Chapter 1
THREE YEARS LATER
There were traces of the door having been opened.
The sand was pushed to one side. The wooden door was warped, and mold and fungi grew from every crevice. Every time the sea wind hit the door, it creaked a sorrowful cry. When I tried to open it, I found it locked from the inside.
The stupid jerk. If he was going to pretend not to be inside, he should have left it unlocked.
I rested my shoulder against the door to reduce the kickback and then shoved it hard.
With a crash, the screws holding the rusty hinges on were forced out and the door burst open. Clouds of dust billowed up from the floor like snow. The blustery wind swept ruthlessly through the house.
It was empty, with just a few things that no one wanted left lying around.
Broken plates and plastic boxes, a toilet without a seat.
The door to the bathroom had been pulled off, and there were holes in the wall where the washbasin and kitchen sink would have been.
Cool moonlight seeped in through a window that was patched up with wood and nails, and an added glow from the lighthouse beam pulsed now and then.
Some squatters made homeless by the flood must have boarded it up because there was nothing else to replace the broken glass.
Just another abandoned house, clinging to the mountainside like the rest of Haewon Village.
The eastern sky had a dusky light in it, but the day was still early. I was intent on finishing up before dawn.
I placed my hand on the military knife that hung from the right-hand side of my belt. The knife fit snug in my palm … today might be the day. With all the restraint I could muster, I released the knife and clasped a baton in each hand.
As I stepped farther inside, I held the baton in my left hand up firmly to my face for defense and softly swung the other to intimidate.
A musty salt smell stung my nose, different from the tang of human bodies.
The salt smell of blood is metallic, from ferrous ion.
What was stinging my nose now was the salty stench of rotting fish.
Sergeant Hyunjun had once informed me, as he leafed through a report, “That fishy smell comes from a compound called trimethylamine that helps fish regulate osmotic pressure. There’s actually a genetic disorder called trimethylaminuria, where sufferers create and excrete excessive trimethylamine.
It makes them stink of fish. The East Sea Disease has that same symptom. ”
If East Sea Disease only caused this stench, that would be great. But …
Some huge creature moved nimbly in the darkness. The movement wasn’t right for a human, and the shape was too big for it to be a dog or cat. I twisted to block my opponent from the door. I’d checked before I entered: there was no other way in or out of the house.
“There’ll be no time while we’re fighting, so I’ll say this in advance. You can request a lawyer and you have the right to remain silent.”
Keeping the door in mind, I took a few more steps inside and tapped at the window with my baton. Softened by the humidity, the wood nailed across the window frame shook like paper.
“But as you already know, lawyers don’t come to this village. Better not to rely on one. And it’d be best if you don’t exercise your right to remain silent, since it’s a waste of time. You’ve already violated self-isolation thirteen times, and I’m close to losing my temper.”
When I was done with my speech, I bashed the wood at the window with all my might.
As the planks splintered, the sweeping lighthouse beam streamed in, blinding. There was a bloodcurdling scream. The thing that made it ran at me covering its eyes.
I took off my jacket and threw it over his face. I was going to pull the sleeves across his neck to choke him, but with no hair on that slippery head, it slid right off.
As I staggered for footing, my opponent pounced on me, shrieking. I lost my balance and fell backward. I guarded my face with my left baton and grabbed his grasping arm with my right hand.
That bloodcurdling sound rang again in my ears.
My opponent’s arm was too long for his body.
His bones had developed abnormally, making his elbows stick out.
Veins showed through the skin pulled tight over his muscles, and his joints were a deep bruised blue.
His fingers were unnaturally long, and there were blisters all along them and across the back of his hand.
But even that arm wasn’t so strange compared to this guy’s face.
There were two or three extra teeth sticking out of his mouth, jamming the rest out of alignment.
His lips curled away from them and his jawbone jutted out.
Since his mouth couldn’t close, drool dribbled down his chin and a foul stench rode his breath.
His cheekbones protruded, and his face was swollen.
The skin, pulled taut across his nose, made it look like only a set of nostrils.
His bulging eyes were a deep, bloodshot red.
“Ph’ulu pulu fhtapa…” The diseased man tried to speak but it was hard to understand the gurgle from his ruined oral cavity.
This I could understand: a life sunk deep in terrible misfortune, and a heart that howled, hoping that the stifling pain inside might be eased a little by someone, anyone else, becoming as unfortunate as himself.
I’d heard that just three years ago this young man had been well known in the village for his good looks.
I heard he had studied physical education at Hanzhong University, and was the pride of his family.
People even said that once, when he had gone to Seoul with some friends, he’d been stopped in the street and given a business card by someone from a modeling agency.
After catching East Sea Disease, skeletal abnormalities and facial deformities put an end to his looks.
But just like so many of the infected, it was his mind that had suffered the most destruction.
Making a screeching wail, the monster grabbed my arms and forced them down. The baton descended bit by bit and pressed down hard into my throat.
“This … is your last … warning. You’re interfering with a public official’s duties … and you ignored your isolation order.”
As I finished speaking, I swung my knee into the monster’s crotch with all my might. The fact that they don’t print how vulnerable that dangling organ is on the first page of first-year elementary school textbooks speaks volumes about how this world is tailored for the comfort of men.
As the monster collapsed wailing, I struck him hard with my baton. His nose shattered with a pak. The monster rolled on the floor, clutching his crotch and his face.
Gasping, I got up. Again, my hand found the military knife at my belt. Today might just be the day.
This jerk can’t be locked up or put to death.
The village’s maritime police station was shut down, and there’s no detention facility in the substation, which was the only judicial authority left.
And the people in this village can’t leave.
Since we’re all infected or carriers, we can’t be locked up in any prison or brought to trial.
The only punishment this village has is house arrest, whether for a petty thief or an armed robber.
We lock them up at home, just like the infected people who would spread the disease.
And there’s no one to enforce all the house arrest orders.
The only way to make sure someone in isolation doesn’t leave the house is voluntary surveillance by villagers and the cooperation of their family.
It’s a miracle this damned situation has kept going for three years.
… today might just be the day.
Is there any reason to hold out any longer?
Is there any reason left for me to stick to the straight and narrow in this isolated, abandoned village?
When the administration and judicial systems have given up on us?
In any case, I’ll take a bad hit one day, in a fight like this, and bleed out in some secluded alleyway, or else be murdered by one of the infected with a grudge. What was I pushing so hard to defend?
Even if I left this jerk tied up in his house today, he’d be out again by tomorrow, spreading his germs all over the place. If he died here today, wouldn’t some well-behaved child who hadn’t yet been infected get to live a little longer?
My mind was half made up to pull my knife. But I held back and swung my batons.