The Sal in the Warehouse
Dread came pouring in.
A spine-chilling aura — something profane, something repulsive. A premonition that they were driving toward a place no one should ever set foot in. All of it struck him the instant he heard the sacred shaman bells, flying at him arrow-sharp and boring straight through his body.
"What's wrong?"
It had to be because his words had stopped so abruptly — that was why Lee Jin-pyeong was throwing him a puzzled look.
Hyeong-seok pressed his forearm down hard on the bag in his lap. The bells were still ringing, yet no tremor reached his arm.
"Did you by any chance hear something strange just now? Like bells?"
"No."
Hyeong-seok sealed his lips until they went white.
Exactly like before.
There had been a time when the bells rang with someone else present. That time it had been Shin Jeong-ah, and she had reacted as though she hadn't heard a thing — just like Lee Jin-pyeong now.
His Momju-sin is alerting me through the shaman bells.
The sacred bells were a thing of the divine, holy instruments that bridged him and his patron deity. That their ringing reached his ears alone could only mean one thing: they were warning him of danger.
What are You trying to tell me? What is dangerous?
Craaawk!
A crow cut sharply across the front of the car, and the chill rolled through him in one long wave.
"Geez — that gave me a start."
It was a situation that could so easily have ended in an accident, yet Lee Jin-pyeong showed nothing but indifference.
Caw! Craaawk!
The cries kept coming. Hyeong-seok exhaled as if to push them out of his head and asked quietly, "How much farther to the warehouse?"
Inside a moving car, it was dangerous. They had to stop. Preferably this instant — or failing that, as fast as humanly possible.
"Soon. It's just up ahead."
It was an awkward distance at which to ask him to pull over. Hyeong-seok tightened his grip on the seatbelt and shifted his gaze to the spirit Spitz sitting on Lee Jin-pyeong's lap. The little one had clearly sensed something too — it was trembling, its tail hidden away.
—Whiiiine. Whine.
The five hundred meters remaining to the warehouse felt so cruelly long it might as well have been five kilometers.
Craaawk! Caw! Caw!
Why were there so many crows today, of all days? So many had gathered that the power lines seemed to sag under their weight, ringed around the area and watching — while the sacred bells clanged on without a moment's rest.
Stepping out of the car, Hyeong-seok came face to face with the warehouse. Graffiti covered every inch of the walls; the windows were shattered, the steel door wrapped in thick chains. The grounds were clean, admittedly — clean the way a floor looks right after someone swept it with a broom.
Fuck's sake. This felt anything but good.
He was just opening his mouth to say something to Lee Jin-pyeong when—
"Ah — over here! This way, please."
A middle-aged man reeking of cigarette smoke emerged from around the corner of the warehouse. Lee Jin-pyeong dipped his head in a bow first, and Hyeong-seok turned his eyes to the man.
Focus. Stay focused.
However ominous, however sinister this all felt — this was work. And his Momju-sin was watching over him. Hyeong-seok took a short, careful breath so that none of it showed, and drew a business card from his wallet.
"A pleasure to meet you. I'm Kang Hyeong-seok, Assistant Manager with Daejeong Mulsan."
"Ma Jin-soo. Let's have you look at the inside first."
From the pocket where he'd tucked the card away, Ma Jin-soo produced a key. A metallic clunk, the slither of heavy links — he unchained the warehouse and flung the steel door wide. No lights burned inside, and despite the broad afternoon, a pitch-black warehouse yawned open before them.
"Take your time. It's sat empty a long while, so the outside's seen better days, but the inside is clean. Once we've signed, I'll have it painted and so on."
Ma Jin-soo simply stood by the door like a hotel bellhop.
"You're not coming in with us?"
"There's another gentleman expected, and he's lost his way. I'd best go out front and wait."
Before Hyeong-seok could get a word in, Lee Jin-pyeong had already stepped inside and switched on the lights, jerking his chin for Hyeong-seok to hurry in. Throwing one last sidelong glance at Ma Jin-soo, Hyeong-seok crossed the threshold.
"It's cleaner than I expected. Good size, too."
Inside the chilly warehouse, the spiritually oblivious Lee Jin-pyeong looked satisfied. Hyeong-seok felt nothing of the sort.
The crows have gone silent.
The birds that had been screeching hard enough to bring the sky down had fallen quiet all at once. When he looked outside, countless crows stood with their beaks clamped shut as though in prayer, staring at him and Lee Jin-pyeong.
Just as Hyeong-seok's face began to harden, Ma Jin-soo spoke up. "If you look over there, you'll see it has climate control. You can store chemicals or food products in here as well."
"Mind if I take some photos?"
"Yes, yes. Of course. Look around all you like."
Phone in hand, Lee Jin-pyeong began making his rounds of the warehouse. Hyeong-seok, alone, swept the place corner to corner with a razor-edged gaze. He had to find the source of this dread.
If this really is tied to the warehouse...
Then they could not sign for it. No matter what. For no reason he could name, the nape of his neck kept crawling — as though he'd walked straight into a house of the dead.
Then it happened.
Ring.
The sacred bells chimed, bright and clear, as if to point the way. Hyeong-seok glanced down at his bag, then lifted his eyes toward the sound: a corner of the warehouse, where a staircase climbed to the second floor.
Step. Step.
As he drew near—
Ri-i-i-iing!
The sacred bells pealed in a wild cascade, sweeping aside the energy all around and dragging the thing's shape out into the open.
What the fuck—
A round body bristling with a grotesque number of legs. A repulsively writhing, undulating motion. And from end to end, its whole body was sheathed in eyes like a cow's eyeballs. It was no evil spirit — but something every bit as foul.
The moment its gaze met his, a cold that froze him from the marrow out washed over Hyeong-seok's entire body.
A sal.
A being that came flying like an arrow to inflict fatal harm. And one of them existed here, in this warehouse.
"I don't think this warehouse is going to work. I'd like to look at some other options, if we could."
"Why?"
One block away from the warehouse, Hyeong-seok stood eyeing the building from a distance, phone to his ear, while Lee Jin-pyeong talked with the owner within his line of sight.
"You said you'd seen the contract. Said there was nothing seriously wrong with it. So why?"
Hyeong-seok let out a hushed sigh.
How do I even put this?
There was a sal nesting in that warehouse. I'd rather not sign a contract that ends in a row of funerals — that was the plain truth of it, and there was no way on earth he could say it out loud. So excuses were all he had.
"The place is a lot more run-down than it looked. The windows are all shattered, so there's a security concern, too."
"Then just put window replacement in the contract. That's what it's for."
"Access isn't great, either. The roads are narrower than I expected — I don't think trucks will come and go comfortably."
"It didn't look that bad on Street View?"
"It's different when you see it in person."
Even to his own ears the excuses sounded threadbare. But this was a contract he had to stop, by any means necessary.
"Assistant Manager Kang. Level with me. Is there something?"
The question darted in like an arrow.
"...No, sir. There isn't."
"Be honest. What's going on? Is the owner standing right next to you? Is that why you can't talk?"
Kwak Young-ho sounded frustrated — a man watching things slip out of his grasp.
"No, sir. The owner's with Assistant Manager Lee."
"Then I don't get it. Why are you being like this? You're talking like you saw something in that warehouse you shouldn't have."
Out of nowhere, Hyeong-seok caught himself wishing Kwak Young-ho were Shin Jeong-ah. At least then he could have spoken freely.
"I told you the warehouse was urgent, didn't I? This is important."
"Give me a little more time, and I'll find somewhere better."
"We have to clear the stock out of the old warehouse right away — there's no slack for delays. And I'm only bringing this up now, but the Chairman is thinking about expanding the business."
"I'm sorry — expanding?"
"Overseas direct-buy is all the rage these days. There's a plan to launch something in partnership with a proxy-purchasing site. If it goes well, we could handle delivery fulfillment too."
"Ah..."
Now he finally understood why they were in such a desperate hurry for a warehouse. Hyeong-seok turned his head toward Pyeongtaek. It was true that this warehouse wasn't far from Pyeongtaek Port. Setting aside the sal, no other place came close on location, price, or terms — that was simply fact.
"And if the new business takes root, there'll be a restructuring. You follow what I'm saying?"
"I do."
Words that offered hope. A chance at promotion might open up — and at this moment of expansion, whoever scratched the itch would be the one walking away with the special treatment.
So that's why he sent me to the warehouse.
Kwak Young-ho had been looking out for him — and of course, of all things, the warehouse had to have a sal coiled up inside it.
"So tell me honestly. What exactly is the problem?"
"...The energy in there is bad."
"What?"
Rubbing at eyes that felt strangely dry and gritty, Hyeong-seok forced the words out.
"I'm sorry I can't put it any better than that. But I believe signing a contract on this warehouse would be dangerous."
"You majored in folklore, didn't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"I don't know what that has to do with a warehouse, but that's all superstition."
The classic words of a man who didn't believe. With his heart twisting into knots, Hyeong-seok listened to the rest.
"I'm not dismissing what you studied. It's just not something you can tie to the job."
He'd known it would come to this. This was exactly why the truth never came easily. Hyeong-seok bit down on his lower lip, then nodded.
"I apologize, Department Head. I spoke out of turn."
"My wife goes to a shaman's shrine, you know. If your nerves are shot, I'll go receive a talisman and put it up for you. All right? Then it's settled, isn't it?"
Whether he'd read the mood or not, Kwak Young-ho said it brightly, the way he always did. It wasn't much comfort. Still, Hyeong-seok managed a bitter smile.
"That's all right, Department Head. You really don't need to."
This wasn't a problem a paper talisman could solve.
"No, no. If Assistant Manager Kang is uneasy, what kind of boss would I be not to manage even that much? So just trust me — unless something's seriously off, go ahead and sign. But do give it a careful look-over, mind."
"Understood."
"Great, I'll let you go! Fighting!"
The call ended. Wearing the face of a man who badly needed a cigarette, Hyeong-seok turned back toward the warehouse.
"Huh?"
There, completely unannounced, stood Lee Jin-pyeong — watching him from a distance with two cans of coffee in hand.
"Done with your call, Assistant Manager Kang?"
"Oh — yes."
As he stood there in a daze, Lee Jin-pyeong walked over and held one of the cans out.
"Here. Have one."
"Where did this come from?"
"There's a vending machine over there. You seemed like you could use a drink."
Hyeong-seok had passed that machine on the way in — it was the old kind that dispensed paper cups. Getting canned coffee would have meant a round trip to a convenience store some distance off. Wondering if Jin-pyeong had felt awkward about him taking the call alone, Hyeong-seok searched his face — but Jin-pyeong simply looked like a man who had genuinely gone out of his way to buy coffee for him.
"Go on, take it."
"Oh — thank you."
Hyeong-seok accepted the can, its chill already fading, and smiled awkwardly. "Thank you. I honestly never saw this coming."
"Who were you talking to?"
"The Department Head. He says to sign the contract if nothing's wrong."
"Then that's what you should do."
"By the way — nothing happened in the warehouse, did it?"
"It was just nice and cool in there."
Aigoo, Lee Jin-pyeong. Honestly, this man.
Blunt as he was, the man's surface matched his insides exactly, and that somehow set the heart at ease.
"Well — I'll enjoy it."
Hyeong-seok cracked the can open and took a sip. Then he walked the warehouse one more time with Lee Jin-pyeong, and stamped his seal onto the contract Ma Jin-soo had printed out, reluctance written all over his face — a contract pushed through on Kwak Young-ho's orders, whether he liked it or not.
But if he had known what the phone call that night would bring, he would never have signed.
It was news of Lee Jin-pyeong's accident.