Thomas Randall - The Waking

“There are no vampires in Japanese legend,” Miho said. “Not in myth, not in Kabuki, not in Noh theater.”

Kara sighed and turned toward the window. The ambulance siren had ceased, which meant the EMTs would be in the building by now, on their way up to Chouku’s room.

“Fine,” she said with a shake of her head. “Then you tell me what’s going on.”

“I’ve told you both,” Sakura said, her voice even and emotionless. It scared Kara how detached she’d grown. Grief had forced her to shut down.

“It’s Akane,” she went on. “The police never did anything to punish her killers. They could never prove anything. She’s come back to make them pay.”

Kara studied her eyes. “You can’t really believe that. I’m sorry, Sakura-really sorry-but Akane is dead.”

“I never said she wasn’t,” Sakura said. Then she stood and went to the door. Miho moved out of the way. Sakura looked back at them. “I’ve been studying them, trying to figure out who else was involved. I think the ones who are crying the most are probably the other killers, or at least they were there. Chouku’s friends. Ume’s friends. I’m going to go and watch them, to see if I can narrow it down.”

With that, she went out into the hall and left the two of them standing there, staring at the open door.

Miho closed it quietly and turned to look at Kara with frightened eyes.

“She’s really scaring me,” Miho said.

Kara nodded. “Me too.”

Miho took a deep breath and let it out. She bit her lip, shook her head, clearly struggling to make sense of her thoughts.

“What?” Kara urged.

“I said there were no vampire legends. But there are stories about other things… things that are like vampires,” Miho said. “One of them, the ketsuki, appears in the form of a cat.”

I don’t know the whole legend of the ketsuki,” Miho went on. “It’s some kind of demon spirit, I think. There’s an old Noh play about it. But from what I remember, it takes the form of a cat and it drinks blood.”

Kara couldn’t breathe, staring at her. The memory of the bite marks all over Chouku’s naked body remained vivid in her mind, but somehow even worse was the memory of the cat standing in the open third-story window the night before. Her skin prickled.

“You saw it last night,” Kara said. “Where could it have gone? The door was locked.”

Miho rubbed the back of her neck, head bowed, hair spilling around her face like she wanted to hide but had nowhere to run. “The window was open, though.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Kara whispered, walking over to the window. She searched the sill for any sign that what they’d seen had been real-a few shed hairs, some paw prints-but found nothing. Still, they had both seen it. “If you saw it, too, then it couldn’t be a dream.”

A long silence ensued, the girls lost in their thoughts, until their reverie was broken by a knock on the door.

Miho shot a quick, frightened look at Kara. But it was morning, and there were so many people around-if all of this wasn’t their imaginations running wild, some kind of evil cat spirit wasn’t about to come knocking on the door.

Kara nodded to her. Miho took a breath and opened the door.

Rob Harper stood on the other side, worry lining his face. When he spotted Kara, he let out a relieved breath and walked in, snatching her up in his arms. She hadn’t been picked up in a long time and it felt simultaneously wonderful and humiliating.

“Dad, I’m okay,” she said.

He gave a soft chuckle and put her down, the relief draining from his face, replaced by a deep frown.

“When Miss Aritomo called, I had all kinds of awful thoughts,” he said in English. “But then she said she’d seen you. I came right away.”

“So it was you she was talking to before?”

Her father nodded. “When you came into the… into the dead girl’s room? Yes. I wish you hadn’t seen that.”

Kara sighed. “Me too.”

They’d been speaking English, but now her father looked over at Miho. “I’m sorry,” he said in Japanese. “I didn’t mean to ignore you. I was just-”

“I understand, sensei,” Miho said, executing a polite bow.

Kara’s father had completely forgotten such formalities, but now he returned the bow. Then he looked at his daughter.

“The police are here. They want to talk to everyone-”

“They can’t claim this one is a suicide,” Kara said, also in Japanese, not wanting to be rude to Miho, though a flash of anger sparked in her.

“No, they can’t,” Rob Harper agreed. “I spoke to them, gave them our information, so if they want to talk to you later, they can come find you at home. Right now, I’m taking you out of here.”

Kara hesitated, glancing at Miho.

“I’ll be fine,” Miho said. “Sakura will be back soon.”

But Kara wasn’t worried about Miho talking to police. She was worried about later, when night fell again. Sakura had gone over the edge with her obsession and her grief, and she had been having the nightmares, just like all of the dead kids. Maybe Miho was safe because she hadn’t had the dreams, but maybe not. What the hell did any of them really know about the demon that preyed on Monju-no-Chie School?

Demon? Kara thought. Seriously?

But she found that she was serious. The word had sounded faintly ridiculous when Miho had spoken it out loud, but in Kara’s head it sounded all too real and plausible. Her nightmares had leaked out into reality, or at least that was how it felt. The cat had been real. It had been there, looking at them, perhaps trying to choose its next victim. For some reason it had moved on to another room, another girl.

How close did we come to dying? Kara pictured Sakura’s body sprawled facedown with all of those bite marks on her flesh and felt panic rising. She thought of claws in her own skin, teeth puncturing her.

“Stay at our house tonight,” she said to Miho.

Her father shot her a curious, confused look. But Kara pressed on.

“You and Sakura should stay with us tonight,” she said. “It isn’t safe in the dorm, Miho. We were lucky last night. It could have been any of us.”

But maybe not you. Why not you? Why don’t you have nightmares? Kara thought Sakura’s certainty that it was her dead sister Akane back from the dead to take revenge was crazy. But she’d already established a connection between everyone who had been plagued by nightmares and all of those who had died. If Ume really had killed Akane, and her friends had helped-or at least known about it-then they were being targeted. Jiro had been indirectly responsible because he’d spurned Ume and fallen in love with Akane. And Sakura might be visited by the dreams because she was Akane’s sister.

Which explained why Miho didn’t have the nightmares.

But it didn’t explain why Kara did have them.

“Dad,” Kara said, “just one night. I don’t want to leave them here.”

“What about the rest of the students?” her father asked.

Kara tried a smile but knew it must look broken and desperate. “We can’t fit them all in our house.”

Her father relented. “If Mr. Yamato doesn’t object, it’s fine with me. I’ll find out.”

She hugged him and kissed his stubbly, unshaven cheek. He must have thrown on his clothes after Miss Aritomo called, no shower, no shave. But he’d never looked better as far as his daughter was concerned. Her dad had come to the rescue.

Miho and Mr. Harper bowed to each other again.

“I’ll call you later,” Kara told her. The girls shared a short embrace.

“I’ll see if I can find that Noh play,” Miho said.

Kara nodded. “Good.”

Her father led her out of the room. In the corridor, some of the girls had retreated into their rooms, though most of the doors were open at least a fraction. Police and EMTs crowded the third floor, along with teachers and several school administrators. Ume had closed her door.