FOUR

“-uong.”

Ji Young grunts and readjusts his head on his desk. Whoever wants him can try again when the sun’s actually up and he’s not in the middle of very important business.

“Ji Young!” It’s Jinwoo’s voice. The fact that Jinwoo is calling in the middle of the night probably means that something important is happening, but Ji Young can’t find it within himself to care.

He searches across the desk for his radio, eyes still closed, and presses the button on the side. “Go away,” Ji Young grumbles down the line. “Throw yourself out a window. I’m busy.”

“Ji Young, this is important.” Jinwoo’s voice has already taken on his Business voice, complete with zero traces of humor or patience, and it’s enough to have Ji Young begrudgingly lifting his head from the desk.

A glance outside the window tells Ji Young that it’s well before dawn, probably only an hour or so after midnight. Ji Young runs a hand through his tousled hair. “What’s going on?” he peeks out of his window again. “I don’t see any smoke.”

“It’s not a fire. I just got a call from a backpacker down near the base of Bear Creek. Seems like they heard a loud noise from the other side of the river and are pretty freaked out about it,” Jinwoo says through a yawn.

“A sound in the forest?” Ji Young complains, but he’s already putting on his baseball cap and looking around for his bag. “Don’t they know it’s probably just a bear or something? This is a forest, after all. And the base of Bear Creek is literally almost at Joo Eun’s medical center—why isn’t he picking this up?”

Jinwoo snorts. “He’s afraid of bears.”

“Fair enough.” With one last, wistful glance at his desk, Ji Young slings his backpack over his shoulder, grabs his flashlight and bear spray, and closes the door to the fire tower behind him. “I’m headed out now. Where exactly am I supposed to be looking?”

There’s a rustling from the other line as Jinwoo presumably looks over his map of the unfamiliar terrain. “Down between Box One-One-Nine and Clearwater Lake. I’d say near the road leading to the medical building.”

“I’m actually going to murder Joo Eun when I see him next,” Ji Young bitches under his breath. To Jinwoo he mutters, “Okay. I’ll see what there is to see.”

“Keep me posted.” Jinwoo’s line statics out.

Ji Young descends the stairs until he’s standing on the springy forest floor. He shines his flashlight around the trees hugging the circumference of his clearing and does his best to work the kink out of his neck with his other hand. And Ji Young sets off on the southern trail towards Clearwater Lake.

It’s not often that Ji Young’s called out to go on a night survey of the terrain. Common sense and best practice suggest that the safest place for fire-watchers at night is in their tower, but sometimes unforeseeable circumstances arise and Ji Young is forced into the wilderness at night.

And wilderness it is. Familiar roads and sounds are always a bit more menacing at night, even for a tree-hugger like Ji Young. That’s why he sweeps his flashlight through the trees every few seconds and keeps his can of bear spray tight in hand. But nothing in the forest moves except for him. Even the birds are quiet this early in the morning.

Ji Young blinks his tired eyes and tries not to think about all the horror movies he’s seen in his short life that start out in exactly this fashion. Friday the 13th, his brain supplies unhelpfully. The Burning. Pet Sematary.

“You’re being idiotic,” Ji Young berates himself. “You know there’s nothing out here. Stop being a wuss.” The power coaching gets Ji Young through most of the hike south, all the way to Bear Creek and down toward its mouth that empties into Clearwater Lake.

Ji Young hears the dismayed campers before he sees them. They’re talking loudly enough to wake whatever animals are in the surrounding area, and Ji Young can smell the faint aroma of smoke as he approaches their camp. He clicks his flashlight a few times to alert them to his presence before stepping out of the woods and into one of the forest’s smaller campsites.

The couple sits around the very obviously hidden remnants of a campfire, clutching each other’s arms. It’s a man and a woman, both in their mid-thirties, looking at Ji Young like he’s just risen from the dead.

“Hey there. I’m Lee Ji Young, a ranger. I heard that you needed some help down here?” he introduces himself, looking disdainfully down at the still-smoldering ashes of a hastily put out fire.

The woman rises from her canvas chair and approaches with her hand held out to shake. “Sorry to bother you, especially so late at night,” she says apologetically, bowing her head slightly. “We just heard something in the woods, and you know how it goes.”

“Uh-huh.” Ji Young shakes her hand, unimpressed. “Can you describe the noise?”

“Sort of a screeching sound,” the man pipes up from where he still sits near the abandoned campfire. “And then a crunch. Like bones snapping. Heard it coming from that direction.” He points southwest, deeper into the forest.

Ji Young nods and looks briefly around their campfire. There’s a bright orange tent off to the side, and a set of bear-proof backpacks slung up around trees on the opposite end of the campground. Ji Young catches sight of a half-covered soju bottle peeking out from underneath the flaps of the tent.

Drunk, he sighs internally. Also prohibited.

“Well, I’ll take a look, alright? I’m sure it’s nothing to be worried about. We don’t get many accidents out here.” Ji Young tugs down the brim of his baseball hat and continues in the direction indicated by the man. Before he steps back into the shadows of the trees, he calls over his shoulder, “Bears are attracted to fire, you know. It’s why they’re prohibited out here.”

It’s a load of nonsense, but the campers are either too intoxicated or too inexperienced to know that. The woman lets out a sheepish ‘eep!’ and scuttles back to her partner to talk in worried, hushed tones.

Ji Young suppresses a smile and continues on his way.

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