Chapter 4 - Amanojaku: Intruder

1

Shun reached the front of the mansion a little after the others. They were all standing on the stone tiles in front of the entrance with puzzled looks on their faces. The door, elaborately decorated with art deco-style reliefs, was thrown wide open. Shun stared inside. The chandelier hanging from the ceiling was swaying in the wind blowing in from the door. Red carpet covered the stairs, something he’d only seen in foreign movies. A Western suit of armor stood next to the staircase, giving the whole thing a bizarre feel.

A sharp ache suddenly shot through Shun’s temple. His face twisted in agony.

Again...

Unease swirled inside him. It was just like the pain he’d felt when talking to Anna by the abandoned plant. What was going on?

“This is amazing.”

While Shun was busy moping, Hiroshi was rapt. His eyes sparkled behind his glasses as he restlessly scanned the mansion, seemingly having forgotten all about the grasshopper. Near the suit of armor sat Takuro’s hand truck. The cardboard boxes remained stacked on top of it.

“...Why is the door open?”

Takuro’s Adam’s apple rose and fell dramatically.

“It refused to budge a few minutes ago, so who opened it? And who moved the hand truck in here?” he asked, raising his voice as he looked around at everyone.

“I-It wasn’t me!” Takeshi jumped to clear his name, emphatically waving his hands in front of his chest. “I mean, we couldn’t get it to move at all, right? We didn’t have the key either, and I was with you the whole time.”

“Then who did it?”

“Maybe your dad?” Mika suggested as she walked by Takuro to get a look at the inside of the mansion. “He’s the only one who has the key to this place, right? So that’s the only possibility. Maybe he had some business here and stopped by.”

Or perhaps he’d come to yell at his son for stealing the key.

While everyone else anxiously discussed the possibilities, Hiroshi stroked the wall with his palm and whispered to Shun, “This is stucco.”

“It wasn’t my dad,” Takuro said, looking steamed.

“How do you know that for sure?”

“He would have driven here. But we didn’t hear an engine, now did we?”

Shun looked back at the gate. It was just as he’d left it, ajar only wide enough for a teenager to narrowly squeeze through. Shun had recently seen a picture of Takuro’s father in an interview in a local community magazine, so he remembered him quite clearly. He was a round, plump, giant of a man. Unless he’d gone on the crash diet of the century, there was no way he could make it past that gate, meaning it couldn’t have been him that opened the door. It was hard to imagine anyone else would have come in from the outside, which only left one potential person who could have snuck into the mansion: Anna, who had agilely run off before Takuro and the others appeared.

“Heyo! Anyone here?”

Takuro shouted into the mansion’s halls. But as expected, no answer came.

“Hey, let’s just go.” Takeshi tugged on the sleeve of Takuro’s coat, fear written all over his face. “There’s something weird about this mansion. I wasn’t seeing things when I saw that eyeball earlier, either. Someone must be here.”

“Don’t be stupid. Wouldn’t they have left their shoes at the door if they lived here? Oh, of course. Ghosts don’t wear shoes, do they?”

“No one said anything about ghosts. It could be a thief. A thief could easily pick the lock and wouldn’t bother taking off their shoes, right?”

“This rundown dump has been abandoned for nearly twenty years. Who would bother robbing a place like this? I don’t see anything expensive—”

Takuro was interrupted by a sudden noise that sounded like a plate being smashed somewhere within the mansion. His face stiffened. It was hard to tell if he was scared or angry.

“Who’s there?” he barked, his voice echoing down the hallway.

“...Let’s just stop this,” Takeshi whimpered as he sank to the floor. “This is all your doing, isn’t it?”

Shivering, he hugged himself. His face was a mess and he looked like he’d burst into tears at any moment.

“Enough with the bad pranks. If you go too far, we could have another Naoki on our hands. If you hadn’t chased him—”

“Stop it, Takeshi. Don’t say another word.”

Shun picked up on the sinister change in Takuro’s expression. Takuro looked like a starving beast sizing up his prey. Even though Shun wasn’t his target, it sent a chill down his spine. He felt like a rabbit in the presence of a mad wolf. One wrong move and those fangs would tear into his throat and kill him instantly.

“Oh... Sorry.”

Takeshi must have gotten the same vibe. His face paled and he went silent.

The sound of another smashing plate broke the heavy silence, this time even louder than before.

“Who the hell is breaking and entering in my house? I’m gonna catch them and teach them a lesson!”

Takuro pulled a folding knife from the back pocket of his form-fitting pants and went further inside the mansion, still wearing his dirty shoes. He passed by the staircase and started to walk into the back of the house.

“Wait, Takuro!” Mika chased after him. “Please, calm down. Put away the knife. We don’t need that, do we?”

She apparently wasn’t concerned for Takuro’s well-being. In fact, it appeared to be the opposite. She was worried about what Takuro might do to someone else. They turned left past the suit of armor and disappeared from view.

“What a curious building. Did the previous residents have some special fascination with Europe?”

“Huh? What’re you babbling about now?”

Takeshi couldn’t hide his irritation at Hiroshi’s seeming lack of concern for the situation.

“Shut up for a minute, you bookworm. This isn’t study hall.” His tone was acidic, but his complexion was as pale as ever.

“Doesn’t this building remind you of the Pisa Cathedral?” Hiroshi indifferently continued his train of thought and didn’t seem to even register Takeshi’s comments.

“What about pizza?”

“The Pisa Cathedral. One notable example of Romanesque architecture. Would it be easier to understand if I told you it was the place where Galileo Galilei formulated his theory on the isochronism of the pendulum?”

Takeshi cocked his head quizzically and scratched the tip of his nose. Shun could hardly follow what Hiroshi was saying either.

“The inner walls here also use a natural plaster called stucco that was popular in Europe, so I think the person who built this mansion was a big fan of Western style.” Hiroshi continued to ramble, drawing his face closer to the wall. “My grandfather on my mother’s side was Italian, so I’ve always had an interest in European culture myself. I bet this mansion is filled with more fascinating decorations. I’m going to do a little investigating of my own.”

He set off without any hesitation, taking the right hall before the staircase and disappearing into the room at the end.

“What’s with him?” Takeshi shrugged.

He’d apparently had enough of Hiroshi’s self-indulgent personality. On the other hand, Shun was beginning to envy Hiroshi’s ability to simply be himself without regard for what other people thought.

“Everyone’s crazy. They just stroll into this creepy place like it’s nothing. I’m going home. I’m not scared though, you hear? My mom ordered me to help out with the restaurant, so I have no choice.” Takeshi blathered on even though no one had asked him to explain himself, and then he made to leave.

Suddenly, as if to shut off his escape, the front door slammed shut. At the same time, the chandelier lit up.

“The game begins.”

Shun thought he heard a voice and looked around, but there was no one there except the frightened Takeshi. Shun gripped his collar tightly as an ominous premonition came over him.

2

“Wh-Wh-What was that?” Takeshi went pale and, knees knocking, grabbed the staircase handrail for support. “Wh-Wh-Why did the door close?”

“Don’t worry. It was just the wind,”

Shun tried to reassure him, but Takeshi just shook his trembling head. His eyes were wide, his pupils mere pinpoints from the fear.

“The lights turned on too! I didn’t touch anything!”

“There’s probably a sensor—”

Shun stopped short and strained his ears. Close by, he could hear the sound of metal scraping against metal. The helmet on the suit of armor behind Takeshi swayed slightly. As if he’d noticed Shun staring, or possibly because he felt an unnatural presence, Takeshi turned around. Practically simultaneously, the helmet tumbled to the floor. Although it was just the helmet, it was made of metal and still had to weigh a considerable amount. It should have made a rather loud sound crashing to the floor, but Shun didn’t hear it because Takeshi screamed so loudly that he thought his eardrums might burst.

“Save meee!”

Bawling like a baby, Takeshi took off up the staircase like a bullet.

“Wait... Takeshi!”

Shun called out weakly, but there was no way Takeshi could hear him over his own screaming. The screams grew fainter as he ran further into the mansion, and eventually Shun heard nothing at all. Silence settled over the entrance hall. He looked around and gulped. The helmet on the floor looked like a severed head, which sent a chill up his spine. He hadn’t felt anything earlier, but now that he was alone, fear bubbled up inside him.

I should leave.

He turned his back to the suit of armor and made to leave.

“Shun.”

A voice from somewhere behind surprised him. He felt his muscles tense in fear, and he slowly turned to face the speaker. Anna stepped out from the shadow of the suit of armor.

“D-Don’t scare me like that.”

Shun put a hand over his heart, which was racing a million miles an hour, and breathed a sigh of relief.

“How long have you been hiding there?” he asked.

He felt a little awkward with his shoes on in someone else’s house, but it would be more awkward to be the only one with no shoes on. Tip-toeing so he wouldn’t dirty the floor, he approached Anna.

“Have you been here ever since we got separated?”

“Yeah. I was going to investigate what was inside the boxes Takuro brought, but when I got to the entrance, the door was open for some reason... Then I sensed everyone coming back and I panicked. I ran inside and hid behind this suit of armor. My heart almost stopped when the helmet fell off, though.”

“Were those sounds earlier your doing too?”

“That wasn’t me. I think there might be something else other than us in here,” Anna answered as she looked up at the chandelier.

“What do you mean by ‘something’? A ghost?”

She nodded hesitantly.

“Did you... see something?”

“Nothing yet. But whenever I’m about to, I start shivering and it’s like all the blood in my body freezes. I’ve been feeling that sensation since the moment I laid eyes on the Jailhouse walls. Normally it’s not like that... I think something mysterious definitely snuck in here,” Anna quickly explained as she grabbed Shun’s arm and walked over to the door.

“...Huh? What?”

“I think this place is sort of what people mean when they say curiosity killed the cat. We need to get out of here quickly.”

She reached for the doorknob, but when she went to turn it, the blood drained from her face. The door wouldn’t open.

“You’re kidding... How?” Anna breathed, horrified.

Shun also tried the knob, but the result was the same. He checked around it and discovered there was no locking mechanism. The keyhole was just empty.

“...What’s going on here?”

Anna looked at him imploringly, but Shun was equally confused.

There was probably some mechanism that automatically locked the door upon closing, but he’d never heard of a door that required a key to open from the inside. The only need for something like that would be in a prison.

It can’t be...

Shun’s eyes shot open as he scanned his surroundings. Thick boards were nailed to the windows. Even if they could pry them off, there were still iron bars across the glass outside.

Could this be...? No, don’t be stupid. There’s just no way.

“Hey, Shun...”

Anna’s lips were trembling as she gave words to the one possibility Shun had been desperately trying to deny.

“...Do you think we’ve been trapped in here?”