The Complete Ring Trilogy: Ring, Spiral, Loop. Koji Suzuki
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enough; he was still in the entryway when he asked, “Have you learned anything?”
“No, not really. But come in,” said Ryuji, scratching his head vigorously. His eyes were unfocused and Asakawa knew at a glance that his brain cells weren’t awake yet.
“Come on, wake up. Drink some coffee or something.” Feeling like his hopes had been betrayed, Asakawa put the kettle on the stove with a loud clatter. Suddenly he was obsessed with the time.
The two men sat cross-legged on the floor in the front room. Books were stacked all along one wall.
“So tell me what you’ve turned up,” said Ryuji, jiggling his knee. There was no time to waste. Asakawa collected everything he’d learned the day before and laid it out chronologically. First he informed Ryuji that the video had been recorded from the television in the cabin beginning at 8 p.m. on August 26th.
“Really?” Ryuji looked surprised. He, too, had assumed it had been made on a video camera and then brought in later.
“Now, that’s interesting. But if the airwaves were hijacked as you say, there should be others who saw the same thing …”
“Well, I called our bureaus in Atami and Mishima and asked about that. But they say they haven’t received any reports of suspicious transmissions flying around South Hakone on the night of August 26th.”
“I see, I see …” Ryuji folded his arms and thought for a while. “Two possibilities come to mind. First, everybody who saw the transmission is dead. But hold on—when it was broadcast, the charm should have been intact. So … And, anyway, the local papers haven’t picked up on anything, right?”
“Right. I’ve already checked that out. You mean whether or not there were any other victims, right? There weren’t. None at all. If it was broadcast, then other people should have seen it, but there haven’t been any other victims. Not even any rumors.”
“But remember when AIDS started to appear in the civilized world? At first doctors in America had no idea what was going on. All they knew was that they were seeing people die from symptoms they’d never encountered before. All they had was a suspicion of some strange disease. They only started calling it AIDS two years after it had appeared. That kind of thing happens.”
The mountainous valleys west of the Tanna Ridge only contained a few scattered farmhouses, on the lower reaches of the Atami-Kannami Highway. If you gazed south, all you could see was South Hakone Pacific Land, isolated in its dreamy alpine meadows. Was something invisible at work in that land? Maybe lots of people were dying suddenly, but it just hadn’t made it into the news yet. It wasn’t just AIDS: Kawasaki Disease, first discovered in Japan, had been around for ten years before it was officially recognized as a new disease. It was still only a month and a half since the phantom broadcast had been accidentally caught on videotape. It was quite possible that the syndrome hadn’t yet been recognized. If Asakawa hadn’t discovered the common factor in four deaths—if his niece hadn’t been among them—this “illness” would probably still be sleeping underground. That was even scarier. It usually took hundreds, thousands, of deaths before something was officially recognized as a “disease”.
“We don’t have time to go door-to-door down there talking to residents. But, Ryuji, you mentioned a second possibility.”
“Right. Second, the only people who saw it are us and the four young people. Hey, do you think the grade-school brat who recorded this knew that broadcast frequencies are different from region to region? What they’re showing on Channel 4 in Tokyo might be broadcast on a completely different channel out in the country. A dumb kid wouldn’t know that—maybe he set it to record according to the channel he watches in Tokyo.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Think about it. Do people like us, who live in Tokyo, ever turn to Channel 2? It’s not used here.”
Ah-ha. So the boy had set the VCR to a channel a local would never have used. Since they were recording while watching something else, he hadn’t actually seen what was being recorded. In any event, with the population so sparse in those mountains, there couldn’t be too many viewers in the first place.
“Either way, the real question is, where did the broadcast originate from?” It sounded so simple when Ryuji said it. But only an organized, scientific investigation would be able to determine the transmission’s point of origin.
“W-wait a minute. We’re not even sure your basic premise is right. It’s only a guess that the boy accidentally recorded phantom airwaves.”
“I know that. But if we wait for hundred-percent proof before proceeding, we’ll never get anywhere. This is our only lead.”
Airwaves. Asakawa’s knowledge of science was paltry. He didn’t even really know what airwaves were: he’d have to start his investigation there. There was nothing to do but check it out. The broadcast’s point of origin. That meant he’d have to go back there. And after today, there were only four days left.
The next question was: who had erased the charm? If they allowed that the tape had been recorded on-site, it couldn’t have been anybody but the four victims. Asakawa had checked with the TV network and found out when the young storyteller, Shinraku Sanyutei, had been a guest on The Night Show. They’d been right. The answer that came back was August 29th. It was almost certain that the four young people had erased the charm.
Asakawa took several photocopies from his briefcase. They were photographs of Mt Mihara, on Izu Oshima Island. “What do you think?” he asked, showing them to Ryuji.
“Mt Mihara, eh? I’d say this is definitely the one.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Yesterday afternoon, I asked an ethnologist at the university about Granny’s dialect. He said it wasn’t used much anymore, but that it was probably one found on Izu Oshima. In fact, it contained features traceable to the Sashikiji region on the southern tip of the island. He’s pretty cautious, so he wouldn’t swear that that was it, but combined with this photo I think we’re safe in assuming that the dialect is Izu Oshima’s, and the mountain is Mt Mihara. By the way, did you do any research into Mt Mihara’s eruptions?”
“Of course. Since the war—and I think we’re probably okay in limiting ourselves to eruptions since the war …” Considering developments in film technology, this seemed a safe assumption.
“Right.”
“Now, are you with me? Since the war, Mt Mihara has erupted four times. The first time was in 1950–1951. The second was in ’57, and the third was in ’74. The fourth time I’m sure we both remember well: the autumn of 1986. The ’57 eruption produced a new crater; one person died and fifty-three were injured.”
“Considering when video cameras came out, I’d guess we’re looking at the ’86 eruption, but I don’t think we can be sure yet.”
At this point Ryuji seemed to remember something, and started rummaging around in his bag. He pulled out a slip of paper. “Oh, yes. Evidently this is what she’s saying. The gentleman kindly translated it into standard Japanese for me.”
Asakawa looked at the scrap of paper, on which was written:
How has your health been since then? If you spend all your time playing in the water, monsters are bound to get you. Understand? Be careful of strangers. Next year you’re going to give birth to a child. You listen to granny now, because you’re just a girl. There’s no need to worry about local people.
Asakawa read through it twice, carefully, and then looked up.
“What is this? What does it mean?”
“How should I know? That’s what you’re going to have to find out.”
“We’ve only got four days left!”
Asakawa had too many things to do. He didn’t know where to start. His nerves were on edge and he’d