Chapter 8

“Uh, it’s a research trip. And I’m not alone…” Kieli answered automatically (until she said it, she had completely forgotten about the report herself) and glanced over at her companion on the bench. Then she almost cried out. She hadn’t seen the half-bodied evil spirit approach, but suddenly it was floating in the air above the radio, a mischievous smile showing faintly on its face. Static particles spewed out of the radio, forming a fuzzy soldier’s face, which looked overhead and opened its mouth menacingly. Waah, Corporal! Kieli screamed inside her head. “I’m sorry, I’m in a hurry! Good-bye!” She bid farewell to the priest without giving him a chance to respond, ran back to the bench, snatched up her bag and the radio, and raced away from the station without giving the evil spirit or the priest another look. “There — done…” Harvey muttered to himself, lowering the knife in his hand. He rested his chin on his bent knee and gazed at his handiwork for a while, rather pleased with himself. The blank tombstone now had letters engraved on it, though not particularly well. “Here lies Tadai, son of Tadius; younger brother, older brother, and first friend of Harvey.” “Well, you’ll just have to make do with this,” Harvey told the grave, then smiled wryly at the ridiculousness of his own action. But there was a little more he wanted to make sure to say out loud. “Right now, my life’s generally not so bad, so don’t worry about me. I enjoy what I can wherever I am, and I have someone who’s making life good. But…” As he spoke, he crossed his arms over his knee and buried his face. “I’m fed up with it already. Just imagine, every single person I meet up with dies, leaving me behind. Even you. You don’t even care how the hell I feel. You’re satisfied, so you just go and die.” His brother under the grave marker would no longer respond like he had the night before. Even so, he waited, hoping somewhere in his heart for something, but all he could hear was the dry sound of the wind carrying the dust and yellow sand that piled up on the ground. “Hmph, so no one’s coming to take me away after all?” he spat, with a short sigh, then brushed away the dust and stood up. He looked down once more at the newly engraved tombstone, offered a short prayer, then lifted his eyes and turned away. If they didn’t leave soon, they wouldn’t make it to the ruins before sunset. He felt hesitant about making Kieli camp out. “…Well, I guess it’s still all right…” he muttered before leaving the grave. It was more to himself than to his brother sleeping there. “Kieli! Hey, Kieli, stop! I’m gonna fall apart! I’m rickety enough as it is!” The radio’s protests were close to screams. Kieli finally stopped running. The radio had been flailing at the end of the cord in her hand as she raced at full speed. Catching her breath, she took a look at her surroundings. She had escaped the plaza in front of the station, and the next thing she knew, she was already inside the old city. It was already pretty late in the morning, but there were very few passersby. Even the trash strewn across the streets looked weathered, as if the town had given up on the idea of cleaning long ago, and a somehow resigned mood hung in the air. Thanks to the nature of transfer stations, the new town around the station flourished regardless of its remote location, but just a little way away, the place became an old, abandoned ghost town, like the neighborhood around Easterbury’s old station. “Oh, that scared me. It would have been big trouble if you had gone on a rampage back there,” Kieli whispered in a subdued voice as she returned the radio and her bag to their normal positions and walked resolutely toward the public cemetery. “I was just threatening him a little to get him to go away. Besides, he came up to me first.” “You’re the one that said it’s best not to get involved with spirits like that, Corporal,” she responded, pursing her lips. The radio groaned and said vaguely, “Never mind that,” forcing the conversation in another direction. “It’s good that it got you away from that guy. Of course I feel the same about that evil spirit, but something about that guy just really bugs me. It’s best not to get involved with him either.” “Why?” His sudden warning shocked Kieli, and she looked down at the radio as it swung against her stomach in time with her footsteps. “Something felt weird about him.” “What did?” “Just something. I was trying to get a better idea when that annoying spirit came up to me.” “So basically there’s no reason. I thought he was nice.” She tried to remember the priest’s face, but he hadn’t really left an impression on her except that he had pretty blue-gray eyes that matched the night sky, and that for some reason, he reminded her of Harvey for a second. But she at least didn’t get the impression that he was a bad man. The radio seemed to want to say more, but convinced himself, “Oh well, we’ll never see him again. We’re leaving this town,” bringing the conversation to a close. “Yeah,” Kieli replied only briefly, and shut her mouth for a while. If they walked all day, they would reach the ruins that evening. Before she knew it, their destination was right in front of them. Kieli became aware of that fact and suddenly started to worry about what would happen after they got there. It had seemed so far off, she didn’t have much of a sense that the time would come — no, maybe, unconsciously, she was trying not to think about it. There wasn’t much left of the Colonization Days vacation. When they returned from the ruins, Kieli would have to go back to the boarding school, although not even Becca would be there anymore when she got back. What would Harvey do after returning the Corporal to his grave…? “Um, hey. When we get to the ruins, we’ll have to say good-bye, won’t we?” she asked hesitantly as she turned down a side street in the direction of the public cemetery. After a short silence, the radio answered, “Yeah.” She couldn’t tell him she didn’t want to. Not if it was what the Corporal wanted and if it was natural for dead people, like it was for Becca. She left the narrow, paved byroad and started up the staircase that zigzagged up the inner wall. At the top was the abandoned Church school, and the lot next to that was the old city’s public cemetery. “Wha?” Right as she passed the landing on the highest level, something suddenly yanked her neck from behind, and she automatically let out a cry as the air rushed out of her throat. Surprised that she had stopped breathing for a moment, she turned her head behind her. Two long arms appeared impossibly in the air and were trying to take the radio that hung from her neck — to be more accurate, they were trying to drag out the spirit that was possessing the radio. “Let go, damn it!” the soldier yelled, the top half of his body having been pulled out of the floating radio. Kieli’s legs swam in the air as she was pulled backward with the radio. Before she could react, her back hit the concrete stairs, and she slid backward down a few steps to the landing below. “Kgh…” she cried wincing at the pain in her back, then sat up and looked to her left and right. The radio had come off her neck, and she could see it banging against the pavement as it rolled down the stairs. “Corporal!” Despite the pain, Kieli stood up and hurried after the radio. She got impatient and started skipping steps, running with such force that it seemed any wrong step would send her tumbling down the stairs, too; but anyway, she ran. The radio bounced high with a dull thud. Kieli reached out with all her might to grab its cord, but there was no stair for her foot to land on. “Ahhh — !” She curled up instinctively, but this time she fell past the landing and all the way to the bottom, stopping when she crashed onto the pavement in the alley below. “…gh!” A moment later, an intense pain attacked her shoulder joints, and she let out a scream that had no voice. “Kieli!” the radio’s call hit the back of her head as she cringed, unable to move from the pain. Its voice immediately changed into a furious roar. She managed to look up to see the half-bodied spirit floating above the radio on the ground in front of her. Its long arms wrapped around the Corporal’s spirit body as it tried to pull him out of the radio. “What do you think you’re you doing? Let go!” When the Corporal bellowed, the radio’s speaker swelled to a dome shape and started shooting out shock waves that looked like condensed air. The evil spirit floated out of the way to a higher elevation, and the air-splitting shock wave crashed into the alley wall, crumbling the concrete. Drifting in the air, the evil spirit curled its mouth into a half-moon, clearly laughing at them. Pieces of broken concrete shook noisily, as if laughing with it; they rose up to the evil spirit’s eye level, forming a rough circle. “Corporal, run!” Kieli cried in spite of herself, knowing that she was saying the impossible, when she saw the projectiles aimed at the radio on the ground. The evil spirit glared at her in irritation; as it did, the projectiles changed the target of their attack toward her, and when the evil spirit gave the signal with its eerily long fingers, they all commenced their assault. Kieli couldn’t react right away; her eyes widened and stared above her, still sitting on the ground. Pieces of concrete as big as her head formed groups that plunged toward her. A moment too late, she closed her eyes tight, and the second she had half-resigned herself to her fate, someone’s arm scooped her up from the side, and her feet floated in the air. Surprised, she opened her eyes again. Peripherally, she saw pieces of concrete piercing the ground where she lay seconds before as she was gently released a few meters away. “Harve…” Unable to grasp the situation, she looked up at the owner of the arm that had rescued her, still a little dazed. Harvey only said shortly, “You okay?” in her ear, then turned his neck and cast his eyes toward the air above them. The evil spirit twisted its face in annoyance and spun around as if to tell them they’d spoiled its mood by getting in the way of its fun. “Stay here. I’ll be right back,” Harvey said in a low voice, still glaring overhead. He shook off Kieli’s hand and stood up. “Herbie!” the radio yelled, lying on the ground a little ways off. Harvey snatched up the radio’s cord as he ran past and went after the retreating spirit. Running down the sloping alley, Harvey fixed his gaze on the half-bodied ghost’s back as it drifted away. Around the radio, the Corporal’s staticky face howled. The speaker produced a shock wave that went after the spirit, but it just barely missed its target and dispersed in the air. The spirit turned and disappeared through a wall; by the time Harvey jumped out of the alley after it, it was already gone. “Corporal, stop,” he commanded the radio in a low voice, as it was all set to release another shock wave, and stopped where he stood. They had come out into the old city’s main street, and people were walking about. “What the hell was that? Coming at me for no reason,” the radio spat, peeved, as it dangled from Harvey’s hand. “You probably had him intrigued, Corporal,” Harvey answered vaguely, keeping his guard up for a while as he watched for any signs of the spirit from the corner of the alley, but apparently it was no longer in the neighborhood. “It got away…” “Damn it, another spectacular failure. Even I’m amazed I’ve lasted this long. Anything else happens, and I’ll be scrap for sure.” The radio continued his endless complaints, but Harvey responded casually, “You only need that body for today anyway. Just in case, let’s get out of here now,” and turned on his heels, inwardly muttering, “He likes that body more than he lets on.” As he started back toward the road they had come from, he thought he felt eyes on them and stopped for a moment. He turned around and directed his gaze at the sparse traffic on the main street, but there were only residents of the old town walking listlessly by, and nothing really caught his eye. Apparently he had imagined it. Harvey jogged up the sloping alley; when he got halfway up, he saw a girl walking slowly down the slope, using the wall for support. “I thought I told you to wait,” he hurried up to her. “You okay, Kieli? Sorry about that,” the radio asked, concerned. “I’m fine. It wasn’t your fault, Corporal,” Kieli replied with a smile, but scratches showed here and there on her slender hands and legs, which appeared even whiter against her black uniform. Her bruises were probably even worse. The bag she wore had slipped a little from her recently injured shoulder. “Give me that,” Harvey said shortly, holding his hand out to Kieli. Kieli just stared up at him blankly, so he breathed a small sigh and took the bag off her shoulder. “So you can be a gentleman when you try.” “Shut up. I’m always a gentleman,” Harvey snarled in response to the radio’s quip, holding it up to his eyes and glaring at it as he hung Kieli’s bag from his own shoulder with his other hand. “Damn it, and you were with her. Anything happens again, and I’ll be the one to turn you into scrap.” “Heh. Too bad for you, I’m only in this body for today anyway,” the radio replied, not to be outdone. Harvey glowered at it as if to say, “That was my line,” and then noticed Kieli staring at him. “What? Are you hurt? Want me to carry you?” he asked, wincing somewhat; when she gazed at him with her honest, black eyes, he felt an inexplicable sense of guilt. Kieli hung her head and shook it back and forth, and after a moment muttered hesitantly, “It’s not that. Are you okay, Harvey?” “Me?” Harvey repeated automatically, then, “…Oh, am I okay? That’s stupid. Don’t worry about me.” He almost made a face resembling a bashful smile, then panicked and went back to his normal scowl. “If you can walk, then let’s go,” he said over his shoulder as he turned and walked away in an effort to hide his display of emotion. Walking at a slower pace than usual, matching the footsteps of the girl following behind, he groaned inwardly. He had thought he was the one looking after her, but before he knew it, it was her existence that was rescuing him. The first order he heard was to go to Easterbury because a cat had been hit by a train and the body was nowhere to be found. After asking what on earth the problem was, he was forced to listen to a few meaningless complaints (as if he gave a damn about their grandkids’ future schooling problems). He finally reached the heart of the matter — he was to go investigate the black tarlike bloodstains found at the scene of the accident. Why didn’t they just say so? Clearly they had things all out of order. “What? You’re still at the transfer station? What are you wasting time there for? Get to Easterbury and go after that Undying.” “I’m terribly sorry. I wasn’t feeling very well, so I got a late start. I don’t have any pleasant memories of the area around Easterbury.” “Huh. I can’t imagine you’d have pleasant memories of anywhere.” Inwardly sneering, “I don’t need your commentary,” he outwardly answered very politely, “Oh, please don’t say that. Thanks to my delay, I have some good news to report. I’ve already found him without having to go all the way there.” “What’s that?” “The Undying was at the transfer station. Considering the time elapsed and the distance traveled, he’s probably the same one who was in Easterbury. He’s an acquaintance of mine, though I never thought I would find him here.” “Oh? Who is he? Where is he headed?” “A detestable man named Ephraim. He’s completely unfriendly.” He could feel the vomit rise to his throat just from speaking the name. “He went south along the abandoned railroad. The only thing in that direction is the abandoned mine.” “Understood. Finish the job there. I’ll send some cars for backup,” he said and hung up, not waiting for an answer. “…Yeah, yeah,” he said derisively to the man on the other end, who could no longer hear him. He turned off the transmission from his end and cursed as he rudely knocked the six-inch blacked-out monitor to the ground. He composed himself a bit and thought, Idiot Church leaders; I pretend to be a little submissive, and they get carried the hell away. I could kill them any time, as he bent down in his priest robes and picked up the transmitter. It might be broken, but it didn’t matter; he could just get a new one. It would seem that chance encounters sometimes bring with them wonderful good luck. Accident-causing evil spirits weren’t all that uncommon, but girls carrying possessed radios weren’t something he saw every day. He watched her for a while, intrigued, and then who should appear but that Ephraim. Hmm. So he was still alive. That color — his eyes are as disgusting as ever. His nausea returned and he spat at his feet, but suddenly, a faint smirk came to his lips. He had an idea. To think that that girl is traveling with Ephraim. Well then, when I finish this job, he won’t mind if I take her.