Gakkou no Kaiden:
The Revenge of the Bakeneko

The school children of Satoyama enjoy a good ghost story. Ghost stories cool the blood and help keep one cool in the long summer months. The next story concerns a school teacher by the name of Himari Takashi who once taught at the local junior high school. Now Satoyama is a rural village, fewer than six thousand people reside within the village. And with it being so rural few people own cars. Himari Takashi was one of the handful of teachers who owned a car. She was known for being something of a reckless driver and often late for class.

One day while driving to school she was going well beyond the speed limit of the village. As she rounded a corner a stray white cat walked in front of her speeding car, she had little time to hit the breaks and smashed into the cat, the cat rolled under the wheels of the car and its red blood smeared the tarmac. Since she was already late for class as she often was. Himari Sensei failed to stop and check on the cat or even use her phone to call the vet.

She assumed the cat was dead. But she was wrong, the cat was very much alive. Wounded but alive. So assuming the cat was dead she sped on to class. Now later in the day one of her students approached her desk holding a box. Himari sensei was overcome by curiosity as she leaned over and peered into the box. And to her horror she noticed the box held the injured cat that could only meow softly, as if it was begging for mercy. At that point the village had a very skilled veterinarian who was considered a saint by many, who often did life saving operations for little or nothing. He was only a stone's throw away and could have been summoned at a moment's notice and cat life could have been saved.

But Himari Sensie refused and instead she collected the box. The students begged for her to take the cat to the veterinarian for treatment as they wanted to keep the injured cat as a class pet. The teacher was overcome at that moment with guilt and horror and so smiling she took the box from the student and promised she'll seek help. With that she bowed her head and carried the box away. Once she left the classroom though she carried the box that held the cat toward the school's incinerator and placed it down with the other trash. The cat meowed pitifully. The cruel woman left the box by a mountain of bags to be burned that day.

Later that night when Himari Sensie was on night duty, a woman appeared in the classroom she was looking over, she was dressed in a traditional white burial kimono. The woman stood by one of the windows of the classroom, the one that overlooked the playground that was bathed in shadows. For a moment the woman just stood there, till she slowly turned around and to Himari Sensei horror her face morphed and became very feline. And her hands became claws, the women then sprung at Himari and started to scratch her.

Himari Sensie screamed as she felt her flesh being cut by thousands of tiny claws, the claws were sharp as razor blades and cut her deep and clean, clean enough that the flesh folded back. Overcome by pain she stumbled from the classroom and into the street. She stumbled right into the oncoming headlight of a passing goods truck. The last thing she saw was the blinding yellow light of the headlight and the blaring of its horn before the truck smacked into her, breaking every bone in her body and smashing her head in like a watermelon.

Now that is how this story would end. With Himari Sensie laying out on the ground, her head busted open, her blood seeping into the tarmac. And oddly enough a dozen or so cats gather around her lifeless corpse, licking at the blood, lapping it up if you will.
But no, our story does not ended their. Now in Japan its customary that the dead be cremated. And it would be at cremation of Himari Sensie that the cat's spirit would have its final revenge. As the story goes, as Himari Sensei's coffin was being slid into the oven, the cat's spirit used its magic to bring Himari Sensei back from the dead. Himari Sensei found herself trapped within the confines of the coffin. And the cat's spirit gained its final revenge by burning Himari Sensei alive in her coffin.

If you've enjoyed this story, please leave a comment below. Also please join us next week for another ghost story. Our next story features the ghost of a girl rising up from a well to haunt the boy who killed her. So please stay tuned for. “The Yurie of the Well”