spr | The House in Which Nightmares Dwell 15.2

There was a small sound of glass breaking at night.

"Really, you're only decisive about these kinds of things, aren't you?"

Ayako's voice lurked inside the night.

"They say I have a straightforward personality."

Takigawa said and put his arm through the space in the broken glass. He had broken the glass of the Sasakura family's kitchen door.

There was no answer to the doorbell. And there was no answer when they called out or phoned them. It couldn't be helped if it turned out like this, and for this reason they were ready to become an impromptu group of burglars.

Takigawa removed the lock. He opened the back door. John sighed and made a sign of the cross.

When he entered inside, the air was full to the brim with a rotten odor.

The place he entered was the kitchen, but anyone would be dumbfounded at its devastation. Things were dispersed over the floor and even the containers filled with remains of contents were piled up in a heap on the floor.

There was no place to stand, or rather, the litter far exceeded the space to stand. From the kitchen's sink to the glass door next to it -- Perhaps that could be the living room over there -- newspapers and magazines were scattered about, and a relatively flat way followed. Its surroundings were piled up with cluttered trash that reached up to his knees. Only the top of the sink was properly put in order, but several kitchen knives were abandoned on it.

He gently opened the glass door of the living room. Garbage was piled up over there in the center of the room. At the very bottom of the trash a TV was visible too, but its screen was deeply stained and sure enough it was doubtful whether it was being used or not. On the wall of the room, dusty clothes were hanging for an unknown amount of time and covered the surface of the wall.

"This isn't normal... ..."

No one replied to Takigawa's whisper. Naturally, it wasn't a silence of denial.

The living room had a sliding screen on one side and it was open. Beyond the sliding screen there was also a Japanese-style room of 4.5 tatami mats big like the living room, and these two rooms were treated as one. A charm was hanging between lintel of the sliding screen; a wide, bright ribbon. -- Wouldn't this have been the lintel on which Sekiguchi hung himself?

Although the state of that room was comparatively less objectionable, it nevertheless wasn't any different as various things were scattered about. Huge trash bags, vinyl sheets. Several chisels, saws, ropes and shovels that were thrown down.

Takigawa leaned over, picked one chisel in his hand and gazed closely at it. Then he recklessly opened the sliding screen leading to the corridor.

"Wait a minute, ... ... Shh-"

He didn't bother listening to Ayako's voice. Takigawa carelessly made audible footsteps and ran up to the second floor.

Troubled over whether to stop or yell at him to stop, Ayako and John exchanged glances; at that moment a voice from the second floor went down.

"-- No one's here! Go back next door!!"

'Eh?' After Ayako and John once again exchanged glances, they rushed into the corridor. Takigawa rapidly descended from the second floor.

"What do you mean!"

Takigawa didn't bother with Ayako who shouted at him, and opened a door in the corridor. The place he opened was the dressing room and its window was open. Beyond the window was the narrow back yard. In this dressing room vinyl sheets, a bat and a saw were scattered about.

"-Those people went over to Midori-san's house."

"No way."

"Let's pray that they fled away."

Takigawa said and jumped down from the window into the back yard. Lin immediately followed after him.

"Wait a minute, hey, what's going on?"

Takigawa thrust a finger at Ayako from below the window.

"Get out of this house. Find a public telephone and call the police."

There was a loud bang. Masako ducked her head as she leaned into the shutters.

An angry voice yelled something. She wondered if those two were okay.

When she pressed, the shutters moved to the point they came loose. Thinking in a daze that she could remove one shutter, she thrust the knife into the gap.

Mai, who was leaning next to her, suddenly got up.

"-- Mai?"

"I'm going down too."

"Mai! Don't do it!"

Mai didn't mind Masako's voice and put her hands on the furniture blocking the top of the stairway.

"Mai, are you listening to me?"

"I'm powerless, so there's something only I can do. My nine syllables will at least able to confine them. Better yet, if it's me I won't injure them."

"Mai-chan, stop it."

Mai shook her head when Midori and Reiko stopped her.

"It's our job to protect the client. I'm going to help to keep the situation a bit more under control. Make sure to blockade this after I go down, please?"

"But --"

Midori was about to catch hold of Mai's arm, but Mai slipped out through the gap of the moved furniture before she could do so.

"Mai-chan."

"Please block this up."

Mai repeated those words through the gap in parting and stepped forward on the stairway. She pushed aside the things scattered about and slowly descended.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

- The Nine Syllables or Ku-ji refer to a variety of mantras that consist of nine syllables.

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The House in Which Nightmares Dwell 15.2

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