Ju-On Read online

  Why are all of the lights in all of the rooms on? It’s like the people who live here simply vanished into thin air.

  Rika stood in the doorway and looked around the room. There was what appeared to be a closet in the corner, but the sliding door was sealed shut with tape.

  Huh? Why would there be tape there?

  Yes, that definitely was not normal. If the door was sealed with tape, nobody could open and shut the door.

  Why would anyone stick tape there?

  As Rika was babbling to herself, she heard a sound.

  Scritch . . . scritch … scritch . . .

  Who’s there?

  Rika’s bladder suddenly felt very full, and her stomach went numb with terror.

  Scritch … scritch … scritch . . .

  Shivering in fear, she looked around.

  Scritch … scritch … scritch …

  Huh? Inside? Inside the closet?

  Yes, the scratching sound was clearly coming from inside the closet.

  Tentatively, she approached the closet, and just as she was about to touch the door—

  Meeoowl

  A cat cried from inside the closet, and Rika’s body shuddered.

  A cat? Is there a cat in the closet?

  Meeoowl Meeoowl

  No doubt about it. A cat was shut in the closet.

  After a slight hesitation, Rika started peeling the tape from the sliding closet-door. She shook her hands to get the brown tape off her skin, and opened the door.

  There—on the top shelf of the closet—was a black kitten. It was lying down on the futon stacked there.

  The kitten squinted its eyes at the sudden brightness, then looked at Rika and gave another small meow.

  “What are you doing in there? You scared me. Come on out.”

  Smiling stiffly, Rika leaned her body into the closet. Inside the enclosed space, the odor of decaying flesh was much stronger.

  It stinks in here …

  As she thought this, out of the corner o{ her eye Rika saw a young boy in the back of the closet.

  “Kyaa,” she screamed and jumped back. “Who are you?”

  The boy was only five or six years old. His skin was frighteningly white. He was naked, save for his underpants, and sat hugging his thin knees to his chest as he stared at Rika.

  “Urn, uh, what’s your name?”

  Rika’s voice was high with tension. As if in reply, the boy opened his mouth slowly.

  Meeoow!

  The cry came not from the boy, but from the kitten next to him. But to Rika, it sounded as if the boy had cried like a cat.

  “Iyaa!”

  Rika fled the room, screaming.

  Rika ran down the stairs to the first floor, where she had left the senile woman.

  “Sachie-san, um, there’s a boy upstairs!”

  Sachie, in her clean yukata, was sitting on the new futon that Rika had laid down for her, staring blankly at the wall.

  “Um, Sachie-san, there’s a boy upstairs! Who is he?”

  The old lady looked at Rika with her dull eyes. Her cracked lips moved as if they were shaking.

  “Ka … ya … ko … “

  “Huh? What?”

  “Ka … ya … ko … “

  Rika had no idea what she was talking about. At a complete loss, Rika licked her lips. She remembered the photo found on the kitchen floor.

  She went into the kitchen and picked up the photo she put on the table just a few moments ago.

  No doubt about it. The little boy locked in that closet that reeked of rotting flesh was the same boy holding a black cat in this picture.

  “Ka … ya … ko … “

  The old lady was repeating the same thing over and over, like a parrot.

  “Ka … ya … ko … Ka … ya … ko … “

  Rika felt the situation was way out of her hands now. Going out into the hall, she called Hirohashi at the care center on her cell phone.

  Hirohashi seemed busy, as usual.

  “Yes … yes, that’s right… he was shut in the closet… I hadn’t heard anything about a child, so I was so surprised … Yes, he’s still upstairs .. . No, they’re not back yet. It looks like they’ve been away for days. I don’t know what’s going on here … Hirohashi-san, can you please come here … really, you can’t get away … yes … yes … all right…”

  Hirohashi couldn’t get away from the office. There was one employee off today, and Hirohashi was up to his elbows in work. There was no way he could get away, even in response to Rika’s desperate plea.

  Reluctantly, she hung up.

  “Now what am supposed I to do?” she muttered to no one in particular.

  This house was not normal. It was definitely not normal. But… what could she do?

  With the lights on in all of the rooms she didn’t notice, but complete darkness had fallen outside. She was starting to get hungry.

  As Rika was cursing Hirohashi for putting this all in her hands, the kitchen phone began ringing.

  Rriiinngg … Rriiinngg … Rriiinngg …

  After the phone had rung about five times, the tune to “Skater’s Waltz,” very out of place in this atmosphere, came on, and the answering machine picked up.

  “You’ve reached the Tokunaga house. We are not at home now, so please leave your message after the tone,” said a man’s voice.

  What should I do? Should I answer the phone?

  While Rika was making up her mind, a young woman’s voice came from the speaker.

  “Hello, this is Hitomi,” she began. “Hello, Kazumi-san, are you there? How is Mom? I’m worried, so please give me a call.”

  Rika hurriedly reached her hand out to pick up the phone, but the woman on the other end had already hung up.

  What should I do?

  She felt as if someone was watching her from behind, and she wheeled around.

  No one was there. She only heard the senile old woman babbling. She was still probably prattling that meaningless word, “Ka … ya . .. ko … Ka … ya … ko … ” over and over.

  Rika sighed deeply. She looked at the picture that she still held in her hand. Was this longhaired woman Kazumi?

  She felt the eyes on her back again, and turned around.

  But again, no one was there.

  “Ka … ya … ko … Ka … ya … ko … ” she heard the old woman babbling.

  Hitomi

  Sighing, Hitomi Tokunaga fished her cell phone out of her purse and redialed the same number she had already called three times today.

  She was still at the office, taking care of a problem with one of her clients. In fact, she was the only one still in the office.

  Rriiinngg … Rriiinngg . . . Rriiinngg …

  After the phone had rung several times, “Skater’s Waltz” played on the other end, and her brother’s voice said, “You’ve reached the Tokunaga house. We are not at home now, so please leave your message after the tone.”

  What the hell are they doing? she thought, before talking into the answering machine.

  “Hello, this is Hitomi,” she said. “Hello, Kazumi-san, are you there? How is Mom? I’m worried, so please give me a call.”

  She hung up, and sighed again.

  Hitomi recalled her brother’s behavior that night a week ago. Yes, her brother Katsuya was definitely not acting normal that night. It was as if he had been possessed by another man … what on earth had happened? She had called more than once every evening since then, but the only thing she ever got was that answering machine with “Skater’s Waltz.” When she called her brother’s cell phone, it just rang endlessly.

  She cleared the top of her desk up for the day, picked up her new Louis Vuitton purse that she had just bought in Hong Kong, and left the office. She headed down the deserted hallway to the elevators. Just then—

  She heard footsteps behind her that were definitely different from her own high-heeled shoes clacking on the floor. No, these footsteps were squishy, like someone walking on a wet floor in their b
are feet.

  Huh? Who’s that?

  She stopped and turned around. Of course, there was no one there.

  She started walking again. And—as if someone was keeping time with her own steps—she heard that squishy sound again.

  She wheeled around again.

  Again, no one.

  “What am I doing?” she said, smiling bitterly to herself. She felt an urge to go to the bathroom to relieve her bladder, and stepped into the restroom in front of the elevator.

  When Hitomi finished and flushed the toilet, she heard those squishy footsteps from the hallway again.

  Squish, squish, squish, squish . . .

  They were headed straight her way. She heard them come into the women’s restroom.

  The footsteps went into the stall right next to Hitomi’s. Hitomi caught a glimpse of the woman’s—this was the ladies room so it must have been a woman—shadow from under the door.

  Someone was still on this floor after all, she thought. She didn’t have to come into the very next stall. And what kind of shoes is she wearing to make that sound?

  Hitomi’s cell phone rang from inside her purse. She could tell by the ring tone, “Stand By Me,” that it was from brother’s house phone. “Finally,” she muttered as she took the phone out of her bag. The caller ID on the little plasma screen showed that the call was indeed from Katsuya Tokunaga.

  “Hello, Katsuya?”

 

  The sound on the other end of the phone was eerie, like someone croaking in the back of their throat. Hitomi jumped and took the phone away from her ear.

 

  “Katsuya, come on, quit playing games! Do you know how many times I’ve called you?”

  The phone went dead.

  “Katsuya. Katsuya! Agh!”

  When Hitomi tried to redial her brother’s home number, she heard the woman in the next stall knock on the wall.

  “Sorry. I’ve just hung up.”

  She put her phone back in her bag, with intentions of calling her brother back once she was outside. Just then, from the next stall—

 

  It was the same croaking sound that she just heard from her phone.

 

  “Who’s there?” Hitomi screamed as she fled the restroom stall. The little teddy bear she had on her bag caught on the door handle and fell to the floor. She stooped down to pick it up, when the other stall door opened. She looked up, reflexively.

  Someone, a woman with long, black hair, came out from the open door.

 

  Hitomi screamed and left her teddy bear on the floor as she ran out of the restroom. She didn’t look back and didn’t use the elevator. She ran down the stairs. Out of breath, she reached the first floor, and ran right into the security guard’s office.

  As luck would have it, the security guard on duty that day was the one Hitomi couldn’t stand. Every time she walked by him, she felt the guard, a man in his mid-forties, undressing her with his eyes.

  But today, none of that mattered. Hitomi frantically told the guard what had transpired in the women’s room on the fifth floor, as he stared openly at her breasts and legs.

  “It’s another employee, that’s all.”

  The lech was too busy ogling Hitomi’s body to really listen to what she said.

  “No, that’s not it. It’s … I don’t know how to put it… Anyway, just go take a look, please.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll go look, but you wait here, Tokunaga-san.”

  “Thank you.”

  “The ladies’ room on the north side of the fifth floor, right?”

  As he left, he put his hand on her back, and rubbed her through the thin blouse she had on.

  “Tokunaga-san, nice bra you have on today. Pastel blue, right? Do your panties match?” he leered as he stepped out.

  Usually, she would have cursed him out roundly, but she wasn’t in the mood tonight. She looked around uneasily.

  Could it just be another female employee, like the guard said? No, it wasn’t that. Definitely not. Hitomi had seen it. The woman— that longhaired woman’s white dress was … soaked with blood.

  Hitomi remembered the sound that the woman squeezed out from the back of her throat.

 

  She gave herself gooseflesh just thinking about it.

  There were several security monitors in the room that looked like little TVs. On the screens were real-time images of different parts of the building. It seemed that there were not many people around this evening. All of the black and white monitors showed deserted hallways.

  Finally, on one of the monitors, the back of that lecherous security guard came into view. Hitomi controlled her body’s desire to shiver as she looked at the uniformed man.

  Looking around the fifth floor hall, the security guard headed toward the ladies’ room on the north end. He stopped at the entrance and looked in … and then he stood straight and stiff as if he had found something … and … he walked right into the restroom as if he had been sucked in by some irresistible force.

  One minute passed … two minutes … three minutes …

  What’s wrong? Why doesn’t he come out?

  More time passed, but still the security guard did not come out.

  Four minutes … five minutes … six minutes …

  What’s going on? What on earth happened to him?

  Hitomi kept looking at the monitor screen.

  Finally—someone came out of the bathroom. But, it was not the security guard.

  The person who came out oi the women’s room was that longhaired woman in the white dress.

  “Why?” muttered Hitomi. “Why?”

  The woman’s face was down so Hitomi couldn’t see her features. But the chest of her white, sleeveless dress was sticky with what looked like blood. She was wearing neither shoes nor sandals; she was barefoot.

  Hitomi froze in fright, staring at the monitor. She wanted to flee, to get out of there, but her muscles were locked and she could not move. She even forgot to breathe.

  The bloody woman, still looking down, came straight down the hall, this way, toward the security camera. Now she was close enough that Hitomi could see the drops of blood that dripped from her body.

  Still shambling down the hall, the woman in white finally came to a stop in front of the camera. She slowly lifted her head, and her face, mostly covered by her hair, came into view.

  “Ah!”

  Hitomi saw the woman’s bloody face. At the same time—the woman in the monitor saw Hitomi’s face. The woman contorted her bloody face unnaturally, and, from the other side of the camera, she smiled at Hitomi. Even though the monitors had no speakers or other audio capabilities, that voice reverberated through the security office.

 

  Hitomi screamed, snatched up her purse, and ran out of the little room.

  Hitomi had no idea how she had gotten home.

  She arrived at her apartment building in a daze, and ran into the elevator, which was stopped on the ground floor. Through the window in the elevator door, she saw a woman she knew running to catch the elevator, but Hitomi didn’t have the time to wait for her.

  Pressing the door-close button and the tenth-floor button simultaneously, Hitomi tried to calm her breathing. Holding her Louis Vuitton bag tight to her chest, she looked out the window.

  As the elevator passed the second floor, Hitomi briefly saw a woman with long hair dressed in white, her back facing the elevator.

  “Ah,” Hitomi’s body shivered involuntarily. But the elevator passed the second story and Hitomi lost sight of the woman.

  The elevator passed the third floor. There, too, a longhaired woman in white was standing in the exact same position.

  “Wha … what?”

  The elevator passed the fourth floor. There, too
, stood the longhaired woman in white.

  “Why? Why?!”

  The elevator passed the fifth floor. There, too, stood the longhaired woman in white.

  The elevator passed the sixth floor. There, too, stood the longhaired woman in white.

  The elevator passed the seventh floor. There, too, stood the longhaired woman in white.

  The elevator passed the eighth floor. There, too, stood the longhaired woman in white.

  The elevator passed the ninth floor. There, too, stood the longhaired woman in white.

  “Iyaa! Iyaa,” Hitomi screamed as she covered her face.

  Finally, the elevator reached the tenth floor. There was no longhaired woman in white.

  “Iyaa!”

  Still screaming, Hitomi ran out of the elevator, and ran like a mad-woman down the hall, bright with the blue-white glow of fluorescent lights. Reaching her door, apartment 1002, she frantically unlocked the door with the key she had fished from her bag, opened the steel door, and literally jumped into her apartment.

  Rika

  The boy probably knows something, Rika Nishina thought, and she headed back up to the second floor. From the landing in the middle of the staircase, she stretched up to look toward the bedroom in the back of the hall. The door was still open, and light spilled into the dark hallway. The little boy was squatted down

  in the doorway, holding his black kitten. He was still naked except for his underpants, and his skin was still as pale as a wax mannequin.

  “Hey there. Aren’t you cold?” asked Rika gently, as she approached the boy. “What’s your name? Won’t you tell me what your name is?”

  For an instant, the boy’s eyes went as dull as if he was looking at something very, very far away. He opened his mouth and in a low voice mumbled, “Toshio …”

  “Toshio? Your name is Toshio-kun. Toshio-kun, where are your mom and dad?” asked Rika, but this time, the boy remained silent.

  “Urn, Toshio-kun, what were you doing in the closet?”

  The boy remained silent. He just looked at Rika with those blank eyes, almost as if he was looking not at her but through her, at someone else standing behind Rika.