Episode 8
“Well, if those bastards made it up to the 18th floor, you think the 1st floor would be fine? We can't go back to the office anyway, so let's not overthink it.”
Manager Kim spoke with a bit of bravado, as if trying to break the heavy atmosphere.
I quickly nodded, following Manager Kim’s lead.
“Yes. Since the signal is cut off and we can't even try calling again, we have to check for ourselves.”
At my words, Lee Jeong-suk asked back with her eyes wide open.
“The signal is cut off?”
“Is your phone okay, Yeosa-nim[1]?”
“Mine ran out of battery... Oh dear, can the signal even be cut off in Seoul? Is something really terrible happening?”
“That’s what we’re going to go out and check. But since there are no doors we can lock separately in here, I think it’s better to move quickly... Do you think you can move?”
“……! Do you think they're in here too?”
Lee Jeong-suk, who stood up in a hurry, asked anxiously while looking at the open gaps between the stair railings.
I replied with a darkly somber face.
“We should hope not.”
Lee Jeong-suk hurried down the stairs ahead of us.
And when she reached the stairs where Gu Hyeon-woo was tied up, the corpse snapped its eyes open as if it had heard her footsteps.
“Kyaaaaak!”
Gu Hyeon-woo, tied to the railing, struggled to bite Lee Jeong-suk’s ankles.
However, because of the tightly bound electrical cords, Gu Hyeon-woo’s attack could not reach her legs.
Letting out a scream of surprise, Lee Jeong-suk pressed herself tightly against the wall.
Gu Hyeon-woo struggled violently, repeatedly clashing his teeth toward Lee Jeong-suk.
Since his arms and legs were all tied to the railing, every time he moved, the cords hit the metal railing.
Seeing a corpse I had personally touched come to life and move was a shocking sight, even if I had already anticipated it.
We quietly went down the stairs, sticking close to the wall so as not to further provoke the already thrashing Gu Hyeon-woo.
Even after descending several more floors, Gu Hyeon-woo’s howling did not stop.
Perhaps because the sound echoed inside the emergency stairwell, I didn't feel like we were getting much further away.
Descending the stairs in silence amidst that horrific noise, we stopped every time we encountered a bloodstain.
Some led into the emergency stairwell and continued all the way down, while others were just pooled in front of a door.
Fortunately, we did not encounter any of those strange people.
By the time my head felt dizzy from the musty scent mixed with the smell of blood and the cement odor peculiar to enclosed spaces, we finally arrived at the 2nd-floor landing.
Now, the sound Gu Hyeon-woo was making was no longer audible.
“How about we head out from here?”
At my words, Manager Kim made a puzzled expression.
“Why not go to the 1st floor?”
“Lee Yeosa-nim mentioned earlier that the security office wasn't answering. Knowing full well that something has happened on the 1st floor, I don't think there's a need to exit through there. There's an escalator leading outside on the 2nd floor as well.”
“I agree with Jihyeok-ssi. There's not much difference whether we go to the 1st floor or the 2nd floor, is there?”
At Deputy Head Jeong’s words, Manager Kim frowned slightly, as if reluctant.
“Why is there no difference? The 1st floor has many exits, but the 2nd floor only has the one leading to the escalator. If those bastards are swarming over there, where are we supposed to go?”
“...Should we only worry about us going out? What about things coming in from outside?”
Kang Ye-ra, who had been listening to Manager Kim’s words, suddenly threw out a question.
Manager Kim also seemed to recall the contents of the video and posts Gu Hyeon-woo had shown earlier, as he shut his mouth with a stiff expression.
Considering the disaster alert everyone had received, it was difficult to be certain that the outside would be safer than inside the building.
“How about this? Let's head out to the 2nd floor first and check what it's like outside through a window. If it seems okay, we leave; otherwise, we find a store with an open door, lock it from the inside, and wait a bit longer for rescue.”
Everyone nodded in agreement at my words.
Armed with mops, brooms, and electrical cords, we stood in front of the 2nd-floor fire door and prepared ourselves for a moment.
Deputy Head Jeong was firmly clutching the handbag she had swung at the man in the elevator in one hand.
Just what on earth could be inside that she was able to send that man flying so helplessly?
A misplaced sense of curiosity flared up, perhaps due to sleep deprivation, but I quickly suppressed it and pushed the door.
Just like on the 18th floor, the lights in the 2nd-floor hallway were brightly lit, inconsistent with the hour.
Even though it was pitch black outside and the time was past 1 AM, most of the shop doors were open.
We moved toward the exit of this floor, staying as far away as possible from the doors where we didn't know what might jump out.
As we passed the passage between the elevators, the memory of the 18th floor resurfaced, making me hold my breath even more, but fortunately, the elevator doors did not open.
As we rounded the corner, we saw the external escalator beyond the exit door, bathed in dim lighting.
Despite there being no one in sight, the escalator was running with its green indicator light on.
Just as I felt a sense of wonder, a young woman’s face suddenly popped up over the window facing the escalator.
She was repeatedly looking back, her face pale with terror as she ran up the descending escalator.
Because she was running against the escalator's direction, her upward speed was slow, but it looked desperate rather than comical.
Soon, the person she was fleeing from also made an appearance.
A man wearing tattered, blood-splattered clothes chased after the woman up the escalator.
The man closed the distance between him and the woman at a speed that made it hard to believe he was running against the escalator.
Finally, the moment his teeth were about to reach the back of the woman's neck, the man seemed to lose his footing and fell rolling down.
In that interval, the woman had already arrived in front of the building exit.
The infrared sensor detected the woman and slowly opened the door.
The woman, waiting anxiously for the door to open, discovered the rest of us gathered beyond the door.
A look of relief appeared on her face.
And at that very moment, the man who had chased the woman up the escalator again sank his teeth into her shoulder.
“Aaaaagh!”
At the scream filled with pain, I reflexively gripped my mop and was about to rush outside, but Manager Kim grabbed my arm and pulled me back.
“What are you do—!”
I was about to shout at him, but this time Manager Kim used his other hand to muffle my mouth.
The next moment, a middle-aged woman and a figure that looked like a young child lunged at the woman outside the door, biting her neck and arms.
Blood spurted out, and the exterior building window became a bloody mess.
The focus soon vanished from the woman’s eyes as she stared blankly at me.
Manager Kim, still muffling my mouth, stepped backward and completely hid himself behind the wall.
The scene outside was no longer visible.
The others seemed to have fled to the opposite hallway where the fire door was; I could see a few strands of Lee Jeong-suk’s mop peeking out from behind that wall.
The sound of the exit door sensing the people outside and opening then closing repeated several times.
An unpleasant smack-smack sound, as if something was being chewed and eaten, was heard in succession.
It felt like an eternity had passed when a faint scream of “Aaaagh!” was heard from somewhere.
Immediately after, the sound of people running down the escalator was heard.
Beyond the window that wasn't fully covered, the heads of people running along the escalator were briefly visible before disappearing.
Only after the sound of the automatic door closing was heard again did Manager Kim peek his face out to check the outside.
“That was a close one. Intern Do, are you some kind of apostle of justice? You’re not alone here, so let’s try to be careful.”
Listening to Manager Kim’s words, I stared blankly at the woman’s corpse lying outside the door.
Her beige blouse was entirely stained with blood.
A person died right before my eyes.
And they were bitten while alive.
I wanted to turn my gaze away from the horrific sight, but I couldn't move my head easily.
“If I had known it would be like this, it would have been better to stay on the 18th floor. Should we just go back up?”
Manager Kim grumbled while looking at the automatic door worriedly.
“Jihyeok-nim, Section Chief!”
Just then, Kang Ye-ra’s whispering voice was heard.
The door to a large hair salon located further inside the 2nd floor was slightly open.
Kang Ye-ra, who only poked her head out through the gap, gestured toward us fervently.
“Come this way.”
As Manager Kim and I entered the hair salon, a young-looking woman with brown-dyed hippie perm hair messily tied up scuttled over and quickly closed the door.
“Are those strange things still out there?”
I nodded at her urgent question.
The woman slumped into one of the nearby styling chairs as if all her energy had left her.
The metal name tag on her apron glinted under the lights. Engraved on the brass-colored tag were the words [Ha Yun-seo / Intern].
So hair salons have interns, too.
Thinking that she, too, must have encountered this situation out of the blue during her probationary period, I felt a misplaced sense of kinship.
“Ah, tomorrow was supposed to be my day off.”
Ha Yun-seo let out a deep sigh and flopped down onto a small shelf in front of the mirror, burying her face between her arms.
It looked like a very uncomfortable posture because the shelf was so low, but she didn't seem to care.
“Where did you all come from?”
Ha Yun-seo turned her head slightly to look at us and asked curiously. Sitting on the waiting sofa, I answered her question.
“We came down from the 18th floor.”
“How did you end up coming down here? Isn't it better up there? The 2nd floor was a total mess earlier. I don't know where they all went. Did they go outside because of a noise?”
“There were a few of them up there, too...”
Once it became certain that we couldn't go outside, my aimless mind was completely seized by sleepiness.
Even as I answered Ha Yun-seo's following questions, my head was hazy as if I were dreaming.
I think I exchanged a few more words with her, but the content didn't stick in my memory and just slipped through my mind.
I closed my eyes while faintly hearing the sound of the woman and the others talking.
With the final thought of "I should rest for a bit," I fell asleep on the sofa as if collapsing.
.
.
Bang!
A noise that sounded like something exploding was heard.
I snapped my eyes open to find the sun already high, shining into the hair salon.
The people scattered around on sofas, styling chairs, and shampoo chairs also craned their necks to look out the window as if they had heard the same sound.
“Did you hear that?”
Kang Ye-ra, who seemed to have taken a nap in a styling chair, asked as she walked quickly toward the window.
Before I could say anything in response, that explosive sound was heard once more. It was a sound that felt familiar for some reason.
While I was guessing the identity of the noise, Manager Kim suddenly spoke up.
“Isn't this the sound of a gunshot?”
“...Who would fire a gun in the middle of Gangnam? In South Korea?”
I asked back in a daze. In my head, I already half-agreed with Manager Kim's words, but it was a concept that was hard to accept easily.
I walked toward the window and checked the street with Kang Ye-ra.
The street, which had been dimly visible and shrouded in darkness at night, revealed itself clearly under the sunlight.
Blood was splattered here and there on the asphalt and sidewalk blocks, and several cars parked nearby were stained with red smudges.
The fact that there were so many bloodstains yet not a single corpse was visible was, instead, hair-raising.
While staring blankly outside, I saw someone moving on the road.
Two men wearing black t-shirts were walking across the empty road.
Footnotes
"Yeosa-nim" (여사님) is a respectful honorific (similar to "Madam" or "Ma'am") typically used for older women or those in service roles like custodians. Jihyeok uses this for Lee Jeong-suk to show polite respect for her age and experience, distinguishing her from his office peers whom he addresses with standard corporate honorifics or in general like -ssi or -nim.
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