In my novel “Escarpment” http://www.amazon.com/Escarpment-David-Turri/dp/1512293490 I write that, from my own experience of many years’ residence in Japan, the Japanese seem to live on much more intimate terms than we do with the world beyond death.

There is one motif that repeats itself often in spooky stories – the taxi driver who picks up a ghostly passenger. The motif appears most often in tales connected with the Sennichimae department store fire in 1972.

In 1615, the land on which the store would eventually stand was used as a mass grave for people killed in the siege of Osaka castle. Later, the site became an execution ground.

On the evening of May 13, 1972, the Sennichimae Department Store was undergoing renovations in the third floor women’s clothing section. It is believed that the fire started from a carelessly discarded cigarette. Poisonous gasses from construction materials quickly filled the stairwells.

On the top floor of the store there was a nightclub, packed at that time with two hundred people. The exits from it were locked. All elevators had stopped. The stairs were full of smoke and gas. 118 people died.

Ninety-six perished in the cabaret itself – 93 from carbon dioxide poisoning and three from injuries they received when they were trampled on during the panic to escape. Twenty-four, mostly female employees of the nightclub, jumped off the roof. 22 of them died.

Ever since, many people traveling on the Sennichimae subway line, which runs under the place where the store used to be, have heard faint, far-away cries for help. Another department store opened on the site a few years later. Many employees claim to have seen ghostly apparitions in the restrooms.

But the most commonly told stories concern taxi drivers who, late at night, report picking up hostesses in front of the Sennichimae entertainment arcade. Usually, the women are wearing expensive kimonos. There is nothing spectral or spooky about their appearance or their manner. They tell the drivers their destinations and sometimes chat for a minute or two. Everything is normal until the cab pulls up wherever the passenger wanted to go. And she isn’t there anymore.