-kun, what are you kids doing out here so late? What does your family have to say about this?” Kaname asked.
Akutsu Yoshiki puffed out his chest. “Well, I just don’t tell them! I go to bed and then slip out the window. It’s pretty easy! This place is like our secret fort with Gen-san. Pretty cool, huh?”
“I see,” she replied. “I guess you’re right... that stuff really did freak me out at first. The old woman in the window was enough to scare Mizuki off!”
“Huh?”
“Well, you know,” Kaname continued. “You put that old woman up in the window, right? What’d you use, a mannequin?”
Yoshiki and the other kids shared a glance. “We didn’t do anything with an old woman...”
“But you saw it, right, Sousuke?”
“Yes,” he affirmed, “I was certain of it.”
A sudden quiet tension appeared among the children now.
“Oh, that,” Gen-san said languidly. “Probably the woman who died in the fire ten years ago. She comes out from time to time.”
Now it was the kids’ turn to go pale.
Gen-san looked out the window to watch the children scramble away from the hospital at top speed. He could also see Sousuke, with the passed-out Kaname on his shoulder, briskly exiting the hospital grounds.
Some time later, a door in the back of the room opened and an old woman appeared. “The children are gone now?”
“Yes, Mother. They’re gone,” Gen-san responded. He hadn’t told the children that his mother—the wife of the hospital director who’d killed himself—lived there with him. They’d never come this far into the hospital, either. “That should stop the children from coming around here as well.”
“That would be nice,” she said agreeably.
“Indeed.” The man nodded and poured some plum wine into a cracked teacup. “At last, we’ll have a little peace and quiet...”
●
When Kaname woke up, she realized she was riding on someone’s shoulder. It was Sousuke, carrying her over his left shoulder while his right hand pushed the bicycle. They were already several blocks from the abandoned hospital, seemingly on the way back to her apartment.
“Geh...”
“You’re awake?” Sousuke asked, his voice not terribly concerned.
“Yeah... I can walk now,” she said groggily. “Let me down.”
“I would advise against walking so soon,” he argued. “The fact that you passed out from that old drifter’s words is a sign that you haven’t yet recovered from the shock of the fall.”
“Seriously, set me down,” insisted Kaname. Being carried around like a sack of potatoes just felt pathetic, yet she still felt a little unsteady as her feet touched the ground. Sousuke helped her sit down on the back seat of the bicycle.
“Hold on,” he said, then mounted the bicycle and started pedaling with her riding pillion behind him.
“Hey, Sousuke...”
“Yes?”
“Were you scared?” she asked.
“Of what?”
“When I fell. And got covered in blood.”
Sousuke didn’t respond. She couldn’t see his face, so she wondered if he was mad... and found herself slightly disappointed at the thought. Maybe he’d seemed frightened just because he was so surprised? Still, she had never seen him so flustered...
Silence hung between them for a while. They were passing a convenience store, and around the time they’d gotten far enough away that the teenagers loitering in the parking lot could no longer hear them, Sousuke said, quietly, “I was.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” he said shortly.
Silence reigned again. Kaname stared into space for some time, and at last took on a slightly pleased, slightly teasing expression. “Hey... I didn’t really hear that.”
“It’s nothing,” he insisted. “Forget I said anything.”
“Aw, c’mon! Seriously, what’d you say? Tell me!” she begged him teasingly, wrapping her arms around his neck and tugging.
“Don’t struggle, Chidori,” Sousuke told her. “You’ll fall. I really didn’t say—”
“Just tell me!” she demanded. “Tell me, or I’ll give you a second dose of fear for the night! Come on! Tell me!”
“Stop it!” he bellowed back, the bicycle carrying the two of them swerving left and right as it sped down the night road.
〈The Patients of Darkness — The End〉
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