The Tooth Collector. (7)
Sang-goo's train of thought froze for an instant.
The monster's face, laid bare under the searing white glare of the searchlight.
It was warped something terrible, but there was no mistaking it — it was Jang Seok-woo's face.
The cheekbones, the jawline, the broad slope of the forehead — the whole skeleton was identical, as if someone had copied and pasted Jang Seok-woo's genes wholesale onto it.
Only the size was wrong. The creature's face was swollen to about one and a half times Jang Seok-woo's, while its body had withered to skin and bone, a desiccated husk of a frame. Its eyes were enlarged to match the face, which made them easy to read — and made Jang Seok-woo leap unbidden to mind.
It can't be him. He's back at camp. How could anything resemble him this closely?
Instinct carried Sang-goo's finger to the rifle's trigger — and stopped it there. Heat was radiating off the creature's body. Little Dog's thermal scanner read its temperature at 38.5 degrees. Wasn't that the body heat of a living human? Not the cold corpse of a zombie, but the unmistakable signal of a creature with blood in its veins and breath in its lungs.
While Sang-goo hesitated, stunned beyond caution, a glimmer of awareness stirred in the creature's pale blue eyes. The grotesque face — a bloated mockery of Jang Seok-woo's — twisted with murderous intent.
Kill it? No — if I take it alive, maybe I can learn something.
I'm taking it alive.
The decision took an instant.
"Grrrhh… mine, miiine!"
The creature hurled the pliers in its hand straight at Sang-goo's face.
Whsssh!
The pliers grazed his cheek as he barely twisted aside. In that opening, the creature's massive bulk came barreling at him like a cannonball.
Even as he tucked the xylitol gum back into his tactical vest, Sang-goo drew his axe and the katana at his hip. He aimed the heavy rear face of the axe at the thing's skull, meaning to knock it cold—
CLANG!
The creature answered with a brutish straight punch. An impact like a sledgehammer meeting a slab of steel shot up Sang-goo's wrist and rattled all the way down his spine.
It can take this?
At Sang-goo's strength, the back of an axe should have pulverized that fist to paste. He hadn't committed his full power, since the goal was to knock the thing out, not kill it — but this was physical force no human skeleton could ever generate.
Shluk!
His katana whistled through empty air. He'd meant to shear off that hammer of a fist, but the creature ducked it with startling speed — then snatched up the rifle lying on the ground. An animal's combat instinct, triggered by the appearance of a foe unlike anything it had faced before.
Clack, clack! With no idea the magazine was empty, the creature kept pulling the trigger, and when nothing fired it let out a beast-like roar. It flipped the rifle, gripping it by the barrel.
At this point it could have run. But it clearly wanted that xylitol gum in Sang-goo's vest far too badly to walk away.
Shluk!
The rifle's ripping hiss brushed past his ear. Sang-goo sank low and drove into the thing's chest. The instant that enormous ribcage opened, his left hand came down like lightning.
THUNK!!
The axe blade buried itself deep in the creature's right trapezius. Bone ground and split — but the creature seemed to convert the pain straight into fury.
"GRAAAHH!!"
Sang-goo stepped back one pace and released the axe. Ignoring the blade jutting from its shoulder, the creature slammed the rifle down toward the crown of his head.
Sang-goo didn't dodge. He raised his katana in a diagonal block.
KANG!
Sparks flew as the hybrid titanium blade met the rifle. With a scream of tortured metal, the barrel of the creature's rifle sheared clean off like a tofu cut and sailed into the air.
"GYAAAH!"
For the first time, bewilderment flickered across the creature's face as its weapon shattered. It scrambled backward, snarling so hard its gums showed — and there, in Sang-goo's sightline, was its single enormous front tooth.
It only has one tooth? So that's what this is about.
Blood welled from the axe wound. Its right shoulder had begun trembling, whether from creeping pain or not. Then its eyes flicked nervously around the surroundings.
Tap, tap.
Sang-goo drummed his fingers on his chest — in case the thing was thinking about bolting. The rattle of the xylitol gum came through loud and clear.
"Eeeh…! G-give them—!!"
The creature tore the door panel off the truck beside it with one hand, the shriek of crumpling metal ringing out with a skin-crawling resonance.
"GUAAAARGH!"
It hurled the几十-kilogram door at Sang-goo like a discus. As Sang-goo rolled across the ground and dodged it by a hair's breadth, the creature seized the opening and closed the distance to point-blank range.
Chomp.
That colossal grip clamped down on Sang-goo's knife hand. The bone-crushing pain knotted his brow, and the creature began wrenching his arm, intent on popping the joint clean out.
"…You…? Y-you…?!"
The pale blue eyes wavered. A human being standing up to its monstrous strength head-on. It had never known such a thing — not since its brothers, whose memories had long since blurred to mist.
"Hyy… hyung…? Are you… hyung…? You're…!"
Its rancid breath fouled his nose. Sang-goo's gaze flicked to the axe buried in its collarbone — then he held his patience one beat longer. There was still too much he wanted to know to kill it yet.
Oh, shut up already.
Crack! Crack! WHAM!
His free left hand hammered a rapid series of punches into the thing's nose and eyes. Though "rapid series" hardly did them justice — Sang-goo's punches were far beyond any human's. And yet the creature's toughness was almost miraculous. Blood poured from its nose, pus streamed from its gums, but the hand gripping Sang-goo's wrist absolutely would not let go.
Wounded pride, maybe. Even as the blows landed one after another, it kept wrenching his wrist like someone wringing out laundry, straining with all it had. Every muscle fiber screamed in the grinding stalemate.
When the punches stopped working, Sang-goo changed tactics. His free left hand drew the high-voltage stun gun from his chest rig and jammed it into the creature's flank.
Zzzzzrrrrack—!
"GYAAAAAH—!"
Blue current raced along the creature's withered muscles, searing through its nervous system. Its whole body convulsed violently.
It's taking.
Nearly done. All that remained was to pull the anesthetic syringe from his tactical vest and drive it into its neck.
Then it happened. In the darkness where it had been hiding, Little Dog's eyes flashed.
Pew!
A tranquilizer round, striking the carotid artery dead on.
"Whew… nice timing."
It wasn't as if the mutt could read his mind. The partner of a lifetime — no words needed.
"Nnnhh… hyuu…."
The creature sagged, drool stringing from its mouth, and the crushing grip on Sang-goo's wrist slackened fast.
Shunk!
Sang-goo drove the anesthetic syringe deep into its swaying chest a second time. As a dose potent enough to fell a tiger spread through its veins, the blue pupils dilated and dissolved, froth-flecked saliva dribbling down. The massive, wasted body crumpled and hit the floor with a heavy thud.
"Haah… haah…."
Sang-goo rolled his aching wrist, breathing hard. A dull ache he hadn't felt in a very long time.
"Good work. Watch it."
The job wasn't over yet. After setting Little Dog to guard, Sang-goo bound the creature. And in the process, he saw it — when he wrenched the axe free, something came with it: the muscle, already regenerating, was actively pushing the blade out.
Disgusting bastard.
Then again, the same could be said of Sang-goo himself. Minor scrapes healed on the spot, and his bleeding stopped fast. He'd never known what happened when muscle was severed or bone broken, because he'd never suffered such an injury. If the peaceful era had lasted, Sang-goo's body would have been more than enough to earn him a one-way trip to a government research lab. That this grotesque wreck of a monster should resemble him — it left a sour taste in his mouth for no good reason.
But the revolting business didn't end there.
"What the hell is this?"
A small pouch hung from the creature's worn belt. When he opened it, Sang-goo couldn't suppress his horror. Hundreds upon hundreds of teeth.
A real star collector… tsk.
Just looking at them made his head ache. He zipped the pouch shut and shook his head, then trussed the creature's limbs meticulously with wire and stuffed it into a heavy-duty body bag.
Then he took out the radio and powered it on, turning the dial to the channel that reached Ji Seong-gyu. As if it had been waiting, Ji Seong-gyu's voice crackled through.
"—Kzzt… Doctor! Are you alive out there?!"
"Yes. I've just caught him. Near the Nakdong River bridge."
"Y-you caught him? You caught the thing?! The support team's on their way right now. Our boys! My men — are they safe?!"
Sang-goo swept a cold gaze over the bridge. Men lying dead with their skulls burst open or their necks snapped, eyes still open. Not a single survivor.
"I need eight body bags."
"…What…?"
Over the radio came the sound of something shattering, followed by the grinding of teeth. After a short silence, the transmission returned on a long, bitter breath.
"And you. Are you all right? What about that son of a bitch? Did you kill him?"
"I'm keeping him alive for now. There's something I need to do — I'll contact you again later."
Sang-goo cut the radio before Ji Seong-gyu could ask anything else. Facing a mutant unlike anything he'd ever encountered, even Sang-goo felt the pressure of time. He hoisted the heavy, body-bagged creature onto the Dark Knight's sidecar, and Little Dog had no choice but to climb up onto its lap. The dog fidgeted, shifting this way and that, clearly uncomfortable, and Sang-goo chuckled.
"Bear with it a little longer."
Vroooooom—
Piercing the night mist, Sang-goo vanished swiftly into the darkness.
Jung-gu District, Busan. The basement of an abandoned office building.
It was a hideout Sang-goo had used now and then back when he was racking up good karma — patient rescue work — around Jung-gu. A windowless place with its own solar-fed power supply, easy to miss from the outside. The illegal gambling den once run by a criminal gang was thick with the musty stench of mold and the foul reek of old, dried-up desires.
Sang-goo locked the triple steel doors, flipped the breaker to bring up the dim lights, mounted a small recording camera, and hauled the creature out of the body bag dumped on the floor. It still lay limp, soaked in the anesthetic. Sang-goo scooped rotten water from a bucket in the corner and splashed it over the thing's face.
"……"
Not a twitch. Maybe I overdid the dose.
Clicking his tongue, Sang-goo scanned the room. Cue sticks lay strewn across a dust-caked pool table. He picked out the heaviest one.
WHAM—CRACK!
The cue sliced through the air and smashed into the creature's thick thigh with a wet sound of splitting flesh. The thing only twitched.
"Get up."
Crack! Crack!
Sang-goo hammered its shins and shoulders until the cue snapped. A beating that would have killed an ordinary man from shock — but the creature's body simply absorbed the pain.
He tossed away the broken cue, then picked up the 8-ball from the pool table. A hard, cold sphere. He brought it down on the crown of the creature's skull like a hammer.
CRACK!
The sound of a skull ringing echoed through the basement.
"……A-agh… Appa… Appa…"
Only then did human language spill from the creature's mouth — a whimpering cry, petulant as a very young child's.
Sang-goo didn't stop there.
SMACK!
He slapped the thing across the face without mercy.
"Kahk!"
The creature's cries sharpened into clearer words, its pupils darting busily. Its bound arms trembled, then it bared bloodshot eyes and glared. The pale blue pupils struggled to focus, looking up at Sang-goo.
He seized the filthy hair and hauled the head up, intending to beat a few answers out of it—
Then it happened. Little Dog came trotting over, and clamped in its jaws was a large pair of pliers, stained dark red with old blood. The very pliers the monster had been using all this while.
You carried that all the way here?
The dog wagged its rear end. Sang-goo thought he might just have saved himself some time, and took the pliers.
"I've got a few questions."
"Grrrhh… grraaaah…."
The creature growled like a beast. Sang-goo stared into its blue eyes and said:
"Lie to me, and I'll rip out that one tooth you've got left and smash it to powder."
"……Huh?"