Case 04: The hole in the clock tower (4)

--Damn it, why do things always end up like this?

Regardless of Krishna-san emphasizing the fact that I shouldn’t associate with Yoishi, yet here I am, at the dead of night, going out on another strange adventure with Yoishi.

The two of us headed towards the clock tower, the sports ground was as dark as the night sea. However, to be honest, I would strongly argue that this was out of my hands. Just like Yoishi said, we didn’t really plan to meet or anything. It was an accidental encounter, so to speak.

--I can still…turn back.

I should still be able to return to my usual peaceful world. All I had to do was immediately turn on my heels, tell Yoishi I’m really quitting, see you later, ciao, and then hop on my bike and race back to my cheap apartment. I’d forget Yoishi’s mutterings, crawl under my futon and forget everything. However, despite my internal conflict, my feet continued to simply follow in Yoishi's footsteps. At this very moment, there's some kind of creeping chill in my body that refused to disappear, but it still didn’t stop my feet.

“I've heard that building’s history dates back to before this school was founded.” Without turning back, Yoishi continued to narrate.

“Originally, this land seems to have been donated to the school by an influential local. And that building continued to be used by the school since then.”

“So, was it originally a clock tower?”

“The students in the affiliated school seemed to have called it as such.”

So that means – Krishna-san, who I’m sure graduated from the affiliated school, knew about it. Which means, that I was indirectly kept away from the paranormal. In short, that is an S-ranked haunted place that I shouldn’t be looking at.

As if to affirm that fact, Yoishi’s eyes were shining.

“That place is quite dangerous.”

…..I’m sorry, I’ll be leaving after all. By the time I had finally made up my mind to speak those words, we had already reached the clock tower.

On the front of the building was a sign that said ‘Koumei Institute Athletic Equipment Storage Area,’ and next to it, was a brightly colored cone. Dirty rugby shirts lay scattered about, there was also a cooler box forgotten by some club. However, the original foundation of the building was built from stone, on top of that was wooden construction. The wall coated with old plaster stretched out. It’s pretty worn out, yet when you look at it carefully, it’s a blending of Japanese and Western Styles, reminiscent of the early Meiji era buildings that you see in books- indeed, the outward appearance of the old clock attached to it makes it befitting enough to be called a clock tower.

While Yoishi was wandering about tampering with the edges of the foundation, I kept staring at the old worn-out clock. If you look at it from here, it’s actually attached quite high up. It was stained in white, and looked as if it had assimilated with the surrounding walls. You wouldn’t even notice the clock with just a quick glance.

Moreover, looking at it again from up close, there surely didn’t seem to be any hole in the clock face.

I could have misjudged it from back then, but Yoishi did ask, ‘Did you see that hole as well?’ That means, Yoishi must have seen it as well… In short, what does it all mean?

“Move.”

Being ordered so suddenly, I looked to my side and there was Yoishi Mitsurugi, brandishing an iron rake used for sports ground maintenance like a great sword from a fantasy world.

“…W-woahhh!!”

As soon as I jumped out of the way in a panic, Yoishi swung downward with great force.

A sharp sound rang across the silent sports ground, and the old door bolt was easily smashed into pieces. While I stood there dumbfounded, Yoishi opened the door, and boldly entered inside. A guard might have heard that noise, I wondered as I followed fearfully. It was dark inside. Without saying a word, Yoishi took out her phone and turned on the flashlight. The light from her phone dimly illuminated the surroundings and the familiar room came into view; it was a dusty place about 27 sqm in size. Covered with mud walls, rotten air clung to the place. I don't know if it's from used gym equipment or something specific to the building. Maybe it's both.

Yoishi randomly moved aside mats and portable basketball hoops out of the way so she could see the mud walls. She muttered ‘Hmm’ as she pointed the light towards them. I don't know what it was, but I was already scared out of my mind. It wasn't so much from this place, but rather my thoughts were dominated by that idea that I had just had a while ago. The ceiling of this room was way too low compared to the height of the building.

Maybe it was because I had confirmed from close up, but that thought had begun to fill me with more and more anxiety.

“…Say, Yoishi.”

I made up my mind ask the question.

“Could this place have a second floor?”

“Of course, there is.”

“Eh?”

“Because it’s a clock tower, after all.”

Yoishi posited that because it’s a clock tower, there’s a clock, so there must be a room for its maintenance. But, the creepy feeling nesting inside me was about something else. There are no stairs leading up to that maintenance room or whatever in this building. Even if there was a second floor, the entrance itself being sealed was what scared me. But Yoishi spoke in an exasperated tone.

“That’s what we’re here to find, after all.”

After that, she stared at a thick beam about three meters above…

“There must be a way up somewhere.”

Saying those kinds of things, she began knocking here and there on the wall.

It couldn’t be helped, I took out my phone and turned on the flashlight, and started walking around, knocking on the walls nearby. When I looked at it again, the walls, the floor, just about everything was pretty antiquated. It wasn’t at the level of being completely worn-out and filthy. But still, It's such an old building that it makes me feel uneasy to be here, making me wonder if it’s used up all its years of durability. There were several layers of cobwebs in the corners, and the wooden frames of the pillars smelled as if they were rotting.

“Here.”

Eventually, I heard such a voice and turned my head to see Yoishi, without even trying to keep herself free from the dust, she moved a worn-out, crumbling vaulting box out of the way and was tapping on the back wall.

“It's blocked in here.”

Indeed, it was the only part of the old wall that was made of brand-new mud wall. Yoishi looked over her shoulder, without hesitation, she lifted the top of the vaulting box and threw it against the wall with all her strength.

“H-hey…”

Before I could even stop her, she slammed the vaulting box against the mud wall again and again, until a crevice appeared. Furthermore, she once again brandished the iron rake she had used to break down the door from earlier and drove it into the wall, using it to forcibly widen the crevice.

“That hurt.”

Saying that, Yoishi passed under the gaping wide hole to somewhere else.

Preparing myself for the worst, I followed her. I passed under the crumbling wooden frame, when I focused the light from my cellphone, I saw a staircase spiraling upwards along the outer wall.

“Say, why do you think the entrance was sealed?” Yoishi muttered as she steadily ascended the stairs.

“To keep people like you out, obviously.” I retorted, ‘That’s not it’, replied Yoishi.

“There’s another purpose in keeping the entrance sealed. It’s to keep whatever is present inside from getting out.”

I shuddered at those words, and then I remembered.

When was it exactly? I fervently rummaged through the recesses of my memory – and I remembered.

That’s right, it was back when I was in elementary school.

One of my classmates lived in a temple, and we were all sneaking into his house at the time.

“Behind our main temple, there’s a storehouse that we’re not allowed to open. I’m sure it’s because a monster lives there.”

That kid used to brag about that in class at every opportunity, and there were no such elementary school kids who didn’t have an interest in that kind of thing. So, one day after school, we all decided to meet up around midnight and explore that storehouse. I brought my bat, that kid brought his air gun. Other guys with more extensive knowledge brought things like salt, and for some reason, one guy brought his deceased grandmother’s memorial tablet. Each of us carried our preferred protective equipment, and we snuck into the temple at night.

In the midst of the darkness, the dark storehouse stood eerily, I don’t know how many times I was about to suggest we return home. However, no one said anything, perhaps because of our pride as men. At last, the kid from the temple brought a crowbar from his house, and began to break down the sturdy padlock to the storehouse.

Eventually, the padlock fell down to the ground with a thud, and we timidly opened the door.

Taking a peep, it was pitch dark inside. Rotten air oozed out from inside. But I think all of us felt it. More so than the rotten air, there was something invisible, something evil -- it felt as if it was stroking our hands and necks. We got scared and decided to first send in a stray cat that stuck around the temple. Just bringing the cat close to that place caused it to let out a tremendous wailing sound. That sound made us lose our nerve, and eventually the kid’s father heard the commotion and came running.

It was the first time I was scolded by another person’s father.

“Things that are sealed, are sealed for a reason.”

We were scolded severely, and the kid’s father, who was the head priest of the temple, lectured us about it and chanted sutras at us in the main hall until morning. Now when I think about it, it’s a good thing we were stopped back then. The memory of that time, the feeling of something seeping out of the storehouse, was rapidly coming back to me here on the stairs of this clock tower.

Certainly, it’s just as Yoishi said, those wooden frames were just too thick to only be blocking the stairs. What would they do when they needed to repair the clock tower if it was sealed up so tightly? It was too exaggerated to just be protecting against intrusions from pranksters and the like. Every time the old wooden stairs creaked, my hunch of something bad happening worsened.

“It’s here.”

In the dim light up ahead, I heard Yoishi, in a somewhat lively tone of voice. Sure enough, as I reached the top of the stairs, she was waiting for me, in front of a wooden door.

“I’m going to open it, but is it alright?”

I looked at Yoishi, wondering why she would ask a question like that at this stage.

“Would you stop if I asked you to?” I retorted while forcing a smile.

“Why is the clock late? The answer to that question is probably not very pleasant.”

 Yoishi muttered.

“Huh?”

“It’s quite dangerous from this point on.”

Yoishi chewed on the nails of her left hand. That seemed to be a habit of hers whenever she got excited.

“What exactly is dangerous?”

“Malice itself lies within.”

Her eyes shone as she finished speaking those words.

Before I could even say, "Let's not do that then", Yoishi opened the door without hesitation, as expected.

The interior was even darker yet, filled with the pungent smell of dust.

I directed my flashlight inside: it was even smaller than the storage room below, a vacant space about 18 sqm in size. The ceiling is shaped in the same way as the conical roof, and there were old wooden chairs and an old blackboard on the wooden floor. However – there was something in that room that was creeping me out.

It was as if something was coiling around the back of my neck.

Like a creepy, slimy arm was grabbing my ankle.

This feeling, I felt like I'd experienced it somewhere very recently.

--And I suddenly remembered.

It’s that dream. I had been confined in a dark, narrow place somewhere, and when I tried to escape, my neck got chopped off. The moment I recalled that, I remembered the voice of the person laughing in the dream, which I had forgotten up until now. A voice filled with joy, uttered as if everything was going according to their expectations.

Yoishi had said that malice itself lies in here.

What exactly is malice?

Why is it necessary for something like malice to reside in the clock tower in the first place?

I noticed my knees had begun to tremble, I felt like I could sense the presence of that someone from my dream, standing still right next to the wall beside me. Was that dream a premonition of the future? Was that dream about right now? Here in this room? Something would call out to me, and then just like my dream, my neck would be chopped clean off?

--Y-you’ve gotta be kidding me.

The moment I got cold feet and reflexively moved to run –

It was slightly two meters right of me.

I felt someone’s presence, and was slowly turning my face in that direction—

“Don’t look.” Yoishi whispered in a silent, sharp tone. “Pretend not to notice.”

Thanks to that voice, I barely managed to stop the movement of my neck.

However, at the periphery of my vision, I ended up seeing it.

Japanese clothes, I thought. A glimpse of the arms – thin, as withered branches. I knew it was looking my way. I desperately turned my face away. Then I stopped my breathing, pacified my heartbeat which was racing like it was about to explode, and I tell myself, as hard as I can:

--There’s nothing there, it’s just my imagination. I didn’t see anything at all.

But my knees were trembling with fear. Sweat trickled down my back and under my arms.

Yoishi proceeded to the back of the room as if nothing had happened.

There, she pushed and banged on the wall.

“The clock is on the backside of this part.” She muttered.

“….I-is that right?”

I’ll join in the conversation. I squeezed out a shaky voice as if to show that we were the only ones present.

Soon, a metallic clanking noise echoed inside the room.

At the same time, I felt the air stream out of the room, and I saw some kind of light above Yoishi’s knee. It was the light of a house far away in the distance. Right next to Yoishi, there was a hole cut out in a circle about the size of a person's face, just like the one I had just seen in that dream.

“This was the hole you saw earlier.”

Yoishi crouched down and put her hand on a rim, which was drawn back so close to the floor that I could barely see it.

“You can close it, and open it, with the lever here.”

“W-why is there such a thing there?”

Yoishi slightly tilted her neck quizzingly in response to the question.

“Maybe it’s used to adjust the hour or minute hands. Or perhaps there’s a different reason altogether. However—”

Yoishi questioned me as if she was peering into my eyes.

“Can you, look out from here?”

---Look out, from there?

No, that is…

“It’s strange, isn’t it? There’s no other place to check if the hands of the clock are moving. Having said that, it takes a lot of courage to check the minute hand from here. I mean, if you were to do it carelessly...”

Yoishi made a cutthroat gesture as she drew her fingers across her neck.

“The moment you look out, your neck might get chopped off by the clock outside.”

--Ah! Isn’t that…what happened in my dream? Didn’t my head already get chopped off twice in the dreams?

“That’s right.”

Rather than a reply to my thoughts, Yoishi said that as if she was announcing it to the entire room.

“If an ordinary person saw this hole open within this hermetically sealed, stifling room, they would generally end up looking outside. After all, the only other window in the room lies in the ceiling far above us: a skylight that can’t be opened. In short, the structure was made so that fresh air could only come through from here.”

It’s just as Yoishi said.

It was of a nature that I would like to call the architect’s malice.

“Anyone would stick their head out of this hole, and it would always get caught by the minute hand, slowing down the clock.”

Huh…?

“W…wait a minute. Whose neck got—”

“What time is it, according to your watch?”

I looked down to check my wristwatch on Yoishi’s query.

It was 12:51 am.

Yoishi checked her own watch in reply and nodded.

“Mine is the same. So, the clock outside is five minutes late, which means that the minute hand is at 45 minutes or so.”

I had no idea what she was going on about.

“The hole we saw outside was located between three and four. In short, if one were to look out from here right now, the minute hand wouldn’t be falling down on one’s neck.”

“…No.”

“Let’s take a look.”

Before I could even tell her to stop, Yoishi went down on all fours, with her back towards me, she pushed her face outside the hole towards the light.

That's when I definitely heard it.

A sound like "drrng!", seeming to ring out from the whole room, something neatly clicked in place. For a moment, the back of her body twitched, and then eventually, Yoishi stopped moving.

“Y—Yoishi?”

Even though Yoishi’s body was there, her presence had disappeared.

It can’t be.

If the minute hand, had fallen down just now…

Then that sound just now, was Yoishi’s head being chopped off by the minute hand outside.

I checked the time once more.

It was 12:52 am right now. That means there’s no way the minute hand would had fallen down on Yoishi’s neck.

Even though there was no way for that to happen—

I was too afraid to touch Yoishi’s body, which was right there in front of me.

What if I pull her out and she has no head?

What if her decapitated head fell down on the sports ground?

In the dimness, her pale arms and ankles were covered with dust, and stretched out on the floor, like a puppet with its strings cut off.

There I was, about to scream… Doing my best to catch my breath.

Because of Yoshi... Because she was here, I was able to endure the frustration of wanting to run away up until this point.

It was because of ‘Yoishi Mitsurugi’, the guide who formed an ambiguous connection between the spirit world and reality, that I was able to make it this far—

I felt as if I heard someone laughter, and just when my fragile, delicate, and meager spirit was finally stretched to its very limit.

“That felt good.”

I was trying my best to keep my mouth shut, and that voice reached me.

At the same time -- Yoishi Mitsurugi , who had been as motionless as a corpse, pulled her face out of the hole and stood up.

“…Y-you’re..”

I couldn’t speak straight away.

Yoishi slightly tidied herself up and spoke, “Let’s go.”

With the same calm gait she displayed when we arrived, she moved towards the stairs. I rushed behind her.

Closing the door, we descended the creaky steps.

Without looking back, I arrived at the bottom as if nothing had happened, just like Yoishi.

We slipped through the broken wooden frame back to the gym storehouse. And then, we arrived outside.

I was so used to the darkness that even the dim light of the sports ground seemed bright to my eyes.

The outside was like a different world. The sky, the clouds, the greenery around the sports ground; it was like it was overflowing with a surging life force. The air felt amazingly good. I inhaled it to my lung’s full capacity, and took several deep breaths. At some point, I wiped the sweat from my brows, put my hands on my knees, and exhaled deeply on the spot.

“—What…the hell was that all about?”

After getting far enough away from the clock tower, I was finally able to speak.

“What?”

Yoishi’s white blouse dazzled as she walked in front of me.

Was the second sports ground this big? I wondered as I was suddenly attacked by dizziness.

“That second floor…no, the thing you called malice, what the hell was it?”

“For more details, I guess you'll have to ask your teacher, but I’ll say this much: That building is neither a gym storehouse, nor a clock tower – originally, it was an earthen storehouse.”

“A-an earthen storehouse?”

“That’s right, the clock was installed later… it was unmistakably added after the school was built, I think.”

Yoishi stopped walking around the middle of the sports ground, and turned to look back. I stopped in my tracks, but didn’t dare to look back. I couldn’t bring myself to look at that building again right now.

“When I was young – it was around this time of year. I visited my grandmother in the countryside, and played with my elder sister until the evening.”

...What is she talking about?

Holding down her hair which fluttered in the wind, Yoishi spoke to no one in particular.

“It gets dark quickly in the countryside, and the people quickly disappear, so we took a shortcut to get back to my grandmother’s house. We weaved our way through the path between people’s houses.”

Rather than speaking with me, Yoishi continued to whisper as if she was gazing somewhere far away.

“It was as if we’d become lost in a world of cicadas, their cries filled the air everywhere. I remember it was so loud it was almost deafening. And when we passed by the back of one of the biggest houses in the area—I heard a voice, as if mixed in with the cries of the cicadas. It was from the storehouse of that large house. A terrible scream with words that didn't form any meaning – A string of miserable, resentful, aberrant words -- I Immediately clung to my elder sister. It was an elderly voice, that of a woman. After that, a hand touched the skylight of that storehouse. A thin, pale arm. That arm suddenly grabbed the iron grill of the skylight. It was probably the hand of that old woman. After that, we heard a voice once again. Putting your mother in a place like this. I’ll curse you, I’ll curse you all. It was as if – that arm itself was speaking.”

A pale, thin arm.

A trail along the countryside at sunset.

And horrible words from a curse.

If you experienced it when you were young, it would be intense.

“I can kind of understand now. An old woman with dementia must have lived there. The man from the house must have locked his mother up. That's the nature of an earthen storehouse. You could call it an Edo era prison cell. I've heard that noble families and wealthy merchants around the Meiji era had them. Whenever a delinquent or mentally ill member of the family appeared, they would be confined inside it. And --- that was…” Yoishi pointed towards the soaring building tower behind me. “That was originally an earthen storehouse with the characteristics of an Edo era prison cell.*

I finally understood it. The thing that was standing besides me back then. The glimpse I had caught at the edge of my periphery, someone who wore an old, weathered kimono. I wondered if it was an old woman.

“That hole was likely used to insert food through, and it might have also been used to retrieve excrement. However, when I peered out of that hole, I realized… A room you could never leave. You could never leave it, and yet, you could breathe in as much fresh air as you wanted. A hole you could use to experience the air of the outside world to the point where it would drive you insane.”

“So, that’s the malice…”

I barely managed to speak out in a hoarse voice, and Yoishi nodded.

“It might have been set up by a family member to deal with an older relative who had lost their mind. They didn’t want to take care of the old person, and they don’t want them to live however long they please. It would be better off if they had died sooner in an accident – the building was filled with such thoughts.”

My God. How sad would it be? What kind of curse is a life wishing for the death of one's parent as they break down?

There’s the legend of a mountain where old women are abandoned*. As long as people are growing old -- be it the present or the past -- I'm sure there have always been problems relating to an aging society. My grandfather and grandmother both died one day suddenly; we were all shocked, and very saddened. But I suddenly thought: Wasn’t that actually a blessing-in-disguise? To be able to depart this life while still bearing the love of one’s family, isn’t that the greatest happiness? I reflected on such unbearable thoughts.

Presently used as a gym storehouse, referred to a clock tower, and used as an earthen storehouse in the past --- that long and narrow, dark shape. I found myself staring at it with complex feelings.

“…Huh?”

I felt a strange feeling of discomfort.

I was still overlooking something important.

“That’s right.” Yoishi whispered in response.

“That explanation is insufficient to explain everything about that building.”

When I looked, Yoishi’s eyes were wide open, and behind those glittering eyes, I thought I saw a glimpse of someone.

“The explanation for why the hole keeps opening up is insufficient. Even if you were to say it’s because someone is confided there, normally, it should stay open after being opened once, there’s no reason it should close again.”

“Oh….”

As sweat dripped down from my cheeks to the bottom of my chin, Yoishi continued to speak.

“Malice accumulates, and becomes a contagion. A place tied down by malice, becomes a habitat for those who hold malice.”

--That’s right.

The first time I noticed there was a hole in the clock face, it was in the place of the number 4. Now, there’s no hole there because Yoishi operated the lever when she stuck out her head. However, if that were the case – a contradiction arises.

“I wonder what you're expecting."

Leaving me with those words, Yoishi turned back, and began to walk away.

“W-wait a minute, Yoishi!”

Flustered, I chased after her, and in a trembling voice, asked her:

“A while ago, we entered the clock tower and for the first time, used the lever to open the hole, right?”

“Yes.”

“Which means, there was no hole before we entered.”

“True.”

“Then, in the beginning, the hole in the clock face we saw from the fence…. who--?”

“That’s why I told you, pretend not to notice.”

Yoishi simply shrugged her shoulders.

“After all, there were two people inside.”

With those words, a spectacle that I shouldn’t have seen unfolded in every corner in my head.

An old woman with disheveled hair. A cloudy, unfocused gaze and a seemingly sad expression.

And, someone clinging to those thin, wire-like legs of hers. It had hollow, empty eyes; its red mouth twisted into a broad sneer. It displayed an expression of pure delight on its face, as if everything was going well.

--Because it’s fun, after all.

I thought I heard someone’s voice in the midst of the night wind.

As I stared at Yoishi’s form fading away in the distance, I became unable to move.

I forced down my saliva, deeply regretting that I didn’t stop when I should have. And then, I heard a voice — you better stop while you can.

The world beyond had manifested right beside me. The entrance to the afterlife had opened its mouth before me, not knowing the existence of which would have let me lead a much, much happier life. I was painfully aware of that. However, I ended up aware of the fact that the entrance was there, So what should I possibly do now? Once you end up becoming aware of it, you’ll become involved. From here on – and for the rest of my life. That’s what it means to associate with Yoishi. As long as she stands in the world beyond, associating with her means getting involved with the world beyond. You'll end up knowing things you don't need to know. I should have known all these things, and yet—

I’d been through hellfire and brimstone, and I was finally able to stand on my own two feet, and yet—

The magma that made me want to cry out broke through the bottom of my heart – but, I turned to look back.

It stood still as a long and narrow shape on the sports ground.

It existed as a gym storehouse for me, a clock tower for Yoishi, and was an earthen storehouse in the past.

And, situated at number 4 of the clock face.

A hole had appeared there before I had even noticed – and something… was peeking out.