Maejima was breathing. I saw a tiny movement in response to my voice.
I was worried about his wounds and the amount of blood he’d lost, but there was absolutely no way I was leaving him here. I urged him, “Stay with me now!” over and over again in order to keep him alert, and somehow I managed to lift him up and drag him out to the hallway. The flames in the kitchen were already spreading into the dining room by that point.
I was pulling the door closed, thinking, If I can just stop the fire from advancing, even for a second…when—
“Where’d you go, Sakakibara?”
Someone called to me from the foyer. It was Mei. She must have come back to look for me since she’d lost sight of me.
“Why are you in—what the…?”
She stopped her advance toward me.
“Who is that?”
She wore her suspicion openly.
“What happened?”
“He’s hurt really badly,” I answered, shouting. “But there’s a fire in the kitchen!”
“A…A fire?”
“The caretaker…Mr. Numata is in there. Dead. He’s been murdered. And I bet the person who did it started that fire, too.”
Even as I was telling her the situation, my tongue tripping over the words, a thought whispered through my mind: Oh.
…It was then.
When I’d peered through a window in the hallway to look outside before going into Mei’s room at ten o’clock.
I’d seen a building like a storage shed in the backyard and a light on inside it. I’d accepted it at the time, thinking that the caretakers had probably gone to get something they needed out of it. But that…
It might have been the killer going in there after murdering Mr. Numata, or maybe going in before killing him to grab some kerosene or something to start the fire afterward.
“Is that Maejima? What happened to him?”
“He was lying in the dining hall. It looks like he’s been stabbed in the back with a knife. It’s got to be the same person who did this.”
“Are the cuts deep?”
“He’s lost a lot of blood.”
With Mei’s help, each of us supporting Maejima on one side, we headed for the foyer. The wide-open front door finally came into sight.
“Can you get him out on your own?” Mei asked.
“Probably. But he needs treatment soon.”
“You’re right.”
“Where’s Teshigawara? And Kazami?”
“Kazami is fine. The ground is muddy from the rain, so that made it softer. He twisted his leg pretty badly, but he didn’t hurt his head much. He woke up, too.”
“That’s good.”
Taking on the dead weight of Maejima’s body, I hurried toward the front door. As I went, Mei spun in a 180.
“Hey…Where are you going?”
“I have to tell everyone about the fire.”
She was totally right. But if she went back up to the second floor now…
It was dangerous. Naturally there was the danger presented by the fire, but there might still be a murderer roaming the building with a knife, too…
“Hold on, Misaki.”
But by the time I spoke up to stop her, she had already run up the stairs. I wanted to go after her, but I had Maejima, who couldn’t move on his own. Feeling torn, I lifted his weight and took him outside.
I saw Teshigawara coming toward the front stoop. Beside him was Kazami, looking pained and caked in mud. His glasses were gone and had probably flown off his face when he fell. He was dragging his right leg behind him in obvious pain, and Teshigawara was lending him a shoulder.
“No! Get away from the building!” I ordered.
“Huh?” Teshigawara’s eyes landed on me. “Who’s that? Maejima? Sakaki, where did you…”
“There’s a fire!” I shouted. “A fire started in the kitchen, and I don’t think we can put it out. It might be arson.”
“No way! Are you kidding me?”
“Someone attacked Maejima. He’s hurt really bad.”
“Are you for real?!”
“Look, we have to get out of here!”
“R-right.”
Each of us helping one of the wounded—Teshigawara with Kazami and me with Maejima—we got away from the stoop. Hobbling, slow and dragging, we moved down the path into the front yard.
At length, there came a violent noise from behind us. Turning around, to the right on the first floor—on the side where the dining hall was—I saw a window shatter and fire come roaring out. Fanned by the night’s strong winds, the fire crawled up the outside wall of the building as I watched.
Just then I heard a shrill alarm bell from inside the lodge.
The automatic fire detector must have activated. Or else someone had activated it by hand. Either way, this ought to make everyone in their rooms on the second floor aware that something strange was happening. Come on, everybody…Before the fire reaches you…
I could hardly stand still because I was so worried about Mei’s safety, but I knew I couldn’t just dump Maejima here, as badly hurt as he was. There was Kazami to consider, too. He wasn’t walking anywhere on his own, so I couldn’t just ask Teshigawara to take Maejima for me, either.
The first thing I had to worry about was getting Maejima somewhere the fire wouldn’t reach him.
Driving Teshigawara on, I summoned all the speed I was capable of to get away from the building. By now, several students who had been alerted to the fire were rushing out the front door and side exits.
They were all panicked by the flames that continued to mount in intensity and spread over the building. They ran past us and fled toward the gate, trying to save themselves. Every last one of them was dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt or in pajamas. There were even some people who’d come running out in their slippers.
I couldn’t get my body to respond the way I wanted it to, and I grew frantic. The heat and smoke really were chasing me down. In the roar of the flames I could hear, now and then, the sound of windows shattering. The sound of the building creaking.
At some point, Maejima’s body suddenly felt much heavier.
“Stay with me. Fight,” I called to him, but there was no apparent reaction. No way he’d start walking around on his own…
In the midst of all this…
I heard a scream.
Though it mingled with the many other strange noises rising out of the fire, it was clearly discernible…as a person screaming. A sharp, high-pitched shriek.
It came from above us, off at an angle.
When I looked up, I saw a person on a second-floor balcony. It was a room maybe two doors closer in from room 223, which we’d rushed out of not so long ago. I didn’t think the flames had reached that area yet, but…I guessed that they weren’t able to go into the hallway and were calling for help from the balcony.
…No.
I knew immediately that wasn’t it.
I could see two people on the balcony.
From her build and hairstyle, one of them looked like Izumi Akazawa. The scream had probably come from her. And the other was…
“Stop it!”
The piercing voice shouting those words superimposed itself on my view of Akazawa.
“What’s your problem?! Why are you—”
My eyes popped in horror. The other person on the balcony was, at this very moment, attempting to attack Akazawa. Their right hand was lifted high above their head. It might have held the very same knife that had stabbed Maejima…
“Stop!” Akazawa screamed. “Help me!”
The attacker and the victim—their forms tangled together on the balcony. And just then—
A monstrous sound deafened me. At the same moment, a blinding pillar of flame exploded from one corner at the back of the building…
An explosion?
That was an explosion.
Right—like the gas line in the kitchen. Considering the location, a propane gas cylinder must have been installed somewhere. Had that caught fire?
I raised both arms reflexively, trying to protect my face from the waves of heat and the sparks raining down on me. Losing its support, Maejima’s body slumped into a heap on the ground. Even as I rushed to do something, though…
My eyes went back to the second-floor balcony. And I caught the precise moment that the two grappling figures toppled over the railing, still locked together.
“What’s happening?” I murmured, overcome, averting my eyes. I fixed my grip on Maejima’s arm. “Are you okay? Come on, keep pushing.”
Pressing one knee against the mud, I struggled mightily to lift him up, but there was no response. When I relaxed my hold, Maejima’s body crumpled once more to the ground. He was like an inflatable toy without any air left in it.
“Maejima…Maejima?”
I called to him again and again and felt his wrist for a pulse. I checked his breathing and his heartbeat. But…
“Oh, Maejima…”
He was dead.