Even if I fall into a ghost story, I still have to go to work
Chapter 53
Baek Sa-heon opened his eyes.
In truth, it would be more accurate to say he hadn’t slept a wink.
‘Damn it.’
Ever since entering the ‘Horizon Lodge,’ he had been on edge, trying to find a way to survive and get out with all his limbs intact.
Half of that effort had been spent walking on eggshells around Kim Sol-eum, trying to stay on his good side.
‘That bastard.’
He felt no shame. It was something he did to survive.
…It was in a similar vein that he was currently debating whether to go to Kim Sol-eum’s room.
‘I need to get some kind of information.’
That madman definitely knew something. Baek Sa-heon’s plan was to shake him down and prepare a trump card for his own survival.
But…
“…….”
Was Kim Sol-eum really a madman?
To be precise, why did he… save me?
Deep down, he knew. At the exhibition, Kim Sol-eum could have killed him or used him as a scapegoat several times, but he didn’t.
He’d messed with him a few times, but in the end…
’No!’
He probably just did it because it was fun. It would be much more unpredictable and entertaining if he were alive!
Baek Sa-heon reached a conclusion quickly. He had never met such a psycho in his life….
‘…Still, I don’t think he’d lie about information.’
With that strange sense of trust, he opened his door and—.
Something was in front of the door.
“…!!”
The sun had already set, and the lodge was submerged in darkness, so it took a moment for him to discern the silhouette right in front of him.
A man about his height.
…It was Kim Sol-eum.
‘Shit!’
He was terrified, but honestly, he felt a slight sense of relief.
Better him than a stranger.
At the very least, he wouldn’t try to kill him.
“Hey….”
Then, his eyes adjusted to the dark and made out the details.
In the hands of Kim Sol-eum, who had a serene look in his eyes, was an axe.
“…….”
‘What?’
An axe?
For a moment, he almost rubbed his remaining eye, but he soon came up with a plausible guess.
“Is that… something you picked up to defend against the murderer…?”
Suddenly, another thought flashed through Baek Sa-heon’s mind.
The texts Kim Sol-eum had been sending.
[Watch out for the serial killer]
Maybe that was….
An announcement?
“Goodbye.”
The axe swung down toward his head.
The following morning.
As the couple left their room to the sound of heavy rain, they realized an oddly familiar melody was mixed in with the downpour.
Hmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm.
Humming.
“Isn’t this the song that played when my car’s GPS broke?”
“Oh, I think you’re right… Do they play it on the local radio here?”
They breathed in the modest dawn air still lingering in the atmosphere, clutching the cassette tape like a treasure as they walked down the hallway toward the kitchen when—.
“Aaaaaaaargh!!”
They saw something shoved into the kitchen furnace.
As if fireworks and toys had been put inside and detonated, the area around the furnace was burnt, and the opening was unnervingly full.
A charred lump of charcoal.
And from that dark-red lump of charcoal, two bent, stick-like limbs protruded out to either side.
What was hanging on the ends were….
Sneakers.
Half-burnt human feet.
“Aaaaagh!!”
“My god! Is that a person?!”
“Oh no, oh no, what on earth happened, oh no!!”
The outbursts of horror and screams echoed through the lodge, and those who heard the noise came downstairs one by one.
And they joined in the screaming.
“What’s going… Euaaaagh!!”
“Huff!!”
Whether it was the college students or the middle-aged designated driver, everyone fell into a panic.
One person even collapsed, their face turning pale as a sheet.
It was the young man who had identified himself as an office worker and had been communicating through notes because of a sore throat.
But… wait, weren’t there two office workers?
’No way!’
The couple pointed at the feet in the furnace.
“That young man who came with you… is that him? Huh? The one wearing… the eyepatch?”
The young office worker seemed to stare at the charred sneakers before covering his mouth and barely nodding his head.
“Agh!!”
Someone was dead.
Someone they were talking to just yesterday!
The moment that realization hit, shouts and laments broke out all over again.
“Call 911 right now!”
“What the fuck is this?!”
“This is why you shouldn’t use the kitchens in old houses recklessly! One slip-up and a fire like this breaks out!”
But a small whisper might have been heard in their hearts.
‘Was it really an accident?’
Could a person be completely incinerated like that without the fire spreading anywhere else?
In such a gruesome manner?
‘Could it be….’
Panic-stricken, people rushed to the phone.
And a moment later.
A chill ran down their spines.
“T-The phone isn’t working. There’s no dial tone!”
“The caretaker! Where did the caretaker go?! Someone’s dead here!”
However, the lodge keeper, who had promised to serve them well, was nowhere to be found, as if it had all been a lie.
Deep in the dark mountains where heavy rain was pouring.
Inside the lodge, there was only them and the humming….
“…….”
“…….”
Hmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm.
Outside the window, a terrifying amount of rain was falling, and it seemed a landslide had even occurred during the night, as soil covered the bus stop.
“The road is… completely buried.”
“My car!!”
And so, people began to realize.
Hmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm.
That something was wrong.
“T-This… was playing over there.”
“…….”
Next to the corpse stuck in the furnace, a small, old analog cassette player was emitting the humming.
Hmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm….
Click.
One of the college students turned off the cassette player and took out what was inside.
A worn, ivory-colored tape.
“…!”
The pale-faced office worker took out his notebook and scribbled with a trembling hand.
[I think it’s the cassette Assistant Manager Baek had…]
“M-My god.”
That was when the nightmare truly began.
Lunchtime.
There was a fairly neat spread of soup and rice, perhaps prepared in advance by the lodge keeper, but everyone avoided it as if they had made a pact.
Instead, they ate energy bars or snacks they had brought, wandering around the lodge looking for a spot where their dead smartphones might get a signal.
Of course, there were no results.
In the heavy rain, the gloomy lodge was isolated, somber, and eerie, without a single link to the outside world….
‘This is driving me crazy, seriously!’
One of the college students, who was also clicking through a non-functional social media app, sat in the living room and irritably turned off his smartphone screen.
“Fuck!”
“Man, this guy is fucking scared shitless.”
Beside him, his friends from the same hiking club pushed each other toward the furnace where only the legs remained of the corpse, recoiling and snickering.
They were acting playfully, even sneaking a few photos, but they seemed to have lost their appetite, as they hadn’t even opened the calorie bars or chocolates they’d brought.
Still, they were somewhat more relaxed than the other terrified guests.
They trusted in their numbers.
‘There are three of us, after all.’
Even if there was some bastard trying to kill people, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to target the group with the most people first.
‘He’ll probably kill the people who came alone, or whoever’s left alone.’
In that sense, his anxiety eased a bit.
“Hey….”
Just as the student was about to strike up a conversation with his friend.
Slide. A chocolate bar with peanuts was thrust in front of his eyes.
Turning his head, he saw the office worker holding up his notebook with a pale complexion.
[Would you like some? I don’t think I can eat…]
“Huh? No thanks.”
He replied bluntly, and one of his friends snickered beside him.
“This guy’s allergic to peanuts.”
[Ah… I’m sorry.]
The office worker sat back down on the sofa quietly, looking dejected.
Had he said he was an Assistant Manager? At first, he’d seemed quite formidable, but ever since he saw his colleague dead, he looked completely pathetic.
‘He’s terrified.’
He looked like the type who would cower and whimper if you hit him a few times.
“Hey, smoke?”
“Yeah. I’m dying for one, fuck.”
In the meantime, the two friends disappeared to have a smoke.
The office worker also picked up his dead smartphone, glanced at the furnace with a dark expression, and headed up to the second floor.
And so, silence fell.
“…….”
He had inadvertently been left alone.
It felt somewhat chilling.
‘In movies, this is always when people get attacked.’
The student shook his leg, glancing around warily.
He felt a bit more comfortable realizing he had a jackknife in his pocket, but it was only for a moment.
‘Why the fuck did they go by themselves?’
Eventually, he set out for the backyard to find his friends.
Clutching the jackknife tightly, the back of his neck felt prickly, and his pace naturally quickened.
He opened the back door of the kitchen leading to the rainy backyard.
Click.
The smell of damp water hit him.
‘They’re probably under a roof somewhere.’
They wouldn’t stand in the rain just to smoke. So the student planned to follow the roofline and head toward a shed-like structure connected to the house to find his friends.
But the further he walked, the stranger he felt.
Something metallic stung his nose.
‘Iron?’
It was the kind of smell you’d get from rusted iron.
Since there were many old items in the shed, he thought it might just be the smell of things rusting from a leak.
The student turned the corner with that assumption.
“Hey, Park Kyung-soo….”
Then, a metallic smell so strong it almost paralyzed his nose hit him.
“Uh, u-uhhh…?”
Inside the backyard shed was an old construction grinder.
And it seemed the machine worked just fine even if you put something other than wood into it.
Thud, thud.
From the discharge outlet where sawdust should have come out, ground meat was spilling.
Torn clothing, blood, meat, and bones were all ground up and scattered messily all over the floor.
“…….”
What is this?
What… is this?
For a moment.
His brain, unable to comprehend the situation, refused to process it, only to understand a beat later.
He had indeed found his companions.
As ground meat.
“Ueeerrgh…!”
Just as his panicked brain began to pour out vomit and screams,
Another sound filtered in.
Through an old audio player.
Hmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm.
The sound of a cassette tape.
“Hieeeek!”
The student turned around and ran like mad back into the lodge.
Goosebumps and terror chased him to the top of his head.
“Hey, student, why are you running…?”
“Aaaaagh!!”
The student had a fit and slapped away the hand that grabbed his shoulder.
“Don’t fucking come near me!”
“Wh-What?!”
He looked up.
He saw the puzzled faces of the people staying at the lodge.
And their commonality!
‘The tapes!!’
Right!
If the murderer who did this crazy thing was after the tapes?!
The student immediately rummaged through his pocket and held up his tape.
“Look at this! This!”
His eyes rolled back, and spit flew from his mouth.
“I’m throwing this away! Take it if you want it! I-I’m definitely giving up, okay?! I’ve given up!!”
Clang!
The student threw the tape on the floor, ran like a madman again to his room on the second floor, and slammed the door shut.
Only after locking the door could he finally breathe.
“Huff, huff….”
Anxiety made his eyes dart around.
The images of the mushy flesh and fragmented bones flickered in his mind, his heart thumping.
Thump.
Thump.
Should he pile furniture in front of the door as a barricade?
Thump.
No, that felt more like blocking his own escape route.
Thump.
The student debated while staring at the old mother-of-pearl wardrobe, then just leaned against the wall next to it, holding his jackknife.
He stared intently at the door.
Thump….
As he leaned back, his breath returned.
‘Just try and force it open…!’
Then he would scream his head off and swing the knife! Once people gathered, what could the killer do?!
He just had to stay alert.
“You can’t do it, you can’t do it….”
As the student muttered like a madman….
Click.
Softly,
The wardrobe opened.
And the next morning, through the wide-open door, he greeted the other people.
As a corpse swollen like a sausage with bumps all over his body.
Death by anaphylactic shock.
Just like that, the entire hiking club was gone.
“Aaaaaaaargh!!”
When one healthy office worker and three college students were found as corpses in just one day, people completely lost their minds to fear.
“The inheritance! Someone among us is killing the others to get more inheritance, yeah, that’s it! They’re going to kill us all and silence us to take the tapes for themselves!”
“Honey, the lodge manager is suspicious, I’m telling you that guy was a psycho! This place….”
“It’s ghosts! We’re all possessed by ghosts!! Hahaha!!”
The middle-aged man who shouted this seemed to have lost his sanity as he pushed past people and ran outside.
“Agh!”
Rumble.
Thunder rolled right on cue.
No, it felt like another sound was heard over the thunder.
Crash!
“…!”
“Wh-What was that?!”
Startled by the roar, people looked out the window.
The civil servant muttered gloomily.
“…A landslide.”
It had swept in again, ‘right on time.’
Caught in the deluge of earth, the middle-aged man who had run out in a frenzy was swept away down the mountain.
Aaaaaaaaagh….
His scream faded into the distance as he was pulled into the dirt down the mountain.
It was a certain death by crushing.
Rumble… Crash!
Instead of humming, the sound of thunder filled the air outside the lodge, and lightning flashed.
“…….”
“…….”
A suffocating silence flowed between the frozen people….
Remaining people: four.
The second night.
The couple, who had scoured the lodge for a way to contact the outside world, were panting as they returned to their room.
They hadn’t found anything, but they had noticed something else.
“Hieee, hieee….”
“Fuck, breathe quietly, you bitch!”
“Agh!”
The husband, who had introduced the woman as his wife, violently shoved her head. His eyes trembling, he rushed out of the living room and ran up to the second-floor hallway alone.
Someone cautiously stepping out of their room met the bloodshot eyes of the husband and was startled.
“You there!!”
It was the office worker who had been communicating through notes because of his sore throat.
He was visibly startled and reached for the notebook in his jacket to write something, but the man shaking what he was holding came first.
“This, this gold frame…!”
He had taken down the gold frame that was hanging in the living room.
His eyes bulging, he pointed at the content inside.
The rabbit is roasted in the kitchen
The deer is caught in the backyard
The pigeon is fattened in the room
The sheep has a piece sliced in the living room
“People are dying according to this!”
“…!”
The person roasted in the kitchen, the person ground up in the backyard, the person who swelled up in the room!
“The lodge keeper or whoever, anyway, someone is playing games with us! This, this might even be being broadcast! No! Anyway, it’s certain they’re toying with us!”
The office worker’s eyes widened as if in shock.
The man, his conviction growing at that reaction, yelled.
“Next is this living room! Someone’s going to be sliced to death in the living room! It’s certain! We have to find a way out before that….”
“Oh.”
…….
Huh?
Did he just… speak?
“You’re surprisingly quick-witted. Brown.”
“Brown?”
That was the man’s last word that day.
“Are you awake?”
The man, regaining consciousness with a headache, lifted his head.
“Mmph! Mmmph!”
He couldn’t speak, perhaps because he was gagged.
Still, the man screamed with all his might.
“Mmmmmph!!”
The fact that this place smelled of moldy basement or that it was so dark he could barely see an inch in front of him wasn’t the main reason for his screaming.
It was because there was another head next to his!!
That is,
Just a head!
“Mmph, mmph!”
The pale face of a dead person sat on a tray right next to his nose.
He felt like he was going crazy.
Tears, snot, and cold sweat poured down as the man, his face a mess, screamed for his life.
But the gag swallowed everything.
“Hmmph, huff, mmmph!”
“Are you scared? Try to bear with it. I’m bearing with it too.”
A calm, level voice replied.
The man rolled his eyes, struggling to get away from the head, and looked up.
Then he realized.
‘That office worker…!’
A young man in a black tracksuit was looking down at him with a frown.
Then, he stared at the blood-stained cotton gloves in his hand with a look of disdain before putting them back on with a sigh.
And then he picked up an axe.
“Hmmmmmmmph!!!”
“Why is it that even when we know in our heads that people don’t change, the first thing we do is scream? It’s just tiring for both of us.”
“Mmph!! Mmmph!!”
“Let’s not waste energy needlessly.”
He’s a madman.
This bastard, this bastard was the killer…!!
The man wanted to do anything—negotiate, plead, or counterattack—but his tightly bound body and gagged mouth wouldn’t allow it.
Tears streamed from his eyes.
“Ah, physical and mental pain is somewhat alleviated…? Yeah, I think it was something like that.”
The office worker checked the blade with a dry voice.
The edge of the axe slid against the rough surface of the glove.
“It’s quite rational, but I still don’t really like it.”
It was used for its original purpose.
A flashing swing that sliced through the air.
Thud.
Clatter….
“…….”
“…….”
In the now-silent workshop, Kim Sol-eum lowered the axe.
Then, he spoke in a slightly bright voice.
“Almost done.”
Remaining people: three.
