only the truly lost wash up on the shore of Yaizu

a fish town in a forgotten part of Japan

faded posters of its 1960s glory days still littering the streets

but that’s where I was

April 2013

I took a walk to the sea

hoping for a beach to spend some time after work

but all that was there was a black water port and a tsunami wall that snaked around it

the Pacific waiting to devour

my flat was behind the destruction line

when the town was flooded I’d be safe

so said the extra 100 quid a month I was told to pay

safe and lost

29 years old

alone

listening to the hum of an air conditioner to drown the silence

I thought I wouldn’t last a month

it was over six years before I made the long journey back home.

​

(An extract from my memoir Fish Town by John Gerard Fagan)

The lamp was flickering, glowing patches of the dark room. Strange shadows appeared from the sway of the curtain and vanished. He reached and felt for his watch on the floor.

      01:04.

      Must have fallen asleep. He stared at the green crystal numerals until they changed again and another minute was lost forever. The last thing he remembered it was 19:23 and he was going to heat what was left of the miso ramen in the microwave at exactly 19:30. Just planned to lie down for those seven minutes. Bones ached, eyes gluey with sleep and the taste of blood in the back of his mouth. Hoped he still had cold water left in the fridge.

      The futon squelched when he pressed a hand into it. Sweat running from his forehead nipped the left eye. He wiped the beads with a damp arm and blinked several times. Something wasn't right. Within five heartbeats he realised the air con was off. He sprang off the bed and tapped the sides; it whirred, blowing one last warm breath, and died once more. A fat cockroach scurried out of the yellowed plastic cover and disappeared into a pile of dirty clothes.

      He unplugged the machine, re-connected and switched it back on again. Tapped the sides and still nothing happened. Turned it off, held his breath and turned it on once more. Thumped it with a fist.

      "Come on."

      Beads of sweat were running down the arc of his back, pooling into his underwear. The old electric fan had broken the week before, and there was no money for a new one. No money for a new anything. There wasn't any place left that sold fans in any case. Hair soaking and smelled like a floor towel that hadn't dried. He pulled back the curtain, threw open the window and stuck his head out. Warm air. No wind. He gazed at the moon and the few visable stars. Crickets droned somewhere out in the darkeness. Another perfect night in Yaizu; exactly how he pictured his Saturday nights at 29 to be like.

      Jun ran a bath and slumped into the lukewarm water. He felt slightly colder, but not by much. He guzzled every drop out of a can from the last pack of out-of-date CC Lemon and threw it beside the others in the corner. Would clear that mess soon. Took a breath and could taste the heat; the summer humidity was unbearable, especially at night. No wonder the fish town's population had dwindled. Should have headed north, right up to Hokkaido, when he had the chance. Too late for pointless regret.

      He scrubbed long strands of hair with the last of the body soap, pinched his nose and dunked three times. He pushed the hair from his forehead and stared into the mirror. Red eyes. Blotchy skin. Pink ribbon scars across his chest. Another patch of white nestled in his receding hairline. Look like shit and felt that way too.

      He climbed out of the bath and wrapped an already damp towel around his waist. His insides were dying, especially his mind. He wished he was numb to the misery of what life had become. The world may as well have been empty of other people as he couldn't even remember the last decent conversation he had; maybe last winter he exchanged a few pleasant words at the supermarket, but wasn't sure if that was from a dream. He had read once that in order to control lucid dreams, he had to write down the dream as soon as he awoke and before long it would happen. But all that caused was a slight distortion in his ability to distinguish dreams from reality, with no control in either. And even his recent dreams took him no further than Yaizu.

      He stood in silence. The dream of a decent life had burned away. The ashes had fallen from his eyes more years ago than he cared to remember.

      Jun wandered, slumping into the kitchen. After a few wipes from the towel it was mostly sweat he was drying. Lines ran down the side of his head and over his cheeks. He thought he could somehow get used to the loneliness, that swamp of misery that flowed deeper with every heartbeat, but he hadn't in the last five years and there was nowhere else to go. It would get better; had to. The world he remembered felt so far away.

      He drank stale water from the tap. Dishes congealing in the sink. Clothes all over the floor. Would clean later. Too tired.

      He sat on the bedroom floor and picked a worn paperback from a pile. Robinson Crusoe; read a thousand times. He tossed it aside and fished out another. The Magic Mountain. He sighed and opened it a few pages in. After reading the same paragraph for the forth, maybe fifth time, he threw it into the corner and rubbed his eyes. He reached to turn on the TV, and after a few seconds the screen glowed. A vintage game show with two men in yellow suits dancing; full of fake laughter. Flicked. That old Tokyo drama again showing an angry man standing over a crying woman. Seen it a hundred times. Flicked. Static. Flicked again. Another station of static. Flicked back to the game show channel, but it too was static. He sighed and threw the remote control against the wall. The batteries flew out. After three heartbeats, as he turned to collect them, the TV picture blinked and the static cleared. A shaky camera revealled a black and white view of a fishing port. Dying fish flapped beside a long rod. Jun moved closer towards the TV. He recognised that port and that water.

      It was his current town. It was Yaizu.

      The camera focused on a wild-looking fisherman who seemed to be shouting. Couldn't hear what he was saying. Turned up the volume but that didn't make a difference. A silent documentary it seemed, and it looked to have been made over a hundred years ago. The camera moved to show a tall ship anchored in the water - it had Miyako 44 painted on the side. Men dressed in bolier suits waved from the ship deck before disappearing. The picture went fuzzy and the fisherman appeared again. He didn't speak - just stared into the camera. A whisper of a smile on his face. The camera zoomed to a small boat, hovering over dark water. Day changed into night in a choppy few seconds. The only light was shining out from a lantern, hanging above a loudspeaker in the middle of the boat. Nothing seeemed to be happening - just the boat swaying over a ripple of waves.

      Jun struggled to keep his eyes open. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with a damp towel. Felt sleep drag him into the dark. Blinks became longer. A glance to the watchface said 01:48. Would nap until 02:00 then eat the rest of that miso ramen - it would be no good tomorrow as it was already on the turn. Thoughts drifted to if he turned off the water in the bath or not. Must have but wasn't sure. Might not have pulled out the plug - needed to check that before sleeping. Couldn't hear any dripping - would check that at 02:00. The cooker was off though; that was a certainty.

      He closed his eyes and pulled the thin bedsheet to his chin.

                                                                    *

Jun awoke to the feeling of knives being stabbed into his eardrums. Saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth. Could hardly breathe. He pressed fingers into both ears but that changed nothing. A sound vibrated around the inside of his skull - it was pain beyond anything he had experienced before.

      One-twothreefour. One-twothreefour. One-twothreefour. One-twothreefour...

      Four disturbing chimes that sounded like a kettle drum kept repeating over and over and over and over and... he rolled over, mouth wide open in a gaping silent scream, trying to figure out where the noise was coming from.

      The TV - it was the TV!     

      The fishing show was on again, and the loudspeaker was lit like an ominous sun. He dived over and ripped the plug out of the wall. Nothing happened. Nothing fucking happened. Just as he leaned back to sink a boot into the TV, the picture vanished and so did the chimes.

      He fell to his knees, bent over, gasping through sobs. His right ear was ringing and the left carried the echo. The watch displayed 03:51.

      03:52.

      03:53.

      He regained his breath and collapsed face first on the floor.

The noise outside was what woke me. It couldn't have been much after sunrise. Since I had lived in sleepy Motoyoyogi in Tokyo there was barely a whisper before eight on a Sunday. But this morning was mental. I checked my phone and it was 6:02. There was no reception, which was a first. I went out to the balcony and the noise was deafening. I saw people at the bus stop being chased and ripped to pieces. The attackers seemed to be eating them. 

In what turned out to be a disaster move, I screamed, "What the fuck are you doing?" and there was silence. All eyes turned towards my flat. The half-eaten people also rose from the ground and headed towards me. Hordes of bloodied people appeared from every direction, crawling over walls and from out the windows of the flats across the road.

I slammed the glass door over, pulled back the curtains and backed against the wall. I could hear screaming from the apartment below. Wee Su-chan crawled out from under the bed and started meawing. I shushed him and took a deep breath.

I pushed the table and couch against the glass, ripped the fridge out the wall and slammed it against the front door. Within minutes I heard them banging on the balcony door. 

"Fuck off! Fuck off!" I shouted. The glass shattered. I grabbed Su-chan, sprinted into in the bathroom and locked the door. I sat in the bath and tried to stay calm. Su-chan curled up in my lap and was already on his way back to sleep. I could hear whatever those things were tearing up the flat. I should have grabbed a knife. A bottle of shampoo was hardly going to be any use as a weapon. I clenched my fists and stared at the door.

It's been four hours and they haven't even touched the bathroom door, but I can hear them in the living room. I've almost opened the door to make a run for it twice. All I know so far is that people here have changed and are eating one another. And the dead fuckers are not staying dead. To use the zombie word seems unbelievable, but that's the perfect word for them. I don't know if this is happening in only Japan or the world over, but If I was back in the Scottish wilderness, I'd have a fighting chance - in Tokyo, I know the odds are almost zero.

With no food and no weapon, I'm as good as dead in this room. Before it gets dark, I'm going to channel my inner William Wallace and we're making a run for it. 

Dust particles danced in the light shining in from the window; it seemed like they had been floating there for all eternity. Neither falling or rising. Just being. He followed them with eyes that were determined to close stay closed every other second. Didn't let them. Couldn't. The consequences were too severe.

          A series of long blinks were interrupted by a woman's voice from outside the surgery. Wenton repositioned his hat and rubbed his temple. The old man in the white coat across the table was going to be asking some questions, and it was going to take a lot more energy than he currently had to answer them.

          Eyes took more long blinks. A line of sunlight on his arm. A yawn brought some life back. The room smelled of coffee. Eyes wandered. Last year's calendar pinned on the wall, still displaying November. The only desk littered with sheets of paper. The roar from a passing car reached towards the gap in the window but failed the distance and rained back down on the empty road. The doctor licked his thumb and flicked through a file. Cleared his throat and spat into a trash can. He took out a piece of brown card and slid the rest of the folder into a metal drawer that creaked when pushed back to its closed position.

          Wenton turned back to the window.

          "Do you ever think about the dusk, doc?" Wenton asked, fixated on their dance. "It don't even look like it's moving down any, but that can't be right. I reckon it should fall."

          "The what?"

          Wenton's trace broke and flooded his vision of the room. The doc's glare caught him and steadied into a clear image. The doc gave a stare that made it clear there was to be no more talking about dust.

          "Ah, it's nothing. Don't matter."

          "So, Wenton, you can't sleep, huh?" The doc asked, scratching his beard. Looked like some kind of hippy rather than a doctor. Not that Wenton didn't, but he was no doc.

          "No, sir. I reckon I could if I wanted to. I could fall asleep right here where I'm sitting if I wanted."

          The doc took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "You don't wanna sleep, son?"

          "No, sir, I do. I'd like nothing more than to jest lie down and close ma eyes. I'm jest afraid that if I ever go to sleep again, I ain't ever gonna wake up."

_______________________

This is the beginning of a mystery novel where people are vanishing from a small town, and withered scarecrows are turning up dressed in their clothes. Soon Wenton, an insomniac, is the only one left. He sets off to find his wife and answers, but there is no one around. Anywhere.