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Story 25

“The 10-Yen Hag”
(Local Urban Legend)

There was a local urban legend in my hometown.

They called her the 10-Yen Hag.
She earned that name because whenever she passed someone on the street, she’d croak out in a raspy old voice, “Give me 10 yen.”
No one knew who she really was.
She always wore a tattered, burnt-brown coat, and rain or shine, she carried a black umbrella strapped to her back.

Rumor had it that if you gave the 10-Yen Hag ten yen, she would follow you home.
So nobody ever gave her money, and everyone completely ignored her whenever she spoke.

There were other rumors, too:
If you gave her 100 yen, she’d kill you.
If you gave her 1 yen, she’d gouge your eyes out.
But those were just baseless stories.

That was the legend—up to that point.

Then one day, rumors spread that the 10-Yen Hag had died.
People figured she was homeless and quite old, so it wasn’t surprising.
I was still in the lower grades of elementary school at the time.
Just like the rumors said, we used to see her around two or three times a week—but after that, she completely disappeared.

But soon after, a new rumor started:
The ghost of the 10-Yen Hag still appeared.
And—I actually saw her.

It happened when I was walking home from school one afternoon, alone.

I saw her—the 10-Yen Hag.
She was crossing the street, even though the pedestrian light was red.
Then a car came speeding through and hit her.
It was a clear impact—I was sure of it.

But the car didn’t stop.
It just kept driving,
and when I looked back at the crosswalk, she wasn’t there anymore.

I saw that the car had pulled into a nearby convenience store,
so I decided to go check it out.

But as I got closer, I noticed something strange—and stopped.

It was a small white car.
There was only one driver, a middle-aged man.
But in the back seat, right in the middle,
I saw a silhouette of someone sitting there.

That figure slowly turned its head toward me—
and smiled.

Its head turned all the way around.

And then it spoke: