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The morning sun felt wonderful on Hinata’s face. It would be hot and humid later in the day, but for now it was lovely to walk along the highway. The soothing rhythm of cicada cries echoed across the surface of the cracked asphalt as Hinata’s dog Shiro dashed in and out of the tall grass beside the road.
Hinata was careful to keep her pace slow and steady. Her grandfather warned her to beware of exhaustion and dehydration, especially when hiking under the open sun. She wore a broad-brimmed hat to shade her face, and she stopped to rest every half hour. When her grandfather died, she’d buried him in the garden of their mountain cabin. She left everything behind except his watch, which she cleaned and maintained by firelight every evening.
Hinata had a knack for old technology, so she had no trouble repairing the VCR she found in the lobby of an old seaside inn. Having grown up in the mountains, she’d always wanted to see the ocean. Her grandfather warned her about the outside world, but she and Shiro couldn’t stay in the forest forever. The journey was worth it. The salty sparkle of the sea waves was beyond anything Hinata imagined, as was the savory sweetness of fresh fish. Having satisfied her curiosity, Hinata couldn’t help but wonder about the other thing her grandfather feared, something he called “the cursed tape.”
Hinata was certain that the unmarked VHS cassette she found next to the hotel’s television was the fabled videotape, but nothing happened when she watched it. There was no “phone call,” whatever that was. Eventually she grew bored and left the inn, which stank of rotting tatami. The magazines scattered in the guest rooms showed Hinata pictures of the skyscrapers in the cities on the plains far to the south, and she wanted to see them for herself.
A few days later, Hinata was sitting behind the wheel of an abandoned car and wondering how hard it would be to learn to drive when the navigator embedded in the dashboard suddenly flared with light. On the screen was the same grainy image of the stone well she saw in the video.
Hinata clapped her hands with delight when a girl with long black hair climbed out of the well onto the grass. She was thrilled to see another person after so long. She opened her mouth to greet the girl, but her words were silenced by the bloodless hand that reached through the glass and closed its clammy fingers around her throat.
Shiro remained with Hinata for a few days, whining softly as he nudged her cold skin with his snout. In the end he gave up and wandered off. The field beside the rusted car offered a rich array of enticing smells, and the open road promised adventure.
* * *
As far as Takuya could tell, there were no longer any people in Tokyo. What remained were cars, hundreds of thousands of them. Every morning, after he watered and weeded the garden he’d planted in the courtyard of his apartment building, Takuya set out on his Vespa with empty canisters and a hose to siphon gas. He’d marked all of the gas stations, garages, and parked cars on a detailed map of the ward that he freed from its glass display case outside the local police station. By his estimation, it would take more than a decade to empty the tanks in his neighborhood.
Takuya used the gas to fuel the generator that provided electricity to his gaming room, where his consoles were hooked up to the largest television that he could carry home with him. He was gradually building a library of games in the otherwise empty apartment next door. No one was going to make a new game anytime soon, but he had an extensive backlog to catch up on.
Takuya still remembered the moment when he first turned on the Game Boy his parents had given him for his tenth birthday. It was love at first sight. He couldn’t get enough of the pixelated cartoon characters and chirpy music. He saved his allowance and bought a Super Famicom, and his romance with video games continued. His friends shared his gaming hobby at first, but they eventually lost interest and teased him about going home after school instead of joining a sports club. It didn’t take long for the teasing to turn into bullying, but the teachers ignored it. Takuya celebrated his fifteenth birthday by swearing that he would never go to school again.
Takuya’s father found him a job at one of the ward’s co-op farms, where he worked from morning until noon. In the afternoon he picked up odd jobs from a contracting firm that flipped houses in the western suburbs. Takuya grew tall and lean and strong, but he never lost the fear that the men he worked with could turn on him at any moment. He didn’t so much as glance at a gaming magazine in a convenience store for years.
When the curse first began to spread, Takuya was all too happy to isolate himself. He’d moved out of his parents’ house years ago, and he had no close friends. What he had instead was a closet full of instant noodles and a Nintendo DS that he bought on a whim and never opened. The depopulation of Tokyo meant nothing to Takuya, who could grow his own food and generate his own electricity. And now, finally, he could play all the video games he wanted.
He was excited to try a game he liberated from the back room of a retro electronics store in Shinjuku. The words “secret demo” were written in permanent marker on the disc case. When Takuya launched the game, the realism of the opening animation was beyond anything he’d previously encountered. A woman combed her hair slowly. Letters squirmed across a newspaper page like ants. A man with a white shirt thrown over his head pointed silently at the sea.
Takuya was struck by the realization of what he was watching. He scrambled to his feet to shut off the power. Before he could reach the switch, a dialog box appeared on the screen: “Seven days.”
* * *
Daisuke lit a cigarette as he gazed at the Ferris wheel towering over Hirakata Park. He and his daughter Mio had ridden it on the day it opened. His wife told him Mio was too young, but he still remembered the bright sparkle of her laughter at being pulled gently into the sky. Afterwards he took Mio and her mother out to one of the new family restaurants by the station. The summer evening seemed to stretch on forever, and everything was perfect.
Ten years later, Mio wanted to go to the Universal Studios theme park that had just opened in Osaka. She didn’t ask for money, but he could see a guidebook annotated with bookmarks peeking out of her bag. He insisted that she take every bill in his wallet even though it wasn’t nearly as much as he wanted to give her.
Daisuke had lost his office job during the recession. He lost his wife as well, but he still loved her in his own quiet and distracted way. He worked as many jobs as he could handle in order to support his family, running from one shift to another before collapsing from exhaustion in a tiny apartment he could barely afford.
Daisuke took up smoking to help himself stay awake during the night shift at a food processing facility where he assembled convenience store bentos. He’d been too busy working to rent movies, and the cursed video completely passed him by. Ironically, three decades of smoking caught up with him easily enough. Daisuke’s entire body ached, and it hurt to breathe. He’d recently started coughing up blood, and he didn’t need a doctor to tell him he had cancer.
As he watched, the large television suspended above Hirakata Park’s deserted visitor pavilion flickered to life with an eerie glow. The static cleared to reveal the grainy image of a moss-covered stone well in a forest clearing. Daisuke heard it took seven days for the video’s curse to work, and here it was, right on schedule. The past seven days had been difficult, and Daisuke was relieved they were finally over. He stubbed out his cigarette and took his last labored breath as a pale hand emerged from the screen.
* * *
After opening the gate of the chicken enclosure, Fumie removed the door to the hatch. She’d already filled the small silo that dispensed feed, so the chickens would eat well for at least another month. With any luck, they would have the good sense to leave the coop and join the other birds wandering around the island, but Fumie wouldn’t force them out. All things would happen in their proper time.
Fumie turned her attention to the vegetable fields. She didn’t have the strength to tear down the fences, but she took the gates off their hinges. The wild boars that came down from the mountain forests would have no trouble taking care of the remainder of the wire mesh on their own. Fumie then unlatched the screen door of the distillery and lifted the sliding wooden doors of the main house from their cradles. Before leaving her house for the last time, she opened the attic windows. Nothing would please her more than for the island animals to find shelter in the handsome old building.
Fumie took a tray with a teapot and two cups and carefully made her way to one of her favorite places, a grassy hill shaded by leafy palms that overlooked the ocean. She settled on a weathered stone bench and removed her great-granddaughter’s smartphone from the pocket of her apron. While she waited, she watched the sun set over the waves.
When a hand emerged from the black glass, Fumie stood to help the girl climb out of the screen.
“Welcome to Okinawa, dear,” she said. “Thank you for coming to take me with you. I’m more than ready to go. Would you like some tea before we leave? You look like some time by the sea will do you good.”
The long-haired girl bowed her head and accepted the cup Fumie offered. They sat side by side as they looked out over the ocean.
“I was born in 1923, the year of the great earthquake,” Fumie told her. “You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen over the years…” A heaviness settled on Fumie’s shoulders, and she wrapped it around herself like a blanket. “We’ve had quite a run on this planet, haven’t we? I hope it will remember us well. It’s time to go, I know. Just give me a moment to rest…”
Fumie leaned against the girl’s shoulder as she quietly closed her eyes.
