Ch.146Rather, If We Had Never Met! (3)

#146

Even though the first week of June had passed, there was still no answer to the case of the missing engineer.

They had obtained CCTV footage from each hotel and nearby buildings.

However, the missing engineer had disappeared into a CCTV blind spot while heading somewhere and wasn’t found anywhere else. Similarly, the man who had been talking with the engineer had gone in a different direction but vanished just like the missing engineer.

They couldn’t figure out why the two had started talking in that hotel alleyway, and while they knew the general direction both had come from, they couldn’t determine their exact destinations.

As a result, Himena, who had confidently declared she would handle the case herself, was so troubled that she sent Dexter a message asking for help.

Thinking something had happened to Himena, Dexter called her immediately after checking the message, but once he realized it wasn’t an emergency, he answered with a slight chuckle.

“I thought something urgent had happened. Why don’t you check out the commute route yourself? My shift ends soon, so we could go together.”

Just as Dexter suggested, as soon as his shift ended, Himena was waiting in casual clothes in front of the prison parking lot.

“I knew this would happen, so I came dressed in casual clothes.”

Dexter, too, was leaving the prison in his everyday clothes rather than his correctional officer uniform.

“But why did you bring me along?”

In the back seat of Himena’s car sat Jesse, who had finished work around the same time as Himena.

“I wanted to get a perspective closer to that of an ordinary person.”

“I’d be glad to help, but I’m not sure…”

Jesse shrugged as she spoke.

“I really don’t know anything.”

“Well, you might be helpful. Let’s head to Henderson first.”

Following Dexter’s suggestion, Himena drove toward Interstate 515 rather than Route 582, which would have been the shortest route to Henderson.

“There’s definitely no reason to take such a roundabout route. It’s not even a congested road.”

“So what do you think the problem is?”

“In my opinion… it was a rehearsal.”

“A rehearsal?”

Dexter, sitting in the passenger seat, rested his chin on his arm on the armrest and said:

“Route 582 is literally a straight road, so he might have judged it insufficient for escaping elsewhere. So he might have chosen Interstate 515, which has more curves and relatively more exit routes.”

“So the missing engineer’s disappearance wasn’t a kidnapping?”

“He escaped on his own. The problem is that he never came back.”

Himena, with her hands on the steering wheel, still didn’t understand parts of Dexter’s explanation.

“Why would he need to do that?”

“I don’t know that far. Aren’t we approaching the CCTV blind spot now?”

Being on a highway, they couldn’t just stop.

Instead, they slightly reduced their speed to observe the surrounding environment.

“He disappeared near Henderson Hospital.”

“We’re approaching Henderson Hospital area… huh?”

Dexter pointed to a large entrance leading underground in the distance.

“What’s that?”

“That? Probably a drainage entrance?”

“That’s it.”

“Are you saying he went into the drainage system?”

Instead of answering, Dexter nodded.

“Compared to other regions, Nevada doesn’t get much rain, so at most there’d only be sewage flowing. If we’re lucky, there might still be some evidence left.”

Currently, Dexter’s group was on the southbound lane, while the underground drainage entrance was on the northbound side.

After making a big loop to reach the drainage entrance on the northbound side, the three got out of the car and began shining flashlights into the drainage system.

Focusing on the drainage floor, which had a slight fishy smell and various pieces of trash accumulated, Dexter pointed to a noticeable mark on the ground.

“There are car tire tracks here?”

“Really?”

Himena sighed deeply as she saw the tire tracks extending along the drainage system.

“Judging by the tracks, they’re not recent—probably a few months old. But they seem to extend quite far…”

“Why does that matter?”

In response to Dexter’s question, Jesse, standing at the drainage entrance, said in a small voice:

“The underground drainage system is over 250 miles (about 400km) long.”

“That long?”

“Don’t you know that story? It’s so deep and complex that some people even live in the drainage system. I think one of the people Marci was looking after used to live there for several years?”

‘People living in drainage systems, car tire tracks leading into the drainage, sections without CCTV…’

It was clear.

“It’s getting late today, so Himena, you should ask OSA to form a search team tomorrow.”

“A search team? To search here?”

“The missing engineer could only have gone here.”

Dexter shone his flashlight into the dark drainage system that seemed to have no end.

“But it would be too dangerous for just the three of us to investigate the drainage system without proper equipment.”

“That’s true…”

“Let’s call it a day. You can tell the director tomorrow.”

Just as Dexter was about to leave the drainage system with a shrug—

-Boom.

“Did you hear something…?”

Seeing Himena’s expression, Dexter put his index finger to his lips and said in a low voice:

“A gun.”

“This is all I have…”

What Himena offered was the standard OSA-issued pistol she usually carried.

“Ammunition?”

“One magazine.”

While Dexter might be better at close combat, Himena was the better shot.

Dexter prepared to protect Himena, while she aimed her gun and flashlight toward the source of the sound.

-Boom!

“It’s getting closer, isn’t it?”

“Seems like it. Jesse, go start the car.”

“Got it!”

Jesse immediately followed Dexter’s instruction and headed for Himena’s car parked near the drainage system. Meanwhile, Dexter sensed that besides the loud impact sounds, there was something else mixed in.

“I think I hear some kind of growling sound.”

“Growling?”

“Yeah, like a predator making… Wait a second!”

-Crash! Vrooom!

It wasn’t an ordinary roar, but the sound of a car engine.

“Get out of the way!!”

Dexter quickly picked up Himena and urgently began to leave the drainage system.

Jesse, waiting in the car, could be seen startling in surprise.

“Jesse, get ready to go!”

“Why, why? What is it? What’s happening?”

“I can feel energy coming from inside! This is beyond our capabilities!”

Jesse looked confused at Dexter’s sudden talk of energy.

“What energy? What are you talking about?”

“No time for questions!”

The bewildered Jesse immediately reversed the car after the two got in.

The sounds of collisions from the drainage system grew louder, and then something emerged.

“What, what is that?”

What appeared was a car.

But not an ordinary car.

Jesse, at the wheel, was horrified by what was possibly the most disgusting thing she had ever seen.

“Is that a human head on the hood?”

“Jesse, get the car out of here and drive at full speed!”

Though it had the shape of a car, it looked as if a human had melted onto it, with pieces of flesh attached here and there.

Moreover, there was what appeared to be a human head on the hood, making it look even more grotesque.

While Jesse and Himena were repulsed by the sight, the disgusting car began to closely follow their vehicle.

“Why, why is it following us?!”

“That head is the missing engineer’s head!”

The head on the hood, which Himena pointed at, was a familiar one that Dexter had seen in the video.

Jesse, driving the car, turned pale, reversed, and then sharply turned the vehicle in the opposite direction by pulling the handbrake.

The three swayed from the force suddenly applied to the car during the forced rotation.

In the midst of this, Dexter looked at the car following them and said to Himena:

“Himena, contact OSA and tell them an abomination car is on our tail. Jesse, we can’t let civilians see that fucking monstrosity of a car, so head toward West Galleria Drive and get us into the wasteland.”

“Uh, um? West Galleria Drive… got it!”

With Dexter’s words, Himena began to press the accelerator hard.

While Himena’s car wasn’t as fast as a sports car, it could at least quickly widen the gap from a car covered in alien-like attachments.

The disgusting car, following them closely as if it couldn’t bear to lose, began to sound a bizarre horn.

The horn from the repulsive car sounded similar to human screams.

“That sound is fucking awful, seriously!”

Jesse, who had cursed out loud, shuddered and continued to press the accelerator.

Even in the midst of this, it had been a long time since Jesse had driven at such high speeds, so both tension and exhilaration were running wild within her.

As Himena’s Cruze made a roar it had never made before and began to increase its speed, the disgusting car following them also made a gurgling engine sound and kept up.

“Wait, Jesse! Jesseeeee! The car, the car! You’re going to cause an accident!”

“Shut up, Himena! It’s distracting when you yell from the side!”

As Jesse shouted at Himena, Himena shouted back at her.

Dexter, sitting in the back seat, was gritting his teeth due to their squabbling.

“Ah, both of you, be quiet!”

“Stop shouting!”

“You stop shouting too!”

While the three were shouting at each other, the disgusting car was closely following their vehicle.

Although Jesse was someone who rarely lost in racing, she couldn’t perform at her best because she got goosebumps when she saw the head on the hood flicking its tongue while chasing their car.

“It keeps following us, what should we do?”

“No, that car needs to follow us. If we widen the gap too much, we’ll have to show that disgusting appearance to civilians.”

The repulsive car couldn’t simply stop the chase.

They needed to maintain an appropriate distance and lead it to a less populated area.

“So, we need to slow down a bit while driving.”

Jesse, who had been pressing the accelerator so hard her foot was tingling, said with displeasure.

“This isn’t a race. Try to understand.”

The car body was shaking slightly due to the high speed.

Jesse, who had been rapidly changing lanes to overtake other cars, now had a much more comfortable expression than when they were first being chased by the disgusting car.

Rather than focusing on the appearance of the repulsive car, she was now more focused on speed and control.

Meanwhile, Dexter and Himena were firmly gripping their seatbelts.

‘Is Jesse really a racer?’

Himena knew that Jesse enjoyed street racing, but not knowing her skill level, she was trembling while tightly holding her seatbelt.

Contrary to Himena’s worries, Jesse’s driving skills were excellent, and she changed lanes by narrowly missing other vehicles by just a few inches as they crossed the wasteland.

Soon, as Dexter had suggested, they were entering a wasteland where there was nothing but the road.

Himena, who had been trembling but still maintaining contact with OSA, looked alternately at Jesse and Dexter and said:

“I contacted OSA. My car has GPS, so they can find us based on that signal.”

“The point is, to arrest it, we need to stop that car.”

Dexter stuck his head out the window and was appalled to see the middle-aged man’s head with short hair fluttering as it closely followed them.

“I can’t believe this is real and not a dream.”

Dexter, who had been holding his head, pointed to a seemingly flat terrain and said:

“There. Try to stop that car there.”

“Stop the car? Is that easy?”

“Come on, why is the famous J-Bone from Iowa acting like this?”

“…Don’t use that nickname, it’s embarrassing.”

Jesse, with a slightly flushed face, turned the steering wheel to rotate while pulling the handbrake.

-Screeeech!

With the sound of tire life shortening and a cloud of dust rising, the disgusting car’s vision was obscured, causing it to flounder.

As Jesse released the handbrake and pressed the accelerator again, the car, detecting the sound, tried to catch up with Jesse.

As the dust gradually cleared and visibility improved, the repulsive car discovered that Dexter’s group’s car, which should have been in front of it, was gone, and it began to rapidly reduce its speed.

As a bizarre horn sounded as if a person was shouting in anger, Jesse yelled loudly:

“Behind you, idiot!”

With those words, Jesse asked Himena in a small voice:

“Is it okay if I wreck the car a bit?”

“…It’s only a year old.”

As Himena nodded with a tearful expression, Jesse accelerated and pulled up alongside the disgusting car, then turned the steering wheel sharply to hit the side of the repulsive car hard.

With the impact, the disgusting car momentarily lost balance, hit a large rock, tilted to the side, and flipped over.

“That wasn’t what I was aiming for…?”

Having stopped the car as Dexter had instructed, Jesse parked with a satisfied expression.

“Now that we’ve stopped the car, shouldn’t we find out what that fucking car is?”

“That’s what I was planning to do.”

As the three got out of the car and approached the disgusting car, its wheels were spinning rapidly while floating, accompanied by a strong engine sound, as if trying to guard against the three.

Dexter bent down to look at the upside-down head attached to the hood and said:

“Hey, Encyclopedia. That’s your name, right?”

In response to Dexter’s words, the man’s eyes slowly turned toward him.

“…Yes.”

Encyclopedia answered in a hoarse, scratchy voice, as if filled with phlegm.