Chapter 5
1. The Man-Eating God
The cramped car was filled with the smell of coffee.
Miyaki, in the passenger seat, looked down at the red bean paste spilling out of her halved taiyaki and muttered.
"This is smooth red bean paste."
"Aren't they all the same?"
"Not at all."
Miyaki wiped the bean paste off her hand with a wet tissue and bit into the taiyaki with a resigned expression.
When I wiped the condensation from the window, fogged up from the heater, I saw a taiyaki stand beside a rarely seen wooden station building.
The woman flipping taiyaki on the griddle met my eyes through the steam and gave a slight bow. Despite her smile, the tear mole on her face made her look sad, and it reminded me of a woman I had lived with for a short while, so I turned away.
"If they're gonna set up a stall with no customers, they might as well put a station worker there."
I rubbed my damp, cold sleeve and sipped my coffee.
Miyaki was gnawing on her taiyaki as if she'd given up.
If you just can't tell from the outside whether it's smooth or chunky bean paste, that's one thing. But what if there's nothing inside the puffed-up wheat belly?
That's the kind of case this is.
Behind a thick forest, dense with trees like rising smoke, stood a two-story hospital.
Looking up at the rain-stained walls, I saw white sheets fluttering on a drying rack on the rooftop, surrounded by a rusty fence. At night, you'd probably mistake them for ghosts.
We parked in a barely marked lot, and Miyaki and I got out of the van.
"According to the story, there's a 'man-eating god' in this mountain."
Miyaki muttered as she gazed at the base of the mountain, covered in gloomy dark green leaves.
"According to legend, it used to be an evil god who granted villagers' wishes and then ate them, but after a shrine maiden offered herself as a sacrifice, it repented and became a benevolent god."
"If it were a benevolent god, we wouldn't have been called in..."
Even as I said it, I knew it wasn't true.
If it were simply an evil god, we could just destroy it. But when it's something that can't be measured by human morality, destroying it recklessly leads to disaster. I've seen that happen more than once.
The brown door, like a bottle of antiseptic, with the hospital's name carved in white, opened, and an elderly doctor with a lab coat over his shoulders appeared. He held the door open, so Miyaki and I hurried over.
Maybe it was lunch break, but the hospital was quiet, and the fluorescent lights reflecting off the linoleum floor made the hallway feel like a cave.
At the reception desk, a nurse was on the phone with medical charts and prescriptions spread out boldly on the counter, and Miyaki gave a wry smile.
The lobby, with a green public phone and a juice vending machine, looked like it would soon become a hangout for the elderly.
We walked down a hallway that felt every bit like a rural hospital and, guided by the doctor, entered the examination room in the back.
After sliding the door shut, the doctor offered us steel chairs. Sitting on the thinly cushioned, backless chairs across from him made me feel like a patient.
"Normally, I can't show you this since it's private patient information, but we're making an exception this time..."
The doctor placed a thick file, stuffed with papers, on the desk.
"These are the records of the deceased at our hospital."
"May I take a look?"
After the doctor nodded, I took the file.
It was heavy on my wrist. There was no title on the cover or spine.
When I opened it, I found several yellowed pages from a lined notebook. Miyaki peeked over my shoulder.
The scribbled notes in ballpoint pen were either technical terms or in a language I couldn't recognize. The side notes next to simple circles and squares seemed to be in German.
"Um, what exactly is this..."
Just as I looked up to ask the doctor, who was silently watching my hands, a photo slipped out from the notebook and took my breath away.
It looked like rows of white arch gates.
Beyond the curved beams were a human chin and nose facing upward. It was a photo of the upper body of a corpse, dissected on a bed.
I glanced back at Miyaki, but she wasn't surprised—just staring at the photo over my shoulder.
When I looked down again, I realized the ribs, which looked like arches, had an eerily mechanical and inhuman structure. Then I noticed.
The internal organs that should have been inside the ribcage were completely gone. Even the muscle tissue that should connect the bones was missing. It looked like the bones of fried chicken, meticulously stripped of meat.
"The organs are..."
"Exactly."
The doctor sighed and nodded at my words.
"This has been happening to people who've died in this village for about two years. They seem perfectly healthy while alive. But when we perform an autopsy, the organs that should be there are completely gone. Even when we do the autopsy soon after death, it's the same. So it's not due to decay or microbes."
"Could it be a parasite that dissolves only the organs..."
Miyaki interjected, but the doctor shook his head.
"It's unthinkable that someone could lose most of their organs without any symptoms. The first case—excuse me, the patient—had an X-ray taken a week before death and everything was normal."
"So organs that were there while alive disappear the moment they die..."
I closed the file.
"At first, the police suspected organ trafficking. Thankfully, the bereaved family testified and cleared things up."
The doctor gave a self-deprecating laugh. I looked at Miyaki's profile. I didn't ask how she could look at autopsy photos right after eating.
Just as I was about to leave the hospital after photographing the charts and autopsy images I couldn't understand, a nurse called out to the doctor who had come to see us off.
"Mr. Karahara's grandson is here again."
The nurse frowned, and the doctor gave her a reproachful look.
Karahara. The name of the first victim, which the doctor had accidentally let slip.
Looking through the semi-transparent brown glass, I saw a young man with a gloomy aura standing between parked cars.
Even when we came out of the hospital, the man didn't react.
"Um, is there something wrong with our car?"
When Miyaki gave a polite smile, the man only shifted his gaze. His stooped, skinny frame reminded me of a withered tree. Beneath his dull eyes were dark circles that blended with his tear bags.
"A Tokyo plate, huh..."
His voice was hoarse. After speaking, he slightly averted his eyes. I almost laughed at the typical small-town youth not wanting to be lumped in with nosy locals.
"What brings you to such a remote place?"
Before I could answer, Miyaki stepped forward.
"We're here to investigate the incidents happening in this village. You're Mr. Karahara, right? If you know anything, we'd appreciate it if you could tell us."
The man flinched at Miyaki's unyielding smile. I didn't have time to stop her.
As we walked along a mountain path dim as midnight despite it being daytime, Karahara said he was twenty-four, had been living in Tokyo but quit his job due to health issues, and now worked at an inn in his hometown. It was hard to imagine this man, who couldn't even muster a smile, working in hospitality.
"It's an inn, but not a tourist spot. Only eccentric salesmen or students looking for a cheap training camp come. Just being able to see someone not from here is enough..."
Karahara lit a cigarette, pressing it to his lips.
"When did you return to this village, Mr. Karahara?"
Miyaki, walking beside him, leaned back slightly to avoid the smoke and asked.
"I came back for my grandma's funeral, then returned for good six months later. So, about a year and a half ago. Honestly, I didn't plan to ever come back unless it was for my mom's funeral..."
Karahara exhaled smoke and coughed.
"You want to know about my grandma, right?"
"That's the starting point, but if you know anything else..."
When I said that, the man shook his shoulders in a laugh that sounded like choking.
"There's nothing outsiders can gain from digging into this. Besides, it's all the villagers' own fault anyway."
Just as I was about to respond, I heard a small bell ring.
Karahara stopped walking.
From between the trees lining the mountain path, a woman in her thirties with her hair tied back burst out.
Karahara gave her a sharp look. Ash from his cigarette fell on his chest.
When the woman saw us, she hurriedly crouched down and picked up a key with a bell that had fallen to the ground.
"Excuse me..."
Stuffing the key into the pocket of her pilled sweatshirt, the woman dashed off down the mountain path as if fleeing.
When I looked in the direction she came from, I saw a narrow animal trail leading into the mountain, through a gap in the dense branches and leaves. A red torii gate emerged, buried in the greenish-black foliage.
Karahara stared at the trail, then dropped his cigarette butt and crushed it with his toe.
"That's why it's their own fault..."
The man turned to Miyaki and me.
"If you come to my place, I'll show you my grandma's belongings."
The cigarette, bent like the corpse of something, had torn paper and spilled tobacco.