Meeting a Survivor
Even as a noise like a thunderclap rang through my ears, I kept my focus and ran.
Though several of its prey had already emerged from their hiding places, the sound of lockers being kicked apart never changed direction — it came straight for me.
Dodging the approaching ghost without being spotted and escaping toward the front door was nearly impossible. From inside a maze I had to thrash my way through, avoiding a monster racing across the tops of the lockers overhead was a tall order. Surviving our last encounter had been pure luck, and there was no guarantee that kind of fortune would strike twice.
I had to face it and live. If I could manage even to slow my feet, that alone might give me a chance of getting out.
I had already, while running, tied one of the school uniform shirts I'd looted around my wrist. From the last time I'd been chased, I'd confirmed one thing: when the ghost lunged for its prey, it struggled with fine speed control. Probably because it moved too fast.
I pushed as far toward the front of the classroom as I could, and from the sound closing in on me I knew I had to prepare to meet it. I stopped mid-stride, spun around, and checked the handle of a small locker roughly level with my head. With hands that kept slipping from cold sweat, I shoved the free end of the shirt through the locker handle and started tying it off.
My hands moved fast, but nerves made me fumble, and by the time I finally finished the job, a hunting screech rose from the top of a locker barely a few steps behind me. The instant I heard it, I threw myself sideways without even looking — almost on pure reflex.
At the same moment came the sound of the ghost cutting through empty air.
Unlike before, everything didn't seem to move in slow motion, yet every detail of what was happening was crystal clear. As I fell and twisted to look back, a hideous ghost with a warped face shot past the tip of my nose at a speed beyond imagination. Its face whipped by, and the legs that followed stretched toward me as if to snatch me up — but my body was already falling, and they caught only empty air.
The shirt stretched taut with the weight of my falling body. The locker door it was tied to swung open with a bone-chilling screech of metal. Into the open locker vanished that grotesquely contorted face, still turned toward me as if it had no idea what was happening.
And in the next instant — a thunderous crash.
—BANG!
Only then did the strange trance seem to lift, and my field of vision narrowed again. The ghost, unable to master its own momentum, had driven itself straight into the small locker. Its upper body had disappeared inside, but its massively swollen lower half jutted out of the opening as if stamped into the frame. Of its many legs, those attached farther back on the lower body still looked relatively intact, but several nearer the torso were bent the wrong way against the locker's mouth — a pitiful sight. Looking at it like this… it almost resembled a giant spider.
Every time I'd opened those small lockers to loot them, they'd been packed with random junk like prize boxes. What had been in this one?
As if to answer, a liquid and a rotten stench began seeping from the locker where the ghost's upper body was jammed. Honestly, I'd had a hunch from the moment I grabbed the handle and tied the shirt. It was the locker whose number matched the one that kid had been pulling spoiled milk from all through break — the same reek.
I didn't hesitate. I untied the knot from my wrist at once, slipped past the spider-ghost, and ran through the maze. Behind me, growing steadily more distant, came wet gurgling and the frantic thrashing of the ghost trying to free itself — but it didn't seem able to get out easily.
Running full tilt should have closed the distance, but the maze's winding paths forced me to cut angles, stop, leap sideways, even double back at times. Covering even a short stretch drained me severely.
Rounding a corner dominated by a large locker, a student suddenly burst into view. I veered sideways to avoid the figure blocking my path — but the student, trying to dodge me as well, shifted the same way and ended up cutting me off by accident. Without panicking at the blocked route, I planted my forward foot hard into the ground. Using the planted foot as a pivot, I spun half a turn and slipped past the student by a hair's breadth. The instant my whirling vision settled, I was already behind them. I brought my trailing leg forward and started running again.
"What the hell are you—"
I left the startled shout behind me and kept going. My breathing had grown ragged, as if protesting the violent movement, but I only pushed my speed higher, as if it were nothing. Occasional curses and shouts clung to my back like a startled face given voice — until they soon turned into a terrible scream.
The ghost must have gotten free.
Over the towering locker walls of the maze, not far ahead, I could see the upper portion of the classroom's front door. Using the front of the classroom as a landmark and picking my path by the scraps of school uniform visible through the gaps, I pressed on — and another student appeared.
"—"
The face of the girl who cried out in shock looked familiar. The survivor I'd been looking for.
At the same moment, from somewhere I couldn't place, the ghost shrieked and lunged from behind her.
"Get down!"
I screamed it like I was tearing my throat out and sprinted forward. The girl, with no idea what was happening, startled at my shout — and instead of dropping flat, her legs gave out and she crumpled to a sit. There was still a little distance between us. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't have made it. But the ghost's movements had slowed, probably from what I'd just done to it. Still fast — yet more cautious now. I saw a chance and stretched out my hand in desperation.
My arm, extended to its absolute limit, screamed as if the muscle were tearing — but it let me get a hand on the side of the girl's face. I wrenched every scrap of strength I had and shifted her just slightly. Through the finger's-width gap that tiny nod of her head created, a hammer-like ghost leg ripped through the air.
—Fweet.
The sound trailing the black leg was like a scream for the life it had just failed to take. I'd saved the girl — but the hand I'd used to shove her grazed the ghost's leg, and the skin tore open. Through the searing pain I twisted my body diagonally upward, watching blood droplets bloom in the air. Death missed me by a handful of space.
In less than a single breath, death had brushed past us, and the girl and I tumbled sideways in a tangle onto the cold floor. Farther off, the ghost, unable to check its speed, scraped madly at the ground with its many legs, trying to right itself — but the marble floor was too slick, and its thrashing only left more useless gouges. Without a second to rest I was already on my feet, grabbing the still-dazed girl's hand and hauling her up.
Even with my breath clawing at the back of my throat, I forced my mind to work so we could keep living. The maze. In the end, the maze was the problem. It stacked obstacles layer upon layer over a distance of barely ten paces and forced you to wind around them, eating far too much time.
I scanned the lockers and desks that formed the walls, and not far off I spotted a heap of desks and chairs tangled together like a spiderweb. The pile rose almost as high as the maze's partitions — high enough, if we were lucky, to climb.
I watched the ghost's movements, still struggling to find its balance, tried to gauge the time, then gave up. I pulled the girl toward the strangely stacked tower of desks and chairs and started climbing. Every creak of a chair leg under my grip made my heart drop, and cold sweat poured down my back like a waterfall.
"Only step where I grab and where I step!"
I wasn't sure she'd heard me, but she seemed to be following well enough. The sweat on my hands was sticky. Even in the urgency I had to pull and test every hold before moving on, and the anxiety swelled inside me like a balloon about to burst.
Fortunately, it wasn't long before we reached the top of the maze wall. Clinging to chair legs, desk drawers, bag hooks — anything my fingers could hook — I hauled myself up, rubbing my body against the pile, until my filthy hands groped across the top of a locker. Feeling a crack, I jammed my knuckles into it and heaved myself up with everything I had.
The top of the lockers was caked in sticky fluid and dust, but I rolled onto it without caring and lay flat on the maze wall. Strength seemed to drain from my entire body, yet I leaned over the chair pile I'd climbed and looked down. My eyes met those of the girl who had climbed right up to me — and beyond her, the ghost on the ground.
Blood-red eyes full of hatred glittered as they locked onto me. The ghost coughed out a sharp laugh and coiled its legs.
"Kihihit."
Ah, damn it. The moment the future its movements promised flashed through my mind, a desperate shout tore from my mouth.
"Jump!"