My Marine Corps Base Is F*cking Weird

[Superspleen]

I'm putting all this online so there's at least some record of what's going on at my posting. I don't want to think that the culture shock and stress of being so far from home is making me lose my goddamn mind. Who knows, I might even get a few answers to what in the holy name of John Moses Browning is going on here.

My name is Sean Lang, and I got into the marines to follow a family tradition. I signed up not long after getting out of high school, hoping that even if I didn't love it the way my mom and granddad did, I'd at least have a source of funding for my further education. I was the first in my family to get posted overseas though. To be fair, all the shenanigans going down in the Pacific Rim is probably why I've been posted three miles outside of Tokyo. I'm one of the newest residents of Camp Sawyer, a base that was first set up in the 80s as a result of the Reagan military buildup.

That particular detail really boggles my mind because I'd expect that it'd take a lot less than three decades for word of what goes on here to reach home. I've had more bizarre encounters ever the course of the past weeks than in all the time I lived back home. And let me tell ya, Chicago gets weird. I'm talking my stuff moving on its own when I'm not around or straight up vanishing, bizarre shadows just beyond the areas illuminated by floodlights and voices speaking Japanese when I'm either by myself or with only a few other people. Lights off, computers off, TV off, we still hear them. We've turned out bunk room over three times looking for some sort of hidden speaker. Nothing.

Not to mention this weird blue light that shows up every once in a while in the middle of the night. So far as I know, Camp Sawyer wasn't built on a burial ground or anything. That is, if what's going on here really is...well...supernatural. Don't get me wrong, part of me does feel like all this is just some bizarre, elaborate prank. But if it is, I really don't know how it's being pulled.

Damn it. I'll be right back. There's this fox outside the window that's staring daggers at me. I'm gonna go shoo it away.

 

[Superspleen]

Well.

That was a fucking mistake.

I'm in med-bay right now with an orderly putting antiseptic on my face and arms. I've been here for most of the morning after getting my ass handed to me by a furry orange animal that doesn't even reach up to my ankles. That fox I went after really didn't want me going near it. I waved my hand it at a few times while trying to get it to run off when the thing just leapt at my face. Weirdest thing, I could've sworn it was smiling a little when it was digging its claws into my cheeks.

Also, I know that the water at USMC installations isn't the best, but I don't think whatever's in the water is enough to make a fox have the kind of birth defect I saw. At least, I think it's a birth defect. Either I was so tired I was seeing things or this fox had more than one tail. More than five now than I think of it. Could've just been me seeing things, to be honest. The damn thing was like greased lightening.

"So, am I gonna need some shots cause of this?" I asked the orderly. "Like, am I gonna need to get screened for rabies?"

"Given that you waved your hand it front of it and you didn't say anything about its mouth foaming, it doesn't seem likely but we can still test."

"Yeah, that might be for the best. I think it had some sort of deformity."

"Deformity?" the orderly asked.

"Yeah, something was up with its tail, looked split down the middle or something." I tensed a little.

"We don't have a Lejeune thing going on with the water do we?" The orderly just looked at me.

"Look, I'm not gonna get a virus cause that thing bit me right? Am I?"

"We'll draw some blood for tests, calm down."

I was let go not long after that, so I trudged over to the mess hall. I needed to get some grub in my stomach some fluids in me to replace what the fox and the orderly took from me. I sat down next to my squad mates after my tray was filled up.

"So how was your tour of our illustrious medical ward?" asked Lance Corporal Parker. He patted me on the shoulder.

"The staff could use a few lessons in bedside manner but they'll tell me if my tests show anything wrong."

"Yeah, you looked like a cat used you for a scratching post," said Private Wexley.

"It was a fox, if you must know," I said cutting some of my egg.

"Fox?" Parker asked.

"Yeah. Really nasty with a funny looking tail. The orderly didn't seem inclined to comment on it when I told him." Parker raised an eyebrow.

"Look, I'm just hoping I don't run into it again," I told him.

"That would be...preferable," I heard a someone say from behind me. I turned to see Lieutenant Perez staring me dead in the eye. He was sitting at the table behind ours.

"What do mean, sir?"

"I mean, keep to yourself, and things shouldn't go too badly for you while you're here."

"Sir, I don't understand."

"Look, my advice is to tune out the weird shit as best you can, and enjoy yourself."

That was the last thing Perez said to me before he went back to his food. I couldn't get his words out of my head. It was probably the only time I'd be able to speak to him before evening because apart from meals we were never really that near each other.

Tuning the stuff out, huh? Not quite sure how I'm gonna do that. Being able to just dive into my own head during training marches is a lot different from filtering out any genuinely weird stuff.

That being said, afternoon patrol has been a bit therapeutic for me in the past. I'm still trying to figure out what was the deal with that fox. Was it just, I dunno, a mutant or something? Whatever, Perez was right. All I can really hope for is not to see it ever again.

And that particular wish fell flat cause guess what's looking at me from behind a little moss covered Buddha statue. My furry 'friend' from last night. Except this time, I have my handy dandy sidearm. I pat my hip holster, making sure it sees exactly what I'm doing.

"I keep my distance if you keep yours." The fox just stares blankly and I'm about to turn left when...no. No fucking way.

No way did this thing just roll its eyes at me! It bounded into the shrubs before I could do anything.

I'm...I'm leaving it alone this time. I'm not gonna have that red furred psycho flip out on me again. I'm just gonna finish up my patrol and get whatever answers I can out of Perez.

It's so weird though. It didn't seem to be just mocking me, it seemed weirdly...annoyed. Like some girl in a bar who's heard a particular pickup line for the twentieth time and doesn't want to even use her energy on a groan.

OK, wow. I need a nice cold shower when I get back.

 

[Superspleen]

OK. Now this I'm starting to wonder if there's more to the weird stuff on this base than just the old timers playing pranks on us. I, along with everyone else in our bunk room got woken up at around four fifteen last night by the sound of Hargrove screaming bloody murder. We ran out in boxers and undershirts to find him in the washroom, shaking like a leaf and pointing at these multicolored pools of liquid. After a few seconds we found out they were the contents of our soap and shampoo bottles that were emptied onto the floor.

With footprints in them. Child sized footprints. We don't have family housing on this base. There can't goddamn kids on this base.

But even though there shouldn't be any doesn't mean there aren't any. Hargrove couldn't have made those prints himself. We'd know. We searched the bunk room for any shoes that could've made the prints we found.

So, assuming that he hadn't just decided to play some weird prank on us, we have a ghost kid. Or ghost kids. Wonderful. I hate the idea of running into ghost kids. Granted, I've never run into any ghosts at all but there's something really unsettling about ghost children. Not only is seeing them a lot more startling and depressing than a, I dunno, ghost grown up, but what're the odds that this is something a whole lot worse that's just pretending to be a kid. Some of the figures I've been catching out of the corner of my eye haven't been all that big.

First, I have a fox capable of surprisingly human expressions to watch out for and now who knows how many spectral children. If they even are ghost kids and not...I don't want to think about.

Right. Now that we're actually considering the possibility that we have phantom children in our barracks, what do we do? Well, assuming that they'd act like living kids, they'd want something to play with. We had a huddle session near the parade ground after morning parade.

"Let's just get them a few Switches and be done with it." said Hargrove.

"And what happens if they can't get them to work somehow?" asked Markley. "Aren't ghost supposed to mess with electronics? We'll be throwing hundreds of dollars down the drain and maybe even piss them off."

"Fine," I said, shrugging. "We get them something physical. A few action figures, a few dolls, we see what happens."

We went into town after we finished up our tasks for the day. So long as we were back before 11pm, we could leave camp. We told our CO we were getting some souvenirs to send back home. We weren't quite in Tokyo, but we got pretty damn close. The city was pretty much a beacon at that time of night. Yeah, we lied, but I think we'd have gotten a Section 8 if we told the truth. We got five ten toys total, five for boys and five for girls. We wanted to get eight but Markley pointed out that four in Japanese sounds a lot like 'death' and taunting ghost kids didn't seem like a good idea. He also got a paddleball. After got them, we put the toys in one of the larger storage rooms.

I imagined that I'd feel like the biggest idiot on the planet if this idea went nowhere.

But that idea was proven false around midnight. When we heard a paddleball being used and kids giggling.

 

[Superspleen]

We got out of our bunks and made our way to the storage room. I think we had some expectation of what was on the other side of the door. We were gonna get some sort of proof that existence persisted after death. So much of what I felt I knew about the universe was about to be flipped on its head and slapped silly.

That being said, I was still stunned by what we saw.

There was just two. Two semi transparent kids staring at us once the light came on. The first was a boy in black pants and a green sweater. The girl had a dark blue kimono and a large red bow with shoulder length black hair. They both looked to be about eight years old, if I had to guess. What was just as jarring as the fact they were see-through was the burn marks. The boy looked like he had these deep red tattoos on his arms and some of his sweater looked charred. The girl had this patch on the right side of her face that looked like one big scar while the right side of her bow was blackened. She had the paddleball.

It didn't take a genius to figure out how they ended up ghosts. I slowly waved my hand and made an awkward smile.

"Uhh, konichiwa?"

They stared at us and I'm not quite sure how, but they looked like they were hyperventilating. It was almost as if they were about to start bawling for their mom. Well, I didn't see a 'fully grown' ghost but they rose up unto the ceiling before we fully knew what'd happened.

I was pretty weirded out but also a bit sad. I don't think they would've been able to hurt us even if they wanted to. They were just happy to play with what we got them before we stormed in.

We didn't see them for the rest of the night and trying not to think about them was pretty difficult while getting all of our tasks done. I was watching Netflix on my laptop in the bunk room that night while Corporal Myers was playing music on a bluetooth speaker to relax. Synth I think. She had just been part of a team that'd done a complete deep clean of the armory to make sure that summer in the Pacific wasn't messing with all the fancy shooty things we had to keep an eye on. She was pretty wiped.

Would you like to take a guess what I saw coming through the door when I looked up? As in, right through the door?

That's right, those two pint sized phantoms. I saw those two slowly leaning through the closed door and looking around like they'd lost something. The boy looked at me and froze for a second while his...sister? Friend? Whatever she was, she was staring at Myer's bluetooth speaker. Markley saw them and fell out of bunk, alerting everyone else to what was going on including Myers. She let out a loud 'oh shit' and fell out of her chair, prompting a shriek from the ghost girl who started...fussing over her.

That might sound weird but that's all I can say to describe it. She was fluttering around Myers like a mom checking to make sure her kid didn't have any bruises after a fall. That might've made Myer's panic worse to be honest, having a little ghost girl that close to her. Myers seemed to be on the verge of a total freakout but held it together long enough for the ghost girl to back off slightly. The transparent kids looked to the speaker and started hovering around that now.

Come to think it, this might've been the first time they'd seen anything like that. Myer's speaker only hit the market, what, six months ago? Myers noticed where they were looking and slowly backed away from the speaker. The ghost kids were looking at it wide eyed and I could hear them quietly talking to each other.

The boy seemed to be more interested in the speaker itself while the girl was just into the music. She was sort of bobbing along to the rhythm and smiling. It was weird but they didn't seem interested in causing any trouble. The song that was playing on the speaker ended and during the brief silence, the ghost kids looked a little confused. They perked up a bit when the next one came on. The tension in the room seemed to die down a bit and I went back to my show.

So long as nothing too unexpected happened, they might leave on their own after a while. It's cool. I can be patient.

Wondering what they might do if we went to dinner though.

 

[Superspleen]

So, its been four days since those ghost kids came into our bunk room and they've been pretty tame so far. They seem pretty happy with those toys we got them but I'm still trying to find out just what they are. According to Google, the only specific type of Japanese ghosts is something that goes by the name of 'Zashiki-Warashi.' They're supposed to be good luck and your house will be blessed if you treat them as though they were your own kids. Give them toys and food or whatever, don't get overly pissed at them.

I'm a bit split on whether or not this is what we're dealing with, though. First off, they don't wear the kind cloths that 'Parlor Children' are said to wear. The boy doesn't wear samurai kit even though the girl's got a kimono. Then there's the burns. Nothing I've found online about Zashiki-Warashi mentions anything about physical indications about how the children became ghosts. So I'm guessing that they died in the same fire at more or less the same time. I still haven't tried feeding them though. Maybe one of us'll just get a two cheeseburgers or something and put the boxes in the room where we found them.

Another thing that makes me a bit skeptical is the fact that the girl seems to have taken a particular interest in Myers. Whenever the kids come out, she seems to look for Myers first before trying to see what anyone else is doing.

Which is why the girl now knows what Myers looks like when showering. Given the scream I heard from the shower room, I think Myers was on the verge of becoming a ghost herself. She said the ghost girl started screaming too before bowing a whole bunch and disappearing though the floor.

Last but not least, not much has changed since they showed up. You're supposed to be really lucky to have these things in your home but nobody's gotten a raise or a call from saying their dad's cancer's spontaneously cleared up. Still, there doesn't seem to be any predicable timeframe indicated when the good stuff's supposed to happen so the jury's still out on that. They really seem impressed by electronics though. Myer's speaker was only the beginning. I was watching Peaky Blinders on Netflix on my laptop when they both just floated behind me and started watching. I could see them reflected in the screen so it wasn't like they just popped up out of nowhere. The boy seemed pretty interested in how the guys in the show were dressed. This is just me spitballing here, but I think it's because those clothes seem familiar. Which could give me some idea of when they lived and when they died.

That might be all I can really go off of for the moment. From some of the muttering I've heard, I know that they can speak but none of us speak Japanese. So we either play some weird version of charades with them or get someone who can speak Japanese and won't look at us like we're bonkers when we tell them about the ghost kids in our barracks.

Still, not trying to talk to them seems really lame. I mean, we've got the chance to find out so much from them. If anything else, I wanna know why the girl seems to interested in Myers.

The fox has been curiously absent, by the way. I haven't seen it during patrols although I still feel like I'm being watched from time to time. One other thing to ask the kids when I find out how.

 

[Superspleen]

So, it's been a hot minute since I had to think. We've had a lot to do at the base as of late. This thing with Ukraine seems to have PACCOM thinking that it might be a good idea to beef up our capabilities in case China tries something. That means I've been working myself to the bone getting crates off cargo jets then storing them in the warehouse on top of ATX firefights. Now, I don't exactly think that we're gonna be sent to Taiwan anytime soon but then again I'm not one of the top brass with a salad bar on their chest. So, in the grand scheme of things, I know fuck all.

I kind of know we've had an audience for the combat drills in the plains near. I felt it every once in a while, maybe once or twice per day, but I feel like something is watching me from the trees that I'm uncomfortably familiar with. When I turn my head, I see something with rust colored fur dart out of sight. The fox thing followed us.

We're still getting used to having the ghost kids show up when we're in the bunk room. Well, I can't exactly call them 'the ghost kids' anymore. We learned their names right after we got back from our drill in the mountains. The boy's name is Shojiro Moriya and the girl is Esumi Shiraki. We learned that after we all of a sudden decided 'oh right, we can kind of communicate with them,' so we just pointed at ourselves and said our names to get the message across. They both said the word 'tomodachi' when pointing at each other which a quick google search meant 'friends'.

For the sake of not upsetting them, we're gonna hold off asking how they died. We already made Esumi cry when we tried testing if they were 'parlor children.' The legends go that you're supposed to care for them as though they're your own kids. So I got two cheeseburgers from the mess hall, a pair of boxes of rice balls and put it in front of them. Esumi looked at the food for a second before she started sobbing. She was straight up bawling in about ten seconds. So we learned they can't eat and we only reminded her of that. Shojiro just glared at us then they vanished through the floor. We had to get some pretty impressive toys before they forgave us.

Or at least, I think they forgave us. Esumi seems to be OK with Vargas at the very least. She stays close to her whenever they show up and Shojiro is interested in something else. Once we find out how, I'm gonna ask them about the fox thing.

 

[Superspleen]

With all the weird stuff going on, I didn't quite appreciate how beautiful the place looks in fall. The leaves on the trees are either turning bright yellow or red, the heat's died down and the forest nearby looks as pretty as a postcard. The water is still and looks like glass.

Doesn't mean I'm going in the forest anytime soon. Its back. That fucking fox. I caught a glimpse of it when we were practicing treating combat injuries. Pentagon really seems to think things in the Pacific are gonna pop off. We were outside after setting up a makeshift field hospital while marines wearing makeup that resembled bullet and shrapnel wounds were on tarps. The screaming did add a touch of realism, not gonna lie. The fox was looking at us from high up in a tree and dashing out of sight when ever I was looking at it for too long.

Our efforts to communicate with the ghost children have reached a bit of a breakthrough. Trevor, one of the guys in my bunk room, got the idea of getting some translation software of higher quality than Google Translate. After a quick game of charades, Esumi and Shojiro figured out that what we type comes out as Japanese and that we're going to look up what they respond with. We needed to make it worth their while though, so we got a few more toys from a store in town in order to ease negotiations.

I just hope the people running it don't think we're up to anything unsavory. I swear I could've seen the cashier raise her eyebrow. I could've imagined it though. We put the toys on the floor in front of Sojiro and Esumi before Vargas said in stilted Japanese 'we have questions.' The two looked at each other, then the toys, then nodded. So far so good. Trevor got his laptop out and booted up the program.

"Start with something simple," I told him. He soon turned the computer over to the two ghost kids with the caption 'like this place?' They both nodded and smiled. Ok, didn't need much to understand that reply. He typed another question onto the screen.

"From near here?" Again, nodding, but the smiles shrank a bit.

"Like Tokyo now?" The kids looked a bit confused so Trevor rephrased it to 'do you like how Tokyo is now?' He also pulled up a few images of Tokyo as it was now during the day and at night. They seemed to understand the question now. Esumi replied with a quiet 'hai.' I rubbed my chin. They saw the city? Or did she just like the pictures? Maybe it's not a good idea to ask where they can go.

"Have you seen other soldiers?" read a new caption. Trevor pointed at the Marine Corps symbol on his cap as well the flag patch on his arm. Shojiro responded with a 'yes' but he also said something it took Trevor a few seconds to unravel.

"Yes and no." He pursed his lips a bit and I saw him pulling up images of soldiers in beige uniforms with bolt action rifles and green helmets with a yellow star on them. I'd seen soldiers like that before, in movies when I was a kid and in a few books I read at boot camp about the USMCs history.

Imperial Japanese Army. The kids looked at the picture and slowly nodded. Holy shit. They were alive when World War II was going on. Sojiro said something again which Trevor slowly translated.

"They lived in the same neighborhood. Men started leaving. First in small groups. Then many." Esumi sniffled and said something else.

"Grown men and teenagers." Trevor said. "We were told that it was only a matter of time before Japan won. But so many didn't com back. Then the raids came. Night after night."

I wasn't an expert on the Pacific War but I was starting to get where this was going. My mind started scrambling for dates and places. One of them popped into my head. Saipan. If I remembered correctly, its capture meant that the Japanese Home Islands were within bombing range. The Japanese knew that and they made the Corps fight for every inch of the island. That was in 44 I think.

The rest of the people in the bunk room looked at each other uneasily. Shojiro kept taking while Trevor transcribed.

"They saw bodies in the streets. Smashed houses. Then one night all of Tokyo got lit on fire. Fires no one could put out. We couldn't find our parents. There was nowhere to run."

That hit like a punch in the gut. I had a good idea of what Shojiro was talking about. Incendiary bombs. Napalm.

"Bombs Away Lemay," said Lance Corporal Harcourt. "They lasted close to a year." The two of them started sobbing.

"Ask them something that'd make them happy," Vargas said to Trevor through clenched teeth.

"Like what?" he asked in exasperation. I had an idea and whispered something into his ear.

"You serious?"

"Yeah!" The two of them were full on crying at this point. Trevor frantically typed the words onto his computer and cleared his throat to get their attention.

"We're sorry if we brought up bad memories. Please forgive us. My friend has a question. Do you know anything about a strange fox that lives near here?" Shojiro saw the message first and quieted down. Esumi did the same and leaned closer to the screen. Trevor started typing an addition to the message.

"Weird tails." Esumi cocked her head and asked something.

"Who saw her?" Trevor read aloud. I pointed to myself. Then Esumi did something that caught us off guard. She crossed her arms, huffed, and her expression turned from one of sadness to one of disdain. She said something that even Shojiro seemed shocked to hear from her.

"Well?" I asked.

"She said 'stay away from that whore.'" My jaw dropped. Whore? What? Is she implying that the fox slept with somebody? No, scratch that, enough people that 'whore' was the word Esumi chose to describe it? I was starting to picture things I really didn't want to.

"Esumi!" Vargas spat out in shock. Her irritation soon gave way to confusion. Esumi looked at her in surprise. Vargas sounded like she was reprimanding the ghost girl.

Almost like an embarrassed parent. Vargas seemed to have picked up on this and even Esumi seemed to have caught on. Trevor swallowed and typed something else.

"Is it dangerous?" Esum said something else in reply.

"She's dangerous. A trickster. You haven't seen the real her yet. At best, the Kitsune will just make a fool of you. If she wants to, she'll rip you apart."

I felt like someone had pulled a rug out from under me. This thing was that dangerous? Just what was I running into? Just what was living near the base?

What was this thing that was spying on me?

 

[Superspleen]

OK, I've got a better idea of what I'm dealing with now that I actually looked up what a Kitsune is. So, I or my unit are being stalked by a mystical fox that turns into a 10/10 girl at will in order to mess with people. According to Wikipedia, she might try to seduce me in order to snag my wallet is she's one of the more mischievous ones. To be fair, it looks like that 'variety' only picks on real assholes like greedy businessmen or samurai with inflated head syndrome. I can only imagine what she'd do if she were released onto the dickheads on Wall Street. 'Bruh, some Asian chick got me plastered and swiped my laptop!' 'Dude, you too? She took my phone and I can't call my broker to find out which stocks are hot right now!'

What's a little bit concerning is that Kitsune only mess with men lie that but it likes to possess women as well. Which is going to do wonders for my trust in some of my squamates, I'm sure. Maybe there'll be some sort of giveaway that the Kitsune's controlling them, like their eyes changing or having whiskers all of a sudden.

I'm still in shock at the word Esumi used to describe her. Whore. Seriously, I get that she was raised in the 30s or whatever but that isn't a word you expect to hear from a kid! The only person who I ever heard use that word was this bitter old biddy in an apartment near our house who called my little sister that when she saw what she was wearing for a date. I'm still wondering if someone actually tried screwing the thing in human form though.

We've kept asking the ghost kids about what else is going on here, but their knowledge seems to be limited. They don't seem comfortable talking about what's going on with the base for long. I guess after all this time, kids will still be kids. Esumi did tell me that if the Kitsune I saw had just two tails, she wasn't very 'wise'. Her phrasing, not mine. I wonder what the Japanese word for 'bimbo' is. Supposedly the number of tails means how old the Kitsune is as well as how smart.

Here's hoping I can use that to my advantage if I run into it and need to bolt.

 

[Superspleen]

In a futile but admirable attempt at putting a little variety into the daily schedule, the base's overlords have decided to shake up the duty roster for patrol and guard duty. I'm with Lenny at the south gate directly facing the forest. I gotta say, I'm impressed. A lot of officers must've risked having aneurisms thinking up that one. Must've been very taxing.

It's starting to get dark earlier. Colder. In a few months, I'm gonna see my first Pacific winter. I guess the ones I experienced in the Midwest would make for good training. The afternoon sun made the sky look like it was painted this weird dark shade of gold. I could hear birds cawing as the flew over the trees.

I could also hear the sound of leaves being crunched.

For a moment, I didn't think much of it. Apart from the Kitsune, there were some garden variety animals like raccoons, foxes, even boar from what I heard.

But something seemed off. It didn't sound like something was walking on the ground. It sounded like hopping. That narrowed down the list of suspects quite a bit.

Lenny tensed up and pointed at something moving through a gap in the trees. I got my binoculars out and my jaw dropped.

It was an umbrella. An umbrella with a single large green eye and a hairy leg wearing a sandal in place of the handle. The name of this thing escaped me at the moment, but I knew what this thing was. It must have heard us murmuring because it turned to face us directly. After blinking a few times, the umbrella opened its mouth and a big red tongue seemed to uncoil itself. It panted like a dog that just noticed a big red ball.

And just like a dog that noticed a big red ball, it started moving towards Lenny and I. We went stiff, my hand lowering to my sidearm. Lenny didn't seem capable of putting together a complete sentence, just trying to say stuff but it fell apart just a few words in.

Then I had a weird idea. Right when it got about a foot away from us, I put my hand out, like a crossing guard telling some kids to wait for traffic to clear up. I made sure my palm was up so my body language clearly said 'halt.' And to my shock, it seemed to get the message. I took a deep breath, tried to imagine myself as an MP, and calmly said 'identification.' The umbrella thing didn't respond, just staring blankly at me.

"Identification," I repeated. Again, no response.

"You sure that's gonna work?" Lenny asked.

"I don't even know if shooting this thing's gonna do anything," I replied. "Just stay cool." The umbrella creature blinked but didn't move. It just stood there, panting. I tried to focus on looking as authoritative as possible instead the supposed biological impossibility of what was in front of me.

"If you can't identify yourself, you can't come in." I said sternly. "Do you understand?" The umbrella thing just blinked twice and before I could get out of the way, it licked me from my shirt to my chin. It felt like being licked by a big dog but with an outlandishly sized tongue.

Gross didn't even begin to describe it. I just stood there shivering while Lenny shouted at it to fuck off. I'm not sure if it understood his words or was paying much attention to his aggressive body language, but it hobbled off back into the woods, seemingly just as happy and dopy as always.

"I think it's gonna take a few cycles in the washing machine to get that out," Lenny said shakily.

"Think I should go to med bay first?" I asked.

"Better safe than sorry," Lenny replied.

During our somewhat tense walk back to barracks, a thought came to me. What's the highest level of command that knows about what's going on here? It has to be more than just the officers in charge of the base. Could stateside know about this? There had to have been reports being sent back about the paranormal stuff going on here.

Then I remember a name. Lejeune. With a sigh of frustration, it hits me. Stateside could know exactly what's going on and just be burying its head in the sand. If they're willing to keep a lid on a base having toxic water for sixty years, they'd do everything they could to avoid acknowledging what's going on here. Even if they wanted to, what could they really do? Slap a section 8 on anyone who tries going to the press about it?

Then it hits me. What if someone smuggled that umbrella thing back to the states and showed it on TV. Like, what if someone brought it onto some daytime talk show? I imagined myself on the set of Good Morning America with the umbrella thing sitting in a chair next to me while George Stephanopolous and Amy Robach asked me what the fuck I brought from Japan. I imagined myself explaining how I encountered it and after I finished speaking I noticed that Ginger Zee was looking at it while biting her lip.

Then she asked just what its tongue was capable of. When George tried chastising her for it, Ginger shouted 'dammit George, the women of America deserve to know!'

I didn't want to keep thinking about this particular scenario after that.

 

[Superspleen]

I didn't get infected with anything when the umbrella monster licked me. I don't really feel any different and the medics gave me the all clear. The ghost kids seemed pretty amused by what'd happened. I looked up what the thing was and I have to admit, I'm kind of intrigued. There's this whole subtype of monsters in Japan that is made from objects that reach a hundred years of age. I don't think the umbrella wound up in the dump though, it didn't seem to have any holes in it. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it'd somehow remember being mistreated and that'd make it turn mean when it became self aware.

The ghost kids are still a pretty good source of information even though they haven't really gone that far. They got a laugh out my encounter with the umbrella monster. Still, I decided to shake down Lance Corporal Parker to get more intel. He seemed to know about the Kitsune or whatever. I pulled him aside after he and I did an hour in the gym. He laughed a little when I told him the thing licked me.

"Yeah, it doesn't mean any harm. I mean, I haven't heard of it trying to hurt anyone."

His smile faded.

"Look, just keep your head on a swivel, alright. Not all the stuff here is so...tame."

"Tame?"

"Ya know, friendly. Scary exterior but friendly inside. Some of them are bad through and through."

"Like what, exactly?"Parker sighed.

"There's a rumor that right around the time the first Covid lockdowns were happening, a marine on guard duty said that there was this girl who'd stand by the side of the road and just stare at him. He guessed she was early twenties. She'd just stand there with an umbrella, black dress, and a mask over her face. But it's early in the pandemic so that doesn't seem so weird. Still, she just looks at him and says nothing. This goes on for days and he finally decides he's gonna ask her what she's up to."

"And he was never heard from again?" I asked.

"Oh he got heard all right. By the time some of guards got to him though, he went silent. Dead silent. His face would've put Heath Ledger's Joker to shame. No sign of the girl though. Other marines caught a glimpse of her though, so nobody thought the guy was just nuts. I guess they just thought some local girl had a crush on him or something. It happens. Corps doesn't care that much so long as you don't go too far. Ya know, knock a girl up out of wedlock."

"What'd the girl do to fuck his face up?" I asked as Parker got up.

"If you believe the rumor, she used scissors."

"Scissors?" I asked.

"Yep."

"Any other fucked up monsters I should know about?" Parker took a second to think.

"Not that that I've heard of or seen. A captain supposedly had a fling with a monster though. This about winter of 2019, I think. Not sure if the guy's even still here."

I looked up the Slit Mouthed Woman after that conversation and all of a sudden, the timing really made sense. If there was any time in recent history when she could've had free reign over an area, it was during the peak of the pandemic. When only a few people left their homes. When everyone wore masks. When she could blend into any crowd that was walking nearby.

Well, that's my nightmare fuel tank refilled.

Author's Note: Quick question for you all. I asked previously if there were any former or active duty service members reading this but I'm still pretty curious if anyone's reading this while serving on a base or a navy ship somewhere. Also, I didn't realize it until now, but someone trying to flee the Kuchisake-Onna when the quarantines were still in effect would be an amazing movie. She could be any girl with a mask, and the streets being nearly totally deserted would add to the psychological horror. It's just her and her intended victim. It's disturbingly intimate.