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もっと読みたい！がどんどんみつかる。
「読んで」「書いて」毎日が楽しくなる小説アプリをダウンロードしよう。
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「読んで」「書いて」毎日が楽しくなる小説アプリをダウンロードしよう。
テラーノベル
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On a hot, clear afternoon in August, a small nature park on the edge of the Chichibu mountain range was bustling with a group of university students making the most of their summer break.
At the foot of the mountain slope lay a flat area facing the river, dotted with various pieces of play equipment — constructed from timber and thick rope — sturdy enough for adults to use.
The group, consisting of three men and three women, was enjoying themselves with activities like tightrope walking and badminton.
Suddenly, a cool breeze — unusually chilly for the mountains — swept through, and the temperature dropped sharply enough to be felt on their skin.
When they looked up, a massive black cloud was rapidly spreading overhead. One of the male students spoke up.
“Hey, looks like we’re in for a downpour, doesn’t it?”
One of the female students replied.
“You’re right. Should we head back to the lodge?”
The very next moment, a tremendous crack of thunder reverberated through the area. Another male student looked up at the sky and said:
“Actually, walking across an open area like this might be dangerous. We’d be better off finding shelter, don’t you think?”
Scanning the park, they spotted a rest bench shaded by a large tree; it even had a roof, much like a gazebo.
Large raindrops began to fall sporadically. The students ran toward the gazebo-like bench.
Then, the rain came down in a sudden, violent torrent. The drops were so huge that their trajectories looked like distinct lines as they pelted the ground all around.
One of the male students said:
“Whoa, it’s really coming down. What should we do?”
One of the female students looked up at the sky and said, “There are no clouds over at that far end, so this is just a passing afternoon shower. It should stop if we wait a bit.”
They killed time for a while by playing games on their smartphones and checking social media. Less than thirty minutes later, the rain eased up, and sunlight began to filter through.
One of the girls held her palm out from under the roof and said, “It’s stopping now. It really was just a passing shower.”
Before long, the rain ceased completely, and the clear sky returned. Spotting a rainbow arching over the mountain ridge, the three girls grew excited.
“Look, look! A rainbow!”
“Wow, it’s so vivid. We never see something like this in Tokyo.”
“Let’s take a picture with that in the background.”
One of the girls handed her smartphone to one of the male students, and the three girls lined up side-by-side with the rainbow behind them.
The male student holding the smartphone adjusted the camera’s framing and took the first shot.
He said to the girls, “Could you move a little closer to the center? Yeah, just like that. Okay, here goes.”
The shutter sound clicked once, and the male student let his hands — still holding the phone — drop limply to his sides. His face had gone deathly pale.
The other male student called out to the girls in a strained, trembling voice.
“H-hey … look behind you!”
“Huh?”
Startled, they glanced back and let out a collective scream that pierced the air.
Directly behind them rose a thick, rod-like shape that towered far above their heads; an eye at its tip gleamed eerily.
As the three female students tried to back away from the colossal creature, a jet of liquid shot from the mouth at the end of its long neck.
The liquid formed a sphere the size of a baseball, striking the girl in the center directly, while the two beside her were splattered by the spray.
“Run! Get out of here!”
Snapped out of their shock by the male student’s shout, the girls attempted to flee; however, the one who had taken the direct hit stumbled and collapsed on the spot.
The other two girls also staggered, their legs unsteady, yet they managed to reach the male students.
The creature’s massive, elongated neck loomed over the fallen girl; its gaping maw clamped down on her body, dragging her — convulsing — deep into the shadows of the trees.
The remaining five students sprinted toward the foot of the hill, screaming in terror. Amidst the occasional drip of lingering raindrops from leaves and blades of grass, a silence settled over the area, as if nothing had happened at all.
Prof. Watari of Teito University of Science let out a bewildered “Huh?” into the mouthpiece of his smartphone.
“I get that a mysterious giant creature calls for a biologist like you, but why am I under any obligation to tag along on an investigation like that? My specialty is seismology, you know.”
The person on the other end of the line was Associate Professor Toyama, an up-and-coming biologist at the same university. Still in his thirties — looking young enough to be mistaken for a student — he rattled on in an innocent, carefree tone, paying no heed to the objections of Watari, his senior colleague in his fifties.
“You have knowledge of geology too, don’t you, Professor? I need to borrow that expertise.”
“Well, that’s true enough. But asking me to cooperate with a detective from the Metropolitan Police Department … what is this all about?”
“Anyway, the police detective and I are on our way over. We’ll be there in about thirty minutes. See you then.”
“Hey, wait a minute … Damn, he hung up. He never listens to a word anyone says. He’s the absolute embodiment of the ‘obsessive academic’ stereotype — honestly.”
Exactly thirty minutes later, there was a knock on the door of Watari’s laboratory. Before Watari could even say “Come in,” Toyama opened the door, revealing a boyish face beaming with irrepressible excitement.
“Prof. Watari, I’ve brought the detective along.”
Watari scratched at his beard — streaked with gray — and replied with a grimace.
“I never said I’d cooperate!”
Completely unfazed, Toyama ushered the person standing behind him into the room.
“Right this way, please.”
Watari’s eyes widened for a moment as he looked at the person who had just entered, her shoes clicking sharply against the floor. She was a young woman.
Though she was tall — about the same height as Watari — she had a slender build and appeared to be in her late twenties. Clad in a dark pantsuit with a bob cut and striking, almond-shaped eyes, she was quite a beauty.
“I apologize for the unannounced visit. I am Assistant Inspector Miyashita.”
As he accepted the business card she offered, Watari silently marveled to himself.
“An assistant inspector at that age? She’s on the fast track. I’m not fond of dealing with elites.”
Upon reading her title on the card, Watari spoke his thoughts aloud.
“Public Security Mobile Investigation Unit?”
Miyashita gave a slight nod and said:
“You may already be aware, but this is a division of the Metropolitan Police Department primarily tasked with counter-terrorism. Our duties also encompass research into biological weapons.”
Watari glanced back and forth between Miyashita and Toyama as he asked:
“Biological weapons? So, you’re saying this incident doesn’t look like a case of mistaken identity involving a bear or something similar?”
Toyama’s eyes sparkled like a child’s with a new toy as he spoke.
“The surviving university students claim it was a giant serpent. However, there are many inconsistencies with that theory. If the creature normally lurks underground, we need to examine the local geology. Unfortunately, the geology professor I approached turned me down.”
At the park deep in the Chichibu mountains — the scene of the incident — Watari was dressed in hiking gear and digging into the ground with a shovel.
Toyama, who had been roped into helping, groaned under the strain of the physical labor performed in the scorching midsummer sun.
“Th-this is brutal. Prof. Watari, shouldn’t we take a break soon?”
Watari snapped back without pausing his work.
“It’s only been ten minutes. You were the one who asked to help me, remember?”
After digging a narrow hole a meter deep, Watari shone his flashlight into the exposed cross-section of the earth. Miyashita, standing nearby in a suit, asked:
“How does it look, Professor? Anything unusual?”
Wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, Watari replied:
“It’s unnatural. Look — the soil stays black all the way down, doesn’t it?”
“So?”
“The soil in this region originates from volcanic ejecta — what’s known as the Kanto Loam layer. Normally, there’s just a thin covering of black soil, like leaf mold, on top. So, if you dig this deep, you ought to hit red clay.”
Miyashita and Toyama peered into the hole. Toyama tilted his head in puzzlement.
“I could understand it in the plains, but this is a mountainous area, isn’t it? Are you saying there’s no way leaf mold would accumulate this deeply?”
“Exactly. Hmm?”
Watari reached into the depths of the hole and pulled out a fragment. It was a slender piece of plastic about ten centimeters long; its original purpose was unclear.
“I bet this is industrial waste.”
Miyashita crouched down and asked:
“You think industrial waste is mixed in?”
Watari stood up, surveyed the entire park, and said:
“The terrain itself might be unnatural. Since this is just above the mountain’s base, it would be more natural for the ground to be sloped. Why is there such a wide, flat expanse of land right here?”
The three of them then headed to the site where the victim had been attacked by the giant creature. Several uniformed officers from the Saitama Prefectural Police stood guard at the location, which was cordoned off with police tape.
After Miyashita showed his police identification badge, the three were allowed past the cordon.
Watari asked Miyashita:
“Why were you — a detective from the Metropolitan Police Department — dispatched to an incident that occurred in Saitama Prefecture?”
“For one thing, the victim and all the students with her were Tokyo residents. But more importantly, there’s a possibility that this giant creature is actually a biological weapon smuggled in for a terrorist attack.”
At the spot marked by a numbered yellow plastic cone sat a brown mass that gave off a sharp, pungent odor. Toyama grimaced and said:
“It’s ammonia. And it’s being excreted as pure ammonia, not uric acid. That’s the detail that made me think it was strange to attribute this to a snake.”
Pinching his nose and grimacing at the stench, Watari asked Toyama:
“So, is this the giant creature’s dung?”
Miyashita showed the two men his tablet screen and said:
“These are the items recovered from it.”
The screen displayed objects such as a ring and metal fittings from clothing; their design clearly indicated they belonged to a woman.
Watari’s expression darkened further as he spoke.
“A man-eater, then. But look — this dung is being pushed up from underground.”
Toyama nodded, and Miyashita narrowed his eyes as he asked:
“Does that mean the creature lives underground?”
Toyama replied:
“Animals without legs, like snakes, usually burrow into the soil and hide there. Shall we head back to our lodgings? We should be getting the analysis results from the university by this evening.”
Miyashita visited the room shared by Watari and Toyama at the hotel at the foot of the mountain. He entered — still wearing her suit — to find the two men changed into hotel yukatas, and sat on one of the provided chairs.
“Have the analysis results arrived?”
Toyama nodded and showed his tablet screen to Watari and Miyashita.
“The two female students who survived also suffered from physical ailments, such as breathing difficulties, for several days. We’ve identified the toxin found in their systems. It turns out to be batrachotoxin.”
Miyashita repeated the word.
“Batrachotoxin?”
“Do you know about the poison dart frogs of South America? Indigenous people harvest the toxin from the frogs’ skin and coat the tips of arrows or blowgun darts with it to hunt large animals. It is the second most lethal toxin produced by a living organism in the world.”
Watari stroked his beard as he spoke.
“So, it’s an amphibian?”
Toyama nodded and continued.
“The report stated that the creature spat the venom from its mouth, right? Snake venom is injected through fangs; it isn’t projected through the air. That is a characteristic of certain amphibians.”
Miyashita gave a slight nod and asked:
“But is there really an amphibian that could be mistaken for a giant snake?”
“Size aside, there are amphibians that look exactly like snakes. Look at this.”
The photo Toyama displayed on the tablet showed a long, slender creature with a body resembling an earthworm and absolutely no legs.
“It’s called a caecilian. It looks like a snake, but it’s an amphibian. Primitive amphibians lack the ability to convert ammonia into urea, so they excrete it directly. If a mutated caecilian is the culprit, the characteristics of this incident can largely be explained.”
Miyashita asked another question. “Why did it attack a human?”
“Most amphibians are bona fide carnivores. Judging by the head the students saw, it must be twenty meters long. It wouldn’t be surprising if it viewed a human as prey.”
Watari suddenly scribbled something on a notepad provided by the hotel and asked Miyashita:
“Could you have the Metropolitan Police Department’s lab check if a certain chemical substance is present in the soil from that location?”
Miyashita nodded, took the note, and tilted her head in puzzlement after reading it.
“An anabolic agent? Does that have something to do with this case?”
“It’s a possibility. That substance caused a scandal about twenty years ago when it was used for doping. Because it’s highly carcinogenic, both its manufacture and use are banned now.”
Toyama said this while peering at the notes.
“I’m not familiar with that one. What kind of athlete was it used on?”
“Not a human. A horse.”
“A horse?”
“A racehorse. There was a horse back then that kept triggering massive long-shot payouts. But post-race testing revealed it had been doped with that drug, and the winning bets were voided.”
“You certainly know your stuff, Prof. Watari.”
“Well, I happened to be one of the people whose winning tickets got flushed down the drain.”
Watari’s hunch proved correct. High concentrations of an anabolic agent were detected in the soil across the area where the incident occurred.
A Metropolitan Police Department investigation revealed that when the chemical’s manufacture was banned, one of the manufacturers had dumped a massive quantity of it at an illegal industrial waste site.
Further investigation by the town office uncovered that, fifteen years prior, large amounts of soil from that illegal dump site had been transported to the area of the incident and used as fill dirt to raise the ground level.
Toyama concluded that caecilians — limbless amphibians — had ingested the high concentrations of the anabolic agent and grown to gigantic proportions; after a sudden downpour, they had emerged onto the moisture-laden ground and attacked the students.
Miyashita requested cooperation from the Ministry of Defense through the Metropolitan Police Department. The Ground Self-Defense Force was dispatched to exterminate the giant creatures under the guise of a disaster relief operation for control against harmful beast.
On the day of the operation — timed to coincide with a forecast afternoon downpour — large chunks of butchered beef were placed at several locations where the giant creatures were believed to be lurking, and small explosive charges designed to send vibrations into the ground were buried nearby.
Watari, Toyama, and Miyashita stood by at a short distance. Around 4 p.m., the forecast heavy rain began; as soon as it stopped, the buried explosives detonated in unison.
Long necks belonging to giant caecilians shot up from various points in the ground. As the creatures latched onto the beef, Self-Defense Force personnel opened fire with machine guns.
A total of eight giant caecilians writhed about, letting out eerie, croaking screeches. Watching the scene, Toyama muttered:
“It’s just like Yamata no Orochi.”
Six of the creatures died on the spot; for the two that retreated underground, flamethrowers were inserted into their holes, sending flames roaring down after them.
As he watched the Self-Defense Force unit withdraw, Toyama murmured:
“I hope something like this never happens again.”
But Watari, stroking his beard, replied:
“This might not have been the first time — or the last.”
Miyashita asked, looking puzzled:
“You mean something like this has happened before?”
“Further upstream along that river — in a place called Saku City, Nagano Prefecture — there is a shrine associated with the legend of Yamata no Orochi.”
“But isn’t the legend of Yamata no Orochi from the Land of Izumo — modern-day Shimane Prefecture? We’re in the Kanto region here.”
“Do you know the legendary monster called the Mizuchi? You could think of it as a water ‘Orochi.’ Legends of the Mizuchi exist all over Japan. While often thought to be a giant serpent, many tales describe it spewing poison from its mouth. Don’t you think that sounds a lot like the monster we just saw?”
Toyama spoke, his face turning slightly pale. “So, there have been cases in the past where caecilians grew to massive sizes and attacked people?”
Watari said, looking out over the park built on an artificial mound.
“When humans thoughtlessly meddle with nature, they suffer an unpredictable backlash. There’s no guarantee it won’t happen again.”
Half a month later, a massive typhoon swept across the Japanese archipelago. The Kanto region took a direct hit, resulting in damage such as river flooding in various areas.
A week after that, Toyama received a call from Watari. Surprised to hear from him — as it was a rare occurrence — Toyama answered the phone, only to instinctively pull the device away from his ear; Watari was shouting at the top of his lungs.
“Toyama! Get in touch with that detective of the Metropolitan Police Department — Miyashita. It’s urgent!”
“W-what happened, Prof. Watari?”
“Haven’t you seen the news? A landslide occurred — right at the site of that ‘monster’ incident. The artificial terrain in the park collapsed!”
The next day, Watari, Toyama, and Miyashita drove to the foot of the mountain in an unmarked police car driven by Miyashita.
The area near the river had been cordoned off and was strictly off-limits. The three of them approached as close as they could and gazed up at the mountainside where the park had once stood.
Miyashita looked at her tablet screen and spoke to the two men.
“Apparently, most of the terrain collapsed and slid into the river. It seems the construction was appallingly shoddy. Civil engineering experts were reportedly appalled; there was no drainage system, and the ground reinforcement was merely for show. They said it was a wonder it hadn’t collapsed sooner.”
Toyama sighed as he looked at the scene: the flat terrain was largely gone, leaving the original mountain slope exposed.
“So, the heavy rains from the recent typhoon caused the ground to give way. The contractor responsible for that shoddy work will be prosecuted, right?”
Miyashita shook her head.
“The company went bankrupt three years ago, and the whereabouts of most of the people involved are unknown. If the statute of limitations has expired, holding anyone accountable will be difficult.”
Watari spoke, his brows furrowed.
“The biggest problem is that caecilian. What if it washed into the river along with the mudslide?”
Toyama looked startled.
“But didn’t the Self-Defense Force exterminate all eight of them?”
“How can you be certain those eight were the only ones?”
Toyama and Miyashita both gasped. Miyashita asked:
“You mean there could have been others living there?”
“We can’t rule out the possibility. It wouldn’t be surprising if smaller ones or larvae — not yet fully grown — were still lurking underground.”
Toyama spoke hesitantly.
“True, being amphibians, they can survive in water. But wouldn’t the larvae or smaller ones just get eaten by other creatures?”
Watari stroked his beard as he replied.
“That comes down to luck. But the real issue is where this river goes. This is the Arakawa River. Where does it lead?”
Toyama pulled up a map on his tablet and traced the route with his finger.
“After the Chichibu Basin, it flows across the Kanto Plain into Saitama Prefecture … and then into Tokyo itself!”
Watari placed his finger on the tablet screen.
“And it branches off here. What tributary is this?”
Miyashita sharply sucked in his breath.
“The Sumida River!”
Toyama murmured in a frightened tone.
“You don’t think … that thing, grown to a massive size, could appear in the heart of Tokyo and attack people?”
Watari gazed downstream.
“I don’t know if that will happen, and at that point, it’s no longer a job for scientists like us. We’d just have to rely on the police and the Self-Defense Force to stay vigilant — especially after a summer afternoon shower.”
コメント
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わあ、読み終えました…！一気に引き込まれましたね。最初は夏の日のキャンプの楽しげな空気だったのに、突然の夕立と共にトーンがガラッと変わる感じがゾッとしました。巨大な爬虫類…ではなく両生類のアシナシイモリが原因だったっていうオチ、すごく面白かったです。しかもドーピング薬剤の不法投棄がきっかけだったっていう、人間の愚かさが生んだ怪獣ってとこが菊池川さんらしいなって思いました。ラストの荒川→隅田川への示唆で、東京に怪獣が現れる予感…続きが気になります！
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