The Cabin of Terror #4
Bong Ji-yeon was shaking like she’d seen a ghost. I knew that look all too well—the face of someone whose soul had fled their body in pure terror.
“I-it’s just like my sister!”
She was talking about her older sister, Bong Se-yeon. I had to pause for a second to pull up the memory. The delinquent girl who used to hang out at Yang Ju-hui’s house all the time. She went missing one spring day about five years ago, and they eventually found her headless torso somewhere.
And now this suitcase was the same as that. Bong Ji-yeon kept going, voice cracking.
“They said my sister was stuffed inside a suitcase too! I never saw it myself, but… it started haunting my dreams! Her struggling inside the bag! It’s exactly the same!”
Apparently someone had discovered Bong Se-yeon’s body crammed into a suitcase. Even if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, the news of her sister’s death and the gruesome state of the corpse would have been more than enough to scar a person for life.
So when Bong Ji-yeon saw the suitcase down in the basement, the memories must have slammed into her like trauma. She couldn’t handle it and had crawled back up to the first floor in a panic.
Yu Da-hui’s face turned unusually serious. “You’re saying there’s a body in the bag in the basement?”
“I-I don’t know.”
Bong Ji-yeon shook her head. A single thought flashed through my mind. If her intuition was right, then that suitcase probably contained someone’s corpse. And I could already guess whose it might be.
The first possibility was Yang Do-hui—Yang Ju-hui’s older sister. She had been friends with Bong Se-yeon and disappeared around the same time, five years ago. If she’d ended up in an irreversible state… it wouldn’t be strange at all for her to be inside that case.
But if it wasn’t Yang Do-hui…?
Second hypothesis. At the start of this semester, Yeongji High had been in an uproar. A female student had gone missing. She came from a fairly wealthy family. Her name was Gu Hye-na. And I had already met her—because the “head ghost” that appeared in the Nightmare Corridor was Gu Hye-na herself.
Seeing her like that naturally raised one obvious question: where was the rest of her body?
Maybe I was staring at the answer right now.
“Oh… shit.”
It was my own theory, but it was so creepy and horrifying I wanted to look away. If I wanted to know what was inside the suitcase, the correct move was to check and confirm it. Swallowing my unbearable curiosity, I spoke up.
“…Should we open it and see?”
“…Hey. Yeong-won.”
Jeong Seok stared at me with a terrified face. He must have reached the same rough conclusion about the suitcase’s contents. That was why he looked so scared.
Still, we had basically come to this cabin to find that very suitcase. It might prove incredibly useful to us later. It could even be a landmark on our path.
I knew it was terrifying. But didn’t we have Yang Ju-hui, our brave general?
“Um… Ju-hui. Can you check what’s inside the suitcase for us?”
Out of everyone I knew, Yang Ju-hui had the strongest nerves. If this were a broken spaceship and someone had to cling to a single rope and step into the void to repair the hull, she’d be the one shouting “Move! I’ll do it!”
But right now Yang Ju-hui just frowned like she was in a bad mood.
“No way. There are tons of spiders down there!”
Spiders? Now that she mentioned it, the basement had been covered in webs. For some reason, Yang Ju-hui absolutely hated spiders.
Then the only one left was…
“Um… Da-hui.”
“Me?”
As far as I could tell, Yu Da-hui didn’t seem afraid of much. Even while the rest of us were tense, she still looked strangely composed.
That was exactly when it happened.
Thud!
A sound like something heavy falling echoed from beneath the floor. It came from right under our feet.
Bong Ji-yeon screamed immediately.
“Kyaaak! Close the door! The door! Shut it! Lock it!”
She was practically having a seizure, piling chairs and bricks on top of the iron basement door.
I thought she was just overreacting—until the knocking started.
Thud. Thud.
Something was pounding on the iron door from below. We couldn’t stop shaking.
Thud. Thud. Thud thud thud.
Whatever it was, it kept hammering on the door. Like it was begging to be let out.
“Wh-who’s there!”
I called down toward the iron door. Naturally, no answer came back.
The pounding grew louder. Like something desperate to escape.
Flash—boom!
The rain poured down without end on Gaeryong Mountain. The storm was so violent we couldn’t take a single step outside, while the impatient knocking continued from beneath the floor. I wanted to cover my ears.
It was 3 p.m. The rain showed no sign of stopping. Should we just brave the downpour and head down the mountain? If we ended up spending the night here, it would be the absolute worst.
Boom!
A massive impact shook the ground. I heard chairs and bricks scattering.
When I whipped my head around, the rusted iron door was wide open.
Splash!
An unpleasant wet sound cut clearly through the noise and licked at my ears. I spotted a single palm reaching up from the basement toward the surface, and my mind nearly snapped.
What finally revealed itself…
At first glance it looked like a four-legged beast. But on closer inspection, it was a human torso with its joints bent at unnatural angles, moving on all fours.
“Uwaaaaagh!”
Super-coward Jeong Seok screamed first. Then Bong Ji-yeon foamed at the mouth and convulsed.
“Kyaaaaaaaak! It’s my sister! My sister’s here! Sis! Sis! I’m sorry!”
No one was in their right mind.
The headless torso moved its body in grotesque ways and pushed itself upright.
Crack. Crunch.
Bending its joints, it stood on two legs and reached out toward us. Then, like a person playing blind man’s bluff, it flailed its arms and groped around, searching for something.
The stench was unbearable. My sanity felt like it was about to fly away.
“…….”
“…….”
We said nothing, silently circling around the narrow cabin to avoid the headless seeker’s groping hands. But the cabin was tiny. Sooner or later one of us would get caught. I didn’t even want to imagine what would happen then.
That was when anger suddenly boiled up inside me.
Why the hell did I have to run and hide like this?
A cornered rat will bite a cat. Right now I was that rat.
Creak.
I grabbed a nearby fallen chair and swung it at the headless torso.
“Die!”
Thwack!
The torso collapsed from the blow. I didn’t miss the opening and shouted.
“Hey! Guys! This bastard’s fucking weak! Let’s all beat the shit out of it! Hit it! Smash it!”
How dare a headless freak try to scare me!
I kept swinging the chair, smashing the grotesque thing until my rage subsided. Yang Ju-hui, who had been watching, grabbed a piece of dry firewood and joined in, beating it wildly.
“Die! Die! Fuck!”
Thwack! Thwack-thwack!
Maybe our attacks were working. The torso’s movements grew sluggish.
“I-I can do this!”
With rising momentum, even Jeong Seok found his courage. He picked up a broken hiking stick and joined the one-sided beatdown.
Thudthudthudthudthudthudthud—
A relentless scene of unilateral violence. I was thinking grandly that I’d defeat this insolent monster and turn it into my servant—when suddenly the cabin door creaked open.
It was Yu Da-hui.
“Da-hui!”
“…….”
She glanced between the pouring rain outside and us, then stepped back out into the storm!
Yang Ju-hui yelled, “Yu Da-hui, that bitch! She ran away!”
Yu Da-hui, who always kept her cool, was running? I was so shocked by the unimaginable sight that I froze.
Swish—!
The torso, which had been taking a beating, leaped up like a live fish spotting a gap and pounced on Jeong Seok.
Crash!
“Uwaaaaaaaaagh!”
Jeong Seok screamed like thunder as he fell. The torso grabbed him in a wrestling hold, pulling and yanking.
“Hiiiiii! Get it off! Aaaagh! Save me!”
Jeong Seok flailed like a butterfly caught in a spider’s web. We beat the torso even harder to save him.
Thwack! Thwack-thwack!
Jeong Seok got hit a few times in the process, but there was no time to worry about that. It didn’t matter.
“Guys!”
At that moment, Yu Da-hui—who had vanished from the chaotic beating—reappeared, completely soaked. In her hand was a very familiar wooden stake.
“Use this! Drive it in! It’s a stake meant to seal evil and ominous things, so it should work! Take it!”
“Hey! Ha Yeong-won! Save Jeong Seok!”
Yang Ju-hui snatched the stake from Yu Da-hui. As she raised it high, I clenched my teeth and yanked Jeong Seok free.
Shuk—
Jeong Seok slipped from its grasp. In that instant, Yang Ju-hui slammed the stake down with all her strength.
Squish!
The torso was pinned to the floor like a moth or butterfly stabbed through by a needle. It struggled briefly, then went limp.
“Hah. It’s over.”
Only after the words floated in front of my eyes could I finally breathe in relief and collapse to the floor. My whole body was drenched in cold sweat, sticky as if I’d been caught in the rain.
It was an experience I never wanted to repeat, yet the fact that I’d gained 500 points still made me happy. I had to laugh at myself. My guts had gotten pretty strong.
Whether because we’d slain the grotesque monster or simply due to nature’s balance, the rain that had been pouring like the sky itself had a hole in it gradually eased.
Soon the familiar uncle burst in.
“Oh my god, what is this! What the hell happened here! Argh, the smell. Hii! What is that! It’s a… a headless corpse!”
Dr. Ji, who had disappeared somewhere, returned and made a huge fuss. But we were all completely drained, and none of us had the energy to answer his questions.
Sirens wailed. The mountain entrance was packed with police cars.
A body discovered in an abandoned mountain cabin. It was more than enough to cause a major incident. Police swarmed the area while students tried to explain what happened. One girl was practically screaming.
“No, fuck, it was moving! The corpse was moving! Argh! It’s so frustrating! That’s why we beat the shit out of it!”
“How can a corpse move? Did you kids drink together or something?”
“Look at their eyes. They must’ve taken drugs.”
“Yeah! I heard Gaeryong high-schoolers are doing drugs these days!”
It looked problematic from every angle.
Watching them, Dr. Ji Dong-seok turned the prayer beads in his hand. A middle-aged officer approached him.
“Are you the one who reported it, sir? Excuse me, but may I have your name?”
“My name is Ji Dong-seok. As you can see from this business card, I am the director of the Pacific Oriental Culture Research Institute. More importantly… has the child’s identity been confirmed?”
Dr. Ji Dong-seok kept staring at the spot where the body had been. From what he remembered, the corpse had been wearing a school uniform. There would have been a name tag. A wallet with ID had also been found, so identifying the body didn’t take long.
The middle-aged officer in charge told him, “It was a female student from Yeongji High who went missing at the beginning of the year. Hah. What kind of animal would do something like this? It’s tragic. What kind of psychopath would commit such a fucked-up act…? It’s truly sad and infuriating.”
“It wasn’t the work of a mere psychopath. This is a spell that deals with ‘formulas.’ It severs the head from the body and reduces the victim to an entity that obeys the caster’s commands. A type of malicious sorcery.”
“Excuse me? Ah… yes. I see.”
The officer gave a subtle look at Ji Dong-seok’s explanation. But Ji Dong-seok had always been a talkative man.
“It’s usually a Japanese spell that uses an animal’s severed head. In Korea, there are only three people who know this sorcery. One died of old age, one is right here… so the remaining one is…”
Dr. Ji Dong-seok recalled the face of the shaman he called his master and the man who had once been his colleague.
It was the criminal’s face.
Two days later.
The police managed to identify two types of foreign DNA on the headless corpse. One belonged to student Jeong Seok’s skin. The other was a hair caught under the fingernails.
The owner of that hair had already been named the prime suspect in a similar case, so the police moved quickly and arrested the man.
His name was Kim Hae-il. He worked as a sexton at Yeonggwang Church in Gaeryong City.
The man didn’t resist or ask any questions, almost as if he had known he would be caught. He simply mumbled blankly, like he was reciting a prayer.
“Prisoners in the cave. All that we see is nothing but shadows cast by torchlight. Heaven is a spiritual idea, a treasure hidden in the field, and secret spiritual wisdom…”
“What the hell is this guy saying? Mr. Kim Hae-il, you have the right to remain silent—”
“I saved her! I saved her! Hehehe! You stupid bastards! You can’t stop it now. The spiritual water vein is overflowing! The sea of ions will erupt like magma from the pierced earth! Aaaaaaaaagh! Aaaaaaaaaaagh!”
“This bastard’s completely insane! Hey! Grab his arms and legs!”