A Lamb to the Slaughter
Pound, pound, pound, pound!
It was the small hours of dawn. The door of the motel room where Shin Yo-sep slept was being hammered with real violence, and before Shin Yo-sep—jolted awake—could so much as gather his wits, a voice came through from the other side.
"Executive Director? Are you awake?"
The voice belonged to the local bigwig. Breath coming ragged, Shin Yo-sep wiped a hand down his gaunt face.
Oink! Oink-oink! Squeeeeal! Listening to the piglet wail as though its throat were already slit, Shin Yo-sep rose from the bed.
"What's the matter?"
"Up you get, sir, quickly now. There's somewhere the two of us must go."
Shff! He swept the curtain aside and looked out to find it still pitch dark—nowhere near time for the sun to rise.
"At this hour? Where to?"
"Let's talk over a bowl of gukbap—hot soup ladled over rice. There's a marvelous little place right out front."
The man's voice was all smiles, so Shin Yo-sep cracked the door open with nothing but a single ballpoint pen palmed and hidden—there in case he needed to defend himself. But the notable's face was too cheerfully beaming, and the motel owner standing beside him looked merely flustered, and so the pen stayed thoroughly concealed.
"Well now, you must have turned in late last night. Your eyes are all bleary."
Shin Yo-sep laughed the way a man sighs and answered in an unhurried drawl.
"With as many people out there working up a sweat, it was far too noisy to sleep a wink."
"Pwahahaha! Aren't we all just the same, you and I."
Somehow, men of a certain age truly adored this kind of joke.
"By the way, I'd like to put on those clothes there."
"Then get ready and come on out. I'll be waiting just up ahead."
With that, the notable shut the door, smiling, and Shin Yo-sep let out a long breath before gathering up, one piece at a time, the clothes he'd hung on the rack. Then he loaded the piglet into its cage and stepped out of the motel.
Oiiiiink.
"You must be rather fond of that pig." The notable, hands on the wheel, threw the remark over good-naturedly, and Shin Yo-sep stroked the cage as he answered.
"He's my pet."
"Ah dear, a pig of all things. They smell, you know, and they're no easy animal to keep."
"Once you're attached, what's the problem?"
The notable only smiled, an odd look on his face.
And so the two men—and the one pig—wrapped up a simple breakfast at the restaurant. Shin Yo-sep felt as though he were perched on a bed of nails. What exactly did this man want from him? And why on earth was the gukbap house this packed at such an hour? He could not eat a single mouthful in peace until he set down his final spoonful.
"But I take it you didn't invite me out simply for breakfast."
"Ahh." The notable drew coffee from the vending machine by the restaurant entrance, grinning wide enough to show his teeth. "The truth is, the pastor asked to meet you yesterday."
"Sorry?"
"Do you mind? Shall we put it off, then?"
Damn it all. There was no telling whether the man was probing him or not. Missing the Kang Hyeong-seok who was not at his side, Shin Yo-sep said, all the same, that it was fine.
"Haha! A fine way to kill two birds with one stone. Today's a Friday, mind, but we've an event on—something like a bazaar. All you need do is show your face."
Shin Yo-sep nodded as though he understood and took a sip of the coffee the notable handed over. Even so, the man's gaze—and the gaze of every customer in the gukbap house—stayed fastened on him.
The church felt ordinary. A standalone building with a sign reading Glory Church; built to look Western, yet nothing like a Catholic cathedral—the unmistakable face of a Protestant church. Tables and baskets brimming with sundries stood ready in the empty parking lot, evidently for the bazaar.
"Pastor!" The notable strode out ahead across the parking lot, raising his voice. "Pastor, sir! I've brought him—the one from yesterday!"
Was this how things were meant to look? Watching the man hail the pastor without a shred of reverence, Shin Yo-sep knitted his brow.
'He calls the head of his own church like that?'
A cult subsists on the authority of its leader. However small the outfit, its head holds absolute honor among the faithful. And this man hailed him like an old drinking buddy? It ran headlong against everything Shin Yo-sep knew to be true.
Jaw grinding tight, he resolved to face the pastor one-on-one wherever possible. Kang Hyeong-seok had pressed the point, too—and alone, he might finally pin down what the pastor actually was.
"Sounds like she's busy. Go on in and see."
The notable came out with it abruptly and stopped walking. Was this part of the act, too? When Shin Yo-sep furrowed his brow, the man only guffawed and fished out a cigarette.
"She's up in years, so her hearing's a touch dull. You can speak freely—have your chat and come on back."
The notable gave every impression he would wait out front, burning through a smoke, and Shin Yo-sep, gripping the caged piglet, made for the church.
"Ah—one moment."
"What is it?"
"Why lug the thing around like that? Hand it here."
The notable beckoned at the cage with the air of doing him a kindness. In truth, carrying an animal—and a pig, of all creatures—into a house of worship was beyond absurd. So Shin Yo-sep left the cage in the man's hands and entered the church alone.
Creeeak.
The door swung open, and an unfamiliar air stole over him. Incense. A faint fragrance that belonged to some Eastern faith more than any church—nothing like the artificial perfume of store-bought sticks. Breathing it in, Shin Yo-sep moved toward the great cross at the far end of the sanctuary.
"Anyone here?"
No sooner had the words left him than a door opened deeper inside, and an elderly woman in work gloves stepped out.
"Oh my—hello there."
Her frame was spare, her face unremarkable, her gaze kindly. It was those eyes—not an ordinary person's, but carrying that particular cast a cultist wears—that deepened his unease. As did the simple fact that she was a woman.
"…Are you the pastor?"
"Yes, that's me."
A placid voice. Having assumed, without thinking, that it would be a man, Shin Yo-sep smothered his expression.
"You're the one who asked to see me?"
He spoke as though he'd sooner die than bare his hand. Then—
"It was a long way to come, I imagine?"
The pastor beamed, and Shin Yo-sep's brows twitched.
"Not especially. You seem busy?"
"Preparing for the event. And outsiders are scarce around here—I did want to meet you."
The pastor stripped off her gloves and offered her hand. The instant their palms met, Shin Yo-sep's confusion only thickened.
Because the hand was rough. A hand that had shouldered a lifetime of labor and hard living. It was only after clasping a grip like a nun's—devoted to the children at an orphanage—that Shin Yo-sep swallowed a groan.
"Your heart is not at ease, I think."
Shin Yo-sep's eyes narrowed. The pastor continued in a voice as still as a lake.
"You are one who has suffered a great deal. Daring on the surface, and tender beneath."
"Is that what the cloth does to a person? The things you say, honestly." He had barely forced out the pleasantry—
—when the pastor released his hand and opened her mouth.
"That isn't who you really are, though. Is it?"
For an instant it felt as if a sharpened awl had punched through his lungs. This pastor knew something. He whipped his head around, but only the empty nave met his eyes—no one anywhere. And even had someone been lurking there, it would not explain the creeping dread packing his skull—for in this village, Shin Yo-sep had revealed his identity to no one.
"…Do you always speak to people that way?"
"To those who need help."
The pastor's eyes were as mild as a deer's, their corners softly settled. It was the gaze of a shepherd pitying the wandering—and that was precisely what provoked his fierce revulsion. A look no two-bit cultist had any right to wear.
"In this day and age, show me one person who isn't struggling—"
"You're a priest, aren't you?"
Lips clamped shut, Shin Yo-sep stared at her. 'What is this? How much does she know? How?'
Even within the company, his true nature was known to only a handful. Even the aide he had sent down to this village did not know Shin Yo-sep as well as this pastor did.
"There's no need to be alarmed." The pastor spoke slowly, and smiled, faint. "One who carries many wounds needs comfort. Empty yourself. I will listen."
She took a step nearer, and Shin Yo-sep instinctively retreated. She was a woman far smaller than he—and still, from that uncanny presence, from the tone of someone who knew everything, an oppressive weight pressed down on him.
"…I have no particular need of your help. More to the point—what are you?"
"Surely who you are interests you more than who I am."
At an answer he never asked for, Shin Yo-sep's brows jumped. Then the pastor's eyes turned more sorrowful still, and her lips parted.
"There is one who lost his life because of you."
"…What?"
"You cannot tear yourself free of that memory. And you needn't. Even having left this world, he cherishes you still—so dearly."
She spoke of his senior. This pastor knew of a man whose very existence Shin Yo-sep had never once confided to Kang Hyeong-seok. At that serpentine tongue, so practiced at beguiling the living, Shin Yo-sep's face twisted.
"Nothing of the sort happened."
"No? You know it better than anyone."
Every word she spoke drove in sharp as a nail. His hidden shame laid utterly bare, Shin Yo-sep's brows convulsed and his fists knotted. But where he seethed, the pastor carried on, serene as ever.
"Accept it. You need do nothing—not a single thing. Only understand that you are a being who is loved. Pray to God, and He will answer you, too."
…
"That, and that alone, is how you will be saved."
The voice dug far too deep into his heart. It stroked wounds that had never healed and passed their warmth along—enough that a weaker soul might have dropped to his knees and wailed aloud.
But Shin Yo-sep shook his head hard and pinned down the part of him that wavered. Then he lifted his gaze to the great cross hanging on the church wall. There was only one being before whom he would ever kneel. Only one to whom his prayers belonged. And it was not this pastor. Nor any cult's anointed head. Just as Kang Hyeong-seok followed his god, so too was Shin Yo-sep a servant of God.
"Shut up."
When Shin Yo-sep, his cold clarity returned, said it with a chill, the pastor's face stiffened.
"Is this how you've been bewitching the villagers? Seducing some poor woman into giving you her body? Have you hurt people—have you!"
A low moan spilled from the pastor's lips. And still she looked at him with those eyes made for pitying the wretched—which only made Shin Yo-sep raise his voice.
"Whatever you know, I know it too! Just who do you think you are, daring to impersonate a representative of God!"
And then it happened.
The pastor's face went blank, as though a mask had been fitted over it. Even the minute movements any living person betrays vanished, and she simply stood and stared at him, vacant as a mannequin.
Without taking his eyes off her, Shin Yo-sep began backing away. 'Not on my own. I can't do this alone.' Kang Hyeong-seok was not beside him; he carried nothing for the rite of exorcism. The notable waited outside—and there was no telling what other faithful might be lying in ambush. He was watching the pastor as a man watches a venomous snake, edging his way out of the church, when—
"The heart can always change."
The pastor advanced with slow, deliberate steps, murmuring as though to herself. In the silent church her voice rang out, closing in on Shin Yo-sep with every stride.
"Ask God for salvation. He stands ready, at any moment, to take you into His embrace."
"…That will never happen."
"Then only great suffering awaits you. How pitiable."
Beneath that sorrowful gaze, Shin Yo-sep left the church. And as he gulped down air in the empty parking lot, head hanging, a black plastic bag sitting in its very center caught his eye. It was taut and swollen, as though something heavy lay packed inside.
'…No. It couldn't be.'
Dreading the answer all the same, Shin Yo-sep approached the bag and flipped its mouth open.
Splat!
He recoiled and dropped it, then simply collapsed where he stood, face frozen in horror. Blood smeared the hand that had touched it, and the reek of gore pulsed in his nostrils. Inside the bag lay a beast with its skull crushed in.
The piglet Shin Yo-sep had brought along for the exorcism rite.