Dead Ends

Yulhee went to visit Haru’s parents the next morning. A red-eyed Hyejung opened the door for her, giving a smile that looked more like a grimace. Yulhee bowed her head in greeting. “You’ve heard about Haru, then,” she said hoarsely, “Please, come inside.”

“I was wondering if there was anything I could do to help,” Yulhee said, waving aside the woman’s attempts to bring out food or drink for her. Haru’s mother looked utterly exhausted, and she was joined by similarly drained Seonwoong, who wrapped an arm around her shoulder. Hyejung leant against him gratefully. Yulhee felt as though she were intruding upon a private moment, but she felt it was only right of her to check on them, as Haru's friend. The house seemed quieter, barer without Haru around. Books and children’s toys were scattered about the floor, photographs of the happy trio beaming at the camera placed on the table. They looked hollow now. Yulhee felt an urge to cry.

“Thank you for offering,” Seonwoong said, “Haru has always looked up to you and talks about you all the time, and we’re grateful for you looking out for her. But I don’t know if…any of us can do anything. We’ve been speaking to all sorts of police officers, government workers, but they just keep telling us they’re investigating. I’m trying to throw this towards the provincial government, but what do they care?”

The vehemence in his words made Yulhee shudder. “Still, the community is willing to look around,” Seonwoong continued, "You could help out there.”

“I would be glad to. How exactly did she disappear?” she asked, “I don’t understand how nobody could have seen it happen.”

That was untrue; she knew the creatures were capable of a good many things that human eyes could not spot. But she wanted to be sure that it was them.

“She was just out there in the garden,” Hyejung murmured, covering her face with her hands, “I just went into the kitchen to make her a snack – I didn’t even hear anything! No one did! How...”

Seonwoong rubbed his wife’s back gently as she sobbed. Yulhee squeezed Hyejung's hand, feeling utterly helpless. The conversation soon became more stilted, and eventually, Yulhee made an excuse to leave. It was just too heart breaking to speak to them.

In the week that followed, more and more children in the towns surrounding the Woods went missing. Happy children, as Baekhyun would have put it – children from families that were whole, children that were loved, children that people would know were gone. The town paper ran constant updates about the situation, blazing sensational headlines about Child-Kidnapping Gang Around This Summer? And No Comment from Authorities. The missing children of the summer would go down in town history as the biggest news of the later twentieth century.

Yulhee just felt sick each time she visited Moonkyu or Eunju, only to learn that nobody knew what was going on either.

The first time they got the news, Yulhee had been unable to stop her trembling. Kyungsoo had reached for her hand, squeezing it gently. The warm and firm pressure had made her calm, and she had clung to it like a lifeline. Soon it had become a habit each time they heard about another missing child. In the face of the world going absolutely mad, that physical comfort was something Yulhee instinctively reached for. It was better than simply staring blankly into space as she grasped the reality that things were hopelessly out of their control.

When she wasn’t working or racking her brains with Kyungsoo, they were joining in the hunting parties organized by different Woods’ communities to try and find the missing children. That day, their group consisted of herself, Kyungsoo, Seulgi, Moonkyu, and Junsu. It would’ve been an awkward atmosphere – Yulhee wasn’t exactly talking to Seulgi, Moonkyu was trying to talk to both of them, Junsu kept staring at Kyungsoo in confusion, Kyungsoo looked uncomfortable – if it hadn’t been for the urgency of the situation.

One of the older men in the town who was in charge of the different hunting parties, handed them a picture of a young girl. “Jung Soojung,” he told them. Yulhee recognized her vaguely: long dark hair, looking away from the camera either in shyness or unhappiness, she’d once come in with her mother to buy cream puffs. Probably around twelve or thirteen years old. 

“That’s Sooyoun’s little sister,” Moonkyu realised, “Oh God, no wonder she was crying this morning.”

“She was helping to walk a neighbour’s dog. One of those quiet animal kids. Apparently went out alone despite police warnings. So. She was supposed to be back by six in the evening with the dog to get paid by the neighbour. Soojung never got there. Dog came running back with the leash, no girl.”

“She just vanished,” Seulgi said unnecessarily.

“Yes. Parents called us last night. Silly kid used to go all the way near the abandoned buildings in town. This isn’t the kind of place where things happen much, people don’t lock their doors – and kids never listen. Anyways, I want you all to take a nice good look at her, understood?”

Yulhee remembered seeing the girl in the bakery, the flash of that shy smile, thinking how beautiful she was going to grow up to be one day. They were told what Soojung had been wearing that day – white T-shirt, long green skirt, black shoes, yellow hairpins – and given a very clunky radio set to communicate with the police station. They were told if, God forbid, they found Soojung’s body, they were not repeat not to disturb anything, just to radio back for help, but if she was alive, they were to administer emergency firs