Dawn of the third day. The weather doesn't improve and it continues to snow. Asako prepares breakfast. And Kazuo finds the second victim.
Dawn of the third day.
The weather doesn't improve and it continues to snow.
Asako prepares breakfast.
And Kazuo finds the second victim.
Outside the dimly lit window, the duet of powdery snow and strong wind continued.
Kazuo rubbed his heavy eyelids, then pushed himself out of his chair with both hands.
What was the point of him standing guard if he fell asleep so easily? He felt bad as he stretched. Even though it was only for a few hours, he'd slept in an unnatural position in a chair, so every joint in his body was stiff. In the end, he'd gone all the way back to the second floor just to take a nap, but considering that his “bed” was a mattress on a silkworm rack, it might not have made much of a difference.
But it was still obvious he wasn't getting enough sleep. He let out an enormous yawn. Although he didn't feel hungover, a dull fatigue had built up within him. Like the low-hanging clouds outside, he felt as though a heavy cloud of his own had settled above his head. His chin was rough with stubble.
When he went downstairs, Yumi and Mikiko were still sleeping under the blanket, stuck to the sofa like slugs on a branch. Oddly enough, the remnants of last night's revelry had been cleaned off the table, and the whole room appeared to have been tidied. Kazuo had a hard time believing that they had cleaned up after he left and looked around. He smelled coffee, and followed the aroma to the dining room. When he looked into the kitchen, he saw Asako standing alone, stirring flour into a bowl.
“Ah, good morning! Did you sleep well? You don't look like you did.”
Even as Asako said that, she looked a bit tired herself. Her eyes were tiny and cute. However, seeing that nothing had happened and she was safe, Kazuo was relieved. Things like serial killings in a stranded mountain lodge only happened in fiction after all.
“Breakfast is pan-fried UFOs again, but we're running low on eggs and we're out of bread.”
Seeing Asako's apologetic face made Kazuo show an even more apologetic face.
“Miss Asako, are you the one who cleaned the parlor?”
“Yes, I was.”
“Sorry, I was planning to do it myself after I woke up, but-”
“Mr. Sugishita, you were drinking last night, too?”
Asako looked shocked.
“I did think there were a lot of empty bottles for just those two girls...”
“Yes, Mr. Zaino was with us, too... I was actually dragged along with them; I had no intention of drinking last night.”
He went over the details of last night again as though he were making excuses. He didn't want Asako to think he had just enjoyed drinking with a pair of coeds the night after a murder. He would have been fine if she only lightly criticized him...
However, Asako just laughed at the antics of the three drunkards.
“Are those three really that weak to alcohol?”
“Yeah, they're terribly weak, total drunkards. It was a real pain for me.”
As Kazuo stood frowning, Sagashima entered the dining room. Even though he greeted them with a bored expression while holding that thick foreign book in one hand, he looked refreshed. He didn't appear to have had a hard time sleeping.
“Mr. Sagashima, would you like some coffee?”
When Kazuo called out to him, Sagashima silently nodded his monkey head and spread his book on the table.
“Mr. Sugishita, could you please change Mr. Sagashima's bandages for me? I can't leave the kitchen right now,” said Asako.
Kazuo got the first aid kit.
“Ah, sorry I can't just do this myself. I'm too clumsy.”
Sagashima held out his bandaged left hand, eyes never leaving the page.
“I'm not that good at it either; this is my first time.”
He unwrapped the bandages. Underneath the gauze, the tips of all five of his fingers were red and peeling. It looked painful. When he sprayed on the disinfectant, Sagashima gave a predictable grimace.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, it stings a bit, but it feels almost totally better.”
Sagashima's voice was dull as ever. As Kazuo wrapped the new bandages, he had to say something.
“Mr. Sagashima, I don't think UFOs can land in this sort of weather.”
Kazuo gave his sympathies, mostly because he found just standing silently across from this gloomy middle-aged man suffocating. Sagashima looked up at him and his eyes lit up.”
“No, that's not true, the weather doesn't affect them at all.”
His voice was suddenly full of life.
“UFO propulsion systems appear to be totally unaffected by weather and atmospheric conditions, and some UFOs have even been seen inside thunderclouds. In July of 1987, the crew and passengers on a jumbo jet leaving Anchorage saw one. The airliner wasn't able to avoid entering the clouds, and before they knew it, there was a golden light flying parallel to them. At first, the witnesses thought it was ball lightning or something, but it kept a constant brightness, and when they looked closely, they realized it was perfectly circular, and the golden light was swirling around the circle. And it appeared that the disk was perfectly stable, even inside the heavy thunderclouds. It slowly moved parallel to the plane and approached them from the side – Even though the plane was shaking due to the influence of the thunderclouds and strong air currents. Apparently, the UFO stopped following the plane once it left the clouds. As this example demonstrates, UFOs can fly regardless of weather conditions, and they've even been seen in torrential rain. This also happened in Peru in 1975...”
Now it was even more suffocating. It seemed UFOs constantly circled this old man's head.
Asako made a fleet of UFOs of her own in her frying pan, and Kazuo finished bandaging the professor, even though he had long since grown sick of listening to him. It was around then that Hoshizono arrived.
“Good morning, Kazuo. Did you sleep well?”
The Star Watcher was as cheery as ever.
“After what you said last night, how could I?”
“What I said?”
“All that stuff about serial killings. I was so worried I couldn't sleep at all.”
As Kazuo complained while handing him his morning coffee, the marble sculpture in question responded:
“Did you take that seriously? I told you, it was just a story from a novel.”
He looked both disdainful and a bit annoyed.
Yumi, Mikiko, and Akane came in one after the other. Akane wasn't the type to take morning naps, but she walked like she was lapsing in and out of consciousness.
“Ugh, girl, get me some coffee.”
Akane collapsed on the table, scattering her Cleopatra haircut.
“My head is killing me... What happened last night?”
Yumi pursed her lips as she held her temple. She was facing the consequences of her actions. Mikiko, by contrast, looked strangely okay. Without any makeup, her eyebrowless face looked as smooth as a peeled egg.
She sighed. “I'm so hungry. I want some meat. Mr. Hoshizono, when we get out of here, take me out for yakiniku or something.”
It seemed Mikiko was carefully balancing her appetite and her sex appeal this morning. She didn't look like he'd been drunk as a skunk just the previous night.
After Asako was finished making breakfast, she emerged from the kitchen, plates in hand that gave off the aroma of sesame oil.
“Oh... Mr. Zaino isn't here yet.”
“Wow, even though he's the host, he overslept. What a dick.”
Akane fired the shot without taking her face off the table.
Hoshizono put down his half-empty coffee cup.
“Would you like me to go wake him?”
“Ah, don't trouble yourself, sir, I can do it.”
Kazuo stood up. He realized that this was exactly how yesterday had begun. In hindsight, he may have already had a premonition.
After leaving the dining room via the right, Kazuo made a left turn in the hallway. The entrance to the staff room where Zaino was supposed to be sleeping was on the right side in the back.
Kazuo went up to the door with “Staff Room” written in clumsy handwriting and knocked.
“Mr. Zaino, everyone else is already awake.”
He gave a second knock, then a third.
“Mr Zaino, it's morning. Wake up.”
Yesterday, Zaino himself must have done the same thing as he stood in front of Iwagishi's lodge... The thought sent a chill down his spine.
All the discomfort caused by his lack of sleep disappeared. A feeling halfway between impatience and fear filled his head.
“Mr. Zaino, please open the door!”
He was louder than he had to be. He noticed the slight tremor in his own voice.
He pulled the door open.
And then, Kazuo... Well, he must have screamed. He didn't clearly remember this part himself. He figured he must have screamed, because his throat began to hurt terribly. He may have lapsed partially out of consciousness. He couldn't stop staring at Zaino's warped face, his eyes wide open, with what looked like a thick brown rope wrapped around his neck.
From behind the stunned Kazuo, the sound of footsteps came running. So he must have been screaming something.
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