Chapter 50: 50. Six-Wheel Drive

Jiro turned and ran back to the library building, stumbling over little rocks, not bothering to follow the path. Sumire was still in the tearoom and looked up at Jiro in confusion when he rushed into the room.

“The spirit … it took Yui. Do you have another car?!”

“Jiro wha—“

“No time to explain. Do you have another car on the shrine grounds?!”

“No- well yes … We have a motorbike in the shed behind the main building but …”

“Give me the key.”

“What?”

“Hand me the bike key! Hurry!”

Sumire pulled out a ring of keys from her jacket. “It’s this key here but …”

Jiro snatched the keys from Sumire and ran out the door. “You two stay here!”

“Jiro wait!” 

Jiro ignored the mother and daughter’s shouts. There wasn’t time to talk. Wherever Yui—and that thing that was possessing her—were going, he knew he had to hurry. If the car made it out of the mountain path and onto the main road, he would never find Yui again … at least not before the spirit accomplished whatever it was trying to do. He needed to catch up to her as soon as possible.

He found the bike, as Sumire had indicated, in the shed behind the main building. The controls seemed familiar enough: he had delivered mail by motorbike in high school. He fumbled the key into the ignition, kicked up the stand, and backed it out onto the grounds. Then he stopped. He ran back into the shed, took a helmet off a rack and buckled it on. Only then did Jiro rev the bike into motion and set off down the dark forest road.

The mountain road was every bit as dangerous as Sumire had warned. There were no electric lights and the thick canopy of forest foliage blocked out any moonlight. The only visibility came from the motorcycle’s headlight. Despite his fear, Jiro forced himself to drive the bike faster than he was comfortable with. He could afford to catch up slowly: too slow and Yui would make it to the main road before he reached her. But if he went too fast, he risked crashing the bike and losing Yui forever—not to mention his own life.

Darkness plus speed: the hazards ahead came almost without warning. Hesitation or a delayed reaction meant severe injury or even death. Several times, unable to react, Jiro’s front wheel caught on a pothole or a root pushing up from the asphalt, nearly throwing him from his bike. Only years of experience, plus a sizable amount of good fortune, kept him from falling. 

Luck did not save him, however, from the sharp turns down the mountain face, which Jiro attacked while barely pumping the brakes. On one particularly sharp turn, he leaned in only to find the tire lose its bite on the surface. He was skidding. Jiro fell from the bike, hitting hard asphalt with his shoulder, tumbling and rolling down the mountain road until he was stopped by a pile of wet leaves. The bike, headlights whirling and carried by its own momentum, spun off farther down the path, until it was only a dot of light.

Jiro touched his shoulder. A jolt of pain. It was tender but he could move it. Nothing felt broken: he had only torn a few muscles, maybe a ligament. He stood up. 

No time to think about that now. 

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The bike had skid all the way down to the start of another bend in the road. Another foot and it would have fallen off of the mountain face. The chassis was scratched and the headlight glass shattered, but everything was operational. Jiro readied the bike, favoring his uninjured shoulder, and climbed on, wincing at the sudden pain. He had bruised several ribs too, it seemed.

Slow down Jiro. You’re only losing time by going this fast. Take the turns slower. Do what you can, not what you cannot. Act to the best of your ability. Hopefully that will be enough.

After the fall, he took the path more cautiously, using the brakes liberally when going into turns. This gave him a second’s warning for hazards ahead. It was still dangerous, and his knuckles were white from gripping the handlebars, but he managed to avoid any more major accidents. 

He caught the headlights of Kaori’s car just as he came out of the forest: a few moments later and he would have lost her as she joined the late night traffic along the riverside road. 

Okay, not I need to try and stop her.

Jiro sped over the bridge and pulled onto the main road, trying to catch up to Kaori’s car. He wove past a truck and then between two vans to pull up alongside her. He caught a glimpse of Yui inside. She was alone, hands gripping the wheel and hair floating in the air, defying gravity. Yes, she was clearly possessed.

There’s no way I can stop her like this. If I pull in front of her, the spirit will just run me over. 

Suddenly, Jiro saw something in his rear-view mirror. A few cars back, behind the van and the truck, was a police car. The strobe lights were flashing but there was no sound of sirens. It seemed the police hadn’t noticed him yet. Jiro swallowed and forced himself to slow down.

I guess I’ll just have to follow her and see where she goes. If a cop stops me here there’s no way I can explain my way out of this … I don’t have an international license. He signaled and then pulled in behind Yui’s car, trying to look as ordinary as possible. Good thing I stopped to grab a helmet earlier. Or I’d be on my way back to Canada.

Jiro checked the fuel gauge. The tank was still mostly full: enough for several hours of travel. He had to hope Kaori’s car ran out of fuel before his … or they reached their destination before the gasoline ran out. Jiro loosened his grip on the handlebars and focused on his breathing. His shoulder throbbed painfully. He didn’t know what was coming, but he did know that he needed to conserve his energy.

Gradually, as he followed Yui through the night traffic, Jiro realized that Yui was heading in a familiar direction: the car was driving on the route that would take them directly back toward the bathhouse. When the car passed Koko Town and reached the hill by the sea, Yui pulled the car off the road into the bathhouse parking lot and exited the car.

Jiro hopped off the bike, not bothering to park, and ran after her.

“Yui, stop! What are you doing?”

She turned. In her hand, Jiro saw, Yui held a pencil, freshly sharpened to a point. She gripped it in her fist and brought the point up to her neck. 

“Do anything funny Jiro,” said a voice. “And this pencil goes through her jugular.”

Jiro shuddered. The voice was not Yui’s. And yet, to Jiro, the voice carried a familiar ring. It was a voice that he had heard before.

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