Page 107 of The End of the World As We Know It

Well, all right, he thought as he pulled up in front of his parents’ house. He supposed some underneath-part of him had known he was coming here all along.

Approaching the house, he saw that he had left all the curtains drawn. Had he locked the front door, too? Yes, out of habit, but the key was still on his ring. He let the door swing open, but did not immediately step inside; he simply stood there, sampling the air, all his senses on alert.

Was there the faintest thread of decay, or was it his imagination?

He stepped into the small foyer and shut the door behind him. It felt like stepping into some parallel dimension, one he had never expected to visit again. The house was hot and silent.

The living room was straight ahead, furnished simply but comfortably, the tall built-in bookshelves the focus of the room. Beyond that, the kitchen lay in shadow. On his left, a hallway led to a bathroom, his old room, and his parents’ bedroom. The door of this last room was closed. If he were to walk to the end of the hall—not eventwenty steps!—and open that door, he would see his mother. Seth was suddenly afraid that his legs would take him there of their own accord, that he would be unable to stop his hand from turning the doorknob and—

Yes, there was a smell, one that pressed against the back of the throat and curled slyly into the nostrils. It was sour on top, but shot through with veins of sickly sweetness. It was not his imagination, not food going bad in the kitchen, not any damn thing but his mother lying in bed rotting. He swallowed hard and tried to slow his breathing. Why had he come here?

The book. He had to get the book and go. He shouldn’t be here; no one should be here. This was a house of the dead.

He went to one of the big bookshelves. After a minute of scanning spines, he saw the volume he wanted, a big hardcover with a red dust jacket.The Old Legends of Japan: A Compendium of Spirits, Monsters, and Yurei. He rememberedyurei, ghosts that weren’t exactly evil, but could be dangerous. For instance, if you left someone you loved to rot in bed because you were too much of a coward to bury them, they could return to the world as ayureiand haunt you. He took the book down and flipped through it.

A muffledthumpcame from the back of the house.

Before he was aware of moving, Seth found himself back at the door, the book tucked under his arm. He’d been spooking himself, but he hadn’t imagined thatthump. It could have been something precariously balanced, something that had been ready to fall over forever and his movements tipped it. It could have been an animal under the floorboards. It could have been a pair of stiffened feet hitting bedroom carpet as their owner sat up, eager to welcome home the prodigal son.

He couldn’t make himself look toward the hall, and if there was something in the corner of his vision, something impossibly thin that flattened itself against the wall as the stink of decay intensified—well, that didn’t mean he had to stand here and let it get him, did it? Hefumbled for the doorknob, had a bad moment when it wouldn’t turn, then realized he was twisting it the wrong way. He spilled out onto the porch, shoved the key into the lock. There. It was done. He was back in the world again. As he drove home, there was still a trace of that faint decay in his nostrils.

Mole slept, and Mole dreamed.

The man’s face seemed familiar, though Mole was sure he’d never seen it in waking life. There was some sort of cowl around his head, and his eyes shone redly in its darkness. His grin was gruesome, yet jaunty.

“It would be an easy trip to the mainland,” the dark man whispered. “I could make it easy for you.”

“I get seasick.”

“I could stop the sickness.OnlyI could stop it. If you don’t come with me, you’ll never get off this island.”

“Don’t want to get off this island.”

“Oh yes, I forgot.” The man’s grin grew mocking. “You have to stay here and take care of your sea slug.”

“She ain’t a slug. She’s as smart as you or me.”

“Then why do you keep her captive?”

Mole didn’t say anything. He tried to look away from the man’s awful grinning face, but found he could not.

“Come to me,” the man said again. “Leave that thing to rot. I could use a man like you, a fellow good with his hands.”

“Can’t.”

“There’s still plague on this island,” the dark man hissed. “You think you’re immune just because you haven’t gotten sick yet? You can still get sick.”

Mole felt his throat swelling, felt thick mucus rising in his lungs. He tried to take a breath and choked. Struggled for air. Flailed and woke with a panicky little cry, alone in his narrow bed. He had beenhaving variations of this dream for a few weeks now, and they left him afraid to go back to sleep.

On the far side of the room, the big aquarium bubbled.

Mole swung his feet over the side of the bed and crossed the room to the tank. He kept a chair here for nights like these, and he pulled it over now, sat and leaned his forehead against the cool glass. He let his fingertips dangle into the water. She fluttered, then extended a ruffle and twined it around his fingers. He closed his eyes. Gradually his breathing slowed, and he spent the rest of the night asleep there, with the mermaid holding his hand.

Seth slept, and Seth dreamed.

He had not wanted to take the book into his cottage, so he sat in the porch swing and paged through it. He soon found the picture he had half-remembered, a grotesque thing with a fish’s body, a human head, and masses of stringy black hair. The face was like a woman’s, but with a gaping mouth and a cross-eyed glare in the old Kabuki tradition. A pair of short, pointy horns jutted from the top of the head. The caption identified it as aningyo. The illustration creeped him out almost as much as the few minutes in his old house had done.

“Ningyois best translated as ‘human-fish,’?” he read. “Its appearance portends disaster; conversely, it may also provide good luck and even immortality. A mummifiedningyois displayed at a Shinto temple near Mount Fuji, said to be a fisherman who was changed into this form as punishment for entering forbidden waters. Wearing an amulet with its picture, or even eating its flesh, can protect against illnesses and epidemics.”