Chapter 1: Teleportation
Hola everyone! I am Henry-Michael Brown (Coqui-san) and welcome to my first posting if my novel Trucker no Bouken. This is my first attempt publishing one of my works in Japanese alongside English language version. I am currently a student at Japan Society's Japanese Language School in New York City (https://japansociety.org/language-center/). I can read hiragana and katakana well, however, I am still learning Kanji. Kanji is difficult. However, I want to release my stories to Japanese readers. So the choice I made is that, I write in English first, then I use two websites called Jishop.org and Translate.com and use my school textbooks to translate my English writing into Japanese . Then I go line by line to edit any characters that need to be adjusted. It takes me 60 minutes to 90 minutes per page
It is my hope as I continue to attend Japanese language school, that I can provide the best entertainment for all residents of Japan. Trucker no Bouken comes from a catalogue of stories I have been writing since 1999 and I look forward to bring all of you a great adventure.
Please enjoy
Chapter 1: Teleportation
There was a bang at the door and it burst open. A man dressed in a trench coat with a fedora hat and business suit dragged a young man, who struggled to breathe, inside. The young man wore a white t-shirt and jeans. The trench coat man struggled to stand the young man up while walking through the hallway. He saw an opened door.
“Doctor!”
“Mad…dox.” The young man said gasping for air as he limped along that hallway.
“It’s all right Yamamura.” He looked inside the room and it was empty. “Doctor!”
Maddox made his way to another room losing his grip on Yamamura whose breathing started to sound like a saw. Inside, he saw two young women. One woman sat on a chair by the desk in a dress with a white over coat with long red hair. The other woman sat on a clinic bed dressed in shorts, shirt, and boots, with a medical sling under her left arm. Maddox noticed the woman with the medical sling had cat-like ears on top of her short jet black hair and a long tail with spilt ends. Her lavender eyes froze him in place. “Borinqueño? Out here?”
“May I help you?” The overcoat woman said as Maddox pulled out a badge. It had the words ‘Ironguard Private Detective’ etched on it.
“I’m Private Detective Colt Maddox from Ironguard. Are you the doctor?”
“Yes. Doctor Sarina Loren.” She stood up, and Maddox lifted his head up to look her in the eyes. “I’m with a patient. Is this an emergency?”
“Yes. He needs medical attention. I think he’s dying.”
“What!? Why didn’t you take him to the hospital?”
The patient spoke with a matured voice. “What a weird outfit he’s wearing.”
“Emma?” Sarina said.
Maddox looked at Emma. “Are you a kid?”
“No… I’m, sixteen. I’ll be seventeen next month.”
Maddox realized Emma saw them and made a decision. “Okay.” He closed the door and dragged Yamamura over to the bed. “I need you to get off.”
“What?”
“Please detective,” Sarina said. “you have to get him to a hospital.”
“I can’t doctor.”
“Why?”
“He’s an Earthworlder.”
“What?” Sarina said as Yamamura struggle to take another breath. “An Earthworlder? How many years has he been here?”
“Not years… ten days.”
“That can’t be. He’s too old to be an Earthworlder.”
“Pl…ease.” Yamamura said, reaching his arm out to Sarina.
“Doctor, he’s a special case. He has to live no matter what. He must survive.”
Emma spoke. “Doctor, I can come back another time.”
“Sorry young lady…”
“Emma Rosado.”
“Well, Emma Rosado, I can’t let you leave. You saw him and I can’t have you running around mentioning this anyone. Also, I still need that bed.”
“Doctor?”
“It’s all right, Emma.” Sarina said. “Please do what he says.”
When Emma got off the bed, she had the height and figure of a grown woman. She stepped aside, her head tilted up to look at Maddox in the eyes.
“I won’t tell anyone. I just wanted my arm healed.”
“I’m sorry I’m getting you involved, but we’re at critical time frame. As soon as he heals, I figure how to let you go without risky your safety.”
Sarina grabbed her stethoscope from her desk. She approached Maddox as he placed the young man on the bed. “What’s his name?”
“Kenichi Yamamura.”
As Kenichi lied on the bed, he saw the doctor leaning over him and checking his breathing. His eyes fought to stay open as he looked around the clinic room. He saw Emma sitting by the desk. They stared at each other as he overheard Maddox speak to Sarina.
“Has news about what happened at Braddock Forest in Eiberia reached here, doctor?”
“Only rumors, why?”
“He was involved in an incident that could trigger…” Maddox’ words went silent. Kenichi saw Maddox and Sarina speaking to each other but he can’t hear what they said. He could, however, hear the sound of his heartbeat as Sarina held a staff over his body. The staff had a teal colored metal orb at the end with two twigs surrounded it.
Kenichi saw Emma looking at Maddox and Sarina in shock. His memories flashed to one moment. At a convention where he met a young woman dressed in cosplay. She had on cat ears and a kimono. She smiled at him. When he heard his lungs struggle to inhale, a light veiled over him. It triggered his memories again and he remembered when he approached his truck. As he was ready to climb aboard, another truck stopped nearby. The window lowered and the driver was the same young woman he met at the convention.
Kenichi felt the air in his lung pull out of his throat and started circulating easing the pain. His memories brought him to the moment when he sat on a hospital bed holding that same young woman to his chest in embrace. As he whispered in her ears, her eyes closed. Her hand slipped from his and her ring tapped his ring making the sound of a ding. He felt the pain subside as he opened his eyes one more time. As he noticed Emma showing relief in her eyes, he remembered standing before a tombstone with sunlight over it. He held the hands of little children, his son and daughter. Everything went black and he heard his final thought.
“Fumiko… the last thing I remembered before coming here was this…”
***
[March – 2017]
The ocean wave crashed onto the beaches of Atlantic City. The people swam in the water while others played volleyball on the sand. When a little boy caught a beach ball, he looked up on the boardwalk where the casino buildings rose up in the sky. As families and gamblers walked by, there was a line of people in front of a convention center called Boardwalk Hall. A large sign hanged on the wall. It read ‘World Arm Wrestling Championship’.
Inside, the crowd cheered and roared as cameras tracked the last two competitors at center stage. The commentator spoke. “The referees have received the strap and are ready to resume the match. Now it will be difficult for Danny McCree and Kenichi Yamamura’s hands to slip free.”
Kenichi looked at his aging hands. He wiped the sweat off his brow and saw his reflection on the talcum bowl. The white streaks of his hair made him sigh. Kenichi rubbed talcum powder on his hands. He scrunched his fingers and could sense tightness in his knuckles.
“You can do it dad!” A young woman called out to Kenichi.
Kenichi looked into the crowd and saw his daughter standing next to her older brother cheering on. As he nodded, the referee got his attention. “Give me your hand.”
The referee wrapped Kenichi and Danny’s hand with a leather strap tightening them in place. It was difficult to move. When they tightened their grips, their muscles bulged. The competitors place their hands on metal vertical grips attached to the side of the table.
“Don’t be intimidated father!” His son said, throwing his fist into the air. “You can win this!”
“Satoshi, dad looks tired.”
“He’s fine Ichigo, he just needs to control his breathing.”
Kenichi stared Danny in the eyes as the referee placed his hand on the arm wrestlers thumbs. Sweat trickled down his face waiting for the signal to begin.
The camera showed a red semi-truck with one black stripe decal along the side and the commentator spoke. “Will Yamamura of Tokyo, Japan defeat the defending champion McCree of Dublin, Ireland and win his second title!? The Sederbilt semi-truck and $250,000 are within reach. At forty years-old, Yamamura has overcome his underdog status and showed the crowd why he is in the finals, or will the young lion McCree teach an old dog has his limits?”
“Go!” The referee removed his hand and the wrestlers pushed their hands into each other.
Kenichi leaned his body to the right to put more strength in his arm. He roared as Danny crouched pushing downward. Kenichi gained momentum and pushed his arm back to the starting position. He could hear his heartbeat as his strength overwhelmed his breathing. His elbow shifted. Kenichi realized he was about to be pushed down again. He released the air in his lungs and he pushed Danny to the other side of the table.
The lights from the crowd flashed. The referee stared down the hands closing in on the cushion. Everything went silent. Kenichi felt the impact of his hand pushing Danny’s into the cushion. The referees called the match. “Down!”
The referee immediately pulled Kenichi’s arm into the air. The crowd roared and the announcer yelled. “Kenichi Yamamura finished it off! We have a new champion!”
As Danny raised Kenichi’s arm in sportsmanship, Satoshi and Ichigo ran onto the stage and gave him a hug. His hand finally freed from the strap, he hugged them and raised his fist into the air. The cameras flashed from the stands above.
***
[May – 2017]
Flashes of light flickered in the clouds above as it swallowed the night sky and hid the moon. The red semi-truck had just been lowered onto the Tokyo docks. When the cargo reached the street, the crewmen removed the crane harnesses. Kenichi, in his jeans and white t-shirt, watched on with arms crossed. Thunder echoed softly in the distance. Footsteps got Kenichi’s attention and he saw a man with documents approached him. “Mr. Yamamura here is your copy of the custom papers. You are free to take your truck.”
“Thank you.” Kenichi nodded. He approached a grey truck where a young man waited for him by the door. “Daigo, it’s time to move my things over.”
Daigo looked at the new truck as Kenichi opened the grey truck’s door. “Your truck looks beautiful in person.”
“I told you.” Kenichi reached into his pockets and handed Daigo a set of keys. “Here you go. The grey truck is yours.”
“All right, I finally got my own truck.”
“Take good care of her.” Kenichi climbed inside and took out travel bags. “She got me home every time.”
Daigo grabbed the bags from Kenichi. He noticed Kenichi climbed down the cab carrying a toolbox and tool belt. “Ken, are your going to remodel the sleeper cab?”
Kenichi walked Daigo to the red truck. “Mrs. Higashi has a side job for me. She needs a door replacement. This time, I remembered my power drill.”
“You know she is going just have you fix the whole house.”
“She’s an old woman and her husband is long dead. It’s the least I could. Also, I get free food.”
Kenichi and Daigo stood before the new truck. Its long hood stretched outward curving towards the ground. There was a storage compartment near the truck’s door. The roof fairing sat on top. When Kenichi opened the door, the ceiling light turned on. Daigo climbed up and saw the steering wheel on the left side instead of the right side. The dashboard had the standard gauges and warning lights, switches and c.b. radio. Next to the dashboard on the console was a state of the art touch screen computer with a dash camera and expansion port. At the far end was the glove compartment.
“Watch this.” Kenichi took his smartphone and attached it to the expansion port. The smartphone turned itself and the computer on.
A female voice spoke from the phone. “Interface connected.”
Daigo smiled. “Amazing.”
“Red just automatically starts up when I connect it.” Kenichi started touching the computer screen activating apps.
“You have everything available?”
“It has language translation, GPS tracking, internet, dash cam access, it can even monitor the trucks condition from fuel to battery life. As long as Red is attached to the console, I don’t have to turn on the truck to access the computer. Also, I can display the Chart Map app that you gave me, so I can add maps and routes as I drive.”
“No fair, now I want this truck instead of Old Grey.”
“Sorry.” Kenichi climbed down and walked Daigo back to the grey truck. “You’ll have to beat me in arm wrestling if you want it.”
“And have my arm broken again? No, thank you.”
“After we move my case of water and instant ramen, we’ll stop at the fueling station before we drive back to the warehouse. I want to get back without stopping.”
“Understood.”
After the cases of water and ramen have been placed inside the storage compartment, Kenichi climbed inside the truck and sat in the driver’s seat. He was about to start the truck when Daigo waved at him.
“Yes Daigo?”
“You forgot this.” Daigo gave Kenichi a necklace and received a smile.
“Fumiko… thank you very much.” Kenichi hung the necklace on a hook by the windshield. The rumbling sound of thunder above got his attention. “Set your radio to channel twelve. We’ll keep in touch with the dispatcher at all times.”
“Understood.”
“Wait.” Kenichi tossed his smartphone to Daigo. “I have to send my children a photo of the truck.”
“Sure.” Daigo aimed the camera where Kenichi held up the victory sign. The picture was taken and Daigo returned the smartphone. “There you go.”
“Thank you.” Kenichi sent his photo via text to Satoshi and Ichigo “Hopefully Ichigo is not in class. It’s a fourteen hour difference in Princeton.”
“What happened?”
“She hates it when I text her during class. It disrupts the teacher. Now Satoshi– eh?”
A text returned from Ichigo. “Hurray champion. Enjoy your new truck.”
Kenichi smiled as he received a signal from security to leave the premises. “I’ll answer her later. Let’s go Daigo.”
“Of course. See you on the road.” As Daigo walked away, rain drops started falling. Up in the sky, it looked like darkness itself was swallowed whole.
On the road, Kenichi led Daigo through the streets. When they entered a highway, the rain got worse. With the clouds darkening the sky further, it was like being blind. Kenichi looked at the GPS and saw it showing a truck stop across a bridge ahead. He grabbed the radio microphone and spoke to Daigo. “There is a truck stop just across the bridge. We’re going to stop there for the night. This weather is too dangerous to cross the mountains.”
“Understood.” Daigo said over the radio and he heard Kenichi call dispatch over the radio telling them of their situation.
The rain splashed onto Kenichi’s windshield like a wave. The wind howled like a ghost. Kenichi struggled to see ahead. He growled until Red spoke.
“Phone call… Satoshi.”
“Answer… on screen.” Kenichi said and Red turned on the computer screen. He saw Satoshi smiling at him.
“Father, how is the truck?”
“The truck is doing great in this storm.” Kenichi leaned forward to see past the windshield.
“It’s bad isn’t it?”
“Yes. I can’t see ahead very well. Daigo and I coming up to a truck stop soon. We’re going to stop there for the night.”
“Okay father.” Satoshi nodded. “Listen, dad, I have to something to tell you.”
Kenichi smiled. “I’m going to be a grandfather?”
“How did you know?”
“What?” Kenichi looked at the screen. “I was just joking.”
“Father the road!”
“Oh…” Kenichi looked up.
Satoshi rubbed the back of his head. “Rumiko found out this afternoon.”
“You’re both just twenty, you’re not even married yet.”
“I know father… well you know… you and mother.”
Kenichi sighed. “Don’t worry about it. It’s done. What’s important is that I take you and Rumiko out for dinner and celebrate my new grandchild.”
“Father… Thank–”
“Kenichi!” Daigo called from the radio. “Watch out for that white truck!”
A pair of lights from Kenichi’s right side blinded him and he felt the impact push him to the left. He lost control. The edge of the bridge appeared out of nowhere. The truck crashed through the barrier and flew off the bridge.
“Father!”
“Kenichi!”
The truck slammed into the water and submerged instantly from the crashing waves. Kenichi’s head struck the wheel and he saw Satoshi in tears before the phone turned off. “Satoshi.”
The last thing he saw, as he felt the water filling inside in the cab, was lightning stretched out like fingers. He dreamed of Satoshi standing beside a bed. He was with Rumiko receiving flowers from Ichigo. They all had smiles as Satoshi turned around revealing his newborn son.
“My grandson…”
The dream became enveloped in white light.
***
[???? – ????]
Kenichi felt a tear slide down his face. He opened his eyes and saw his smartphone attached to the computer console. He sat up. The entire cab was dry. There was no water inside. Not even his clothes were wet. He noticed his reflection in the side view mirror and immediately turned to his smartphone. “Red… camera.”
Kenichi covered his mouth at how young he sounded.
Red spoke. “Camera activated.”
Kenichi pressed on the screen so the camera could face him and his eyes grew wide. He was a young adult. He could not tell how much younger he got. He looked at his hands. They were soft and lacked toughness from years of hard work. He flexed his muscles. They were stronger than ever before. “How is this possible? Red, current location.”
“Location unknown.” Red said as Kenichi scanned the area outside his truck. It was some kind of forest, but the trees have no leaves on the branches. The trees were black and looked melted.
“Red… GPS.”
“No signal.”
“Call office.”
“No signal.”
“Call Satoshi.”
“No signal.”
Kenichi grabbed the microphone and flipped the switch. “Dispatch, this is Kenichi. Come in. I repeat, this Yamamura, come in.”
There was no reply. “Daigo. Daigo respond. Where are you?”
Kenichi went through every channel on the radio and there was no reply. “I must be in a dead zone?”
Kenichi leaned back taking a deep breath. His eyes winced and he did not know why. As he was about to open the curtain to the sleeper cab to check on his things, he saw something on the floor. It looked like a yellow quill. There were no feathers attached. He slid his fingers over it and felt like a static shock. He tapped his finger on the tip and a drop of blood seeped out. Looking up a Fumiko’s necklace and wondered. “No… I bled.”
Staring at the necklace, his heart raced as he thought about Satoshi and Ichigo, and the grandson he will never meet. Hearing his son’s last words, seeing his son in tears broke him down. He punched the steering wheel a couple of times. With a deep breath, his eyes winced.
Leaning back, Kenichi looked out the window. Staring at the tree he noticed something strange about it. He climbed out of the truck. When he landed on the black dirt, it was the only sound in the area. The total silence made Kenichi shiver. He looked up at the sky and saw nothing but rain clouds above.
Kenichi walked toward the tree. It was black like the dirt. The branches bent over as though fire melted it down. When he touched it, it was like fine powder. On the branch was a perched bird with wings spread open. Like the tree, it was made of dirt, frozen in time. Kenichi stepped back. To his right there was a mound. He could not tell if it was a deer of if those were legs or arms. The first thought that came to mind was Mount Vesuvius.
The sound of thunder alerted Kenichi of the coming storm. His memories of his last moment before the crash flashed before his eyes. He ran back to the truck and climbed inside. The rain fell. As Kenichi was about to turn on the ignition, the raindrops blinded his view past the windshield. He remembered how difficult the drive was on the road and he wondered. “Red… dashcam videos.”
“Accessing dashcam videos.”
Kenichi scrolled through the video list with his fingers and found the last recording. He tapped on it to play. He watched the road ahead. The rain blinded his view of the road. Kenichi slid his finger to the right making the video fast forward unaware of the movement outside. He watched the end of the video when Daigo warned him over the radio.
“Watch out for the white truck!”
Kenichi rewound the video as black mud slid up along the window. Kenichi looked closely and saw a white truck swerving towards him from the opposite direction of the road. “What?”
There was a loud slap outside. Kenichi looked out the window. In the rain was a hand on the hood of the truck. A lump rose up. It looked like hollow eye sockets and a nose formed. Horns stretched out from the top of the head. A mouth opened up. It let out a moan.
Kenichi turned the ignition. As the mud creature pressed onto the windshield forming a hand, he shifted gears and stepped on the gas pedal. The truck drove through the trees and balls of mud landed on the hood. Wings stretched out. They struggled to flap. After shifting gears again, all the mud creatures slid off onto the ground.
Kenichi did his best to avoid the trees, but the denseness of the forest caused the truck to ram into each tree causing them to shatter like glass and splattered across the ground. The mud that splashed onto the windshield was washed off by the rain and wipers. Kenichi tried to get a sense of direction. He turned to the smartphone for help. “Red… compass.”
“Compass activated.” The screen showed a compass pointing east.
The truck rolled over large roots easily crushing them into paste. Kenichi saw large mounds of mud rising up ahead of him. They took shape. Four legged creatures as large as the truck itself and as small as sheep lumbered around as if nothing had happened to them. He heard the loud moans overpower the sound of the truck.
Kenichi saw a lake forming ahead. A wave of water and mud coming from the left was going to block his path. He shifted gears unaware of Red tracking his speed. With a loud roar Kenichi pushed the accelerator down. He looked at the incoming wave and saw something was pushing it. The creature was larger than a warehouse. It looked liked it had wings and a large snout. It stretched out its mud mouth exposing sharp teeth made of mud. He saw a large tail. “A dragon?”
Kenichi shifted gears again. The speed increased as the mud tsunami and monster were about wash the truck away. “All right Red, ramming speed!”
Two red circles appeared on the smartphone screen, one inside the other with two red squares in the middle intersecting each other and Red spoke. “Velocidad!”
Electricity spread across the front of the truck. It formed a pair of ram horns and the electricity continued to spread over the entire truck. The tidal wave and the giant mud creature enveloped the truck. Inside the cab, the truck looked like it was driving through a tunnel pushing the mud aside. The truck broke through to the other side. Kenichi watched the forest pass by him at a very high speed. Within seconds, he saw green grass ahead. He slammed the brakes and the truck slid for awhile until it came to a full stop.
Kenichi looked at the side view mirror and saw the large creature raised its head above the trees. His heart pounded at the sight of such a monster. Taking a deep breath he scanned the entire area. He saw how far the mud forest went alongside the grassy hills. The rain passed. The sunlight caught his attention. The rays of light shot through different openings in the clouds and created many spotlights.
Looking eastward was a large mountain range. The tallest peak disappeared in the sky. As one of the cloud openings passed by that peak, something flew within it. Kenichi’s eyes opened wide. His hands shook. The flying creature was yellow like the sun with feathered wings, and a body as long as a snake. Its head looked like a long necked crane. As Kenichi looked on, the flying creature made its way over the mountain range and the world turned white.
Kenichi heard the sound of growling. He opened his eyes and stared at Emma. She sat on top of him with a knife to his neck. There was an aura he could sense from her that if he moved, she will slice his neck. When he shifted his head, she pressed the knife further onto his skin.
“Who are you?” Her deep voice froze Kenichi in place and widened his eyes. “Why are you disguised as my husband?”
Kenichi blinked twice. “Eh…?” He looked at Maddox and Sarina frozen from shock, and he looked back at Emma giving him a killer’s stare with tears building up. “Eeeeeh…!?”
To be continued...
