Chapter 10.6

First thing on the morning of the seventh, there was a call from the Murasako household. That morning when they tried to awaken their third son, Masao, he was dead, they said. That put Toshio in a somber mood. The Murasako household's Hiromi had just died. During the over-night vigil, the funeral, while the household was rushing about, the young man suffered quietly in illness and died with nobody tending to him.

When the reception desk opened, the contractor's Yasumori Setsuko entered. He could tell by looking at her face. It was that. Calamity was steadily falling upon the contractors. That afternoon a young man living in Sotoba called Shimizu Yuu was brought in. This was another outbreak, as expected. His condition was even worse than Setsuko's but not bad enough to call for an ambulance. There was no longer any reason to fear rousing suspicion at the hospital that received him, so he advised him to go if he wanted to, but that was it. Going to the National Hospital wouldn't change the result. If he went to Mizobe to be hospitalized for analysis, it just meant that he would die there without ever returning home again. Of course that couldn't be said to the patient himself so that was all the more reason to hesitate in recommending it.

When he returned to the waiting room, while he was just drawing into the graph, there was a call from Seishin. Seishin's voice was stiff.

"Ishida is gone."

Toshio's eyes remained on the graph as he responded. "That's..."

"He disappeared, last night. Talking with his family, that's all that she can say."

Toshio was on the verge of dropping his pen. "Ridiculous."

"According to his wife, at night, when shehad gone to bed, he was definitely awake in the living room, she says. From there, when she woke up in the morning, he was nowhere in the home. The car was left in the garage. Thinking he could not have gone far, they've been searching for him since this morning but they haven't yet found him."

(Disappearance--moving.)

Toshio stood up. "I'll try going to Ishida-san's place."

"I will go too."

They made plans to meet up at Ishida's house, hurrying with the things they were to bring. Ishida's wife Chie's color was drained.

"What could have happened. ---For him to go missing, that's just...."

"Calm down. Last night, was anything strange about Ishida-san's behavior? Or for example was he pale, was he not very talkative?"

"No.... Not really. It was the same as usual."

"Did he eat dinner?"

"He ate as much as usual. The day before yesterday was busy it seemed, he had brought his work home. Yesterday he took off from work in the morning to finish it, too. But, it seems he finished with that and in the afternoon he went to the office, and had a relaxing evening drink. If anything, he was more cheerful than usual!"

Then, Toshio and Seishin understood exchanging looks. It wasn't as if Ishida had an outbreak. But, if not then why did Ishida suddenly go missing. And was there any reason forhim to leave the house after his wife had gone to sleep?

"Uhm," Seishin started to speak with Chie. "Pardon me but, we were to receive a few documents from Ishida-san; might you know of them?"

"Documents... you say?"

"Yes. You said that he had brought work home the day before yesterday, I believe that would have been them."

Ah, Chie nodded. "Then that would be in my husband's room. I saw him put the envelope in his desk drawer. ---Yes, those must have been for you, Junior Monk. I thought it was strange that he didn't bring it to the town hall when he went back to work yesterday."

Chie stood before them and guided them to the room on the second story. The room upon immediately going upstairs was probably formerly used by Ishida's child. There was a word processor set on the writing desk, and furniture in place that no longer seemed used, and two or three cardboard boxes piled up with unnecessary items.

"This is my son's room---now it is used as a storage room," Chie said with a seemingly embarrassed smile, opening the drawer on the writing desk."It's right---what's this?"

Chie searched within the drawer. "Now that's strange. I thought I had saw him put it in here, but..." Chie murmured while opening another drawer. "How odd. I wonder if he had brought it to the office after all?"

"Pardon me," Toshio said nudging Chie aside. "Would you mind if I looked? It's an important document."

"Yes... Help yourself."

Toshio searched the drawer. It was mostly filled with stationary and memo note pads with things written down, but there wasn't anything anywhere that looked like a properly written up document. It wasn't just the written report that he couldn't find but the memos and copies and data he would have used were nowhere to be found.

"The data shouldn't have been..."

Hearing Toshio's voice, Seishin pulled the word processor towards himself. Ishida should have been using this. He looked but there didn't appear to be a disk in it. He tested the eject button but as expected there was no disk inside of it. Opening the lid, he pressed the switch and started it up.

"Toshio, is there a disk anywhere?"

"There is. Just three. Two of them have labels. One's New Years Cards, one's an address book.

Seishin accepted the disk from Toshio. They tried the third one with no label but they didn't find the document they were looking for. Nor was it saved on the Word Processor itself. Just to be sure they checked the other two disks but, just as labeled, there were only New Years cards and an address book on them; the report was nowhere to be found.

"It's not here... not anywhere."

Toshio turned to face Chie. "He didn't take the documents to another location? He didn't save it to a disk or anything?"

"No. My husband was a very orderly person, he wouldn't scatter things about. If it isn't there, I don't think it is in the house."

"This is ridiculous."

Chie shook her head, seeming bewildered. "If it isn't in the desk, it is not here. ... Yes, I am certain that yesterday he was empty handed. Even though he was going to the office, there was nothing in his hand. He usually does go empty-handed."

"Are you certain? He did not take anything from the entryway before going out?"

"Nothing. He asked for me to make onigiri for lunch. I was told that in the morning and so when I came here to bring him tea and onigiri, my husband was just then putting the document into the envelope. He put it into the envelope, took out the disk and tidied up, and all of it was placed into that drawer. Since he was finished, he came down to eat." Chie said, looking between Toshio and Seishin. "Was it.... that important of a document?"

[TL/N: Onigiri  - A popular Japanese food item made of white rice clumped into a ball or triangular shape around a fish or other savory or sweet fillings, wrapped with a strip of seaweed]

"Well," Toshio prevaricated.

"I went down with my husband. Since you'd come through all the trouble of bringing it up, he had said to me, he would bring it back down, he said. So we went back down to the first floor, ate lunch, and from there he said he was going to the office. He changed in the bedroom---the bedroom is on the first floor. He changed clothes there and then went out. I tended to him until he went out, so there's no mistake. He was definitely empty handed. He didn't come back to the second story."

"It's all right," Seishin interposed. "We were simply surprised. It is all right. There is a spare."

Is that so, said Chie sounding half relieved, but have unsatisfied and still confused. "Uhm, I will try to look for it."

"Please do. If there is any word from Ishida-san, if you could tell him to contact the temple or the hospital urgently."

Yes, nodded Chie once again becoming uneasy about her husband's whereabouts. "But... Where could he have gone. This is ridiculous."

Comforting Chie, Toshio and Seishin left the Ishida household. Toshio asked if Seishin wanted to swing by the hospital but Seishin looked to his wrist watch and shook hishead.

"No... I have to get back. There's a vigil tonight."

Those words seemed to get Toshio in the heart. "I see...."

"Ishida-san----"

"No matter how you look at it, it's strange. He shouldn't have suddenly gone missing. At least going by his wife's story, it doesn't seem like he suffered an outbreak. But still, he hid where he was going, going out in the middle of the night. And on top of that, probably bringing the document and all its materials with him."

As for the data, Toshio had it on hand himself. Seishin's notes were also on hand, so the document itself could be made again. But why did Ishida have to completely disappear with them?

The village is surrounded by death.

This was like, yes--like being surrounded. Moves, retirements, the feeling that something was intentionally isolating them. Toshio and Seishin were being seiied, plucked off---interfered with.

(Ridiculous...)

That in itself was a ridiculous prospect. Who would be doing something like that and for what purpose? Was he planning to cook up his own ridiculous conspiracy theories now?

"Something is strange..." Seishin murmured behind Toshio whose hand lingered on the car door as he thought. Toshio nodded.

"....It's possible this isn't just a disease."

Seishin nodded too, and with that turned towards his own car.

(The vigil... At the Murasako house.)

They had two with an outbreak, and the disappearances---.

While returning to the hospital, that repeated in Toshio's head. One death, two outbreaks, one disappearance. Chanting it like a magic spell, he returned to the hospital, there was a young boy about high school age standing before the entryway's closed curtain peering in. He must have noticed the car as he turned around, coming jogging towards Toshio as he pulled into the parking lot.

"What is it? An emergency case?" Toshio asked while getting out of the car. He'd seen that face somewhere before. He'd given a few medical exams to him.

"It isn't an emergency case, but... You are Doctor Ozaki, sir?" The young man said. Hearing that, Tosio remembered. A long while back, he was the patient who had been brought in for a knot on his shinbone.

"You were, if I remember, Yuuki-san's place's son, weren't you?"

"That's right," the boy nodded. He had said his first name was Natsuno, if he remembered. "I have something I would like to ask you, Doctor; may I?"

"By all means. By the way, you were called Yuuki-kun, I guess? Or was it Koide-kun?"

Natsuno shrugged his shoulders. "Either one is fine. My name in the family register is Koide but normally it is Yuuki."

"Then, Yuuki-kun it is. ---Yuuki-kun, what did you want to ask?"

"It is about Shimizu-san. Shimizu, Megumi-san. You were the doctor who did her medical examination, weren't you?"

"I examined her, and I was the one who did her death certificate, too."

"What did she die of?"

"Acute anemia, wasn't it?"

Natsuno hesitated to speak, looking to Toshio with upturned eyes.

"She was definitely dead? ---See, there's a lot of things like brain death it could be, right?"

Toshio gave a light laugh. In his depths, he could feel something unfamiliar vaguely stirring. "Even if there are doctors who might call a patient with brain death not dead, there aren't any who'd say a patient whose heart's dead isn't dead." Toshio said with a laugh. For no particular reason he switched his car keys to his other hand. "Her breathing and heart rate stopped, her blood pressure was zero, and her pupillary response was gone. She was dead. No room for doubt."

"But, they say suspended animation happens a lot, don't they."

Toshio gave a bitter smile. "I haven't seen too many in a state of apparent death but there are patients who look a lot like a corpse but who aren't really dead. If their heart rate is too weak, an amateur can't feel a pulse, their breath is so shallow it can look like they're not breathing at all. But, her heart had completely stopped. Anyone who's heart is stopped that long, even if they were alive, would be dead. --Well, I don't think people in suspended animation have postmortem lividity or rigor mortis either, but."

"Did you know that some are buried alive?"

Toshio laughed all the more. "I wouldn't put out a death certificate if there was even the slightest chance she was still living. I'd have performed decisive medical treatment. Even if the family tried to stop me. And, without a death certificate from me, they can't bury her."

"Then, there's no absolutely possibility at all of Shimizu-san coming back to life, right?"

Toshio burst out laughing. "If she came back to life from that state, she'd be a zombie or a vampire!" His huge laugh was one that Toshio could feel becoming stiff. (What did I just say?) He looked back at Natsuno with a smile still. "When purple spots and rigor mortis appear, it means she'd already become a plain old corpse. Things that aren't alive start to rot like that. No matter what kind of famous doctor you have on hand, once decay's started, I don't think they'd be bringing 'em back to life."

"Is that so," Natsuno murmured lost in thought. Soon he lifted his face and bowed his head. "I understand. Pardon me, asking something strange."

"By the way, you---" In spite of Toshio speaking to him, Natsuno turned away. He crossed the parking lot as if running away. "What was it, again, that had you coming to ask me that?"

Natsuno gave no answer to Toshio's question. Glancing over his shoulder he gave a faint salutation, then hurried off of the grounds.

---A zombie or a vampire!

Toshio reflected on his own words.

The patient's state, the cause of death. He thought and shook his head. (Ridiculous. He laughed bitterly at himself but as expected midway his laughter became strained and tapered off. (Impossible. Those things, they don't exist.)

--When kids are bad, an Oni comes.

Up from their graces, they came. Capturing children, taking them to a hole in the ground and devouring them.

When he was a really little kid told that by the elderly, he remembered saying two people wouldn't fit in one grave back at them. There were no Oni that rose from the grave. (

One dead, two outbreaks, one vanished.

)

(Nodes.... Marks like insect bites.) Toshio went around to the back entrance, returning to the waiting room through the staff entrance. (Bites, anemia---death.)

One dead, two outbreaks, one vanished.

Closing the open waiting room door, Toshio showed his face in the break room.

"Nagata-san." When he called out, the nurses stopped rolling gauze and looked back. Kiyomi stood up nimbly. "Sorry but could you remake the coverage list?"

"The work schedule?"

Toshio nodded. "I know we're short on help but I've just got a bad feeling. ---We're going to be hospitalizing the wife of the Yasumoris."

Natsuno half-ran. His shadow grew long at his feet as the sun sank down into the western mountains.

(A zombie or a vampire.) The shadow looked ominous. (A corpse that can live---the dead revived.)

With that, it wasn't impossible.

Because this village still buries its dead.

Translated by : sinnesspiel

https://sinnesspiel.dreamwidth.org/