After Dark.

After Dark.

Part 1: Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.

Ever since the birth of man, there has been an equal counterforce. Humanity is a body, the creatures of the dark are a virus, and then there is a cure. Brave men and women who take up arms and fight against this infection, hunters. Though they are not alone to keep balance between the world of man and monster, the universe devised a plan, Reapers, humans mutated and transformed through supernatural powers to be the ultimate warriors for the light. Man vs. Monster. The perfect balance.

“You’re sure you don’t want to go to the party?” A young girl says, putting on her makeup in a mirror.

“No Hitomi, I have to study for the finals tomorrow. You know you really should too.” Her friend says, sitting on the bed with her textbooks strewn wide open around her.

“Who would’ve thought my dormmate would be such a buzzkill? You’re just jealous he asked me out to the dance and not you!”

Her friend glances up at her for a second, then goes right back into her books.

“Besides I’ll just cram it all in and ask you about it tomorrow. That way it’s all fresh in here.” Hitomi says shutting the door behind her.

Just as Hitomi leaves, her friend hears something moving past the window, she pays no mind to it and puts on her headphones to study in peace.

Later that night a drunk and tired Hitomi stumbles into the dark room, the lights out. “I’m back! And ready for tomorrow!” She says holding her burp in. She sees her friend asleep on her stomach, nudging her to no response. “Well, I guess I’ll ask you tomorrow then.” Hitomi says yawning and then falling on the bed, almost instantly passing out, the last thing she sees is a pair of glowing lights in the corner of the room.

The next morning Hitomi wakes up to her alarm clock blaring. She turns it off and the first thing she sees is her friend still sound asleep. “And I thought my night was bad, huh? Come on then, we got an exam to get ready for.” She stands up and rolls her friend on her side to find her gut sliced open, blood covering the entire bed. Falling to her knees screaming, she looks up to the roof and sees a message written in her friend’s blood. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?”

The car is parked on a small cliff next to a road. Sam’s eyes jump open, he smiles for a split second before remembering everything going on in his life which then turns into a neutral expression. He sits up straight in the backseat of the car, his back against the door. He sees Kane sitting in the front passenger seat. “Rise and shine Samuel!” Sam holds onto his head and yawns. “How long did I sleep?” He says still half-awake.

“Four hours.”

“That’s a new record.” He says dragging his hands across his face and rubbing his eyes.

“Yeah, well you kept talking in your sleep and moved around a lot. Wanna talk about it? The sun’s still a while away.”

“Nah, just slept uncomfy, not like these seats are five-star hotel beds.”

“Try telling that to Isabel. You said her name while you were sleeping.”

“I just broke a promise yesterday is all.”

“Speaking of which. Mind telling me what that freakout of yours was?”

Sam and Kane sit there in silence for a minute. Sam breaks the silence, “My emotions got the better of me. I overreacted; thought I’d have to bury another grave yesterday.”

“Well, I’m not dead yet, no need to worry about funeral bills.”

Sam laughs to himself and looks at the rising sun. “Let’s get going. I need something to eat, using the Scythe drained me.”

Kane moves over to the driver’s seat and Sam climbs over the passenger’s seat. They drive away down the road.

They drive into the town located in the Gunma prefecture, which is the only road through two mountains. The town is rather large, all things considered. Offering a shopping center, a subsuburbanighborhood, and even a school and university.

“You know Kane, one Slide Rock Bolter, and this place is gone. Now that was one angry fish.”

“Yeah… well at least those things are nearly extinct. Up there with Big Foots-Big Feet, whatever.”

“Kinda makes you wonder. How much longer will people like us be needed? Hunters.”

“Trust me, if there’s a ghost or a crawler out there, then we’ll keep on the fight. I once knew a guy who said that Hide Behinds are good for the environment because they replant fallen trees. They’re simply ‘misunderstood.’”

“Hmm, did he know they also eat people?”

“Haha, no tore his theory apart. There are 4 billion in the world, Sam. Hell most of them still believe that the earth is round, so long as people remain ignorant of the dark, then we’ll be needed.”

They drive out of a drive-through, Sam looks inside the bag at the heaps of food and hands Kane his burger. “Ah, junk food, expensive but cheap junk food.” Sam bites into his burger, upside down. “Yet it still tastes like cardboard.” He looks at Kane enjoying the delicious taste of his burger and fries. “Lucky bastard.”

“Hey, you’re the Reaper, not me.”

“Yeah, that much is obvious.” Sam throws his arms back and hangs them over the seats.

As they pull out of the town and drive past the university, they see police cars and an ambulance parked outside with a body being pushed out into the ambulance and police officers questioning a girl. Kane stops the car to look at it.

“Hey Sam check it out.”

“So?”

“Doesn’t that look weird to you?”

“No, Kane we don’t even know what happened here, it could be something normal.”

“Something that has that many cops don’t seem normal to me.”

Sam facepalms. “Ugh fine if it please you, we’ll take a look.”

Kane reaches into the glove compartment and takes out their fake PSB badges. Walking up the university they get approached by a police officer. “Whoa whoa gentlemen, what’s your business here?”

Kane and Sam take out their badges and put them right in his face. “Public Service Bureau. I’m Agent Hetfield, that’s my partner, Agent Ulrich.” Kane says putting his badge away.

“You two aren’t dressed like Agents!”

“It was casual dress day at the office.” Sam says coming up with a lie on the spot.

“Sure thing trench coat!”

“It’s a... duster.” Sam says under his breath, annoyed.

Kane steps in before Sam blows a fuse. “Listen, me and my partner we just want to figure out what’s going on here before anyone else gets hurt.”

“Okay okay alright. Someone was murdered.”

Kane’s eyes widen and he moves his head back. “Oh!” He looks around him at the other cops and the ambulance. “Oh, I didn’t figure that out! Cut to the chase.”

“A girl found her friend mutilated. Says she didn’t see her dead until the next morning, a message written in her blood.”

“Any other witnesses?”

“No, just the girl and the professors that called it in, but they know just as much as us.”

“Thanks.” Kane pats the officer on the shoulder. “Now leave it to the professionals.”

The police officer shakes his head and walks away from them looking at them over his shoulder. Sam stands next to Kane. “They get dumber and dumber every year.”

“Yeah, right well Sam, you take the crime scene I talk to the witness. Because we both know you hate everyone you see.”

There is a long awkward pause between the two of them. Sam looks Kane dead in the eye. Sam steps away from him still looking at him, even as he steps into the university doors, not breaking eye contact whatsoever.

When Sam finally loses sight of him, Kane lets out a sigh of relief. “God his five-foot ass is scary.”

Sam steps inside the crime scene showing his badge to the officer guarding the room entrance. The first thing Sam sees is a message written in dried blood. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?” The guard at the entrance leaves and Sam takes out an EMF meter, turning it on to instantly be met with it going into red and screaming like a banshee. “Never mind, this is our kinda thing.”

Sam walks over to the window and looks down through it. “That’s… about 20 meters give or take.” He touches the windowsill and feels a black-green goo-like substance covering it. He tastes it in his mouth. “Ectoplasm… naturally.” Sam steps back and sighs. “I miss my desk.”

Outside the University, Kane steps towards Hitomi. “Hitomi Tanaka? I have a few questions.”

Hitomi looks at Kane, her eyes and face dead, expressionless. “I already told the cops all I know.”

Kane shows her his badge. “Yeah well, I’m not a cop exactly.”

“Listen, I’ll tell you what I told them. I found her like that in the morning after I woke up, already dead, with that sentence written on the wall.”

“I see, another question, how did you not pay attention to her until the next morning, a dead body is very hard to miss.” Kane steps around her. “And if she was murdered in her sleep… then how are you still alive?”

“What’re you implying? I’m innocent!”

Kane stops walking around her and looks her in the face again. “And I have no doubt in that matter.”

Hitomi recoils and screams, “Fine I was drunk alright! We were having a party, and I drank a lot! I just stumbled right into bed, thinking she was asleep! She stayed behind to study for the exam.”

Kane smirks. “Ah, I see. Well did you see anything odd that night?”

“My best friend dead!”

Kane pays no regard to what she says. “Feelings of being watched? Cold spots? Strange dreams? Whispering voices?”

“Is this a psychological test or what?”

“Exactly.”

“I guess I saw someone standing at the other side of the window and like a glowing pair of eyes staring at me, but… I was drunk and it was probably just a tree outside and a light inside the room.”

Kane nods. “Well, that’s everything for now, you remember anything else.” He hands her a card with a number on it. “Call this.”

Kane walks away from Hitomi and towards Sam who walks out of the University.

“Sam, what did you see in there?”

“I smelt more than I saw, Axe Deodorant and… Glossly Goth Lipstick, I’m glad I didn’t go to school, Kane. The cramped hallways, the tall jocks, the-”

“Sam, the room?!”

Sam snaps back to reality “Yeah, it’s as bad as they say. EMF was off the charts. Found some ectoplasm too near the window.”

“The girl said she saw someone at the other side of the window.”

“On the fifth floor? Gotta be an undead spirit. I don’t know which yet, could be a Phantom or Ghost.”

“And what did you say about assumptions yesterday?”

Sam walks past him, towards the car. “Shut up!” he says with sarcasm in his voice.

Kane shakes his head and gets in the car; they drive off from the University.

Hitomi watches them as they drive away. She feels something crawl along her face and then a sharp stinging sensation on her left cheek, she slaps her face and sees a dead spider in her hand, the one that just bit her. She brushes it off and holds onto her cheek.

Sam and Kane arrive at a small motel at the exit of the town. Both get out and walk to the receptionist's desk. “You know Sam, I could settle down like this. Die a peaceful death in a small town.”

Sam looks surprised. “You?! Kane, you’re the type to go out in a blaze of glory. While playing the Bon Jovi song!”

“People change Sam.”

Sam and Kane spend the rest of the day inside the motel room, researching. Kane sitting on the bed with his laptop and Sam at the desk, reading the newspapers, old and new.

Kane slams his laptop shut and puts it down next to the bed. “I don’t know man, I’m finding nothing, just a missing person, the rest of the deaths are all natural or caused by something normal, nothing that would suggest a murder or something that would lead to a ghost.”

Sam inspects a section of the newspaper. “Yeah… hey Kane, listen to this. ‘Missing Person Report: Reiran Akame, Age 19, seen on the left side of this image, last seen with her friends, she was reportedly intoxicated the night of her disappearance, friends say she was seen exiting the house where a party was being held that night, with another man of tall stature and brown hair. Friends and family are offering a reward of up to 50,000 yen for more information about her.”

Kane shrugs. “So? Missing girl case, as bad as it may sound, it doesn’t sound all that special.”

“Yeahhh.” Sam shows Kane the image of the girl, Hitomi is seen on the right side of it, with Reiran. “But does her friend look familiar?”

Kane looks at the picture and then at Sam. “Maybe this something special.”

“I say first thing in the morning, you go question Hitomi some more, I’ll check out the sight of her disappearance.”

“Right.”

Sam and Kane settle in for the night.

Meanwhile, on a cliff overlooking the town, a couple sits inside a dark red 1958 Chevrolet Impala, listening to the radio.

“Are you sure this is safe? This cliff doesn’t exactly seem stable.” The girl says to the man in the driver’s seat, worried and taking quick breaths.

“Oh relax! This is the quietest place in town… where we won’t be disturbed.” The man says leaning his arm over her seat.

“It’s just, it feels like I’ve watched a thousand horror movies that start this way.”

“Jeez you’re a mood killer.” The man moves his arm away and turns up the radio, listening to music.

The radio signal gets interrupted, being scrambled and becoming nothing but noise. The man turns the dial around until he catches a signal again, a news report. “We are now getting reports of a crashed insane asylum bus, most of the patients, including the driver are accounted for, and only one is injured. However, one patient has seemingly vanished amidst the crash, he is one-handed, but his missing hand has been replaced by a hook. Authorities warn that if he is seen, to not approach him and instead report him to the police. He is right beh-.” The man turns off the radio. “Ah, this is nonsense!”

The girl hears a scraping sound along her side of the door. “Did you hear that?”

“What?”

“Something was scratching the car on this side.”

The man gains a worried expression on his face. “Oh no no no no no! This is my dad’s car!” He gets out to check on it and walks around to her side. When he sees a long scratch mark running along the right side of the car. “No!!! Come on!!!” The man screams annoyed, when he hears something move around in the bushes behind him, he goes to investigate. “I swear if you keyed this car, you asshole!”

The girl waits inside the car for five minutes, waiting for her boyfriend to come back. She rolls down the window. “Hey, are you alright?!”

The radio turns on by itself and continues playing the song. She tries to turn off the radio, but the buttons are stuck, and the music keeps getting louder and louder. She gets out of the car to get away from the music, covering her ears and looking to the ground. When she looks up, she sees a figure cloaked in black, with a hook for a right hand. “Haruto!?” She must scream at the top of her lungs to talk over the music. “That’s a nice scary costume! But there’s something wrong with the radio! It’s playing way too loud!” She looks at the figure, she believes to be her boyfriend, and when she tries to touch his shoulder, her hand goes right through. “What the-“ The cloaked figure raises his hook hand and slashes the girl across the chest. She screams and runs away, getting into the driver’s seat of the car as the figure approaches her slowly. She manages to turn on the engine and drive away, covering her right ear for the music. The figure tries to hold onto the car with the hook but is forced to let go as the car gains speed, tearing it off and leaving the hook with a piece of his arm in there. As she gets further away, the music turns back off. The girl crying and screaming all the while.

The next morning Kane wakes up to see Sam standing at the edge of the bed, Kane jumps and almost reaches for his gun. “Damnit Samuel!”

“There’s been another murder.”

Kane sighs and sits up straight. “What happened?”

“You’re not gonna believe this.”

Sam and Kane walk out of the motel room. “Now Captain Hook is on the loose too. Wonder if Peter Pan’ll show up, I always wanted to kick his ass.”

“You’ll get your chance, Kane. So, I’ll check out the car and crime scene, and see if I can find anything. You question Hitomi and the other girl.”

“Right! I’ll walk.” Kane throws Sam the car keys. “Don’t scratch her!”

“Yeah yeah.”

Sam gets into the car and pops in a cassette tape. Driving off to the sound of Enter Sandman by Metallica. Kane judging Sam on his driving.

Sometime later, Sam arrives at the crime scene, the car from the attack parked inside the police tape. He flashes his badge at the officer guarding the tape and walks through. Taking immediate notice of the car and the hook lodged into the trunk. The police officer from before approaches Sam. “Ah, Agent! Glad you came!” Sam ignores him and just focuses on the car. The police officer takes a deep breath, “The uhh, car belonged to one Haruto Sasaki, his father, actually. He and his girlfriend were attacked last night, we brought the car here, so we didn’t have to keep going back and forth.”

Sam lifts the trunk and sees how the hook went all the way through. The police officers growing even more impatient. “The assailant probably couldn’t unhook himself, which explains why it’s still stuck in there, along with a hand, or what you can barely even call a hand, more like a stump of flesh, with a piece of metal attached to it.” Sam slams shut the trunk again. “Is there anything we can help you with, Agent?”

Sam rips out the hook.

“Hey hey hey! You aren’t allowed to tamper with crime scenes like that!”

Sam looks at the officer dead in the eye. “In my department, you can.” Sam walks off, inspecting the hook, which is dripping ectoplasm out of it. “Attacked by a man with a hook. Where have I heard this before?”

“Hey, agent! You’re not gonna inspect the body?” The police officer says from across the crime scene.

Sam just utters “No.” Before continuing to the car. As he walks towards the driver’s seat, he stops for a second to text Kane about the murder but feels a sharp pain on his right foot, he looks at the back of his foot to see his ankle sliced open, he holds onto it for a second, adjusting to the pain. He looks around him and, on the ground, seeing nothing that could’ve caused the injury. “That’ll heal in a minute.” He powers through the pain and sits in the driver’s seat. “Hopefully.” He says followed by a painful grunt.

Across the town Kane arrives at Hitomi’s house, knocking on the door and waiting for a minute as she stumbles through the house. She opens the door and Kane is immediately greeted by the sight of a massive swelling, covering her entire left cheek with the swelling being covered in small bumps and a bite mark at the center. Kane jumps for a second and covers his mouth, pretending to cough to hide his disgust. “Agent, how can I help?” Hitomi slurs her words. Kane gulps, shrugs, and shakes his body. “I just uh-oh god it’s massive-“ He looks away from Hitomi for a second, gathering the strength to look at her again. “Came to ask a few questions.” He says, almost struggling to breathe.

“Riiighhht… is something the matter?”

Kane taps his left cheek while looking at her.

Hitomi realizes what’s wrong with him. “Oohh, yeah, it’s just a spider bite, nothing major, I don’t even feel sick. Anyways come on in, my parents aren’t here now, they’re busy in another town.”

Kane waits for her to be inside first. “Spider-bite my ass, she’s been doing more than talking with that mouth.”

Kane sits down on the living room couch, looking at the painting of a grass field above the fireplace, it looks dead and emotionless, as if it was painted just for the sake of it with nothing put into it besides a few strokes of paint. Hitomi walks into the room carrying drinks. “You like the painting, Agent?”

Kane swings back around to look at her. “Nah I like my art cursed and murderous.”

Hitomi looks confused and sits down. “Okey… well, is there something I can help with, Agent?”

“Reiran Akame. What can you tell me about her.”

“I thought you were investigating the murders?”

“We are. We think that she might be related, both she and your friend fit a similar profile. In fact, there was another attack last night, the Victim managed to escape, but her boyfriend wasn’t so lucky.”

“Oh, Shino and Haruto, I heard.”

“Shino? Haruto?”

“Shino Megumi and Haruto Sasaki. We were close back in the day.”

“Interesting.”

“What?”

Kane leans forward on the couch. “So far, every victim has been related to you. All of them are your friends.”

Hitomi jumps up to her feet. “Are you-?!”

Kane signals her to sit down and calm down. “Jeez, you like to jump to conclusions. Alright, be honest, does someone know what you did last summer? Anything you can tell me about the guy who you saw with Reiran when she went missing?”

Hitomi sighs and sits back down. “There wasn’t a guy that took her. She didn’t just walk away with some random dude.”

“Go on.”

“It was just supposed to be some stupid prank. The four of us, me, Shino, Haruto, and Marai, knew Reiran, she wasn’t exactly in our friend group, she would sit with us, but we’d always be mean to her. That night we… we wanted to play a prank on her. Marai wanted no part in it, but we still roped her in.”

“What was the prank?” Hitomi remains silent and regret falls on her face. “Hitomi, look at me.” She looks back up at him. “What was the prank?” Kane asks in a stern voice.

“Reiran was always a fan of those creepy stories you read about online and then spread to your friends, urban legends. She wouldn’t stop talking about just how real they were and that they were so ‘awesome.’ We got tired of it. Decided to get her to stop.”

“I’m going to guess it went wrong?”

“We were going to pretend that there was an intruder in her house, making creepy phone calls from inside it, using a voice changer. Then when she was really scared, we’d all jump out wearing costumes and chase her through the house. It worked. We broke into her house that night and hid in it, waiting until her parents left to get started.” Hitomi starts breaking down into tears. “We made the calls, but we… we didn’t think she’d start panicking that much, she sounded on the verge of a heart attack.”

“So that’s what killed her?”

“No. It was me. She tried to call her parents, but we cut the phone lines everywhere when we were done with the calls. Locked every door. All so we could get her to shut up. She ran upstairs, probably to hide away, then when I jumped out at the top of the stairs to scare her, she… jumped back and landed wrong on the stairs, broke her leg and she fell down it. She was bleeding out, and we didn’t want to call anyone to explain what was going on, so we just decided to take her body and dump it somewhere in the woods, near a lake. Made up some stupid story of us going to a party and her just disappearing, we didn’t want to get into trouble, all because we made some stupid mistake. Please, Agent, I’ve realized my mistake, and I’ve tried to make up for it, I have!”

Kane leans back in his seat. “You’re right.” Hitomi seems hopeful. “It was a stupid mistake, downright idiotic.” Hitomi looks back down to the ground in disappointment.

“Then who’s going around killing all my friends, it must be her parents, they must’ve found out somehow and now they want revenge.”

“You see… it’s a bit more complicated than that. It’s a ghost.”

Hitomi almost breaks into laughter. “Pshh, Agent, your comforts aren’t helping.”

Kane looks her dead in the eyes, his face expressionless, “Does this look like a comforting face?” Hitomi shakes her head. “Now listen, you made two fuck ups. Firstly, you killed an innocent girl because you didn’t like listening to her talk, so I’d be pretty pissed off if I was her. Secondly, you didn’t give her a proper burial with a tombstone and funeral. Mix those two recipes together, and you get the concoction known as a Ghost.”

Hitomi doesn’t follow.

“Think about it, she was into urban legends, so far, your two friends were killed by urban legends. That figure you saw in the window. That was probably her, and now, Marai’s dead, Haruto’s dead. Shino is probably next, then you… the one who killed her. There are forces in this world, evil spirits, monsters, they’re all real, and you just made a Phantom.”

Hitomi bursts into tears as Kane stands up. “Now I need to make a few calls while you process this.” He walks into the hallway, leans on one of the walls, and calls Sam.

Sam is driving down the street, away from the police station. “Kane? I just checked out the crime scene and-“

“Hitomi and her friends killed Reiran.”

Sam raises his eyebrows in sarcastic surprise. “Ah. Didn’t see that coming.”

“Yeah, listen we’re dealing with a ghost, one with a vendetta against Hitomi and her friends. Her ghost is running around finishing them off using urban legends, the kinds you’d tell your friends around the playground to keep them up at night.”

“So, a Phantom? A ghost that haunts a person or people that wrong them in life. Lines up with the murders all being the way they are, targeted.”

“Yep, never heard of one that kills its victim by using other means than possession and asphyxiation.”

“I have, it needs one angry and very powerful ghost though to be able to summon things to kill for you. Also explains the ectoplasm I found at the crime scenes. Where’s the body?”

“Hitomi says they dumped it in the woods, near a lake.”

“Right, I think I saw a place like that on a map in the town center earlier. I’ll burn the bones and do the purification prayer; you just make sure that Reiran doesn’t come for the rest.”

“Yes, I’ll get her and Shino Megumi to safety before she comes for them too.”

“Okay, and hey Kane, is something wrong with the car?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been hearing weird noises coming from under it for the whole day.”

Kane’s expression grows dead serious. “Sam. The ONE TIME I let you drive her, and you break her!”

“Relax! I probably just bumped into something while I was driving on the dirt road.”

“It better be just that! She’s like a person you know!!!”

Sam hangs up and looks at the dashboard with the initials S.R. and K.P. engraved onto it. “Yeah, I know.” He hears something knocking underneath the car. “Okay, that’s it!” He slows the car down and stops it on the side of the road. He slowly climbs out and lies down on the ground to check underneath the car, he uses a flashlight to scan every inch of the underside of the car carefully, only to find a small rock stuck in the undercarriage between the suspension. He pulls it out and stands back up, oblivious to the Shadow crawling along the right side of the car and through the door to the back seat. He gets back into the car and starts driving off again.

Kane steps back into the living room, towards Hitomi. “Right, we need to go.”

“Where to?”

“To find your friend Shino before she also gets killed. Where does she live?”

“Just down the street, across the road.”

Kane picks up Hitomi by the shoulders. “Come on then.”

Inside Shino’s house, she lies on her bed with her dog lying on it too, aimlessly scrolling her phone half asleep, when her mother walks past her door. “Shino I’ll be heading out for a while, you sure you’ll be all right alone?”

“Yeah Mom, I’ve managed so far.” She says, almost lifeless.

When her mother leaves the house, she drops her phone on the bed and hangs her hand off the side, closing her eyes to fall asleep as the dog jumps off the bed. Just as she falls asleep, she feels her dog licking her hand from under the bed. “Kai Kan stop it.” She says giggling and moving her hand away to stop the licking, but it just goes on. She rolls on her side to face the door; she opens her eyes to see Kai Kan sitting in the hallway while the licking continues. She moves her hand back as fast as possible, being overtaken by fear, she gathers the strength to look under the bed. She hangs her head over the side to look under it, into the darkness, she sees nothing but the pale face of Reiran looking back at her, her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth. She moves her head away just as Reiran’s ghost opens her mouth wide enough to swallow her head whole to lunge at her.

Shino jumps off her bed and runs for the door, but it slams shut right in front of her, she tries her hardest to pull it open, but it just won’t budge, she knocks and screams, pleading for mercy as a shadow crawls out from under the bed, it starts taking form, a pure black void for a body falling onto the ground like a long dress, with Reiran’s pale head and long black hair being the only recognizable thing. She flickers and stutters in and out of sight. Everything in the room starts shaking, the closet doors swinging wildly open and shut, objects being thrown around breaking everything, and the dog on the other side of the door barking restlessly. Shino closes her eyes and reals back into the wall, praying under her breath. When she finishes her prayer everything in the room goes silent, she breathes a sigh of relief and opens her eyes again, only to see the ghostly apparition of Reiran towering over her, she screams as Reiran opens her mouth and with one bite rips off Shino’s neck, her headless body flopping to the floor.

Kane lockpicks open the front door to be met by dead silence, he is led in by Hitomi. “Is she even here?”

Hitomi looks through the house for any signs of her or her parents. “She should be, I talked to her just now.”

As Kane walks through the hall leading to Shino’s room, he finds the dog lying down in the corner of the hall, whining and crying. “Hey, boy.” He starts comforting the dog. “What’s the matter?” He looks at the door that the dog is staring at and notices the pool of blood flowing through the bottom of the door. Slowly approaching the door, he draws his gun out and pushes the door open with his foot, the first thing he sees is Shino’s headless body lying limped on the floor, followed by the messy state that the room is left in with no further signs of anything supernatural. “Gah… this is one pissed-off ghost.” Kane lets out a deep sigh and closes the door behind him as Hitomi comes in from the other side of the hall. “Did you find her?”

“She’s uhh.” Kane gathers back his strength. “She’s dead.”

“What, no!” Hitomi tries to run towards Shino’s room, but Kane stops her, holding her arm. “You go in there, all you’ll see is something that scars you even further, so let’s not open another wound.”

Kane leads Hitomi into the kitchen and starts searching through the cupboards and cabinets. “What’re you looking for?”

“Salt.”

“Now isn’t the time for a snack.”

“Oh, it is. Just not for me.”

Kane finds a bottle of salt in one of the cabinets, he then takes a small cup and fills it with salt. He hands over the cup to Hitomi. “Swallow all of that.”

“What?! NO!!!”

“Do you want the ghost to get to you? This’ll keep her off you for a while. Impure spirits really don’t like salt, and ingesting it wards you from them until your body digests it all. Trust me, the throat sore and headaches are worth it. There’s also the possibility of a stroke, but…” Kane does a bit of counting. “That’s only happened four times.”

Hitomi looks around and reluctantly grabs the cup and downs the salt. She resists the urge to throw up and swallows everything down. She beats her chest, coughs then looks back up at Kane. “Now what?” She says, her throat dry and rasp.

Kane takes out his gun. “Now we wait.”

Driving down a road near the woods, heading towards the lake in the woods. Sam sends Kane a voice message. “Hey Kane, I found the lake, at least I think I did, on my way there now, if I see a patch of spider lilies then I’ll know I’m in the right place, if not… well then I guess we’re screwed.” Sam puts the phone back down and continues driving down the road in silence. He notices a car following behind him, flashing his headlights at him. Sam turns over to the next lane, but the car just stays behind him. “Oh, come on.” Sam says annoyed as the driver keeps flashing his headlights on and off. Sam once again changes lanes, but the car won’t stop following him, Sam rolls down the window and signals the driver to overtake him. But the car just won’t stop, always flashing its headlights at him. “I would brake-check you if I wasn’t driving Kane’s car.”

Sam eventually turns onto another road and the car stops following him, continuing down the road. “Some people don’t deserve their license.” It starts gently pouring rain as Sam drives down the dirt road leading to the lake. Sam is oblivious to the Shadowy figure rising behind his seat, slowly raising its hand into the air, one of them holding a knife, the other one to cover Sam’s mouth. Luckily Sam looks into the rear-view mirror just in time to see him. Sam slams the brakes and grabs his gun, he looks at the back seats only to see nothing there, no killer.

When he turns his head back to the road, he sees a hooded figure standing in the middle of the road, brandishing a knife and taunting Sam to come at him. “Well, that’s just being stupid.” Sam hits the gas and aims directly at the figure with the car, barreling 1 400kg straight toward him, as he drives into him the figure disappears into a thick black cloud of smoke, leaving behind a black sand-like substance on the car’s windshield. Sam tries to clean the windshield with the wipers, but it’s too thick to be simply wiped away, and before he knows it, he runs straight into a tree and hits his head on the steering wheel. He lies back in his seat for a minute straight, holding onto his head. “Yeaaahhh Kane… don’t install airbags.” Sam gathers his strength and stumbles his way out of the car, he walks over to the front to assess the damage. “Oh, Kane’s gonna kill me.” He checks the backseats and sees it covered in ectoplasm, where the figure was hiding. “I’m never gonna drive this thing again, am I?” He slams the door shut and walks over to the trunk to collect a shovel, oil, and a bag of salt.

Inside Hitomi’s house, she and Kane wait for Sam to finish burning the corpse. Kane sits on the couch with both his legs on it, he takes out a flask of whiskey and starts drinking.

Hitomi looks at Kane, stunned and irritated “Really?”

Kane swallows and looks at Hitomi. “What?”

“The ghost of a girl that I pushed off some stairs just killed my friends, and is coming after me next… and you decide now is the time to drink?”

Kane takes another sip. “We all have our own ways of finding comfort, some slightly less moral and healthy than others, but whatever gets you through the day.” He speaks quietly to himself “The three Bs… booze, burgers…”

“Boobs?”

Kane shakes his head “…Bon Jovi.”

Hitomi holds onto her left cheek where the swelling is, she gets up and goes to the bathroom, leaving Kane alone in the living room as he sings the lyrics to Runaway by Bon Jovi.

Hitomi doesn’t come back, and everything is too quiet for Kane’s liking. “Hitomi?” He looks behind him at the stairs to the top floor, where Hitomi went. “Hey?!” He stands up and starts walking up the stairs. “You weren’t supposed to take the song to heart.” He walks through the hallway, past the bedrooms, drawing his gun, the rain outside dropping harder and harder, thunder coming in too. He makes it to the end of the hall; the closed door has light shining through the edges. Kane knocks on the door, “Hitomi you in there?”

He waits for a second and she responds, “Yeah! Why? You want to use the bathroom?”

“No! I’m just making sure you’re fine.” Kane puts his gun away again and starts walking away. Right as he reaches the end of the hallway a harrowing scream comes from the bathroom; Kane instantly turns around and runs across the hallway. “Hitomi?!!” He tries opening the door, but it’s locked tight. All he can hear is Hitomi’s screams coming from inside. He kicks the door open with enough force to break it open. “What’s wrong?!”

He faces the right side of Hitomi’s face. “Hitomi?” She slowly turns to face him, her horrified expression says it all, hundreds of tiny spiders, crawling all along her face, digging out from the sore and the skin surrounding it, crawling and sneaking into her mouth, her ears, every crevice and orifice they can find, digging holes into her skin to get into it, the bites and the pain just won’t stop, she closes her eyes, but not even that will stop them.

Kane acts quickly and turns on the tap water to its maximum strength. “Put your face in there!” Not even washing them off will stop them, more and more just keep coming. There is only one way to stop this…

Sam is just taking a casual stroll through the woods, enjoying his day, and whistling a tune. His phone starts ringing and he picks it up. “Yyyello?”

“SAMHOW’STHEBODYTHINGGOING?!!!

Sam moves the phone back from his ear due to the noise. “Whoa whoa! Slow down!”

“SAM. HOW. IS. THE. BODY. THING. GOING?”

“Ah quite lovely actually, I’ve been to a lot of murder forests before, but this one just feels different.”

“WELL HURRY UP!!!”

Kane hangs up, Sam sighs and puts his phone away. “One day I’d like to just relax…”

Hitomi keeps submerging her face into the sink full of water, it helps, if only a little for the thousands of spiders that keep coming. The lights in the bathroom start dimming and the cabinets start swinging open and shut wildly. Kane looks around and is suddenly thrown out of the bathroom and through the door of another room across from it. Kane tries his hardest to get up, but something is keeping him pinned to the floor. He can only look into the bathroom as the ghost of Reiran appears behind Hitomi and stares at Kane, using her one hand to force her head into the water, Kane gathers enough strength to fight through the force holding him to the ground and reaches for his gun, he fires at Reiran, sending a Cold Steel bullet straight at her. The bullet hits her right in the shoulder, causing Black Sand to stain the wall of the room. The ghost screams at Kane before teleporting away, allowing Hitomi to come up for breath again. Kane puts his head back down, “Oh thank you Cold Iron!”

Sam reaches the lake and sees a patch of spider lilies growing next to a tree. “That’s probably it.” He starts digging through the dirt to find her bones. “I’m not even getting paid for this one.” He eventually hits a solid object, moving the dirt around, he finds one of her bones.

Kane gets back up to check on Hitomi, who is standing slouched over the sink. He moves her head a bit to check her pulse, she’s still alive, just paralyzed from the continuous spider bites. “Come on Sam.” He says impatiently looking over his shoulders.

Sam digs around the bones to uncover her whole skeleton. He covers her in salt, then in oil.

The ghost of Reiran appears behind Kane, slams the side of his head into the sink, and then throws him on the floor. She grabs Hitomi by the shoulders and lifts her into the air, opening her mouth wide to swallow her head whole.

Sam closes his eyes and clasps his hands together. “Woe to you dearly departed. For you were so eagerly slaughtered. I wish only for your eternal enlightenment. Be no longer reliant. Become one with the land, air, and sea.” He lights a match. “For I set thee free.” He drops the match into the grave, igniting her corpse. From the body rises a dark cloud that smells of vinegar and spoiled eggs. But the cloud dissipates, leaving behind the smell of white lilies and mint.

Inside the bathroom, just as Reiran is going to bite off Hitomi’s head, she starts burning up, leaving behind only Black Sand on the ground. Hitomi is dropped on the ground and all the spiders on her face melt away into ectoplasm. Reiran screeches as the last bit of her soul is burned away. Kane sits up straight, his back against the bathtub. “Shoulda just kept on driving Kane… shoulda just kept on driving.”

Sometime later, Kane watches Hitomi through the window of the hospital room, holding a bag of ice against his head. Sam arrives there and stands next to Kane. “She alive?”

“Barely. Spiders did so much harm to her, nearly tore her face off.”

Sam mutters under her breath. “Damn.” He looks at Kane. “You know she still killed an innocent girl; we can’t just let her go scot-free.”

Hitomi starts waking up and Kane walks into the room. Hitomi struggles to keep her eyes open to look at him. “I would call you Agent… but I sense you’re not really a member of the PSB.”

“Nah… my name’s Kane, that short fella over there is my adopted brother, Sam, we kill what goes bump in the night. Legends, monsters, all fair game to us.”

“I see… what do I do now?”

“Now, well, you’re going to turn yourself in, tell the cops everything you and your friends did to Reiran. And be honest.”

“Even about the ghost?”

“Not about the ghost, that you keep to yourself. Can you promise us that?”

Hitomi swallows, looks at the ground for a second, and then back at Kane. “I can.”

“Good.”

Kane stands back up and walks out of the room, Hitomi catches a glimpse of Sam giving her a death stare through the window as Kane walks past him. Even as he leaves the hospital, Sam keeps his eye on her.

Stepping out of the hospital, Sam takes a deep breath. “Now can we go home?”

“Sure, Sam. I promise I won’t make another pit stop.”

“You better not.”

They walk to the parking lot and when Kane sees the damage done to the car he is instantly pissed off. A headlight broken, the windshield covered in Black Sand, and dents on the hood. He looks at Sam and struggles to comprehend what he is seeing.

“Oh come on man.” He points at the car. “There was a ghost in the road!”

Kane makes painful noises and leans against the car. “Oh, Annabelle… what did he do to you?!!!”

Sam hangs his head low and gets into the passenger seat. Kane gets into the car too, but will not stop complaining about it. “I CLEANED THE SEATS THIS WEEK!!! Gah-a-haha!!! How do you do this!!! I’M SORRY GIRL!!!”

“Kane it’s not that ba-“

“HE EVEN ADJUSTED MY SEAT; IT TOOK MONTHS TO GET IT RIGHT!!!”

“How else was I supposed to see out it?!!!”

“GROW LONGER LEGS!!!”

Sam never heard the end of it for the entire car ride.

Chapter 2: END.