There is a tunnel going into the mountains of Shizuoka prefecture that is especially long and takes a few minutes to pass through. In the olden days, travelers would have to hike up and over the mountains on a narrow path to get to the Shizuoka from Tokyo. Along this road, there were many small Jizo or stone statues that are there to guard travelers from the dangers of the precarious path.

When the tunnel was build, many of these statues were lost or accidentally destroyed. After a Shinto blessing ceremony, the tunnel was officially declared open and traffic began to flow. Traffic was especially heavy during the holiday season and people who normally hardly drove endeavored to take the 3 hour drive from Tokyo to Shizuoka prefecture where it was boasted the best view of Mount Fuji could be seen. Shizuoka has many hot springs that claim curative powers and many sick and aged to the perilous journey to cure their ills in the hot springs of Shizuoka. The journey over the mountains was dangerous for the ill and aged who hoped to regain their health. Many lost their lives on the path and impromptu graves in the mountains were the only way to condole their passing in the middle of the mountain forests. Some chose to burry their loved ones near a Jizo so that their souls would be protected by the peaceful looking statues.

Japan has much rain and one year, a very heavy rainfall brought to the mountains by a typhoon caused a landslide that partially buried the tunnel entrance on the Tokyo side. Emergency workers were brought in to clear up the debris and to free some cars that were covered by rocks and mud from the landslide. One of the cars was driven by a young girl who was returning to see her grandmother for the holidays. The car roof was crushed by the landslide but when the uncovered the car, it was empty. The car doors were shut and the windows were broken but rolled up. There was no sign of the young girl. The workers assumed that she either escaped or was taken down the mountain with the mud and debris of the landside. She was never found and after a few years, forgotten.

A young man driving home to Tokyo from Izu after visiting his mother looked into his back mirror and thought he saw a flicker of light on the side of the road near exit of the tunnel. It bothered him so much that he almost drove into the opposing lane. It was 2:00 AM in the morning and he imagined it was just fatigue.

He visited his mother again during the Obon season. Obon is a religious holiday in Japan where people visit the graves of their ancestors and supposedly their spirits return to earth to visit their loved ones. He looked forward to his mother’s cooking because back in Tokyo he could only cook hot water to boil his instant noodles or buy a boxed lunch at the neighborhood convenience store. They had a small shrine in their tatami living room for his father and he would offer his father a stick of incense and ring the bell to announce he was home. The fruits he bought for his mother would be offered to the shrine for awhile then taken down for his mother to eat.

On this trip, however, right before he entered the tunnel he thought he saw something on the side of the road. He slowed down to look but there were cars behind him, impatiently honking their horns and so he had to move on. It appeared to him like a piece of cloth or a doll of some sort. It just seemed a bit unusual and remained in his thoughts for the rest of his drive to his mother’s house.

His visit ended after four days and although he wanted to stay longer to enjoy the warmth of his childhood home, he had to get back to Tokyo and he wanted to get there before the “U-Turn“ rush back to Tokyo reached it’s peak. He left at midnight as usual and passed through the tunnel around1:30 AM. He glanced back into the mirror as he exited the tunnel but saw nothing. It was another hour and a half before reaching his car park so he turned on his radio to keep him company. The radio let out a moaning like hum, feedback or interference. The station display should a blurred nine or four on the digital display then screech in a high pitch before playing a song. He felt a sudden chill but forced himself to concentrate on his driving until he got home.

His apartment did not have a garage. He rented a parking space a few blocks away. It was a stall without a roof and the cheapest the car park offered. A week later after returning home from Obon, he wanted to go out for a drive and so went to his parking stall. As he approached his car, he noticed that there was a small piece of white cloth stuck in the hub of his front wheel. He didn’t remember brushing against anything on his drive home; it might be some child’s playful prank he thought. He removed the cloth to throw it away and he noticed a slight fragrance of flowers.

The rainy season comes right before Obon every year. This year, before he left to visit his mother, there was a terrible typhoon and the tunnel that he always took suffered another landslide. He hoped that it would be cleared before his holiday started so he could visit his mother as he did every year without fail. The news said they found some skeletal remains in the debris that came down the mountain. It was among some old Jizo statues that had slid down the mountain with the mud and stones. There were many lost graves in the mountains but the police thought the remains were recent and not more than several years old. The workers had cleared the road and tunnel in a few days and it seemed like he would be visit his mother as usual during Obon.

The trip to Izu was uneventful except for the jam packed line of cars headed toward Mount Fuji. There was only this one road that lead to the tunnel cutting through the mountain to Shizuoka. The line of cars slowly crawled toward the mountain on the 2 lane road winding around the coast. As he approached the tunnel, he strained to take a look at the side of the tunnel where the landslide had happened. It was all cleared up and nothing remained.

Watching television at his mother’s house, the news reported that they had discovered the identity of the remains they found in the debris of the landslide. It was the young girl who had been missing in a previous landslide a few years ago. As they reported her name, he recognized her. She was a classmate during his middle school and sat next to him. She had lived in Izu as a child and moved to Tokyo with her parents. Her grandparents stilled lived in Izu, he had visited her there once.

He stayed at this mother’s home just a little longer than usual to avoid the last of the night traffic because he had something on his mind. On his way home, he stopped a small flower shop and bought some flowers. They only had a few flowers left and decided that the white chrysanthemums they had would be the most suitable. He thought to himself that he would place them at the side of the tunnel where they found his childhood classmate and say a short prayer. As he drove into the tunnel, it was starting to rain, just a few drops.

When he reached the end of the tunnel, it was raining quite hard. He briefly thought about not stopping and driving straight home to avoid getting wet but decided that since he had the flowers, he would place them at the site where they found her remains. He turned on his hazard blinkers and covered the flowers with his shirt, a meaningless gesture since they would be left out in the rain anyway. He carefully place the flowers against the wall of the tunnel at the exit and knelt down to say a few words. He clasped his hands together and said that he wished they could have met again in Izu. He got up, thoroughly soaked and dripping wet. The sound of the rain was deafening and he could hardly see through the curtains of water falling from the sky.

He opened the door to his car and sat down in a puddle of water he created in his seat. He inserted his keys in the ignition but thought to call his mother to make sure she was coping with this tremendous storm. He flipped open his phone and with a buzzing sound, the display went blank. The water short-circuited his phone and it was dead. “No good deeds go unpunished he thought to himself.” He turned on the ignition and as his windshield wiper slapped away the rain, he thought he saw a smiling face on the windshield formed by the water dripping down the glass. Startled, he froze in silence as he watched the image remain there even with the relentlessly rain pouring down. Then he thought he saw the eyes on the image slowly close and fade, washed away.

Suddenly he heard a scraping sound then a loud boom! Then he heard a crash, then another, and another, more scraping and some screeching. He turned on his bright lights and saw smoke or steam. A wheel facing him parallel to the ground, the underside of a truck, a partially crushed car came into view. It was a multi-car pile up. If he had been driving, he would have been in that pile of metal. He returned to his car shaken. He looked at his windshield and there was nothing there. As he glanced down, he saw a Jizo jammed in front of his front tire. He would not have been able to move his car.