I took off, weaving through the side streets, then backtracked to Roppongi-dori and turned left on Gaien Higashi-dori. Twilight had unobtrusively draped itself over the city. Lights began to wink on. My pace slowed to a walk as darkness crept over the town. But the darkness offered no cover. I could still feel something following me in the gathering gloom. And I recognized it. Bad, ominous, so unpleasantly familiar: It was Takashita, the cabbie, Miura, Carlyle; it was him.

—DEAD LOVE/Chapter 14.4/Three-days-dead

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The intern stooped to pick up a shoe with his well-padded hands. I’d seen those large hands squeezed into latex gloves and was thinking that he should be wearing them now. He was covering things with his fingerprints.

“We must call the police,” he declared as he continued his sloppy contamination of the crime scene.

In the kitchen—a shiny black granite and stainless steel room—all the plates and silverware had been thrown to the floor. Someone had picked through the contents of the refrigerator and the trash, which consisted largely of plastic and Styrofoam take-out containers and putrid bits of food. There were Japanese pastries strewn all over the floor. They had been broken open, red bean paste smeared on the slate-colored floor along with what appeared to be steak sauce.

“Oh,” said my self-appointed guardian, his face losing color. “I think that is blood.”

—DEAD LOVE/Chapter 14.3/Three-days-dead

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The hall, which stretched from the left side of the entrance toward a distant back wall, was flanked by a series of doors that opened onto various rooms. They were all in the same state: beds taken apart, mattresses slit; cupboards thrown open; wardrobes and closets eviscerated, the contents dumped onto the floor, creating a chaotic topography. Table-sized contemporary canvases hung in shreds on the walls, slick surfaces breached, their abstract iconography reduced to tatters. The bathrooms were cluttered with opened boxes and bottles—all emptied into sinks and sunken tubs. In the guestroom, torn clothing lay strewn in large piles. Heels had been removed from the shoes. Books had been pulled from the shelves, spines cut and pages ripped. Draperies had been yanked from the rods, broad hems sliced open, and every electronic device in the place, including the phones, had been completely dismantled and carelessly cast aside. Mixed in with the mess were pieces of jewelry, the gemstones removed. But the precious stones hadn’t been stolen. They were scattered about. Someone had been looking for something.

“Oh,” stammered my lame-brained escort, “Someone broken in,” stating what he thought was the obvious. If he’d been more observant, he’d have noticed that though the place had been ransacked, there were no signs of forced entry. The vandals, whoever they were, had let themselves in . . . with a key.

—DEAD LOVE/Chapter 14.2/Three-days-dead

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“You’ve been through a major physical trauma,” he insisted. “You have not recovered completely.” He was already quite upset long before we got to the door.

“It’s not our fault. The hospital caters to a population of seven million. The wards are all full. Patients sometimes get lost in the shuffle.” He paused. “Still, it’s very strange that they released you. I lobbied to keep you there, but to no avail. Someone—I don’t know who— must have wanted you out. I really don’t understand it.”

We’d come up in the elevator. I did not know where I was, but it felt familiar. I went immediately to the door and waited, mouth open, panting, like a stray that has found its way home. From behind the door emanated a most unpleasant smell. The young physician appeared not to have noticed. He thrust his large hand into the small mouth of a beaded handbag and pulled out a key ring with one key on it, which he shoved toward me. I backed away, so he took it upon himself to open the door. What did he think when the smell hit him full in the face? He didn’t even flinch. It’s strange how people manage to shut that sense down.

The apartment must have been beautiful once, but it was in ruins. In the huge living room, sunlight tumbled through two huge picture windows. Fancy furniture was upended, silk upholstery slashed, the whole mess feathered in down. Bright and fluffy and warm it was, but in massive and stinking disarray. I remember feeling an odd little thrill at the sight of all of that destruction.

—DEAD LOVE/Chapter 14/Three-days-dead

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By this time the nurse and two orderlies had arrived. They lifted the skinny little man as if he weighed no more than a sack of white rice. A third orderly arrived with a gurney and the other two slid him onto it. I watched all of this from my perch on the chair in the darkened room, but nobody noticed me. They were preoccupied with the old man.

“Get his oxygen,” barked a nurse. “How did he get out of bed? Can somebody read his vitals?”

She had hospital staff running this way and that, but Mr. Takashita was not phased. He lay on the gurney, his head turned towards my room. He was laughing at me, mouthing warnings.

“You can call me Clément,” he rasped. “Remember that, girl. You’re mine. You can’t just go taking things into your own hands anymore. No, I call the shots now. I own you. You’ll see. Hee, hee, hee,” he laughed. “Hee, hee, hee.”

The tangle of hospital personnel closed around him.

“What’s he talking about?” asked an orderly.

“He’s delirious. Get his oxygen going. Get him back into bed.”

They fussed over the gurney and they wheeled him away, presumably back to his room.

“Ok, let’s go,” yelled the nurse. “Haya-ku. Hurry. Hurry.”

The shapes left the doorway, rushed off down the hall. I stood on my chair in the darkness. It didn’t matter if they hurried, if they fussed. I knew this because I could see what they couldn’t, had known it from the minute he’d appeared in my doorway dragging his tubes and snickering at me. Nothing they did could help him now. This was not the man they were trying to save. It was another creature entirely. Takashita was already dead.

—DEAD LOVE/Chapter 13.6/Live Dead Girl

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What a fright, I thought.

Then I saw myself as he saw me: the girl—a once-dead one—standing naked upon a chair in front of her mirror.

So, I looked straight at him and I started to smile, but something about him disturbed me. I could feel the sides of my mouth drawing up and my lips pulling over my wet teeth in a feral expression. And then I heard it—the hiss. Where had it come from? My mouth, I think. And before I knew it, it happened again—another snake-shaped, spittle-soaked explosion of sibilants directed at the man in the doorway. He leered back at me then, leaned his skinny right shoulder into the jamb. Then, he smiled, a big purple-lipped, open-mouthed smile.

“You are in trouble,” he said. “Bad. Bad. Very naughty.” He spat the words at me, filled them with venom. “You’re supposed to act dead. Shame on you.”

What was he talking about? I had no idea, but something about him seemed familiar, upset me, made me want to leap from the chair and throttle him. I wanted to tighten my hands around his windpipe, feel it collapse, a flaccid tube under my grip. I wanted to shut him up, to destroy him.

“What’s the matter?” he rasped. “Cat got your tongue?” He leaned into the room, his head swiveling around till he saw the bag on the chair, the contents scattered around it. “Oh, too late.” He chuckled. “I came for the glove, but I see you’ve already found it.”

There was a racket in the hall.

“There he is,” screamed a nurse. “Mr. Takashita. Mr. Takashita, you must get off your feet.”

—DEAD LOVE/Chapter 13.5/Live Dead Girl

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This movement brought the door into my line of vision. Open a sliver, through it light sliced into the room, and I thought at first that I was seeing phantoms. But no, my eyes, accustomed to the near darkness, adjusted—the dilated pupils wrestling with and juggling the light to let in a backlit image.

He stood in the doorway, his hand placed palm-downward over his heart in a histrionic gesture. Dramatic, I thought. He looked like an actor at the cathartic moment of a play: an antique actor, one with great pathos. He wore a blue-flowered hospital gown, like mine, and his hair, which was long and wispy, was combed rather carelessly to one side of his head, which he’d cocked so that it looked like the limp locks had somehow managed to unbalance him. From his nostrils trailed two thin tubes of translucent plastic that ended in nothing just short of his knees. With his left hand he was playing with another clear tube, this one dangling from his right wrist, where a blood-encrusted sterile gauze bandage held it in place.

—DEAD LOVE/Chapter 13.4/Live Dead Girl

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I fetched and dragged over one of the chairs. I climbed shakily up on it. Then, standing before the mirror, I took a good look at myself. Wide shoulders and large breasts, soft globes eerily lit by the moonlight, the nipples erect; flat white expanse of belly, subtly curved; a wedge of jet where the legs joined; long pale legs of a nacreous opalescence; they ended in marvelous feet. I loved the feet, preferring them to the hands because the toes were so delicate, like long buds—tender and rose-tipped—and because unlike the rough fingertips, those toes felt everything intensely: the cold linoleum floor, its uneven texture, the way I stretched and spread them.

—DEAD LOVE/Chapter 13.3/Live Dead Girl

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A mirror hung on one wall. I approached it as one might approach a window, trying to look out onto a landscape, objective reality: physical, solid. The mirror was darkness framed in gloom, and the door to the room did not admit enough light to brighten it. I crossed to the window. I pushed back the drapes. I turned back to the mirror. A weak wash of moonlight invaded the chamber, animating the face there. I looked at a stranger, myself, for a brand new first time.

My eyes were dark, but they had a surreal brilliance, like a couple of coals suddenly ignited. Under each eye floated a blue thumbprint of shadow. These two bruise-like marks never vanished. They were the result of my near extermination. They are also the mark of a zombie.

—DEAD LOVE/Chapter 13.2/Live Dead Girl

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Suddenly I felt famished. But I didn’t want food. My hunger was of an entirely different nature. I could feel it racing with this pulse, my pulse, in the silent dark. I could feel the blood pumping through my body—faster, as my excitement rose. I pushed aside the covers and sat up.

The hall, at 2:06 a.m., was a jumble of movement and sound, but with the door nearly closed, it was not too painfully bright. There was a window in the room to the right of the bed, but the curtains were drawn. The space became gradually clearer, the eyes—my eyes—adjusting. Unadorned walls, the rolling table, two plastic chairs, linoleum of the same lemon yellow—I could see from the hall light—as the corridor floor. I noticed my hands were trembling. I gave my body its lead. I got up. I crossed the room, slid my bare feet over the cold linoleum, dragged my fingers across the Formica top of the table. The surface was cool and smooth. I leaned over and pressed my hot cheek against it.

From that odd angle, I noticed a cotton bag on the corner chair. I raised my head, straightened, walked over and picked it up. It was tied shut and labeled: “Orison/deceased.”

—DEAD LOVE/Chapter 13/Live Dead Girl

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