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Translator/Editor: Natty
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◈ How to Rewrite Ghost Stories ◈
Episode 8: Mangnyang 2 Tunnel (3)
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Question.
There is an endless tunnel of Avici Hell, a headless zombie bus driver performing a talent show, and a ghost outside chewing people up like chocolate bars. Calculate the odds of surviving with the others.
Answer.
‘Honestly, zero percent.’
No one was even crying anymore. No one could bring themselves to speak first.
‘Stay calm. There’s no such thing as zero percent. First, I need to understand what’s happening.’
Crunch.
Bones crunched again. Pointless ghost-story 4DX perks. Why could I hear bones being chewed from this far away, through the bus?
First, I needed to assess the situation outside. Looking through the tunnel again, our bus was not the only vehicle stopped. There were five cars and a van. The people who had been running earlier must have gotten out of those cars and fled.
「They said only cars were parked at the tunnel exit.」
「But there was no one inside. No driver, no passengers. The bus was completely empty.」
‘Going outside carelessly would be a guaranteed death sentence. I don’t know whether it detects sound and moves toward it. But I can’t exactly tell someone else to go test it.’
So, the first thing to do was obvious.
“Everyone, please pay attention. We need to get out of here alive together.”
I forced myself to sound calm, steadying my voice so it would not shake. I spoke quietly, but clearly enough for everyone to hear. Terrified eyes turned toward me, full of questions and hope.
“Do you know what’s happening?”
“Yes. Probably.”
I needed to take control and talk a good game.
Without someone at the center, people scattered easily. The odds of panic, cooperation, pretending to know things, and passing off responsibility, however I added, multiplied, or divided them, would leave our survival rate at rock bottom. Every person for themselves was a route straight to total annihilation.
“And I need your complete cooperation.”
But if someone who seemed informed stepped up? People tended to believe them. Better if I knew the answer. Better still if I did not, because they could push the responsibility onto me. With fear paralyzing everyone’s reason, I had to make them follow me with manipulation and lies.
“D-do you know what that is?”
“Do you know what happened?”
“Can we get off the bus?!”
Beginning with the man in the black suit, people rushed to ask questions.
“Not right now. The thing outside is probably something that reacts to sound. The louder the sound, the faster it reacts.”
“So we can’t get out?”
“Does anyone have something that makes noise, other than a phone?”
The student I had saved earlier raised a hand, face pale with fear.
“I, I have a personal safety buzzer.”
“W-wait. What if that thing suddenly attacks us?”
“I’ll throw it as far as I can. And if it’s moving, there’ll be nowhere to run once it gets close. It has to be now.”
I cut them off before the objections could continue. Because I spoke firmly, no one stepped in again. I went to the very back of the bus, opened a window, and leaned out.
‘Good. It looks okay.’
I pressed the buzzer’s button and quickly threw it. After shutting the window, I held my breath and watched it roll away.
Beep beep beep beep!
Beep beep beep beep beep beep!!
The moment the sound rang out, a shadow rippled and swallowed the buzzer. Its red light slowly vanished into the darkness, and the sound stopped. A moment later, the shattered buzzer pattered down onto the ground.
“My guess was right. Touching that particularly dark area is dangerous. It seems to move when it detects sound.”
“Then couldn’t we just walk while making as little noise as possible? The tunnel can’t be more than a thousand meters long.”
“Who can walk hundreds of meters without making a sound?”
“It’s better than waiting here to die!”
People immediately split into arguments again. Some insisted we should get off the bus, some said we should wait, and some wanted to avoid the bus driver and start the engine.
Thankfully, sound did not seem to leak outside the bus. The black thing clinging to the tunnel had not spread farther or come closer.
‘Maybe I should let them argue and think of a way out...’
“I know how to get out.”
What?
Someone suddenly raised a hand. It was an ordinary-looking young man, one of the three college students who had been sitting together. His face was pale, and his eyes glittered strangely, but his voice held an unsettling certainty.
“You know how to get out? How?”
“We saw the name when we came in. It said Mangnyang Tunnel. You know, that tunnel where lots of people died?”
Someone besides me knew the ghost story. I was just beginning to feel a strange sense of kinship when the college student shrugged.
“We don’t even have to get all the way outside. We just have to find one thing in the middle. If we see the mirror, we’re safe. Phones will work from there, and we can call the police.”
“You’re going outside without knowing where the mirror is? That’s dangerous.”
“That’s just what you think, mister. We just have to stay quiet, right? As long as we don’t scream like those idiots earlier.”
It sounded reasonable. But was staying quiet really that easy? Not when we were this tense?
I was uneasy. I agreed that we should look for the mirror, but I could not shake the feeling that getting off the bus itself was a trap. When I fell silent, choosing my words, they confidently headed toward the front.
“You can’t. We don’t know how faint a sound it can react to.”
“Mister, you’ve been throwing your weight around this whole time. What do you even know? Other than throwing one buzzer, is there anything you know?”
“I agree that we should find the mirror. But we should find it without leaving the bus...”
“What a joke. How are we supposed to find it without getting off? Quit acting like a coward and get out. We’ll call the police for you, so get lost.”
“But...!”
They would not listen. The college students shoved me hard aside and headed for the driver’s seat. The melted bus driver no longer seemed to have any effect on anything. Nothing happened when one student stepped on the driver’s soggy remains.
The college students did not look tense. Even as they opened the door, they kept joking about activating Stealth.
Screeeech.
The three college students carefully stepped down the stairs. They moved so quietly that not even the sound of a foot stepping on stone or a shoe sole scraping could be heard. One foot touched the floor, then the next lifted and moved forward.
“...”
A heady, triumphant smile spread across the students’ faces as they took several more steps into the tunnel.
‘Is this really okay?’
Everyone held their breath and watched as the students reached the opposite wall and shone their phone flashlights farther into the tunnel. There was no mirror where the light reached. The students gestured to each other, seeming to suggest that they move farther ahead.
Then,
Crunch.
Half the head of the college student at the very back, who had been pointing in a direction, disappeared. There was no sound, no warning. The flashlight fell to the floor, and a pitch-black shadow covered the students from directly behind.
“U-uaahhh!!”
The students saw their friend split in half, and screams burst from their mouths.
“Run back to the bus!!”
“S-save me! Don’t close the door!!”
People screaming as they fled, and death overtaking them even faster. A shoulder was sliced off. A leg flew through the air. They crawled across the floor, trying to gather their scattered body parts.
Before blood could even flow, they became part of the black thing. Their forms disappeared, and their remaining parts screamed in place of their mouths.
‘The bus door!’
I hurriedly pulled the lever. With an announcement that sounded like, The door is closing, the door began moving slowly. Through the closing gap, I met the terrified eyes of one college student before they were swallowed by the darkness.
Thunk.
The door closed. Only six people remained inside the bus now. No one dared speak in the silence. Only the pounding of our hearts thundered so loudly it felt as if it would tear through my ears.
Thump thump. Thump thump.
As someone let out a low groan, the student who had given me the buzzer whimpered.
“There, there wasn’t any sound. How? Are we all just going to die?”
“...There was sound.”
“There was?”
A sound I had overlooked. Humans made sound endlessly just by being alive. Blood flow, digestion, muscle tremors, even heartbeats. Everything transmitted through vibrations was sound, even if we could not hear it.
“That monster... can hear our heartbeats too.”
We could not leave. Unless we could somehow remain alive while dead. Everyone sank down where they stood. What could we do? What should we do?
‘There has to be some trick I can use.’
I looked at the ghost-story page again.
「They said they disturbed a seonang stone while digging the tunnel during the Japanese colonial era.」
「Water flooded the tunnel, equipment broke down, and people died. In the end, they withdrew all the machines and dug it by hand. They swung pickaxes, broke rocks, prayed, and built stone cairns.」
‘Tunnels and resentment. Both tend to operate through memorial rites, shamanic rituals, or offerings. And the most common forms of offering at construction sites like this are memorial stones and stone pagodas...’
Stone. My thoughts reached the stone cairns built by stacking rocks as a show of devotion. This ghost story was clearly closer to a legend attached to an event from the historical past.
Then, like how a film crew performed a rite before filming began, maybe we would be okay if we carried a stone to show our devotion.
‘The problem is how we’re supposed to find a stone in the middle of this tunnel.’
I looked up at the ceiling, then down at the floor. I even shook out my shoes, wondering if a pebble had gotten inside, then regretted not putting one in my pocket before coming here.
“Does anyone have a stone?”
Everyone looked at me after my out-of-nowhere question. I began explaining as clearly as I could, trying not to sound insane.
“I think this tunnel is haunted by the ghosts of people who died here long ago. You’ve probably heard a ghost story or legend like that before. A tunnel where you die or are cursed if you pass through it.”
“You mean the ghost story those people who got off mentioned?”
“That’s right. With stories like this, they say you must regularly hold shamanic rites or show devotion whenever you pass through, to avoid their resentment.”
People often said Korean ghosts were rooted in han, the deep resentment of those who had died unjustly or still had something left unsaid. Unlike Japanese ghosts, they did not harm people if their han was resolved or they received the rites they needed. They were souls with lingering grudges and resentment, unable to move on and make it to the afterlife to star in Along with the Gods.
“You know how, when we go to a temple, we pick up a stone, pray over it, and stack it somewhere? We’ll try the same principle. Holding a stone and praying... making a gesture that says we understand their story.”
Thankfully, my explanation seemed convincing enough that everyone searched through their bags. I had never missed pet rocks more. Whenever something was sold in this world, there was always a use for it someday. Once I got out of this tunnel, I was raising a rock.
“I don’t have one.”
“Me neither.”
“Could something stone-like work instead? Stone-shaped bread, maybe?”
“I think making a joke would get us killed instead.”
While people searched their bags, seats, and the overhead racks, I analyzed the blog post.
Stop at a blue light, and go at a red light.
Hold a stone, offer a stone. Pray.
The bus driver and passengers disappeared. The bus remained.
‘For the ghost story to exist, someone has to make it out alive. Not every bus can be wiped out, so the bus company must have a way to deal with it. Only then can a second ghost story exist.’
I looked toward the driver’s seat. The bus driver’s remains, melted across the floor, faintly repeated the announcement as though it were echoing.
Please remain seated. Please be quiet. Remain seated, be quiet...
“We have to be quiet.”
The moment I repeated the driver’s words, an idea struck through my mind like lightning. Do not make noise. Stay quiet. Pass through. If the driver disappeared, we could not pass through the tunnel. Because a tunnel was not a road for people to walk through. It was a road that vehicles had to travel through.
“W-what are you doing?”
I leaned into the driver’s enclosure. The driver’s seat was even more horrifying than I had expected. The seat was smeared with crushed flesh and blood, while the clothes lay on the floor. The half-bent gearshift and steering wheel bore bloody handprints.
The bus was fine, but people were not. If the bus was fine, then the people inside were safe. It would let us pass through the tunnel.
Trying not to look too closely at the remains, I began feeling around the seat and the front pocket.
Trickle.
When my hand touched the melted flesh, the rotten-trash softness was horribly clear. Ugh. Ughhh. I hated this. This was a tactile escape room. It was just horror-themed. I repeated the same words in my head, trying to think about anything else.
‘Not here, not here either... Here...’
Something caught on my fingertips.
“Found it.”
Footnotes:
Along with the Gods is a Korean fantasy film series set in the afterlife.
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