Project 137 by Seth Augenstein

Project 137 by Seth Augenstein

Author:Seth Augenstein [Augenstein, Seth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pandamoon Publishing
Published: 2019-05-07T16:00:00+00:00


THE STARES FROM UNSEEN EYES

Japan, 1946

As dawn broke over Shibayama on the third day, the three Americans again approached the Ishii house. But this time they walked with a fourth man—a tall thin doctor puffing a cigar. A rooster crowed off to their left, from behind the house, and they jumped.

“What a fucking country,” said the doctor, shaking his head, pulling at his collar. The ash tumbled off his cigar. “It’s like a dollhouse that just spreads on for miles.”

“A dollhouse filled with people who hate us,” Fell said. “Keep moving—I want to make sure we get to him as early as possible for the check up, Phil. Especially before the Russians get there.”

“Word is they’ll arrive before lunch,” Stanger said, nodding at the doctor.

Slawson lit a cigarette with trembling hands.

“No time to lose,” Slawson said, tilting his head down the street.

The other three men nodded, and they went shoulder to shoulder down the tiny thoroughfare. Fell strained to hear anything in the houses or the side streets of the village, but there was only silence. That’s the way it had been since the beginning of the Occupation, when the tall Americans in helmets and khakis began streaming down every street, poking into every doorway on every island. The Japanese hid in their homes, just waiting for it all to pass, like an illness. And wherever the Americans went, they could feel the glares, the stares from unseen eyes in the windows up above, from doorways and alleyways in smoldering cities from Hokkaido to Kyushu. Fell knew any of these small alert people could ambush him on a darkened street on the way back from the bars each night, like samurai materializing from the shadows.

At the door the four men lined up. Fell reached forward and knocked. A minute passed, and the door creaked inward slowly. Nothing more—no one appeared at the threshold. Fell went in first, followed by the other three. Broken shards littered the ground underfoot—pieces of ceramic and glass, the fragments of a telephone, with cord still attached. The fern lay shredded in a wide puddle of water. Slawson whistled, long and low.

“Must have been a hell of a party—” he said.

But as he turned around, his voice choked in his throat. Fell turned too, and his jaw dropped. Ishii’s wife stood behind the door. She looked away, only her profile visible. But Fell took a step forward, and gingerly tilted her chin upward. She did not resist him. Her right eye was encircled with a deep purple bruise, surrounded by a sunset of bloody contusions.

“Jesus, chief,” said Stanger.

The Americans closed in tight around her, but she cringed, and backed toward the wall. She was completely turned way from them, her slight shoulders shaking. She waved her hand in the direction of the bedroom. The Americans stared at each other. Then Fell led them in that direction, and the only sound was the clap of their heels on the wood floor.

Ishii still sat in the middle of his leafy bed like a croaking frog on a lily pad, smoking two cigarettes.



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