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

Nishizaki Hardware . Asakawa saw the sign and braked. There were stepladders and lawn mowers lined up in front of the store. They should be able to get everything they needed here.

“I’ll let you do the shopping,” Asakawa said, running to a nearby phone booth. He paused before entering it to take a phone card from his wallet.

“Hey, we don’t have time to waste on phone calls.” But Asakawa wasn’t listening. Grumbling, Ryuji went into the store and grabbed rope, a bucket, a shovel, a pulley block, and a high-powered flashlight.

Asakawa was desperate. This might be his last chance to hear their voices. He knew full well how little time he had to waste. He only had nine hours left until his deadline. He slipped his card into the phone and dialed the number of his wife’s parents’ house in Ashikaga. His father-in-law answered.

“Hello, it’s Asakawa. Could you call Shizu and Yoko to the phone?” He knew he was being rude, skipping the customary exchange of pleasantries. But he didn’t have time to worry about his father-in-law’s feelings. The man started to say something, but then seemed to sense the urgency of the situation, and immediately summoned his daughter and granddaughter. Asakawa was extremely glad his mother-in-law hadn’t been the one to answer. He’d never have got a word in edgewise then.

“Hello?”

“Shizu, is that you?” Hearing her voice, he missed her already.

“Where are you?”

“Atami. How’s everything there?”

“Oh, about the same. Yoko’s having a great time with Grandma and Grandpa.”

“Is she there?” He could hear her voice. No words, just sounds as she struggled to climb up on her mother’s lap to get to her father.

“Yoko, it’s Daddy.” Shizu put the receiver to Yoko’s ear.

“Dada, Dada …” He could barely hear the words, if words they were. They were all but drowned out by the sounds of her breathing into the phone, or rubbing the mouthpiece against her cheek. But these noises only made him feel that much closer to her. He was overcome with the desire to leave all this behind him and hug her.

“Yoko, you wait there, okay? Daddy’s coming soon to get you in the vroom-vroom.”

“Really? When are you getting here?” Shizu had taken the phone without him realizing it.

“On Sunday. Right, I’ll be renting a car and driving up, so let’s all take a drive into the mountains, to Nikko or something.”

“Really? Yoko, isn’t that great? Daddy’s going to take us for a drive in a car on Sunday!”

He felt his ears burning. Was he really in a position to make that kind of promise? A doctor was never supposed to say anything to give his patient false hope; he was supposed to do things to minimize the eventual shock as much as possible.

“It sounds like you’ve got this thing you’re working on straightened out.”

“Well, it’s coming along.”

“You promised me that when all this is over you’d tell me the whole thing from the beginning.”

He had promised that. In exchange for her not asking any questions right now, he’d said he’d tell her all about it once it was taken care of. His wife had kept her end of the bargain.

“Hey, how long are you going to keep talking?” Ryuji said from behind him. Asakawa turned around. Ryuji had the trunk open and was loading his purchases into the car.

“I’ll call again. I might not be able to tonight, though.” Asakawa placed his hand on the hook. If he pushed, the connection would be broken. He didn’t even know why he’d called. Was it just to hear their voices, or did he have something more important to tell them? But he knew that even if he’d been able to talk to her for an hour, when it came time to hang up he’d still feel constrained, as if he’d only said half of what he wanted to say. It’d just be the same thing. He pressed down on the hook, and then let go. In any case, everything would be clear tonight at ten. Tonight at ten …

Driving up in the daytime like this, South Hakone Pacific Land felt like a typical mountain resort. The creepy mood he’d felt last time he came was hidden by the sunlight. Even the sound of bouncing tennis balls was normal, not sluggish and sonorous like before, but crisp and light. They could see Mt Fuji, hazy and white, and below them in the distance scattered flashes of sun from greenhouse roofs.

It was a weekday afternoon and Villa Log Cabin appeared deserted. It seemed that the only time the rental units were fully occupied was weekends and the summer vacation season. B-4 was vacant today, too. Leaving Ryuji to check in, Asakawa unloaded the car and changed into lighter clothes.

He looked carefully around the room. A week ago this evening Asakawa had fled in fear from this haunted house. He remembered running into the bathroom to throw up, feeling that he was about to piss himself. He could even remember, quite vividly, the graffiti he’d seen on the bathroom wall when he’d knelt down in front of the toilet. Now he opened the bathroom door. The same graffiti in the same place.

It was just after two. They went out onto the balcony and ate the box lunches they’d bought on the way while gazing over the grassy meadow surrounding the cabins. The fretful mood that had shadowed them here from Nagao’s clinic subsided a bit. Even amidst the worst panic, there are still scattered moments like this, when time flows leisurely by. Even when trying to finish a story by an impending deadline, Asakawa would sometimes find himself aimlessly watching coffee drop from the spout of the coffee maker, and later he’d reflect on how elegantly he’d wasted precious time.

“Eat up. We’ll need our strength,” said Ryuji. He’d bought two lunches just for himself. Asakawa meanwhile didn’t seem to have much appetite; from time to time he’d rest his chopsticks and look back inside the cabin.

Suddenly, he spoke, as if it had just occurred to him. “Maybe we’d better get this straight. What exactly are we doing here?”

“We’re going to look for Sadako, of course.”

“And what do we do once we’ve found her?”

“Take her back to Sashikiji and lay her to rest.”

“So that’s the charm. You’re saying that’s what she wants.”

Ryuji chewed loudly for a while on a big mouthful of rice, eyes staring straight ahead, unfocused. Asakawa could tell from the look on his face that Ryuji wasn’t entirely convinced, either. Asakawa was scared. It was his last chance, and he wanted some sort of assurance that they were doing the right thing. There were to be no second chances.

“There’s nothing else we can do now,” said Ryuji, tossing away his empty lunch box.

“What about this possibility? Maybe she wants us to clear away her resentment toward the person who killed her.”

“You mean Jotaro Nagao? You mean if we exposed him, Sadako would be appeased?”

Asakawa looked deep into Ryuji’s eyes, trying to figure out what he really thought. If they dug up the remains and laid them to rest and it still didn’t save Asakawa’s life, maybe Ryuji was planning to kill Dr Nagao. Maybe he was using Asakawa as a test case, trying to save his own skin …

“Come on. Don’t be stupid,” said Ryuji with a laugh. “First of all, if Nagao had really incurred Sadako’s resentment, he’d already be dead.”

True. She definitely had that kind of power.

“So why did she let herself be killed by him?”

“I can’t say. But look: she was surrounded by the deaths of people close to her. She knew nothing but frustration. Even disappearing from the theater company like that was essentially a frustration of her goals, right? Then she visits her father at the sanatorium and finds out that he’s near death.”

“A person who’s given up on the world harbors no resentment toward the person who takes her out of it, is that what you’re saying?”