The Three (38 page)

‘Go.’

‘Have I offended you?’

‘You have not offended me. I don’t like this place.’

This from a man who strips corpses for a living. Elspeth shivers again. He takes the money and she climbs out. She waits while he backs away, the car farting a black cloud of exhaust smoke. She resists the urge to scream ‘wait!’ after him. The engine’s whine fades quickly; too quickly, as if the atmosphere is greedily absorbing every sound. In some ways the forest was more hospitable. And she’s getting that crawly sensation at the back of her neck, as if eyes are on her.

She climbs up onto the wooden porch in front of the house, noting with relief that the floor is littered with cigarette butts. A sign of life. She knocks on the door. Her breath condenses, and for the first time in years she finds herself wishing for a cigarette. She knocks again. Elspeth decides that if no one answers this time, she’ll get the hell out of here.

But a second later, the door is opened by an overweight woman dressed in a grubby pink yukata. Elspeth tries to dredge up a memory of the photographs she’s seen of Chiyoko. She recalls a pudgy, hard-eyed teenager, her expression defiant. Elspeth thinks
the eyes might be the same. ‘Are you Chiyoko? Chiyoko Kamamoto?’

The woman’s broad face splits into a grin and she gives a small bow. ‘Come in, please,’ she says. Her English is flawless, and like the old man’s, holds a trace of an American accent.

Elspeth steps into a narrow entrance room–the frigid air is no less forgiving in here–and kicks off her sodden boots, wincing as the cold wood bites through her tights. She places her boots on a shelf next to a pair of blood-red high heels and several grimy slippers.

Chiyoko (if it is Chiyoko–Elspeth still isn’t sure) waves her through a door and into an equally chilly interior, which appears to be far smaller than it looked from the outside. A short corridor bisects two areas partially hidden behind screens; at the far end, Elspeth can make out what looks to be a small kitchen.

She follows Chiyoko through the screen to her left and into a dimly lit square room, the floor covered in tattered tatami mats. A low stained table squats in the middle of it, several faded grey cushions scattered around it.

‘Sit.’ Chiyoko gestures to one of the cushions. ‘I will bring you some tea.’

Elspeth does as she is told, her knees popping as she kneels. It’s only slightly warmer in here, and the air smells faintly of fish. The coffee table is smeared with sauce and wormed with dried noodles.

She hears the murmur of voices, followed by a giggle. A child’s giggle?

The woman returns, carrying a tray containing a teapot and two round cups. She places it on the table, then sinks to her knees with more grace than her bulk should allow. She pours the tea, hands Elspeth a cup.

‘You
are
Chiyoko, aren’t you?’

A smirk. ‘Yes.’

‘You and Ryu… What happened? They found your shoes in the forest.’

‘Do you know why you must remove your shoes before you die?’

‘No.’

‘So you don’t track mud in the afterlife. That’s why there are so many ghosts without feet.’ A giggle.

Elspeth takes a sip of the tea. It’s cold, tastes bitter. She makes herself take another, barely stops herself from gagging. ‘Why did you move here?’

‘I like it here. I get visitors. Some of them come before they go into the forest to die. Lovers who think they are being noble and will never be forgotten. As if anyone cares! They always ask me if they should do it. And do you know what I tell them?’ Chiyoko gives Elspeth a sly sidelong smile. ‘I tell them do it. Most of them bring me an offering–food, wood sometimes. As if I am a shrine! They have written books about me, songs about me. There’s even a fucking manga series. Have you seen it?’

‘I’ve seen it.’

She nods, grimaces. ‘Oh yes. You mentioned it in your book.’

‘You know who I am?’

‘Yes.’

Elspeth jumps as a high-pitched yell sounds from behind the screen door. ‘What was that?’

Chiyoko sighs. ‘That is Hiro. It is almost time to feed him.’

‘
What
?’

‘Ryu’s child. We only did it once.’ Another giggle. ‘It wasn’t very good. He was a virgin.’

Elspeth waits for Chiyoko to get up and go to the child, but it appears she has no intention of doing so. ‘Did Ryu know he was going to be a father?’

‘No.’

‘
Was
that his body they found in the forest?’

‘Yes. Poor Ryu. An otaku without a cause. I helped him get what he wanted. You want me to tell you how it went? It’s a good story. You can put it in a book.’

‘Yes.’

‘He said he would follow me anywhere. And when I said I wanted to die, he said he would follow me to the afterlife, too. He joined an online suicide group before we met, did you know that?’

‘No.’

‘Nobody knew. It was just before we started talking. He couldn’t go through with it. He needed to be pushed.’

‘And I’m guessing you pushed him?’

A shrug. ‘It didn’t take much.’

‘And you? You tried too, didn’t you?’

Chiyoko laughs and pushes up her sleeves. There are no scars on her wrists or forearms. ‘No. Fanciful stories. Have you ever felt like that? Like you wanted to die?’

‘Yes.’

‘Everyone has. It is fear that stops people in the end. The fear of the unknown. Of what we might find in the next world. But there is no reason to be afraid. It just keeps on going and going.’

‘What does?’

‘Life. Death. Hiro and I have spent many hours talking about this very thing.’

‘You mean your son?’

Chiyoko laughs in derision. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. He is just a baby. I mean the other Hiro, of course.’

‘Hiro Yanagida?’

‘Yes. Would you like to talk to him?’

‘
Hiro
is here? How can Hiro be here? He was killed by that marine. Shot.’

‘Was he?’ Chiyoko gets smoothly to her feet. ‘Come. You must have many questions for him.’

Elspeth stands, her thigh muscles aching from crouching on the floor. Her vision wavers, her stomach cramps, and for a horrible moment she wonders if Chiyoko has drugged her. The woman is definitely unhinged and if what she’s saying about Ryu and the suicidal people who visit her is the truth, she’s dangerous. And she can’t forget the old man’s reaction to the place. Her mouth fills with saliva and she pinches her left arm, refusing to give into her faintness. It passes. She’s light-headed from exhaustion. Worn out.

She follows Chiyoko to the other screened-off room across the passageway.

‘Come,’ Chiyoko says, opening the screen wide enough for Elspeth to slip through. It’s dark in here; the wooden shutters are closed. Elspeth squints, and as her eyes adjust, she can make out a crib on the left side of the room, and a futon piled with pillows beneath the windows. The fishy odour is stronger in here. She shudders, remembering Paul Craddock’s delusion about his dead brother. Chiyoko plucks a toddler out of the crib, and the child wraps his arms around her neck.

‘I thought you said Hiro was here?’

‘He is.’

Slinging the toddler on her hip, Chiyoko opens one of the shutters, letting in a shaft of light.

Elspeth was wrong–the pillows on the futon aren’t pillows at all, but a figure slumped against the wall, its legs outstretched.

‘I will leave you two alone,’ Chiyoko says.

Elspeth doesn’t respond. As she stares at the surrabot of Hiro Yanagida, it blinks, a fraction too slowly to be convincingly human. Its skin is nicked in places; its clothes are frayed.

‘Hello.’ The voice–unmistakably that of a child’s–makes Elspeth jump. ‘Hello,’ the android says again.

‘Is that you, Hiro?’ Elspeth says. The sheer insanity of her situation finally hits her. She’s in Japan. Talking to a robot. She’s talking to a fucking robot.

‘It’s me.’

‘Can I… can I talk to you?’

‘You are talking to me.’

Elspeth steps closer to it. There are small brown droplets on the dull skin of its face–dried blood? ‘What are you?’

The android yawns. ‘I’m me.’

Elspeth’s feeling that same kind of disconnect she felt when she was in Kenji Yanagida’s workshop. Her mind goes blank. She has no idea what to ask first. ‘How did you survive the crash?’

‘We chose to. But sometimes we get it wrong.’

‘And Jessica? And Bobby? Where are they? Are they actually dead?’

‘They got bored. They usually do. They knew how it would end.’

‘And how does it end?’ It blinks at her again. After several seconds of silence, Elspeth asks: ‘Is there… is there a fourth child?’

‘No.’

‘What about the fourth plane crash?’

The robot’s head jerks slightly to the side. ‘We knew that would be the day to do it.’

‘Do what?’

‘Arrive.’

‘So… why children?’

‘We’re not always children.’

‘What does that mean?’

The thing’s head twitches and it yawns again. Elspeth gets the impression it’s intimating:
figure it out, bitch
. Then it makes a sound that could be a laugh, its jaw opening just a fraction too wide. There’s something familiar about the way it’s been framing its words. Elspeth knows how it works. She’s seen the footage of the camera capturing Kenji Yanagida’s facial movements. But there’s no sign of a computer in the room. And… wouldn’t that require some kind of signal? There’s no signal here, is there? She checks her phone again to be sure. But Chiyoko could be operating the android from another room, couldn’t she?

‘Chiyoko? Is that you? It is, isn’t it?’

The surrabot’s chest rises and falls, then stills.

Elspeth runs from the room, her feet slipping on the tatami mats. She hauls open the door next to the empty kitchen, revealing a tiny bathroom, the small tub swimming with filthy cloth nappies. She backtracks and rips back the screen to the only other room. Chiyoko’s son looks up at her from where he’s lying on the floor, playing with a dirty stuffed animal, and laughs.

She opens the front door and sees Chiyoko standing on the porch, cigarette smoke coiling around her head. Could she have made it out here while Elspeth was searching the house? She’s not sure. She pulls on her boots and joins her.

‘Was that you, Chiyoko? Talking through the android?’

Chiyoko stubs her cigarette out on the balustrade; lights another one. ‘Did you think it was me?’

‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’

The cold air isn’t helping to clear her head and Elspeth is sick of all this talking in riddles. ‘Okay… If it wasn’t you, what were–are–they? The Three, I mean?’

‘You’ve seen what Hiro is.’

‘All I’ve seen is a fucking android.’

A shrug. ‘All things have souls.’

‘So is that what he is? A soul?’

‘In a sense.’

Jesus
. ‘Can you please just give me a straight answer?’

Another infuriating smile. ‘Ask me a straight question.’

‘Okay… Did Hiro–the real Hiro–tell you why The Three, whatever the fuck they are, came here and took over the bodies of the kids?’

‘Why would they need a reason? Why do we hunt when we have enough to eat? Why do we kill each other over trifles? What makes you think they needed any more motivation other than to simply see
what might happen
?’

‘Hiro implied that they’ve been here before. I’ve also heard that from Jessica Craddock’s uncle.’

A shrug. ‘All religions have prophecies about the end of the world.’

‘So? What does that have to do with The Three being here before?’

Chiyoko makes a sound somewhere between a sigh and a snort. ‘For a journalist, you are very bad at thinking things through. What if they came here before in order to plant the seed?’

Elspeth starts. ‘No way. Are you trying to say that they came here thousands of years ago and set this whole thing up–just so that they could return years later and see if the so-called
seed
they planted causes the goddamned end of the world? That’s insane.’

‘Of course it is.’

Elspeth has had enough. She’s so tired the marrow in her bones aches. ‘Now what?’

Chiyoko yawns; several of her back teeth are missing. She wipes her mouth with her sleeve. ‘Do your job. You’re a journalist. You
have found what you were looking for. Go back and tell them what you’ve seen. Write an article.’

‘You really think anyone’s going to believe me if I say that I’ve spoken to a goddamned android harbouring the… soul or whatever of one of The Three?’

‘People will believe what they want to believe.’

‘And if they do believe it… They’ll think… they’ll say…’

‘They’ll say Hiro is a god.’

‘And
is
he?’

Chiyoko shrugs. ‘
Shikata ga nai
,’ she says. ‘What does it matter?’ She stubs her cigarette out on the top of the balustrade and walks into the house.

Elspeth stands stock still for several minutes, and with no other option, she zips up her jacket and starts walking away.

Pamela May Donald lies on her side, watching the boy as he flits with the others in the trees.

‘Help me,’ she croaks.

She fumbles for her phone. It’s somewhere in her fanny pack, she’s certain of that.
C’mon, c’mon, c’mon
. Her fingers stroke it, she almost has it…
so close, you can do it
… but she can’t quite seem to… There’s something wrong with her fingers. They won’t work, they’re numb, dead, no longer belong to her.

‘Snookie,’ she whispers, or maybe she only thinks she says it aloud. Either way, it’s the only word that comes into her mind before she dies.

The boy skips over to her, tiptoeing around the roots and wreckage. He looks down at Pamela May Donald’s body. She’s gone. Snuffed out before she could record the message. He’s disappointed, but it’s happened before and he was starting to get bored with this game anyway. They all were. It doesn’t matter. Even without the message, it always ends in the same way.

He sinks to his haunches, wraps his arms around his knees, and shivers. He can hear the distant thwupping sound of the rescue helicopters approaching. He always enjoys being hoisted up into the helicopter’s belly. This will be fun, no matter what.

But next time, he’ll do it differently. And he thinks he knows how.