Tokyo at night was a neon dream imprinted on his eyeballs, he lurched down the street his head reeling from jet lag and a few too many cups of sake. His plane had landed a few hours ago and he had given his body no time to adjust, he had been driven into town from the airport by a limo and had started partying as soon as his feet touched what he supposed was native soil.
Not that he had ever been here before.
He was fourth generation Japanese-American and as far as he knew he was the first in decades to make the trip back to Japan. His family was very wealthy and extremely conservative and had never shown any interests in their roots or heritage. They lived in a bland midwestern suburb, went to bland midwestern schools, had bland midwestern marriages only marred by the occasional bland midwestern affair. They spoke only English at home and didn’t encourage their offspring to learn any other languages, let alone Japanese.
Anchin had always been something of a black sheep in his family, the eldest son expected to follow in his hard working father’s footsteps and take on the expected role in the family business. His mother had once made a list of acceptable brides for him to eventually settle down with, he had taken one look at it and stayed drunk for a week.
He had been sent to the finest of schools, and gotten himself thrown out of all of them one by one. His teachers had spoken to him about his great potential and the shame he was bringing down upon his family.
Anchin had flashed them his more or less patented roguish grin and informed them that he really didn’t have a ounce of shame in him.
Fancying himself a playboy of sorts he had partied his way out of every school, slept with every single female who he could use his considerable charms on and so far had wrecked three rather expensive sports cars.
Life was good when your parents wrote checks to cover up every single fuck up that you managed.
If he was a better person he might feel bad about all that.
He wasn’t a better person.
Still, his parents were old school and could only be pushed so far. His father has threatened to cut him off entirely if he didn’t get his act together. His mother had sat there nodding like a damn bobble head doll as his father had laid down the law.
Anchin had hung his contritely, nodded when it seemed appropriate and made a hell of a lot of promises to reform and get his life back onto the straight and narrow.
He hadn’t meant a damn word of it of course.
Instead he had waited for everyone to fall asleep and then he had snuck into this father’s study, opened hi father’s safe and emptied the contents into a small carry on suitcase. Cash, gold coins and jewelry, enough to keep him in wine women and song for a long time. He had also grabbed his passport.
His family did not travel outside of the USA if they could help it, but the reality of business meant occasional travel so they all had passports. It was just another way that they tried to control him that they kept his locked up, well to be fair they kept all of his siblings locked up as well.
Screw that, he was his own man now. A thousand miles or more from the long reach of parental authority. He had chosen to escape to the one place he knew that they would not come looking for him.
Japan.
It was only spoken of in whispers in his family, growing up he had wondered what scandal had chased them from their homeland to settle in America. His grandparents, Aunties and Uncles would never answer any of his questions about it and once when he had pushed just a little too hard his grandmother had slapped him hard across the face.
The drunken memory of it found him rubbing his jaw absently under a streetlamp.
That is when he saw her.
She stood under the glow of the next street lamp down from him, just standing there like she had been waiting for him for a while. That feeling was so strong that he almost found himself wanting to apologize for being late.
Shaking his head to clear the sake induced cobwebs he tried to focus his bleary eyes on her and to call up his best charming smile.
Long silken dark hair cascaded across her shoulders and down her back, the little black cocktail dress she was wearing showed off a tight lush body. A slight smile hinted a mischief and dangerous pleasures as she stared boldly at him.
Then she turned and walked away.
“Wait!” he called after her as he tried to hurry down the street towards her, she ignored him and kept on walking and soon she was lost in the shadows and all he had to follow was the staccato sound of her high heels against the pavement as she went.
“Hey! Wait up beautiful! My name is Anchin, let me buy you a drink somewhere? Please? Wait up damn it don’t walk so fast!” He called after her.
Her pace slowed for just a moment but then sped up again.
Cursing under his breath he hurried after her, following her down side streets and alleys until he had no fucking idea where he was anymore.
It didn’t matter, nothing mattered but catching up to her.
He kept catching glimpses of her as he chased her, she was always under the next streetlight or turning around the next corner. A flash of ivory thigh as she hurried along, a toss of her ebony hair as she moved away from him. He followed these things like one might follow the proverbial trail of breadcrumbs through the dark forest.
She was always just ahead of him, he never quite lost sight of her entirely for more than a moment or two. Those brief moments filled him with panic, he would stop moving and he could hear himself breathing hard but then he would catch a glimpse of her again and he would lurch forward once more.
“Slow down damn it! I just want to talk to you!” He kept shouting at her as he followed her into a part of town where suddenly there were less streetlamps.
A voice in the back of his mind set off warning bells, he was drunk in a foreign country carrying a lot of money and following a pretty girl.
Lots to go wrong there.
Like always he ignored that voice and did whatever the hell he wanted to.
In this case that meant following the girl no matter where she went.
And then, all of a sudden she was just gone.
He stood still listening for the sound of her heels moving away from him but there was nothing. Only silence.
Looking around frantically he tried to figure out where she could have gone, spinning in a ragged circle he focused his eyes on a small building with a dim neon sign in front of it.
The Inn of the River Serpent.
Rubbing his eyes tiredly he took another slower look around and decided that there was nowhere else she could of have gone.
What he hell, he decided, he would go in and see if she was there. If not he would drown his disappointment in more sake and then call his drunk ass a cab back to his five star hotel.
Congratulating himself on such a sound plan he staggered over to the door of the place and yanked it open.
“Yo bitches! Bring me sake!” He demanded as he entered the small ornate front lobby of the place.
Three ancient looking men dressed as monks stared back at him without speaking, they sat on low cushions and their faces were blank as they looked up at him.
“Hey guys did you see a hot bitch come through here? Black dress? Amazing ass?” He demanded.
“She is called Kiyohime.” They answered in unison, their voices blending together dryly and with no emotion.
“Yeah? Well whatever the bitches name is did her fine self come through here or not?” He demanded.
The monks all stood up in one fluid motion and blocked his way back to the main room of the place. They all stood loosely with their hands at their sides and they all stared at him.
“Hey dudes, no worries if she isn’t here ok, whatever, not looking for no trouble. Just want to party a little.” He told them waving a stack of bills at them that he pulled out of his pocket.
“Her name is Kiyohime. Say it.” They told him, doing that weird speaking in unison thing again.
“Kiyohime. Your happy ass satisfied now? Can I have a drink or not you bald fucks?” His patience had now worn thin, nice tits on the girl or not.
“Say it again.” The monks demanded.
“You old fucks deaf? I get it, her name is Kiyohime.”
“Again.” They told him taking a menacing step towards him.
“Back off assholes! Kiyohime! Ok?” He dropped into a drunken approximation of a martial arts stance he half remembered from a long ago lesson when he was a kid.
To his surprise they all bowed deeply, moved out of his way and waved him towards the rear room of the place.
“That’s what I thought.” He sneered at them as he swaggered into the main room of the place.
She was waiting for him, sitting facing him at a green leather booth, a full bottle of sake and two glasses were on the table as well as a small red candle that burned fitfully, its unsteady light casting weird shadows.
“Please sit down.” Her voice was sex dipped in sin ,rolled in taboo and then deep fried in lust. Despite his drunkenness he could feel his body responding it to it. He sat down across from her, shivering as her hand lightly brushed his as she filled a glass full of sake and gave it to him.
“Welcome Anchin.” She toasted him with her own glass.
He supposed he should have been surprised that she knew his name but it had already been a weird night so he decided to roll with it.
After all, he knew her name too.
“Thank you, Kiyohime.” He returned her toast with a leer.
She smiled at him and said something in Japanese in her low sultry voice.
He shook his head ruefully, wishing for a moment that he had bothered to learn a few words or at least bring a translation dictionary or something.
“Sorry babe, no comprede Japanese.”
A frown flickered across her face, she took a long sip of sake and leaned back into the booth as the candle flame flickered and danced.
“How disappointing. Did your parents teach you nothing of our culture then? Did they ever tell you any of our traditional stories?” There was a subtle tone in her voice, more edgy than simple teasing yet not quite open mockery. She stared at him with a arched eyebrow staring at him boldly.
“No, my parents, well hell, their grandparents really, decided to assimilate completely into American life. We ate hotdogs not sushi growing up. Nobody ever spoke of being anything but American that I can remember. It is like, this place, Japan was a forbidden subject.” He told her with a shrug.
“Yet here you are, Anchin. Tell me, doesn’t the forbidden frighten you?” She asked him as she leaned forward and traced a long pale finger softly down his cheek.
He shuddered a little.
“Hell no baby, truth be told the forbidden has always turned me on.” He reached out to touch her but she leaned back into the booth to stare at him.
“Strange that your parents shunned all things of their own culture yet named you Anchin, don’t you think?’ She asked him in the same slightly mocking tone.
It was strange he supposed, now that she had made him think about it. He had two siblings and their names were as American as apple pie, Mary and John. It had never occurred to him before that he had the only Japanese name in his family. He gulped down his sake and held out his cup for more.
She filled it and then filled her own in silence, regarding him with those big beautiful dark eyes.
“Yeah, I suppose it is strange but so the hell what? Look, why don’t we get out of here? Lets go back to my hotel and get better acquainted.” He gave her his best bad boy grin.
Without warning she lunged across the table, grabbed him by the lapels of his expensive tailored suit and kissed him hard on the mouth.
So hard that he tasted blood in his mouth.
Just as suddenly she was back on her side of the table again with her own wicked smile on her face. She licked her lips slowly and sighed heavily.
“Damn girl! Wow, so you like to play rough eh? Hell, I can get down with that.” He told her rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand.
In the front room a drum began to beat followed by a low droning chant of some kind.
“I had to be sure, I had to taste you to be sure. It has been so long since any of your blood have dared to come here that I thought it just couldn’t be true.” She purred at him.
“Don’t know what the hell you are talking about lady, how about I call us a cab and we take the fun and game back to my hotel?” He leered at her.
The candle flickered again and almost went out, in the near darkness he caught glimpses of strange twisting shapes writhing on the walls and ceiling.
“You don’t even know the story. I think that you should at least know that much. Such an ignorant waste you are, I can at least try to enlighten you slightly.” She told him pushing the bottle of sake out of the way on the table, leaving a clear space between them.
He started to protest but she moved quickly again and lay a soft warm finger against his lips and shook her head gently at him.
“Long ago there was a woman named Kiyomie, she was the most beautiful young girl in her village and being so she caught the eye of the callow son of a very rich merchant. That boy sought her out, wooed her and won her heart. They made love down by the banks of the river and swore vows to one another. Alas, once he had bedded her he lost interest in her and moved on to the next pretty girl on his list. He mocked her cruelly and broke her heart.” She told him staring him in the eyes.
Her voice tugged at long buried things in his mind and soul, the story she was telling sounded so familiar even though he knew that he had never heard it before.
“She lost her mind at the betrayal, she tore at her garments and her long silken hair. Wailing in torment she threw herself into the river that they had made love by imploring the spirits that dwelled there to make her into a Oni, a demon of revenge.” Her voice began to change as she told the story, sibilant hissing tones began to creep into it as she spoke.
On the walls and ceiling the shadows continued to writhe and her voice continued to stir feelings in him he couldn’t wrap his head around. What she was saying was beginning to seem more like a long buried memory than a story being told.
“She drowned in that river, Anchin, she died but she rose as a spirit demon of revenge and returned to her village hunting her faithless lover. He screamed in terror when he saw her coming and fled to a monastery pleading for protection. The three monks there took pity on him. They hid him under a giant bell.”
The drumming and chanting from the front room rose in volume and intensity and the air between them slowly filled with the fragrant smoke of incense.
“Her wrath was terrible to behold, she swept the three lying monks aside and for their lies she exacted the price of an eternity of servitude to her. They would live more or less forever, but every century or so they would need to feed on the heart of a descendant of the man who drove their mistress to such dire lengths.”
He tried to stand up but her hands shot out and slammed him back down into his seat again so hard that his teeth snapped together.
Once again he tasted blood in his mouth.
“She transformed then into a fire breathing dragon and let loose an outpouring of flame against the bell thrice as hot as her passion for his careless touch had been. He was roasted alive and died screaming. After the remains had cooled she forced the lying monks to eat them and thusly they were bound to her forever.”
The candle went out .
Anchin dropped to the floor and crab walked away from the booth cursing under his breath in terror as he scrambled away.
“The last feeding was a very long time ago, Anchin. We have all been waiting for you for a very long time.” She told him her cold voice echoing in the darkness.
“We are all quite hungry.” Her voice dwindled down to a disturbing hiss.
He crawled away through the darkness towards where he hoped a back door would be sobbing in terror. This had all gone to shit, the crazy bitch was fucking with his mind somehow. Things crawled over and around him in the darkness stinging his skin with their scaly touch. A scream lodged in his throat that he kept swallowing because he didn’t dare let it be heard.
A warm gush of piss down his leg underscored his terror as he crawled toward where he prayed an exit would be.
The three monks he passed earlier tonight came into the room chanting and carrying a large brass bell on a liter. Two of them carried the bell and one followed them beating a small drum.
“I have money! Call my father he has even more! We can work this out, please, oh god please I have money!” he begged them as they approached.
Part of him knew that it was futile.
His screams were muffled by the bell being placed over him.
The monks turned their backs on the bell and began chanting again.
The dragon shaped Oni roared once and then breathed a torrent of fire onto the bell surrounding it in a river of flame. The bell began to glow, red at first and then white hot.
Inside the bell Anchin began screaming again as he was broiled alive.
All three monks licked their lips in anticipation of the meal to come.
The End
[bctt tweet=”OCTOBER TERROR 2018 Short Story Award – Entry #27 ‘KIYOHIME’ by C.S Anderson – Enjoy all this terrific, disturbing material you have in your hands, lots of horror stories at your disposal for your dark delight and vote!” username=”theboldmom”]
On October 23rd we’ll close submissions and open a poll for the readers to choose their favourite one! You’ll have a week to make your choice and on October 31st we’ll announce the winner!!!
