Kazuo stands alone as a sentry. Late on the second night, he's startled by a sudden noise. Kazuo searches in the darkness.

 

Kazuo stands alone as a sentry.

Late on the second night,

he's startled by a sudden noise.

Kazuo searches in the darkness.

Returning to the mattress room, Kazuo heated the stove as warm is it would go and sighed.

It was 10:00 P.M. – There was no sound except the whistle of the wind. It was quiet. However, he couldn't calm down. Hoshizono's words stuck with him. Incidents like this usually develop into serial killings... There was no way some thing so unrealistic would happen in real life. Even though he thought so, he couldn't get the thought out of his head.

As he knelt on the silkworm rack, Kazuo's thoughts raced.

That voice... The voice he'd heard from Iwagishi's lodge. If he could only remember whose voice it was, the case would be solved. The avalanche would still be there, but at least one of their problems would be solved. But no matter how hard he thought, he couldn't remember. Whose voice it was, what it had sounded like... He'd forgotten to the point where he wasn't even sure if it was male or female. That evening, Yumi had sounded hysterical while she wrestled with the TV antenna, but he thought the voice was different from that. It had sounded a bit screechy and metallic, echoing in his head.

Kazuo thought about Asako's soft voice. He wondered if she were capable of producing such a grating tone if she were emotional enough.

Cases like these usually develop into serial killings...

Kazuo jumped off the shelf.

He had to get out of this room. He decided he would keep an eye on Asako's lodge. He didn't know why. It was just a sudden thought he had. Since the culprit's motive was still unknown, it was hard to say with any certainty that Asako wouldn't become their next target. It was hardly logical, but Kazuo was the type to move as soon as a thought occurred to him.

He tiptoed out of the mattress room and into the hall.

It was quiet as a grave. Cold air swirled around his feet.

He passed through the dim, empty corridor and entered the game room. The room, deserted and dark, looked like a room from a haunted house. The wind shook the windowpanes with an eerie noise. Iwagishi had said something about Disneyland before, but the only attraction that this place would work as was the Haunted Mansion. He didn't want to stay any longer than he had to. He quickly picked up two pool cues. When he swung one of them, the way it sliced the air made an audible noise. It would make a good weapon. Judging by the way Iwagishi had been killed, the culprit probably didn't have access to firearms or any other sort of projectile weapons. To stop the killer, he'd have to get in close. That was why he figured these cues, long and spear-like, would be his best bet. They were too weak to cause a lot of damage, but he didn't need to defeat the enemy. He just needed to fight them off, see their identity, and live to tell the tale.

Holding a cue in each hand, he quickly left the game room.

He went to the dining room and grabbed a chair. Then he went back down the hall. He climbed the stairs to the second floor and put the chair and the cues in room with the door, then went back downstairs and grabbed his stove from the mattress room. He threw a blanket over his shoulders and brought it up with him as well.

His plan was to monitor everything from upstairs. It would have been better if he could've settled under the eaves of Asako's lodge, but that would have been too obvious. There was no point to keeping watch if he was obvious about it and the culprit saw him coming. The second floor gave him a good view of all the lodges, and the exit was just downstairs. If he hurried, he could make it from here to the door in a matter of seconds.

He set up the chair and stove by the window, then he leaned one of the cues diagonally against the door. It was an alarm. If someone suspicious tried entering the room, the cue would fall over. No matter how focused he was on the outside, the noise would alert him about any intruders.

He turned off the light and, navigating by the red glow of the stove, sat down in his chair. He wrapped himself in the blanket. Naturally, he held the remaining cue in one hand, posing like a gatekeeper.

Everything was ready. He could see all the lodges below.

The wind roared. A light dusting of snow fluttered in the darkness. Under the heavy blanket of darkness, the lights of the lodges shone bright. All of the cottages were lit except the three empty ones in the back and, of course, Iwagishi's, which stood out like a missing tooth. In the endless darkness, the string of lights that were the cottages glittered with an ethereal beauty like luminous algae on the seabed.

For a while, he stared at that quiet scenery, still as a statue. Then his thoughts began to drift. Who had killed Iwagishi? There was no longer any way to deny it was someone among them, who'd killed him and was only pretending to be uninvolved. Zaino, Sagashima, Yumi, Mikiko, Akane, and Asako. There weren't a lot of suspects. As far as motive was concerned, Zaino was the most likely suspect. His personality was also a bit suspicious. Of the suspects, Sagashima, Akane, and Asako were just invitees and shouldn't have had any prior relationship to the victim. However, as Hoshizono had said, there was no way to prove they weren't hiding some secret connection. The fact that they appeared to have never met him before wasn't enough to exonerate them from suspicion. And Akane, who was still focused on her manuscripts even after receiving the one-two punch of being stranded and witnessing a murder, and Sagashima, who wouldn't stop making all noise about UFOs, were clearly not normal people. It wouldn't have been that surprising if they killed for a reason that made no sense at all to normal people. Yumi and Mikiko looked like ordinary college girls, but they had surprisingly strong wills and may have had the strength to commit murder. In particular, Yumi's saccharine sweet behavior was clearly motivate by her awareness that she was being watched, showing a calculating personality. Kazuo didn't think they could underestimate the supposedly air headed coed.

Kazuo had no idea who the culprit was. That wasn't surprising – he'd only met the rest of the suspects the other day. There was no way he'd be able to see the true depths of their souls after only a day or two.

As he was still thinking about all that, there was movement from a lodge. The door to Asako's lodge, the first on the left path, opened. Kazuo felt a sudden anxiety and lowered his body against the window. Asako stepped outside. Even from a distance, Kazuo could see that she was huddling against the cold.

Asako trudged through the snow to the left path. Her small body looked to be on the verge of getting blow away by the wind. She walked down the left path towards Kazuo. Then she disappeared from sight off the bottom of the window's field of vision. Kazuo listened carefully to hear if she came inside, but she reappeared with her back to him on the right path. It appeared she'd just passed under the eaves of the administration building. As Hoshizono had said, if there was a path, people made a habit of walking on it.

Asako went to the first lodge on the right. It looked like she was having a hard time walking through the snow. When she arrived at the lodge, she knocked on the door. Akane stepped out and welcomed her in.

After a few minutes, Asako stepped back out. She said something through the open door. Asako left and returned to her own lodge the way she'd came.

Nothing else happened.

Kazuo sighed in relief and relaxed.

He stretched in his chair and looked down at the string of lights below, focusing on the empty lodge that had once been assigned to Iwagishi. His body must have still been lying there, exactly as it had been when he'd seen it during the day.

However, looking into the night and its wild dance of wind and snow, the events of that morning felt like a lie. As though it were all an elaborate joke. Kazuo wasn't thinking straight, and his vision was starting to blur. He must have been exhausted. That day had been so extraordinary, so far out of his daily existence, that he'd simply gone numb. His eyelids were getting heavy. The sound of the wind didn't bother him anymore. The line of lights dimly illuminating the world below was getting blurry and mixing into their reflections in the snow. Light and darkness, darkness and light. The darkness spread out forever, covering the sky and crawling across the ground, and the light could do nothing but melt away into...

…......

Kazuo's body jerked as a sudden noise brought him back to himself.

He must have dozed off... He clicked his tongue and wiped his face with his palm. It came back covered in sweat. Kazuo was still exhausted.

Just as he was beginning to wonder if it was just his imagination, he heard it again. A thump, like something being moved roughly. It wasn't coming from outside – it was with him inside the administration building. His heart raced. He slowly removed his blanket and stood up.

He tightened his grip on the cue. He checked his watch. It was just before 11:00 P.M. He'd only been sleeping for 30 minutes.

For a third time, he heard the noise. Another thump... This one was clear as day. Mixed with the sound of the wind was a hard impact. Kazuo started walking slowly. Groping for the door, he found the cue he'd placed there. Slowly and with great care, he opened the door. Chilly air stroked his face. He focused on his hearing. It was quiet.

He held the cue in both hands as his steps echoed in the hall. He reached the stairs. They reached down into total darkness. He took a single, timid step down. The stairs creaked. His heart skipped a beat. With a shaky breath, he forced his nerves down. Slowly, step by step, he made his way downstairs.

He heard another sound in the distance. It was far away, from the back of the building. If he had to guess, it was from the game room, or maybe the parlor. Somewhere thereabouts. Arriving at the bottom of the stairs, he stood in the hall and listened closely. A small light, appearing to be from the parlor, was faintly visible from where he stood. His throat was parched. He tried to swallow his spit, but it wouldn't go down. His heart was thunderously loud in his ringing ears. The wind was still roaring outside.

He brandished the cue and quietly, quietly, he advanced. He turned the corner. Now he could see clear to the end of the hall. There was no one there. From the parlor, a small fluorescent light cast a yellow glow. It was a pale, lonely light.

He moved slowly. He passed the parlor. He heard no sound. His hand trembled around the cue. He took one step, then another. The corridor was cold and empty.

Then, from around the right hand corner, he saw a shadow. Kazuo gasped and took a step back. He quickly tightened his grip on his cue. His teeth felt like they'd come misaligned.

The shadow appeared from around the corner.

It was Zaino.

Kazuo's heart leapt into his throat.

Zaino looked back at him with an expression of surprise, his hips crouched as though to attack. His eyes were wide. In a hand half-outstretched, an object gave a dull glint.

A kitchen knife. Kazuo's blood ran cold. He almost fell over. Was it him after all...? The direction he'd come was from the staff room he was staying in... Was he going to kill someone else now? His head wouldn't stop spinning.

For a moment, they stared each other down, Zaino pointing his knife menacingly at Kazuo, Kazuo holding his cue in the air. In the darkness, he couldn't clearly make out the other man's expression. Was Zaino glaring at him with eyes full of madness?

Just as Zaino began to back off, they heard that sound again.

It was from the back – further back, towards the dining room.

Zaino started in surprise. Then, he opened his mouth.

“You... did you hear that?”

He sounded frightened. Kazuo realized what was going on. Zaino had also heard the noise and come out to investigate.

“Yeah.... You too, Mr. Zaino?”

“Yes, I also heard that strange noise.”

The two men looked into each other's eyes, then exhaled loudly. The tension was released from their bodies.

“Don't scare me like that. I thought my heart was going to stop,” Zaino whispered off to the side.

“I'm the one who was scared. Why do you have a knife?”

“I got it from the kitchen for self-defense.”

Zaino finally lowered the knife away from him. That made Kazuo realize he still had his cue raised and slowly lowered it. He had intended to wield it as a spear, but when the moment came he'd forgotten all about that.

“Please don't wave that thing around like that.”

Zaino looked afraid. It was the most emotion he'd ever shown him.

There was the sound again. Kazuo and Zaino looked around for it. Zaino appeared to make up his mind.

“Shall we go?”

Kazuo nodded.

They walked side-by-side down the hallway.

The sound appeared to be coming from the dining room. Standing in front of the plain plywood door, Kazuo and Zaino exchanged a look.

With a synchronized breath, they kicked the door open. The light blinded him, but Kazuo unhesitatingly rushed forward.

“UHYAAAAAAAAH!”

A tremendous scream deafened him. Kazuo was blown back by shock and fell down.

Yumi and Mikiko stood before them at the table with their jaws hanging open.

“HYAAAA!”

Mikiko's scream was on a bit of a delay.

Zaino tripped on Kazuo's body and also fell down.

The four of them stared blankly at each other.

“What are you doing?” Zaino asked slowly.

Yumi was still stunned.

“I was scared, I couldn't sleep, I wanted a drink... and I wanted to eat something.”

Her answer came out in a series of broken gasps that heaved her considerable bosom.

On the table were beer cans, wine bottles, and pastry bags.

“You came out here to drink?” asked Kazuo.

Yumi nodded.

“HYAAAA!”

Mikiko screamed again. Her eyes were focused on Zaino's knife. Zaino gulped and hid it behind his back.

“Stop screaming, we just heard noises and came to check on you.”

“Ah... We're sorry.”

Mikiko shook her brown hair and nodded repeatedly. She wasn't wearing her makeup, so the impression she gave off was very different. Her eyebrows were almost gone, her eyelids were heavy, and her eyes themselves had shrank. She looked like a completely different person.

“Um, do you want to join us? It's a bit lonely, just the two of us.”

When she'd finally regained her composure, Yumi asked in her usual sweet voice.

“I don't usually drink. What about you, Mr. Sugishita?”

“Well, I am a bit thirsty.”

Kazuo was fast approaching the point where he absolutely needed a drink. He was ridiculously on edge. There were no ghosts, just greedy land developers in a sheet. He was embarrassed to have been so frightened by wild dreams of serial killers.

“Then can you please help me carry all this? I'm going over there.”

Yumi's tone had gone back to normal.

“Where's 'over there'?”

Mikiko was the one to answer Kazuo's question.

“The parlor. It'd be scary if we were in a closed room, but that place is open, so we'll be able to see if someone's coming.”

“Yeah, yeah...”

Kazuo sighed and did as he was ordered.

 

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