Ghost of a Chance

The Nightmare Dwelling (Part 12)

'This injury is obviously real,' Hirota thought, looking at his scratched hands. 'Then, what happened just now? To what extent was that real?'

"You're a guy who breaks things, huh," Bou-san said, alerting Hirota to his arrival on the scene.

"... I didn't break it," Hirota said, forcing himself to stand up again. His legs were shaking. "It just exploded on its own." 'Did anyone notice anything? Those loud sounds as well?' He looked up and saw Naru leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, watching him. Hitomi was standing next to him. Neither of them missed that he was shaken up about something. Hirota avoided eye contact with them as he passed them.

"Two degrees Celsius," Naru said, making him stop and look back at them. "Only a short time ago, that was the temperature of the entranceway."

"Hey, what happened?" Mai asked, coming down the stairs with Masako.

"Yo, morning. You're awake already?" Bou-san asked her.

"I'd been sleeping a lot~" Mai said. "More importantly, did you hear those sounds just now?"

"Sounds?" Bou-san asked.

"Yeah," Mai said. "Sounds of a person running and screaming. You didn't hear them?" Hirota looked at her, surprised.

"No," Naru said.

"We certainly heard them, didn't we?" Mai said, looking at Masako.

"Yes. On the second floor hallway, I thought for sure something had happened, so I jumped to my feet," Masako said. Hirota clenched his fists. They had heard it, too.

"... Excuse me. Can I take some rest for a while?" Hirota asked.

"Are you all right?" Midori asked. "Your complexion is..."

"If I sleep for a bit, it'll go away," Hirota said. It was obvious to Naru and Hitomi that he had seen something again.

—∞—

Hirota lay curled up on the sofa under a comforter.

'The sensation that nobody is in the house was influenced by the story of Midori-san and the others,' he thought. 'I saw that incident on the hallway because of fatigue. That was just an illusion. There's no way that was real.' He remembered the way Naru and Hitomi had looked at him, but especially Naru. 'No. I'm not hiding anything. I saw nothing. Saw nothing...!'

DING. DONG.

Hirota flinched, but it was just the doorbell.

"I found it!" Yasuhara announced, coming in. "There was one! An incident!" Hirota was shocked.

Everyone gathered in the base so Yasuhara could share his findings.

"It's the trap of the street name revisions after all," Yasuhara said. "And yet, never would I have imagined that this major incident really happened if Matsumoto-san hadn't seen the family."

"Even genius Yasuhara thinks so?" Bou-san said, grinning.

"That's why they say, 'anyone can make a mistake,' right?" Yasuhara said. "It's because this place had changed its street name twice. —The incident happened twenty years ago. At that time, this house belonged to Kawanabe Yasuhiko, forty-years-old. His father, Yasuhisa; his wife, Toshiko, thirty seven-years-old; daughter, Hitomi, twelve-years-old; and son, Minoru, nine-years-old, were living together with him."

"A family of five people?" Bou-san said.

"That's right," Yasuhara said. Hirota stood in the open doorway, listening. "A family of five people were also living in the neighboring house: Sekiguchi Kazuo, forty five-years-old; his wife, Mitsue, forty four-years-old; and their three children. The incident happened on the evening of Oct. twelfth. After visiting their relatives, the Sekiguchi children returned home... and found their dead parents. Their father committed suicide, and their mother was murdered. Looking at it, it would seem like a forced double suicide."

"That's the anticipated story of the neighbor?" Bou-san said.

"Not really," Yasuhara said. "The police visited and asked the residents in the neighborhood about the case, but they didn't get a response from here, Kawanabe house. No wonder they thought it was strange; because when they entered this house, they saw the corpses of the entire family." Masako covered her mouth. Mai felt bad for them. Hitomi wished she hadn't been right.

"All five of them?" Bou-san asked.

"All members of the family," Yasuhara said. "It was late at night of Oct. tenth to early morning of the eleventh that the Kawanabe family and Mitsue Sekiguchi passed away. However, it was noon of the eleventh that the daughter, Hitomi, passed away too. It was presumed that Sekiguchi Kazuo had been here on the night of Oct. eleventh."

"The one who committed suicide was just Kazuo. Moreover, he's the last one who died?" Bou-san said.

"That's right," Yasuhara said. "The result of the investigation... suggests that the Sekiguchi couple killed the Kawanabe family. On the night of the tenth, the two trespassed here at the Kawanabe house. They killed four people in the family after that, returned home at once... and then Kazuo murdered his wife, Mitsue, there. Kazuo returned here and started dissecting the corpses of the family.

"... Four people in the family?" Bou-san said. "One person is missing."

"That day, the daughter, Hitomi, was away from home for her elementary school excursion," Yasuhara said. "She returned home the next day, and then she was murdered by Sekiguchi. Sekiguchi committed suicide in his house afterward."

"As for the motive of the crime?" Naru asked.

"The Kawanabes and Sekiguchis disputed about this land's boundary line," Yasuhara said. "At a loss, the Sekiguchis resolved to kill the Kawanabe family. They excused their children from school and made the latter go to their relatives' house. It seems they discussed about the neighboring house with their relatives. On this area, address revisions often took place. When I search 'family of five people' as a keyword, I found this incident. I grasped and checked the old map at the national diet library. Without a doubt, it was this house. But since I found the day the main culprit of this incident was publicized, there was no followup report in the newspapers. I've probed and looked at other periodicals, but nothing further about this matter emerged."

"Is that so...?" Naru said.

'This incident really happened...' Hirota thought, shocked. 'No. They definitely trusted their investigation, so they immediately searched for this incident. They applied it, and various tricks—" A bead of sweat ran down the side of his face. He clenched his fists. Even to him, it sounded like a weak excuse.