The Complete Ring Trilogy: Ring, Spiral, Loop

“Oh, that? Well, there’s the scene with the baby boy right after that. So I originally thought it meant that Sadako had given birth to a boy, but according to this fax, that doesn’t appear to be the case.”

“There’s her brother who died at four months old …”

“Right. I think that’s it.”

“But what about the prediction? The old woman is definitely speaking to Sadako—she says you. Did Sadako have a baby?”

“I don’t know. If we believe the old lady, then I guess she did.”

“Whose child was it?”

“How should I know? Listen, don’t think I know everything. I’m just speculating here.”

If Sadako Yamamura did have a child, who was the father? And what was the child doing now?

Ryuji stood up suddenly, banging his knees on the table as a result.

“I thought I was getting hungry. Look—it’s way past noon. Say, Asakawa, I’m going to get something to eat.” So saying, Ryuji headed for the door, rubbing his kneecaps. Asakawa had no appetite, but something still bothered him, and he decided to tag along. He’d just remembered something Ryuji had told him to investigate, something he’d had no clue how to approach and so hadn’t done anything about. This was the question of the identity of the man in the video’s last scene. It might be Sadako’s father, Heihachiro Ikuma, but there was too much enmity in the way Sadako looked at him for that. When he’d seen the man’s face on the screen, Asakawa had felt a dull, heavy pain somewhere deep inside his body, accompanied by a strong feeling of antipathy. He was a rather handsome man, particularly around the eyes; he wondered why she hated him so. No matter what, that kind of gaze was not one Sadako would have turned on a relative. There was nothing in Yoshino’s report to suggest that she had squared off against her father. Rather, he got the impression that she was close to her parents. Asakawa suspected it would be impossible to discover the identity of this man. Nearly thirty years had undoubtedly changed his looks considerably. Still, just on the off-chance, maybe he should ask Yoshino to dig up a photo of Ikuma. He wondered what Ryuji would think about this. Wanting to take the matter up with him, Asakawa followed Ryuji outside.

The wind blew loudly. There was no point in using an umbrella. Asakawa and Ryuji hunched their shoulders and ran down the street to a bar in front of the harbor.

“How about a beer?” Without waiting for a reply, Ryuji turned to the waitress and called out, “Two beers.”

“Ryuji, to go back to our earlier conversation, what do you think the images on that video are, finally?”

“Don’t know.”

Ryuji was too busy eating his Korean barbecue lunch special to even look up, so he gave a curt answer. Asakawa stabbed a sausage with his fork and took a swallow of his beer. Out the window they could see the pier. There was nobody at the ticket window for the Tokai Kisen ferry line. Everything was silent. No doubt all the tourists trapped on the island were sitting at the windows of their hotels or B&Bs, looking worriedly at this same dark sea and sky.

Ryuji looked up. “I imagine you’ve probably heard what people say goes though a person’s mind at the moment of death, right?”

Asakawa returned his gaze to the scene in front of him. “The scenes from your life that have made the deepest impression on you are replayed, sort of like a flashback.” Asakawa had read a book in which the author described an experience along those lines. The author had been driving his car along a mountain road when he lost control of the steering wheel, plunging the car into a deep ravine. During the split second that the car hung in the air after leaving the road, the author realized that he was going to die. And at the instant he realized that, a sequence of different scenes from throughout his life came pitter-pattering up and flashed through his brain, so clearly that he could see every detail. In the end, miraculously, the writer had survived, but the memory of that instant remained vivid for him.

“You can’t be suggesting … Is that what this is?” Asakawa asked. Ryuji raised a hand and signaled the waitress to bring him another beer.

“All I’m saying is, that’s what the video reminds me of. Each one of those scenes represents a moment of extreme psychic or emotional engagement for Sadako. It’s not too much of a stretch to think that they were the scenes in her life that left the deepest impression, is it?”

“I get it. But hey, does that mean that …”

“Right. There’s a strong possibility that that’s the case.”

So Sadako Yamamura is no longer of this world? She died, and the scenes which flitted through her mind at the moment of death had taken this shape and remained in the world of the living—was that it?

“So why did she die? And another thing, what was her relationship with the man in the last scene of the video?”

“I told you to stop asking me so many questions. There’s a lot I don’t understand about it, either.”

Asakawa looked unconvinced.

“Hey, try using your head for a change. You rely too much on other people. What would you do if something happened to me and you were stuck trying to figure out the charm all by yourself?”

That hardly seemed likely. Asakawa might die, and Ryuji might solve the riddle alone, but the opposite would never happen. Asakawa was sure of that, if of nothing else.

They went back to the “bureau” where Hayatsu was waiting for them. “You had a call from a fellow named Yoshino. He wasn’t at his office, so he said he’d call back in ten minutes.”

Asakawa sat in front of the phone and prayed for good news. The phone rang. It was Yoshino.

“I’ve been trying to call you. Where were you?” There was a note of reproach in his voice.

“Sorry about that. We went out to get a bite to eat.”

“Okay. Now, did you get my fax?” Yoshino’s tone changed. The note of criticism disappeared, and his voice became gentler. Asakawa felt something unpleasant coming.

“Yes, thanks. It was very helpful.” Asakawa switched the receiver from his left hand to his right. “And, so? Did you find out what happened to Sadako after that?” Asakawa asked enthusiastically.

There was a pause before Yoshino replied, however. “No. I hit a dead end.”

The second he heard this, Asakawa’s face crumpled as if he were about to burst into sobs. Ryuji watched as if he found it amusing to see a man’s expression turn from hope to despair before his eyes. Then he plopped himself down on the floor facing the garden and stretched his legs out in front of him.

“What do you mean, a dead end?” Asakawa’s voice had risen several notes.

“I was only able to locate four of the interns who joined the troupe with Sadako. I called them, but none of them know anything. They’re all middle-aged guys of around fifty now. All any of them could tell me was they hadn’t seen her since shortly after the death of Shigemori, the company’s representative. There’s no more information to be had about Sadako Yamamura.”

“Nonsense. This can’t be the end of it.”

“Well, how does it look on your end?”

“How does it look on my end? I’ll tell you how it looks. It looks like I’m going to die tomorrow night at ten o’clock. And not just me—my wife and daughter are going to die on Sunday morning at eleven. That’s how it looks.”

Ryuji called out from behind him, “Hey, don’t forget about me! You’ll make me feel bad.”

Asakawa ignored him and continued. “There’ve got to be other things you can try. Maybe there’s someone besides the interns who would know what happened to Sadako. Listen, my family’s lives depend on it.”

“Not necessarily, though.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Maybe you’ll still be alive after the deadline passes.”

“You don’t believe me. I get it.” Asakawa could feel the whole world go dark before his eyes.

“Well … I mean, how could I really believe a hundred percent in a story like this?”

“Now, look, Yoshino.” How should he put it? What did he need to say to convince him? “I don’t even believe the half of it myself. It’s stupid. A charm? Come on! But you see, if there’s even a one-in-six chance that it’s all true … It’s like Russian roulette. You’ve got a gun with one bullet in it, and you know that there’s only one chance in six that when you pull the trigger it’ll kill you. But could you pull that trigger? Would you risk your family on those odds? No, you wouldn’t. You’d move the muzzle away from your temple—if you could you’d throw the whole damned gun into the ocean. Right? It’s only natural.”

Asakawa was all wound up now. Behind him Ryuji was wailing, “We’re idiots! Both of us, idiots!”

“Shut up!” Asakawa shielded the receiver with the palm of his hand as he turned to yell at Ryuji.