Travelling has always been my passion. My parents tell me that when I was small I used to run off to the woods and explore for hours, only coming back when they came looking for me. It was manageable at first, but as I grew older and more confident my wandering habit started to become a real problem. My parents would often struggle to find me as I explored our local area with wonder. Then eventually their relief would come with the call of a worried neighbour, who had seen their solitary seven year old walking by himself in the dead of night.
I grew up as an only child of a relatively poor family, so vacations were a rarity and we almost certainly never left the country. However every year we would make the trip from Manchester to Birmingham to see my grandmother. These trips were the highlight of my year, as they’d often be the only chance I had to explore. I could barely contain my excitement during the lengthy car ride, my eyes glued to the window as the world flashed by my eager eyes. I’m sure others would call me crazy for taking such joy from something as boring as that, but I just think they don’t understand. I mean I’ve met people who say they love travel, but I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who really LOVES travel, you know what I mean? Nobody really understands what it truly means to be on the move, leaving responsibility behind and casting doubts to the wind. I know how narcissistic that must sound, but it’s the truth as I see it.
As an adult, I lived to travel. I got a job at a small accounting firm to support my journeys, but I was never passionate about my work. Or about anything else in my life, really. It began to feel as if my regular life was just an intermission. A small break between the periods where I could really be myself, in faraway places. Of course this made things difficult for me, because it was hard to care about anything when I felt so disconnected from my body.
On my thirty first birthday I began to plan my next expedition. My target this time was Asia. I planned to take a few weeks backpacking through Vietnam, before moving on to Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, with the main event taking place in Japan. I’d been several times in the past, but never enough that it felt like I’d really experienced it. I planned to spend time around the different regions, and end the trip in Tokyo.
I departed for my trip in the middle of November. I packed nothing but a few sets of clothes and my passport. Travelling light was a big part of my ideology, and something I was unwilling to compromise on. To me, that also means travelling alone. I’ve tried going with others on the past but eventually I’d get tired of the normality, and their presence would start to feel like a weight pulling me back. This trip was just the same. I made my solitary way through Asia ignoring the bitter cold of winter that surrounded me. Eventually, after weeks of moving I arrived in Tokyo.
It’s really a beautiful place, if you can look past the blatant late stage capitalism. I was tired after a long flight, so my plan for the first day was to sleep in my room. Unfortunately the hotel I had booked was with money leftover from a long journey, so you can imagine the quality I ended up with. The room was messy, and had a damp smell. The walls were thin and I could hear the brutal argument of an American couple next door. Realising sleep would be the last thing to come to me here, I dumped my stuff and made my way through the streets. Probably not the best idea if you consider the dingy area I was in, but travelling was my nature and I never cared about where I was, as long as I could move.
The streets outside were practically desolate. A few bright signs lit my way as I navigated through the maze of identical concrete buildings. Eventually I found a familiar sight. A 7-11, standing tall in front of me. Well, maybe tall is the wrong word to describe it. Sandwiched in between the looming grey giants that surrounded it, the 7-11 was tiny. As I started to move away, my stomach growled and I was suddenly keenly aware of how hungry I was. It wasn’t exactly the cuisine I had planned to experience in Tokyo, but I couldn’t remember the last meal I’d had that wasn’t aeroplane junk, and I didn’t really have a lot of cash to throw around. In the end I decided it was the best option, and entered the store.
At first nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. Aside from the foreign products I couldn’t recognise or understand, it was just a normal 7-11. Walking through the isles my eyes scanned the wide range of products available. After perusing the various pre-made meals I picked out a small bowl of yakisoba noodles and a pork bun. The food here looked so delicious, much better than I expected from a typical convenience store. I walked up towards to counter and handed my food to the cashier to be scanned. I felt a sudden chill and looked up. The cashier was just… gone.
I looked around in uncertainty, trying to determine if something was happening or if I had just gone mad. It was then that I noticed the 7-11 had… changed. The first thing to hit me was the smell. It was the putrid smell of squalor that curled my brow and churned my stomach. Around me stood beaten shelves packed with what must have once been food, but had since rotted to an unrecognisable level. Maggots squirmed across the stained and dirty floors, dappled with garbage and chunks of the ceiling that had fallen out with age. The store felt hot and humid, and I could feel glistening beads of sweat start to pool on my face. Above it all were battered and cracked LED lights that painted the room with sickly green light. It seemed like the place hadn’t been touched in years.
I started to walk backwards towards the door when sudden peals of laughter rang through my ears. My body shook in response to the unexpected uproar. It seemed the be coming from the small kitchen kept behind the counter for the preparation of the baked goods the store would have usually sold, and showed no sign of slowing. It was a deranged, manic cackle that pierced my eardrums, giving me a splitting headache. I silently made the decision to investigate, a choice that seems so alien to me now I can’t begin to justify it. Step by step, I made my way behind the counter.
The howling laughter grew in volume as I approached. With shaking hands, I pulled the handle and anxiously peeked at the scene unfolding behind the door. A middle aged man stood in a dimly lit kitchen. It seemed to be in the same state of disrepair that had taken hold of the store as spoiled food and rot spilled from counters and fell to the floor. A layer of grime and what seemed to be dried blood lined the countertops. In the centre of the room the man stood with the most demented expression I’d ever seen on another human being. He stood tall, holding his hand over a sleek meat grinder, perhaps the only clean thing to enter this room in years. Continuing to laugh, and stare straight into my eyes he plunged his fist inside of it.
A scream burst from his lungs and slowly morphed back into the same crazed laugh I had heard. Blood and flesh sprayed the walls as he continued to push his arm deep inside of the grinder. Bloody tears rolled down his cheeks while he laughed, and laughed and laughed. The meat that came out the other end of that grinder… is something I never want to think about again, and I will spare you the description. My body lurched and I couldn’t help but fall to the greasy floor and empty the contents of my stomach.
My head spun as I ran from the room and out of the store. I could still hear the pained laughter deep inside my ears, blocking out all else around me. I returned to my hotel, and I’m not ashamed to say that I cried. For hours I sat motionless beside my door trying desperately to process the events that had just taken place.
I canceled the remainder of my trip and went home the day after. I didn’t bother to report what I had seen to the police, as I knew this was something beyond human comprehension. That didn’t stop me from doing my own research, and what I found will haunt me forever. That 7-11 closed down 20 years ago after a scandal involving the owner of the location. From what I could tell it appears the owner had been… feeding himself… to the customers through the meat buns prepared in store. It took staff a while to notice, but when they did the store was closed on the spot, and left untouched for 20 years. I still don’t understand what happened to me that day, but needless to say I haven’t been travelling since.