Takeshita Demons (9 page)

Ten minutes later we were creeping through the
school grounds, two lines of footprints trailing
behind us in the snow. The cold was biting at my nose
and draining my hands, but the rest of me was warm
with excitement and action. We didn't bother trying
to open the front door to the school. It would almost
certainly be locked.

"She won't be using doors," I guessed. "It's too
obvious. She'd be scared someone will see her. Plus
nukekubi don't need doors."

"So how does she get in and out?" Cait asked.
"What should we be looking for?"

"Dunno. But we'll know it when we see it."

And then we did. Through the falling snow
we spotted a window, a few rooms down from our
classroom. It was propped open when it should
have been firmly closed.

"A window," we both said, heading for the
telltale opening.

"But no one's been in or out of here since the
snow started," Cait hissed, pointing at the unmarked
snow beneath the window. She was right. There were
no marks or imprints in the snow, but I hadn't been
expecting any.

"Flying heads don't leave footprints," I said,
trying to sound brave. "The rest of her body will be in
here somewhere." I peered through the gap to check
the room beyond. No sign of a headless nukekubi.
It was deserted, filled with empty desks and chairs
and paintings hanging on a clothes-line.

Together, Cait and I forced the window open
a bit further. My frozen fingers were starting to hurt
in the cold.

"You go first." Cait scanned the empty
playground. "I'll keep an eye out for the flying
head."

"It won't be back for hours yet," I said. "Not till
morning." But I scrambled through the window all
the same. It was freezing out there.

Inside the dark classroom it was just as cold,
and deathly silent. The falling snow seemed to
suck out any noise.

"You in?" Cait hissed from outside the window.

"Yep, coast is clear." I looked around, rubbing
my hands together to get the blood back into them.
A few seconds later, Cait tumbled in through the
window. "Anything out there?" I asked.

"Nope, no one followed us." Cait stood up and
dusted the snow from her jacket. "Let's get moving
though." She slid the window back and clicked the
lock. "Even if her head does fly back early, it won't
be getting in through this window."

I grinned. We were actually doing it. We were
hunting the nukekubi.

"Where to?" Cait whispered.

"Our classroom?" I wasn't sure, but it was the
place we'd last seen her, and as good a place as any
to start looking.

Cait nodded, and together we headed across the
empty classroom to the hallway door. I could hear
my heart beating so loudly I was sure Cait could
hear it too. I peered around the door, searching the
darkness for what lay beyond.

Nothing moved. The whole corridor was silent,
empty.

"Come on," I whispered.

We sneaked out, scurrying with shoes squeaking
to our classroom. It was freezing in the corridor
and our breath made little clouds as we moved. I half expected them to turn to ice and fall cracking
to the floor as we walked. We went straight to
our classroom without stopping, just like when
the corridors were full of kids and teachers and
schoolbags. Except now the whole place was empty,
as silent and frozen as the moon.

The doorknob of our classroom door was frosted
with tiny ice crystals. Cait turned it slowly, with
such care that it didn't even squeak. She edged the
door open, peeking one eye around to see inside
the room.

I waited in the freezing corridor while Cait
checked the room. After what seemed like forever,
Cait swung the door completely open.

"I don't think she's here," she said, puffing
a cloud of white with her breath.

We tiptoed into our classroom. It was like a
graveyard - rows of empty desks, some with lonely
pencils or forgotten books left on top, like sad
offerings at a shrine. Mr Lloyd's desk was just like
all the others: empty of life. And there was no sign
of the nukekubi.

"Where would she be?" Cait asked, shivering.

I was shivering too. My frozen fingers were
aching, and the cold seemed to be spreading. What
were we doing here? Maybe I had imagined the red markings on Mrs Okuda's neck. Or maybe they
were just mosquito bites, or a tattoo. She might be
just an ordinary person who happened to like
unusual bright red neck tattoos. I opened my
mouth to ask Cait what she thought, but no sound
came out. Instead, an awful wailing echoed from
the corridor.

Cait jumped to attention, as if she'd been shot
in some scene from an old Western movie. Then we
both ran for the door, peering outside. I felt sick.
This was it. There had to be something out there.
The nukekubi was hunting.

But the corridor was empty and quiet once
again.

"Was that her?" Cait hissed.

"Dunno. Maybe." I'd never heard one before.
What did a nukekubi's hunting call sound like? Had
we really thought this through before we came here
all alone in the middle of the night to hunt a flying
demon head?

The wail echoed again, this time a piercing scream
that seemed to move up and down the corridor like
a wave.

I grabbed Cait's arm and hung on. "It's a ghost.
There's nothing out there to make that noise. It's got
to be a ghost."

I'd heard Baba talk of ghosts. Yurei, 'faint spirits'
in English, usually someone who'd died horribly,
who couldn't make it to the afterlife.

A shot of cold passed through me. There had to
be a ghost walking with us. An angry ghost by the
sound of it. I wanted to run but the cold had frozen
me to the spot. My nose began to tingle and burn and
I could feel my blood cooling, sending icy messages
to my heart.

The screaming came once again, but it changed
mid-way, becoming a cracking sound instead,
metallic and ringing like a bell. Suddenly it didn't
sound like any ghost I'd ever heard of. But it still
didn't sound friendly. And if it wasn't a ghost, what
was it?

More loud gonging sounds echoed along the
corridor, seeming to come from the walls themselves.
It was as if we were trapped inside a massive temple
bell on New Year's Eve. The sounds kept getting
louder until something seemed to break. A crash like
thunderclaps exploded all around us, up and down
the corridor and, horror of horrors, even from the
classroom behind us.

I swung round to see what was coming up behind
us, but could see nothing that could have caused
the noise.

"That's no ghost," Cait guessed. "I think it's
gunshots. Someone's in here with a gun."

Just then the noises stopped. And, just as
suddenly, the cold lifted. My blood started flowing
again.

"The pipes," I guessed. "There's no ghost, and
no gun. It's the pipes. They've frozen. They've burst
with the cold."

"What?"

It felt like a better idea than gunshots and
ghosts, but I still wasn't sure. "The cold," I said. "It
can freeze water in the pipes. Like when you freeze
a Coke can in the fridge. The water expands and the
pipe explodes. There's water pipes all through the
school."

"Exploding pipes?" Cait didn't sound convinced.
She unzipped her jacket as her face flushed in the
growing warmth.

"Sure, why not?" I unzipped my own jacket and
ripped off my beanie. "That screeching, the gunshots,
I bet that was the water expanding through the pipes
until they exploded with the pressure."

Cait took off her own beanie. "If it's frozen
pipes, then they're not going to be frozen for long.
Something's messing with the temperature in
here."

We looked around, remembering suddenly why
we were here.

"Can she do that?" Cait asked. "The nukekubi?"

I shook my head. "No, I don't think so. It's got to
be something else." I knew there was something my
Baba had told me, something else. But it floated just
out of reach, a kite on the wind.

"So how will we know if it's burst pipes that
made all that noise?" Cait interrupted my thoughts.

But before I could answer, a dripping sound
came from the classroom behind us. Almost at once
more drips echoed from the corridor. Gone were the
ringing and screaming of tortured pipes. Instead
we could have been in a bathhouse. The sound of
dripping water was everywhere. Five minutes ago
we were freezing solid, now it was warm enough to
go without a jacket.

"The water's melting," Cait said. She pulled off
her scarf. "This is ridiculous."

The drips grew into trickles, like a hundred taps
not turned off properly.

"The whole water system's busted," I said.

"What happens now?" Cait asked, watching as
the trickles formed torrents and water began to gush
from broken pipes up and down the corridor.

"I dunno."

"Will she like all this water?" Cait asked.

I stepped backwards as the water advanced
towards our open door. "No, I don't think so.
Baba never said."

I stepped back again, this time splashing right
into a puddle. Behind us the floor of the classroom
was shiny with water. More water was pouring in
from the broken pipes, forming a fountain that was
gushing and trickling its way into a flood.

Cait climbed on to the nearest desk. "I think we're
going to get a little wet," she said, her legs dangling as
water rushed around and under the table legs below.

Shoes wet, I jumped up on the desk next to Cait.
We watched as the water from our classroom floor
inched closer to the door. "We're going to be in so
much trouble."

"Deep trouble," Cait laughed at her own joke.

"But really it's not so deep," I said, looking down.
"Perhaps we should make a run for it?"

"What about the flying head?"

But I didn't have time to reply. Another
thunderclap echoed as water from the corridor
rushed to meet the water from our classroom. Great.
The temperature had stopped rising, but now the
whole school was flooding. And we still had to find
my brother, defeat a flesh-eating demon, and get home before Mrs Thompson or the plumber caught
us sneaking around the school after dark.

The classroom window had fogged up, but
I could see giant snowflakes bashing against the glass.
Inside it was as warm as a summer's day. "This is so
weird." I racked my brains, trying again to think of
what it was my Baba had told me. Something about
the weather... Something important.

"Totally," Cait said, looking around. Each desk
had formed a little island in the growing ocean. "We're
surrounded. It's like something's set out to trap us."

Five minutes later, when the water had stopped rising,
we had a new problem on our hands.

"What on earth is that?" Cait asked, staring
in dread as water began arriving in waves at our
classroom door, causing mini-tsunamis to rush
against the walls of our classroom. The water was
behaving like surf at the ocean, forming waves that
raced through the door, each curling after the next.