Whines in the Dark
Clack! The door shut behind him, and Lee Jin-pyeong set his bag down before anything else.
Home was a goshi-tel on the outskirts of Gyeonggi Province—part boarding room, part motel. Its one advantage over a bare goshiwon was that it came with a private bathroom and a desk of his own; in exchange, the rent ran fifty thousand won steeper a month.
Pssht! He stripped off his work clothes, spritzed deodorizer into the air, and flopped straight onto the bed.
I miss Mom.
The thought came every time he stared up at the silent, strangely lightless ceiling.
Jin-pyeong plugged the charger into his phone, opened his messenger app, and found his mother.
Brrring, brrring. The voice-call tone pulsed a few times before his mother's voice came through.
"Son! Just off work? You're late tonight."
His parents lived in the United States. Even with the time difference, they always took his calls.
"Yes, Mom."
"Why so late today?"
The light felt blinding, and Jin-pyeong shielded his eyes with a forearm.
"Nothing much. The owner at the place I visited for a meeting bought us dinner. All in all, it went well."
"Aigoo, good for you! Good! So—do you think it'll go all the way to contract?"
"Yes."
"That's my boy, working hard. Just don't overdo it."
"I'm not overdoing it."
Wriggling against the mattress as he talked, Jin-pyeong's voice was a touch softer than usual.
"Assistant Manager Kang looked out for me a lot today. The department head, too."
"Oh, that Assistant Manager Kang? You make sure to thank him. He really seems to look after you—remember how he visited you at the hospital more than once when you were admitted?"
"Yes."
"People like that don't come along often, you know."
The corner of Jin-pyeong's mouth, showing beneath his arm, curved upward—faintly, but unmistakably.
"I know."
"Have you eaten?"
"I told you, I ate out."
"Right, right. Look at me, my memory."
"Um... Mom."
"Yes?"
"Today, while we were eating... Baekseol-i came up."
Silence fell, as if everything that had come before it had been a lie.
Baekseol-i was the Spitz Jin-pyeong had raised long ago.
"How did that come about?"
"The owner's son was there too. He said he used to keep a dog."
"Ah."
"I miss Baekseol-i."
"What can we do..."
There was nothing to be done. Perhaps those were the words his mother swallowed.
"I know."
Jin-pyeong said it desolately and lifted his arm from his face. He turned his head toward the desk—where, in a photo frame, a younger Jin-pyeong sat hugging a white Spitz.
Whiiiine. Whiiiine.
Dogs understand human emotion with a precision that frightens. Even after becoming a spirit. Even when the owner's eyes could no longer see them. The Spitz's spirit understood Jin-pyeong's heart.
"I'll get to see Baekseol-i again, won't I?"
"Of course. Of course you will."
"Yeah."
Whiiiiine.
The Spitz whined in sorrow, but Jin-pyeong, hearing nothing, kept his eyes fixed on the frame on the desk.
"I'll hang up now. Sleep well, Mom."
"You too! Sleep well—and good luck at work tomorrow!"
"Yeah."
Call ended, Jin-pyeong covered his eyes with his forearm again and let out a long breath. Then he hurled a pillow at the light switch and plunged the room into darkness.
The room went pitch black.
Whiiine.
As the Spitz whimpered feebly on his chest, Jin-pyeong pulled the blanket up over his head.
Wra-rarararang! The instant he came face to face with the dog spirit, the sacred shaman bells erupted, shrill and frantic.
The handle of the Sinjangkal had turned cold in his grip as well. His sacred instruments were reacting.
This was no ordinary animal spirit.
A mass of spirit—a single thing fused together from the dogs slaughtered by Kim Yeong-chan's father.
Tap. The dog spirit twitched its nose and began closing the distance one step at a time, its head swinging left and right like a metronome.
Even dressed in Kim Yeong-jun's clothes, it could not erase Kang Hyeong-seok's scent entirely.
GRAWW! Sensing something wrong, the spirit bared its tongue in a tremendous bark, and the ghost-stench that rolled off it—thick with animal musk—seized his nose and wrung it like a claw.
Seal off its retreat first.
Dogs are clever creatures. Old folk tales tell of the singgu, the divine hound, and the Sapsaree, Korea's native breed, has been believed since ancient times to hold the power to drive ghosts away. And a creature like that—bearing a grudge against humankind, become a vengeful ghost—was nothing like an ordinary demon.
Wra-rararang! At the ring of the shaman bells, the dog spirit stopped dead and fixed its milk-white eyes on Kang Hyeong-seok.
⟨ The Twenty-Eight Mansions Sutra ⟩
"East by Gap and Eul—General of the Azure Earth, the Blue-Robed Judge, the Blue-Robed Lady, the Blue-Robed Child, the Blue-Robed Lion, the Blue-Robed Clerk, the Great General of the Azure Emperor—azure his spell and azure his armor, blue his robes and blue his banner, gathering azure at his left, casting azure at his right, three-and-eight ranks of spirit cavalry!"
"Lion of the East, marshal of a hundred soldiers, commanded and descended—seven faces of the East, seven stars alighting to hold this ground, each quarter observed, its hidden workings scrutinized, standing ringed about by the azure-banner formation."
The sutra to bind and suppress poured out of him, each line heavy as a millstone.
At last the dog spirit understood. That the thing before it was not Kim Yeong-jun. That this was a shaman, bells in one hand and the Sinjangkal in the other.
"South by Byeong and Jeong—General of the Crimson Earth, the Red-Robed Judge, the Red-Robed Lady, the Red-Robed Ch—"
Grrrrrrrrr. The dog spirit, which had held still as though crushed beneath the weight of the scripture, kicked off the floor and lunged.
Kang Hyeong-seok had guessed it might; he snatched up the salt container he had set down on the floor.
Shwaak! Salt blessed in prayer.
Struck by the salt, the spirit rolled across the floor, spewing a virulent ghost-stench.
GRAWW! GRAWW! The energy billowing off its body was vicious.
Flick-flick-flick! The ceiling lamp stuttered and began to dim, and through the gap at the front door, cockroaches and millipedes came crawling in.
A mute animal spirit or not, the grudge it vented pierced the skin like an awl and drove itself deep into the mind.
A venomous resentment.
The young Kim Yeong-chan who had once looked at it. The father who had killed it. The family that had lived well on the money its death had earned. And Kim Yeong-jun—who had, unforgivably, kept a dog of his own—while it itself had died in a cauldron. All of it was hateful. Every last piece of it, loathsome.
Flick-flick-flick—pop! The lamp died with a strange little sound.
Darkness claimed the apartment in an instant—but this was an apartment complex. Light seeping in through the veranda and living-room windows kept the silhouettes visible.
GRAWW! GRAWW!
To the dog spirit thrashing in the dark, seething with hate, Kang Hyeong-seok drew the Sinjangkal.
"I know. I know how deep your grudge runs."
GRAWW! ARF! GRAAW!
Wra-rarang! Pinning down the rising spirit with the shaman bells, Kang Hyeong-seok advanced, his lips twisted.
"But that does not entitle you to the lives of the living. Every life you claim deepens your sin. You will be denied even rebirth!"
They say the dog is the beast closest to man. And in Buddhist teaching, it is the animal into which humans most easily reincarnate. Someday, a dog, too, might be reborn as a person. Grieving that this spirit, shackled by its own grudge, would lose even that chance, Kang Hyeong-seok had no choice but to raise the Sinjangkal.
As the dog spirit rolled its eyes white and thrashed, he lifted the blade high.
"...Forgive me."
And at the very moment the Sinjangkal began its descent—
The air seemed to darken. As though something had blocked the moonlight streaming through the veranda window—or as though things of yin had come swarming in.
GRAWW!
Before the piteously wailing spirit, Kang Hyeong-seok turned his gaze to the veranda.
Dozens of dog spirits had gathered there—at least. Every one of them was shaped much like the one before him. Some with no legs at all. Some stripped of every last hair. Some missing both eyes and half a skull. The grotesque spirits plastered themselves against the veranda glass, all of them staring in at him.
"Ha..." How many dogs had that man killed? Kim Yeong-chan's father.
GRAAAAAWW!
The pity caught on the Sinjangkal's edge had grown so heavy the point dipped—and tears came pouring from the dog spirit's eyes.
Grotesque as it was, Kang Hyeong-seok already knew the spirit's history. And so what crashed over him was not horror but something else, just as relentless. It was not hesitation. It was a sorrow closer to pity—closer to compassion.
"I promise you."
GRAWW! GRAWW! GRAWW!
"That Kim Yeong-chan will live out his days in penance—that he will spend a lifetime aiding more lives than were taken from you."
It was the only way the father and his son would ever know peace again.
GRAWW. With a bark that faded like an ember going out, the dog spirit closed its eyes.
And Kang Hyeong-seok re-gripped the Sinjangkal.
⟨ Yeongsan Puri Sutra ⟩
"On this day, as devotion is vowed—come following behind, come clinging close, come drawing near, come into my embrace."
"All you lingering souls who gather at the call—jealous demons and baleful ghosts, vengeful ghosts and dead ghosts, stray gods and hearth gods, kinsmen within and without every house, joined in wound and sorrow, owned and ownerless, all you cloud-gathered lonely souls—"
Chanting the Yeongsan Puri Sutra—the scripture that prays for a spirit's deliverance—was Kang Hyeong-seok's own wish. Rather than cast the thing out with expulsion rites like the Chukgwiu Sutra, the Chukyeommiju, or the Punggunchuksa, he wanted this dog spirit delivered—raised up onto the road to heaven. Whether that carried any meaning, he couldn't say.
Kang Hyeong-seok swept the Sinjangkal through the air. It was the blade that bound him to his Momjusin, his governing deity—and the sword that could shield him even from demons. To the dog spirit, it was simply beyond resisting.
Fsss...
Watching the spirit thin out even as it sprayed its ghost-stench, Kang Hyeong-seok chanted the next passage of the sutra.
"All you spirits, bow at once before the Immortal Lord and the Divine General; look not back along the road you came, nor glance to either side; eat your fill, and withdraw."
"Lingering souls of the five directions, within and without—"
"eat your fill, and withdraw."
"Souls of the mountain gods and spirits, lingering souls—"
"eat your fill, and withdraw."
"AAAAAAARGH!"
"UWAAH! UAAAAAH!"
The screams of the Kim father and son tore through the room, terrible to hear.
The room ran straight into the veranda. The other dog spirits must have drifted their way, for the two of them were screaming until they couldn't breathe.
BANG! He flung the door open—and there was Kim Yeong-chan, his face drained bone-white. And beyond him: the dog spirits plastered thick across the window that opened onto the veranda, and Kim Yeong-jun flattened to the floor like a dog.
"Hehk! Hweeehk! Gek-eh-ehk!"
Kim Yeong-jun rolled his eyes back, breathing in monstrous gasps, and just as a horrified Kim Yeong-chan started toward him—
"Move!"
Kang Hyeong-seok rattled the shaman bells in a clamor to hold the spirits back and threw himself over Kim Yeong-jun.
"The salt! Quickly!"
Falling and rising and falling again, Kim Yeong-chan fetched the salt container from the living room. Kang Hyeong-seok snatched it from his hands, poured the salt over Kim Yeong-jun's head, and hurled the container itself at the window crowded with spirits.
⟨ Sutra of Release for the Possessed ⟩
"Thus have I heard: once, a Buddha abode in the city of Yadama, at the heart of the Yaohak marsh; the ten directions kept watch, the four assemblies encircled him; at that hour the Bodhisattva of Unhindered Grace stood among the great assembly."
Chanting the sutra for the possessed, Kang Hyeong-seok leveled the Sinjangkal at the window.
I understand your grievances. I will not forget them. And I will make this father and son the ones to soothe your tears.
Eyes burning as he watched the spirits, Kang Hyeong-seok shook the shaman bells and began drawing the dog spirit out of Kim Yeong-jun.
Shuu... shuu...
Only Lee Jin-pyeong's breathing filled the dark room, quiet and even.
The Spitz's spirit lay atop his chest, licking his face.
A ritual repeated every night. And a devotion no one ever knew of. Even so, as if none of that mattered at all, the Spitz's spirit went on licking Jin-pyeong's face, slowly and patiently.
"Mmm."
Jin-pyeong rolled over, and the Spitz drew back a step. Then it laid its head beneath his chin and closed its eyes.
It had meant to wait out the long hours until sunrise alone—but the Spitz's eyes snapped open.
Grrrrrr!
Something was coming.
For Jin-pyeong.
Grrrr! Yap! Yap-yap-yap!
The scent that had rubbed off on him at the restaurant, when he showed Kim Yeong-jun his phone. A dog spirit had followed that scent here—and now it was breaking through the goshi-tel door, into the darkened room.