I was cleaning the attic a few weeks ago when I discovered a box of my grandfather’s things. My mother kept it up here for safekeeping but mostly I think she just forgot it even existed.
Inside I found a bunch of books, journals and old army memorabilia. My grandfather was a private in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. He never spoke about his experiences there, the only thing he ever said was, “People are the true monsters, but they’re not the only evil out there.”
He spent his years after the war working as a humanitarian, visiting those affected by war and running several charities. He also interviewed many of the people involved; soldiers, medics, nurses and others whose lives were forever changed.
The names and dates on the journals were all written in kanji, the most recent at the top and then descending chronologically.
I dug out the books at the bottom of the pile. The name written on them was that of my grandfather. These were his journals. He never told me about what happened when he was in the army. I soon found out why.
I’ve done my best to translate his entries as faithfully as possible from the original Japanese. He never shared these with anyone while he was alive but I think he would want people to know. That why he passed them on to us instead of burning them. He wanted people to know.
* * *
December 24th, 1943
I’ve been assigned as a guard to a small village near Yichun close to the Russian border. Unit 409. Before we even touched down I was informed that officially we do not exist. Unofficially we’ve been tasked with work vital to not only the Empire but to humanity itself. The locals have been informed we’re running a medical facility and nothing more. I am to report to Surgeon General Kuroda Jiro and his Lieutenant Matsudani Satoshi. I’ve never heard of either of them. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.
December 26th, 1943
I spent yesterday getting acquainted with the facility. From the outside it looks like a makeshift medical establishment. On the inside it’s anything but. It didn’t take them very long to introduce me to the ‘corpses.’ It’s less of a medical facility than it is a prison with torture chambers.
“Be careful not to touch any of them,” Sergeant Yamada told me. “They’re already dead.” It was not meant literally, but they soon would be. The reason we’re told not to touch any of them is because the prisoners kept in this particular establishment have been infected with all sorts of bacterial diseases. They’re kept cooped up like chickens, barely enough room to stretch one’s arms from one side of the room to the other. They’re mostly locals but there are a few prisoners of war as well. I also saw a few children amongst the bodies. When I asked the sergeant about it he just shrugged and suggested I don’t think about it too much.
The smell is atrocious. “You get used to it,” he said. “It’s the cold that’s a bitch.”
December 29th, 1943
The officers are excited for the new year. While several doctors have been going about their research on the corpses others have been discussing what type of food they miss from home. People are literally dying around us and they’re talking about what restaurants they want to go to when they get back, how well their son is doing in school, what type of promotions and advances they expect to see once they return to Japan.
I would laugh if it wasn’t all so horrifying.
Sergeant Yamada was right. The cold here is another level. Fresh snow fell again overnight. On my way to the ‘morgue’ as the men call it I passed piles of bodies simply tossed into the snow. The cold freezes them so they don’t smell as much. Easier to just dump them and then deal with them later, one of the corporals informed me. I’m only a guard, it’s not my job to question what the senior officers do. None of this feels right, however.
December 30th, 1943
I was called in to help with a particularly rowdy prisoner. The man was screaming like the fires of hell were hot on his backside. He was nothing but skin and bone, his skin an awful ashy colour, yet he kicked and screamed like a man with the strength of ten.
I finally helped them strap him down to the table. The doctor thanked us and as I was leaving I turned back to see the man’s eyes on me. Pleading with me. Begging me. I don’t know what he expected me to do. There was nothing I could do.
Then the doctor plunged a scalpel into his abdomen and began removing his liver while he screamed bloody murder. His eyes soon rolled back and he passed out. The doctor slapped his cheek a few times before shrugging and returning to his work.
I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do.
December 31st, 1943
The pile of corpses has grown larger. It’s like walking past a stack of logs being prepared for the upcoming winter. Only these are human bodies. Lives extinguished in the name of ‘science.’
Today I was tasked with guarding the cells. Many of the guards enjoy this particular job because they get away from the senior officers for a while and because it’s so easy. The corpses are so infected that for most of them it’s a struggle to even breathe, let alone try and escape. One woman is so diseased, I don’t know what with, that pus is oozing out of several orifices. Her chest barely rises and falls with her breath. I don’t think she’ll survive the night. They have no blankets, no heating. Most of them freeze in the cell overnight and are tossed in the pile the next morning. The prisoners have to try and sleep in the freezing cold amongst actual corpses. I can’t fathom how this is allowed to happen.
I still can’t get the image of the man from yesterday out of my head. “It’s not your job to stop it. Keep your head down, do your job, remember this is all for the good of the Empire.” That’s what Private Goto told me as he came to change shifts with me yesterday evening. “It gets easier, don’t worry.” There was an implied threat in there that if you don’t do as your told, well no-one knows you’re here and you can just as easily become one of them.
Early this morning we also heard bells ringing in the nearby mountains. A few men were sent to investigate in case it was some sort of local uprising but they’ve yet to return.
January 1st, 1944
It’s New Year’s. They brought out good food and fine sake and while a few doctors are still going about their work most have taken the day off to celebrate.
The men from yesterday still haven’t returned. We heard the bells again however, this time much closer. No-one has been able to discover the source yet, nor the location of our men.
January 2nd, 1944
I woke up to Private Goto violently shaking me.
“Get up! We need to move, now!”
Apparently some of the prisoners attempted a breakout in the early hours of the morning. According to reports one of the children slipped through the bars, stole the key from the sleeping guard and freed the rest. They almost escaped without anyone noticing but the sound of bells once again woke the guards. They noticed what was going on and all hell broke loose.
Most of the prisoners were eliminated. A few were taken for final research. The child and his mother were taken to a private room for questioning while a heavily armed unit was sent out to find the source of the bells. A rumour has been going around that the prisoners are terrified of them but they refuse to say what it is. The only thing the translator got from them was that they didn’t want to be around when they arrived.
They’d rather be dead.
January 3rd, 1944
2.14 am. I was on night duty when it happened.
The source of the bells finally arrived.
I was guarding one of the doctors as he was conducting some late night research. He was testing the effect of starvation and sleep deprivation on a corpse infected with syphilis. The ‘corpse’ was barely alive. The doctor decided to remove his organs before he passed away to preserve his data.
We both heard it at the same time. It was perhaps a few hundred metres from the facility. The sound of several large bells ringing throughout the cold night.
A few men ran passed me with their guns ready to fire. For days now several units of men had been sent out to investigate and none had returned. It seemed we were about to find out why.
“Lock that door,” the doctor ordered me. “I don’t want anyone interrupting my work.” I did as I was told but I couldn’t stand to watch the man removing organs while the prisoner was still alive. I turned to look out the small window in the door.
A few moments later we heard gunfire followed by screaming.
“Dammit, he’s gone,” the doctor threw down his scalpel behind me. “I didn’t even get to his stomach yet.”
I shuddered. “Sir, I think there might be more pressing matters at hand.”
“Nothing is more important than my research. Nothing!”
The sound of rifles firing filled the air. They were ours, the locals didn’t have any firearms. They barely had axes. I was terrified but there was nothing I could do. I was on duty.
Screams. Ungodly screams. They were coming from inside the building. A few prisoners ran past the door; gunshots followed. Only the prisoners were running towards the gunshots, not away.
Then I heard it. It was almost rhythmic. Thump. Thump. Thump. Our men were still firing and screaming but whatever they were firing at was not stopping.
“What is going on out there?!” the doctor screamed. He was placing organs into bags for cold storage. “Tell them to quiet down out there or I’ll use them for my next experiment!”
A face suddenly pressed up against the small window in the door. It was one of the prisoners, her eyes wide open in fear. She banged several times, looking behind her in utter terror. She was screaming something I couldn’t make out.
“Do you know what she’s saying, sir?” I asked the doctor.
“Do I look like I speak their filthy language?” he replied, not even looking up from his work. I shook my head, trying to let her know I didn’t understand. There was more gunfire. The only sound I caught was “jiangshi” before a bullet caught her in the temple and she collapsed.
Private Goto ran past, his gun raised. I banged on the window to get his attention and when he saw me he just screamed, “Get out!”
That was his first and last mistake.
There was a thump. Then another thump. Finally I saw what was making the sound. What had everyone running in utter terror.
The jiangshi.
I recognised the corpse. It was the man from a few days earlier. The one I helped strap down to the table. His midsection was open, his liver gone. He was naked, his skin a kind of light blue/grey colour. His arms were struck out in front of him, his entire body rigid with rigor mortis.
He took another jump forward on stiff legs and as his arms made contact with Private Goto he began to scream. Goto’s body began to shrivel before my very eyes, like his life essence was being sucked from him. I backed away from the door, knocking over a table of instruments in my haste.
“What are you…” The doctor never got to finish his statement. A mortar decimated the wall behind us, sending stone and rubble flying everywhere. I hit the ground and covered my face. My ears rang and head pounded. I looked up in time to see another of the corpses, the jiangshi, reaching out with frozen arms to grab the doctor. Only this corpse didn’t even have arms. Both were amputated. It didn’t stop the creature from feeding, however. The doctor was an empty husk within moments.
Not even rockets could stop them.
I ran. I ran through the giant hole the mortar explosion created, I ran past the jiangshi and fleeing prisoners and I ran past several soldiers still trying ineffectively to shoot them. More and more corpses in the frozen piles of bodies were rising. They were slow, unsteady, but they were rising.
At first I thought it was just the ringing in my ears but then I heard it again more clearly. It was the bells. There was a man standing by the fence surrounding the facility. He was wearing a robe and ringing a large bell held in his right hand.
The air was frighteningly cold. That’s the one thing I remember clearly. It was so cold that I thought I was going to freeze to death and perhaps become one of those creatures. While I was standing there, shivering, the man turned and looked directly at me. He was mouthing something but I couldn’t hear it. I wouldn’t have been able to understand it anyway.
I had to fight the urge to drop to my knees and huddle for warmth. It wouldn’t help. I heard the crunching of snow behind me.
It was one of the jiangshi.
I couldn’t move. I was frozen. The creature jumped towards me. Slowly. Steadily. I tried to move again but I couldn’t. I don’t know if it was fear or the cold but nothing I did would make my legs move.
The creature’s hands were before me, reaching for my neck. ‘Ah, this is it. This is how it ends.’ I closed my eyes and held my breathe, waiting for my life-force to be sucked dry.
Nothing happened.
I opened my eyes. The jiangshi was just standing there. Not quite looking at me but looking at me. I slowly let out some of the air I’d been holding in and the creature twitched. I stop and froze again. My head was starting to swim. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold it in for.
The bell continued ringing. How could I still hear it over the sounds of gunfire and screaming?
Then the creature finally turned and hopped away. I waited. For an excruciatingly long time I waited. Then I fell to my knees, taking in as many deep breaths as I could. The corpses couldn’t see. They seemed to sense us as we breathed.
Soldiers were dying all around me. All their modern weapons and superior intelligence were nothing. I must admit, part of me didn’t feel too bad. Some of the things I saw these people do were truly evil. But didn’t that make me, who did nothing to stop them, just as bad? Wasn’t this just what we deserved? The corpses were taking back what we took from them.
I spotted Sergeant Yamada across the yard. He was firing his rifle at one of the creatures but the bullets were doing nothing. It continued to jump towards him at a slow, steady pace. I screamed out. It drew both of their attention. Then Sergeant Yamada took the opportunity to smack the creature in the face with the butt of his gun. It did nothing. He thrust the handle of his gun upwards again, connecting with the bottom of the creature’s jaw and sending it sprawling backwards. It landed in the remains of a small fire from the mortar explosion.
The screeching was unlike anything I’ve ever heard before in my life. Sergeant Yamada and I looked at each other as the jiangshi burned up, its arms raised in the air like a final salute.
It finally stopped moving.
“Fire!” Sergeant Yamada screamed to the men in the yard. “Put your guns down! They’re weak to fire!”
It took a while in the chaos but eventually word spread. Men picked up sticks and began burning the creatures. At some point I realised the grounds were oddly quiet. The bell had stopped ringing. The man was gone.
We spent the next few hours cleaning up the corpses. Both those of the jiangshi and those of our own men. A large bonfire was lit, just in case. In the end there weren’t that many bodies. We don’t know where the others went, and the giant piles of bodies in the snow are now gone.
January 4th, 1944
There were no bells this morning.
January 5th, 1944
The order came in during lunch. Twelve days after my arrival Unit 409 is being disbanded. Officially we were on a reconnaissance mission and were ambushed by an angry group of locals. Unofficially we’re to return home for debriefing on what exactly it was we saw.
Lieutenant Matsudani Satoshi didn’t survive the massacre. There are whispers from the few who did survive that Sergeant Yamada may be up for a promotion for his bravery and smarts during the battle. Surgeon General Kuroda Jiro, who was conspicuously absent from the fighting, has been talking about moving on to his next project. He needs just a little more data, apparently.
I don’t think I can do it anymore. I doubt they’ll give me a discharge, not now, but perhaps a nice office job on home soil is just what the doctor ordered.
* * *
As I read through more of the journals my grandfather kept I realised they all have something in common. They all speak about strange monsters and mysterious encounters the interviewees experienced during and after the war.
I want to get these stories out there. My grandfather kept them for a reason. It’s time for the world to know.