The Complete Ring Trilogy: Ring, Spiral, Loop. Koji Suzuki

them face to face and gauging their reactions, but he simply didn’t have that kind of time. It was tough to spot a lie just from a voice on a telephone. Asakawa pricked up his ears, determined to catch the slightest crack. There were sixteen parties he needed to check out. The low number was due to the fact that the cabins hadn’t been equipped with individual video decks when Villa Log Cabin opened in April. A major regional hotel was torn down over the summer, and it was decided to transfer the large number of VCRs it no longer needed to Villa Log Cabin. That was in mid-July. The decks had been installed and the tape library assembled by the end of that month, just in time for the summer vacation season. As a result, the brochure didn’t mention that each room had its own video equipment. Most guests had been surprised to see the VCR when they arrived, and thought of it as nothing more than a way to kill time on a rainy day; almost nobody had expressly brought a tape for the purpose of recording something. Of course, that was if he believed the voices on the phone. So who had brought the tape in question? Who had made it? Asakawa was desperate not to overlook anything. He chipped away at people’s responses time and again, but not once did anybody seem like they were hiding something. Of the sixteen guests he called, three had come to play golf and hadn’t even noticed the VCR. Seven had noticed it but hadn’t touched it. Five had come to play tennis but had been rained out, and with nothing else to do had watched videos: classic films, mostly. Probably old favorites. The last group, a family of four named Kaneko, from Yokohama, had brought a tape so they could record something on another channel while watching a historical miniseries.

      Asakawa put down the receiver and cast an eye over the data he had collected concerning the sixteen groups of guests. Only one looked pertinent. Mr and Mrs Kaneko and their two grade-school-aged kids. They’d stayed in B-4 twice last summer. The first time had been the night of Friday, August 10th, and the second time they had stayed two nights, Saturday and Sunday, August 25th and 26th. The second time was three days before the four victims had been there. Nobody had stayed there on the Monday or Tuesday following the Kanekos’ stay: the four teenagers were the very next people to use the cabin. Not only that, the Kanekos’ sixth-grade son had brought a tape from home to record a show. The boy was a faithful fan of a certain comedy series broadcast every Sunday at eight, but his parents, of course, controlled the TV, and every Sunday at eight they made a habit of watching the annual historical miniseries on NHK, the public television network. There was only one television in the cabin, but knowing it had a VCR, the boy had brought a tape, thinking to record his show and watch it later. But while he was recording, a friend came over to tell him that the rain had let up. He and his younger sister ran off to play tennis. His parents finished their program and turned off the television, forgetting that the VCR was still recording. The children ran around on the courts until almost ten, then came home all tuckered out and went straight to bed. They, too, had completely forgotten about the tape. The next day, when they were almost home, the kid suddenly remembered he’d left the tape in the VCR and shouted to his father, who was driving, to go back. This turned into quite an argument, but eventually the boy gave up. He was still whimpering when they got home.

      Asakawa took out the videotape and stood it on his desk. Where the label would have been stuck the words Fujitex VHS T120 Super AV glinted in silver. Asakawa redialed the Kanekos’ number.

      “Hi, sorry to keep calling you like this. It’s Asakawa again, from the Daily News.”

      There was a pause, then the same voice he had spoken to before said, “Yes?” It was Mrs Kaneko.

      “You mentioned that your son left behind a videotape. Do you happen to know what brand it was?”

      “Well, now, let me see,” she replied, trying not to laugh. He heard noises in the background. “My son’s just got home. I’ll ask him.”

      Asakawa waited. There was no way the kid’d remember.

      “He says he doesn’t know. But we only use cheap brands, the kind you buy in packs of three.”

      He wasn’t surprised. Who really paid attention to what brand of tape they used every time they wanted to record something? Then Asakawa had an idea. Hold on, where’s the case for this tape? Videotapes are always sold in cardboard cases. Nobody just throws them away. At least, Asakawa himself had never thrown away a tape case, neither for an audio cassette or a video tape.

      “Does your family store your videotapes in their cases?”

      “Yes, of course.”

      “Look, I’m very sorry, but could you please check to see if you have an empty case lying around?”

      “Huh?” she asked vacantly. Even if she understood his question, she couldn’t guess what he was getting at, and it made her slow on the uptake.

      “Please. Someone’s life may depend on it.” Housewives were susceptible to the “matter of life and death” ploy. Whenever he needed to save time and get one moving, he found that the phrase had just the right impact. But this time, he wasn’t lying.

      “Just a moment, please.”

      Just as he’d expected, her tone changed. There was quite a long pause after she set down the receiver. If the case had been left at Villa Log Cabin along with the tape, then it must have been thrown away by the manager. But if not, then there was a good chance the Kanekos still had it. The voice returned.

      “An empty case, right?”

      “That’s right.”

      “I found two.”

      “Alright. Now, the manufacturer’s name and the type of tape should be printed on the case …”

      “Let’s see. One says Panavision T120. The other is a … Fujitex VHS T120 Super AV.”

      The exact same name as on the videotape he held in his hand. Since Fujitex had sold countless numbers of these tapes, this was hardly definitive proof, but at least he’d taken a step forward. That much was certain. This demon tape had originally been brought there by a sixth-grade boy, it was probably safe to conclude. Asakawa thanked the woman politely and hung up the phone.

      Starting at eight o’clock on the night of Sunday, August 26th, the video deck in cabin B-4 is left recording. The Kaneko family forgets the tape and goes home. Then come the four young people in question. It’s rainy that day, too. Thinking to watch a movie, they go to use the video deck, only to find a tape already inside. Innocently they watch it. They see incomprehensible, eerie things. Then, the threat at the end. Cursing the evil weather, they think up a cruel bit of mischief. Erasing the section that tells how to escape certain death, they leave the video there to frighten the next guests. Of course, they hadn’t believed what they’d seen. If they had, they wouldn’t have been able to carry out their prank. He wondered if they remembered the tape at the moment of their deaths. Maybe there hadn’t been any time for that before the angel of death carried them off. Asakawa shivered—it wasn’t just them. Unless he could find a way to avoid dying in five days, he’d end up just like them. Then he’d know exactly how they felt when they died.

      But if the boy had been recording a TV show, then where had those images come from? All along Asakawa had thought that someone had shot them with a video camera and then brought the tape there. But the tape had been set to record from the television, meaning that somehow these incredible scenes had infiltrated the airwaves. He would never have dreamed it.

      The airwaves had been hijacked.

      Asakawa recalled what had happened last year at election time, when, after NHK had signed off for the night, an illicit broadcast had appeared on the same channel, slandering one of the candidates.

      The airwaves had been hijacked. That was the only thing that fit. He was faced with the possibility that on the evening of August 26th, these images had been riding the airwaves in the South Hakone region, and that this tape had picked them up, purely by chance. If that was true, then there must be a record of it. Asakawa realized he needed to contact the local bureau and find out some facts.

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