Storm-Calling Love Doll Locked-Room Murders (6)
I'm the type who hates anything bothersome with a passion, but paradoxically, I'm also the type who goes out of his way to find work for himself. Why did I end up with a personality like this? Well, it just seeped into my bones after scraping by at the very bottom of society. When you're always teetering on the edge, proving your worth endlessly just to avoid getting shoved out, you end up constantly watching everyone else's mood. You suck up pointless tasks like a total sucker, barely scraping by on peanuts for rewards—that becomes your daily grind.
The point is, I hate bothersome shit. I'm not some corporate drone clinging to life anymore, no bosses to bow and scrape to. So why the fuck would I go looking for hassle? 'If it paid big bucks, maybe.' But this damn inn just crossed the line. I'd made it crystal clear I wanted out of this unpaid, uninteresting headache, but they kept slinging shit my way anyway. And this is the result.
They say "three 'ins' and you're free from murder," but flip it around: cross the line three times, and you're fucked. In the pitch-black center of the restaurant, plunged into sudden blackout, I hauled off and unleashed a full-power sergeant jump.
BOOM!
My skull rocketed straight through the restaurant ceiling, landing smack in the middle of Room 202. The two young guys in there, griping under their emergency flashlights, spotted me and let out girly shrieks.
"Gwaaaah!"
"Fuck, it's a ghost!!!!!!"
If only it were a ghost. Sadly, I can't phase through walls with some spiritual bullshit—phase wall (physical) is the best I've got.
Crack! Crunch!
Grabbing the edges of the hole in the restaurant ceiling and Room 202's floor with both hands, I ripped it wide open. Concrete, insulation, plywood—all came crashing down in a heap.
"Just you two in Room 202?"
"Y-you're the guy from the restaurant who found the first body...?"
"Yeah. And now another body's turned up, so I'm rounding everyone up again. Cooperate, you two."
I brushed the dust off my clothes and leaped hard from the room's center, smashing through the ceiling again.
BOOM!
"Egg money, my ass, fuck!"
"Wh-what the hell is this shit!"
"All guests on the third floor, assemble in the hallway."
Finally, the fourth floor. Bursting up through one last ceiling, bigger than the second or third floors, I came face-to-face with six guys huddled together. They'd demanded a big room from the start for their large group, planning some group party, it seemed.
But right now, who gave a shit about parties or Demonbozi.com? Something had triggered this gruesome, bizarre locked-room murder spree without us even noticing.
"Everyone freeze! Anyone who moves from now on is the fucking killer!!!!!!!!!!"
Having punched holes through every floor from second to fourth without missing a spot, I bellowed at the top of my lungs. My manly roar echoed through the entire building. The guy heading to the bathroom right then, the idiot stepping carelessly into the hall, the loner tucked in the corner—none could evade my genius deductive radar net.
As they all froze in place, I clambered up to the fourth floor, casual as you please, and snatched an emergency flashlight from someone's hand.
"Another body just turned up downstairs! No more secrets between us, no walls, no solo bullshit. Got it? Depending on how you cooperate, I can be your angel—or your demon!"
I kicked open the door to Room 402 and hollered down the hall for all to hear. But I wasn't stopping there. Like those sneaky Nazi bastards grabbing France's balls in a flash, I planned to sweep through like lightning.
"These concrete walls severing our social bonds! Unforgivable!!"
KABOOM!
Body, fists, feet, even iron bars yanked from beds—I threw everything into smashing down the walls connecting 402 to 401 and 403. A few stunned faces gawked from the other sides, but I didn't give a damn. I ripped every goddamn door off its hinges too.
"These evil doors barring entry to cozy spaces without permission! I won't stand for it!!"
Crunch! Slam!
Folding the doors in half, I jammed them into the decorative fireplace.
"Floors and ceilings, symbols of bourgeois pig classism dividing us by strata! Judgment time!!!!"
I punched massive holes in every room—big enough for two or three grown men to stroll through easy.
"From this moment, 'locked rooms' don't exist for us! No more idiots wandering alone and getting stupidly murdered, no hidden 'intruders' popping out like some cliché!"
I grabbed a dazed fortysomething dude clutching a soju bottle by the collar.
"If you haven't shoved your age up your ass, you know what group action means! Group action means even if you only brought one cig, you share it nice with your buddies' white milk!"
"That's communist wealth redistribution..."
"No mine or yours, no my room or your room—how much easier and safer would that be? We watch each other, cooperate, huddle together against the cold and dark! What color's the blood in your veins?!"
"R-red..."
"Right! The red of revolution! Now assemble with your comrades in the first-floor rec room! Outside, you might be some balding old-timer past his prime, but here? You're just another green recruit! Join us!!"
"Wait! At least explain what's going on...!"
"No such thing. Crack!" I smashed another whiner's head with the soju bottle and chucked him down the hole. The guys below caught him fine.
"We leave no one behind! No more victims slaughtered unjustly, brutally, bizarrely in these locked rooms! Better we save 'em ourselves than scribble 'Sorry, thanks' in some guestbook later!"
I menaced the crowd with the jagged end of the half-shattered soju bottle, daring any lingering gripes.
In the end, it took less than five minutes for everyone from fourth to second floor to pile into the first-floor rec room. Using S-man—who crawled in last, half-collapsed—as the cutoff, I did a headcount.
"Report headcount!"
"Room 205: two, dead!"
"Room 305: two, missing!"
"Room 405: three, missing!"
In this mess, missing pretty much meant dead. Out of 23 total—including me, S-man, and the one staffer—seven were gone. Sixteen heads left to brainstorm the perfect plan.
Koreans average around IQ 100, so generously, that's a collective 1600.
'Nah, S-man's sharper—plus 50. My brain's no slouch either—another 50.'
1700 it is.
We pooled every flashlight, smartphone, and camping lantern to light the rec room as bright as possible. Lucky break: it was a massive banquet hall with no windows, designed to contain noise and light, so guarding the entrance made it a perfect fortress.
"H-hey, young fella! Time for some goddamn answers! What the hell's this all about, rounding us up like this?!"
"Like I said, another body's turned up. The two guys from 205—brutally and bizarrely murdered while we looked away for a second, displayed in the communal restaurant. So I figure the psycho killer's still lurking somewhere in this inn. That's why I gathered you here."
"Hold on! Folks from 305 and 405 vanished too... maybe they're the killers?!"
"They're guests who came in with the rest of us. How do you explain the first bodies then? Doesn't add up."
"Well..."
"It's impossible for humans anyway. We were right there on the first floor—think 3rd- and 4th-floor guests snuck down to 2nd, killed 'em, neatly butchered and displayed in the restaurant? Even pros couldn't pull that off in the time we blinked."
"Then what, ghosts did it?!"
The middle-aged guy with severe circular baldness pointed at me, like his own words baffled him.
"Why not?"
"What'd you say?"
"Look, you really think this is normal? End of November, freak snowstorm hits just this mountain—no forecast. All vehicles and comms die instantly. We walk in, and bam—dozens of corpses greet us? Coincidences fly once or twice, but three times? That's no accident. Something's deliberately targeting us."
"N-no way... come on, ghosts in the real world?!"
"Right! We're not kids—who'd buy that crap? Way more believable some psycho's hiding in the inn!"
"Exactly, right? Sounds ridiculous to you too?"
"Duh! Ghosts ain't real!"
Just as the mood settled on this being some absurd fluke—not a case or incident anymore—
Knock knock knock.
A knocking echoed from beyond the firmly shut rec room door.