Hachishakusama: Japanese HORROR

Hachishakusama is a character from Japanese folklore. She is an 8-foot tall woman who likes to terrorize children. On August 26, 2008, a user named "VFtYjtRn0" wrote a strange story on the Japanese forum 2chan, which involves this creature.

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This story takes place 10 years ago, in 1998. My father's family home was just under a two-hour drive from where we lived, a small village surrounded by farmland. I used to stay with my grandparents during the summer and winter vacations from school, and they were always happy to play with me... but the last time I visited them was over ten years ago, when I was still in my third year of high school. It was spring break and I had been invited to visit; since the weather was nice, I rode my bike to their house.

After I got there, I was a little cold, so I stretched out for a moment in a warm, sunny spot off the road. Then I heard something strange...

“Popo, Popoppo, Po, pop...” (Japanese onomatopoeia, usually associated with blows, punches)

It wasn’t a mechanical noise. It sounded strange... but human. I looked around to see where the noise was coming from and saw a white hat peeking over the hedge. The hat moved to an opening in the hedge, and I could see that it was being worn by a woman in a white dress. She had to be tall, after all, the hedge was over two meters tall. Before I could really think about it, the woman was gone, seemingly gone. The strange sound was gone too. At the time, I just assumed that the person’s apparent height was due to wearing very high heels or that it was a man dressed as a woman. Strange, but that was it.

A little later, while having tea with my grandparents, I mentioned the strange person I had seen... but when I mentioned the strange "po, po, po" noise, my grandparents panicked. Suddenly, my grandfather was bombarding me with questions: "When did you see that?!", "How much higher than the fence?!", "Did she SEE you?!". I answered as quickly as he asked, so he ran to the phone in the hallway, closing the sliding door so that I could not hear the call. The room suddenly became very quiet. Grandma smiled a little, but she was shaking for some reason. My grandfather soon came back and told me that I would be staying with them for the night. I had to admit that I didn't understand what the fuss was about and asked what was so bad about the strange woman. Grandpa said, "Grandma can tell you." He then looked at her and said that he was going to meet someone called "K-san" (Mr. or Mrs. K) and then left.

With a clearly trembling voice she said, “It seems that Hachishakusama has taken an interest in you… but we shouldn’t worry. Grandpa is taking action.” Grandma then gradually told me that this woman was not a person, but a kind of monster, called Hachishakusama because of her height… 8 shaku [Japanese foot, about 11.9 inches] tall, so: “hachi” [8] “shaku” [foot] “sama” [person]. Her appearance might change a bit—sometimes young, sometimes old—but she would always be abnormally tall with a sinister laugh… “Po Po Po.”

Once Hachishakusama took an interest in a person, they would be hunted to death within a few days. The last known victim had died fifteen years earlier.

I later learned that Hachishakusama was supposedly trapped in a shrine near the village, having been sealed by four statues of Jizo, a child-protecting deity, each placed to the north, south, east, and west of the structure. The village had some sort of agreement with the neighboring villages, in which they received certain perks to compensate for having to keep an eye on the monster… for example, they had priority use of the water. Since it had been over a dozen years since the creature had killed anyone, I wonder if the old people in those villages still thought this was a good deal.

At the time, I couldn’t believe what was being said, of course; but then Grandpa came back with a very old lady, K-san, who handed me a small paper charm and told me to hold on to it. Then she and Grandpa went upstairs. While they were upstairs, I tried to go to the bathroom… but Grandma wouldn’t let me go alone, and she insisted on keeping the door open and keeping an eye on me while I used the facilities. That’s when I really began to understand how serious my grandparents thought the situation was.

I was soon taken upstairs to a room. The only window was covered with newspaper. In each corner was a small pile of Morishio—sacred salt—and they had also set up a small wooden box with a statue of Buddha. I was told that I had to stay in the room until seven the next morning, and that I was not to leave under any circumstances (they gave me a bucket in case I needed it). Grandpa made it clear that neither he nor Grandma would speak to me until seven the next morning. K-san told me to keep the amulet with me, and to pray to the Buddha if I got scared.

I had a bed and a TV in the room. Grandma had left snacks for me. I tried to watch some TV, but I couldn’t pay attention. I wasn’t hungry either. So I just lay in bed, wrapped in the sheets, and finally fell asleep because the next thing I remember was waking up to a late night TV show. My watch said it was around 1 AM and I was getting a little depressed, thinking "what a great time to wake up" when...

“Tak Tak”

I heard a knock on the window.

It wasn't like the sound of branches hitting the window or rocks being thrown at it, it sounded like a hand knock, despite the fact that I was on the second floor. I felt the blood drain from my head and tried desperately to cheer myself up, telling myself it was the wind playing tricks. I took a sip of tea, but it didn't help. So I turned up the volume on the TV and forced myself to watch.

That's when I heard Grandpa calling me. "Hey, are you okay? If you're really scared, you don't have to try hard, you know?"

I instinctively ran to the door, but at the last moment I remembered what Grandpa had said and stopped myself from moving the seal.

Grandpa spoke to me again, saying, "What are you doing? You can open it now."

It sounded like my grandfather, but somehow, it was different. I couldn't tell how, but I just knew.

When I looked to my left, a shiver ran down my spine—the salt was slowly darkening.

Grandpa's voice continued to echo in the room, but he only repeated the same lines: "Hey, are you okay? If you're really scared, there's no need to worry."

I was still hoping it was Grandpa, and I couldn’t move from the door when the words started to get distorted.

“Hey, are you okay? If you don’t have to try hard, you know?”

“What are you? You can open it.”

“Hey, are you okay? You can open it if you don’t have to try hard.”

“Are you okay? You can open it if you have to try hard.”

“Po”

The sound made me run straight to the Buddha figure, and I held the amulet tightly as I prayed desperately.

As I began to pray, the voice grew louder, “Poppopo, po, popo…”, and the knocking on the window started again.

When I imagined “it” raising its hand and knocking on the window, fear took over me, and I was half crying, half praying for the rest of the long night. It seemed like an eternity, but unbelievably, morning came, and when I finally calmed down, the morning news was on and the TV showed that it was 7:30. I don’t remember when the sounds stopped, so I assumed I had somehow fallen asleep or lost consciousness during the night. When I crawled to the corner of the room, I saw that the salt had turned almost completely black.

I tried to ignore it. It was very persistent. I had some tea and a snack, and turned up the volume on the TV to drown out the pounding. Then I heard Grandpa call from the hallway, “Are you okay? It’s okay to come out if you’re too scared.” I automatically went to the door, but stopped myself when I remembered how insistent Grandpa had been not to speak to me until seven. Again I heard him: “It’s okay, come here.” I wanted it to be my grandfather’s voice… but somehow it wasn’t. Suddenly I got goosebumps; then I noticed the salt in the corner. It was getting darker.

I crouched down in front of the Buddha, holding the amulet in both hands, and began to pray for help. “Popoppo, Po, Popo…” The knocking on the window started again, louder than before, more insistent. Then a hand definitely knocked on the window… despite the fact that I was on the second floor. I did the only thing I could; I kept praying to the Buddha.

It was a long night. I really don’t remember much other than praying until I heard the news on TV. I looked over and the morning clock on the news screen showed it was 7:13. The knocking stopped. The voice faded. The salt in the corners was almost black. I opened the door carefully. Grandma and K-san, both looking worried, were there. My grandmother, in tears, told me that things would be okay.

Downstairs, I found my father waiting. Grandpa had come in from outside, and we needed to leave… outside, I found several men standing near a van. My grandfather’s car was in front of the van, and my father’s was in the back. I was sitting in the middle of the van with eight men sitting around me; one on each side, then three in the front and three in the back. One more man sat in the driver’s seat, and K-san sat in the front passenger seat. I was told to keep my eyes closed and my face down. “You’re the only one who can see Hachishakusama… don’t look at her!” Our convoy started, slowly at first. I don’t think we had traveled even 20 kilometers before K-san warned us that things were about to get tough… then she started chanting Buddhist-sounding phrases. And then I heard the laughter again: “Poppopo, Po, pop, Popopo…” I clutched the pendant to my chest and kept my head down, but I couldn’t resist a quick peek out the window. A white dress came into view, and I saw that “she” was moving with the van. Her long legs allowed her to keep up with the pace, but her height prevented me from seeing her face through the window. I was still watching when “she” began to bend down, trying to look into the van.

She mesmerized me, and even though all the alarms in my body were going off, I couldn’t close my eyes.

She was slowly bending down, and I could see her slender shoulders and neck that seemed to belong to a slender woman. She bent down even lower, allowing me to see the top of her head, and with her beautiful silky black hair, I was unbelievably eager to see her face.

Until she lifted her head.

Her eyes. The two black holes where her eyes should have been filled my mind with Fear.

The fear was so great that my body went numb, completely ignoring all the signals from my brain to look away.

His face slowly moved closer to the window, and just as he was about to touch the car, the man in his fifties saw my open eyes and shouted,

“CLOSE YOUR EYES RIGHT NOW!”

Although no one else could see Hachishakusama, everyone heard what happened next: the knocking. I don’t know how, but the knocking started on all the windows of the van, all at the same time. I don’t know how long it lasted, but eventually it subsided. K-san had also stopped singing at that point, and finally said that she felt that we were safe now, so all the cars stopped. My father and grandfather thanked all the men who helped, who were also family. Grandpa and K-san hoped to confuse Hachishakusama by surrounding me with many people of the same lineage. So I had to spend the night at home, while Grandpa gathered the relatives. Besides, he thought it was safer to try to escape during the day than at night.

K-san asked me to show her the amulet that I had forgotten I was still holding; it had turned almost completely black. K-san said, “It should be okay now, but just in case…”; and with that she handed me a new amulet to hold on to until I got home. My father drove the rest of the way. During the ride, he told me that one of his friends when he was young had been taken by Hachishakusama. Grandpa and the neighbors later returned my bike. Some time later, while talking to my grandfather on the phone, I confirmed with him that it wasn't his voice that I heard outside the room that night (which gave me chills again). Hachishakusama targets teenagers and children...so if the monster speaks with the voice of a familiar relative, the victim would usually come to him willingly.

As I said at the beginning, it's been over 10 years since this happened, but the story didn't end there. Instead, the story had a horrific epilogue not long ago. My grandmother called a few days ago. (Grandpa died 2 years ago, but I was not allowed to visit him in his last breath or attend his funeral)

She told me that "The jizou that was used to seal Hachishakusama was broken by someone (a common thing in Japan). Also, the broken statue was facing east, the direction of her house."

I try to tell myself that it's all just superstition, or that maybe it was all just a dream... but sometimes I still hear that voice calling: "Popopo..."

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Source:

https://awizardslibrary.com/your-stories/japanese-horror-stories-1/

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