Jodi Lee: Ante Mortem

The playground looked the same as it had on other evenings: a wide, pale expanse washed with an odd orange light under the streetlamps. Isaac stood on the sidewalk for a minute, opened the little jewelry box, and pulled out the ring. He turned it over in his naked fingers, the cold air biting at his skin. Isaac walked out into the middle of the concrete slab, sat down approximately where he watched Anne slip under the surface, and waited for the tiny fingers to find him and pull him down.

Hyun tried sleeping on the couch but Joon’s rhythmic moaning, along with the Vietnamese woman’s more frantic pitches, made it impossible. Resigned to a late night, Hyun slipped into a pair of house shoes and padded out onto the deck. The resort Joon chose for their vacation, a graduation gift from his father, was the sort of place most traveler’s could only dream of enjoying. Set in a secluded patch of forest in Vietnam, the rooms consisted of twelve luxury cabins encircling a private lake. Each cabin had a sitting room and small kitchen, in addition to the bedroom, and a deck overlooking the water.

Joon and Hyun’s cabin had two full beds, with the understanding that if either guy brought home a girl the other would take the couch. As Hyun sat down and dipped his feet into the lake, he reflected that Joon would likely not be spending any nights contorted on narrow cushions.

“Aren’t you afraid of a turtle biting your toes?”

Hyun was startled to find he had company. In the cabin to his left, a woman regarded him from her hammock. He thought she must have just woken up: Her long, dark blond hair fell in all directions across her shoulders and face. She pushed the worst of it away from her eyes and warned him again about turtles.

“Seriously, your toes probably look like little fish to them.”

Though not convinced his feet were in peril, Hyun stood up and waved shyly to the woman.

“That’s better. I’m Mai, by the way.”

“Hyun.”

Back in the cabin, Joon began to roar dirty talk in Korean. Mai cocked her head.

“Wow. Your friend is having a good time.”

Hyun felt himself turn red. “I’m sorry. He met a girl and…”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Mai swung her legs over the edge of her hammock. Her first few steps were wobbly, and for the first time Hyun noticed the wine bottle in her hand.

“I had a roommate in college like that. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and hear her telling some frat boy she was a bad girl and needed a spanking. Traumatized me for life.”

“You are lucky you don’t speak Korean.”

Mai smiled. “Want to come over here? We can have wine and wait for your friend to wear himself out.”

Hyun hesitated. He didn’t want to disappear on Joon, assuming he ever emerged from the bedroom. Then again, he would probably fall asleep as soon as the woman left.

“OK, I’ll come around.”

“You could jump over. Much quicker.”

Hyun eyed the distance warily. It was over five feet from his deck to Mai’s, and he would have to jump from the railing.

“You can do it.” Mai encouraged him.

It was a stupid idea, Hyun was nearly convinced of it. Yet coming out of a pretty girl it sounded much more sensible.

“You really think I can make it?”

“Yes. But don’t fall in.” Mai giggled. “The turtles will get you.”

Hyun wasn’t afraid of turtles, he was afraid of getting hurt. Landing wrong on Mai’s deck could result in broken bones. Hyun tried not to dwell on it as he stepped up onto the railing, his right hand clinging to the edge of the roof.

“Count of three?” Mai asked.

“Yes. No. I mean, I’ll do it.”

With a deep breath, he went for it. For a split second, Hyun was sure he was going to land on his feet. Then gravity grabbed him by the balls and plunged him under water.

When his head popped up, Mai was reaching for him. She pulled him onto the deck, where he flopped onto his back like a dead fish.

“Are you all right? Did you swallow a lot of water?”

Hyun shook his head. He was about to speak, when Joon’s voice rang out, this time in English.

“ Harder, I’m a bad boy!”

Hyun and Mai looked at each other and burst out laughing. When his eyes teared up, she wiped them away with her thumb, then leaned in to kiss him. She tasted like white wine and cilantro. A long trail of wet clothes later, they were adding their own sounds to the night.

“What happened?” Hyun asked drowsily, when he awoke to Mai brushing his hair with her fingertips.

“You fell asleep.”

“I did?”

He didn’t remember falling asleep. He remembered her lips on him, all over him, until they met his again and he was inside her.

“It’s all right, you’re cute when you sleep. Can you stay?”

“Let me leave my friend a note, so he doesn’t worry.”

“That’s sweet.” She kissed the tender spot below Hyun’s ear. “Your clothes are still wet, better take my bathrobe.”

With Mai’s robe cinched tight around his waist, Hyun walked over to his and Joon’s cabin. At first he was relieved not to hear any noises, but soon the silence became disconcerting. Joon usually snored like a bull.

“Joon?” Hyun called out.

Frightened that his friend had gone looking for him in the forest, in which case he would surely become lost, Hyun pushed open the bedroom door. Inside, he saw Joon pinned to the mattress by what looked like a monstrous insect. Long serrated legs, bent backwards like a cricket’s, braced the beast on the floor while, on the other end, smooth mandibles jutted from beneath a shovel-shaped head to wrap around Joon’s throat. A bulbous thorax hung between Joon’s splayed legs and thrust viciously into him.

Before Hyun could react, a wet splat and the hum of giant wings drowned the air. The creature’s mandibles released, and Joon began to scream. Whether frightened or simply through with him, the bug pushed itself off Joon and scrambled over the bed towards Hyun. With nothing to defend himself with, Hyun raced out of the bedroom, his eyes darting everywhere in hopes of finding a weapon. Once outside, and still empty handed, he prepared to make a sharp turn for the lake but was tackled from behind. Hyun twisted away and kicked as hard as he could with both feet. The right foot caught the monster in the eye, making it stagger away.

“Hyun, catch!”

Mai was standing in the doorway of her cabin, an empty wine bottle gripped menacingly in her hand. Hyun caught it in the air and spun around to bash it against the skull of his six-legged attacker. When it cowered, Hyun hit it several more times until, with a deafening shriek, it fled to the sky and vanished.

Joon had stopped screaming by the time Hyun and Mai got to him. He lay on the bed, barely responsive, as Mai pulled blankets over his lower body. There was blood everywhere, along with a vicious black substance that smelled like burnt salt. Already, his neck was turning black and blue.

“Joon, can you hear me?”

Hyun took Joon’s hand and was relieved to feel him squeeze back. On the other side of the room, Mai picked up the phone to call for help. Joon started to moan, and Hyun comforted him as best he could.

Things got worse when the paramedics arrived. As they were strapping Joon to the stretcher, his body started to shake violently. Sedatives were administered until, finally, his body was still. Hyun watched his friends eyes roll back into his head, and tried not to think about the blood soaking the bed sheets. At the hospital, after calling Joon’s family, he paced the waiting room until Mai arrived and forced him to be still.

“The best thing you can do for him is be calm and patient,” she said.