This is a long one, so if you've got time to kill, give it a read. Back in elementary school, we built a secret hideout deep in the woods behind our school. I say "hideout," but it was pretty legit — a bunch of boards nailed together into a shack about the size of a small bedroom, weatherproof and everything. After school we'd eat snacks in there, read porn mags, basically treat it like a house that belonged to just us. It was me, Shin, Jun, and two dogs (strays) who used the place. Summer break of fifth grade, we decided to spend the night at the hideout. We each lied to our parents — "I'm sleeping over at so-and-so's" — pooled our allowance, and bought snacks, fireworks, and soda. I was more excited than I'd ever been for a school trip. We met up at school around five in the evening and headed for the hill. About an hour's climb in from the trailhead was our hideout.

The area around the hideout was also the territory of the two strays (Happy♂ and Touch♂), so whenever we got close, the two of them would come trotting out of nowhere, tails wagging, to meet us. We'd rub their heads and say "Thanks for the welcome!" and give them an Umaibo each. Once we got there we dumped our stuff in the shack, and since the sky was still light, we fished in the big pond right next to it. Not that we ever caught anything but bullfrogs.

(For the record, the frogs we caught were dog food.)

While we were fishing it gradually got dark out, so we started in on the fireworks. Honestly the two strays were more worked up about it than we were. We thought we'd bought plenty, but the fireworks were gone in under thirty minutes, so we headed into the shack. None of us had ever been at the hideout at night, and being deep in the hills there were no streetlights — just moonlight. The only sound was insects. The three of us sat in that dim shack lit by a single cheap flashlight, and at first we ate snacks and talked about girls we liked and talked trash about our teachers, but

from the dead-silent woods around the shack we'd occasionally hear a "SPLOOSH!" (something falling into the pond) or a "rustle-rustle!" (footsteps of some kind of animal?), and little by little we started getting scared. Before long it was "Hey, was that a noise just now?" "What do we do if there's a bear?!" and we weren't joking anymore. We were genuinely scared. It was nine o'clock, the shack was stiflingly hot, there were mosquitoes, and there was no way anybody was sleeping.

More than anything, the strange atmosphere the mountain had swallowed us whole, and every one of us regretted coming.

We talked about how to make it to morning. In the end, since the shack was sweltering and we couldn't see what was going on around us (a bear coming, for instance), we decided to head down. Privately I was already thinking: I want to go home, and the sooner the better. Lighting the ground in front of us with our flashlights, we started down at a slightly quicker pace than usual.

For about five minutes Happy and Touch ran circles around us, which was reassuring, but after a while the two of them headed back toward the shack. Even a trail we'd walked countless times felt like a completely different world at night. We walked in silence along a game trail maybe a foot wide, careful not to slip. That's when Shin grabbed my shoulder from behind and said, in a small voice, "There's somebody out there!" We instantly dropped flat and killed our lights. Straining our ears, we could definitely hear footsteps. "Crunch. Crunch." The sound of something moving through the brush on two legs. We squinted toward the sound, looking for whoever it was. In the brush, maybe twenty or thirty yards from us, there they were. A flashlight in one hand and something like a long pole in the other, using the pole to push the brush aside, apparently climbing the hill.

We were scared at first, but the fact that it was a "human," and that there was only "one" of them, made the fear we'd been feeling evaporate,

and our heads filled up instead with childish "curiosity." When I muttered, "Who the hell is that? Should we follow him?" the other two grinned like it went without saying. Guided by the faint glow of the stranger's flashlight and the sound of the brush being pushed apart, we started tailing them — carefully, very carefully.

The figure kept climbing for another twenty minutes or so, then stopped. We were about thirty yards behind, so we couldn't tell their sex, let alone anything else. We could barely make out a silhouette. After stopping, the figure set down the pack they'd been carrying and started fiddling with something. "What's that guy doing out here alone? Came to catch stag beetles or something?" I said. "Let's get closer!" Shin said. Careful not to step on dead leaves or twigs, we shuffled our feet, crouched low, and crept up slo-o-owly.

We were smirking the whole way in. In my head I was already deciding what kind of prank to pull on them. That's when — "CLACK!" A sharp sound rang out. I thought my heart had stopped. "CLACK!" It came again. For a second I didn't know what was happening and looked back at Jun and Shin. Jun pointed and said, "It's him! He's doing something!" I looked back at the figure. "CLACK! CLACK! CLACK!" They were driving something into a tree. I couldn't actually see their hands — but I knew immediately that this was a curse ritual.

See, this hill had always had stories attached to it about straw effigies. Up until that moment I'd figured it was just urban-legend-grade rumor. I got scared and said, "Let's get out of here." But Shin whispered, "That's a woman doing that. Look close." and Jun egged us on with "Don't you want to see what her face looks like? Don't you want a closer look?" and the two of them kept pushing forward. I didn't want to, but I didn't want to be treated like a wimp either, so I reluctantly followed them. Every time the distance to the woman shrank, there was something audible besides the "CLACK! CLACK!" Or not a sound exactly — the woman was muttering something like a sutra.

We took a small detour and hid in the shadow of a tree about eight yards diagonally behind her. The woman had hair that fell just past her shoulders and a thin build, and she'd set the backpack she'd carried up and her light on the ground at her feet. She was driving nail after nail into what looked like a photograph.

Six or seven were already in. That's when — "WOOF!" Our hearts jumped and we spun around. There were Happy and Touch, tails wagging, panting, with a look on their faces like "Whatcha doing?" The next instant Shin let out a weird, loud "WAAAGH!!" and took off running. I turned back and saw the woman, her face twisted like a demon's, a hammer in one hand, letting out a shriek like "AAAAH!!" and running straight at us.

Jun and I were on our feet immediately, running after Shin. But something clamped onto my left shoulder from behind and yanked me back with terrifying strength, and I went down. I landed on my back, and then a heavy "THUD" hit me in the chest and I almost threw up.

For a second I couldn't process what had happened, but the woman had planted her foot on my chest where I'd fallen, and I was looking up at her from the ground. Her teeth were clenched, and she was grinding them like she wanted me to see it, making a sound I still can't describe — a kind of "Nnnngh" —

and she ground the foot on my chest back and forth, side to side. It didn't hurt. I was too terrified to feel pain. I could tell she was trembling in tiny shivers. She was probably at the absolute peak of excitement. I couldn't take my eyes off her. I was sure that the second I did, she'd bring the hammer down on my head.

Even in that situation — or maybe because of it — I remember her face clearly to this day. Maybe forty years old, a slightly gaunt face, eyes bulging, jaw pushed forward a little as she clenched her teeth, trembling faintly as she looked down at me. Did that go on for ten minutes? Twenty? I have no idea. She was standing on me, bending at the waist, bringing her face closer bit by bit, and that's when Touch jumped up onto her back. She panicked for a second, her foot slipped off me, and she staggered. Then Happy came running too and started pawing at her, playing. The two of them had no wariness around humans, probably because they were always playing with us. I scrambled up in that opening and ran. "Hurry! Hurry!" Shin and Jun were shining their flashlights at me from a distance. I ran toward the light. "THUD." A dull sound behind me. I didn't have the presence of mind to look back. I just kept running. By the time Shin, Jun, and I cleared the woods, it was past midnight. We couldn't hear footsteps, but it felt like that woman might come after us, so we ran the whole way to Shin's house. When we got there, for some reason laughter started bubbling up out of me. Maybe from being released from that much tension? But Jun started crying.

I said, "Guess we can never go back to the hideout, huh. She might be out looking for us." Jun said, through tears, "Idiot! We have to go back once it's light out!" While I was thinking huh?, Shin said to me, "The only reason you got away from that woman is Happy and Touch! Right when she was about to hit you from behind, Happy jumped her,

and took the hit for you!" Then Jun, still crying, said "That woman — Touch too, Touch — ugh —" and broke down sobbing. Later Shin told me that when she tried to hit me from behind as I ran, Happy lunged at her and took the hammer to the head.

She still tried to come after me, but Touch got underfoot playing with her, and she hit Touch in the head with the hammer. Then she looked our way once, but didn't chase — she just kept beating the two of them, over and over. We just ran. Shin said we should go back into the hills once it was morning. Of course, I agreed. But what was waiting there was a deeper horror.

We were too wound up to sleep until nearly dawn, napped from morning till just before noon, and then headed for the hills. We all brought bats and airsoft guns, prepared for the "middle-aged woman." We reached the trailhead, but Shin said, "She might still be up there," so we went in by a different route than usual. In daylight the woods were bright, cicadas screaming everywhere, and the whole atmosphere made the night before feel like a lie. But as we got closer to the spot where we'd run into the "middle-aged woman," the tension rose, we went quiet, and our steps got heavy. We reached the point where yesterday started coming back in vivid detail. My hands on the bat were soaked with nervous sweat. The tree came into view. The tree she'd been driving something into. We got a little closer and lost the ability to speak. There was a photo of a small child (a girl, maybe four or five?) on the tree, driven through with countless nails. No — that wasn't what shocked us. It was what lay at the base of that tree: Happy, unrecognizable. Tongue hanging out, covered in blood, a single nail driven between his eyes. We were speechless. We couldn't bring ourselves to walk up and look closely. Flies and insects I'd never seen before were swarming him, and that was the first time we understood what the "death" of a living thing meant.

Looking at what Happy had become, I thought: if I run into that woman again, next time it'll be me like that — and I wanted to go home right then. That's when Jun said, "Touch — there's no body for Touch! Touch might still be alive!" Then Shin said, "Touch definitely got away! He's gotta be at the hideout!" I wanted at least Touch to be alive too, so the three of us ran for the hideout. We ran until the hideout came into view, and then Shin suddenly stopped. Jun and I thought, "The woman?!" and hit the dirt. When we looked up at Shin's face in silence, he said, "...The hell is that...?" and pointed at the hideout. Jun and I slowly stood up and looked. Something about the hideout was off. Something... There was something attached to the roof... As we got closer bit by bit, we saw it: Jun's drawstring pouch, which he'd left behind in the hideout the night before (Jun always carried his snacks around in it) nailed to the roof with countless nails. We were horrified. This hideout — that woman found it! Shin, gripping his bat, nervously approached.

Jun and I hung back a little with our airsoft guns raised. The woman might be inside. Shin slowly put his hand on the door, then yanked it open fast. "WHOA!" Something startled him and he landed on his backside, scooting backward toward us. Jun and I had no idea what Shin was scared of, so we kept our guns up and slowly peered inside. Touch's body was in there, unrecognizable. "WHOA!" Jun and I reacted exactly the same way Shin had. Touch, too, had a five-inch spike driven between his eyes. And I thought: that woman is a pervert. No — she's insane. Normal people don't do this. I regretted from the bottom of my heart coming to this hill the night before, regretted getting tangled up with something this far gone. The three of us stood staring blankly at Touch's body for a while, and then Shin pointed inside the shack and said, "Hey!! Look at that..." Jun and I silently, quietly looked where Shin was pointing. Inside the hideout... Something was off about the walls and the floorboards... like letters carved into them... We got closer and looked hard. "JunCurseKill JunCurseKill JunCurseKill JunCurseKill JunCurseKill JunCurseKill JunCurseKill..." Countless repetitions of Jun・Curse・Kill were gouged into the walls and floor with a nail.

Jun said, "Huh...?" His eyes went blank — frozen, really. And we were shocked too. How did she know his name?! That's when Shin said, "Jun's pouch! His name's written on the pouch!" "...!" I looked up at the pouch nailed to the roof. On the pouch, pinned down by countless nails, it did indeed say Fifth Grade, Class 3 — ____ Jun Jun started crying. Shin and I were close to it too. His grade, his class, and his name were known to that woman now. There was no escaping. She'd figure out who Shin and I were in no time. My mind went blank. We were all going to get spikes driven between our eyes like Happy and Touch, and be killed... Shin said, "Let's tell the police! It's over, we can't get away!" I panicked and said "If we tell the police, they'll find out about the hideout and that we lied last night to come out here, and our parents will kill us!" which was a completely irrational thing to say. Although — back then, getting yelled at by my parents genuinely was the scariest thing I could imagine... Jun just kept crying, "*hic* *hic*..." I couldn't find a single word to say to him. Jun silently tore the nailed-down pouch free and shoved it into his pocket.

We stopped talking and headed down the hill. Jun cried the whole way. I still had the feeling the woman was watching us from somewhere, and I was jumpy the entire time. Once we were down, Shin said, "Let's stop coming to this hill. If we stay away for a while, that woman will forget about us too." I said, "Yeah. And let's keep this a secret between us! If she finds out we told somebody, she might kill us." Shin nodded, but Jun was still wiping his eyes on his arm and crying. That day we each went home, and the three of us didn't see each other again for the rest of summer break. Two weeks later, on the first day of the new term, Jun wasn't at school. Shin was there, and the two of us thought, "Don't tell me that woman got Jun..." So after school we went to Jun's house together. We rang the bell and Jun's mom came out with a bright "Coming!" I asked, "Is Jun here?" and she said, "Thanks for coming all this way to check on him. He's in his room, go on up." So Shin and I headed to Jun's room. "Jun! We're coming in!" And there was Jun, lying in bed reading manga. Seeing him looking unexpectedly fine, Shin and I relaxed a little.

Shin: "Why'd you skip today?" Me: "You had us worried! You sick?" Jun: "..." Jun silently closed the manga and stared down at his lap. Then his mom came in with snacks and drinks and said, "He's had hives that won't go away for about ten days now." Then, "Maybe he's eating too much junk food?" She laughed and left the room. Shin and I laughed and said, "What the hell, man! Don't scare us like that — hives? Did you eat something off the ground?" But Jun kept his head down and didn't laugh. When Shin asked, "Hey, Jun, what's wrong?" Jun silently pulled off his T-shirt. Red blotches all over his body. Hives, definitely. I said, "Hives'll clear up if you put some cream on them," and Jun said, "This is that woman's curse..." and turned to show us his back. Sure enough, his back was covered in them too. Shin said, "How's that a curse? Let it go already!" And Jun raised his voice a little: "Look at my right side!" His right side... it was definitely where the hives were worst, but I didn't see why that connected to a "curse." Then Jun said, "Look closer! That's a face, isn't it?!" We looked closer, and Shin and I were both taken aback. There was a patch about two inches across where the skin was inflamed and swollen into the shape of a person's — no, a woman's — face.

Shin and I said, "You're overthinking it. I mean, sure, I guess it kind of looks like a face." But Jun said, "It's obviously a face! I knew it — I'm the only one who got cursed!" Shin and I couldn't find anything to say to him. Or rather, we were overwhelmed by the mood coming off him. Jun, who was normally so mild and easygoing... was a little sick. Pale face, no light in his eyes. He'd probably been driven to the edge mentally. Suddenly it felt uncomfortable being in Jun's house, and Shin and I decided to go. On the way home I asked Shin, "So what do you think? Is it a curse?" Shin said, "There's no such thing as curses in this world!" For some reason that gave me courage. Three days passed. Jun still didn't come to school. Neither Shin nor I felt comfortable calling him, so we didn't know how he was doing. But our teacher said, "Jun has rubella and will be out for a while," which reassured us a little. Around this time, though, a strange rumor started going around school. There's a woman on the route to school, in a trench coat and sandals, who stares into every kid's face like she's glaring at them. That was the rumor.

After school on the day I heard that rumor, I was badly shaken. Because I was the only one whose face she'd seen up close. I went to Shin about it. Shin said, "It's fine! It was night, she couldn't see you! And even if she did see you that night, she's forgotten by now!" Maybe he was trying to calm me down, but he was surprisingly level-headed. What bothered me most was that Shin's route home was the complete opposite of mine. Jun lived near me, but Jun was out sick, so I had to walk home alone. I begged Shin, "Walk home with me for a while! I'm scared." Shin looked a little exasperated, but he said, "Only until Jun's back!" From that day on, Shin walked me home.

(continued) From that day on I walked home with Shin. That day we didn't run into the rumored "trench coat woman" (presumed to be the middle-aged woman). We didn't run into her the next day, or the day after that either. But at school people kept whispering about the trench coat woman. On the fifth day of walking home with Shin, we decided to visit Jun for the first time in a while. We brought the orange jelly cup from school lunch as a get-well present. We got to Jun's house and rang the bell. His mom came out cheerfully as always and let us in. Jun was as listless as ever. The hives had mostly faded, but Jun himself said, "The face on my side is getting bigger every day." Shin and I couldn't see it at all. If anything, it looked better than the last time we'd seen it. Jun had probably taken a psychological hit. We didn't mention the "trench coat woman" rumor going around school to him. As we were leaving, Jun's mom came after us and asked, with an anxious look, "Is Jun being bullied at school?" We said no, but not being able to tell her the real reason left me feeling a little guilty.

Three days after that, unusually, it was Naito, Sasaki, Shin, and me walking home together — four of us. Naito was a big guy and Sasaki was short. Like a live-action Biff and his sidekick. By then, the "middle-aged woman" was starting to fade in Shin's mind and mine. Even if the school's rumored "trench coat woman" existed, we'd started to think she was somebody else entirely. That day the four of us decided to go do capsule machines by the station, so we took a different route than usual. That was the mistake. The four of us were walking and talking happily when Sasaki said, "Hey, isn't that the trench coat woman?" Naito said, "Whoa! It is! Gross!" I looked at the trench coat woman. In my heart I prayed: please be somebody else! She was holding a supermarket bag in one hand, just standing there on the asphalt in the lingering late-summer heat. Head down, face completely unreadable. Shin must have been on guard, because he whispered to us, "Don't make eye contact!" Bit by bit the distance closed. The tension rose. She didn't move a muscle, just kept her head down. When we were about five yards away, she suddenly lifted her head and stared into all four of our faces. And then I realized she was moving her eyes down to our chests. She was checking our name tags.

I panicked. It took everything I had to keep a normal face. One glance at that face and the events of that night flashed back, and my heart nearly came out of my mouth. No mistake. It was the middle-aged woman! I walked past with my head down. I was terrified, waiting to be jumped at any second. How much time passed? No — it was only a few seconds, but it felt like forever. Naito laughed and said, "You see those eyes? She is straight-up gone!" Sasaki mocked her too: "Dressed like that in this heat! Pfft!" Shin and I couldn't laugh. Sasaki went on: "Crap! Think she heard? She's still looking!" I turned around on reflex. My eyes met the middle-aged woman's... And that wax-figure face, utterly blank, twisted into a grin — an incredibly nasty, leering smile. So that's what it means for your blood to run cold... For the first time in my life, fear made me wet myself a little. Did she know? Did she remember my face? If she knew, why hadn't she attacked? Those were the only thoughts spinning around in my head. Naito clowned around: "Whoa, she's STILL looking over here! Sasaki! She heard you trash-talking her! Don't blame me!"

Capsule machines were the last thing on my mind. Once we'd turned the corner and she was out of sight, I grabbed Shin's arm and said, "Let's go home!" Shin looked into my eyes for a moment and said, "Oh, right, you've got cram school today? You'd better get back!" — playing along — and then we ran. We ran in the opposite direction from home, and after a while I said to Shin, "That was her! Those eyes, no question! She came looking for us!" Shin was surprisingly calm: "She was staring right at our name tags... And she's already got the grade and class off Jun's pouch..." His calm made me angry: "So what do we do?! We can't get away anymore! She's gonna find out where we live!!" Shin: "Let's go to the police after all. We can't keep going like this. Let's get help." Me: "..." I was quiet for a while. He was right — maybe there was no other way out. I asked, "But what do we even tell them?" and Shin said, "The hill. The photo nailed to that tree, Happy's and Touch's bodies — we photograph all of it, show the police proof that the woman is a deviant, and they'll have to arrest her!" I was convinced. I didn't want to go back to that hill, but there was no choice. So it was settled: the two of us would go up the hill after school tomorrow.

Up the hill tomorrow after school. Once that was settled we started to head home, but since we had no idea where the "middle-aged woman" might be lurking, we took a terrifyingly long detour.

A walk that normally took twenty minutes took us two hours. As soon as I got home I called Shin. "You think she knows where I live? What if she comes tonight?" and so on. I never knew I was this much of a chicken. I finally understood why Jun — whose name she knew, whose shack had "JunCurseKill" carved into it — was falling apart mentally. Shin told me, "It's fine, she's not going to find out that fast!" And I thought: I'd always assumed we talked as equals, but Shin was like an older brother to me. Of course I didn't sleep that night. Every little sound made me flinch, and every time I closed my eyes, that grinning middle-aged woman's face was burned onto the inside of my eyelids. Morning came, I went to school, sat through classes, and then it was after school. 3:30 p.m. Shin and I stood at the trailhead behind the school.

I hesitated to go in. "The middle-aged woman." "What Happy and Touch had become." "Countless nails." That night kept spinning through my head, vivid all over again. I checked on Shin. He was staring silently at the hill. He had to be scared too. Inside I was praying: say it. Say "maybe this is too scary after all." Shin pulled a disposable camera out of his pants pocket, gripped it in his right hand, and — betraying my hopes — "Alright." He muttered it quietly, and the moment we entered the woods he broke into a run. I ran too, pulled along by his back. Shin kept running without looking back. I chased him desperately. I chased him desperately because I was scared of being alone. Looking back on it, Shin must have been scared too. It was precisely because he was scared that he ran without looking around. "That place" was getting closer. I didn't want to remember, but that night came back vividly, and "fear" spread through my chest. Just as the fear was making my legs go weak, we arrived at "that place." Yes — "the place where the middle-aged woman drove in the nails," "the place where the middle-aged woman killed Happy and Touch," "the place where the middle-aged woman dragged me down." The place where we met the middle-aged woman.

Suddenly I felt like someone was watching me and looked around. No — not "someone." It felt like the middle-aged woman was watching me. The silence peculiar to the mountains and the fear spreading through my own chest synced up, and my legs started shaking. Without paying any attention to me standing frozen, Shin walked toward the tree. He noticed something and crouched down. "Happy..." At that word I forgot the shaking in my legs and walked over to him. Happy was already becoming part of the soil. His skull was exposed, and a slightly rusted nail was still driven into the center of it. I started to pull the nail out, and Shin said, "Wait!" and took a photo. I was a little surprised by how level-headed he was, but I said nothing and reached for the nail again. The instant I pinched the nail sticking out of his skull, a swarm of insects I'd never seen before came pouring out of the skull all at once. "AGH!" I yanked my hand back and stood up. I was scared of those little bugs boiling out of him, and I couldn't go near Happy's body anymore. Worse, nausea hit me and I gagged. Shin said nothing and rubbed my back. That night I'd left Happy to die, and now I'd left Happy to die again. I am the weakest, most worthless kind of person.

Shin raised the camera again and was about to photograph that tree. "Huh?! Hey! Come here a second!" He'd found something and was calling me. I nervously walked over. Shin pointed at something and said, "This wasn't here last time, right?" I followed his finger and saw a photo driven through with countless nails... Huh? Wasn't that there before... No! It's a different photo! To be exact, the photo of the "girl about four or five" we'd seen last time was right next to it. Which meant the photos had multiplied! Judging by the condition of it, this one had been nailed up within the last two or three days. The one we'd seen before had been weathered until you couldn't even tell whether it was a girl anymore. The new photo also looked like a "girl about four or five." I didn't say it to Shin at the time, but for a second my heart pounded: what if the new photo is me?! Shin photographed the nailed-up picture. Then he said, "Next let's shoot the carvings at the hideout," and started running again. I had the illusion the woman was somewhere nearby, and being alone scared me, so I hurried after him.

As we got close to the hideout, something felt wrong, and I called out, "Shin!" to stop him. What was wrong — from where we stood we should have been able to see the hideout's roof, and we couldn't. Shin seemed to notice right away too. The "middle-aged woman" flickered through my mind. I had a bad feeling. My pulse picked up. Shin said, "Let's take the back way." I nodded silently. The back way was a route separate from the usual game trail — you crawled through the brush and came out behind the hideout. We'd built it in case enemies ever attacked the hideout. Obviously we'd made it as a game, and we never imagined it would come in useful like this... On that route, even if the woman were at the hideout, the odds of being spotted were extremely low. Shin and I got down on all fours and inched through the tunnel in the brush. And when we reached a spot about five yards behind the hideout, we understood what was wrong with it. It had been smashed apart. The hideout we'd built with our own hands was just lumber now. We watched for a while, and since there was no sign of the woman, we came out of the brush and reached the site where the hideout had been.

Looking at the hideout, smashed to pieces, I almost cried. The "hideout" was, you could say, a second home for the three of us and the two dogs. In one corner of the scattered lumber lay a big rock. Somebody had probably thrown it to break the place apart. "Somebody"? ...No, most likely the middle-aged woman. Shin silently started taking photos. Then he flipped over a few boards, turned the one carved with "JunCurseKill" face up, and photographed it. Just then flies came out of a narrow gap between the boards, and through that gap we could see Touch's body. Happy and Touch. It hit us hard: we'd lost two friends more irreplaceable than the hideout. Shin stood up and said, "Alright, let's get this film developed and take it to the police." We tore down the hill. Once we were down, we hurried to the police box by the station. "If we show them the pictures on this camera, the woman gets arrested. We're saved." That single thought carried us the whole way. We stopped at a photo shop on the way and dropped off the film. They said thirty minutes, so we waited inside the shop. Shin and I barely spoke during that time. We just waited for the prints. Then the thirty minutes were up.

"Thank you for waiting!" A young woman who looked like a part-timer called us over. Shin and I practically ran to the counter. With a slightly puzzled look, she said, "They're ready. Please check the contents." and held out the envelope of prints. Well — the developed photos were nothing but a dog's remains and a photo of a little girl full of nails, so of course she looked puzzled... Shin pulled the prints out right there, checked every one, and said, "These are fine. Thank you." Then he paid. We left the shop and headed straight for the police box. This was going to end all of it. The two of us burst into the police box by the station. "Huh? What's up?" A young officer inside greeted us with a smile. We walked up to him and said, "Please help us!" Shin and I told him about that night. We told it while showing him each photo that backed it up. And we told him we were still being stalked by the woman. When we'd finished, the officer said gently, "Have you told your mom and dad?" We said we hadn't told our parents, and he said, "Hmm. Well, can you give me your home phone number then?"

Shin snapped, "What do our parents have to do with it? We're the ones being stalked!" For context, Shin's parents were a doctor and a nurse. His older brother was at some prestigious private high school. His was the wealthiest family of the three of us, and also the strictest. If it came out that we'd lied to our parents that night to go to the hideout and gotten mixed up in something like this, it would be bad for Jun and me — but for Shin it would be catastrophic. "Help us! You're a cop, aren't you?!" Shin pressed him. The officer smiled awkwardly. "You're elementary school kids, right? This is the kind of thing you really need to tell your parents about." We went around in circles like that for a while. Eventually he said, "Well then, what's your homeroom teacher's name?" and things that, to us, sounded like threats. I'm sure from his side it was simply "I need to hear this from your guardians and the responsible adults" — but to us, "parents and teachers" at a moment like that could only be understood as people who would yell at us. And as this went on, distrust of the officer in front of us started taking root. Stay here, we thought, and he'll force our address out of us and rat us out to our parents.

(Does this cop not believe us?) That's what I started thinking. Shin and I were desperately asking for help, and all he did was say "parents," "teacher." We'd even brought photographic proof that the woman existed... I shoved the photos at him again and said, "This is the kind of person who kills a dog like this!" He went quiet for a moment, picked up a photo, and said something I never expected. "Hmm... Is this a dog? Really?" "What?" Shin and I were floored. What is this guy talking about?! The officer went on, "No, it's not that I don't believe you. Explain it to me in a little more detail. Is this the head?" He wasn't joking. He genuinely couldn't tell. I picked up the photo of Happy and started, "Like I said—" and then the words stuck. He was right. Looking at this photo objectively, it might not read as a dog's remains at all. Bones gone pale brown, a few tufts of fur left here and there... Shin and I had seen Happy the day after he died, so even with the decay we knew the original shape (the angle he'd fallen at, the posture) — but to someone who didn't know, it might genuinely look like nothing but a dirty rock with a filthy rag tangled around it...

I made myself look calmly at the other photos too. "JunCurseKill" carved into a board. Countless nails in a girl's photo. He was right — was it actually hard to connect any of this directly to the woman's existence? Was the officer treating this as "an elementary school prank," and that's why he kept saying "parents" and "homeroom teacher"? I started to feel it was dangerous to stay there. "He's definitely going to call our parents!" I whispered in Shin's ear. Shin nodded silently and jerked his chin — the signal for "outside." The next instant he spun around and bolted. I took off right after him, and we escaped the police box. We heard the officer call "Hey!" behind us, but we kept running without looking back. There was no sign of him chasing us. He probably thought, "Elementary school kids who came in to pull a prank ran off when their lie was about to fall apart." Once Shin and I had thoroughly confirmed the officer wasn't following, we sat down on the curb and held an emergency meeting.

"What do we do now?" "What do we do..." We were out of options. Even our last trump card, the police, didn't believe us, and we'd lost any means of protecting ourselves from the woman. The blow was that much worse because we'd convinced ourselves "this will solve everything." "At this rate she's gonna find out where we live..." I was scared. Then Shin said, "...Let's just be careful not to run into her for a while—" and before he could finish I raised my voice: "That's impossible! Once she has Jun's grade and class, it's only a matter of time before she gets us too!" "But... does that woman actually intend to do anything to us?" Me: "?" Shin went on. "I mean, we ran into her on the way home the other day, right? If she meant to do something, she could have done it then." Me: "..." Shin continued, "And the hill... if she really hasn't forgiven us, there should have been some kind of curse carving aimed at us up there." Me: "..." He had a point. When we went up the hill, there was nothing new cursing us. The hideout was destroyed, sure... There was a new photo of a girl with nails in it, but there was no new "curse carving" for us — not even for Jun, whose full name she had.

Inwardly I wanted to argue "is that really true?", but I didn't. Because I wanted to believe what Shin was saying — that the woman didn't hate us as much as we thought, that she was starting to forget us. Shin said again, "If she really hated us, she'd have made some kind of move by now, right?" as if to reassure me. Then he added, "And her hanging around near the school — maybe she's not looking for us, maybe she's looking for the girl in the photo." "I guess so..." Hearing him say that, I felt a little lighter. Or rather, I took Shin's words and repeated them to myself, forcing myself to accept them. It was probably closer to denial. Maybe Shin was doing the same thing. Maybe he said it because there was no way left to escape the woman. But I — no, we — "Yeah! She'll forget about us sooner or later!" "She already has!" "Damn it, what a waste of good panic!" "Seriously, that woman — I'll make her cry!" put on a tough front for each other. In a way it was closer to throwing our hands up.

We stayed there a while, talking trash about the woman and laughing. It started getting dark and we decided to head home. When we reached the fork where Shin and I split up: "Let's go check on Jun after school tomorrow!" "Yeah! Sounds good!" We both acted cheerful, waved, and parted. My heart felt a little lighter. "Yeah... like Shin said, she's already forgotten about us..." I repeated it to myself like self-hypnosis. My step was light. I kicked a stone along the way home. I looked up and there wasn't a cloud in the sky — countless stars glittering, a beautifully clear night. All that agonizing over the woman suddenly felt stupid. As I got close to my house I remembered there was a cartoon I wanted to watch, so I broke into a jog. "Tap tap tap tap..." My footsteps echoed through the quiet neighborhood. "Tap tap tap tap..." It was a quiet night. "Tap tap tap tap..." Huh? "Tap tap tap tap..." There were footsteps besides mine. I turned around. Too dark to see, but there was nobody there. My imagination, probably... Thinking to myself that for all my big talk I really was a coward, I started running again. "Tap tap tap tap..." "Tap tap tap tap..." ...Huh? Somebody's there.

I stopped again and stared hard into the dark behind me. ...Still nobody... But I'd definitely heard footsteps mixed in with mine, coming up from behind. Hadn't I? Was I like Jun — cornered mentally by the woman without even noticing? Was I just too scared? I stood there for a while, staring back down the street. My heart, which had been pounding, nearly stopped. About fifteen yards back, someone was crouched in the shadow of a moped parked in front of a house. No — hiding. I couldn't see clearly in the moonlight, but one thing I could see perfectly. She's wearing a coat! I froze for a long moment. Whoever it was seemed to think I hadn't spotted them, but the silhouette was unmistakable! For a second I was in total confusion. It's her! It's her! It's her! Her! Her! My legs nearly gave out, but instinct took over, and the next instant Run! Run! Run! Run! Run! Run, run! somebody else inside me was giving the orders. I ran with everything I had! Harder than I'd ever run at a sports day. I ran without breathing, until I couldn't hear anything but the wind.

I ran for home in a blind panic. Ten yards from the house. Yes! I'm going to make it! "—!" Something flashed through my head. If I run inside now, she'll know exactly where I live! I made a snap decision and ran right past my own house, on into the narrow alleys of the neighborhood. With no destination — just to lose the woman who had to be right behind me... For about five minutes I ran a random, senseless route. Eventually my breath gave out and I slowed to a walk and looked back. No more figure resembling her, no more footsteps. Watching my surroundings, I started walking back toward the house. When I got within about ten yards of it again, I checked my surroundings one more time and sprinted for the door. Both my parents worked, so I was a latchkey kid — I got the door unlocked fast, got inside, and locked it fast. "...Phew..." Relief pulled a sigh out of me. I figured I should report to Shin first, and I was bending down to take off my shoes when there was a sound outside the door. "—?!" I froze mid-crouch, staring at the front door. Our entry was a sliding door — frosted glass in an aluminum frame — and on the other side of that frosted glass... the shadow of someone standing there.

With only the door between us — a distance of about a yard — the woman was there! I stopped breathing, stopped moving, erased my presence. No — I simply couldn't move. Like sleep paralysis... "a frog pinned by a snake's stare" must mean exactly this. All I could do was stare at her shadow through the frosted glass. She stood outside the door for a long time. Not moving an inch. Did she know I was in here...? Then, through the glass, her left arm began to move slowly. It reached slowly toward the door handle, and — creak! — the door groaned. My heart rate hit what I can honestly call a lifetime high. After confirming the door was locked, she slowly withdrew her left arm and went back to standing there. I was still frozen solid... Then she came even closer to the door and crouched down where she stood. And pressed her left ear flat against the glass. She was listening for movement inside! Her ear was rendered crisply on the frosted glass right in front of me. I was so tense I nearly vomited. My pulse peaked and my heart felt like it would burst. I honestly thought she was going to hear my heartbeat.

After holding her ear to the door for two or three minutes, she stood up again and, still facing this way, slowly backed away one step at a time. Her shadow on the glass faded bit by bit, and then it was gone... "Is she gone...?" I couldn't relax at all. Because — had she actually left? Did she know I was here, in the entryway? Was she still circling the house? If she'd seen me go into this house and had taken all that just now knowing I was inside, then she was definitely still somewhere around it... Slowly, with extreme care, I took off my shoes and moved into the living room. I didn't turn on a single light. Turning one on could tell her I was there. I went straight to the phone in the living room, picked up the receiver, and dialed Shin's number from memory in the dark. Shin himself picked up on the third ring. "Shin?! It's bad! She came! She came! She knows! She knows!" I told him in a hurried whisper. "Huh? What happened? What's going on?" Shin said. "She came to my house! Do something, fast!" I clung to him.

Shin: "Calm down! Is there nobody home?" Me: "Nobody! Help me!" Shin: "First, check the locks! Where is she right now?" Me: "I don't know! But she was right outside a minute ago!" Shin: "Don't panic! Check the locks first! Got it?" Me: "Got it! I'll check the locks, just get over here!" I hung up and headed for the bathroom first to check the locks. Of course I didn't turn on a single light — I sharpened all five senses and felt my way along the wall through the dark house. First I closed the toilet window, quietly, without a sound. Next, the bath next door. I closed the bath window slowly and locked it. Then I came out and went to check the windows along the veranda. I walked the hallway along the wall and stepped into the tatami room with the veranda. I looked at the veranda windows and something felt wrong. No — the windows were shut with the lace curtains drawn, same as always, but at the left edge... there was a human shape... Someone was outside the glass, face pressed to the window, both hands cupped around their eyes like binoculars, peering into the room. With no lights on inside, it was brighter outside, so from where I stood I could see her perfectly. The woman was stuck to the window like a gecko. My legs nearly gave out.

Is this animal instinct? Like a prey animal spotting a predator, I dropped into a crouch on reflex. My whole body was shaking without my telling it to. Could she see me from out there? She peered into the room for a while and then, still in that posture, slowly moved to the center of the window. And then a horrible sound started coming from the glass — "skrrr, skrrr, skrrr." Her right hand was scraping the window. Her left was still at her eyes, still peering in... "Skrrr, skrrr, skrrr." The awful sound went on. My fear peaked. I didn't know what she was doing, but her behavior terrified me so badly that I couldn't even make a sound. Then she suddenly whipped around and took off running at incredible speed. I didn't know what had happened. I couldn't move. I just watched the window. Then I saw a red light flickering on the road beyond it. "The police are here!" It clicked. She'd noticed a patrol car happening to pass by and had run. I stayed crouched there shaking for a while. "BRRRING!" The phone suddenly rang. My heart nearly stopped. The display said it was Shin's house.

I grabbed the phone. Shin: "Well?" Me: "Somebody was looking in the window, but they left..." Shin: "Okay. Did your parents get home?" Me: "No, a patrol car just happened to drive by and I think it spooked her off." Shin: "Really! Good. I called in a report that there was a prowler near your house. But if she knows where you live now, it's about time we told our parents..." Me: "..." Shin: "I'm telling mine tonight. You tell yours! This is bad now!" Me: "...yeah..." And we hung up. Thirty minutes later my mom got home from her part-time job. I ran to the door with the lights still off, and the moment I saw her face I burst into tears — relief, I guess. Mom just looked baffled, and after I'd cried for a while, I started with "I'm sorry," an apology first, and then explained everything from that night to what had just happened. Partway through my dad came home too, and Mom explained it to him. After that, Dad went silently to look at the glass in the veranda door. The glass had been badly gouged by something sharp. I knew by instinct that the "something sharp" was a five-inch spike. My parents didn't scold me. Mom held me, and Dad called the police.

The police arrived about ten minutes later. Dad explained the situation to them. I stayed in the living room with Mom for a while, and then an officer came in and asked me about that night. Happy and Touch, the photo of the little girl nailed to the tree, Jun's name carved into the hideout... After that, the encounter on the way home from school — everything connected to the woman. And what had just happened... Someone who looked like a forensics tech was there too, lifting prints from the window while I talked. Of everything I told them, what the officer asked about in the most detail was the photo of the little girl. They asked about her appearance and whether I knew her, but all I could say was "I don't really know." Then they had me draw a map of the hill behind the school, said the police would go up and investigate the next day, promised increased night patrols around our house, and left. In the end no prints came back. A while later Shin's and Jun's parents called. The adults talked about something, but it sounded less like the woman herself and more like how to explain things to the school.

That night I slept in the same room as my parents for the first time in years. There wasn't a shred of embarrassment in it — I was simply scared of the woman, and I couldn't get to sleep. The next morning, when Mom woke me, it was already past eight. I panicked — "I'm going to be late!" — but she said, "Stay home and rest today." Apparently she'd already explained the situation to the school. Dad had already left for work; Mom had taken the day off from her job. I figured Shin and Jun were probably out of school today too, but I deliberately didn't call. I was afraid to — Shin had probably been chewed out by his strict parents, and Jun's parents, now that they knew the real reason he'd stopped going to school, must have been devastated. I shut myself in my room and prayed for one thing: that the police would catch the woman soon. I wanted out of that cornered "fear" as fast as humanly possible. For some reason Mom never brought the woman up. I assumed she was being considerate of me, so I didn't say anything either. After lunch, back in my room, a dull "THUD" hit the outside wall of the house. My first thought was "Shin!" — because when he wanted me to come out he often skipped the doorbell and threw pebbles at my window.

I looked out the window. He should have been by the utility pole in the alley in front of the house — but there was no Shin. I thought maybe he was hiding somewhere and looked everywhere I could see, but he wasn't anywhere. That's when Mom's voice came from the yard directly below my room: "Eek!" Startled, I threw open the window and leaned out to look down. Mom was staring at the ground with a hand over her mouth, shocked at something. I had no idea what was going on and asked, "What's wrong?!" Mom flinched at my voice, looked up at me, and, with a shocked expression, silently pointed at the outside wall. I sensed something bad, but I looked where she was pointing. There was a gooey purple liquid and something jelly-like stuck to the wall. That had to be the source of the "THUD." I dropped my eyes to Mom's feet, looking for whatever it was. A big bullfrog lay there with its guts burst out. Mom stood there stunned for a long moment. The woman came to mind immediately. I scanned for her with my eyes, but she was nowhere in sight. Mom seemed to suddenly remember herself, ran into the living room, and called the police.

Mom's face was pale. She'd probably just understood for the first time how abnormal the woman was. That's right. That woman is abnormal. Right now she was surely somewhere smirking at the sight of Mom and me recoiling after she'd lobbed a frog at the house... She was surely watching me from somewhere close... I got goosebumps. "Police, get here fast!" I screamed inside my head. This house wasn't a "home" anymore. From the woman's side it was a birdcage — every move we made in plain view. I started to feel like we were being watched constantly. A patrol car arrived a while later. Two different officers this time. One of them examined the wall and the street the frog had presumably been thrown from, while the other asked Mom and me "Did you see anything?" "What was the situation at the time?" and other vague questions, over and over. At the end, the officer said something that only made me more anxious. "You were harassed yesterday as well, correct? There's a high probability the perpetrator will do the same sort of thing again very soon." I couldn't hold it in: "It's the curse woman! A woman about forty in a coat! Please arrest her, fast!" I half-sobbed as I begged.

Then the officer said, "We went up the hill a little while ago... We saw the dog's body, your friend's name carved into the board, and the girl's photo too. We're going to investigate all of it now, and we will catch whoever did this!" He clapped me on the shoulder, then went over to Mom and talked with her about something. It sounded like she was being told "Please contact your husband..." or something to that effect. They photographed the frog stain on the wall and the body, and the officers left after about an hour. A while later Dad came home. It wasn't even five yet. Given what had happened the day before, he must have been worried. Mom, preparing dinner, and Dad, reading the evening paper, were both silent, but I could tell they were restless. Of course I was uneasy too, with no idea when the woman would come next. Dinner that night was silent, the whole family saying nothing while the TV filled the room. Then, a little after eleven, we all went to bed. As a precaution, we decided to leave the downstairs living room light on all night.

That night the whole family slept in the same room again. Of course I couldn't get to sleep. How much time passed... Suddenly, from the front door, "HEY!!" a man's voice, hard and heavy, and along with it "AAAH! AAAH!" that shriek I knew — the woman's scream. Our whole family jumped up, and Dad rushed for the entryway. Mom pulled me tight against her and the two of us stayed in the bedroom. "Click-clack... rattle-rattle-rattle-rattle!" I heard Dad unlock the front door and slide it open.

Along with the sound of the door came "AAAH!! DAMN YOU! AAAAH!! AAAAAAH!" the woman's screaming again. "Settle down!" "Hey! Quit thrashing!" And men's voices too. That's when I understood: "It's the police! The police caught her!" The woman kept shrieking. I was shaking violently and couldn't get out of Mom's arms, but then Dad came back and asked, "They caught her. They want you to confirm whether it's the person you saw on the hill... Can you do it?" Of course I couldn't, but I told myself: this is where it really ends. I can end it! "...yeah..." I answered, went slowly down the stairs, and headed for the entryway. From the entry came "YOU! DAMN YOU! ARE YOU GOING TO TORMENT ME TOO?!" an appalling scream, and my legs locked up — but Dad put an arm around my shoulders, and I stood in front of the woman, pinned by two officers.

At first I was so terrified I could only look at my own feet, but Dad tapped my shoulder lightly and I slowly raised my eyes to her. Both shoulders locked down by the two officers, chin scraping the ground, she was glaring at me. She must have fought hard — her hair was wild, her eyes bloodshot, drool hanging from her mouth like a stray dog's. "YOU! YOU! HOW LONG ARE YOU GOING TO TORMENT ME?!" She screamed things that made no sense and thrashed. The officer holding her down asked, "You're sure? This is the one who was up on the hill?" Overwhelmed by the force coming off her, I couldn't produce a sound. I just nodded. The officer immediately cuffed her and said, "You're under arrest for attempted arson!" Even cuffed she kept shrieking and thrashing, and it took both officers to walk her to the patrol car. Then one officer came back to us and said, "Let me explain what happened."

Officer: "We were patrolling in front of your house and saw a figure at your entry — the woman — and she was crouched there lighting a fire with a lighter. You keep old newspapers by your door, is that right?" Mom: "No, we don't...?" Officer: "Then she brought these herself too, I suppose?" — and he pointed. There was a bundle of newspapers. It definitely wasn't from the paper we subscribed to. Officer: "Hm?" He noticed something and pulled something out of the bundle. A wooden board. Carved into it was "Prayer for the burning death of ____" — my full name. My skin crawled all over. So she had dug up my name after all. If the police hadn't been patrolling... The thought made me feel faint. Mom started crying and pulled me in, stroking my head over and over. The officer was quiet for a moment, then said, "Actually, that woman... she's not entirely well, mentally... She lives over in ____ and there have been quite a few complaints... well, and some sympathy for her too, honestly..." and he started telling us about her.

Officer: "She lost her husband and her son in a traffic accident a year ago... Ever since, she's been emotionally unstable, some kind of schizophrenia... and she's been getting into trouble with her neighbors. We'd already identified her from the photo of the little girl found on the hill. The accident two years ago... that little girl ran out into the road, he swerved and hit a wall, and her husband and son died... The girl who ran out came through without a scratch... And ever since, she's been harassing that girl's family relentlessly. Given the nature of the accident, the girl's family has never filed a complaint... She must hate that child a great deal..." That's what he said. Hearing it, I couldn't summon a shred of sympathy. If anything, what came through was the sheer tenacity of her obsession. Above all, the officer himself had confirmed it: "emotionally unstable, schizophrenia." In that case, wouldn't she be released almost immediately? And then would I have to go on living in fear of her all over again? Listening to him, what spread through my chest wasn't relief. It was despair. Five years passed after that... Shin, Jun, and I had all gone to different high schools.

We'd stopped seeing each other entirely, each walking a separate life. I couldn't forget the whole business with the woman, of course, but the fear had faded a lot. Then, during winter break of my first year of high school, an old friend — Jun — called. "Hey! Long time!" We barely got through the pleasantries before he said, "So I crashed my bike... broke my leg and my hip. I'm in the hospital." Me: "What? That's pathetic, man! Which hospital? You lonely, is that it? Want me to visit?" Jun: "Well, partly that... Hey — do you remember the woman? Not the incident. Her face. Do you remember her face?" Me: "...why? Where's this coming from?" Jun: "...Every night, after visiting hours end... some weird old lady comes and looks in on me... smiling..."

The moment Jun said it, her face came back to me vividly. The teeth-clenched face from the night we first met her. The leering, grinning face from the walk home from school. The screaming, deranged face at our front door. I'd been trying to forget ever since, but it was trauma I could never actually forget. I said, "What are you talking about?! Let it go already! You are seriously such a wimp!" — saying it to myself as much as to him. Jun said, "You're right... but this kind of place just makes you weirdly jumpy!" I said, "Yeah, that part of you hasn't changed!" playing it cool. Even though I hadn't grown past that day either. Then I asked which hospital he was in, said "I'll bring you some porn mags one of these days," and hung up. The instant I hung up, for some reason I got a bad feeling. The woman. Jun's words started nagging at me in a way I couldn't shake.

After hanging up I thought about it for a while. There was no way the woman would turn up now, of all times... And she'd been arrested... or had she been released? Come to think of it, the three of us had never actually done anything to her. All we did was witness her curse ritual, and the price we paid for it was enormous. We happened to run into her at night on a hill and got attacked out of nowhere. We never took a single thing from her. We never even hurt her. She was the one who took Happy and Touch from us, destroyed our hideout, and above all planted "fear" in all three of us. However tenacious she was, I couldn't really believe she'd come after us again now. It's a lousy thing to say, but if she was going to hate somebody, the vector pointed at the girl in the photo! I forced myself to accept that.

Two days later I took the day off work, bought three porn mags at the bookstore, and headed for Jun's hospital. The nervous excitement of seeing Jun after so long and the nervous unease about what he'd said on the phone tangled together — I felt strange. I got there just after noon. Jun's room was on the third floor. I found his nameplate. Room 303, a six-bed room, with Jun's name on it. All the way at the back, on the left side by the window, I spotted him. "Hey! Jun, long time!" "Hey! Seriously, it's been forever!" Seeing him look far healthier than I'd expected, I relaxed a little. When I handed over the promised porn mags he lit up like a kid with a new toy. Then we talked about all kinds of nothing. Being with Jun felt like being back in elementary school, and it was a lot of fun. I could laugh without thinking. Time flew, and the end of visiting hours crept up. I said, "Alright, I should probably get go—" "So actually — I mentioned this on the phone," Jun started, his face serious.

Something — no. "The woman, right?" I said. And Jun said, "I'm sure it's in my head, but... there's this lady who always comes at this hour, and something about it just... sticks with me..." I said, "Like I told you, it's in your head! Quit jumping at shadows!" — firmly. That seemed to nettle him a little. "I said it's probably my mistake, didn't I?! Sorry for being a coward!" The air got heavy. I read the room and was about to apologize. And that's when — "Rattle, rattle, rattle..." the sound of cart wheels came down the hallway. Jun murmured, "She's here..." I turned my eyes to the doorway. "Rattle, rattle, rattle." The cart seemed to stop in front of the door. And then the door opened. Standing there was a woman in navy blue work coveralls. I said, "What the hell, don't scare me! It's just the trash lady." and felt my chest loosen a little. She started collecting the trash from each patient's bin, and finally came toward Jun's bed. Jun whispered, "Look at her!" I stole a glance at her face.

"...!" My breath caught. She looks like her... no, is that the woman? My eyes went blank and I stared at her for a while, and then she turned toward us, gave a small bow, and left the room. Jun asked, "Well? It's not her, right?! Am I being paranoid?" I answered, "Not even close! She's just a cleaning lady!" But — she really did look like her. A coincidental resemblance...?

"...Alright, I'm gonna head out! Quit thinking weird stuff and hurry up and get discharged!" I said, and Jun said "Yeah... there's no way that woman would be in a hospital. Hearing you say it's not her makes me feel better. Come again! I'm bored out of my mind!" brightly. I left the room and hurried down the stairs. I couldn't get that cleaning lady's face out of my head. I remember the woman's face clearly. But her single most defining feature was that unhinged quality. The cleaning lady's expression had been calm. If that lady were the woman, it wouldn't have been strange for her to shriek and lunge at me the second she saw my face. Right. It's a coincidental resemblance after all. Even as I thought that, for some reason I was afraid to be in the hospital, and I headed home quickly.

Even after I got home I couldn't shake the idea that the cleaning lady was her. It kept bothering me... I thought about nothing else until I fell asleep that night. The next day, still bothered, I cut my shift short and went to the hospital. Thirty minutes by bike from work. By the time I arrived it was past eight and visiting hours were long over. Obviously the cleaning lady had gone home too, but I went in through the after-hours entrance and headed for Jun's room anyway. I slipped into his room and found the curtain around his bed pulled all the way shut. "Asleep?" I thought, and quietly opened the curtain to peek through the gap. "WHOA!" Jun jolted upright and said, "Don't scare me!" while shoving something under his pillow. He'd apparently been deep in one of the porn mags.

I made a point of not mentioning the magazine and said, "Figured you'd be bored, so here I am!" and clapped him on the shoulder. A little awkwardly, Jun said, "Yeah! I'm bored at this hour! Want to go down to the lobby and get something to drink?" I brought the wheelchair over to the bed, got him under the arms, and lifted him into it. Jun whispered, "The lobby's on the first floor, so we've gotta not get caught by the nurses!" We snuck along like a pair of burglars toward the first-floor lobby. Every time a nurse nearly spotted us we'd go still and duck into the shadows, and we finally made it. Unlike in the daytime, the lobby was pitch dark, lit only by the vending machines and the emergency lights, and Jun said, "Sneaking around in the dark with you like this really takes me back to that night." I said, "Yeah. Why the hell did we tail that woman anyway..." and Jun went quiet.

The reason I'd come to the hospital that day — the cleaning lady — I wanted to bring it up, but I hesitated. Jun still had almost a month in here, and telling him something like that... He might break out in "hives of unknown cause" all over again. Then Jun said, "You came about that lady, didn't you?" I reflexively played dumb — "Huh? About what?" — but Jun pressed me with a straight face, "You did, right? She does look like her... no, she might actually be her, right?" Overwhelmed, I said, "She does look like her... the whole vibe is totally different, but... she looks like her." Jun lowered his head and started, "I knew it... Like I said on the phone..."

Jun dropped his voice a little. "The second night I was in here, my leg and hip hurt so much I couldn't sleep. I couldn't even roll over, and it was after lights-out, so I just shut my eyes and tried. And right as I was getting drowsy, starting to drift off, a stare. I felt it... I figured it was a nurse on rounds so I ignored it, but then I heard breathing — huff... huff... I thought, what is that? The guy next to me snoring? So I cracked my eyes open... And my bed curtain was open about an inch, and somebody was looking at me through the gap... And those eyes were obviously looking at me and smiling... I was so scared I just kept pretending to be asleep... And then I guess I fell asleep like that, because next thing I knew it was morning. I thought about it afterward. Those smiling eyes. I'd seen them somewhere... That's it. They were exactly like the cleaning lady's eyes!"

Those smiling eyes. I know those eyes! I'd been stared at with that grin by the woman myself, so the scene Jun described came to me instantly. Jun kept going. "And that cleaning lady — when she comes for the trash, I glance over and our eyes keep meeting. The second I look, she's staring right at me... Half-smiling..." Hearing that, the suspicion I'd been carrying — that the cleaning lady was her — became certainty. It really was her. She'd been reintegrated into society! The hand holding my canned coffee trembled a little. It was definitely not the cold. My body was reacting. My body remembered that fear...

Just then, light suddenly hit me from behind. "Hey!" I turned around, and there was a nurse on her rounds. "Jun! I couldn't find you anywhere and here you are! I've told you not to wander off on your own after lights-out! And your friend — visiting hours ended a long time ago!" She was pretty angry. Jun said, "Okay, okay... Come by again sometime soon!" and the nurse wheeled him back to his room. "Yeah! Anyway, take care of yourself!" I said. Figuring I might as well head home, I made for the emergency entrance I'd come in through. Hospitals at night really are unsettling. Was it because we'd just been talking about her? I was thinking that as I walked, and... Huh? There's someone down the hall. That's... the cleaning lady...? No — is that... her...? A woman who might be her was doing something...

No mistake! It's her! She's doing something near the exit up ahead! I ducked out of sight on reflex and watched her. She didn't seem to have noticed me. She was doing something... Half-crouched, working at something. I narrowed my eyes and kept watching for a while. She was rummaging in a big bag, sorting things into another one? Still with no sign of noticing me, she kept working at it, intently. ? Was she sorting the trash collected inside the hospital? (Where we're from, separating your trash is the rule.) Just then, from behind me, "Excuse me, you're still here? This isn't a game for me either — that's enough!" It was the nurse from before. My heart jumped and I said, "Oh, no, I'm going! Sorry..." and when I looked back toward the exit, she had noticed me and was staring straight at me.

"Honestly!" the nurse spat, and went back to her rounds. No — that wasn't the issue! The woman had spotted me! What do I do? Run? Ask that nurse for help? My head started spinning and my heart hammered harder and harder. I couldn't take my eyes off her — and then she took her eyes off me and, as if nothing had happened, went back to sorting the trash. "Huh?!" I froze, because that was not what I'd expected. In my head the options had been "she lunges at me," "she keeps staring at me," "she looks at me and grins" — something, anything, directed at me. I stood there for a while watching her, but she just worked away at the trash, apparently not caring about me at all. "Is this some kind of tactic?" I wondered — and then another thought surfaced. What if she isn't the woman? What if she just looks like her, and it's someone else entirely...?!

Had Jun and I just gotten too paranoid?! Was she really a complete stranger after all? While I stood there thinking it through alone, the woman kept working in silence. I made up my mind and started walking toward the exit. Which meant walking toward her... The distance closed bit by bit and she showed no sign whatsoever of looking my way. But I walked without taking my eyes off her... And just like that, without incident, I was standing right behind her. She was hard at work sorting trash. Rubber gloves on, dividing a huge pile into "burnable," "non-burnable," and "PET bottles." Watching her, I thought, "It really is someone else..." And then she whipped around to face me and said, "You've gotten so big." My mind went completely blank. Gotten so big? Gotten. So. Big? This person knows my past?? Who is this person? Is this person her? This is her — it's her!!

She stopped working and came toward me, peeling off the rubber gloves. She was smiling. What expression was I supposed to make??? I'm sure my face was contorted with absolute terror. She walked right up in front of me and asked, "Look how grown up you are... How old are you now? High school?" I didn't understand what she meant. What is this? Is she making fun of me? Is she laughing at me, frozen in fear? What is this? Is she enjoying my reaction? When I said nothing, she said, "Your friend's gotten big too... Jun... poor thing, breaking a bone like that... You need to look out for him, big brother!" At that point I understood nothing at all. Had she forgotten what she did to us all those years ago? These were not the words of the person who planted that trauma in us. Still smiling, she went on, "There was one more... how's that one doing? The one with the darker skin?" Shin! She meant Shin! What is this woman?! Like an old friend she happened to run into... This isn't normal... Is it deliberate...? Is there some purpose behind this act?

I didn't take my eyes off her, watching for any movement. Does she have any idea what she's saying? "I'm sorry about back then... Can you forgive me?" she said, and came closer. I couldn't find anything to say, and just backed up a little in silence. "By rights... I should have apologized much sooner..." I doubted my own ears. Is she seriously apologizing...? Or is she planning something...? Finally she was close enough to touch. "I always meant to apologize properly to all three of you... I really did..." she said, and kept coming closer! She was close enough now that I could feel her breath. Unlike back then, I had eight inches on her, and obviously the size advantage too. I was thinking: if she lays one finger on me, I'll knock her flat.

She looked up at me, staring straight into my eyes. But there was no "hatred," no "malice," no "rage" in them. She just looked directly into my eyes. "There was something wrong with me back then. I did terrible things..." she said, lining up her apologies. Finally I couldn't take the tension of it anymore, and I ran, leaving her there. While I was running I thought, "what if she chases me," and looked back — but there was no sign of her, which in a way deflated me. I stopped running, stood there, and thought. Had she really been apologizing from the heart? I couldn't believe her. All I could do was doubt. Given what happened, that's only natural. I jogged back toward where she'd been. And there she was again, rubber gloves back on, sorting an enormous pile of trash. Has this woman really turned over a new leaf? Watching her work so hard, it was impossible to see the woman from back then. Anyway, I went home that day.

I lay on my bed at home and thought it over alone. Can a person change that much...? The one who killed Happy and Touch with a demon's face, who cornered me, Shin, and Jun, who tried to burn my house down... Can someone like that genuinely say "I'm sorry" and mean it as atonement...? Or — is it possible that I'm the one who changed because of what happened...? That I turned into a suspicious, cold person who can't trust anyone...? If I believed her apology, would I be released from the psychological grip of that whole thing...? I should see her one more time and talk to her directly... I resolved to see her once more, and this time not to run. Then I went to sleep. The next day I took the day off work and went to the hospital.

First I went into Jun's room and told him what had happened the day before. Then I told him that today I intended to meet her and talk to her directly. At first Jun objected — she hasn't changed! — but when I said, "Are we going to spend the rest of our lives afraid of her, carrying this trauma?" he said, "...If you're going to meet her and talk, I'm coming with you..."

A long silence followed. Time ticked by, and the moment the chime for the end of visiting hours sounded, "Rattle, rattle, rattle..." the sound of the trash cart came from the far end of the hallway. "...There she is..." Jun muttered. I held my breath and fixed my eyes on the door. "Rattle, rattle, rattle." The cart stopped in front of the room. The door opened. She came in in her work clothes, nodding a greeting. Jun and I followed her with our eyes. She started at the far bed and worked her way down, emptying the trash bins. "Thanks for your work." A patient spoke to her, and she smiled and bowed... It was impossible to believe this was the same person as the woman from back then. And then, at last, she reached Jun's bed.

She didn't make eye contact with us at all — just gave a small bow and started collecting the trash. I didn't know how to open my mouth and just watched her for a while, and then Jun said, "Ma'am! What exactly do you think you're doing?" He cut straight in. Her hands stopped dead and she went still, head down. Jun continued, "You remembered me, didn't you? Don't I get so much as an apology?" My heart was pounding. I never expected Jun to suddenly go at her like that. Still looking down, she said "...I'm sorry..." in the thinnest voice. Jun seemed startled by how readily she said it, and looked at me with blank eyes. I said, "...Ma'am... are you really sorry?" When I asked that, she turned to us and said, "I'm so sorry... It's because I did that, that Jun had this accident... It's because I did that... I'm so sorry!" Jun and I were even more baffled. Wasn't something off here? I said, "No — I mean the things you did to those dogs back then, coming to my house, all of it, everything!"

She said, "I'm so sorry! It's me, if only I hadn't done that... this accident... I'm sorry! I'm really sorry!" in a voice on the edge of tears. Her manner, and the conversation, drew the eyes of every patient in the room toward us all at once. In the hushed room "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I'm sorry!" only her voice echoed. A little embarrassed, Jun spat, "That's enough! And my accident had absolutely nothing to do with you!" Bowing over and over, she collected the trash from Jun's bedside, and finally said "I'm sorry..." and hurried out of the room. Since all the other patients had watched it happen, the room stayed strange for a while. Jun punched his pillow and said, "What is with that lady?! I just got in a normal crash, that's all... What is she confused about?!" Listening to what she'd done and said, one thing became clear to me. She really is still a little off. No — the apology was probably from the heart, but what she was apologizing for was performing her curse ritual. She genuinely believed in the curse.

Jun said, "Back then she was this insanely terrifying thing, and I've been carrying it as trauma this whole time, but after talking to her just now, what I think is: she's just some occult-nut old lady!" He said it with a clear expression, like something had been exorcised from him. I played along: "Yeah, and unlike back then, we're bigger than her now!" "Alright, that's settled, I'm heading out!" "Sure! Come by when you're free!" We traded goodbyes, and I left the room and headed home. On the way, I thought of Shin. I should tell him about this too. If he heard about all this, maybe the trauma from that day would go away for him as well.

When I got home I immediately called a guy who'd been on Shin's soccer team and got his cell number. Then I called his cell. "Hey! Long time!" Shin's voice, which I'd missed. We talked for a bit — how've you been, that sort of thing — and then I told him about Jun's crash and hospitalization, about her working as a cleaner at that hospital, and about how she'd turned over a new leaf like a different person. Shin was floored that she had apologized. And at the end he said, "When Jun gets out, let's do a recovery celebration, the three of us." Of course I agreed, and told him I'd get in touch as soon as Jun had a discharge date. The next day I went to the hospital and told Jun, "Shin says the second your discharge date is set, he's coming back here for a recovery party!" Jun was thrilled.

After that I didn't visit the hospital for about a week. No particular reason — the new term had started and it was hard to find the time. And since she seemed to have reformed (?), I wasn't as worried as before. I figured Jun would call if anything happened. Then one day Jun called. The news: "I'm getting discharged next week!" I congratulated him, and asked in passing how she'd been, and he said, "She's just doing her trash collection job like normal. Nothing in particular." Another week passed, and Jun was discharged. I stopped by his house on my way home from school. I rang the bell and Jun came out on crutches. "Hey! Come on in!" His leg was still in a cast, but he seemed completely back to himself. We hung out in his room for a while. I went home in the evening, and after dinner I called Shin. "Jun's out!" "Seriously! Alright, recovery party then! I'd come right now but practice is brutal, so I'll head over around the end of the month!" That's what he said.

And so, the last Saturday of the month. Me, Shin, Jun... The three of us together for the first time since elementary school. We met up at the McDonald's by the station at noon. Shin, whom I hadn't seen in ages, was deeply tanned despite it being winter, edging toward a certain kind of look. Anyway, we talked until evening. Our different high schools. Girls. Old memories... And of course, the woman came up too. The woman all three of us had once found more terrifying than anything was now just the lady who collects the trash. When Jun and I told Shin in detail what had happened at the hospital, Shin "Unlike back then, if she came at us now I could knock her flat!" and laughed it off. To us, she was a figure from the past, a distant old story, and not trauma anymore.

In the evening we went to a karaoke box. Since it was the first time the "three of us" had gotten together in ages, we ordered drinks to celebrate the reunion. Well — "drinks" meaning chuhai... But back then that was plenty to get us drunk. We each had four or five and everyone was pleasantly buzzed. We sang in a great mood, riding a serious high. Then, two hours in, when we were getting tired of singing, Shin made a proposal. "Alright — we're going to the hideout right now! We're going to make an offering for Happy and Touch, the ones we abandoned that night!" The air froze for a second. Jun and I both went "..." and lost our words. Going to that place, of all things... It came out of nowhere. As if to provoke us, Shin said, "You two haven't changed at all! Are you seriously scared?! Ha!" He was getting a little mean-drunk. Drunk Jun took the bait: "Huh? Who's scared? You picking a fight, Shin?" and flared up.

Drunk as I was, I read the room and said, "Hey, hey, drop it! For one thing, Jun's still on crutches!" And Shin shot right back, "Oh, right, on crutches you can't run away, huh? Hahaha!" He was well and truly mean-drunk. Jun got more stubborn: "Shut up! You want to go, we'll go! Just don't be the one who chickens out halfway!" It turned into a children's argument, and in the end it was decided we'd go — under the banner of "praying for Happy's and Touch's souls." Shin and Jun were both fairly drunk, and I think neither could back down. Well — I'd always thought the offering for Happy and Touch had to happen eventually, so I half thought this might be a good opportunity. With three of us, the fear would be thinner... We left the karaoke box, stopped at a convenience store, and stocked up on the two things those dogs had loved: Umaibo and cola. Then we took a taxi to my house to grab lights, and headed for the hill behind our elementary school.

Under the taxi driver's suspicious eyes, we got out at the trailhead. Along with nostalgia for the hill the three of us had played on so much, I remembered that night. To think I'd be going in again... at this hour... With no idea how I felt, Jun went in first, full of bravado. "Come on, let's go!" stomping in on his crutches. Shin followed behind him, smirking, holding up a light. I said, "Jun, watch your footing!" and followed Shin. Once we were actually in, I was surprised how much the scenery had changed. Or — maybe the scenery hadn't changed, and it looked different because we'd gotten bigger...? On the way up, Shin kept teasing Jun: "What'll you do if she's up here? I'm leaving you behind and running♪" and other jokes. (I'd run too.) We made better progress than expected and reached that place in about thirty minutes.

That place. The place where we met her for the first time... We went quiet and approached that tree slowly, lights up. The tree where she'd performed her curse ritual that night... We got right up to it and shone the light... Nothing was driven into it now. It was just an ordinary big tree... But the old nail marks were still there. Holes here and there. The police must have pulled them all out. The three of us looked at the nail marks for a while. Then Shin said, "Happy died around here, right..." and lit the ground. Happy's body was long gone, of course, but I remembered the exact spot... I set the Umaibo and the cola down there. The three of us put our hands together, and then it was on to Touch... We headed for the hideout site.

On the way to the hideout, Jun "A lot happened, but it's still nostalgic, huh..." said quietly. And Shin said, "Yeah... If we hadn't come to sleep at the hideout that night, we'd never have had any of the bad memories." He was right... If we hadn't met her on this hill, this place would have been sacred ground to us. "It was around here, right..." Shin stopped. The hideout site. There was nothing left. Not even one of the boards that had been scattered that day. Jun crouched down in silence, set out the Umaibo and cola, and put his hands together. Shin and I did too. After a silent prayer, Shin said, "If it weren't for Happy and Touch... we might not be here now." Jun: "Yeah..." Me: "Right... And in the end she reformed, so... somehow it feels like we've finally been let out of the nightmare." A silence followed. Then Shin idly swept his light over the surroundings and the pond in front of us and said, "This place was our secret spot back then, and it looks like plenty of people come here now." When I looked where his light fell, I noticed a fair amount of snack bags and empty cans on the ground.

I said, "You're right — there was no trash at all back then... You think today's elementary kids know about this place?" Jun added, "Back then we were pretty diligent about carrying our trash home..." Just then Shin "Whoa! What the hell is this!" shouted. Startled, Jun and I looked where his light was pointing. There was trash stuck to one of the trees. Looking closer, countless snack bags, empty cans, and magazines had been nailed to it. "What is this?!" Shin moved closer, playing his light over it. Jun and I followed. "Somebody's prank?" I stared hard at the nailed-up trash. And then — "Aaaah... that's... that's my... trash... aaaaah..." Jun said in a shaking voice and locked up. "What?!" Shin and I asked him to repeat it. Jun said, "Aaaah... that's what I threw out at the hospital... aaaah..." and backed away.

Shin "Hey! Jun! Get it together! No way that's true!" he barked, and ripped one of the nailed-up snack bags free. Seeing that, Jun "Aaah, aaaah..." made a strange sound and dropped onto his backside. Shin and I were stunned by that, and then the next instant "WHOA!" Shin threw the bag out of his hand. "What?!" I looked at the bag, and on the back of it, written in marker, JunCurseKill I thought, "You can't be serious," and started tearing the nailed trash off the tree one after another, checking the backs. JunCurseKill JunCurseKill JunCurseKill JunCurseKill Every single piece had it written on it. Jun's mouth opened and closed silently as he sat frozen on the ground. Shin casually picked up some trash lying nearby and said, "—! Hey! Look at this!" and showed me. JunCurseKill Even the trash scattered on the ground had it written on it.

That was when I finally understood. She had never reformed at all. She had hated us the entire time. The rubber gloves, the desperate sorting I'd seen at the hospital — she was separating out Jun's trash! The "I'm sorry" she'd said to us had been a lie from start to finish. A violent chill came over me and, We cannot be here! some instinct told me, and I said to Jun, "Hey! Snap out of it! We're going!" But, "My... trash... my trash..." Jun was broken. He'd lost his mind. Shin and I carried him between us and got down the hill. That was eight years ago. I haven't been back to that hill since that day, obviously. I haven't seen her either. Does she still hate us? Is she watching us from somewhere? But the three of us are alive. Only — to this day, Jun can't walk. end

On top of being so long, it was badly written, and you all put up with me dragging it out — thank you. Being able to finish "The Middle-Aged Woman" safely, I keenly feel, is thanks to the warmth of everyone who supported me. At the start I honestly thought I could get to the ending fairly smoothly... but between personal circumstances and my bad typing and worse composition, it dragged on and on (^^;) And to those of you who gave me a hard time — thank you for humoring somebody like me. Truly, everyone, thank you. Oh, and — I caused a fair amount of trouble along the way, but I came away thinking 2channel is a wonderful place. That's honestly how I feel.

THE END!!