Plate
The story this time is a true story I heard from my friend J...
In a certain place, there's a famous deserted home where it is told that a whole family had been massacred. They say it was a family structure with a father and mother, then an eldest daughter and eldest son. It seemed that the son's heart became ill, and one late night he got a kitchen knife and took the knife to his sleeping family members...
That house became uninhabited, and as you'd expect there were no buyers so it naturally went to waste. Before anyone knew it, the house had become a famous spirit spot amongst local young men. When they'd pass in front of the house late at night, a light would shine on the second floor of the house where they assumed nobody to be, and something like the figure of a person would be peeking out from tattered curtains. Their phone would ring without having been used, and when they'd put their ear to the receiver they could hear screams and sounds from the time of the disaster. Such bizarre phenomena were whispered about as if they were true.
J was also a person who heard those rumours. One evening, at a company drinking party, he was telling the story of those rumours to his coworkers, saying that he'd try going there because it seemed interesting. So two men turned to the ruins at the base of the mountain...
J had called a friend who had gone there before, and got him to navigate as they progressed down the curves of a winding mountain road. The house where they thought 'That's it!' wasn't difficult to find, but honestly the two of them were let down.
He had imagined it as something like a haunted house, but although that house was surely old, the glass was fit perfectly in the windows without being broken and even the weeds in the yard had been cleanly trimmed. However, what betrayed their expectations more than anything else was what seemed to be the deed of a local gang: spray graffiti scattered around the outer wall of the house. Though they were discouraged by the gap between their mental image and the real thing, they were finally here. So first of all he put a hand on the doorknob to go inside then simply opened the door, and they turned on the flashlights they had brought.
The place was deserted though not particularly in disorder, and they walked inside with their shoes on to go up to the 2nd floor where they had looked first. The staircase to go up was just inside the door, but as expected nothing was strange on the second floor either, so after wandering aimlessly for a little while they descended back to the first floor, not having encountered a single thing from the rumours.
When the two of them went back to the entryway to leave, carrying a little bit of disappointment and relief, J's coworker stopped walking right in front of him.
"What's up?"
To J's question, that coworker said, "Oi, look. We'll bring this back as evidence that we came here today." Smirking, he shone his flashlight above the shoe rack in the entryway. When J looked where the light was pointing, it fell on a plate that was there as an ornament.
'Was this here when we came in...?' thought J, but since it was an ordinary decorative plate that could be anywhere, he gave his approval. "Isn't this fine? Well, tomorrow we'll bring it to the company."
And the two of them left the house.
The next day J attended work as usual, but his coworker who had taken the plate yesterday didn't come. Thinking it suspicious, he was about to call that person's house but right at that moment the door opened before his eyes. His coworker came into view, his face excessively pale, so J sensed that something was up without even greeting him. He waited until lunch break and asked about the situation.
"To tell the truth... When I woke up this morning, the plate wasn't on the kitchen table where I thought I'd put it. I searched all kinds of places but it still wasn't there... I thought 'Maybe...' and asked my mother if she knew about it, and she said that early in the morning, a woman she didn't know came to take it..."
Not wholly understanding the meaning of the story, J questioned him further. "What do you mean? Your mother just let her take it without trouble?"
"I said that too... Then, she said that the woman said, "I've come to take back the plate that I lent your son yesterday.""
"Eh?! She said that..."
J told me that the two of them stared at each other then, wrapped in an unfamiliar fear, and silently returned to work...
In a certain place, there's a famous deserted home where it is told that a whole family had been massacred. They say it was a family structure with a father and mother, then an eldest daughter and eldest son. It seemed that the son's heart became ill, and one late night he got a kitchen knife and took the knife to his sleeping family members...
That house became uninhabited, and as you'd expect there were no buyers so it naturally went to waste. Before anyone knew it, the house had become a famous spirit spot amongst local young men. When they'd pass in front of the house late at night, a light would shine on the second floor of the house where they assumed nobody to be, and something like the figure of a person would be peeking out from tattered curtains. Their phone would ring without having been used, and when they'd put their ear to the receiver they could hear screams and sounds from the time of the disaster. Such bizarre phenomena were whispered about as if they were true.
J was also a person who heard those rumours. One evening, at a company drinking party, he was telling the story of those rumours to his coworkers, saying that he'd try going there because it seemed interesting. So two men turned to the ruins at the base of the mountain...
J had called a friend who had gone there before, and got him to navigate as they progressed down the curves of a winding mountain road. The house where they thought 'That's it!' wasn't difficult to find, but honestly the two of them were let down.
He had imagined it as something like a haunted house, but although that house was surely old, the glass was fit perfectly in the windows without being broken and even the weeds in the yard had been cleanly trimmed. However, what betrayed their expectations more than anything else was what seemed to be the deed of a local gang: spray graffiti scattered around the outer wall of the house. Though they were discouraged by the gap between their mental image and the real thing, they were finally here. So first of all he put a hand on the doorknob to go inside then simply opened the door, and they turned on the flashlights they had brought.
The place was deserted though not particularly in disorder, and they walked inside with their shoes on to go up to the 2nd floor where they had looked first. The staircase to go up was just inside the door, but as expected nothing was strange on the second floor either, so after wandering aimlessly for a little while they descended back to the first floor, not having encountered a single thing from the rumours.
When the two of them went back to the entryway to leave, carrying a little bit of disappointment and relief, J's coworker stopped walking right in front of him.
"What's up?"
To J's question, that coworker said, "Oi, look. We'll bring this back as evidence that we came here today." Smirking, he shone his flashlight above the shoe rack in the entryway. When J looked where the light was pointing, it fell on a plate that was there as an ornament.
'Was this here when we came in...?' thought J, but since it was an ordinary decorative plate that could be anywhere, he gave his approval. "Isn't this fine? Well, tomorrow we'll bring it to the company."
And the two of them left the house.
The next day J attended work as usual, but his coworker who had taken the plate yesterday didn't come. Thinking it suspicious, he was about to call that person's house but right at that moment the door opened before his eyes. His coworker came into view, his face excessively pale, so J sensed that something was up without even greeting him. He waited until lunch break and asked about the situation.
"To tell the truth... When I woke up this morning, the plate wasn't on the kitchen table where I thought I'd put it. I searched all kinds of places but it still wasn't there... I thought 'Maybe...' and asked my mother if she knew about it, and she said that early in the morning, a woman she didn't know came to take it..."
Not wholly understanding the meaning of the story, J questioned him further. "What do you mean? Your mother just let her take it without trouble?"
"I said that too... Then, she said that the woman said, "I've come to take back the plate that I lent your son yesterday.""
"Eh?! She said that..."
J told me that the two of them stared at each other then, wrapped in an unfamiliar fear, and silently returned to work...