Squads of heavily armed Kempeitai combed through the bleak forests of southeastern Manchukuo unsure of what they were searching for in the grim hinterlands. On orders from General Ishii, the Imperial Japanese Army had been sending troops into the secluded weald surrounding Zhongma Fortress for the past week. Due to the size of the area being searched, the Shosho had decided to split up soldiers into squad-sized elements to cover more ground in less time. These patrols had risen in number and importance over the past several days with rumors that some units had not returned increasing tension among the men and stoking speculation of what dwelt in the wood. Upon interrogation, local villagers warned of something evil haunting the austere wilderness snatching peasants and cattle under cover of darkness whose execrable baying kept them awake at night. Regardless of the peasants’ caution, the patrols ran round the clock, twenty-four hours a day in three shifts. The Japanese found little proof of anything among the gnarled pine which was the most disturbing part. Neither animal nor any sign of their missing comrades was to be discovered either on the pale yellow ground or in the haggard trees. The stark wood was empty of any vestige of life save for the ominous, jagged scars carved into the trunks the patrols passed.

It was shortly past midnight as one squad clumsily picked their way through the dense foliage of a remote section of the dour forest. There were five men. Tanaka walked point armed with an Arisaka Type 38 bolt action rifle with bayonet fastened and flashing in the moonlight. Next was Yamamoto, the squad leader who constantly scanned his map and checked his compass to keep the team on course. Nakamura and Inoue paired up behind the sergeant; Nakamura lurching with the weight of the hefty three-cylinder pack on his back which fueled the flamethrower he wielded while Inoue, ever smiling, handled a Type 11 light machinegun with dangling bipod. The rear was covered by Yoshida, also armed with an Arisaka.

Tanaka was becoming agitated by the monotony of their mission, kicking at dirt and sticks and making much unnecessary noise to the irritation of his squad leader. “What are we doing out here?” Tanaka asked aloud.

“Quiet,” Yamamoto hissed. “Don’t give us away.”

“To who?” Tanaka waved his arm around. “There isn’t anyone out here.”

“That we know of,” Yamamoto retorted gruffly. “But that is no reason to abandon discipline of movement.”

Tanaka abruptly stopped marching and planted the butt of his rifle in the silty soil to crane his neck as if listening for something. “Do you hear that?”

The rest of the squad halted. Inoue lifted his head to listen as well. “I don’t hear anything.”

Tanaka turned to face Yamamoto. “See?”

Nakamura glanced around wearily. “This isn’t normal. It’s too quiet. Where are the crickets? The nightingales?”

“It’s the oni,” Yoshida whispered. “Surely we have stumbled into Yomi.”

Tanaka derisively shrugged off Yoshida’s words. “Oh, enough of that.”

Yoshida tightened his sweaty grip on his rifle, his eyes flicking left and right as he took a deep, ragged breath to steady himself. “There is something evil in this wood. It preys on all living things.”

“It can prey on this,” Tanaka declared, thrusting his hips lewdly. Inoue and Nakamura laughed at his puerile antics. Yamamoto frowned disapprovingly.

Yoshida shook his rifle at Tanaka. “Tempt the demons. You’ll see when they’re feasting on your entrails and dragging your soul with them into the darkness.”

“Stupid peasant,” Tanaka insultingly countered. “I don’t have time for your children’s tales. One more word and I’ll give you the spanking your parents should have.”

“That’s enough,” Yamamoto commanded. “We’re under orders to search the area. It doesn’t matter what we find. It only matters that we do our duty. So enough chatter. Especially you, Tanaka.” The sergeant got up in his disobedient subordinate’s face to make his point clear. “Understood?”

“Hai,” Tanaka reluctantly surrendered.

Yamamoto pointed forward. “Move out.”

Tanaka griped to himself, picking up his rifle and starting ahead again; the rest of the squad followed in tow. Nothing stirred in the boughs overhead save the spectral moon trailing after them watching their progress. Yoshida anxiously scanned the trees while bringing up the rear, afraid of what unseen forces were lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce on them. Behind the fidgety private Nakamura whispered a joke to Inoue making him giggle sheepishly.

Within an hour, Yamamoto came up alongside Tanaka and patted him on the shoulder before raising his hand to signal stop. “We’ll rest here for the next fifteen minutes. Drink and eat what you can.” The sergeant then disappeared into the forest.

“Finally.” Nakamura groaned, removing the heavy three-cylindered pack he’d been hauling and setting it down with a muffled clank. “Hey Tanaka, you got kemuri?”

“Yeah. Here” Tanaka shouldered his rifle and leaned over to give Nakamura a cigarette before taking one himself.

“Hey, don’t be stingy,” Inoue chastised, sticking out his hand for a cigarette as well.

“Stingy?” Tanaka repeated in mild shock, palm to breast. “Stop being so cheap.”

“Oh, come on then. I swear it’s the last one.”

“For the night.” Tanaka reluctantly conceded one of his remaining cigarettes to Inoue before fumbling in his pockets for a match, his fingers briefly brushing the jade comb he had brought along. Just touching its cool ridges made him stiffen salaciously.

“What do you think we’re out here for?” Nakamura asked, leaning forward to let Tanaka light his cigarette.

“Maybe those prisoners that escaped,” Tanaka offered between drags.

Inoue exhaled a plume of smoke. “I thought we found all of them.”

Nakamura shook his head. “No, there are still a few missing. Why else would we be out here?”

While Nakamura and Inoue continued to converse with one another, Tanaka excused himself and slipped away. Sure of his privacy, he put his rifle down and withdrew Jee Hae’s jade comb from his pocket. A wicked grin creased his eyes as he fondled the comb, the jade lambently glowing in the moonlight. The cigarette dangling from his lip quivered depravedly with the crude memories the bauble resurrected and he began to unbutton his pants to take himself in hand.

“What are you doing over there?” Nakamura called after his friend when he overheard Tanaka’s carnal, frenzied efforts.

“It is none of your concern,” Tanaka spat back.

“You shouldn’t abuse yourself so much,” Inoue chided realizing what Tanaka was up to. “Keep at your prick too much and you’ll wear it down to a nub.”

“And you need every inch you got,” Nakamura added to the barking laughter of Inoue.

Annoyed and flustered, Tanaka released his flaccid self and buttoned his pants back up before returning to the group and giving the pair an obscene gesture. Embarrassed, he did his best to avoid their stares letting his eyes wander the tree line while still handling the comb for the sense of power it gave him. To his left he saw Yoshida sitting against a tree, his rifle propped against the trunk beside him. Yoshida was rubbing his hachimaki, the headband that served as his good luck charm which he wore concealed beneath his steel helmet. “Hey Yoshida,” Tanaka jeered making Yoshida look up. “Best keep an eye out for partisans. Not even your senninbari can protect you from one of their snipers.” When Yoshida anxiously looked around, the three soldiers chuckled. Upset, Yoshida removed his helmet in defiance and threw it at Tanaka. “Oh, so now you are brave?” Tanaka picked up the helmet and patted it. “Five minutes and you’ll want your steel cap back on. Whether you piss yourself from fear first is the question.”

Yoshida stood and confronted his tormentor. “Why do you mock me, Tanaka?”

“Because you’re a stupid peasant.”

“Oh leave him alone,” Nakamura told Tanaka, tired of the pair‘s bickering.

“The fool needs to be put in his place.”

“Fool?” Yoshida wagged his finger at Tanaka. “At least I know why we’re out here.”

“Achi itte!” Tanaka exclaimed.

Inoue blew smoke out the side of his mouth. “And why is that? Oni?”

Yoshida nodded solemnly.

“Aho,” Tanaka grumbled. “If I have to listen to one more of your stories-”

“I’ve seen them,” Yoshida confessed cutting Tanaka off.

Nakamura flicked his cigarette butt into the bushes. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ve been to Dr. Ishiguro’s lab. I witnessed them on slabs. Abominable things.”

Tanaka rolled his eyes. “We don’t need to listen to this.”

“Maybe I want to listen.” Nakamura stepped forward, brushing off Tanaka when he tried to hold him back. “What did they look like, Yoshida?”

“You don’t actually believe him?” Tanaka interrupted.

Nakamura ignored his friend. “Well? What did they look like?”

“There were three of them. Tall and deformed with horrid faces. They had black eyes.” Yoshida shuddered. “They’ve come for us, damned creatures.”

Tanaka shook his head. “Superstitious nonsense.”

“The spirits of the dead have come for vengeance,” Yoshida insisted.

“And what spirits would those be?” Tanaka prodded jokingly.

“Those of the people we have killed.”

Tanaka snorted indignantly. “We have nothing to do with what happens in the labs. Besides, Shina don’t have souls.”

“No, you don’t have a soul,” Yoshida bit back.

“Is that so?” Tanaka threw his cigarette down and pushed past Inoue and Nakamura to grab Yoshida by the throat.

“Let him go,” Inoue enjoined as he tried to pull the two men apart.

“I know the heinous things you’ve done,” Yoshida yelled slapping at Tanaka and knocking the jade comb he had been holding from his hand. “The darkness take you!”

Tanaka pulled his arm back for a punch when the crack of a gunshot went off.

“What was that?” Inoue asked.

Nakamura peered into the uncertain gloom. “Partisans. Has to be.” He retreated a step when he heard something hastily moving through the undergrowth. “Someone’s coming.”

Yamamoto burst from the shadows, rifle in hand. “Get your weapons!”

Tanaka released Yoshida. “What is it?”

Yamamoto shoved Tanaka out of his way. “Shut up and grab your damn weapon.” As the men frantically retrieved their gear, Yamamoto kept an eye in the direction from whence he came. “I want a perimeter set up. Inoue.”

“Yes sir?”

“I want you here.”

Inoue gathered his machinegun and hustled over to the squad leader, dropping to the prone position at Yamamoto’s feet. He situated his weapon on its bipod in front of him and surveyed the night through his steel sights. “What’s out there?”

Yamamoto didn’t answer immediately, instead rambling incoherently to himself.

“Sir?”

“I’m not sure what I saw,” Yamamoto finally managed.

“You had to shoot at something,” Nakamura insisted, lifting the flamethrower’s pack to his shoulder.

“I saw…I saw a light.”

“Partisans.” Tanaka cursed under his breath.

“This was not partisans. This light was different. Disembodied. It flew.”

Nakamura looked over at the squad leader. “I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I. I fired and retreated back here.” The sergeant paused. “I think I hit it.”

“Better hope so. I’ve seen what partisans can do.”

Yamamoto jabbed Nakamura in the chest with his finger. “I told you this wasn’t partisans.”

“It’s yurei from Yomi,” Yoshida declared when an eerie viridian light emerged a dozen yards away.

“He just might be right,” Inoue mumbled slack jawed at the sight of the strange phenomena.

The rest of the squad turned toward the light as it swelled in front of them, the effulgence streaming through and illuminating the dark wood. The wisp unexpectedly shifted and converged on their position.

The pack slipped from Nakamura’s shoulder as he gaped in shock. “What is that?”

No one had an answer.

“What do I do?” Inoue sputtered, unsettled by the unexplained anomaly. “Do I shoot it?”

Yoshida was incredulous. “You can’t harm yurei with bullets.”

“We’ll just see about that.” Yamamoto slapped the top of Inoue’s helmet and the soldier opened up with his machinegun rattling off bullets by the dozen in controlled bursts. The muzzle flashes lit up the night as tracers streaked toward the hovering glow. The wisp rapidly arced and darted out of sight.

“Cease fire,” Yamamoto ordered after the last rays of the wisp had vanished.

“Guess the spirits don’t like lead,” Inoue offered while gazing down the barrel of his weapon.

“You think that’s why they sent us out here?” Nakamura asked.

Yamamoto shrugged. “I don’t-”

The squad tensed up when they heard the violent snap of a tree splintering. More movement followed, the ground quaking ever so slightly. Something large was coming their way.

“What now? Yamato no Orochi?”

Yamamoto signaled to his left. “Get over here, Nakamura.”

Nakamura hesitated. “The perimeter-”

“I said get over here!” Nakamura nodded, hoisting his flamethrower and hurrying to the sergeant’s side. Yamamoto pointed toward the murk confronting them. “I want you to light it up.”

“Don’t need to tell me twice.” Nakamura cut loose with the flamethrower spurting fire into the indefinite gloom. He shifted the fiery tendril horizontally raking the wood and setting the parched trees afire transforming them into pillars of raging tinder and consuming the undergrowth in an uncontrollable, ever increasing conflagration. The squad was forced to cover their eyes against the crackling blaze’s intensity, the smoky smell of burning pine flooding their noses. “Do you see anything?” Nakamura choked out.

“I don’t see…” Yamamoto’s words trailed off when he glimpsed a great shadow emerge from the flames.

“Yurei,” Yoshida whispered.

“Tear that thing in half!” Yamamoto shouted.

Inoue opened up with his machinegun chugging slug after slug at the shade. The shadow didn’t flinch, instead rearing back and shrieking inhumanly at them before charging their position, bounding on all fours like a gorilla.

“Forget this.” Tanaka threw down his rifle and fled.

“Coward! Get back here!” Yamamoto yelled at Tanaka’s retreating form.

“Look out!”

Yamamoto whirled in time to see the creature bring its great fist down with a titanic blow that fractured the squad leader’s skull and broke his neck killing him before he hit the ground. The beast now within the perimeter, the squad dissolved into chaos. Yoshida instinctively lunged forward in futility to avenge his commander, pointing the bayonet of his rifle at the creature as he charged screaming, “Banzai!” The beast moved with remarkable speed, grasping the rifle by the stock and yanking Yoshida and his weapon through the air. Unhinged, Nakamura carelessly unleashed another incendiary tongue of fire madly strafing the night setting the whole forest ablaze around them while searching for the monster only to regret revealing what the shadows hid. The beast was aberrant and grotesque, a grievous mass of abominable sinew with slick scales bursting through its jaundiced skin in parts. The thing’s macabre countenance was nothing but fangs and black eyes, its will bereft of rationality. It was a force of destruction clothed in the flesh of nightmares.

Inoue jumped to his feet and wheeled around to fire his machinegun from the hip cutting through the monster only for the force of the weapon to throw the soldier back on his ass as he continued firing wildly into the night sky chewing up the trees and forcing Nakamura to dive to the ground. In the flickering firelight, Nakamura was horrified to see the beast still standing, his mortal wounds closing.

The monster stalked forward despite the flames and bullets. It viciously swatted Nakamura aside into a tree with a clang when he rose to shower it in fire and then grabbed Inoue by the throat lifting him off the ground. Inoue gagged and choked, his eyes rolling into the back of his head as his trachea was crushed. The thrashing of his legs soon stopped. The beast dropped the lifeless body to the earth and beat its broad chest as it howled savagely at the moon above, its territory secure. Pacing the perimeter, the flames flaring high into the treetops and cinders raining down upon its scarred crown in that ever growing inferno, the creature sought to return to the shadows from whence it came only to stop. There on the ground it spied the jade comb Tanaka had dropped. The beast bent down and gingerly picked up the comb. Holding the fragile object in its calloused palm, the creature gently stroked the jade. Something about the comb stirred the sparks of memory within the beast, its empty eyes narrowing as the feral haze of its mind cleared and a look of familiarity overtook its features. In those oily black holes something human arose.

“Please forgive me.”

The beast pivoted toward Yoshida when it heard his plea. The soldier knelt a few feet away, his arms clasped before him. The beast loped toward the man.

“I am sorry,” Yoshida blubbered as the creature approached.

The beast stopped a few feet in front of Yoshida and stared down at the soldier extending its broad hand to show the soldier the comb. “Where did you get this?” it snarled in its gravelly voice.

“It is not mine.”

“Don’t deceive me!” the beast bellowed. “How else did it get here?”

Yoshida put his hands up in supplication. “Please…”

“A young girl possessed this comb, a peasant from a nearby village. She was captured by Japanese soldiers and taken to see a man named Ishii.”

“A young girl,” Yoshida echoed. “If she was taken on Ishii’s order, then she was transported to Zhongma. Perhaps she gave it to one of the soldiers.”

“She would not give this comb away without a fight.” The beast scrutinized Yoshida, its swollen tongue flicking out. “What has happened to her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Liar!” The beast reared back to strike him.

“I swear to you!” Yoshida cried, covering his head. “But if she is in Zhongma…she is lost.”

The beast’s hideous face fell as it pulled the jade comb close. “Jee Hae,” it rasped.

The flames now completely surrounded the two roaring loudly, the heat of the blaze so intense that trees began to rupture and explode.

“Believe me when I say I never supported the actions of my superiors. I was only following orders,” Yoshida swore, drenched in sweat. He flinched when he heard a gutted tree moan and then collapse. The world was coming apart around them.

Its sharp teeth clicking together threateningly, the beast grunted, “What are you talking about?”

“Zhongma Fortress. The atrocities inside.”

The expression on the beast’s face shifted as it loomed over the soldier. “Atrocities? I thought it was a prison. What atrocities have taken place there?”

Yoshida dared to look up at the monster, tears in his eyes. “Surely you know. Those we have kidnapped and murdered. The horrors done to them. That is why you’ve come. Vengeance.”

The beast’s chapped lip curled exposing a fang in the hellish orange glow. “Kidnapped. Murdered.” It grabbed Yoshida by the wrist and yanked him up. Yoshida screamed in pain, his arm jerked out of its socket. “What have you done to Jee Hae?”

“I don’t know any Jee Hae-”

“You kidnapped her.”

“We have kidnapped many girls.”

“For what?” When Yoshida proved hesitant, the beast shook him unmercifully wrenching the dislocated arm. “For what?”

“Experiments!” Yoshida cried pitifully.

The beast dropped Yoshida. “Jee Hae,” it murmured once again. Sorrow softened its lurid features making the beast’s disfigured face partially recognizable as the boy it once belonged to. Li Chen choked on bitter sobs. What little hope he had held for his love was lost at the confession of this pathetic man.

“I’m sorry,” Yoshida offered, once more groveling at Li Chen’s feet; the smoke of the inferno pouring in upon them.

The grief that overcame Li Chen soon heated into anger. Seething horribly, he reverted to the feral thing that he had become. “Sorry?” he growled. “What right have you to be sorry?” He brought his foot down crushing Yoshida’s head, the man’s body jerking in its last throes. Li Chen ground the man’s skull beneath his heel as he spun toward Zhongma Fortress and passed through the blazing holocaust.

Next Chapter: Chapter 8