Suicide Forest

Suicide Forest is a horror novel set in Japan, narrated in the first person by Ethan Childs, a 26-year-old American English teacher living in Tokyo.

Ethan organizes a weekend trip to climb Mt. Fuji with his girlfriend, Melinda "Mel" Clement; Tomo Ishiwara, a Japanese university student; Neil Rodgers, a New Zealand English teacher; Katsuichi Honda, a Japanese construction company worker; and John Scott, a brash American soldier who knows Mel from high school. When threatening weather makes the climb impossible, they stop at Kawaguchiko and meet Benjamin (Ben) and Nina, a young Israeli couple who propose camping in Aokigahara Jukai, a vast forest near Mt. Fuji known as Suicide Forest because hundreds of people die by suicide there each year. Honda explains the forest's ties to ubasute, the historical practice of abandoning family members during famine, and the belief that it is haunted by yūrei, or spirits of the dead. John Scott eagerly agrees. The others follow, except Honda, who drops them at the forest entrance and leaves.

They enter the forest, an unsettling landscape where trees grow impossibly close over solidified volcanic magma, roots twist aboveground, and an eerie silence replaces all natural sounds. They pass signs urging suicidal visitors to reconsider and cross a rope barrier onto a restricted trail used by police to recover bodies. The group splits: Ben, Nina, and John Scott go one direction while Ethan, Mel, Neil, and Tomo go the other. The terrain is treacherous, riddled with collapsed lava tubes. Mel steps into a concealed crevice and plunges far below the surface. Neil ties together tent ropes, and the three men haul her to safety.

Following a white ribbon spooled into the forest, the group discovers the scattered belongings of a dead woman identified as Yumi Akido, age 21, including a copy of The Complete Manual of Suicide. No body is present. Ethan is shaken, imagining the ritual Yumi performed before ending her life.

That evening, tensions surface. Ethan's ex-girlfriend Shelly MacDonald calls his phone. He does not answer, but Mel discovers the call and confronts him, having already found a romantic message from Shelly. They argue, and Ethan storms off. Later, a blocked caller asks Ethan in a scratchy voice why he is in "my forest." He assumes it is a prank from his friend Derek Miller.

When Ethan, Ben, and Nina collect firewood, they find small crucifixes hanging from branches, all swinging despite no wind. Ethan stumbles into the decomposing body of a man hanging from a rope. Ben, deeply distressed after consuming wild psychedelic mushrooms that John Scott gave him, panics and flees. The group eventually calms Ben, but he remains agitated.

By morning, Ben is gone. They find him hanging from a tree, dead. Nina accuses John Scott of causing the death. Ethan and John Scott come to blows. The string they followed into the forest has vanished, and their cell phones are missing. Tomo calls police on Neil's phone, the only one remaining. The dispatcher promises to begin a trace, but when they call back later, the phone dies. They are stranded without food, water, or communication, and Neil is deteriorating from severe food poisoning.

The next morning, Tomo is found hanging from a tree. Mel discovers a blood-crusted contusion on the back of his skull and finds an identical wound on Ben. Both men were knocked unconscious and hanged. The deaths are not suicides: Someone is hunting them.

Mel confesses she lied about sleeping with John Scott; she fabricated the story out of jealousy over Shelly. They reconcile. Nina privately reveals she was raped in New Delhi, attempted suicide afterward, and that visiting the Suicide Forest was her idea, not Ben's.

With no rescue arriving, John Scott climbs a tall tree to spot Mt. Fuji but falls and sustains a compound leg fracture. Ethan resets the bone and splints the leg. John Scott insists they carry Neil out first, arguing Neil's condition is more critical. Ethan then climbs the same tree, locates Mt. Fuji, and spots smoke from a campfire two to three miles away. Ethan, Mel, and Nina set out toward the smoke with sharpened tent poles as weapons, leaving trail markers behind.

As darkness falls, pale, feral teenagers in gray robes surround them. A gravelly voice, the same one from the phone call, declares they will die. Nina is seized and dragged away. A dagger strikes Ethan's back. He fights off the attackers and rescues Mel. They flee toward a distant glow: a rough-hewn cabin.

The cabin belongs to Hiroshi, a man in his fifties who presents himself as a forest ranger. When Ethan's stolen cell phone rings from inside a locked chest, he tackles Hiroshi and breaks the chest open, discovering wallets, watches, and phones looted from the dead. Ethan calls Derek and instructs him to have his girlfriend Sumiko contact police. Derek confirms that a search team already knows the cabin's location.

Under duress, Hiroshi reveals the truth. Decades ago, a family abandoned a boy and a girl in Aokigahara. The girl died, but the boy, Akira, survived as a feral child, later abducting a young woman and fathering children with her. Hiroshi discovered Akira roughly 20 years into his tenure and struck a deal: Akira brought valuables from the dead, and Hiroshi provided food and supplies. Akira now has eight surviving sons, kills any daughters, and replaces captive women by abducting those who enter the forest. He intends to take Mel and Nina.

Akira's sons attack the cabin. Ethan fights them, but Akira knocks him unconscious with a samurai sword. Hiroshi performs seppuku, ritual self-disembowelment. Akira sets the cabin ablaze and takes Mel. John Scott, who followed the trail markers, drags Ethan from the burning cabin.

Ethan tracks screams through the forest to Akira's camp, where a blind, tongueless former captive tends a fire above an underground lava tube system. Ethan dumps John Scott's remaining stash of mushrooms into the stew. After the family eats, the younger children become catatonic and the older sons lose focus. Mel, Nina, and a Japanese captive named Oshima Mano are brought out bound in white robes.

Ethan attacks, killing the three eldest sons. Akira seizes Mel at knifepoint and drags her into a grove where the decomposing bodies of his former captives hang from trees. Mel breaks free by stabbing Akira with a stick. Ethan drives a spear through Akira's gut, and Mel helps plunge a dagger into his chest. Nina arrives and castrates Akira.

The survivors secure the remaining children and wait through the night. By dawn, one boy leads them to the burned cabin, where police are waiting. John Scott and Neil are airlifted to a Tokyo hospital. John Scott keeps his leg; Neil remains in critical condition.

In an epilogue set months later, Ethan and a pregnant Mel have settled at her mother's house in St. Helena, California. Japanese authorities held them for nearly two weeks, but an international media firestorm forced their release. The community views them as pariahs. Mel has depression. One evening, Mel's mother, bedridden after a furnace accident, hangs herself. Mel sits on the bed holding her mother's pistol to her own temple. Ethan begs her to think of their baby. She lowers the gun. He holds her as she sobs and resolves to leave St. Helena, listening as police sirens approach.