Something from the Sea
Clunk.
A rice table had been laid out in the village hall — set for Kang Hyeong-seok and Kim Jae-sik, prepared by the Youth President at the village chief's instruction.
"Here you go — please, eat plenty now."
His manner had changed night and day from their first meeting, and the reason was plain enough: Hong Gyeong-soo had dropped a warning in his ear.
"Aigoo, you've laid out far too much. Thank you."
"Ah, if it isn't enough, just say so — no need to hold back on our account."
Bowing his head over and over to Kim Jae-sik as well as to Hyeong-seok, the Youth President withdrew.
One table in the hall's spacious first floor — a meal taken by just the two of them.
"This is rather a lot of pressure, honestly."
"It's a first for me as well."
"You're telling me."
Kim Jae-sik gazed down at the spread, looking deep in thought.
Had all of this originally been meant for Hong Gyeong-soo?
The braised pork ribs with tender carrots tucked into every corner, the soybean paste stew simmered with seafood — the whole table radiated care and effort.
And that table had come to Hyeong-seok instead.
It meant: in Hong Gyeong-soo's place — please take care of us.
"Let's eat first. We can talk while we eat."
"Yes, sir."
Hyeong-seok picked up a piece of kimchi first and laid it over his rice. The cabbage, coated in brilliant red seasoning, crunched crisply between his teeth.
"By the way, Hyeong-seok."
"Yes?"
Hyeong-seok swallowed his mouthful in a hurry to answer, and Kim Jae-sik grimaced and waved him off, gesturing for him to take his time.
"Talk while you eat, talk while you eat. Anyway — that man, Hong Gyeong-soo. Just who is he, exactly?"
"Ah — he's a shaman who sends souls flying. That's why he said what he did earlier."
"Ahh, I see. Understood."
Now Kim Jae-sik finally understood, too, why he'd been told to stay out of sight.
"Still, these villagers must be truly desperate. If they were willing to reach out to a shaman like that, whatever's happening here is clearly no natural phenomenon."
"No, sir."
Hyeong-seok's thoughts ran along the same lines.
He stole a glance out the window. The sea fog had pulled back — but in its place, thick black clouds smothered the sun. Though it was past one in the afternoon and should have been bright, the village lay dim as dusk, the heavy, clammy air pressing down on it like a weight.
"As soon as we finish eating, I'll take a look around."
"I'm coming with you."
"Will you be all right, Professor?"
"Nonsense — otherwise, what, you think I came all this way down here for one free meal?"
It was a fair point, and Hyeong-seok burst out laughing despite himself.
They finished their meal, were even served sungnyung — the nutty scorched-rice water that caps a Korean meal — brought in by the Youth President who had been waiting outside, and at last rose from the table.
"You're not uncomfortable here, are you?"
"Goodness, no. This is more than we deserve."
"Say the word if you need anything at all. Oh, and you can sleep right here. I'll bring blankets and pillows along later."
The Youth President, transformed into a completely different man, felt almost unrecognizable.
Which could only mean he was that desperate.
"And, um..."
Wrestling with words that wouldn't come, the Youth President let a long silence stretch before he finally forced them out.
"Would you... go and see the cowshed first?"
"What's in the cowshed?"
At Kim Jae-sik's question, the Youth President only nodded wordlessly. Then he set off at the front, leading the way toward the village outskirts where the cowshed stood.
Thud. Thud.
Walking behind him, Hyeong-seok unconsciously raised a hand to his nose.
"What is it?"
At Kim Jae-sik's low murmur, Hyeong-seok answered in a voice lower still.
"There's a fishy stench."
"A fishy stench?"
Kim Jae-sik sniffed at the air — and the wind did carry the briny reek of the sea. But that wasn't the reek Hyeong-seok meant.
Snake musk...
A smell he'd caught once before, standing over a corpse.
Creeeak.
The moment the Youth President opened the cowshed door, the stagnant stench that had been festering inside lunged at them with terrifying force.
"Oof!"
"We scrubbed it down and scrubbed it down, but the smell just won't leave."
Hyeong-seok nodded, eyeing the thick plastic sheeting wrapped around the cowshed as if the whole building had been shrink-wrapped. It wasn't winter. No one seals up a cowshed like that without good reason.
"Watch your step coming in. Professor, if it's too much for you, you're welcome to wait outside."
"No, no. I'm coming in as well."
Kim Jae-sik passed the Youth President and stepped through the door, Hyeong-seok following at his heels.
And then he saw it.
A spotless cowshed. A floor with not one tuft of straw, not one drop of moisture anywhere on it.
"It's strange, isn't it? No matter how much we clean, the stench won't go away."
"What in the world happened here?"
Kim Jae-sik had barely finished asking when Hyeong-seok spoke.
"What did you do with the carcasses?"
"I'm sorry?"
The moment the words left his mouth, both men's eyes snapped to Hyeong-seok.
"The cows. They collapsed foaming at the mouth — what did you do with all of them?"
Staring down at the floor, the Youth President answered in a shaking voice.
"I— no— what do you mean, how—"
"It was around two in the morning, wasn't it."
"Sorry?"
"When the cows died."
"Th— that's— yes! Yes, that's right!"
The Youth President blurted it out in a startled gasp, and Kim Jae-sik turned to Hyeong-seok with silent, wide-eyed admiration. Through it all, Hyeong-seok kept surveying the shed, his jaw working slowly.
It had happened in the Hour of the Ox.
This was certainly no ordinary event.
"D— did you find out anything else—"
Hyeong-seok turned his gaze to the Youth President and signaled that they should step outside first. The cows had all been cleared away and the place scrubbed clean, and yet this damned stench still choked the breath out of him like some vengeful spirit.
Clack.
Only after the door had shut behind them did Hyeong-seok turn to the Youth President and speak.
"Your cows didn't die of any illness."
"...Then this — this is connected too, is what you're saying?"
"The cows were struck first."
Hyeong-seok could see it. Two in the morning, in this dark shed — the cows suddenly shrieking, foaming white at the mouth as they dropped, one after another.
"And you didn't... eat any of the meat, did you?"
"Of— of course not! The village association paid out consolation money, and every one of the cows was buried properly!"
Wondering if he'd done something wrong somewhere, the Youth President answered while trembling from head to toe.
"Good. If you had eaten them, it would have been a catastrophe."
"Th— then what is the problem? What is doing such cruel things to our village?"
How piteous that voice was — so grief-stricken it bordered on a plea.
"Hooo."
Hyeong-seok let out a long, slow breath, then started walking in the direction where the first cow had fallen. The Youth President and Kim Jae-sik hurried after him — and Hyeong-seok stopped, his back to the spot where that first cow had collapsed.
The sea lay before him.
More precisely: the boundary between sea and land. A long, long stretch of coastline.
"It seems to have come from the sea."
"Th— then is it a sea ghost?"
"No."
The right thing to do would be to comfort the man, to reassure him. But looking at the Youth President, Hyeong-seok could only shake his head, his face gone stiff.
"It isn't anything so gentle as that."
It was far larger, and far more malevolent. Something at the border between land and sea was preying on the oxen of this cowshed — and on its people.
"Ptui."
Hyeong-seok spat on the ground. The taste in his mouth had turned so bitter and fishy that swallowing it was simply unbearable.
Ratta-tat-tat, ratta-tat-tat-tat!
Thick ropes of rain began to hammer down.
Screech.
Kim Jae-sik pulled the village hall's window shut and looked up at the sky, brow furrowed.
"Doesn't feel like a typhoon's made landfall, but..."
"I heard the news earlier. They say it's still having an effect."
"Aigoo — as long as nobody gets hurt."
Kim Jae-sik settled onto the floor, and Hyeong-seok thumbed the remote to switch on the air conditioner. The humidity had already made the yellow vinyl flooring stick tackily to their bare soles, and now, with the rain pounding down on top of it all, it felt as if they'd been swallowed into the maw of some enormous beast.
"So... what's the plan for dinner?"
"You're hungry already?"
They had eaten not long ago at all.
"What? No! Not at all. It's just... with rain like this, I got to wondering."
"I'm sure they'll bring something without our asking."
The Youth President, and every villager they'd crossed paths with — all of them had turned openly warm toward Hyeong-seok. Surely people like that wouldn't let them go without dinner.
"Well, I did catch something mentioned in passing — apparently they might even assign someone to look after our meals?"
"Did they say that?"
"It'd be a hassle every time, though. How would they manage to haul food over for every single meal?"
Another fair point. Hyeong-seok hid a smile and nodded.
"Aigoo, now, let's see. Good grief, there's a hell of a lot to think about."
"Um, Professor?"
"Hm?"
Sitting down near Kim Jae-sik, who was seated cross-legged in front of the window, Hyeong-seok spoke up.
"Earlier today — that shaman, Hong Gyeong-soo."
"Ahh, that fellow."
"I was wondering about the last thing he said. What do you suppose he meant by it?"
What Hong Gyeong-soo had said was this: that Hyeong-seok was the magpie of Chiaksan — the pheasant, and the swallow.
"Ah, that."
It had been nagging at Hyeong-seok, but evidently not at Kim Jae-sik — the man scratched at his neck and answered as if it were nothing.
"It's a famous story. A tale about a scholar, you know."
"A scholar?"
"Mm. Famous enough — though it's practically a fairy tale, so I suppose you never came across it."
Even if Hyeong-seok had read it once, it would have been in childhood. No memory of it surfaced, and as his brow began to crease, Kim Jae-sik tugged off his socks and went on.
"You can find it in the old collections of Korean folk tales — even in the Compendium of Korean Oral Literature."
Kim Jae-sik explained in a gentle, unhurried voice, like a grandfather spinning an old bedtime story.
A scholar was traveling the road one day when he came upon a great serpent poised to swallow the nestlings huddled in their nest.
The scholar drew his bow and shot the serpent dead.
When night fell and he was still searching for a place to sleep, he followed a light to a house, where a beautiful woman came out to welcome him.
The woman received him with the utmost hospitality — but deep in the night, the sleeping scholar's eyes flew open, his chest crushed by a dreadful pressure.
The woman was gone. In her place, a great serpent had coiled around him and was squeezing the life from him.
"You killed my husband, and I will have my vengeance. If the bell behind the temple rings three times, I shall spare your life. If it does not, I shall kill you."
No bell rings three times in the dead of night.
And yet the bell rang three times — and the serpent became a dragon and ascended into the heavens.
When day broke, the scholar went to the temple bell and found a swallow lying dead, its head burst open.
To repay the scholar for saving its young, it had struck the bell with its own head — and given its life to save him.
"...I think I have heard it somewhere."
"See? It's a terribly old story. It was probably even in your school textbooks."
Kim Jae-sik laughed like a man letting out a held breath, then flopped over onto his back. Lying directly before the window, his gaze naturally drifted skyward.
"Feels like the dead of night, this."
A glance at the clock told him it was half past four in the afternoon. No hour for this kind of darkness.
Hyeong-seok rose from his seat, meaning to have a look outside — and then he saw the village drowned in darkness and driving rain, and his face went rigid.
"...What is it? Hyeong-seok."
Sensing that something was badly wrong, Kim Jae-sik scrambled up, still half-crouched, and stood beside him. A heartbeat later he, too, was staring out the window with an expression much like Hyeong-seok's.
"What in the hell..."
Kim Jae-sik muttered, the words escaping like a groan.
Squelch... squelch...
The village was drowning under the torrential downpour — and beyond the curtain of darkness lay the reason. The male shaman they had seen in the daytime, now looking for all the world like a corpse, was forcing himself toward them, one laborious step at a time.