There Is No Scripture for You
Heads rotted past all recognition, their original shapes long gone.
Yet even so, Kang Hyeong-seok now understood what they truly were—and the histories that had made them that way.
A low hum, vmmmm, rose from the Sinjangkal, and the shaman bells answered with a soft chime, as if lending the blade their support.
At the same moment, their stories sharpened into focus in his mind.
...Outsiders.
Or, more precisely, people with nothing in common with one another. If he had to name a single thread tying them together, it was only this: they had all come to this valley for a day of fun, and that man had murdered every last one of them.
Shwaaah!
The woman who came surging up out of the water wailed like a beast.
"Puhah! Puuuaaah! Urgh—haaaaah!"
The man, by contrast, wore the face of a predator sizing up its prey. And with that face, he smiled.
He said nothing at all. He simply shoved the woman's head back under the surface, as though this were nothing more than a fun little game.
Sploosh! Thrash-thrash-thrash!
For a long while, the man kept her head pinned beneath the water. Only when the last of the strength had drained out of her body did he wade back to shore, her hair still wound tight around his hand.
Drip. Drip.
The man began to strip off her top.
At the horrific sight, Kang Hyeong-seok screwed his eyes shut, and only opened them again when a strange sense of dissonance washed over him.
The scene had changed. To night, this time.
Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!
Barking dogs. Ragged breathing. The crunch of gravel shifting underfoot. The man was running for the valley, dodging the dogs and the flashlight beams that chased at his heels.
"Hah! Hahh! Heh-hehehehehe!"
Why, even now, was the man laughing?
Kang Hyeong-seok was watching him with a deepening frown when the man glanced back over his shoulder. Then, as though he had made up his mind, he hauled his mouth into a grotesque grin and threw himself into the valley stream.
Think you're going to catch me?
You'll never catch me. Not ever.
Me? You bastards—do you have any idea how many people I've killed by now?
So I played around with a few of them. Since when do pigs like you get to bark at me for it?
I'd rather die right now than be caught by the likes of you.
Go ahead—grab my corpse and take your frustrations out on that!
The man's thoughts came crashing in, vicious and unrelenting. He was saturated with pure malice—a man who, even in life, had looked exactly like an evil spirit.
Glub-glub-glub!
The man waded into the deepest reaches of the valley and seized hold of a large boulder. And even as he drowned himself, he went on smiling.
But did that man know? That the Susalgwi he had killed had crept close without his noticing, and were watching him even now?
"Manager Kang!"
At Shin Jeong-ah's sharp cry, Kang Hyeong-seok snapped back to himself. She was holding Kwak Young-ho down, watching him with a face caught between fear and worry, and Shin Yo-sep had gone pale as well.
Even for Shin Yo-sep, this was the first time he had ever witnessed a possession this powerful.
Shaking his head to clear it completely, Kang Hyeong-seok turned his gaze to the dark water of the valley.
Now I know what you are.
Those who drown become Susalgwi, bound to the water that took them. And the man who had made all those Susalgwi had himself become one, bound to this valley in his turn.
Wararararang!
Kang Hyeong-seok rattled the shaman bells hard and wrapped his hand firmly around the Sinjangkal. Then he murmured in a low voice,
"I know why you possessed Department Head Kwak."
Shaaaaaa! The valley water surged past in a violent rush, yet his voice carried with perfect clarity.
"You wanted to lure people here. And then you meant to turn every last one of them into Susalgwi too, didn't you."
Because Kwak Young-ho was the highest-ranking person on the retreat. His subordinates would be sure to come looking for him—and the man, now a Susalgwi himself, had fully intended to drown everyone who had come to the workshop.
Even in life, he had been something close to a demon. And such a being had become a Susalgwi. A venomous, vicious demon—one that, even in death, clutched the Susalgwi he had murdered and refused to let them go.
Wararararang!
"Show yourself."
The moment Kang Hyeong-seok gave the order with a shake of the bells, a bloated head rose from the black surface of the valley water. Hair soaked through, hanging limp as kelp. The skin and flesh had swollen, yet both eyes bulged wide, brimming with venom and malice, and a pale tongue filled its mouth like a balloon and lolled grotesquely past the lips.
Meeting the man's eyes head-on, Kang Hyeong-seok raised the Sinjangkal.
He shook the bells he held high, then brought the Sinjangkal sweeping down with everything he had.
Shwaaah!
Water sprayed from his drenched sleeves. A great current rose around him, and the moon reflected on the water rippled and wavered. And when the current settled and the moon took back its shape, the Susalgwi's face lay split along a diagonal line.
Slosh.
Something dark red oozed from the cut. The Susalgwi's face twisted into a hideous grimace, its eyes rolling off in opposite directions.
May no god ever deliver you.
Glug. Slosh!
The Susalgwi collapsed in on itself, dissolving away. And by the time its head sank from sight beneath the valley water, the dreadful malice had vanished with it.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Water beaded off his soaked shirt and sleeves. Kang Hyeong-seok turned quietly toward Shin Yo-sep.
Shin Yo-sep, who had been staring at him in astonishment, seemed to snap out of it—and a moment later, he laid both palms flat on Kwak Young-ho's chest, easing Shin Jeong-ah's hands aside.
"Hold his legs."
"Yes—yes?"
"I said hold his legs!"
Still dazed, Shin Jeong-ah clamped her hands around both of Kwak Young-ho's legs, and Shin Yo-sep covered the man's chest and face with his palms. The Susalgwi that had reduced Kwak Young-ho to this state was gone—now was the time to bring him back.
"Use me as Your instrument."
Even as the prayer left his lips, Shin Yo-sep glanced toward Kang Hyeong-seok, who was shaking the shaman bells.
Warang-warang-warang-warang.
"O departed soul: as we invoke the Buddha's name with one heart and mind, may the karmic hindrances of ignorance dissolve and the wisdom of prajna dawn upon you, that you may pass beyond the sea of birth and death and attain liberation in nirvana."
To guide every Susalgwi bound to this valley into the world beyond, Kang Hyeong-seok chanted the sacred words. And through it all, Shin Yo-sep carried his prayer onward.
"Where there is hatred, let me bring love; where there is quarreling, forgiveness; where there is division, unity."
"Grant rebirth in the Pure Land and Buddhahood to all; the four great elements and this six-rooted body are hollow things, destined in the end to vanish."
"Make me one who brings truth where there is error, hope where there is despair, light where there is darkness, and joy where there is sorrow."
"Cling not to this flesh. Awaken to the truth of all things, and you shall cast off every suffering and behold the Buddha face to face."
"Grant that I may seek not so much to be consoled as to console, not so much to be understood as to understand, not so much to be loved as to love."
"May the road the departed soul walks be filled with light. Over a thousand li, ten thousand li—where does the Pure Land lie? Where delusion and wandering thoughts fall away, that very place is Paradise."
Warang, warang.
Prayer and scripture rose together beneath the ringing of the shaman bells. The tremors running through Kwak Young-ho's body gradually ebbed away, and Shin Jeong-ah could only stare at the two men in a daze. Somehow, she felt she knew exactly what they were going to do next.
"All distinctions are emptiness; you came empty-handed and shall leave empty-handed—so what fetter keeps you from rebirth in the Pure Land? By the mantra we recite with one mind, may the halls of hell crumble, may the knots of old karma come undone, and may you be born in the highest grade of Amitabha's Paradise."
"For it is in giving that we receive; it is in forgiving that we are forgiven; and it is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life."
Warang, warararang!
With the scripture complete, Kang Hyeong-seok gave the bells one last shake. Shin Yo-sep, his prayer finished, made the sign of the cross.
It came right after that.
"Ugh... uhhhh."
Kwak Young-ho groaned, his eyelids fluttering.
"D-Department Head! Department Head, come back to us!"
Shin Jeong-ah hurriedly gripped his shoulders, while Shin Yo-sep swept the glutinous rice scattered across his body away with his palm. Kang Hyeong-seok was just tucking his implements back inside his jacket when—
"Uh... uhh. M-Manager Shin?"
"Yes!"
Shin Jeong-ah swiftly caught Kwak Young-ho's face in her hands before he could look around. Thanks to that, Kwak Young-ho never saw Kang Hyeong-seok standing in the valley stream, and Shin Jeong-ah, gazing down at her Department Head, burst into tears.
"Are you with us? I said, are you with us?"
"Uh... ugh. Why am I here...?"
"Aigoo! Seriously—all this, because of you, Department Head."
Squeezing the bewildered man's shoulders, Shin Jeong-ah turned her eyes toward Shin Yo-sep and Kang Hyeong-seok—eyes that said thank you, and well done.
Kang Hyeong-seok made his way over to Kwak Young-ho without a sound, the corner of his mouth curling up.
Back at the pension, Namgoong Min-ah, who had been out on the terrace, came running over with a startled face.
"Huh? What happened to everybody?"
They all reeked of river water. Kang Hyeong-seok and Kwak Young-ho especially had their lower halves soaked through like a pair of drowning victims, and Namgoong Min-ah stamped her feet in a panic as though some disaster had struck.
"Don't worry about it. It's nothing."
"Nothing, he says! Your clothes are drenched through!"
Kwak Young-ho turned a helpless face toward Kang Hyeong-seok and shot him a look that said, well? Explain, please.
So Kang Hyeong-seok stepped around Shin Jeong-ah and Shin Yo-sep and spoke up.
"We think it was sleepwalking."
"What?"
Namgoong Min-ah's eyes went wide, while Kwak Young-ho slumped where he stood, his face clouding with troubled thoughts.
"I don't know either. I don't remember a single thing."
"Department Head..."
"You gave us such a fright! You suddenly went dark and we couldn't reach you at all."
"Ah... well..."
Namgoong Min-ah gazed at him with soft pity, and Kwak Young-ho's expression only grew more tangled and conflicted. But there was nothing to be done about it. How could he possibly tell them that a ghost had ridden him and nearly drowned him to death?
"Department Head, don't let it shake you too much. First thing when we get back, stop by a hospital and get a full checkup."
"I... I suppose. Yeah."
He looked so badly shaken that Shin Jeong-ah chimed in with an awkwardly arranged smile of her own.
"Oh, come on! Chin up. You were due for a checkup anyway!"
"Uh... yeah."
"And about the sleepwalking—I hear it can happen temporarily when someone's under a lot of stress."
"I-is that so?"
Shin Jeong-ah nodded hard, working to keep her smile as natural as she could manage.
"I'm telling you it is! My dad gets stressed all the time, and whenever he does, he always ends up asleep on the living room sofa. Come morning it's, why on earth am I sleeping out here?"
"Oh..."
Kwak Young-ho gave a small nod, his face saying that maybe, just maybe, that made sense.
"Sounds like you had quite the fun time at the valley?"
Shin Yo-sep tossed out the remark as if it meant nothing, and Kwak Young-ho answered with an embarrassed chuckle and a sheepish, "Yes, yes." He had, after all, spent the afternoon splashing around the valley like a little kid.
"Whew. I guess I must have dozed off."
"You did have a few drinks with the barbecue earlier, remember?"
"Right, right. I did."
"Oh dear, our Department Head. And here I never noticed—turns out you're secretly a lightweight. It was what, a few glasses?"
Kwak Young-ho protested, looking genuinely wounded.
"No, it wasn't like that."
"What do you mean, it wasn't? That is exactly what it looked like."
"I'm telling you it wasn't."
"Fine, fine. Go wash up and get to bed early."
Shin Jeong-ah shooed him toward the stairs. And as he went, Kwak Young-ho muttered under his breath, "Feels like I got possessed by a ghost or something."
"Min-ah, you should head in too. It's late."
Namgoong Min-ah looked up at Kang Hyeong-seok, her face brimming with worry.
"Are you okay, Manager? Your clothes are all soaked."
"Exactly. The sooner you head in, the sooner I can go in and get some rest too, right?"
"Oh! Y-yes, sir!"
Sending him one last worried look, Namgoong Min-ah headed for the stairs. Once she had vanished completely from sight, Kang Hyeong-seok turned to Shin Jeong-ah and Shin Yo-sep.
He gave them a look of quiet thanks—and strangely enough, both of them were watching him back with much the same expression.