Shivers, also titled Coldness and The Chill, is the fourth chapter from volume 7 of the Horror World of Junji Ito Collection, Slug Girl.
Plot[]
Yuuji lives next door to a girl named Rina, who cannot leave the house because she has a serious illness. She screams in terror that there are bugs swarming all over her, although her mother says it's a hallucination. Rina is regularly visited at home by a doctor, but his visits cause her to become extremely agitated. Yuuji has also observed that her skin is full of deep holes everywhere. Her family's garden is completely overgrown, and on the rare occasions Yuuji sees her outside, she will point at the bushes and giggle. One day, after seeing her appear, he suddenly has a memory of when he was a young child and his grandfather died. Yuuji saw that his grandfather's body had become completely hollowed out with holes like Rina's; but his parents told him he imagined it.
In the present day, Yuuji meets up with his friend Hideo. Hideo's mother is a midwife at the local hospital, who delivered Rina at birth. Rina was born not breathing and the doctors could not explain how she was alive; but then the holes began to open in her skin and she was somehow able to breathe through them. However, Hideo claims his mother might be making this story up, and Yuuji doesn't know what to believe.
Hideo browses through the books at Yuuji's house and the two read through a diary that Yuuji's grandfather wrote. After acquiring a jade insect statue that an old comrade found in Java, he developed a chill and was visited by a mysterious doctor who gave him an injection. Holes began to open up in his skin and draft came in through them. Then, insects began to crawl out from the holes in swarms. He called this the curse of the jade statue and threw it into the neighboring garden. He also believed that the doctor who had been visiting him wanted to steal the jade. The boys put down the diary when Rina appears at her window, once again pointing towards the bushes. Hideo starts to feel cold so he leaves.
Yuuji watches as Rina's doctor comes to visit her, but she screams and slams the door in his face. Yuuji half-remembers the face of the doctor who attended Yuuji's grandfather; and comes to suspect they are the same person. He debates over whether or not to tell Rina's family that his grandfather is responsible for the curse on their daughter. Hideo encourages Yuuji to keep quiet about it, but Yuuji resolves he must tell the truth. As he is about to go over to their house, he sees Rina in the garden outside, apparently recovered. She is calm and happy, and her skin looks completely normal.
That night, Hideo, now completely hollowed out with holes breaks into Yuuji's room. On the day they found the diary, he went looking for the jade statue in the bushes outside Rina's house. He took a chance with the curse because he knew the jade must be valuable; but then the holes began to open up in his body. He is now possessed by the statue and can't throw it away, although he has tried many times. He says that the doctor is the curse's "messenger", who appears wherever the jade is. Suddenly, the doctor appears and Hideo runs screaming from him.
The following day Yuuji finds Hideo's dead body beside the river where he had tried to dispose of the jade. The jade is nowhere to be found.