The Thing That Hunts Humans (3)

It was the short, overweight one whose foot got taken.

A hole had punched clean through the floor he'd been standing on, and another through the ceiling above his head. Tennis-ball-sized holes, clean-edged as if drawn on with a brush.

"Aaaaagh!"

The fallen man shrieked all over again.

At some point the woman had gotten out of her wheelchair and was holding him down. More precisely, she was cinching something that looked like a belt around his ankle.

"Over here! Get ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠him onto the wheelchair!"

The woman shouted as she tried to stop the bleeding, and at her cry the others snapped out of their stupor and hoisted the wounded man up.

Unexpected. I'd assumed they'd naturally leave the injured behind. Muttering my admiration to myself, I turned to go.

I meant to use the chaos to slip away. But someone grabbed my arm and held it flat against my back.

"Where do you think you're going?"

I turned to find a tall man standing behind me. No, hey, is now really the time to worry about me?

Impatience nearly made me shake the man off, but I checked the impulse when I looked past his shoulder. The woman and the other men had already turned their attention to me as well.

Damn it. This really isn't easy. I opened my mouth, racking my brain for an excuse.

Thud—!

A shockwave rolled through the building again. This time it sounded like something heavy had come down somewhere on the floor above.

At the noise, the men by the wheelchair traded a glance with the man holding me, then started moving out ahead, pushing the chair.

"Somebody help me up, please!"

When the woman who'd given up her wheelchair called out from the floor, the man holding me looked down at me. Apparently he had zero intention of letting me slip away.

Out of options, I took hold of the arm the woman offered. Except—what the hell?

She was heavier than she looked. I'd been lending only a polite amount of effort, and I floundered, dropping my stance. Only when I heaved with both arms did she finally drag herself upright.

The woman looped an arm over my shoulder, and the man only then came around to support her from the other side. And so we trailed after the wheelchair in that uncomfortably glued-together formation.

Thud— THOOM—!

The impacts kept coming. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠put thoughts of escape on hold for now. Whatever—better a violent criminal than a monster. At least for the moment.

The place we finally arrived at was an operating theater. The men ahead of us opened its doors with practiced familiarity, and I was blindsided by what waited beyond them.

Through that door lay not a cramped surgical space but a broad, open field. Vivid blue flowers rippled like sea foam rolling across the water, and rising out of the bloom stood countless slender wooden poles—each one crowned with a wooden bird.

They were no ordinary poles. They were sotdae, the old village perches that reached from the earth into heaven.

Just as I stood stunned by the endless sotdae and the riot of flowers, something white and soft settled over my shoulders. I glanced sideways to find the woman and the man who'd come with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me draping what looked like a bed sheet over me.

"Be careful not to let your bare skin touch the ground, and lie face-down."

With that, the woman bowed low, then slipped down among the wildflowers that grew to shin height. The men who'd arrived earlier were hiding the same way, tucked between the sotdae one by one.

I had no idea what was going on, but I gathered the sheet close and lowered myself into the grass all the same. The feeling against my knees was oddly, unpleasantly soft.

As I hunched there, the tremors finally stopped. In their place came a faint sound that had been drifting at the edge of hearing all along.

Sshk— sshk—

Something being dragged. A whisper-thin sound I couldn't tell was real or imagined. But all my doubting was blasted apart outright by a roar.

BANG—!

The operating theater doors burst open with an explosion.

Thank god I was biting my lower lip. Blood flooded my mouth, but I managed to swallow the scream.

Sshk— sshk—

The dragging sound sharpened, closer now. I wanted to turn toward it, but I forced down the impulse and held still—and so it entered my field of view on its own.

And what I saw, then, was……

A monster.

A corpse.

Trash.

Cannon fodder.

Blasphemy.

Possibly the Creator's self-mocking punchline.

At first glance it might have passed for human. It walked upright on two legs, spine straight. But it was absolutely not human.

Its desiccated body was something like an embalmed corpse, or a vine gone black with rot. Where a head should be sat a single smooth sphere of metal—impossible to say whether it was headless at all, or merely wearing some kind of helmet. Its head and torso were so wretched that its right upper arm, alone, seemed built to compensate: grotesquely swollen shoulder muscle veined with something that might have been blood vessels, might have been wiring, and beneath it a massive arm woven together out of the barrels of countless guns. It looked as if a man had been stuffed into a bundle of antique rifles.

Its name said it all: the Moving Gun.

Sshk, sshk—

The Moving Gun dragged its heavy arm toward ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me. I shut my eyes. Then I shut my ears.

"……I think it's gone."

After a long while, the woman's voice reached me. I eased my head out past the sheet and found the Moving Gun had vanished. Seeing the others standing, I rose as well.

The ground kept squishing, squelching under me, so I peeked beneath the sheet. And I regretted it. Under the flower field there was no soil—only something like raw flesh spread everywhere.

"Careful. If your bare skin touches it, it sticks to you."

So that's why they gave me the sheet. I was about to thank the woman when a scream rose again from somewhere off.

"Gkkhaaagh!"

"Quiet—!"

The wounded man was thrashing, and the others were pinning him down. Watching the commotion, the woman reached out her arm to me, and for some reason I found myself supporting her right back.

Up close, I could see the men treating the injured man, who seemed to be raising hell from the pain. The woman pulled an ampoule and a syringe from her pocket.

"It's a painkiller. You'll feel better right away."

Once she'd given the injection, the men stepped back, and the overweight man stopped thrashing and began to weep instead.

"Ah, f—…… why is it always me…… that monster saw my face, it saw my face back there, I know it did—!"

"That's why we told you not to take the mask off. Sweat a little, who cares……"

"Shut up! F—! Don't you dare lecture me! You do realize that if I die, you all die with me!?"

When the big man tried to reason with him, the overweight one exploded in fury. I naturally braced for a fight to break out. Instead, to my surprise, the big man took a step back.

"……Fine, all right. Just rest."

What was this? That giant hadn't exactly had a mild temperament either, yet here he was, docile as a lamb. Why?

"Hey, you. Help us look. We were working on our task here."

While I was failing to read the room, another man spoke to me. The one with glasses worn over his mask—the man who'd pushed the wheelchair with the big man earlier.

Then the woman gave me a quiet hint.

"It's in the directive I handed you."

I knew what she meant. I remembered the contents too, but I spread the directive open again for their benefit.

The whole picture began to take shape. What lay before me was the 999 Sotdae itself. These people had been searching this place for healthy organs to complete their task. Then I'd stepped on a trap, and the noise had drawn them all out in a rush. Instead of the Moving Gun, here came me, in my pajamas—no wonder they'd been baffled. So they'd pressed me for answers, and then the Moving Gun had actually shown up. Judging by how they'd handled it, they knew the monster's habits fairly well. But that knowledge came from experience alone; they clearly knew nothing of the pattern Cha Si-eon had described. And worse, if this kept up, I was going to get dragged into it with them.

"What's your plan if we squat here and that thing comes back?"

At my question, the big man and the glasses guy gave me a sideways look. It was the look of men wondering why such a vague hypothetical was necessary right now. So I loosened the thread a little more.

"You never heard that you're not supposed to stay in one place too long?"

"What are you talking about?"

"If you stay in one spot more than ten minutes, that thing pinpoints your location and comes. The man with the tied-up hair said it. Nobody heard that?"

The men's reactions were sluggish, as if it were news to them. The big man, if anything, glared harder at me.

"What kind of bullshit is……"

"Wait. When we sold off the sand, we shook it and got away, but it came right back. Three times."

Glasses cut off the big man before he could start swinging, then, as if something had snagged in his memory, pressed me further.

"Anything else you heard?"

"If it gets a look at your face, you become a target. The wall-piercing shot fires occasionally, but nobody knows the conditions yet. It operates for forty minutes, then rests for forty."

I stopped there. Entering its rest period requires at least one person to get hunted. That was the most important piece of information, and I deliberately left it out. The second I said it, they'd start drawing lots for a sacrifice—did they take me for insane? I kept my face perfectly blank and waited for their response.

Eventually, Glasses pressed a hand to his forehead and groaned.

"Ah, those bastards……"

"Can we trust this guy?"

"Nothing he said is exactly wrong. There are things that nag at me, and Orange did get shot. That part's true."

Fortunately, they seemed to believe me. But who was Orange? I looked around blankly, and the woman pointed at the injured man.

"This is Orange. We identify each other by armband color."

At the word armband, I looked at the man's arm. An orange band circled the forearm of his work uniform, and on everyone else, that same spot carried a different color. Calling each other by band color instead of names? Fair enough—showing your real face here would be awkward for everyone involved.

I took the chance to check everyone's colors. The woman's was White. The tall man who'd grabbed me earlier, Blue. The big man, Red. The one who'd lost his foot, Orange. And the man with glasses over his mask, Black.

Red and Black murmured to each other.

"So what do we do now?"

"There's nowhere else. The other floors are wrecked."

"And how are we supposed to find one of these in ten minutes?"

"We take turns. Ten minutes at a time."

I'd assumed the hulking Red was the leader, but watching now, it was clearly Black steering things. Black spoke as though the decision were already made.

"It goes after whoever's face it's seen first. So we use Orange as bait to draw the monster away, and the rest of us work here in shifts. That should do it."

At that, Orange, who'd been lying there groaning, roared upright.

"What kind of bullshit is that!?"

"All you have to do is sit in the wheelchair. That thing isn't exactly fast, so staying mobile and dodging is actually safer for you. Or would you rather sit here and get shot again?"

This Black guy, he's good with people. His tone was smooth, but it left no gaps. So Orange couldn't pull the thuggish act he had earlier either, and could only grumble.

With the reins firmly in hand, Black turned to the group.

"Then we work in shifts. How do we split the teams?"

"I'll take Blue and Mr. Otter and rotate Orange out ahead. Black and Red, please finish sorting through the section you were already checking."

It was the woman—White—who answered Black. Except among the names she'd listed, something that wasn't a color had slipped in. I stared at White, wondering who "Mr. Otter" was supposed to be. White was looking at me. I followed her gaze down to my own clothes.

Oh. It's me. My T-shirt had an otter reading a book printed on it.

Before long, Blue fetched a second wheelchair. White and Orange settled into the chairs, and I watched the whole arrangement with a distinctly muddled feeling. Somehow, I'd ended up in league with a pack of career criminals. Was it really all right to be sitting around like this?

As if. Of course it wasn't. Absolutely, completely, one hundred percent not all right!

I screamed inwardly, eyes burning with determination. And to me, of all people, Black approached and offered his hand.

"You were too shaken for introductions. Well—since it's come to this, let's work well together."

Then I suddenly remembered the Special Advice! section at the bottom of the directive.

Seems legit enough, I thought, and shook Black's hand offhandedly. It was quite cold.