Free The Graveyard Apartment by Mariko Koike

was just a temporary glitch,” Teppei interrupted. “Shall we try turning it on again, as a test?” Sure enough, when he pointed the remote control at the TV set and hit the on button, there was no sign of the shadow. “There, you see?” he said triumphantly. “Vanished without a trace.”
    Tamao was stroking Cookie’s head, but her eyes were glued to the TV screen. “It went away,” she observed.
    â€œThat’s right,” Misao said. “It’s gone.” Feeling relieved, she went over to where her daughter was standing and took Tamao’s two small hands in her own.
    â€œListen, sweetie,” she said quietly. “Could you please tell me exactly what Pyoko was saying to you?”
    â€œIt was about all the, um, people,” Tamao said. “He just said there were lots and lots of people with no faces, and shadowy bodies. They live in a dark place, and there are bad monsters watching over them, or something.”
    â€œI see. And?”
    â€œThat’s all.”
    â€œAnd those shadowy people, or whatever they are—do you think they look like the dark shape that we saw on the TV screen just now?”
    â€œUh-huh. Just like that.”
    â€œHow can you be sure they look like that? Have you ever seen them?”
    â€œNo, not really, but…”
    â€œBut what? Somehow, I’m getting the feeling you have seen them.”
    â€œHey, that’s enough,” Teppei interjected. “It’s clearly something from Tamao’s dream world, so there’s no point in cross-examining her. Would you please just drop it?”
    â€œBut—” Misao protested.
    â€œYou know, I actually had a similar experience myself, when I was five or six,” Teppei said reflectively, lighting up a cigarette. “I was absolutely convinced that there were monsters living in the ceiling. I’m not kidding.”
    â€œWhat kind of monsters were they?” Tamao asked.
    â€œThe soft, mushy, icky kind, like amoebas,” Teppei replied.
    â€œUh-mee-ba? What’s that?” Tamao cocked her head.
    â€œAn amoeba is a kind of living organism that looks a little bit like a drop of pancake syrup. It doesn’t have arms, or legs, or a face.” Teppei held up his index finger, as if asking for everyone’s full attention. “This is how it was,” he said with mock solemnity, looking first at Tamao, then Misao. “At night, I used to imagine that while I was sleeping that mushy monster would slowly spread over the ceiling like a giant puddle, and then it would creep down and tickle my face. Here’s the thing. In the old days, ceilings were very thin and flimsy, and you could see the grain of the wooden beams through them. So if you stared at the ceiling for long enough, those patterns alone would be enough to give you the willies. Right? For me, it was very easy to imagine that a hideous, grimy blob of a monster might come oozing out of the ceiling. It was such a disturbing thought that every night I had to burrow under the futon, with the quilt covering my head, before I could fall asleep. I tried talking to my mother about the ceiling monsters, but of course she just laughed. I was scared of plenty of other things when I was little, too. For instance, hangers!”
    â€œHangers?” Tamao sounded puzzled.
    â€œYes, you know: the long clothes hangers they use for kimonos. There are different kinds, but the ones at my house were bamboo poles, about as long as your arm, with a hook at the top. Anyway, when I used to get up during the night and see one of those hangers in a corner of the hallway, it would frighten me half to death. See, I believed the hangers could move on their own. And I was convinced that very late at night they would get down off the wall and chase after children like me, trying to hit them on the head!”
    â€œYou’ve got to be kidding,” Misao said with a chuckle.
    â€œNo,