October Forest
He saw something he could not explain.
Some time in late October 1952, my grandfather was stumbling his way across a densely forested mountain in Chungnam.
He had lost his military issued helmet and weapon in a surprise attack on his camp the night before. What happened to his comrades he did not know. Many were dead, but as to how many made it out alive was anyone’s guess. He himself narrowly escaped the carnage with his body intact.
Hunger and thirst had been weighing him down for hours, but fear and desperation pushed him forward, his paranoia increasing the further he fled. Could the North Korean Army track him down from the sound of his breathing? He was sure his heart was beating so loud that anyone with decent hearing could find him. A few times he thought he saw enemy soldiers jumping out from behind the trees, their guns pointed at his chest. He paused periodically to listen for any suspicious noise but heard nothing except for the sounds of birds fluttering from branches and rodents scurrying in and out of the underbrush.
My grandfather struggled on. The sun was setting, and he knew in less than hour the forest would be covered in darkness. He stood still and weighed his options. Making a fire was out of the question. Nights could be chilly in autumn, but not enough to warrant a fire. Being inconspicuous would help him survive more than being warm. But where would he sleep? He scanned the area for a large tree with branches sturdy enough to support his weight. But upon seeing nothing useful, my grandfather settled for a shallow depression on the ground next to a fallen tree. He spent some time gathering leaves away from his makeshift camp, all the while straining his ears for any suspicious noise. When he felt he had enough leaves to camouflage himself, my grandfather lay down on the bare dirt and covered his entire body with foliage. Worrying if he could survive the night, he quickly drifted off to sleep.
At some point in the night, my grandfather woke up. He didn’t know why, but said his eyes just opened like a man possessed. He did not feel dazed or groggy but felt alert as if he’d been awake the entire time. He was also confused. Was his body trying to tell him something? It was still dark, but the full moon gave enough light for him to see. He listened carefully but could hear nothing. For a while he just lay there, unsure what to do next.
Then he heard footsteps. My grandfather held his breath. Could it be enemy soldiers? From the noise he couldn’t tell if the thing moving was a person or an animal. Whatever it was though, staying inconspicuous seemed the safest thing for him to do. The noise came closer, and, judging from the sound of the crushing leaves, my grandfather was sure the creature had four legs. But it wasn’t a fox or a rabbit; walking in measured steps, it was a bigger animal. A sense of dread spread from my grandfather’s chest surged towards his extremities.
“Goddamnit, a wild boar,” he thought. Mating season was around the corner, which made them especially aggressive. Should he just get up and scramble up the nearest tree? But he’d be running the risk of scaring the animal and bringing attention to himself. If he slipped and fell, there was nothing he could do against a massive beast that was stronger and faster than him.
He strained his eyes, but with his body frozen in a straight line and his face covered in leaves, my grandfather’s vantage point was severely limited. In the end, he decided to stay where he was, hoping the boar would walk past him. In the meantime, the patting of feet came closer until the animal came into view.
Not fifteen feet away from him was an old woman galloping on all fours, not with her legs bent at the knees but with all hands and feet firmly touching the ground. Hips raised and her head swaying between her arms, the crone moved around the forest like a distorted animal. Her hair fluttered and flailed like broken wings, glittering like snow in the moonlight. Then gurgling like a mad dog, the old woman started circling around a large camphor tree. Faster and faster she went after each turn until her hands and feet seemed to float above the ground. Terror seized my grandfather. The butchery and destruction he had seen on the battlefield seemed like child’s play compared to this grotesque scene. Unlike the enemies, this hag was a different creature altogether.
Just when my grandfather thought he couldn’t take it any longer, the old woman stopped dead in her tracks. With her back turned to my grandfather, she stood still like a statue. Chills went through his spine as he held his breath again. Did he make a noise? Did she know he was here? To his horror, the old woman started twisting her head in an unnatural angle until her eyes were staring directly into my grandfather’s. She gurgled some intelligible words before spitting out:
“What are you looking at, sonny?”
That was the last thing my grandfather remembered before losing his bearings and passing out. When he woke up the next morning, the old woman had disappeared.
“I have no idea what I saw that night,” he said as he flicked his half-smoked cigarette into the ocean. “Was she a product of my own delirium? Or was she a poor woman driven mad by the war? Perhaps it was both. It happened so long ago that I’m not sure if my memories are playing tricks on me. But two things will always be seared into my brain until the day I die: her strange gait, and the way she stared at me with those two large holes where her eyes should’ve been.”
