Another, Vol. 2 (21 page)

I could hardly stand still because I was so worried about Mei’s safety, but I knew I couldn’t just dump Maejima here, as badly hurt as he was. There was Kazami to consider, too. He wasn’t walking anywhere on his own, so I couldn’t just ask Teshigawara to take Maejima for me, either.

The first thing I had to worry about was getting Maejima somewhere the fire wouldn’t reach him.

Driving Teshigawara on, I summoned all the speed I was capable of to get away from the building. By now, several students who had been alerted to the fire were rushing out the front door and side exits.

They were all panicked by the flames that continued to mount in intensity and spread over the building. They ran past us and fled toward the gate, trying to save themselves. Every last one of them was dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt or in pajamas. There were even some people who’d come running out in their slippers.

I couldn’t get my body to respond the way I wanted it to, and I grew frantic. The heat and smoke really were chasing me down. In the roar of the flames I could hear, now and then, the sound of windows shattering. The sound of the building creaking.

At some point, Maejima’s body suddenly felt much heavier.

“Stay with me. Fight,” I called to him, but there was no apparent reaction. No way he’d start walking around on his own…

In the midst of all this…

I heard a scream.

Though it mingled with the many other strange noises rising out of the fire, it was clearly discernible…as a person screaming. A sharp, high-pitched shriek.

It came from above us, off at an angle.

When I looked up, I saw a person on a second-floor balcony. It was a room maybe two doors closer in from room 223, which we’d rushed out of not so long ago. I didn’t think the flames had reached that area yet, but…I guessed that they weren’t able to go into the hallway and were calling for help from the balcony.

…No.

I knew immediately that wasn’t it.

I could see two people on the balcony.

From her build and hairstyle, one of them looked like Izumi Akazawa. The scream had probably come from her. And
the other
was…

“Stop it!”

The piercing voice shouting those words superimposed itself on my view of Akazawa.

“What’s your problem?! Why are you—”

My eyes popped in horror. The
other person
on the balcony was, at this very moment, attempting to attack Akazawa. Their right hand was lifted high above their head. It might have held the very same knife that had stabbed Maejima…

“Stop!” Akazawa screamed. “Help me!”

The attacker and the victim—their forms tangled together on the balcony. And just then—

A monstrous sound deafened me. At the same moment, a blinding pillar of flame exploded from one corner at the back of the building…

An explosion?

That was an explosion.

Right—like the gas line in the kitchen. Considering the location, a propane gas cylinder must have been installed somewhere. Had that caught fire?

I raised both arms reflexively, trying to protect my face from the waves of heat and the sparks raining down on me. Losing its support, Maejima’s body slumped into a heap on the ground. Even as I rushed to do something, though…

My eyes went back to the second-floor balcony. And I caught the precise moment that the two grappling figures toppled over the railing, still locked together.

“What’s happening?” I murmured, overcome, averting my eyes. I fixed my grip on Maejima’s arm. “Are you okay? Come on, keep pushing.”

Pressing one knee against the mud, I struggled mightily to lift him up, but there was no response. When I relaxed my hold, Maejima’s body crumpled once more to the ground. He was like an inflatable toy without any air left in it.

“Maejima…Maejima?”

I called to him again and again and felt his wrist for a pulse. I checked his breathing and his heartbeat. But…

“Oh, Maejima…”

He was dead.

I felt myself start to become rooted in place, consumed by a sense of futility and powerlessness more than fear. I quickly and firmly shook my head and started, however slightly, to get my mind back on track, but at that moment…

Where’s Mei?

An intense alarm, swelling up rapidly.

I wonder if she’s okay.

I have to go back and look for her
, I thought, panicked. But…No, it was pointless.

Mei was…

She’d let everyone on the second floor know that a fire had broken out, but had she managed to get out safely after that? The front door wasn’t the only exit. She might have gone out a different door, or through a window…

I’m sure she made it
, I told myself desperately.

I’m sure she made it.
Otherwise, how much would I curse myself for being unable to stop her back there?

The explosion had given the fire even more strength, and it was starting to spread to the entire lodge. Dawdling around right here wasn’t going to be safe much longer. “I’m sorry.” Those were my last words to Maejima before I left him there. I was just starting to turn on my heel when I caught sight of…

Something that was hard to believe.

Slowly, from behind the shrubs where the two people on the balcony had fallen immediately after the explosion,
that person
appeared.

Beneath the smears of blood and dirt and ash, it was impossible to figure out what color their clothes had been originally. Their hair and the exposed skin of their arms and face were the same. It was almost impossible to distinguish their features with only a quick look.

So after grappling and falling from the second floor…
that person
was the one to escape with their life. So Akazawa was…dead? Or had
that person
finished her off?

Though they dragged one leg behind them and the opposite shoulder slumped, their body twisted grotesquely…

That person
was shuffling toward me under their own power. Through the rising smoke, lit up red by the flames devouring the lodge, the movement struck me like the shambling of an undead creature.

They
were coming straight toward me.  There were only a few meters between us. They really were carrying a knife of some sort in their right hand. In the ocher filth on their face, two bugging eyes flashed. An instant later, goose bumps pricked the sweaty skin that covered my body.

I had imagined this countless times when I was reading novels. I’d even watched performances of it in movies…But I had never seen it in the real world. Not once. Nothing like this…

…Crazed eyes. The eyes of a person who had completely lost their mind.

They were even different from Mr. Kubodera’s when he had slit his own throat in the classroom. His eyes had been utterly vacant. At least his eyes hadn’t been this terrifying, hadn’t held this threatening glint.

Those eyes…

They were looking at me.

As soon as I realized I was being watched, I bolted from the spot with all the speed I was capable of. I truly believed I was going to be attacked and killed.

I ran. I thought I might have heard someone scream once or twice behind me. I guess those were students who weren’t so quick to run and got attacked by
that person
. I didn’t stop and I didn’t turn around to look, though. I was too scared.

I kept running through the front yard until finally I saw the shadow of the front gate ahead of me, and just then—a sharp pain jolted through my chest. Unable to bear it, I brought my feet to a halt. I pressed both hands down on my chest and fell to my knees on the ground.

The pain only flared once, and then I started to feel better right away.

“Couldn’t…give me a break…just this once?” I muttered, then tried to stand. I impulsively looked behind me.

That person
—the killer was dragging one leg. I think I put some good distance between us. Maybe they’re not coming after me anymore. Yeah, it’s probably okay now…

However.

That person
was still there.

With an appearance that suggested they had just this moment been reborn from the fires of hell.

True, there was a somewhat greater distance between us than before, but they were still coming straight at me at the same pace.

I tried to run, blinded by panic, but my foot caught in a patch of mud. I pitched over with a complete lack of grace and banged my hip hard. Even as I groaned in shock, I tried desperately to stand up again. But I couldn’t get any strength behind the effort quickly enough. At long last, I stood myself back up and once again looked behind me. My blood curdled at the steadily closing distance between my enemy and me, and another pang went through my chest.

I can’t get away…

For one instant, defeat skimmed through my mind.

I can’t get away. Is there nowhere to run? So now it’s my turn, out here. Like the caretaker who got murdered in the kitchen. Like Maejima. Like Akazawa.

“Don’t come near me.”

Feeble words of rebellion that I could only barely vocalize.

“Don’t. Not another step…”

That person
—the crazed murderer’s deformed steps never halted. Instead, they seemed to speed up. The hand holding the knife swung up. Behind them, the roar of the flames was extraordinarily violent. Smoke billowed up everywhere. When suddenly—

A black shape appeared from the flank.

Before the words
What? Who?
had even formed, the shape leapt viciously at the killer and knocked the knife from their hand. The next moment, the killer was sent somersaulting and planted on their back on the ground. Instantly, the shape was leaning over them.

“Oh!” I gawked. “Mr. Chibiki?!”

By the time I shouted, he was already putting an end to it.

The shape moved away from the killer, who had ceased moving. It stood up and turned to look at me.

“Mr. Chibiki!”

“That was close,” the all-in-black librarian murmured in response. “When I got back from the hospital, all this was going on. I was aghast. I made it this far when I saw this person had a knife and was…”

Adjusting his dirty, black-framed glasses, Mr. Chibiki threw his gaze back to the face of the killer.

“I didn’t know who it was, but I could tell right away that something wasn’t right.”

“The caretaker was murdered, in the kitchen.”

“The caretaker?”

“Yes.
Mr.
Numata.”

“Then…”

“I think that’s where this started. Then Maejima got stabbed, and the fire started…”

“She did all that?”

Mr. Chibiki cast his eyes down once more to the face of the killer—Mrs. Numata.

“Why would she do such a thing?” he started to wonder, then shook his head emphatically. As if telling himself there was no point in wondering about it. That this was just another of the “disasters” for this year…

“Anyway, you need to get out of here,” Mr. Chibiki ordered, lifting his eyes from her. “You should get outside the gate. Quickly.”

“Er…yes, sir.”

“You go ahead. I’ll take care of her… of Mrs. Numata.”

“Huh?”

“She’s merely unconscious. I can’t just leave her here.”

“But…”

“I’ll be fine. You saw what I just did, didn’t you? Despite how I look on the outside, I know what I’m doing. I’m still active at a martial arts school.”

He must have known judo or kenpo or something like that. This was no time to be impressed, but it was true: It was pretty out of step with how Mr. Chibiki looked.

“Now go on, hurry.”

I paused, blank.

“I said go!”

“…Yes, sir.”

Among the people who had fled beyond the gate, I located Teshigawara’s face first. He was leaning against one of the stone gateposts, staring vacantly as the Sakitani Memorial Hall went up in flames. Kazami was beside the opposite gatepost. He was sitting on the ground with one knee up, both arms wrapped around his leg. He had his forehead pressed against his kneecap, his body rigid.

“Hey…Sakaki.”

Teshigawara noticed me and raised a hand limply.

“Where’s Maejima?”

I couldn’t answer his question.

“…Too late for him, huh?”

Still impossible to answer.

“Mr. Chibiki got back. He ran in to see what’s going on.”

“…I saw him.”

As I replied, my eyes searched for Mei.

“…He saved me.”

“He told us to cool it right here. To wait for the ambulance and firefighters to come.”

This was such a raging fire. Even from far, far away, people would be able to tell at a glance that something wasn’t right. Even if direct communication from the site of the fire wasn’t possible, the fire department was probably already moving on it.

“Are these the only people who got away?” Surveying the area, I saw five people around the gate besides me. Mei, at least, was not among them. “Where’s Misaki?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, she’s not here.”

Teshigawara clawed at his dirty brown hair.

“Neither is Mochizuki, huh? It’s fine. I’m sure they both ran off somewhere else.”

I was totally unable to convince myself to be that optimistic—to surrender all thought like that. Unable to sit still, I turned my back on Teshigawara. I took a few quick steps away from the gate, and stared hard at the flames that continued to burn the night sky…And then—

“Mei Misaki.”

Speaking her name in a low, yet forceful voice, directed in some unseen direction, I searched the pockets of my pants. I found my cell phone. It hadn’t broken from the impact when I fell over. I pulled up Mei’s number from my call history, then pushed the call button.

Please.

Literally praying, I pressed the phone to my ear.

One time tonight, I knew, this phone had connected with hers.
So do it one more time. Just one more time, right now…

…Please connect.

Please. Even if it’s just for one second.

The short electronic buzz of “attempting connection.” It repeated enough times that I should have given up, and then—

The sound changed to a ring. After the fourth ring, someone picked up.