Dragon Island (16 page)

But it’s too late.

I slice at the rope with the sword. But instead of cutting the rope, the force of impact simply pushes it to the floor. The action yanks Ishiro and I into one another, smashing our heads together.

Livid, Ishiro rubs his forehead.

“You idiot! That rope is woven from ironweed. It will take something supernatural to cut it. Like Kusanagi or the magic of the shobijin.”

“How was I supposed to know?” I say, stars still spinning before my eyes.

When my head clears, my eyes fall upon a handheld World War Two era submachine gun—one that I will later discover was called a ‘grease gun.’

I rush forward and pick it up.

I know that, here in the twenty-first century, ‘good people’ are not supposed to like guns. And I admit, they are bad—if bad people are on the other end of them. But the truth is I’ve not met a person of the male gender yet who wouldn’t love to get his hands on one. It’s just in our wiring, I guess.

Maybe all men are dogs, in a manner of speaking?

As for me, I’m no exception.

What I would’ve given to have had this with me over the past several days. It would’ve been even better than having Kusanagi at my side.

The kaiju better watch out, now!

“Do you know how to work your people’s fire-spitter?” Ishiro asks.

His closeness startles me. It’s so easy to forget that there’s only ten feet of rope separating us, and that where I go, he goes, and vise-versa.

I cock back the grease gun’s bolt and then let it snap forward with a satisfying clack of metal upon metal.

“Just point and pull the trigger,” I say.

The truth is I’ve never fired a gun. Not a real one. But I’ve played enough first-person-shooters to glean the general concept of how they work.

Ishiro shakes his head.

“Dishonorable weapons for a dishonorable people.”

“Whatever! I don’t see you laying down that bow on your back or that sword on your hip!”

“My sword and bow require skill and reasonable proximity to my enemies. Not like the fire-spitters. They make killing impersonal—and easy. And when killing is easy, it rages out of control. Not only warriors perish, but the innocent as well.”

“Blah! Blah! Blah!”

I pick up another clip of ammo for the grease gun and stuff it in the back of my belt.

Aokigahara is a dense, woodland forest located at the base of Mount Fuji in
Japan
. This so-called ‘Sea of Trees’ is a throwback to earlier, more superstitious times in the islands’ history when ghosts and monsters where thought to lurk behind every concealing tree and dwell in every dark cave...

—Excerpt from
Haunted Japan
, by Lesley Kaye (2009)

I
shiro and I leave the weapon house through the rear exit. I now carry the World War Two grease gun in my hand and a German Luger pistol in my belt. When we are far enough away to see around the building, I turn and look back at the Toho. They stand facing away from us.

The only sound to be heard is that of the chirping cicadas.

What a bunch of
weirdos
the Toho are. They forced me to go on this cockamamie journey. The least they could do is wave goodbye!

“They will not acknowledge us again until we complete our quest.”

Despite what Ishiro said about foreign weapons while inside the armory, he is now dressed in the crimson-brown armor of a medieval samurai. He has even tied his hair up in a knot at the crown of his skull.

“Compassionate bunch of folks, you Toho.”

“We are an honorable people, Momotaro-sai. And the path of honor is often a hard one to walk.”

I roll my eyes.

“Whatever, grasshopper.”

“Pardon?”

“Never mind.

“Where to?”

“I don’t under—?”

“Which way are we going?”

“Back into the mountains. Far beyond the entrance to the deep labyrinth and the dwelling of the shobijin, into the wilderness from which Kitsune says she found you.”

Darn! I’ve come all this way just to have to turn around and go back.

I groan in protest though I’d expected as much. How do you know what’s going to happen on Kaiju Island? Imagine the worst case scenario, double it, throw in giant dragons and fiendish monsters, and you are practically on your way to becoming psychic.

“Come,” Ishiro grunts. He takes off for the river beyond the village, not bothering to see if I follow.

I turn back to the village, hoping to catch a glimpse of Kitsune. Neither she nor any of the other Toho are standing outside. It’s as though I blinked, and they simply vanished.

I feel a tug on the roped tied around my wrist. Before it can drag me off my feet, I whip around and jog after Ishiro, white-skinned peaches raining from my overstuffed backpack as I go.

A
lthough I’ve built up my physical stamina quite a bit since I crash-landed on Kaiju Island, it’s all I can do to keep up with Ishiro as we trek through the mountains leading into the territory of the Oni.

So I’m much relieved when we reach our campsite for the night: a village of abandoned rock dwellings carved right out of a cliff-face. The gray structures and the cliff they are hewn from divide the greenery as they climb up the mountainside before us.

The site reminds me of certain stone and plaster tribal ruins located in the Southwestern United States that I’ve seen pictures of, and I wonder not for the first time about the history of
Kaiju
Island
and its people.

“What is this place?” I ask.

Ishiro stares warily at the stone dwellings.

“A failed settlement by an off-shoot of my people.”

“Failed? What happened to them? Where did they go?”

Ishiro looks at me, his face as serious as the stone comprising the cliff.

“Pray that you do not find out, Momotaro-sai.”

Oh boy! Here we go again. Did I mention how much I love
Kaiju
Island
?

Again, note the sarcasm.

Ishiro sighs, mentally shaking himself.

“Darkness will fall soon. We must gather stones to form the kanji of Gryphina. It will keep the forest kaiju at bay.”

Ishiro’s voice drops to a mumble so that I’ve trouble hearing the rest of his words above the din of the cicadas—something about, “village,” and “kaiju,” and “another matter?”

Whatever it is, he dismisses me when I ask him to repeat himself and sets to work gathering stones.

Not wanting to be caught with our metaphorical pants down come nightfall myself, I drop the matter and join him in the work.

The nocturnal kaiju have just begun to howl by the time Ishiro and I have the stones in place. The sun sets and we retreat into one of the small stone-hewn rooms we have chosen to bed down in. The room has only one doorway and window open to the night, making it easy to guard. Ishiro chose the place for that very reason, I’m sure. He may not be one for heady conversation, but he’s a handy dude to have around.

Ishiro’s one of those ‘guys,’ you know? The kind back in the outside world who know how to get things done even at a young age—the kind who seemingly have an innate knowledge of how to fix things around the house when they breakdown—the kind that make you feel extremely inadequate by comparison.

Ishiro is also quite a shot with the bow and arrow. Earlier in the day, he impaled two squirrel-like creatures—while we were tied together and on the run, I might add—with a single bolt!

As if to back up my thoughts on his array of talents, Ishiro skins and cooks one of the two squirrel creatures in no time flat. When it’s done, he picks up the stick skewering the tiny beast and tosses it at me.

“Here. Eat. You will need more than peaches to keep up your strength, Momotaro-sai.”

I fumble the catch and the roasted animal lands on the dusty stone floor.

Hey, the closest I’ve ever come to playing sports is being in the Bradbury High School Glee Club. All-time leading pass receiver Jerry Rice, I’m not.

Ishiro laughs hysterically as I scramble and snatch the blackened carcass off the floor. I bring it up to my mouth to take a bite, then stop myself.

Where are your manners and gratitude, Raymond? You are proving that you are the dishonorable stooge Ishiro claims you to be.

“What about you—?” I look up and see Ishiro gutting the other squirrel-beast—with his fingernail, of all things.

He scoops out the dead animal’s intestines, flings them out the sole window of the stone dwelling we’re in, then takes the creature into his mouth, fur and all!

He bites, chews, swallows, then looks up at me.

The lower half of his face is smeared with blood and fur.

He belches and then smiles at me, a satisfied look in his eyes.

What a maniac!

How in the world could Kitsune be set to marry this animal?

I look down at the charred meat on the skewer and feel my gorge rise. I toss it out the window to lie with the discarded guts of its twin.

“What is the matter?” Ishiro asks.

I can see bits of muscle and bone stuck between his bloody teeth.

“Are you not hungry?”

“I think I’ll just stick with my peaches,” I say. “I seem to have lost my appetite for squirrel-beast.”

Ishiro wipes the blood from his chin with the back of his hand and laughs.

“Little
Momotaro
!”

The
Onryu
are vengeful ghosts of the Japanese spirit world. While they normally exist in a state of purgatory, the negative emotions left over from their former lives (jealousy, hatred, greed, etc.) allows them to manifest in the physical world where they seek to add the living to their ghastly fold...

—Excerpt from
Haunted Japan
, by Lesley Kaye (2009)

A
fter ‘dinner,’ we bed down for the night. I’m able to feel the hard, stone of the floor even through the grass we have spread out for bedding. It’s uncomfortable and makes me wonder why anyone would want to carve their home out of a rocky cliff.

“You sleep.” Ishiro says. “I will take first watch.”

“Watch for what? We made the symbol of Gryphina outside. I thought we were safe?”

Ishiro shrugs.

“We will be. So long as our fire burns. We must not let it go out under any circumstances.”

That gives me an idea. I take the rope tethering me to Ishiro and draw its length across the fire.

“What are you—?”

Ishiro realizes what I’m trying and shakes his head.

When the rope yields no hint of catching fire, I yank it from the flames and examine it.

It’s not even warm.

“I told you,” Ishiro says, “that rope is made of ironweed. Only something supernatural can sever it.”

“Oh well,” I mutter. “It was worth a try.”

I sigh and roll onto my side, letting the fire warm my back and the light from the rising moon shine into my eyes through our room’s open doorway. The heat is pleasant, and the face of the moon through the doorway hypnotic. Even the distant howls of the nocturnal kaiju are lulling. I’m just beginning to nod off when Ishiro speaks.

“Do you understand what I said?”

Argh!

I grit my teeth in frustration at being roused just as slumber was about to take me.

“Yeah, I understand,” I bark, my eyes still shut.
 
Keep the home fires burning. Sure. Got it.”

“I am serious, Momotaro-sai. If the fire were to falter, it would be very—”

I abruptly roll and prop up on an elbow so that I can look Ishiro in the face.

“Armageddon! End of Days! Dogs and cats living together! I get it!

“Now, may I get some sleep? Please—?”

Ishiro grunts, his eyes studying me.

I flop back onto my other side and clamp my eyes shut. In no time, I’m asleep and dreaming.

Nightmare images dance through my head. My plane going down. The giant mouth of the daikaiju croc closing to swallow me. The oni’s severed arm falling to the bone-littered cave floor. Kitsune being dragged underwater by the kappa. The grinning face of the pale man morphing into that of Bakeneko. In my dream, the Toho elder reaches out and seizes my arm with clawed fingers.

I start awake, but the sensation of Bakeneko’s taloned hand around my wrist lingers. Then I realize it’s not Bakeneko gripping my wrist at all, but the rope binding me to Ishiro. He is yanking on it to wake me.

“Your watch,” he blurts.

I rub my eyes and look around the room, disoriented. After a moment, I realize I’m still in one of the stone rooms constituting the cliff-side dwellings. The room is aglow with soft, flickering orange light from the fire burning at the room’s center. Through the room’s open doorway, I see the moon hanging high in the night sky like a giant silver dollar.