“Scram…? Seriously?”
Mayu looked over to Minako for help, but their mother was so exasperated by Masafumi that it seemed she’d given up on even commenting.
“Oh dear, boys will be boys, I suppose.”
“Mom!”
“I’m not interested in finding out whether this village exists or not, but we need to get home soon, so let’s take the side road.”
Once Minako had given her permission, Masafumi nodded firmly.
“All right, let’s head out!”
Masafumi stopped the car and made a U-turn.
Then he drove straight into the side road.
Even though Mayu hadn’t wanted to go this way, she’d been overruled by everyone and couldn’t say anything else.
They’d traveled down the road for about half an hour.
The sun was rapidly setting, and it was getting darker and darker.
The road was just large enough for a single car, so as they drove through, the trees and greenery seemed to surround them like walls on both sides.
“Are you sure there’s a village on this road?”
If there really was one, then the villagers had to use this road on a daily basis, but it was overgrown with weeds, and they saw no traces of any cars traveling down the path regularly.
“Maybe that kid was lying?” Mayu said.
“He might have been” Masafumi replied. “Probably just trying to scare us…”
Right then, they saw something up ahead.
“Wait, is that…?” Kazuya leaned forward to get a better look.
They’d come across a tunnel just large enough for a single car.
“What’s a tunnel doing in a place like this?”
It didn’t seem to have any lights inside it, either.
“I wonder if the village is beyond it?”
“Hmm. All right, let’s check it out!”
Kazuya and Masafumi were suddenly eager to enter, and the car lurched right forward.
“Wait!”
Even though Mayu was scared, they headed into the tunnel, which was cramped, long, and very dark.
“I can’t see anything.”
Masafumi turned on the car’s headlights, but the illumination only reached the ground directly in front of the car, so they couldn’t see what was up ahead.
“This thing sure seems long…”
“Yeah, it’s a little creepy, too…”
Kazuya’s and Masafumi’s faces froze as they talked.
“Mom, I’m scared…”
“Everything’s okay. We should be back in town at the base of the mountain soon,” Minako said, but she seemed anxious.
Eventually, they could make out the exit ahead of them and were almost on the other side.
“Oh, thank goodness, that must be the exit!”
Mayu was so relieved, she let out a huge sigh.
They drove out of the tunnel and started going down a narrow side road just as they had earlier, only this road seemed to keep going on and on.
“Dad, are we not in town yet?”
“Uh, right, we’ve been driving for nearly thirty minutes, so we should have…”
Masafumi seemed confused, too, and cocked his head to the side.
“Huh?”
Suddenly, Minako let out a sound.
“What’s wrong, Mom?” Mayu asked. Minako was looking at the car navigation screen.
“There’s something not right with this.”
“What’s the problem?”
Mayu turned to look at the screen, too, and saw that it showed they were in the middle of the forest. They couldn’t see any roads on it at all. The car seemed to be driving endlessly through the trees.
“Dad, why are we inside the woods right now?”
“Hmm? W-well, that’s odd.”
Right at that moment, the screen suddenly started to flicker.
“What’s going on?”
Then it went dead.
“What just happened?”
Masafumi tried to turn it back on, but the screen remained completely black.
“Is it broken?”
“I’ve never seen this happen before…”
Masafumi tried all sorts of buttons, but the screen refused to turn on at all.
Even their TV screen and radio wouldn’t respond.
“What’s going on?!”
Mayu tilted her head.
Then Kazuya yelled right next to her, “Look at this!”
He showed his phone to everyone else. His device was also dead.
“The screen shut off out of nowhere, and I can’t turn it back on.”
Kazuya pressed all the buttons on his phone, but nothing happened.
“Are you sure you didn’t let the battery die?”
“No way. It was fine when I checked earlier.”
Mayu was wondering what could possibly be happening when Minako spoke up next. “Mine is dead, too!”
It looked as though Kazuya’s phone wasn’t the only one on the fritz. They checked Masafumi’s, too, and even his was dead.
“What the heck is going on?”
They were all starting to feel creeped out.
“Something’s off. We need to go back!”
“Uh, yeah, let’s turn around!”
Masafumi drove quickly, looking for a spot where he could make a U-turn.
But right then…
Thunk!
Suddenly, a huge sound came from the car.
“Aah! What was that?!”
The whole car pitched forward. The road had suddenly started to slope down, and the car seemed to float in midair for a moment.
“Aaaah!” Mayu was so scared, she shrank back into her seat.
“Hey, look at that!” Kazuya yelled as he leaned forward.
Mayu looked ahead to see a village below the slope.
“Wait, is that really it?!”
It wasn’t the town at the base of the mountain. They’d come across an unfamiliar little village.
Mayu grabbed the driver’s seat from behind and audibly gulped. Maybe this was the village the boy they’d met earlier had talked about?
While Mayu wondered whether it could be possible, she felt the car start going down.
“I’m scared,” she murmured, her face stiffened in fear. She glanced to the side of the road suddenly and saw a sign hidden behind the trees.
She could only make out Sugi on the sign since the rest was covered by leaves, but she knew for certain that was the first part of the village’s name.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Sugi… Wasn’t that…?”
Mayu remembered what Fushigi had said.
“By the way, the name of the village is Sugi—”
“This really is it!”
Mayu was certain the place in front of them was the forbidden village.
Once they arrived in town, Mayu and Minako stayed in the car while Masafumi and Kazuya got out.
It was a small village of just ten or so wooden houses. The whole place was eerily silent, and not a single person was around. Some of the houses had run-down bicycles and rusted trucks in front of them, so the only thing they could glean was that people were living in the village. The spookiest detail of all was that even though it was still evening, every single house’s shutters were closed.
“Something seems off.”
“Yeah, this village is weird…”
Kazuya’s and Masafumi’s voices trembled.
The sky was growing darker and darker all the while as the sun was completely blotted out by the clouds.
“My, my, what do we have here?”
Suddenly, they heard a voice come from behind them.
Masafumi and Kazuya looked around with a start, as did Mayu and Minako in the car.
An old granny was standing behind them. Her entire face was wrinkled, and her eyes were nothing but thin lines peering out at them.
She appeared almost comical.
Mayu thought she looked a lot like a stereotypical old grandma from the countryside.
The woman stared at the family.
“Uh, um… We got a bit turned around,” Masafumi explained as he took a step forward.
“Turned around? Ah, must’ve taken the side road, then. Oh-ho-ho…”
She let out a friendly laugh and approached the family.
Overcome by curiosity, Mayu and Minako abandoned both their anxiety and the car as they stepped out to join the others.
“Just go back the way you came,” the woman said. “Should take you right back to that big mountain road you started on, but don’t you go around speeding. Not unless you want to head off onto another path…”
“Another path?” Masafumi questioned her. “But there was only one side road.”
However, the old woman didn’t reply and gently smiled instead.
Mayu tried to recall the route they’d taken to the village. All she remembered were the trees growing thick around them and continuing on and on forever.
Had she missed a fork in the road?
As Mayu was thinking, Kazuya suddenly tapped her on the back, trying to draw her attention.
“Hey, look…” He motioned with his chin at a building a short distance away.
“What is it?” Mayu asked, and Kazuya pointed at the house’s door.
“Isn’t it open a little?”
“Yeah…”
“Look really closely inside.”
“Inside?”
Mayu trained her eyes on the house. The sun was setting, so it was dark, but she could still make things out.
The door was slightly ajar.
Mayu noticed a giant pile of disheveled fabric inside.
“Those are clothes? Maybe they were taking in the laundry…?”
“No, look carefully!” Kazuya whispered, so Mayu tried again.
“Oh!” The next moment, Mayu was startled. The pile was illuminated by an indoor light, and every single scrap of fabric was stained bright red. “Wait, is that—?”
“Yeah, it’s blood! It’s blood!”
Mayu’s eyes went wide before she caught herself.
“My, my, how unfortunate that you noticed.”
At some point, the elderly woman had started watching Mayu and Kazuya.
“Well, now that you’ve seen them, I’m afraid—” The old woman’s wrinkled face turned grim as she approached them.
“No! Get away from me!” Mayu bolted for the car.
“Dad! Mom! We need to go!” Kazuya yelled, and made a run for it, too.
“Mayu! Kazuya!”
Masafumi and Minako had noticed something was off and quickly followed their children.