Koji Suzuki - The Complete Ring Trilogy - Ring, Spiral, Loop

Those who have viewed these images are fated to die at this exact hour one week from now. If you do not wish to die, you must follow these instructions exactly …

Asakawa gulped and stared wide-eyed at the television. But then the scene changed yet again. A complete and utter change. A commercial came on, a perfectly ordinary, common television commercial. A romantic old neighborhood on a summer’s evening, an actress in a light cotton robe sitting on her verandah, fireworks lighting up the night sky. A commercial for mosquito-repelling coils. After about thirty seconds the commercial ended, and just as another scene was about to start, the screen returned to its previous state. Darkness, with the last afterglow of faded words. Then the sound of static as the tape ended.

Bug-eyed, Asakawa rewound the tape and replayed the last scene. The same sequence repeated itself: a commercial interrupted at the most important point. Asakawa stopped the video and turned off the television. But he kept staring at the screen. His throat was parched.

“What the hell?”

There was nothing else to say. One unintelligible scene after another, and the only thing he’d comprehended was that anybody who watched would die in exactly a week. And the part which told how to avoid this fate had been taped over with a commercial.

… Who erased it? Those four?

Asakawa’s jaw quivered. If he didn’t know that the four young people had died simultaneously, he could have laughed this off as sheer nonsense. But he knew. They had died, mysteriously, as predicted.

At that moment the phone rang. Asakawa’s heart nearly jumped out of his chest at the sound. He picked up the receiver. He felt as though something were concealing itself, watching him from the darkness.

“Hello,” he finally managed to croak. There was no reply. Something was swirling around in a dark, cramped place. There was a deep rumble, as if the earth were resounding, and the damp smell of soil. There was a chill at his ear, and the hairs on the nape of his neck stood up. The pressure on his chest increased, and bugs from the bowels of the earth were crawling on his ankles and his spine, clinging to him. Unspeakable thoughts and long-ripened hatred almost reached him through the receiver. Asakawa slammed down the receiver. Covering his mouth, he ran to the bathroom. Chills ran up and down his backbone, waves of nausea swept over him: the thing on the other end of the line hadn’t said anything, but Asakawa knew what it wanted. It was a confirmation call.

You’ve seen it now, you know what that means. Do like it said. Or else …

Asakawa vomited over the toilet. He didn’t have much to throw up. The whiskey he’d drunk earlier flowed out of him now, mixed with bile. The bitterness seeped into his eyes, squeezing out tears; it hurt his nose. But he felt that if he threw up everything now, here, maybe the images he’d just watched would go flowing out of him, too.

“If I don’t, what? I don’t know! What do you want me to do? Huh? What am I supposed to do?”

He sat on the bathroom floor and yelled, trying not to give in to his fear. “Look, those four erased it, the important part … I don’t understand it! Help me out here!”

All he could do was make excuses. Asakawa jumped back from the toilet, not even realizing how awful he looked, and peered around the room in every direction, bowing his head in supplication to whatever might be there. He didn’t realize that he was trying to look pathetic, to draw sympathy. Asakawa stood up and rinsed his mouth at the sink, swallowing some water. He felt a breeze. He looked at the living room window. The curtains were trembling.

Hey, I thought I shut that.

He was certain that before drawing the curtains he’d shut the sliding glass door tightly. He remembered doing it. He couldn’t stop trembling. For no reason at all, the image of skyscrapers at night flashed across his brain, the way the lighted and unlighted windows formed a checkerboard pattern, sometimes even forming characters. If you saw the buildings as huge, oblong tombstones, then the lights were epitaphs. The image disappeared, but the white lace curtains still danced in the breeze.

In a frenzy, Asakawa grabbed his bag from the closet and threw his things inside. He couldn’t stay here one second longer.

I don’t care what anybody says. If I stay here I won’t last the night, forget about the week.

Still in his sweats, he stepped down into the entryway. He tried to think rationally before going outside. Don’t just run away in fear, try to figure out some way to save yourself! An instantaneous survival instinct: he went back into the living room and pushed the eject button. He wrapped the videotape tightly in a bath towel and stowed it in his bag. The tape was his only clue, he couldn’t afford to leave it behind. Maybe if he figured out the riddle as to how the scenes were connected he’d find a way to save himself. No matter what, he only had a week left. He looked at his watch: 10:18. He was sure he’d finished watching at 10:04. Suddenly, the time seemed quite important to him. Asakawa left the key on the table and went out, leaving all the lights on. He ran to his car, not even stopping by the office first, and jammed his key in the ignition.

“I can’t do this alone. I’ll have to ask him to help .” Talking to himself, Asakawa put the car in motion, but he couldn’t help glancing in the rearview mirror. No matter how he floored it, he couldn’t seem to get up any speed. It was like being chased in a dream, running in slow-motion. Over and over he looked at the mirror. But the black shadow chasing him was nowhere to be seen.

October 12—Friday

“First let’s have a look at this video.”

Ryuji Takayama grinned as he spoke. They sat on the second floor of a coffee shop near Roppongi Crossing. Friday, October 12th, 7:20 p.m. Almost twenty-four hours had passed since Asakawa had watched the video. He’d chosen to have this meeting on a Friday night in Roppongi, the city’s premier entertainment district, in the hopes that, surrounded by the gay voices of girls, his dread would dissipate. It didn’t seem to be working. The more he talked about it, the more vividly the events of the previous night replayed themselves in his mind. The terror only increased. He even thought he sensed, fleetingly, a shadow lurking somewhere within his body that possessed him.

Ryuji’s dress shirt was buttoned all the way up to the top, and his tie seemed rather tight, but he made no move to loosen it. As a result, the skin of his neck above his collar was slightly swollen—just looking at it was uncomfortable. Then there were his angular features. Even his smile would have struck your average person as being somehow nasty.

Ryuji took an ice cube from his glass and popped it into his mouth.

“Weren’t you listening to what I just said?” hissed Asakawa. “I told you, it’s dangerous.”

“Then what did you bring this to me for? You want my help, don’t you?” Still smiling, he crunched the ice cube loudly between his teeth.

“There’re still ways for you to help without watching it.”

Ryuji hung his head sulkily, but a faint grin still played over his features.

Asakawa was suddenly seized with anger and raised his voice hysterically. “You don’t believe me, do you? You don’t believe a thing I’ve been telling you!” There was no other way for him to interpret Ryuji’s expression.

For Asakawa himself, watching the video had been like unsuspectingly opening a letter-bomb. It was the first time in his life he’d experienced such terror. And it wasn’t over. Six more days. Fear tightened softly around his neck like a silken noose. Death awaited him. And this joker actually wanted to watch the video.