Chapter 32: S#6. Jungle Soma (1)
by fnovelpia
S#6
I met Reiko Ishikawa.
Sitting in front of a table in the next house’s yard, she was leisurely shuffling cards.
Her hands moved over the cards elegantly and smoothly, as if playing an instrument.
Reiko had her shoulder in a cast.
It was an injury caused by a gunshot from a cursed teddy bear.
Fortunately, it was only a minor wound. I hoped that her beautiful collarbone wouldn’t be scarred.
After greeting Reiko, I casually brought up the topic of crystal ball readings.
I needed to know about the identity of the voice in my head and the situation I was in.
However, Reiko shook her head regretfully.
“I can’t give you a crystal ball reading right now. I threw away the broken crystal ball. I’ve ordered a new one, but it will take some time to arrive. It’s specially made.”
“Oh… I see.”
“Mr. Summer, would you like a tarot reading instead?”
Reiko waved the deck of cards she was shuffling. They were tarot cards.
A tarot reading from a talented and beautiful psychic?
There was no reason to refuse.
Reiko asked me to shuffle the tarot cards.
I shuffled the cards thoroughly, feeling like a skilled card player.
Reiko’s hand moved over the shuffled deck.
She drew the top three cards.
① A circular bush floating in the sky.
② A wheel surrounded by angels.
③ A man hanging upside down from a wooden post.
“The World. The Wheel of Fortune. The Hanged Man…”
“Ms. Ishikawa, what does that mean?”
“It means the worlds and fates of two people have switched. Like being upside down, it’s been reversed. Both of you are experiencing confusion and trials.”
It sounded like my story.
A Korean college student who became an ’80s axe murderer in a horror movie.
Since our places had switched, the axe murderer must have possessed my original body.
What kind of atrocities was the murderer committing now?
He might have gruesomely killed several people, plastering my name across newspaper headlines.
I thought of the female student living next door.
I couldn’t remember her name.
She was tall, with pale skin and a somewhat gloomy air about her.
We were in the same school and department, and she sat behind me in class.
She might become the murderer’s very first victim.
I prayed for the soul of the girl who might have been murdered and become a victim.
Thinking of the murderer rampaging as ‘Han Yeoreum,’ made my stomach churn as if I had swallowed thumbtacks.
Anxious, I urgently asked Reiko.
“Is there a way for the two people to return to their original worlds?”
“Mr. Summer, please draw one card.”
I drew the top card.
It was a card depicting an angel blowing a trumpet.
Reiko quietly began,
“…Judgement.”
“What does that mean?”
“……”
Reiko remained silent.
“Summer, a letter from Olivia has arrived.”
“Olivia? Who’s that?”
“My friend…”
Nancy Strode handed me the letter.
The letter was an invitation to visit her village.
Fittingly for someone named Olivia, the handwriting was cheerful.
Even though it was an invitation from a friend, Nancy’s complexion wasn’t very good.
“What’s wrong, Nancy? Are you not on good terms with your friend Olivia?”
“Olivia… went missing last spring.”
It turns out Olivia had suddenly disappeared, nearly a year ago.
So, this letter was sent by someone who was missing.
The truth made me shiver.
Nancy squatted down, looking as if she might burst into tears at any moment.
“I’m relieved to know she’s still alive… but I’m worried Olivia might have been kidnapped…”
“……”
“What should we do, Summer?”
Was this letter an SOS?
But if it was a kidnapping, there would be a demand for money.
The letter simply asked about her well-being and invited her to the village.
There was no mention of money.
Looking at the back of the letter, I noticed something written.
‘Feel free to bring company. Please come to our village, Nancy.’
‘I need you.’
These lines reeked blatantly of a trap.
“And she also sent a photo.”
Nancy took out a photo. It was a Polaroid.
The scene in the photo was bizarre beyond compare.
In the middle of a vast meadow, a woman was sitting with her back turned, surrounded by people in white clothes, encircling her as if they were playing a traditional Korean circle dance.
The color scheme was dreamlike, as if stardust had been sprinkled in the air.
Nancy was sure the woman sitting with her back turned in the photo was Olivia.
Though her face wasn’t visible, she said the back view was exactly like hers.
Seeing that photo, I got the vibe.
This was a case of entanglement with a deranged group.
There’s a genre that comes to mind when you think of “group.”
Namely, Folk Horror.
It’s a subgenre that deals with twisted folk beliefs, collective madness, and secluded environments.
Thinking of Lovecraft’s “The Shadow over Innsmouth” would make it easier to understand.
Unbelievable residents.
An ominous aura engulfing the village. Suspicious traditions and rituals.
The protagonist in Folk Horror is an outsider.
To uncover the secrets of the group, the outsider struggles.
Despite many warnings tightening around their neck, they do not give in, as if confronting fate itself.
When the secret is finally revealed, the outsider becomes a sacrifice, paying the price for not heeding the warnings.
That’s the formula in Folk Horror.
I can tell from the photo Olivia sent.
Olivia is now with a cult group.
Whether she joined voluntarily or was dragged in against her will, she was most definitely in trouble.
I’m not even sure if Olivia is still alive. There’s a high chance she’s already dead.
“Nancy. I’m sorry to say this, but your friend might have been brainwashed by cult beliefs. Or she might already have become a living sacrifice.”
“A, a, living sacrifice…?”
“Trapped in a giant wicker man or a cabin, burned alive.”
I told her straight, as seen in horror movies. Nancy was horrified.
“What do we do…! This is far more serious than being kidnapped!”
“Still, maybe it’s better than being kidnapped by a murderer or a witch?”
I tried to offer some consolation with my words, but they didn’t comfort her at all.
Nancy sobbed.
Hearing that her friend, who had been missing for a year, had suddenly become a living sacrifice to a crazy cult, it was enough to make her cry.
Moreover, Nancy and Olivia had been friends since they were five.
They were best friends.
The letter seemed to be beckoning Nancy, as if by coming to their village, she could meet Olivia right away.
But blindly accepting the invitation would lead to trouble.
Having seen too many movies, I couldn’t let Nancy just get sucked into a Folk Horror narrative.
We went to the police station with the letter.
The officer at the counter took the report.
According to Nancy, Olivia had no next of kin.
No family, not even distant relatives.
An orphan with no one to search for her if she went missing.
I wonder what it feels like to have no family to search for you.
Maybe like a lonely palm tree on a deserted island.
After reporting Olivia’s disappearance from a year ago and the content of today’s letter to the police, Nancy and I sat down in the corridor.
A while later, a portly officer approached us.
“Ms. Strode, don’t worry about your friend’s case. A very competent investigator has been assigned to it.”
“A competent investigator…? Who’s that?”
“Right here!”
The portly officer, Bob Bojangles, exclaimed.
His uniform was covered in donut powder.
His credibility was less than zero, in the negatives.
I doubted he could even tie his own shoelaces, let alone solve a case.
Even while talking to us, he was eating donuts, showcasing an impressive appetite.
“This is rather disappointing.”
“Thank you. Let me introduce my colleague, Adolf, who will join the investigation.”
A thin officer walked up.
The police uniform he wore resembled that of a Nazi secret police.
His name was Adolf Wernitz.
“Pleased to meet you!”
Adolf greeted us with a thick German accent.
Why was a German doing police work in the U.S.?
Looking at Adolf, standing there like a diaper-wearing chimpanzee, and Bob, I had a hunch.
If those two went to find Olivia, they’d surely end up being murdered.
They would not return and become living sacrifices.
But the problem didn’t end there.
Bob demanded Nancy accompany them.
I objected, dumbfounded.
“Shouldn’t it be enough for only the police to go? Why does Nancy need to tag along?”
“Because… we don’t know what the missing person looks like!”
Olivia didn’t even take a graduation photo at school.
Her face in the few group photos that existed was blurred and hardly recognizable.
There wasn’t a single proper photo of her face.
Even the photo that came with today’s letter showed only her back.
It was almost like someone’s wicked scheme.
Nancy had to go to identify Olivia.
Going to a cult village with two dumb cops was like a suicide trip.
“But officers, don’t you think we’re short-staffed for this?”
“It’s not dangerous enough to bring any more people. We just have to go there and bring back Olive!”
“It’s Olivia, not Olive.”
Bob and Adolf acted as if there was nothing to worry about.
They were completely oblivious to the seriousness of the situation, even though two cops were clearly not enough.
Nancy was destined to be the final girl.
We couldn’t leave her to be trapped in a giant wicker man or a cabin, burning alive among fanatics.
I had only one choice.
“…I’ll go too.”
Our destination was the address written in the letter.
The letter referred to it as a ‘village,’ but on the map, it was in the middle of a forest.
Before getting into the police car, I advised my companions.
“If you have a cross necklace or rosary, it would be best to take it off.”
“Why?”
“As you saw in the photo, those people are likely immersed in some strange cult religion. It’s best not to provoke them.”
The more corrupt a religion, the more it tends to vehemently reject other faiths.
Suddenly, Adolf Wernitz raised his hand as if to ask something.
“We can’t bring holy books either?”
“Yes. It’s best not to bring the Bible… wait a minute. That’s not a Bible.”
Adolf was holding “Mein Kampf” by Hitler.
Bob, standing next to him, was opening a new package of cookies.
A Nazi cop carrying “Mein Kampf” + a fat cop boasting a triple-digit weight and a single-digit IQ.
It felt like a suicide squad.
Feeling dizzy, I got into the police car.
At the same time, the voice in my head narrated.
-The axe murderer headed to a village cut off from the outside world.
In that village hidden in the forest, a secretive faith lurked.
But not even a God can stop the axe murderer.
Axe Murderer VS God…!
What the hell is that?
It’s daunting enough dealing with fanatics.
But to fight the God of a cult religion?
This doesn’t seem right.
My survival instincts were sounding alarms.
It’s not too late to turn back.
I called out to Bob, who was at the wheel.
“Excuse me, officer.”
Then I heard Nancy murmuring next to me.
“Olivia, I’m coming for you…”
Nancy was holding the letter with trembling hands.
Seeing that, the words ‘we should go back’ retreated.
How would Nancy think of me if I suggested turning back now, when she so desperately wished for a reunion with her friend?
I had my pride too.
I didn’t want to be despised by Nancy.
Thinking about it, the narrator said, “Not even a God can stop the axe murderer.”
I’ve fought with demons and survived a confrontation with hundreds of aliens.
If it’s just the unnamed god of a cult religion, not Zeus, Odin, or Jesus…
Maybe it’s worth a shot?
It was an excessively arrogant thought for a human.
The police car sped on.
The asphalt road soon changed to a dirt path, raising clouds of dust.
Bob Bojangles was humming a tune.
Adolf Wernitz was belting out a German military song.
The distance to our destination wasn’t far.
It was within the police jurisdiction, after all.
The problem was Bob’s sense of direction.
We started getting lost less than 10 minutes after departure.
We went to a gas station, both to ask for directions and fill up the tank.
It was an ancient gas station, eerily familiar.
Like the kind of gas station that characters in horror movies encounter on their way to a ‘wrong destination.’
The elderly owner of the gas station coming out to give a chilling warning is a famous cliché.
“Let’s ask for directions!”
Bob got out of the driver’s seat and shouted towards the gas station building.
Then an old woman came out.
She was hunched over and blind in one eye.
Bob showed her the map, and after examining it quietly,
“Kyaak~~~ Ptooey!”
She spit phlegm on the map.
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