The Hanging Cat
Grrrrk!
Kang Hyeong-seok and Yoon-sang climbed out of the car as it rolled to a stop on the dirt road. A factory under construction — a place they couldn't set foot in by day, not with the workers around.
Clack, clack.
Thrilled at the thought of salvaging broadcast-worthy footage, Yoon-sang's eyes gleamed as he assembled his gear: an infrared camera and a portable lantern, and even a dubious contraption that claimed to detect the dead.
"Don't do anything reckless."
"Hyung-nim, I'm a pro at this."
For all the haunted houses he'd prowled, not one stray spirit had ever ridden along on him, and Yoon-sang said it with total confidence. Kang Hyeong-seok gave a solemn nod and started walking.
It was the hour when the pale yellow moon hanging overhead spilled its soft light across everything.
Crunch, crunch. Every step ground out gravel, and the wind drifting past carried a smell of earth and stone.
Wara-rang.
Nothing had shown itself yet. Even so, Kang Hyeong-seok shook his sacred shaman bells and studied the building before him with care.
It seemed to be a job demolishing the old factory and raising a new one in its place. The structure rose two stories, but it had no outer walls; in place of a roof, rebar bristled jaggedly from the top. It gave less the impression of a building than of a vast dead tree — or the mouth of a cave.
"...Let's go."
Taking one of the lanterns from Yoon-sang, Kang Hyeong-seok stepped inside.
Click.
He swept the lantern across the floor, and the gray concrete gave up a hazy film of dust and countless footprints.
CLATTER!
Yoon-sang, following behind, must have brushed the stack of lumber — the noise rang out sharp. When Kang Hyeong-seok glanced back, Yoon-sang stood half-crouched, eyes wide as a startled rabbit's.
"Careful."
He didn't rebuke him; the materials were strewn about so haphazardly that the misstep was forgivable. Yoon-sang swallowed drily and nodded, and Kang Hyeong-seok moved slowly toward the interior.
Aside from Yoon-sang's footsteps at his back, the silence was ferocious. Naturally so — it was a construction site with no one in it. It felt like wandering a school at dead of night. But the difference was clear.
Wa-rang.
Something was here — something enough to ring the shaman bells of their own accord.
Carefully scanning the narrow circle the lantern lit, Kang Hyeong-seok slid a hand into his pocket. Then he drew out the Sinjangkal.
Shring.
Yoon-sang's lantern, trailing close behind, lit the blade's edge silver. Dust assailed the nose and darkness hemmed in the sight, and with anything liable to spring out at any moment, the Sinjangkal in his grip bore a presence far larger than its true size.
"H-Hyung-nim?"
Eyes fixed straight ahead, Kang Hyeong-seok shook his head. Now was the time for focus. It's here. The rokurokubi.
"By the Scripture of Discerning Spirits I offer this prayer: Divine Generals of the Six Realms, Generals of the Six Armors, Generals of the Mysterious Gate, Generals of the Eight Gates, Generals of the Five Directions and Five Numina."
Wa-rang.
Shaking the shaman bells he held together with the lantern, Kang Hyeong-seok advanced with the Sinjangkal leading before him.
"By the art of war of the Six Paths, O Generals of the Four Camps, each bound to his ordained charge: array your formations to the four directions upon the field of the Divine Generals' battle."
Then—
The tip of the Sinjangkal tilted toward one side, as if it had a will of its own. Kang Hyeong-seok shifted his gaze and his light that way.
"To the east, within the Eight Gates — the Golden Lion Formation."
What stood there was a staircase. A gray flight, swallowed by darkness and blanketed in thick dust, waiting in silence.
"To the south, the One-Line Longshot Formation. To the west, the Formation of Six Harmonies."
Kang Hyeong-seok walked slowly toward it. Yoon-sang hurriedly pulled out his headlamp, fitted it onto Kang Hyeong-seok's head, and took the lantern from his hand.
Wa-rang!
With his hands free at last, Kang Hyeong-seok swung the shaman bells in lazy rhythm and mounted the stairs step by step. The headlamp's beam lurched and swung, and a sense of menace surged up.
"To the north, the Diagram of Eight Formations. Beyond the Golden Lion and the Longshot of the Eight Gates, array the Gates of Life and Death."
Gulp. Swallowing spit that tasted of dust, he parted lips gone strangely dry. But the voice would not come — as if something had clamped his throat shut, as if something had warned him not to speak the scripture.
"May the Divine General of Ten Thousand Gold descend—"
And so the voice that forced its way out of Kang Hyeong-seok came out cracked and ragged.
Ku-dang! Tang-tang!
A commotion burst out above the stairs.
"UAAAAAH!"
Startled, Yoon-sang nearly tumbled headlong down the steps; Kang Hyeong-seok shot out a hand and seized his sleeve. Focus! The meaning carried in that fierce glare left Yoon-sang unable even to answer; he nodded with an effort.
Wararararararang!
"At this second weighing, upon lives without blame: the ghost that permits ravage and ruin — if it be kindly, then a kind ghost — take in the newborn living through the Gate of Life."
The scripture on Kang Hyeong-seok's lips was the Scripture of Discerning Spirits — the chant that separates good ghosts from evil ones. If anything reacted fiercely to it, then that thing was no kindly ghost.
"If it has strayed, school it by the Scripture Gate; let it rest by the Gate of Rest and forgive its sins; and guide it forth by the Open Gate. But if it be wicked, an evil ghost—"
Ringing the shaman bells, Kang Hyeong-seok pressed up the stairs without pause, following where the blade led. With no banister and steps taken two and three at a time, Yoon-sang had all he could do just to keep pace behind him.
"Seize it through the Gate of Death; if it startles, school it by the Scripture Gate, punish its sins by the Gate of Harm, and bar the Closed Gate, that no spirit escape into the world."
He was nearly at the top now. The direction the Sinjangkal indicated had changed. To the left, from here.
"For the resentful — a resentful ghost — offer prayer by the Sutra of Resolving Grudges; pave the way for the good; and for the flower-like, grant their prayer for rebirth upon the lotus pedestal."
Lines of the scripture still remained. But where the Sinjangkal pointed — coming off the second-floor stairs, he turned his eyes to the left wall and felt the words slam shut in his throat. His footsteps, too.
"Hss, hss, hss."
Yoon-sang, drenched in dread, dragged quick breaths through his nose as he moved the lantern slowly. And what he saw was a cat.
Sway... sway.
A thin night breeze slipped through window frames that held no glass. And in that breeze, from the electrical wires, a cat hung by the neck, swaying side to side like a toy strung above a baby's crib.
"Uh... uhhhh."
This was a place in the middle of construction. A place that had teemed with workers by day. For a cat's corpse to hang here, strung up as if by someone's hand, felt grotesquely wrong. Yoon-sang's legs gave out, his shoulder sagging against the wall, while Kang Hyeong-seok slowly lowered his gaze from the cat. The headlamp's beam sank with it, settling on what lay below.
...An altar.
A small wooden table. And a Japanese-style jar. The jar's mouth was covered with paper, and the manner of its sealing was, at a glance, anything but ordinary. Even the way the opening was closed off belonged to Japan.
Click. Hands trembling, Yoon-sang photographed the altar, and Kang Hyeong-seok moved toward it. The stench of rotting cat stabbed at his nose. He swallowed, and stole a glance down at the floor.
Footprints were stamped across it thickly enough to make one dizzy. But around that altar, not a single one. As though not one soul had ever set foot there...
Step by step, leaving prints in a floor pale as the morning after the first snow, Kang Hyeong-seok came to a stop before the altar and lifted the jar. A chill touched him at once. Something had been done here. Something deeply bound to the rokurokubi's true nature was in this place.
Hoo. Jar in hand, Kang Hyeong-seok drew a long, deep breath. Then he raised it high overhead — and hurled it straight down at the floor.
KWA-CRASH!
The jar burst as if it had exploded, blood-red rice and the chopsticks buried inside it scattering like spilled entrails.
"UAAAH!"
Yoon-sang staggered backward in shock and caught the vile stench full in the face. The rice steeped in blood had rotted foul, reeking horribly. But the rice was not what mattered.
With a soft scrape, Kang Hyeong-seok pushed the rice aside with his shoe and picked up a small piece of metal from the floor.
"A ring...?"
And no ordinary one. A finely wrought, expensive band — like a wedding ring.
Don't tell me...
Cold slid down his spine like a sliver of ice. The hair on his body stood on end, and his mouth went dry. A trace of sorcery had been found — and out of it had come the one thing that should never have been there. Japan and Korea ran on similar veins; even short of certainty, he could infer.
A rice offering for a spirit. A sacrifice had been made. And he thought he knew why. The rokurokubi had not come into being on its own.
They really did use their own family...
A wife, perhaps — or a daughter-in-law. The rokurokubi had been fashioned from such a person and put to work as a shikigami. The reason was plain: for his own protection, for his assets, for his peace of mind. Lee Geum-kyeong had once told him that those who enslaved yokai as shikigami were dangerous.
The bastard is insane.
No man whose mind was screwed on straight could do such a thing.
"...Let's go. Quickly."
The air was too thick to breathe; the wish to be gone from this place swelled. Kang Hyeong-seok scrubbed out every footprint he had left on the floor, then turned to Yoon-sang, still rooted half-crouched, and led him down the stairs.
He had just passed the bend in the stairwell and spat three times when—
Hsss...
Over the second-floor window frame, a human head lowered itself, slow and unhurried. The expressionless face stared at the shattered jar, then withdrew to wherever it had appeared from.
And right after that—
Krr-krr-KRITCH!
The rotting cat's neck and body began to come apart. Splat. The putrefying mass dropped to the floor — while the head and spinal column stayed hanging from the wire. With that long spine trailing from its head, the cat looked as though its neck had stretched. Exactly like a rokurokubi.
At that same moment—
Hoo... hooo...
Somewhere, an old man lay in deep sleep, breath coming thin and light. His hair was pure white and the wrinkles of his face ran deep — yet the heavy brows and hard, rugged set of his features made him look far younger than his years.
His name was Kim Ki-ok. Born in Gangwon-do, a businessman who in his youth had crossed to Japan often and amassed a fortune over a lifetime. His bedchamber was luxurious — and strange. The Japanese-style ornaments above all: folding fans, a kimono hung on a stand, and along one wall a suit of traditional Japanese armor called an o-yoroi. For an art collection, it was strikingly devoted to a single country.
"Mmmgh."
As if a nightmare had pounced on him without warning, Kim Ki-ok scowled and groaned — then bolted upright with a scream.
"Haak! Haak! Haak!"
Clutching his chest, Kim Ki-ok stretched out a hand and picked up the water glass sitting on the nightstand. He even fished pills from the drawer and swallowed them, but the look in his eyes remained uneasy. Confused, frightened eyes. Gnawing at his dry lips, he tried to think what could be feeding this dread.
And then—
Plop.
The sound of a droplet striking the glass snared his gaze. As though red ink were dripping into it, the water in the glass was slowly turning crimson. Kim Ki-ok's face went rigid as he lifted his eyes to the ceiling.
A huge face was pressed against it, weeping tears of blood.
Gazing up at it, Kim Ki-ok murmured in a husk of a voice.
That was the true face of the rokurokubi he had made.