The Graveyard Apartment (41 page)

“No, I'm telling you, it
does
exist. There really is a road!” Tatsuji insisted. “Apparently it was there all along, behind the wall. Okay, listen. This is what happened. There was a little hole in the wall, and when I hit it with the hammer the wall started to crumble like, I don't know, a piece of birthday cake or something. After I made the hole bigger we looked through it, and there was a magnificent-looking road on the other side of the wall. I could hear voices, far away, and when I shouted for help, they answered me. Isn't that right, Tepp?”

Teppei nodded reluctantly as Tatsuji babbled on. “When Tamao got injured by the weasel wind, it probably blew in from the underground hole. If we follow the road, it'll come out somewhere. I'm certain of that. If we just start walking, someone will come and help us, or show us where we need to go.”

“Can this really be true?” Misao asked Teppei, but his only response was to avert his eyes and give his head a pessimistic shake.

“Come on, Naomi, we need to get going,” Tatsuji said. “This is no time to be thinking about makeup. Hurry up, let's get a move on!”

“But—what about the rest of the family?” Naomi asked hesitantly, clutching the overnight bag Tatsuji had thrust into her arms.

Teppei looked at Misao. She was breathing raggedly, and her chest was visibly heaving under the sheer tank top.

Misao returned his gaze. It was clear from the look in her eyes that while she was decidedly skeptical about the miraculous rescue scenario Tatsuji was touting, she found this new development too interesting to ignore.

“We could at least go down and check it out,” she said softly. “I mean, where's the harm in just taking a look?”

Teppei understood what Misao was saying: they couldn't afford to overlook any chance of escape, however slight. He shared those sentiments, and he knew a last resort was better than no resort at all. It was just that he had a profoundly bad feeling about this particular last resort …

“And after we check it out?” Teppei asked. “What then?”

“I don't know,” Misao said. “But anything has to be better than just sitting around in this apartment doing nothing, don't you think?”

Everyone knew she was right. When human beings are deprived of their normal freedom of movement, they need to latch onto any shred of hope. As long as there is some action to take or some solution to explore, even if those options ultimately come to naught, the mere illusion of possibility can keep people from tumbling into the abyss of despair.

So they all piled into the elevator: Tatsuji, Naomi, Teppei, Misao, and Tamao. As the door began to close, Tamao suddenly cried, “I don't want to leave Cookie behind!” The dog was already standing wistfully in front of the elevator, and when Teppei held the door she bounded eagerly inside.

 

23

July 27, 1987 (7:00 a.m.)

The moment they stepped off the elevator, Cookie began barking ferociously. She bounded toward the opening in the basement wall like a hunting dog charging at its prey, leaping high into the air with every step.

“Cookie!” Tamao called. “Come back here! Cookie!”

Paying no attention, the dog began to go berserk, running wildly around in circles near the wall and frantically sniffing at everything in sight while emitting an endless stream of low growls interspersed with hysterical yelps.

“Look, there it is!” Tatsuji said loudly, pointing toward the hole.

“So you're saying there's an underground road on the other side?” Naomi's tone was hopeful but dubious.

“Yeah. Come on, I'll show you!” Tatsuji grabbed his wife's wrist and pulled her toward the back of the basement.

“It's really cold down here. How on earth could it be so chilly, all of a sudden?” Misao asked Teppei. He didn't reply.

“Oh my god!” Naomi exclaimed in wonderment as she aimed the flashlight beam through the opening. “There really
is
a road! Misao, you've got to see this! I'm not sure what it is, but it's amazing!”

Misao trotted up and peeked inside. At the sight of the road her whole body began to shiver uncontrollably.

The moment she moved away, Tatsuji took her place. Sticking his head through the opening, he yelled fervently, “Hey! Hello! We're all here now!” As if in counterpoint, Cookie matched every word with a shrill, frenetic bark.

“Shut up, Cookie!” Tatsuji bellowed. “Will somebody please make this dog be quiet? I can't hear a damn thing!”

Teppei took hold of Cookie's collar and tried to jerk her away from the wall, but the dog braced her hind legs and refused to budge. Cookie's eyes were bugging out in frustration, and the flecks of white foam that sprayed from her mouth made her look like a rabid hound.

“Hey!” Tatsuji yelled again, into the hole. “Is anybody there? Hello?”

Naomi and Misao pressed their ears against the concrete wall. Tatsuji clicked his tongue in irritation. “Hey!” he shouted into the hole, more urgently than before. “Where did everybody go?”

After a moment Tatsuji withdrew his head from the opening. “There's no answer,” he said peevishly, making no attempt to hide his disgruntlement. “Maybe they went to get somebody else, to help.”

Somebody else?
Teppei felt a sick lurch in the pit of his stomach.
But who, and why?
There had been so many voices, earlier. Surely that throng wouldn't have needed to go off in search of reinforcements.

Tatsuji paused to rest for a moment while Naomi took a turn at hollering into the opening. “Hello! Won't you help us, please? Somebody? Anybody?”

“You know what?” Tatsuji cried. “Let's just tear this mother down! It shouldn't take too long.” His face was red as a beet, and his eyes were filled with grim determination.

“I'll help, too,” Naomi said as her husband prepared to attack the wall, hammer in hand. She hoisted the flashlight above her head and was about to strike the concrete when Tatsuji halted her arm in mid-swing.

“Don't be stupid!” he snapped. “If you break our only flashlight, how are we going to see once we're on the road?”

Unconsciously, Teppei glanced in Misao's direction. She looked back at him with a face that had lost its usual youthful verve and animation, as though she had somehow been transformed into a world-weary old person in the space of a few minutes.

“Um, Papa?” Tamao came up to Teppei and tugged on the bottom of his T-shirt. “What's on the other side of the hole?”

“It's kind of like a big cave with a road running through it,” Teppei replied, absentmindedly stroking his daughter's cheek.

“And we can use the road to get out of here?”

“We don't know yet. We might be able to. That's why we're going to give it a try.”

“But it's so dark in there.”

“You're right. It does look pretty dark.”

“I don't like it.” Tamao's eyes brimmed with tears. “I'm scared. I don't want to go in there.”

Teppei didn't reply; he just held his little daughter close. Cookie was crouched beside them, muscles tensed, emitting a low, continuous growl.

Meanwhile, Tatsuji was making good progress with the demolition. At every blow of the hammer, great chunks of loosened concrete crashed to the floor in a hail of rubble. The wall was so easily dismantled that the onlookers found it hard to believe it was made of cement.

It took Tatsuji a quarter of an hour, at most, to finish hacking out a hole large enough for one person to clamber through. By the end his entire body was drenched in sweat, and his white shirt was soggy and gray with grime. Taking off the shirt, Tatsuji tossed it aside. Then he stood by the wall, naked to the waist and breathing hard, admiring his handiwork.

“This is good enough,” he declared. He had evidently gotten nicked by one of the jagged shards of falling concrete, and blood oozed from a single scratch on his right temple.

Gingerly, with trembling hands, Naomi pointed the flashlight through the newly expanded opening. Teppei and Misao came up and joined her in peering through the hole. The configuration seemed to indicate that the basement was meant to serve as a terminus for the underground road, just as the urban-planning documents at the ward library had described. To the left was a kind of ravine—a wide, deep groove in the earth—while the rough, unfinished road stretched off to the right. A damp, fishy odor assailed their nostrils.

“Do you suppose there are bats, or mice?” Naomi asked uneasily as she beamed the flashlight's circle of light around the vast, dark space.

“Who cares about that?” Tatsuji said irritably, using his bare forearm to wipe the sweat from his brow. “What I want to know is, what happened to all the people who were down here before?”

“They probably haven't gone far.” For some reason, Naomi's casual remark sent a chill up and down Teppei's spine.
They probably haven't gone far …

“Anyway,” Tatsuji said, taking a deep breath, “let's go check it out, shall we, ladies and gentlemen? Or should I say ‘ladies and gentle
man
'?” Clearly, it took a supreme effort for him to crack that little joke.

“Are you really going to go?” Teppei asked.

“Yes, I'm really going to go.” Tatsuji met his brother's gaze and held it.

“I'm going with you,” Naomi announced. She appeared to be in the grip of a contradictory jumble of emotions: a normal measure of fear and foreboding, along with affectionate loyalty to her husband and the hedonistic self-centeredness that made her want only to get back to her easy, comfortable life, any way she could.

“You know, I wonder whether it might be better to hold off for a while,” Misao ventured diffidently.

“What makes you say that?” Tatsuji demanded. “I mean, we've finally found a possible way out, and you all just seem to want us to sit around twiddling our thumbs.”

“No, but it's just—I mean, suppose those people you heard are planning to come and rescue us upstairs. Wouldn't it be more sensible just to wait here? I mean, we have no idea what kind of road this is, or where it goes.”

“Wow, Misao, I didn't realize you were so timid,” Tatsuji said with an expression that mixed scorn with annoyance. “What if someone does decide to come to our rescue upstairs? We already know what will happen if they try to get in through the door on the first floor. It'll be the same thing all over again—just like those other poor victims, they'll end up being vaporized or melted or whatever. I really don't think we can afford to sit around here doing nothing and watching helplessly while that gruesome scenario plays out over and over.”

“Something still doesn't make sense, though,” Teppei said in a low voice.

“What's that?” Tatsuji asked sharply.

“You know all those so-called people we heard a while ago? They must have known we were asking for help. So why would they all vanish in the few minutes it took us to run upstairs and bring everyone else back down here?”

Even as Teppei spoke those words, a voice inside him was saying,
Enough with the logical thinking already! Rational thought doesn't apply here. We've moved into the Twilight Zone, and any semblance of normal reality has been blown to smithereens.

Tamao started crying. “I don't want to go in there,” she sobbed. “Please don't make me go.” Cookie stopped barking, padded over to her little mistress, and began to lick away the tears streaming down Tamao's face.

“Don't cry, sweetie,” Misao said gently. “Mama and Papa will be right here with you, no matter what.”

“So what's it going to be?” Tatsuji's eyes flashed with a fervid light. “Are you guys coming with us to check out the road, or would you rather stand around here all day debating the pros and cons?”

Naomi grabbed the overnight bag. “Let's go,” she said.

Tatsuji picked up his soiled shirt and tied it jauntily around his hips. Then he stepped decisively through the aperture, like an intrepid spelunker.
We've traded places,
Teppei thought.
In the old days, I always used to be the leader. Whenever the neighborhood kids got together, I was always the one who led the way on every bold adventure.

Naomi followed Tatsuji through the opening, but there was something awkward and ambivalent about the way she moved. “It smells really horrid in here,” she said, from the other side. “And it's unbelievably cold.”

“Stay close,” Tatsuji cautioned. His voice already sounded far away.

“Aah!” Naomi squealed. “What's this thing?”

“It's just a rock,” Tatsuji reassured her. “Watch your step, now.”

Meanwhile, back in the basement, Misao turned to Teppei. “What do you want to do, honey?” she asked. “Shall we go, too?”

Teppei didn't reply. It was a simple question, and he didn't understand why he was having such a hard time making a decision. After all, they could always go in and take a peek, then turn around and come right back. And if there seemed to be a clear path to daylight, they could keep going. The road wasn't a natural (or supernatural) phenomenon; they knew it had been created by human beings, with a practical aim in mind. There was no reason to expect any deadly pitfalls or hazards, much less some diabolical trap.
But yet
, he thought as he desperately rounded up his few remaining drops of saliva and tried to slosh them around in his parched mouth,
wasn't this all a little bit too good to be true? I mean, could a functional subterranean road really exist for decades beneath a residential area, without anyone's knowledge?

“Tepp! Teppei! You've got to come see this—the road goes all the way!” Tatsuji's jubilant voice rang out in the distance.

Cookie suddenly began snarling in an alarmingly brutish way, the likes of which the family had never heard before. The dog began to back away from the wall in slow motion, an inch or two at a time, keeping her eyes intently fixed on the hole. Those eyes no longer seemed to belong to a domestic pet, though; they were the eyes of some wild beast, aglow in the dangerous darkness.