Seeking classic scary ghost stories

Midnight Murder Bell Sept. 5, 10:49 p.m. Yokohama

Several 14-story apartment buildings abut the northern end of the Sankyokuen residential area, and these newly constructed apartments are already heavily occupied.

With nearly 100 households living in each apartment, it's considered fairly densely populated.

But the residents of the apartments don't interact or know each other, and it's only at night, when the light comes through the windows, that one realizes there are people living here.

To the south, the factory lights cast a long, silent shadow across the dark sea.

The factory's facade is intertwined with countless pipes, reminiscent of the intricate veins in the human body. And the lighting covering it was like the flickering glow of fireflies, creating a special aesthetic.

If you look farther, you can see a new, freestanding two-story building on a planned mansion site. Running north-south, with a one-way street and a parking lot attached, it looks like a typical house in an up-and-coming residential area.

Perhaps because of the lack of transportation, there are no other houses behind or on either side of the two-story building, and signs advertising land for sale can be seen everywhere. Compared with the other side of the building, where apartments are filled as soon as they're finished, this one looks a bit forlorn.

At the moment, the light from a room on the second floor of the house spills out of an open window onto the dark pavement.

Tomoko Oishi, a third-year student at a private girls' high school, sat at her desk in the second-floor room, wearing a white T-shirt and shorts, her feet resting in front of a standing electric fan, her body turned slightly sideways as she looked at a collection of pre-exam exercises.

The fan was blowing directly on her skin, and still she muttered, "It's hot, it's hot ......," as the hem of her T-shirt kept flopping in the wind.

While the homework that needed to be done was still piling up due to all the fun she had over the summer vacation, Tomoko Oishi blamed the heat for her bad mood.

It actually wasn't very hot this summer, with few sunny days and fewer tourists at the beach than in previous years.

Unexpectedly, once the summer vacation ended, there were actually five days in a row of high temperatures.

This scorching heat made Tomoko's mood become agitated and she couldn't help but curse the heavens in her mind.

(How can someone read a book when it's so hot!)

She ruffled her hair as she turned up the volume on the radio a bit.

Then Tomoko stared at the small moth resting on the screen window, which was no match for the power of the wind from the electric fan, and all of a sudden it was blown away to nowhere. When the moth disappeared into the darkness, the screen window actually trembled slightly for a while.

From just now until now, Tomoko had made no progress at all in her homework at hand.

(The exam is tomorrow, there's no way to finish the scope of the exam tonight even if you stay up all night ......)

Thomako looked anxiously at the clock.

(It's almost eleven o'clock.)

She was tempted to turn on the TV and watch the professional baseball news, maybe she could see her parents on TV, however, she couldn't let go of tomorrow's exam.

It was Tomoko's greatest wish to go to college, and it didn't matter what school she went to as long as it was called "college.

But the sticky humidity in the room made her moody, and she couldn't muster the energy to study at all.

(Ugh! It was the last summer of high school, it was supposed to be a little easier.

After this summer vacation it's time to say goodbye to being a 'high school girl'......)

Thanks to her irritable mood, Tomoko suddenly turned on her parents.

(Really! You don't realize that your daughter is sweating and studying hard, and the couple is leisurely going to a nighttime ball game ...... at least think about how I, your daughter, feel!)

Thanks to her work, Tomoko's parents got tickets to a Giants game, so they went to the Tokyo Dome to watch the game together.

If they hadn't wandered off somewhere else after the ballgame, they would have been home long ago.

But now, Tomoko is the only one in the brand new 4-bedroom (1 living room, 1 dining room, 1 kitchen, 4 bedrooms) house.

It had clearly not rained in the past few days, but Tomoko felt a heavy humidity in the air, and aside from the sweat seeping out of her own body, she was sure that there were tiny invisible droplets of water in this room.

Tomoko unconsciously slapped her thighs, vaguely feeling an itch on her knees, but after she let go, there was no sign of the mosquito.

(Am I just too jumpy?)

Then she heard a poof of wings and immediately raised her hands high above her head and waved them a few times.

(Flies!)

The fly avoided the electric fan immediately afterward and flew low over the door, temporarily disappearing from Tomoko's view.

Tomoko checks the seam between the screen and the wall, but can't find a gap big enough for the fly to get in or out.

(The door was clearly closed ...... Where the hell did this fly get in?)

Suddenly she felt a rush of urine and thirst, and an inexplicable pressure came over her.

The pressure, while not so much as to make it hard to breathe, pressed relentlessly against her chest ......

Tomoko, who had been whining nonstop earlier, was now silent as if she were a different person.

As she walked down the stairs, she suddenly felt her heart pounding.

A car passed by the road in front of the house, its headlights sweeping quickly over the wall under the stairs and then disappearing again. The sound of the engine faded away, and it seemed as if the surroundings were even gloomier than they had been a moment before.

Tomoko walked down the stairs with purposefully heavy footsteps, casually turning on the light in the hallway.

She settled for that bout of peeing first, and sat on the toilet for a while longer, but the throbbing in her heart still hadn't subsided.

Before today, Tomoko had never felt this kind of weirdness before.

(What the hell is going on here?).

Tomoko took several deep breaths, then stood up and pulled her panties and shorts up together.

"Dad, Mom, just do me a favor and come back soon!"

She said in a shaky voice.

Tomoko washed her hands at the marble sink in the kitchen before opening the refrigerator directly with her wet hands, dropping the ice from the freezer into a glass and pouring in the Coke.

She drank the entire glass of Coke in one gulp, then set the glass on the bar, the ice cubes in the glass clicking for a moment, then standing still.

Tomoko suddenly felt a palpitating chill run right up her spine and shivered.

She took another 1.5 liter of Coke out of the fridge and poured it into a glass with shaking hands.

Suddenly, she felt an eerie scent coming from behind her, and it was in no way human, as if the foul odor of a rotting flesh had melted into the air and surrounded her ......

"Please... . don't ......"

Tomoko pleaded weakly.

At that moment, the 15-watt fluorescent light above the marble table suddenly flickered incessantly.

The lamp had only been newly installed, and it was surprising that it had broken so quickly.

Tomoko regretted that she hadn't turned on all the lights in the room first, and now she didn't even have the strength to walk to turn them on, or even to turn her head to look at the "thing" behind her.

Behind her was a 16 square meter room with a niche for her grandfather's altar, and the curtains were left open so that she could see out the glass windows onto the turfed floor and a grid of apartment lights.

Halfway through her second glass of Coke, Tomoko was unable to move her entire body.

If the eerie aura that surrounded Tomoko was due to her psyche, it was far too strong. Gradually, it seemed as if something was touching the nape of her neck ......

(What if it was "that"?)

Thinking no more, Tomoko was afraid she wouldn't be able to cope with the swelling feeling of fear, so she tried to put the events of a week ago behind her.

(Shuichi said ...... since "that" said so above, there is no way back for everyone ......

Who the hell is pulling the prank?)

Tomoko tried to get herself to think of something happier.

(But, if it was really "that" thing ......If that was true ......Yeah, didn't someone call in at that time?

Ah! What are mom and dad doing ......)

"Come back soon!"

Tomoko couldn't help but scream.

However the eerie aura that surrounded her was still snooping close behind her, waiting for the opportunity to arrive.

The 17 year old Tomoko didn't quite know what "fear" was, but at the moment she felt a growing sense of dread in her chest.

(If I look back, I won't see anything, there won't be anything. ......)

A sudden desire to look back, to make sure there was nothing behind her at all, was born in her heart, so that she could escape from this state of near-collapse.

Tomoko felt a chill run down her back, goosebumps rising all over her body, while a nasty chill ran up from her shoulders and down her spine, causing her entire t-shirt to be drenched in a slick cold sweat.

Just then, a sudden noise came from behind her.

(There shouldn't be anything behind it!

If I don't finish my Coke and go back to my room to study, I'm really screwed for tomorrow's exams ......)

In an instant, the ice cubes in the glass clicked and then collided into pieces, and Tomoko turned back in response... ...

September 5, 10:54 p.m. Intersection in front of Shinagawa Station, Tokyo

The light at the intersection had turned yellow, and though there was still time to rush through, yet Kimura honestly parked his cab on the left.

The customers who get in at this intersection are usually predominantly bound for Akasaka and Roppongi, and they often get in while Kimura waits for the light.

(It would be great to pick up customers who want to get off at the Roppongi intersection.)

At that moment, a motorcycle passes to the left of Kimura's cab and stops in front of the pedestrian crossing, its rider a young man in jeans.

Kimura found motorcycles scurrying around very annoying, and was most offended by motorcycle riders who recklessly rode their bikes in front of cabs or parked next to people's car doors when the red light was on.

Because it was a bad day for business and because something was making him feel uncomfortable, Kimura looked coldly at the young rider beside his car.

The young rider had a full-coverage helmet on his head, covering his entire face, and was seen resting his left foot on a round stone on the sidewalk, swaying his body in a dangling manner.

Then a young woman with a pair of beautiful legs walked past, and the young rider's eyes followed her back, his head turned about 90°, his eyes fixed on the window to his left, and the young woman stepped out of his range of vision at that moment.

After a moment, the young knight still hadn't shifted his gaze, but was just staring fixedly at something.

By this time the green light had begun to blink and was about to turn red, and passersby who were on the pedestrian crossing were walking faster. Kimura let the engine idle and waited for the light across the street to turn green.

Suddenly, the motorcycle rider shuddered violently, then fell back toward Kimura's cab with his hands raised, slamming into his door with a loud thud.

(That asshole!)

Kimura assumed that the young rider had fallen down because he had lost his balance for a moment, and stepped out of the car with his emergency warning light out while thinking, If there is any damage to the door, the other guy must be held responsible to the end.

Then the light turned green, and the cars behind passed Kimura's car and drove through the intersection, leaving the young rider lying on his back in the road, his feet stomping around and his hands struggling to get his helmet off.

Kimura first looked at the damage to the "food guy," and to his surprise, there was a scratch on the door.

"Pfft!"

He cursed under his breath as he approached the young rider, only to see that the helmet's clasp was still tightly fastened to his chin. The young rider desperately tried to remove the helmet, as if he was going to rip his head off with it.

(Is it really impermeable?)

Kimura, noticing that the young rider looked unusual, sat down next to him on his butt and asked,

"Are you okay?"

The visor of the helmet was gray, and Kimura couldn't see the young rider's expression clearly.

But the young knight held Kimura's hand tightly, as if he was begging for something.

Kimura made a quick decision and said to the young knight,

"Wait here, I'll call an ambulance right away."

Kimura thought to himself as he ran towards the pay phone:

(Why would a sudden loss of balance cause such a serious situation?

Did he hit his head when he hit the ground? But that guy was wearing a helmet, and his arms and legs look fine ah ...... If he insists that he was injured when he hit my car, things will be in trouble.)

A flash of foreboding suddenly surfaced in Kimura's mind at the thought.

(Can I use my automobile insurance to claim for the injuries if the other person is injured?

That would require proof of an accident and questioning by the police.)

When Kimura returned from his phone call, he saw the young rider's hand resting motionless on his throat, and a few pedestrians stopped next to him to watch curiously.

Kimura pushed through the crowd of onlookers and explained that he had called an ambulance.

"Hey, hey! Pull yourself together, the ambulance is almost here."

Kimura said as he loosened the clasp of his helmet, but took off the young rider's helmet with ease, it wasn't at all like the situation was going to strangle him to the point where he couldn't breathe.

What surprised him even more was that the young rider's face was severely distorted, and if there was one word to describe his expression, it would be "shocked".

His eyes were wide, his red tongue was tangled deep in his throat, drool dripping from the corners of his mouth, and he looked like he couldn't wait for the ambulance.

Kimura hurriedly felt for the young rider's pulse, and could not feel it beating at all.

This discovery startled Kimura, who turned to see the wheels of the fallen motorcycle still idling, the black oil from the engine slowly trickling from the ground to the sewer.

In an instant, the signal light turned red again, and Kimura staggered to his feet, reaching out and grabbing the guardrail at the side of the road, glancing once more at the young rider lying in the road.

The young rider was resting on his helmet, his head held back at a near-right angle to his body in a position that felt unnatural no matter how you looked at it.

(Did I place his head on the helmet?

Why did I do that ......)

Strangely enough, Kimura actually had little recollection of what had happened a few seconds ago.

Then the young knight's glaring eyes looked right back at him ......

It was a rather muggy night, but Kimura shivered involuntarily.

2

The green waters of the inner moat reflected the autumn morning as the scorching heat of September finally drew to a close.

As Kazuyuki Asakawa was about to step off the subway's platform, he suddenly had a change of heart, wanting to enjoy the view of the river from a closer distance, so he climbed the stairs leading outside.

The air in the newspaper office was so murky that it felt as if it had been settling at the bottom of a bottle for years, leaving him desperately longing for a breath of fresh air outside.

Until the green trees caught Asakawa's eye, the exhaust fumes from the intersection of the 5 freeway and the ring road were no longer so disturbing, and he felt refreshed by the brightening sky and the cool morning air.

Asakawa had been up all night working on the manuscript, and was feeling very tired, but by the time it was finished, the excitement within him created a moderate stimulus that kept his brain cells active.

He hadn't had time to rest properly in the past two weeks, so he planned to catch up on his sleep at home today and tomorrow. Not to mention that it was an order from the editor-in-chief that he could take his vacation with honor.

Just then, Asakawa saw an empty cab coming from the direction of Kudanshita and instinctively raised his hand to stop it.

He had used up his monthly subway pass from Takebashi to Shinmaba in the past two days, and hadn't bothered to buy a new monthly pass yet. It would cost 400 yen to take the subway from here to the Kitashinagawa Apartments, where Asakawa lived, and probably about 1,500 yen more if he took a cab.

But when he thought of the three transfers he would have to make to get the subway, and the fact that he had just gotten his paycheck, he decided to splurge a little today!

The reason Asakawa would want to take a cab in this part of town was purely out of impulse.

He hadn't specifically walked outside to stop a cab earlier, it's just that while he was breathing in the fresh air, an empty cab happened to pass by, and in that moment he suddenly remembered that his monthly pass had run out, and that having to transfer three times to get on the subway was a real hassle.......

If Asakawa took the subway home today, the two events recounted above would never have hitched a ride on the same line.

What's more, don't most stories happen by chance?

The cab pulled up slowly in front of the Palace building, and the driver, a small man in his 40s with bloodshot eyes, was probably up all night driving the cab!

On the dashboard was the driver's professional certificate with his colorful photo and his name, Kamio Kimura, written next to it.

"To Kitashinagawa ......"

Kimura couldn't help but feel a little more relaxed once he heard his passenger name his destination.

Kita-Shinagawa was located right in front of Higashi-Gotanda, where their company's warehouse was located, and cab drivers loved it when they picked up customers going in the same direction as themselves.

And with that, Kimura began to talk a lot.

"Going to an interview later?"

Asakawa had been staring out the window of the car in a daze, and as soon as he heard Kimura's words, he couldn't help but widen his bloodshot eyes, very surprised at how the driver had learned of his occupation.

"Sir, are you a newspaper reporter?"

"I'm a magazine reporter, I didn't realize you had sharp eyes!"

Kimura had been driving cabs for nearly 20 years, and he could deduce a passenger's occupation from where they got in, their clothing, and their wording. Generally speaking, passengers in more popular occupations tend to talk about their jobs with gusto.

"You work so hard, you have to go out to work early in the morning."

"No, I'm heading home to bed now."

"Ah ...... then you're just like me."

Usually Asakawa didn't take any particular pride in his job as a magazine reporter, but this morning he had finally finished the series he was in charge of planning, and it had been fairly well received, giving him a renewed sense of fulfillment that his story had been compiled and printed.

"Was the work fun?"

"It's okay."

Asakawa said casually and perfunctorily.

The job was fun at times, but not so much at others. He hadn't forgotten his failed experience two years ago, and even remembered the headline of the story at the time - "The New Gods of Modern Times."

Thinking about it, Asakawa's mind drifted back to the time when he had trembled and asked the chief editor for a second interview.

At that moment, the cab drove quickly around the bend to the left of the Tokyo Tower.

"Sir, are you going along the canal, or Daiichi Kyohama?"