Skin Food

by Type A

  Mimi opened her mouth wide and pressed her hands to her cheeks, feigning terror.

  “So what school do you go to?” Tyson continued in jest.

  “An all-women’s uni,” Mimi said with a suspicious sideways glance.

  Sam turned off the gas burner and slipped on a floral print oven mitt. With a stained kitchen towel in his left hand, he poured the neon orange pot over a white plastic colander, shielding his face from the steam. He shook and bounced the spaghetti before reintroducing it to the pot.

  “Anyone hungry?” Sam asked. He divided the spaghetti onto four plates and offered up extra virgin olive oil and black pepper. “I don’t have spaghetti sauce.”

  “Where do you keep your forks?” Tyson asked.

  “In the cabinet above the sink. Can you get four glasses, too?”

  “You got it.”

  Lana set the water filter pitcher on the table. Mimi liberally poured olive oil and conservatively sprinkled pepper onto her plate, then pushed them Lana’s way.

  “Do you like cooking?” Lana asked Sam.

  “Not really. I eat out a lot.”

  Mimi was meditatively breaking up a brain-shaped clump of spaghetti with her fork.

  “So, Mimi, what are you thinking?” Sam asked. “You’re not gonna brave the storm and go home, are you? You’re welcome to stay here as long as you need to.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate that. I’ll go home as soon as it’s safe, of course.”

  “Yeah, we’d better wait for word from the police. It shouldn’t be long now,” Lana said to Mimi. “Besides, I like having you around.”

  Mimi wasn’t sure how to interpret that. Did Lana enjoy her company or her translation skills?

  Dessert was the lone red apple, cut into eight slices and rust-tinged from oxidation.

  ______

  They say that love is eternal. But what about hate? What happens to hatred when the hater dies? Does it disappear? Can it reappear? Is the hated exonerated?

  They say that time heals all wounds.

  {gasp} Seung-ho snapped his jaws in the air and exhaled a cloud of mist. His body in an advanced state of rigor mortis, he stiffly scratched at the stainless steel walls of the morgue’s temperature-controlled room, a glorified freezer.

  Steve peeled his purpling face off the concrete, its dirt and pebbles embedded into his cheek and forehead. His body in the early stages of rigor mortis, he cracked his bones and muscles as he got up onto his knees.

  The clanging and banging of Seung-ho’s freezer got the attention of a crematory technician. The tech slid out Seung-ho’s tray and was sure that he was witnessing a miracle, a mythical man come-back-to-life. Frostbitten but alive. He leaned in to try to make sense of Seung-ho’s moaning and got fanged in the face.

  A stumbling and mumbling late-night reveler, a peace-loving Canadian expat, squinted his eyes at Steve and asked, “Hey, man, are you all right?” Steve’s reply was an attack to the throat. The hard partier hit the ground hard, spilling crimson onto the curb.

  Do morticians and crematory technicians ever envision how their own bodies will be treated after death? {thud} Seung-ho dropped the crematory technician’s corpse on the cold linoleum floor, sans ceremony.

  Steve’s mouth runneth over with blood. What does blood with an alcohol content of 0.15% taste like to the undead? Sweet and strong. Steve let it linger in his mouth a little, like he would with whiskey.

  ______

  Bodies rose from the earth and flew down from the sky—from death to life, from life to death. The circle of life. Corpses clawed their way out of coffins and burial mounds, splinters and soil stuck under their fingernails. People plummeted from high-rises onto the streets and sidewalks of Seoul.

  Lana, Tyson, and Sam huddled behind Mimi, in front of the computer, as she shakily relayed the news: The president of Korea had declared a state of emergency. An estimated two hundred Seoulites were dead—victims of murder and possible suicides. Police and witnesses described the murders as gruesome and personal, with victims’ faces smashed and mashed. Police officers accounted for a dozen of these murders, and in retaliation, police had killed eight alleged murderers. The alleged murderers matched the description of the woman downstairs: less than human.

  “And…” Mimi gulped. “Cemeteries in Seoul are reporting that corpses are rising from—”

  “Stop!” Lana yelled, taking a step back from the group, her hands in surrender position. “That’s enough.” She scanned their faces. “You two say you saw some monster woman downstairs. And you—Now you’re telling me that zombies are real, and they’re attacking Seoul?”

  “I don’t know what they are,” Mimi replied. “Please don’t kill the messenger. I’m scared, too.”

  Lana got misty-eyed and stared straight at Tyson—a piercing gaze.

  He spoke calmly and tenderly, “Lana, I wouldn’t make this up. We wouldn’t make this up.” Sam pursed his lips and nodded.

  “Then what the hell is going on?” Lana asked, wiping her tears away with her fingers.

  Sam clicked over to HuffPost, and there it was, the headline story.

  CHAOS IN KOREA

  The news mirrored Mimi’s, with an addition and a subtraction. U.S. forces in Korea were ready to intervene, and no mention was made of reanimated corpses. HuffPost users suspected that North Koreans or bath salts were to blame for the grisly murders. One user combined the theories: “the north koreans have weaponized bath salts. the zombie apocalypse is here!!!!”

  ______

  {blam} Law and disorder at the morgue. Tattered uniforms. Scattered badges. Shattered limbs. Shrapnel-shredded skin. {cough}{cough}{cough} Dust-filled lungs. Eyes that stung. Shell shock. Cremation urns had exploded like gunpowder, and Seung-ho swept through the ash clouds, dismembering members of the police squad.

  Three siren-less squad cars surrounded Steve. “Stay there!” a female officer shouted. She’d seen the Canadian sprawled out on the street a few blocks back, surrounded by curious and concerned early birds and all-nighters. Steve hobbled toward the officer, looking like he’d just brawled in every bar in Hongdae—the leader of a pub crawl fight club. “Stop! Now!” she yelled in English.

  When the dust settled, a hodge-podge of headless and limbless bodies, ripped and bloodied beige and blue uniforms, porcelain pieces, and Seung-ho remained contained in the room of the morgue. The funeral director had heard the blasts of the exploding urns and the dying screams of the police officers, and armed himself with a fire iron—a glorified fireplace poker—from the crematory. He tiptoed into the now-quiet room, and Seung-ho charged, his back and claws arched. The funeral director sidestepped the raging bull and stabbed him in the back. Seung-ho stopped, staggered, and fell to his side, the fire iron jutting out from his chest. To the funeral director, the incident was a blur. And to Seung-ho, reanimation and re-death were less than a blur.

  Steve didn’t get within a bull’s roar of the female officer. The three male officers beat him back with batons, then beat him down. And Steve had no mind to block himself from the brutality. He attacked, rolling back onto his feet and, off-balance, lunging at a male officer. Claws connected with hips, and Steve and the cop crashed onto the pavement. Immediately, the second policeman yanked Steve back by the collar, and the third battered away at Steve’s rib cage—a makeshift batting cage. Steve was hunched over on the median of the road, gasping for air, when the female officer stepped to his side and cracked his ribs with her baton. She left him breathless.

  II

  {FLASH}{BOOM} THE SKY TOOK A candid group photo through the officetel window. Mimi was frantically pacing the room, on the phone with her parents. Lana, Sam, and Tyson were on the couch, fidgeting, trying to talk their way through the situation.

  {flash}{boom} The lightning and thunder only added to the terror. The news had confirmed that the dead were coming back to life.

  Mimi hung up the phone, her mouth still half open. Her arms hung to her sides as she stood staring at the sw
irls and lines of the wooden floor.

  “I can’t go back to Ilsan,” she said a minute later. “My parents can’t drive down to get me.”

  “So you’ll stay with us,” Sam said, nodding his head.

  “Yeah. Thanks,” she replied, looking down, biting her lip.

  “What will your family do?” Lana asked.

  “They’re going to the Costco in our neighborhood.”

  “To stock up on supplies?” Tyson asked.

  “To stay. It’s basically a bomb shelter.”

  “It has everything you could want or need…” Lana said.

  “And it’s deep underground,” Mimi added.

  “That’s a solid plan. I’m sure your family will be safe there,” Tyson said.

  “Thank you. I certainly hope so.”

  “Is there a Costco around here?” Lana asked Sam.

  “Not in Hongdae.”

  “So what are we gonna do?” Tyson asked. “We have no food.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” Sam replied. “Let’s call home first.”

  Sam, Lana, and Tyson took turns video calling their families. They shed tears, exchanged I-love-yous, and promised to keep their loved ones updated.

  “You two please protect her,” Lana’s mother pleaded with Tyson and Sam. Lana still lived at home—like Mimi.

  Mimi rested her elbows on the windowsill, worried about her family’s fate. Her mother. Her little brother. Her father. Would they make it to Costco without incident? Would their Gold Star Membership card grant them entry? Would they be safe there? Could she find a way to get to them?

  Raindrops rolled down the window, and Mimi thought about the game she and her brother often played. Raindrop racing. They’d each pick a raindrop and see whose reached the finish line—the bottom of the windowpane—first. It was a simple game with a complex concept: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. As a raindrop raced down the window, it would stick to other raindrops and grow bigger. Cohesion. And as the raindrop grew bigger, it became greater—faster.

  With her family, Mimi knew what to expect. They had a real relationship built on love, trust, and respect. They had synergy. Raindrops.

  But Mimi didn’t know what to expect from Sam, Lana, and Tyson. Their relationship was superficial, built on alcohol. And there was no time for her to test the waters. She’d have to stick with them, and they’d have to form a bond—fast.

  ______

  Officials warned residents of Seoul not to use tap water for drinking, cooking, washing, or bathing.

  “That leaves us with two bottles and a half-pitcher of water,” Sam announced. Judging by his tone of voice, the pitcher was half-empty.

  “Okay, so now what?” Tyson revived the discussion. “We need a plan.”

  “I say we wait it out,” Sam said.

  Tyson raised his brows. “You wanna stay here, holed up, with just water and popcorn?”

  “No, of course that’s not what I want. But it’s our best option for now.”

  “I say we get outta Seoul ASAP,” Tyson said.

  “And go where? Korea is a densely-populated peninsula. These vampires, or whatever the hell they are, will be all over the country in no time.”

  “Exactly. Let’s get going while we still can.”

  “Tyson, you saw the woman downstairs. Imagine her multiplied times a hundred, a thousand. How are we gonna get past that?”

  “By actually trying,” Tyson said.

  “It’s not that simple,” Sam said, his voice deeper than usual. “Why force the issue?”

  “Guys,” Mimi intervened between the warrior and the worrier, “what’s our immediate concern?”

  “Food and water,” Lana answered.

  “Right. And Sam, you have neighbors. Neighbors share.”

  “I don’t know my neighbors.”

  “That’s okay,” Mimi insisted. “Most Koreans don’t know their neighbors either.”

  “Again, I am Korean. I was born here,” Sam said, narrowing his eyes.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” Mimi replied, taken aback.

  “Then what did you mean?” he asked.

  “Sam, can we not do this? I know you’re Korean and American.”

  “So let’s meet the neighbors in the morning?” Lana intervened this time.

  They said “yes” in unison.

  ______

  {ding}{dong}{ding}{dong} Mimi and Lana stood smiling and waving in front of the peephole camera. Tyson and Sam stood by their sides, knives to their sides, out of the camera’s view. Ten, twenty seconds. There wasn’t so much as a peep.

  They moved on to the next door. {ding}{dong}{ding} A middle-aged man hurried them into the officetel.

  “What are you doing out there?” the man scolded Mimi in Korean. “Don’t you follow the news?”

  “Yes. We’re looking for help,” she spoke diplomatically.

  “What kind of help?”

  “Food for starters.”

  “Are you planning to rob me for it?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?” she replied with furrowed brows.

  “There’s a knife out in the hallway.”

  Mimi looked back at Sam and Tyson. “They brought knives for protection. They almost got attacked yesterday.”

  “How? Where?”

  “A woman chased them into this building. They say she looked and acted crazy.”

  “So where’s the other knife?”

  “Do either of you have a knife on you?” Mimi asked Tyson and Sam.

  Sam put his hand up. “I do.” He pulled a steak knife out of his back pocket and slowly set it on the floor, as though he were in a hostage situation.

  “How do you know these foreigners? Are they your friends?” the man asked.

  “Yes, we’re friends, and he lives on your floor.” Mimi pointed at Sam, who bowed until his eyes met his second-to-top button.

  “We don’t want any trouble,” Sam spoke up. “We’re here because I don’t have food in my officetel, and we don’t feel safe going outside.” Mimi translated.

  “Very well.” The neighbor relaxed. “I’ll feed you all.”

  Spam, tuna, and Vienna sausage cans covered the oak wood dining table, and an assortment of assorted nuts, snacks, and ramen topped the marbleized kitchen countertop. Lonely guy food. Liters of water lined the white baseboards.

  “Where’d he get all this food and water?” Lana asked.

  “He was in his taxi when he heard the news. So he drove to the nearest grocery store and bought them out,” Mimi translated.

  “Before the panicked people,” Lana said.

  “Precisely.”

  Mr. Shin, the neighbor and host, sliced Spam, Vienna sausages, and tofu. Sam peeled onions and potatoes and Lana chopped them up, along with a healthy head of cabbage and kimchi.

  “Kimchi looks like rotting human flesh,” Lana remarked.

  “Wow,” Sam said with laughter. “Way to insult an entire nation.”

  “This is the first time I’ve heard that,” Mimi said to Lana.

  “Look at it up close. The pale white and yellowish tint—it’s skin. And the red—that’s blood,” Lana explained.

  “I see what you mean.” Mimi nodded. “But I wish you hadn’t said that.”

  “I hope I’m not being rude. It’s just an observation.”

  “Oh, no, I’m not being nationalistic. It’s not like I have a patriotic palate. But we’re about to eat. And I have a weak stomach.”

  Their stomachs rumbled as the smell of the hodgepodge stew, with the inclusion of ramen (and the exclusion of its seasoning packet) and gochujang, filled the air.

  Mimi and Tyson cleared the dining table and arranged the place settings: flat, stainless steel chopsticks, long spoons, chipped sky blue ceramic bowls, and dark green plastic tumblers.

  With steam hitting his face, Mr. Shin placed the bubbling pot in the middle of the table. He ladled the stew into his bowl, getting just the right proportion of portions. He fa
vored Spam. Then it was every man and woman for themselves. Mimi filled everyone’s water cups while they filled their bowls.

  “What do you call this?” asked Tyson, scooping the stew out of his bowl.

  “Budae jiggae,” Mimi answered. “Army base stew.”

  “Was it made by the military?” Lana asked.

  “By Koreans during the war. We didn’t have much food, so we used leftover ingredients from U.S. Army bases and got creative.”

  “Ah, so that explains the Spam and Vienna sausages,” Tyson said. “I didn’t expect this to be so good. My compliments to the chef.”

  Mr. Shin brushed him off. “This is easy to make and tastes even better with American cheese,” Mimi translated.

  Mr. Shin offered up soju, and they all politely declined.

  “Silly me,” Mr. Shin feigned embarrassment. “We’re practically at war.”

  “Interesting choice of words,” Sam observed. “Why is he comparing our situation to war?”

  “Well,” Mimi said after a long chat with Mr. Shin, “he has a theory.”

  ______

  According to Chinese belief, people have a yang and yin of souls: rational and irrational. Upon physical death, the rational soul ascends on high. But the irrational soul remains intact and dormant. And if someone lived a bad life, died a bad death, or becomes unsettled or upset in death, the irrational soul can reanimate the body, creating a jiangshi, a “stiff corpse.” A monster that hops.

  “Jiangshi? Really?” Lana grumbled.

  “Well, it’s pronounced gangshi in Korean,” Mimi clarified.

  “Thanks for the language lesson, but I don’t—”

  “Hey, hey,” said Tyson, leaning into Lana. She closed her eyes (rather than roll them in disbelief) and took a deep breath, her abdomen rising and falling.

  “Let’s suppose Mr. Shin is right,” Sam said. “Why are gangshi here in our city... in our neighborhood... in our building?”