“Why?” a hoarse voice sighed. “Why must they persecute me? I never wronged them … Why … ?”
On and on the voice droned. “It’s not my fault … I didn’t do anything … They’re the ones in the wrong … Why does everyone pick on me? Aaah … Hateful, so hateful … The world is full of bullies who torment the weak …”
Uzui stopped and turned his phone toward the voice. The sulky muttering gave way to a shriek.
In the pool of light, an old man with cracked skin shuddered dramatically. Clad in an ancient kimono, he seemed human at first glance, but two horns protruded from his head. On his forehead, between the horns, was a large bump, as if from a kick.
Uzui was gobsmacked. The thing was real.
Uzui had assumed the ghost stories were nonsense made up by students trying to scare each other. But here he was, staring down at one of the ghosts. He had no idea what to do. If it had been a human intruder, he wouldn’t have hesitated to slug it. But he wasn’t sure a fist would settle things with a monster.
“Rengoku!” he shouted. “Your salt! Throw salt on it!”
“Huh? Throw it where?” Rengoku wandered past the monster without so much as a pause.
Uzui’s eyes almost popped out of his head. Was Rengoku so scared he was pretending not to see the creature? No, he was the last person who would do that. They’d known each other since their school days, and Uzui had never seen Rengoku shrink from anything. Besides, he’d just been ranting about doing whatever it took to protect his students.
Why would he ignore the monster crawling down the hallway? What kind of strategy was that?
Shaking off his bafflement, Uzui remembered that Kanae was still behind him. Surely she was terrified by this hair-raising apparition. “Kanae, are you all right?” He turned. “If you’re scared, you can close your eyes and hang on to me—”
The beautiful biology teacher passed him coolly to face the old man. In a clear voice, she chanted, “Rin. Pyo. To. Sha. Kai.” She pulled paper charms from her jacket and tossed them at the apparition.
The moment the first charm touched the lump on his head, the old man’s body was engulfed in flames. He screamed in pain and rage. Before Uzui’s eyes, the creature’s flesh burned away. Even the ashes left behind faded into nothingness.
Silence fell in the hallway.
“Wha—” Uzui tried to comprehend what he’d just seen.
Kanae smiled sweetly at him. “We’re all right now.”
“Eep!” It wasn’t Uzui who let out the squeak of a cry, but Tomioka. He backed away from Kanae, trembling.
Kanae strode off. “We’d better keep going.”
Uzui couldn’t stop himself from calling out to her. “What was that just now?”
“What do you mean?” She looked back at him with the smile of an angel, but her voice and bearing warned him not to press her. Uzui swallowed the rest of his questions. In his experience, a woman would open up in her own time.
“What’s taking you guys so long? Let’s get to the biology lab!” Rengoku had finally noticed that the others were far behind him. He waved from the far end of the hallway, still acting like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Still puzzled, Uzui followed his colleague to the biology lab.
Tomioka trotted along behind Uzui. He kept glancing nervously around, maintaining a fixed distance from Kanae. He was practically clutching Uzui’s arm. Uzui didn’t blame him for being shaken, but it seemed like too much. Since when was Tomioka such a coward? Uzui shut down that line of thinking. Any preconceptions about what Tomioka was like had gone out the window at the beginning of the evening.
He felt a strange chill. His body was suddenly so heavy he could hardly keep walking.
We’ll finish this up and grab some ramen or something, he told himself, trying to pick up the pace.
When they reached the biology lab, Uzui looked back at Kanae.
“Have you seen the pot the ghost is supposed to come from?”
“No, nothing like it.”
Uzui was struck by the strange wistfulness in her voice. It seemed odd that, as the new biology teacher, she hadn’t familiarized herself with everything in the lab. Maybe the pot only appeared at certain times.
“Does it move?” he asked, more to himself than to anyone around him. “The pot, I mean. Is that possible?”
“It’s pitch black in here,” said Kanae. “Everyone please watch your step.”
Tomioka let out another squeak.
With the blackout curtains closed, the room was indeed dark, much darker than the hallway. Even so, they had no trouble finding the haunted pot. A monstrous, misshapen specter hovered over it like a genie from a lamp. Even Uzui, who taught modern art, had never seen anything so surreal.
“Well, well, well,” burbled the creature. “If it isn’t some idiot teachers! What business do you have with Gyokko, king of pots? Hyo hyo!”
Perhaps this self-proclaimed king was bored, because the spirit seemed almost pleased to see the teachers. It looked them up and down as if assessing their worth. “Hmph. Nothing but a gaggle of monkeys. No aesthetic sense whatsoever. But I suppose I can work with that.”
Uzui scowled. “It’s even mouthier and grosser than the rumors said.”
“What?” said Rengoku. “Do you see the pot monster? Where?”
“What do you mean?” Uzui said. “It’s right in front of us.”
“Where?” A huge chunk of rock salt in hand, Rengoku stared in exactly the opposite direction. “The curtains? Is it hiding behind the blackout curtains?”
“I’m telling you, it’s right in front of us. What’s up with you tonight?”
Kanae leaned over to whisper in his ear. “Uzui. Rengoku can’t see the spirit.”
“Huh?” Uzui turned to look at her. “But it’s plain as day.”
“Some people are like that. Either they’re too filled with strong positive energy to be affected by evil auras, or they’re...er...” She grimaced apologetically. “A bit thick.”
Positive, energetic, and not too bright. It was like the description was tailor-made for their colleague.
Uzui recalled Rengoku’s earlier incomprehensible behavior, and the crease on his brow smoothed away. “So he couldn’t see the old man either?”
“I don’t think so. Or hear him.”
As they talked, Rengoku was still whirling around, earnestly looking for the creature that threatened his students. “Quit hiding and show yourself! Come out and fight with your head held high!”
“There’s a real musclehead, eh? Poor dimwit can’t even appreciate my beautiful visage. How dense is this fellow?” Gyokko laughed gratingly.
“To the right of the blackboard, Rengoku,” Uzui snapped. “By the water tank.”
“Got it!” With a confident nod, Rengoku raised the chunk of rock salt over his head.
The rock salt slammed into the blackboard with a crash. A cry of “Hyo!” escaped from the specter’s three mouths in unison.
“Well, Uzui? Did I get it?”
Unfortunately, the massive hunk of salt had missed Gyokko by mere centimeters. But the creature paled and fled back into its pot. As if waiting for this, Kanae slapped a paper charm over the mouth of the pot.
“That was perfect,” she said, clapping her hands prettily. “Thanks to you, Mr. Rengoku, the students will no longer be subjected to condescension, showered in verbal abuse, or tickled.”
“Really? Great!” Rengoku laughed.