Takeshita Demons (6 page)

"Awesome." Cait kicked a puff of fresh white
snow into the air. "I can't believe we get to go home
early. And we missed the maths test. Just awesome.
Is it still OK if I come to yours? 'Cos my dad'll
still be at work and all. Hey, isn't this amazing?"
She dusted some flakes off her jacket and kicked
up another cloud of snow. "Do you want to make
a mini snowman?"

"We've got to get home." I pulled on her arm.
We had no time for snowmen, mini or otherwise.
"Didn't you see that woman back there?
Mrs Okuda?"

"Oh yeah," Cait said, kicking her feet through
the snow and almost keeping up with me as I barrelled ahead. She didn't seem too worried.
"You were great. I can't believe she kept calling you
Takeshita-san. And talking all that Japanese? You
were right to ignore her. I wouldn't have read out my
essay either."

The snow kept falling. It seemed even heavier
when we turned into my street. Lucky we didn't
have far to go. Usually it was a bit awkward, living
so close to school. Almost every day I'd accidentally
run into other kids, or even worse, a teacher. Usually
I'd be doing something totally uncool, like buying
nappies for Kazu or heading to the shops with my
mum. But today, living right next to school was the
best thing that could have happened. We'd soon be
inside, and safe.

"I'm not talking about the essay," I said.
"I'm talking about her. Okuda. Her neck. Didn't
you see?"

"See what? Oh, that. Totally. That was the worst
outfit I've ever seen. Who did she think she was?
I can't believe we have to have her till Mr Lloyd gets
back. Wonder what she'll wear tomorrow?"

"No!" I fumbled with my key, trying to get in as
quickly as possible, without my fingers freezing off or
a flying head coming to chew on my ears. "Her neck.
The marks? Didn't you notice her itching?"

The door opened and we stepped inside the
hallway of our building. I shut the door behind
us, banging it hard so the lock clicked into place.
Then I leaned back against the door and looked
across at Cait. She looked fed up with all my
questions. And no wonder. I was being an awful
best friend.

"I'm sorry," I said.

Cait kicked the snow off her shoes. "S'ok. Just tell
me what you're going on about."

"Come on," I said, grabbing her arm. "Come
upstairs. I'll show you."

We rushed up the stairs to the door of our flat.
I buzzed the doorbell and knocked twice for good
measure.

Cait bent down to unlace her shoes.
She'd been round often enough to know that we
had a shoes-off policy for our home. Your toes
sometimes got cold in winter, but we kept pairs
of slippers at the door, even a special pair of guest
slippers for Cait. They were moss green and had
cartoon kittens on them, but Cait didn't seem to
mind.

"So what's the big deal then?" she asked, her
shoes loosened and ready to kick off. "Why the big
fuss about Okuda's neck?"

"Did you see her marks?" I asked, indicating
my own throat.

"No, I already told you."

I buzzed the door again. What was keeping
Mum so long?

"Red marks," I said. "Little ones, kind of like
mosquito bites, but all in a line."

"Oh, yeah. I did see something like that.
I thought they were mozzy bites. She was itching
a lot."

"Yes, that's it." Cait had seen them too! I could
have hugged her, but just then the lock on our door
clicked open.

"Hello?" said a voice behind the door, but it
wasn't Mum's.

"Hello?" I echoed, stepping back as the door
swung wider. Who was this? Where was Mum?

"Miku!" The voice sounded pleased. "What are
you doing home so early? And it's Cait, isn't it?
Come in, come in. You must be freezing." It was
my neighbour, Mrs Williams, the one with the cute
son and the noisy scooter. She looked a bit frazzled,
with bits of brown hair sticking up out of place and
no make-up. "I came as soon as I could. Your poor
mother."

My poor mother? What was going on?

Cait and I kicked off our shoes and scuffed our
way into a pair of slippers each.

"What about my mum? Where's Kazu?"

"He's right here, on the sofa," said Mrs Williams,
walking ahead of us down the hall. "Still sick, the
poor little blighter. I guess your mum will take him to
the doctor's when she gets back."

"Gets back from where?" I asked. I rushed past
Mrs Williams into the living room, scared of what
I might find.

But I found Kazu sitting happily on the sofa,
just like Mrs Williams had said. I tried to gather him
in my arms, but he whinged and pushed me away,
more interested in watching the TV. So that, at least,
was normal.

"Your teacher didn't tell you?" Mrs Williams
waddled into the living room with Cait following
close behind.

"Tell me what?"

"I left a message with the school. They must've
forgotten. Your mother's in the hospital, dear. She
was putting out the rubbish and she slipped on some
ice. It's been so unusually cold..."

The news made me shiver. "But..."

"Don't worry, dear." Mrs Williams patted me
on the shoulder. "It's nothing too serious. She'll be back tomorrow, I expect. She's asked me to look after
Kazu till your father gets back."

Back tomorrow? But that could be too late!
I realised I'd been counting on Mum. She might not
believe in cedar leaves or amazaki-baba, but she
couldn't just stand back and do nothing if I told her
our supply teacher was a nukekubi. She would have
to make a plan. She would know what to do. She was
Japanese after all.

"Can I get you a cup of something warm, dears?"
Mrs Williams asked, hovering while I scrubbed my
hands together with anxiety and the cold.

What to do? We couldn't count on Mum. That
meant we were alone till Dad got back. We were going
to need a plan of our own.

"Um, no thanks," I said, thinking fast. "We've got
homework. They sent us home early cos of the snow,
but we've still got heaps of work."

"Ah." Mrs Williams looked relieved. I guess
she wanted to hang out with us about as much as
we wanted to hang out with her. "Well, have fun.
I'll let you know when your father calls."

I nodded. Cait and I zoomed up the stairs as fast
as our slippers would climb, heading straight for
my bedroom. We burst through the door and I made
sure to close it behind us.

"What?" Cait had run out of patience. She sat
down and glared at me. "I don't want to do
homework. Will you just tell me what's going on?"

At last we were safe, and alone. I sat
cross-legged on one end of my bed, kicking off
my slippers. "Are you ready for something truly
strange?"

"OK," she said, looking wary. "Try me. What's
so weird about Mrs Okuda's neck?"

And so I told her. About the Red Cross woman,
disappeared or invisible at our door. The icy breeze
that had swept into our house. My brother's strange
coughing. The meaning of the marks we'd seen on
Mrs Okuda's neck. But I didn't stop there. I told
her about the way a nukekubi could leave its body
to fly screaming through the night, searching for
human flesh. And I told her of my darkest fear:
that something had found us, travelled all the way
from Japan, to wreak evil upon me and my family.
Cait listened the whole time without interrupting,
which was something of a miracle for her. Then it
finally got too much.

"Whoah." She held up her hands in two stop
signs. "I get all the other stuff, about the flying
head people and Mrs Okuda, however creepy
that might be. But I don't get why she'd come all the way from Japan just to haunt you. Why wouldn't
she haunt some other family, back in Japan?
She didn't need to travel this far."

Cait had a point. And I didn't have an answer.
Why would she leave Japan and come to England?
What was so special about us, the Takeshitas?
We were just another ordinary family, as far as I was
concerned.

"I don't know." I looked across at my friend.
She had a thoughtful look on her freckled face.

"Well," she said at last. "I guess that's not
important. What we have to do is figure out how to
stop her. We can figure out why she's here later on."

"Then you'll help?" I asked, hardly daring
to hope.

"Sure." Cait grinned. "It's gotta be better than
doing homework."

"All right!" We were a team! Partners against
crime! I reached across to high-five her, and she nearly
tipped over the chair.

"So now what do we do?"

"Now we..."

But I didn't know. The nukekubi could be
anywhere. She could be watching our house right
this minute. She could be planning something for
tomorrow at school, or worse, for this very night. We had to keep our doors and windows shut tight.

"Maybe we should wait for my dad to get
back," I said, feeling very small. "He might suggest
something."

"He knows about these cut-throat demon
things?"

"Well, yes." Anyone Japanese knew about
nukekubi. But only some, like my Baba, actually
believed. What about my dad? Which was he?

We were both silent for a bit, thinking. Cait got
up and walked across to my window, pulling aside
the cream curtains. "It's still snowing," she said.
"Look at it! I'm glad we're not walking home
in that."

"Careful, Cait," I said. "She could be out there,
watching." I slipped back into my slippers and
padded across to the window. Cait was right. Outside
it was getting dark and the street lamps were turning
the falling snow into a yellow glow. The street was
empty: no people, no moving cars. Just car-shaped
blobs of snow parked on both sides of the road.

"Maybe we should wait till tomorrow," Cait said.
"Take another look at Okuda, in the light. It's kind
of dark to be thinking that flesh-eating monsters
could be out there right now." She tried to laugh,
but I could tell she was scared.

I was scared too. I moved away from the window,
back to the bed. I was thinking of my mum, alone in
the hospital, and of Kazu, his little cough still audible
from below.

"What the...?" Cait exclaimed. She sounded
excited. "Come and look at this, Miku. It's like a giant
face, in the sky. It's like one of those cloud shapes on
a sunny day, only this is a snow shape. It looks just
like someone's massive head."

I scrambled back to the window, dreading what
might be there. But it wasn't Okuda's head. Instead,
hanging in the sky like a giant moon, was the murky
shape of someone else's head. I could see its heavy
eyebrows, the dark shadow of its eyes, the coil and
wave of its hair. I couldn't tell if it was a man or a
woman, but it definitely wasn't Mrs Okuda. It just
hung there, with the wind blowing its ghostly black
hair into the snow. It seemed to be right outside our
window.

I held Cait's arm tight and we watched it in
silence. It didn't move, it didn't try to speak. It just
floated in the dusk, as big as a hundred heads all
bunched together.

"Maybe it's just the snow clouds?" Cait
whispered. But we both knew it wasn't.

We watched it for maybe a minute, then there was the scream of an ambulance in the main street, and
the hanging face vanished. It just faded away, folding
back into the dark and the falling snow.

"What. Was. That?" Cait asked, speaking each
word very slowly.

"I dunno. But I don't think we can wait till
morning to find out. We have to ask my dad,
and tonight."

A sharp rap at the door startled both of us.

"Girls. Can I come in?"