Boiled Alive
"They said there was something in our house."
The first words Kim Yeong-chan had ever spoken to him came back to Kang Hyeong-seok now.
The Gyeon-gwi — the dog vengeful spirit — was no new-born thing. It had been there since long ago, a murderous presence that had marked Kim Yeong-chan's entire family as its prey.
Yap yap yap yap! Yap yap yap yap!
The old woman's spirit went scurrying in swift circles around the living room on all fours, yapping like a dog — a sight that choked the breath right out of you just to look upon it.
Watching a soul that could not pass on even in death, Kang Hyeong-seok forced the words out as though wringing them from his throat.
"Did your mother have dementia?"
"...Yes."
It was probably because of the way his gaze had locked onto a single point. Convinced he was looking at something, Kim Yeong-chan answered with eyes brimming over, while Kim Yeong-jun, crushed under the closing weight of the room, rubbed at the stiffness creeping into his neck.
"She kept imitating a dog right up until the day she passed?"
"Huk! Huuuuuuuk!"
Kim Yeong-chan collapsed in a heap and looked up at Kang Hyeong-seok with eyes full of terror.
"Is—is she here right now? Is she still in this house?"
"Yes."
"Aghhh-huuuuuuk!"
It was a wail so utterly wretched that even the word heartbroken fell short of it.
Kim Yeong-jun was too terrified to manage any reaction at all; Kim Yeong-chan only curled himself into a ball and wept.
"Teacher—Teacher, sir—please, help our mother. Please. Please, I'm begging you!"
"Not now."
"AAAAAAAGH!"
"All we have to do is drive out the Gyeon-gwi. Do that, and everything is settled."
The woman had fallen wholly under the sway of a vicious evil spirit. Yet the Gyeon-gwi — the very source of it — had hidden its body away.
"I need to know its true form. Why did it ever come to appear?"
Kim Yeong-chan, still curled up and drowning in tears, made no answer.
Shaa-ra-ra-rang!
Shaking the sacred shaman bells with a great clamor, Kang Hyeong-seok looked down at him and put the question once more.
"This dog that bewitches your mother and brings ruin upon your household — why has it appeared?"
"Huk! Hnk!"
Kim Yeong-chan lifted his head off the floor, tears and snot and spit pouring down his face.
Meeting that face, Kang Hyeong-seok drove the question home with every ounce of force in his voice.
"What sin has your family committed!"
In that instant, a silence fell as though even the current of air itself had stopped.
A hush so dreadful that the second hand of the wall clock could be heard ticking on, tick, tick.
Out of that silence, Kim Yeong-chan finally parted his lips — and they peeled apart with a dry, tearing crack.
"My father."
"What did your father do?"
"My father, he..."
Kim Yeong-chan swallowed hard enough for his Adam's apple to bob, his face twisting with the emotion surging up inside him.
"He ran a... tonic hall."
A tonic hall. Places like that could still be found here and there even now. Just as the name promised, they brewed and sold things said to be good for the body — and among their wares was something called gaesoju, dog tonic liquor.
Gaesoju was made by boiling dogs down.
So that was it. That hideous, ruined body — it looked the way it did because it had been boiled apart.
Now, at last, he understood why the Gyeon-gwi that had appeared before him had worn so horrific a shape.
"He said the medicine was only any good if you boiled a live dog... so he always took one alive, still breathing, and put it into the pot..."
That was when it happened.
Kang Hyeong-seok's eyes began to see something that was not the present.
Hiiing! Hiiiiiing!
A massive iron cauldron at a rolling boil — and from inside it, the shrieking of a dog.
Kim Yeong-chan, still a middle schooler, was edging toward the cauldron, his face brimming with curiosity.
Clunk. Clunk.
One by one he lifted away the weights pressing down the cauldron's lid,
Grrrrrrk.
and raised it open.
SHAAAH!
"UWAAAAAGH!"
Startled by the thing that had burst from the cauldron, the boy toppled over backward, and liquid heavy with a rancid, reeking stench spattered the room around him.
Standing atop that liquid was a dog.
"Hah—hahk! Hahh—hahk!"
Its fur sloughing off in clumps, both eyes boiled milky white. Its lips had curled back until every fang showed — a face like a demon's.
And that dog was staring at Kim Yeong-chan through its ruined, sightless eyes.
"AAAGH! AAAGH!"
At the boy's scream, a powerfully built man came rushing out.
"Y-Yeong-chan! Yeong-chan!"
"Father! Father! That thing, that thing!"
"Hk! Why, you damned thing!"
As if it were nothing worth mentioning, Kim Yeong-chan's father seized the dog's throat in a brutal grip.
Then he swung the animal the way a man shakes out laundry, and slammed it down into the ground.
THWACK! WHUMP! THWACK! WHUMP, WHUMP!
Liquid and bloody spray flew. Only when the dog's tongue had lolled out limp did the man's hands finally stop.
"What kind of son of mine startles at a thing like this! Rinse it off properly and put it back in the pot."
"Fa—Father."
"And you — how many times have I told you to keep away from the pot? It's dangerous!"
Kim Yeong-chan's father brushed off his hands and walked away. Judging by the feel of it alone, you would have thought a father had just given his son a proper lesson.
But the dead dog left lying on the floor was so deeply, horribly wrong that even Kang Hyeong-seok, watching, felt something grotesque crawl through him.
So it was that dog.
The dog that had been boiled away — a grudge of monstrous strength.
And the reason it hunted not one man but the whole family was that Kim Yeong-chan himself was tangled up in it too.
"My father..."
Kim Yeong-chan's weeping voice dragged Kang Hyeong-seok's mind back to the present.
"My father bought dogs in from all over the country. Was that—was that what caused it?"
Kang Hyeong-seok shook his head, lips pressed into a hard line.
Kim Yeong-chan, head bowed, could not see it — but Kim Yeong-jun was watching. Eyes sinking with dismay, for he could not know what was true.
But Kang Hyeong-seok knew now. The truth, and the whole history that had led here.
"The grudge of an animal is not easily untangled."
"Khh-hhhnnngh!"
"Words cannot reach them. So they cannot be sent on to heaven through prayer alone."
I will hear out your laments. Cast off that burden of the vengeful dead and go on your way with nothing left behind.
"Th-then there's no way at all? Our son — what is going to happen to our son?"
Kim Yeong-jun flinched hard, and Kang Hyeong-seok answered in a level voice.
"There is a way."
"Yes?"
"But you must promise me something first."
Only after Kim Yeong-chan had looked up at him with the face of a man who would do anything did Kang Hyeong-seok go on.
"The evil karma your father piled up is far too great. The two of you will have to spend the rest of your lives building good deeds against it."
"I—it doesn't matter. As long as our family comes through this safe, we'll do anything. Whatever it takes."
Not a shred of a lie in it. A wholly earnest heart.
Kang Hyeong-seok nodded gravely and ran his tongue across lips gone dry.
These people, in the end, were only ones caught up in the current.
Barely anything at all. Everyone else did the same. That's just how it was, back then.
And yet what they had done so casually had become karma — karma that reached all the way down to their children.
"From this moment on, I will try to take the Gyeon-gwi. The two of you must do exactly as I say."
"Yes! Yes!"
Kim Yeong-chan scrambled up at once, while Kim Yeong-jun kept his face buried in his palms and exhaled a long, burning sigh.
"Mr. Kim Yeong-jun."
"Yes?"
He jerked his head up at being called, and Kang Hyeong-seok pointed a finger at him.
"You need to change your clothes first."
"M-my clothes?"
"Yes. The Gyeon-gwi's eyes are ruined; it will hunt by scent. I will put on your clothes, Mr. Kim Yeong-jun, and deceive it in your place."
So this was the face of a man yanked, without warning, into the very heart of a shamanic rite. Kim Yeong-jun stood there dazed and half-dead with fear — until Kim Yeong-chan's bark came crashing down.
"What are you doing! Take them off, hurry!"
"Sir."
Kang Hyeong-seok's calm voice pulled Kim Yeong-chan's gaze around.
"From this moment, you must guard even the sound of your own breathing."
"..."
"I know you're anxious — this is your son we speak of. But right now, you have to stay calm."
Kim Yeong-chan nodded with effort, careful even of the air he drew in.
And Kim Yeong-jun stripped off his clothes, and Kang Hyeong-seok shed his own and changed into them. Fortunately, apart from the pull at the shoulders and forearms, the fit was good enough.
"The kitchen...?"
"It's— it's over there."
Kim Yeong-chan answered as though gulping down air, pointing; from where he pointed, Kang Hyeong-seok brought back the salt.
Then he opened the lid of the salt jar and, holding it in both hands like an offering, closed his eyes.
"Heaven and Earth, O spirits divine, O General Deity — I humbly beseech Thee: let every impurity be unmade."
Murmuring the sacred scripture under his breath, Kang Hyeong-seok prayed with desperate earnestness.
These are people without sin. They are ones paying for the karma of their ancestor.
Ssh-shsh-shsh, shrang-shrang-shrang!
Shaking the salt jar and the sacred bells together, Kang Hyeong-seok pressed his prayer deeper still.
"I offer up my devotion — descend swiftly, O divine one, and unmake every impurity."
"Impurity in the heavens above, impurity in the earth below, impurity from houses far, impurity from houses near, impurity at the great gate, impurity at the middle gate."
Kang Hyeong-seok prayed to his Momju-sin — the Body-Governing Patron Deity dwelling within him.
If helping this father and son is a righteous thing, and if it lies within your design, then watch over them with your care. Let no one here shed tears. Let no one grieve. And untie the Gyeon-gwi's grudge, that it too may be set free.
Shaa-ra-rang!
Bringing prayer and scripture to a close with one great peal of the sacred bells, Kang Hyeong-seok turned his eyes to Kim Yeong-chan and Kim Yeong-jun.
"Now the two of you will go into that room. You are not to come out until I tell you it is done."
Kim Yeong-chan nodded hard and led Kim Yeong-jun inside. And then, though no one had told him to, the door clicked locked from within.
Shaaaaah.
Kang Hyeong-seok poured out a line of salt directly before the door and pushed a slow breath out across it.
Then, his gaze nailed to the front door, he sat with his legs crossed, laying the sacred shaman bells and the Sinjangkal across his knees.
Come.
He had no intention of denying the grudge the Gyeon-gwi carried. But neither did he intend to vindicate it.
Every bitter wish, every grudge — I will take them all into my keeping. So come to me, Gyeon-gwi, you who bear the hatred.
Tick, tick, tick.
In a house so quiet that even the second hand of the wall clock made itself heard, Kang Hyeong-seok waited, unblinking, for the Gyeon-gwi to show itself.
And so the hands crawled past 9:40 at night —
Shrang.
The sacred shaman bells stirred faintly and gave out a sound.
And then — faint, but unmistakable — the stench of the dead brushed past the tip of his nose.
The reek of blood laced with the rank odor of a beast, and threaded through it, something fouly boiled.
It was the death-stench of the Gyeon-gwi — the one that had melted away, alive, inside that cauldron.
Tap. Tap.
The small, small sound of four paws drew closer to the entryway —
CLUNK!
The firmly shut front door shuddered as though beaten by wind.
That was how the thing revealed itself.
Both eyes boiled white, lips curled back off its teeth — the Gyeon-gwi stared at Kang Hyeong-seok from beside the shoe cabinet.