One of the ROKs gabbled back at him. They went back and forth a couple of times, and two other ROKS joined in, then a third. None of ‘em were laughing no more and Lee listened carefully to each man before turning back to McKay.
“They say the gangshi will walk through walls to go home. They will steal a living animal’s chi – the life flow – to keep moving. In the day, they hide, they lie in caves or in the ground until the moon rises. No place is safe, unless you have… boho.” He scowled, searched for the word. “Ah, defense things?”
“So what are these defense things?” McKay asked, freckles like bloodspots on his young-looking face.
“Many things. They all say rice chaff. Ah, it must be sticky rice. He says mirrors will scare them away. He says the blood of a black dog or chicken eggs may stop them.” The kid pointed at each man as he spoke. “And he says you can kill them with fire or with an ax.”
“Swell,” said McKay. He was starting to look feverish. “And all we got is guns. This is a joke, right?”
“What do you do with the rice?” Burtoni asked.
“Outside, on the ground,” Lee said. He made a scattering motion with one hand.
“What, around the whole goddamn building?” Burtoni asked, and the kid nodded.
Burtoni reflexively fingered the small gold cross around his neck that his nonna had made him swear to keep on the whole time he was in Korea. This shit was way above his pay grade. “Unless one of you guys has got a half ton of rice in his pocket, that’s no good. What else?”
“What else nothing,” McKay said. “This isn’t for real.”
Outside, the cascading thunder of a half-dozen weapons fired at once. At least someone was getting organized while they were in here talking about zombie vampires and black dogs and rice. What the fuck was rice going to do, anyway? Burtoni couldn’t even imagine.
“If we can stay safe until morning, a rooster’s call is said to drive them away,” Lee said.
“So, what, only ten, eleven hours to go, right?” McKay asked, grinning. “No problem. We got enough of us here for poker.”
“Catch a clue, Freckles,” Burtoni said. “Something’s attacking, ain’t it? Lee, ask ‘em what else they got.”
More shots, and then that weird thing from before, like the air and the ground seemed to buzz for a few seconds. The ROK who’d flipped his wig before really started having kittens, he actually rolled off of his cot and tried to crawl for the door. One of his arms was in a cast, so it was slow going. An emergency air raid siren was blaring outside. The two guys who’d run in had retreated all the way across the long room and were holding each other like it was the end times.
“It’s a story, like the Sarge said,” McKay said, desperately looking around the room, and then the wall crashed in and everyone was shrieking.
West stepped out behind Cakes into a strung out parade of running soldiers, doctors, support staff, and a few ROKs. They were all headed different directions, shouting orders and questions at each other in passing, some saying it was a bug out, others that the North was attacking. Most of them weren’t panicking, yet, but it was a goddamn disorganized mess and it wasn’t getting better. No one was in charge. He heard the crack of a rifle, heard a woman cry out no, no, heard a Jeep start up and speed away. He looked to the hill in the north. The lanterns were gone.
He had a decision to make – step up to lead or focus on getting his own out – and no time to consider the pros and cons. He brought his fingers to his mouth and let out a sharp whistle, looking for attention. “Eyes over here, sweethearts!” he yelled, channeling his old drill sergeant.
The two or three men who even looked in his direction wore the bright blank eyes of the lizard brain… they were running and they were going to keep running. There was no decision to make, after all.
“Chogie!” he snapped, and Cakes got moving. They made it half the length of the tent before they saw the first one, jumping down a path that branched out from theirs. It was following a panicked guy who appeared to be wearing a ladies church hat, one of those pink pillbox jobs. A matching pink scarf was tied around his neck, and he had the unlit stump of a stogie clenched in his teeth. West just took it in, not arguing with what he was seeing anymore.
The lady-dressed Joe hit the main pathway and tore south, really jiving, arms swinging, nearly knocking down a pair of clerks, and West got a good look at the dead man when it jumped out into the intersection and hop-turned to follow its target. It wore the tattered remnants of a North Korean People’s Army uniform and was at least half rotten, knots and pools of black slime breaking up the pale glow of its remaining skin. Through the ragged, decaying holes in its clothing, West could see bone draped in rotten strings of meat. He could smell it, the rich, throat-clotting stench of a human body decaying in wet ground. It hopped again. The gangshi didn’t move like a man at all – it was like the kid’s pantomime, stiff, its arms held up and out, legs not bending. Other than a flex at the ankles, it didn’t seem to move a muscle but was somehow closing on the running man, a hop and then a blurry burst of impossible speed.
“Aw, what’s this hooey?” Cakes muttered, raising his sidearm.
In a second, the dead man was at the corporal’s side. The guy shrieked, tumbled and fell, his lacy topper tumbling to the dirt. He stared up at the monster.
“Go back to hell, ya gook devil!” Cakes yelled and fired, bam-bam-bam.
All three were head shots and West felt a surge of triumph, nobody like Cakes! Rot and flesh exploded, and the back half of the thing’s skull actually fell off, landing at the feet of its victim. A gory mass of shattered bone and rancid flesh and matted hair was all that remained where its head had been, a misshapen, dripping bag sinking down to hang in front of the creature’s chest – but it was still standing, unwavering, its rotting arms stretched out and aimed at the howling cross-dresser. The man literally shriveled up, his cries rasping to silence, his skin wrinkling, and the air hummed and then the gangshi turned and was hopping west again, the bag of its head flopping against its breastbone, spilling gore like a paper bag full of sick. It was all over in seconds.
“Go!” West pushed Cakes, got him moving. Its head had gone, and it still got to the sad sack in the pink hat. It had eaten him up and hopped away. This was shit for the birds. “Try the knees next time!”
They ran, stopping at the open spaces, pushing past panicking soldiers. Weapons were discharged from all areas of the camp. The men were sloppy, disorganized, terrified, and West spared a dark thought for Sanderson. The doctors might be top-notch, but the CO obviously hadn’t run drills or maintained any level of training.
Somebody shouted that there was one by the mess and a small surge of stumbling enlisted and low-level officers nearly knocked them down trying to get away, stampeding like cattle. He saw a sergeant leading a handful of armed men west towards the center of the camp, two with combat shotguns, one with a rifle and a belt.
Praise Jesus, someone was putting up a defense!
West’s optimism was short lived. As he and Cakes passed the wide opening where their paths intersected, he looked down and saw three gangshi moving towards the soldiers, coming from the west. One was the man he’d seen busting out of the OR – thin and gangly, naked, his guts swinging in the breeze. Some kind of surgical vise had been secured in his belly, holding the flesh open. His face was the blank of death, and his whole body glowed that otherworldly green. The other two wore ROK fatigues and weren’t visibly disfigured but couldn’t be mistaken for living, with the pallid glow of their skin and their dead eyes and their weird puppet postures. As he watched, all three hopped forward as one.