Skin Food

by Type A

  Sam pulled out his knife. “Let’s go,” he said. He knew Sinchon well enough, having spent many a Friday night there with Steve.

  “Hurry!” he yelled back to Mimi, Lana, and Tyson.

  “Where are we going?” Tyson asked, scanning the area for signs of life or death.

  “A motel.”

  They ran uphill through the semi-seedy love motel district. Split in two pairs—Mimi and Sam, Lana and Tyson—they tried their luck knocking on doors. Knock, knock, ginger. Ding dong ditch.

  “Hey!” a lady called out from an open glass door. Mimi hid her scissors and followed the lady’s voice. Sam stayed in the sun, ready to flag down Lana and Tyson if the lady let them inside.

  ______

  Room 315

  Features and amenities: Black and white swirl wallpaper. White bedding with red heart-shaped pillows. Candy apple red faux leather couch. PC. Wall-mounted TV. Coffee machine. Mirrored walls and ceiling.

  Lana swung the drawstring bag on the couch and looked over at Tyson. “They’re so damn scary,” she said with a shaky voice.

  “Hey now.” Tyson stepped toward her. “We’re safe.” He pulled her in for a hug.

  “Yeah, for now. But what about the next time?” She paused and exhaled. “How could anyone ever be ready for this? These green… things. They’re worse than anything I’ve ever seen or imagined.”

  Room 317

  Features and amenities: Hot pink walls decorated with a montage of lingerie models. Cherry blossom pink bedding. Black faux leather couch. Black two-seater table and chairs. Wall-mounted TV…

  Mimi turned it on. A blank screen.

  Sam wiped the sweat off his brow and turned on the A/C. “Are you okay with sharing a bed?” he asked Mimi.

  “That’s why we’re here, right?” she asked.

  “Wha-what?”

  “I’m kidding,” she said with a grin. “It’s fine.”

  “We’re gonna owe so many people so much,” Sam said, changing the subject. “Mr. Shin. Mrs. Jang…”

  “Yeah.”

  Room 315

  Tyson sprawled out on the queen size bed, holding a heart-shaped pillow in each hand. Lana nudged in and laid her head on his chest, her hair tickling his neck and chin. He wrapped his arms around her torso and placed the velvety hearts over her eyes. Her cheeks dimpled. Their bodies formed an acute angle.

  They stared at their reflections in the mirrored ceiling. He in a white v-neck, chambray shorts, and gray ankle socks. His face stubbled and hair unruly. She in a light gray off shoulder t-shirt, denim shorts, and white no show socks. Her face make-up free and hair still smooth. They held hands as if they were on a sinking ship. And they sank into a slumber…

  ______

  {knock}{knock}{knock}

  “Hey, we gotta plan,” Sam said. Mimi had a bag of food.

  Tyson ran his hand through his hair and nodded with closed eyes. “Always. Perpetual planning.”

  “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” Sam spoke with no sweetness.

  “I’m up, I’m up.” Lana rolled out of bed and washed her face with cool water. Tyson took a peek in the bag of food.

  “We’re racing the clock,” Mimi said. “What if we get to the embassy and it’s closed?”

  “Yeah, we gotta go soon,” said Sam.

  “But what if gangshi grow stronger when the sun goes down?” Lana asked with a yawn. “Let’s leave at the crack of dawn.”

  They agreed.

  “So how are we getting to the embassy?” Sam asked. “Cars are out of the question.”

  “How about bikes?” Lana asked.

  “Now there’s a thought,” Sam replied. “I know someone who biked from Seoul to Busan. We could do the same.”

  “You could do the same,” Mimi said. “I can’t bike three hundred kilometers.”

  “This is fight or flight, isn’t it? I’m sure you could fly if you had to,” Sam said.

  She shook her head no.

  “Traveling south makes a lot of sense,” Tyson said. “There will be far fewer gangshi between here and Busan. And we could use the compasses on your smartphones. GPS should still work, even without service.”

  “Yes, we can still use the GPS satellites. But like I said before, the southbound bridges are probably backed up by now,” Mimi said.

  “And we don’t have bikes just yet. Did anyone see any on the way here?” Lana asked.

  “At the subway station,” Mimi said. “Locked to the bike racks.”

  “Yes!” Sam said with unexpected excitement. A eureka moment. He pointed at Lana. “Bikes.” Then he shifted his attention to Mimi. “On the subway.”

  “Are you suggesting that we take bikes on the tracks?” Tyson asked.

  “Bingo,” Sam said.

  “How many stops away is the embassy?” Lana asked.

  “Five,” Mimi counted on her fingers, “including a transfer.”

  They paused in contemplation.

  “It’d be dark down there. Pitch black,” Lana said.

  “We have a flashlight,” Sam replied, “and we could get more.”

  “There are screen doors on the platform,” Mimi said. “Suicide prevention doors.”

  “We could break the glass,” Sam said.

  “Has anyone seen the tracks? Do they have railroad ties? Would we eat shit?” Tyson questioned.

  “I’ve seen the tracks,” Mimi replied. “But what do you mean eat shit?”

  “I mean, would we fall off the bikes? If so, we’d be better off just walking the tracks.”

  “I think we’d be fine,” Mimi said. “It’s like a sidewalk between the rails. Just concrete.” A slab track.

  “Are you sure? You got a good look at the tracks?” he asked.

  “Yes. In Ilsan, the platforms don’t have screen doors.”

  “Okay,” Tyson said, “I’m in.”

  “We’ll need a lock cutter and flashlights,” Lana said.

  “Bolt cutters,” Tyson clarified, placing his hand on Lana’s knee.

  “And a hammer for the screen doors,” Sam added.

  “I’ll ask Mrs. Jang what she has in storage,” Mimi said.

  ______

  Mimi and Sam returned empty-handed but with word that the tools were in the maintenance room. They’d get them in the morning.

  Mimi poked through the bag of food and cracked open a can of nuts.

  “Can you pass the chips, please?” Lana asked.

  “Sure.” Mimi tossed them over.

  Lana grabbed each side of the bag and pulled. “Ugh.” The bag was stubborn, stuck.

  “Let me try,” Tyson said.

  “I can do it,” Mimi said. She took the bag, turned it sideways, pinched the corner, and ripped it open.

  “Whoa. A life hack,” Tyson said.

  “You want some?” Lana asked, crunching on a chip. She held the open-faced bag out with both hands.

  “No, thanks,” Mimi replied. “I hate potatoes.”

  “Who hates potatoes?” Sam asked.

  “I do.” Mimi looked down at her feet. “I was on holiday from uni and hadn’t seen my family in almost a year. My–”

  “Oh, there’s a story,” Sam interrupted.

  “My dad and I had rarely texted or talked while I was away, and I thought that we’d have some alone time, some quality time, that we’d do something special together. Instead, we had dinner with his business partner, and they talked about potatoes the whole time. Starting a potato liquor business. And all the while I sat there like a potato, not saying a word, wondering why I was even there, thinking he didn’t care. When I got back to London, it seemed like every food was made of fucking potatoes.”

  Room 317

  Mimi and Sam took turns in the shower. She hopped in first and took her sweet time. A glamour shower. A Hollywood shower.

  “Any hot water left?” Sam asked when she came out in a burgundy bathrobe. Her hair was a lustrous black, and she had a soft white glow to her.

  “Oh, please. I
wasn’t in there that long.”

  “The fact that you’re still alive means Mrs. Jang is right. The water’s safe.”

  Room 315

  Tyson sported an alma mater t-shirt—white, green, and orange with a logo of Sebastian the Ibis. An American white ibis. Eudocimus albus. According to Native American folklore, the ibis is the last animal to take refuge before a hurricane and the first to reappear afterwards.

  Lana looked out over the street, breathing in the night air. She felt suffocated. Stuck inside. Waiting out the storm.

  She felt Tyson’s arms around her waist, him nuzzling her shoulder. Then, they were cheek-to-cheek. He kissed her jawline, took her by the hand, and led her to bed.

  Room 317

  “Gotcha!” Sam swatted a mosquito with a three-day-old newspaper. The world’s deadliest animal—killed by the world’s second deadliest animal.

  Mimi rubbed her eyes. “Thank you. Hopefully that’s the last one.”

  He noticed the redness and swelling on her left arm. “Whoa. They loved you.”

  “And I hated them.” She cleaned her bites with warm water and soap. “Mosquitoes are a nuisance I’ll never get used to.”

  “So, tell me, do mosquitoes love some people more than others?” he asked.

  “Scientifically speaking, yes. Twenty percent of people are especially attractive to them.”

  “So why are you a mosquito magnet and I’m not?”

  “If I knew why, I’d try to change it. There are too many factors to consider. Chemical compounds in our skin. Carbon dioxide in our breath. Body temperature, sweat, perfume.”

  Sam yawned.

  “Hey, you asked,” Mimi said, noticing.

  “I did. I’m just tired,” he said with a sleepy face.

  She turned off the light and he the lamp.

  “Thanks for killing the mosquitoes,” she whispered from her side of the bed.

  “Anytime.”

  She crawled over and kissed him on the cheek. But the darkness hid his surprised smile.

  Another mosquito lay in wait.

  ______

  The friends had the tools: bolt cutters, flashlights, and a hammer.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Jang,” Mimi said in Korean. “What do we owe you?”

  “Nothing.” She waved them off. “Just be safe and come back when you can.”

  “Thank you,” Mimi said again. No promises.

  Sam lifted his bag and looked through the tinted glass door. “Holy hell!” An approaching swarm of gangshi.

  “They know we’re here,” Lana said. “They can sense us.”

  “Damn it,” Tyson thought aloud. “What to do?”

  Mimi uncrumpled the pink note from her pocket and ran through the list. “How about fire or mirrors?” she suggested.

  ______

  In the maintenance room, Mrs. Jang had enough wall and ceiling mirrors to build a fun house.

  “I’ll test one out,” Sam volunteered, holding a round mirror to his chest.

  Tyson reached for another.

  “I’ve got this,” Sam said to him. “Can you watch the door?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.” No overthinking this time.

  Tyson cocked his head sideways. “If you insist. Be careful out there.”

  ______

  Sam stepped out into the sun and held up the mirror, and the gangshi hissed and moaned, hopping in all directions. In the blink of an eye, Sam saw mangled, greenish-white hands, a black bowl cut. {crash} Sam was bowled over on the asphalt. Blindsided. Pieces of glass pierced his palms and fangs tore into his torso.

  “Stay here!” Tyson told Lana and Mimi. He grabbed a knife, pushed the door open, and lunged at the gangshi. Steel to skin. Blade to bone. The knife stuck to the gangshi’s skull, and Tyson toppled it over. Where the head goes, the body follows.

  Sam was bloodied, disoriented, squinting at the sun. Tyson picked him up by the biceps and back of the head, donkey kicking a gangshi behind them.

  “Walk with me,” Tyson said, trying to hide his horror. He held Sam up and hurried him into the motel.

  Lana and Mimi’s voices were thick with emotion.

  “Sam!”

  “Mrs. Jang, the first aid kit!”

  Tyson applied pressure to Sam’s chest with a towel, Lana tweezed the glass out of his skin, and Mimi washed his wounds with warm water and soap.

  Sam was trembling, shaking from his core. “It’s just a mosquito bite,” he murmured when Mimi neared his chest.

  “Yeah.” She smiled through her tears.

  “I’m not gonna turn into a gangshi, am I? They’re not contagious, right?”

  “Right.” Mimi put down the sponge. “You won’t become one of them.”

  ______

  Room 317

  Sam was shivering, his forehead hot to the touch. Ibuprofen and his bed provided no comfort.

  “What are you writing?” Lana asked him.

  “A letter. A letter to my family,” he stammered. “Can you give this to them if something happens to me?”

  She eyed Sam’s phone, avoiding his anguished gaze. “Yes, of course.”

  He exited the Notes app and pulled the covers over his face.

  ______

  Sam slumped over the two-seater table, his head cradled in the crook of his left arm. He cupped his bandaged hand over Mimi’s soft hand, and she caressed his thumb with hers. His fingers were frigid, his pupils dilated.

  “Don’t fade,” Mimi said to him.

  Sam had to consider every word he spoke, every inhale and exhale. Each spoken word was a dying breath.

  He whispered, “Gwaenchanha.” It’s okay. I’m okay.

  Sam waved Tyson and Lana over.

  “How are you feeling, bud?” Tyson asked.

  Sam shut his eyes and shook his head. He stretched out his free hand until his fingers touched theirs. And he felt warmth.

  “Sam,” Lana called out to him.

  He lifted his eyelids, took one last look at Lana, Tyson, and Mimi, and squeezed their hands until his skin stung no more.

  III

  Room 315

  “Burn in hell!” Tyson yelled, pushing a pillow out the window’s ten-centimeter-wide opening. An anti-suicide window. The flaming, heart-shaped pillow fell on the gangshi below, eliciting shrieks and illuminating the street.

  With a scowl on his face, Tyson gathered up the bed sheets, towels, and bathrobes. He was intent on burning the world to the ground.

  {beep} Mimi and Lana stepped into the room and stared through puffy eyes at Tyson. He had a bathrobe in one hand, a lighter in the other. His own eyes were a dam of tears about to burst.

  “Does fire work on them?” Mimi asked in a quivering voice.

  “See for yourself,” Tyson replied.

  Mimi and Lana approached the window and arched their brows. The gangshi were fleeing the fire—as if they feared it—and the street.

  “Give me those,” Mimi said. She lit the bathrobe belt on fire and shoved the robe out the window, prompting the leftover gangshi to scatter.

  From out the shadows, Sam’s killer hopped into view with Tyson’s knife still stuck to its skull.

  ______

  5:22 a.m. Sunrise. Mimi, Lana, and Tyson hadn’t rested and digested. Their brains and bodies were adrenaline-fueled. In their hands they held the lighter and a makeshift torch (Mimi), the steak knife (Lana), and the hammer and a credit card (Tyson). Their bags were slung over their tear-soaked shoulders, with the bolt cutters, flashlights, and extra weapons within easy reach.

  “Mrs. Jang,” Mimi said, “please hold on to Tyson’s credit card until we get in touch with Sam’s family.”

  “Okay, I will,” she answered as if money still mattered. “Will I see you again?”

  “I hope so.” Mimi paused. “We hope so.” She took a deep breath.

  “I’m really sorry about your boyfriend, Mimi. He died much too young.”

  ______

  Mimi lit the torch,
and its chemicals and fabric fast went up in flames. Higher and higher. Up and up. Could she and the couple reach Sinchon Station before the fire expired? she wondered.

  {growl} Mimi pointed her torch at a couple of gangshi who looked like they’d died dieting. Emaciated. Emasculated. They angled their heads toward the shadows and hopped side to side, to and fro, figure-eighting.

  {crack} Tyson interrupted the gangshi’s dancing with wild swings of his hammer. He connected with their necks and heads, exposing their brains.

  Still, the gangshi were undead.

  “Keep them distracted,” Lana told Tyson and Mimi. She circled around the gangshi and stabbed them between the shoulder blades, and they fidgeted, froze up, and fell face forward onto the pavement, their stiff fingers snapping on impact.

  “Why did that work?” Tyson asked as they ran downhill. His stare was intense, fiery.

  “The lungs,” Mimi said in between breaths. “Lana punctured their lungs, and they collapsed.”

  At the bottom of the hill, the trio ran right, past the police station and its unmoving flags, a red post box, and a row of abandoned food stalls with tteokbokki, dumplings, fish cakes, blood sausages, deep fried vegetables, skewered chicken, and hot dogs on a stick, all spoiled in the heat. Mimi passed her torch over the stalls, and the flies lived up to their name.

  “Sinchon!” Tyson read the English sign board. Sinchon Station.

  Lana tried the outdoor elevator—out of order—and then turned her attention to the bikes. A dozen or so. Chained to pedestrian guard rails and tree stakes. She chose the nearest bike, black and orange and foldable. Mimi stood by a silver mountain bike and Tyson a flat bar road bike in pastel blue.

  They wiped the sweat off their faces and, with squinty eyes, scanned the area for gangshi. None in the immediate vicinity.

  Tyson took the bolt cutters out of the backpack and went to work. Back bent. Biceps flexed. Wrists stiff. He cut through the blue bike’s chain lock like butter.