Chapter 6 #2
Before I could reach Woojin, I heard an ear-splitting sound from behind. It was a sinister, horrible shriek that seemed to come from the depths of hell.
Flipping over the basin, the creature sprung up and rushed at Woojin.
Water gushed noisily down the stairs. The creature knocked Woojin down and climbed on top of him.
Pressing down his limbs, it opened its mouth wide.
It was an angle that human jaws could never open to.
Its face split in two like that of a crocodile.
Inside the creature’s mouth were a multitude of sharp, spindly teeth, like those of an angler fish.
Facing this open mouth, Woojin screamed and writhed like a fish.
All the blood left his face, and it was as though the color was fading from his hair.
No matter the shame to the village, I had to protect Woojin from this creature.
I flung my body against it and tried desperately to get it off him.
But, like a boulder, the creature didn’t budge.
It had a strength that went far beyond what I could have imagined.
Had it been an act, all this time, tottering like someone frail and infirm?
Or was this creature unable to gather up strength in the dry air?
Barely seeming to notice that I was hanging off it, the creature sunk its teeth into Woojin’s neck.
Woojin screamed endlessly, as though he was caught in the devil’s jaws.
The creature’s maw took in more than half of Woojin’s neck. Its sharp teeth were latched on. If I pulled it off by force, Woojin’s neck would be ripped apart. And if I did nothing, he would be torn apart just the same. There was no time to waver. I had to decide.
… I guess today was the day.
I brought my knife down on the creature’s neck, aiming for the carotid artery.
This time a despairing, pitiful scream sounded behind me.
The creature’s skin was hard as stone, so the knife’s point turned.
I jumped up on its back and pushed the knife in with both arms, leveraging all my weight.
Once the skin parted, the inside was soft.
The knife passed through the creature’s neck and out the other side.
The creature’s body jerked, and then it sagged, and at last it spread like water.
How long did I wait there like that? Only after it went limp did the tension in my body release, and I flopped down on the floor panting.
When I pried the creature’s jaws open with both hands, beads of blood sprouted from the dense line of pricks on Woojin’s neck.
It mixed with the dark blood pouring from the monster’s mouth.
“U-aah, u-aaaah, u-aaaaaa!”
Woojin squirmed and tried to crawl away on his hands and knees, screaming all the while, but there was no strength in his limbs.
He slid around helplessly. With a wrestling pin, I held Woojin’s struggling body down between my legs and took off his tie to wrap around his neck.
Perhaps thinking I was about to strangle him, Woojin writhed even more pathetically.
“Stay still! If you can scream, it means your windpipe is intact. Get to a hospital! You might have been infected!”
I tried to tell him that ambulances wouldn’t come to the village, so he would have to make his own way there.
I was ready to convince him, tell him we don’t know if the monster would transmit the virus like the infected …
but it seemed he couldn’t hear anything I said.
Everything inside this man, his intellect, his hold on life, all the things that keep a person together, had been vaporized by fear.
As soon as I got off of him, Woojin cried out like prey that had gotten free of a trap, and scuttled down the stairs on all fours.
That’s going to cause trouble. I had to send a message to Sergeant Hyunjun and ask him to take care of it. Get him to the hospital for testing … But how to make sure he wouldn’t speak of what he saw?
That last thought made me stop. Not speak of it? What was I trying to stop him from saying?
As I was writing the message, I felt a gaze from behind like a pickaxe.
It was only then that I turned around. Embracing the creature with her whole body, Yoonhui was glaring at me as if to cast all the curses of the world on my head.
She was smeared with the creature’s blood and her eyes, burning with loathing and resentment, were fixed on me as she embraced the stretched-out creature, gathering it up in her arms.
“There was no other way,” I spluttered. “If I hadn’t intervened, it would have murdered that man. I’ll file a report with the police station. You’ll have to do some explaining.”
I felt like I had become the last person in the world hanging on to a scrap of reason when everything had been torn apart.
I deliberately averted my gaze from the monster that sagged limp as fish skin.
The fact was, I wanted to be able to say that I had encountered a monster and disposed of it, as a representative of humanity facing an alien enemy.
But, from the depths of despair, Yoonhui’s eyes seemed to say, If my husband had looked human, whatever the circumstances, if he had looked even a little more human, you wouldn’t have killed him like that.
Yoonhui spoke. It was a low and dismal sound that I had never heard from her lips. The most desolate sound I had ever heard in my life.
“We … we were … looking out for you, Seo Muyoung.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, straightening up. “Looking out for me? Who’s ‘we’?”
“You were one of the enemy, Seo Muyoung. One of those who mistreat and torment us. I was doing all I could to protect you.”
“‘Enemy’? Who’s the enemy, aside from me?”
“I was right out in front, protecting you. Me, protecting you. Risking myself, for you. I held them back with all my might. I made sure that no one would touch you. What a fool.”
Yoonhui let out a groaning sob. Her bloodshot eyes grew redder. Her stained teeth showed terrible in the darkness. Yoonhui wrapped her whole body around the creature, as though she wanted to become one with it, as though determined to remember even this last waning warmth.
“There won’t be anyone to look out for you now, Seo Muyoung. No one in this village will show you goodwill.”
What could I say to that?
“If you want to save your life, you’d better get out of this village before morning.”