Chapter 8
After sundown in Haewon Village, you can’t see an inch in front of you. There are no shops open at night, no streetlights on the road, and no boats going out with lamps to fish.
The three quarantine breakers led me to the waterfront.
Past the quayside with its deserted maritime police station, we walked along the sand and gravel paths far from the road.
The waves wet my shoes and they soon grew heavy.
Thinking that I wouldn’t be able to run like this, I threw away my socks caked in wet sand and carried my shoes as I walked.
Although I trudged along slowly, the three of them just watched, never rushing me.
Unperturbed by the bad weather, there was an altar fire burning on the distant Haewon seawall.
Whenever we strayed close to some homes or a larger road, I looked to see if anyone was around, if anyone would intervene, but there was no one.
For the first time, I thought about the proportions of the infected and uninfected in the population of the village.
How many uninfected people were left? It occurred to me that villagers might be huddled around the windows of every house, quietly watching me pass.
The three of them crossed over the coast road and began to climb the mountain. Twigs and fallen branches stabbed into my bare feet, so I had no choice but to put my shoes back on, heavy as rocks.
I wondered where they were planning to do me in.
No, I’d be lucky if all they did was kill me.
Please, let it be that easy. I tripped on a rock and fell.
I thought that my body losing balance would be a signal for some kind of attack, but my watchers just waited quietly.
I still had my knife and baton hanging at my waist. Why weren’t they taking my weapons away?
Maybe they weren’t worried about such trivial things.
It was only when we were halfway up the mountain that I realized where they were leading me.
When I caught sight of the building from a long way off, I began to tremble from my core.
It was Sarang Hospital. The place where, before anyone knew that East Sea Disease sufferers needed moisture and cold, the first of the infected had suffered and died.
The place where Hyun was admitted, but never discharged.
We approached the hospital from behind. It was encircled by a barbed wire fence covered with signs saying “quarantine zone,” “keep out.” Professor Shim stepped out ahead, cut open the fence with the bolt cutters, and went inside.
When we got to the employee entrance at the back of the hospital, Nurse Jeong opened the door from the inside, wearing a mask. My three escorts went straight inside, not even greeting her.
I glanced at Nurse Jeong. Her expression showed that she’d known I was coming. Her eyes said it all. You’re not one of us. What you do next will determine whether you live or die tonight.
Having entered the hospital, comprehending the scene unfolding there took all I had.
The doors to the isolation wards were wide open.
Working in unison, the doctors and nurses were removing the bandages that covered the bodies of the infected, taking out their IVs, and untying the cloth restraints that had been holding patients to their beds.
The infected bared their deformed faces and walked out together.
But their unsightly faces weren’t all that frightening.
It was the scene at the end of the corridor that made me freeze.
The hospital director was prostrate, tied up with rope and covered in blood.
It looked as though he had taken multiple blows to the head with a blunt weapon.
One side of his skull had caved in. I met him a few times at church.
He would preach with his eyes closed tight, swaying and bowing like a balloon man outside a store’s opening day, saying, “I believe that our Lord Jesus Christ will drive the sickness away.” He had an appealing presence and came across as a gentle person.
That same person now had his eyes rolled all the way back, his tongue hanging out, and had been discarded like a piece of trash.
I didn’t take my eyes off the corpse. I tried to set the precise details in my mind, for fear that my imagination would make it even more horrible.
None of the patients showed the least interest in the hospital director’s corpse. It seemed they all knew about it already. The murder was old news, unanimously condoned.
Jean Jacket pushed me from behind and gestured with his chin for me to move. With my mouth tightly closed, I glared at him, but did not budge.
“Move.”
I didn’t. What reason was there left for me to endure such humiliation? My end was already decided. What was I going to achieve by continuing to follow the whims of these ghouls? Why should I amuse my murderers for a moment longer?
Jean Jacket pushed me harder and I almost fell down.
He continued to push, until I lost all resolve and followed like a dog.
Patients joined us, and we moved forward in a crowd.
For the most part they were silent, and when they did speak, they conversed in a language I couldn’t understand.
It seemed they had made their own new language.
I was led down to the basement. I kept feeling waves of fear that made it hard to breathe.
I was sure that I would soon faint, fall flat on my face.
As I descended the stairs, a foul fish odor stung my nose.
That stench that I had encountered at Yoonhui’s house: the moist, clammy smell of the rotting sea.
In the basement there was a thick metal door.
It was locked by an iron latch and chain.
Judging by the traces of newly applied cement, the structure had recently been reworked.
I saw that scattered around the door were aluminum pots with dried food on their bottoms. At the base of the door was a small hatch that looked like a cat flap.
My eyes must have deceived me. Looking at the cat flap, I thought I saw a hand dart out and grope about the floor before disappearing back inside.
Professor Shim murmured beside me, and Jean Jacket interpreted. As though it were impossible to precisely convey what was being said, the words were dry and blunt.
“The hospital director was planning to set fire to this isolation chamber tonight and make a run for it.
He thought he could get out of the village by hiding the true symptoms of the disease.
He thought that if he reported the situation as it was, the government would never let him leave.
He convinced the hospital employees that this was what they had to do.
“They hid the patients with the most extreme symptoms in here. They assumed they would die before long, but actually, the humidity and darkness kept them alive.
“We know full well that the disease won’t kill us. We merely become something different.
“… just like they did,” Jean Jacket added for himself.
Professor Shim cut the lock with the huge bolt cutters. Multiple people had to push before the metal door finally moved.
I saw something that had been crouched by the door shoot out like a bullet. It scrabbled through the aluminum pots, searching. It wasn’t human—it couldn’t possibly be human. There was a fin sticking out of its back, gills rising and falling on its neck.
On the other side of the door were stairs that led down and down.
It seemed the space had been reshaped and repurposed multiple times.
Water leaked down walls that were covered with black mold.
The floor was soaked. Creatures lined the stairs, their bodies wrapped in dirty fabric that couldn’t be called clothes.
I realized that the strongest among them commanded the spots by the door and had been getting all the food.
The farther we descended, the more we saw of hell.
On the soggy wet floor, former patients were tangled up with corpses.
Other creatures were picking at food among corpses, self-respect forgotten, nothing left to lose.
Shallow metal bunks stacked high like a charnel house were all that was provided for them.
I was looking around, and then I froze. It felt as though my body had been struck by a massive hammer.
I stumbled through a puddle, shaking uncontrollably.
The tiny figure was huddled in a corner, wearing a tattered headband.
Her face was completely unrecognizable: her skin was dark, and her teeth stuck out.
But I knew the faded red headband on the little head that had lost all its hair.
Her clothes were grimy, but there was pink lace sewn to the bottom of her skirt.
Falling to my knees, I took the headband in my hand.
As though determined not to let this one thing be taken from her, right away the young thing snatched the headband back.
Out of my mind, I wrapped my arms around the child. It was only then that, instead of pushing me away, she fell into my embrace.
“Aun … di?”
Speaking words I couldn’t understand, the child hugged me. She had grown much taller in the years that had passed. Her skin glistened green, and a white webbing showed between her fingers.
The ones who had brought me here quietly observed as I embraced Hyun and sobbed. Professor Shim made a gesture, and with that they let me be and got on with their work. It seemed they had concluded that I was neither the enemy nor us, but no more than a pitiable woman.
I sensed that people were beginning to leave in ones and twos.
They had been confined in this terrible place for such a long time, but they didn’t push each other, or squabble to get out first. They were all quiet as ghosts.
None of that mattered to me. The cold life that was in my arms once again was all there was.