It was a summer night when Okju met Pomegranate, hardly twenty days after her husband’s burial. She was returning home from work, where she’d boiled pork for funeral attendees as usual, the gamey odor soaking her fingertips, the distinct scent of funeral halls clinging to her thin, nylon cardigan. It was sweltering outside, the heat of the asphalt traveling up her feet with every step. Although the funeral hall kept the AC running at all times, the cool air never reached Okju, who worked in front of stovetop flames and was always sticky with smoke and sweat. All she could think about was dousing herself in cold water straightaway.

As she got out her house keys, Okju looked up at the shop sign that read “buvouno bulcner.” It had originally read “Buyoung Butcher” but was now worn beyond recognition, attesting to the years it had stood there. The shop was once responsible for the meals of the neighborhood and the livelihood of a family. Before a department store went up in a neighboring town of rice paddies, the butcher-shop-slash-restaurant Okju and her husband ran had bustled with customers year-round. But no place stays populated forever. Like the once-radiant shop sign that eventually guttered out, all that prospers must decline. Though her husband rejected this truth to the end.

As soon as the department store finished construction, businesses quickly migrated toward it, and by the time downtown came to be called “Old Town,” customers abandoned the shop altogether. Most of Okju’s neighbors sold their shops and moved near the department store, and she wanted to do the same. That was the way to stay in business. But her husband, who was born and bred in the neighborhood, refused to leave and stagnated here, as if he were built into this very street.

Even that was more than a decade ago. Everyone left and was gone. Okju’s parents, her grown-up child, her neighbors and friends, even her husband, who had pinned her to this place. Okju was the only one left on this street now. So, whoever just moved beside her had to be a stranger.

Then she heard a gnawing. Urgent, like a starved animal ripping pieces of meat to devour. Okju turned toward the bizarre noise. Next to her shop was a utility pole, which her eyes followed down. There, rummaging through heaps of garbage was the back of a shaggy head.

“What are you doing?” she blurted out in bewilderment. It was well past eight p.m., yet the August evening was still too hot and the suspicious trespasser before her seemed—perhaps because they were small—less like a threatening assailant than a wild animal that had gotten lost. Not that a wild animal was any safer than an assailant. She knew calling the police or 119 was the logical step to take before recklessly engaging in conversation, but Okju didn’t have the strength to double back and find a hiding spot from which to call the authorities, nor to scream for help. All she managed was to move her lips to utter a few words. She could not think straight. The heat seemed to have addled her head.

“Who’s that?” Okju tried again. The shaggy-haired trespasser pulled their head from the dumpster and looked around. Okju locked eyes with It. A face waxen as a corpse.

“ . . .”

Pomegranate seeds, she thought. The pallid skin made the pupils seem redder than they were, more hostile and warier. Cold sweat broke out on her temples. She moved her lips again but this time no sound came out. She stood still—It, too, didn’t react. The stench of food rotting in the heat assailed her nostrils. Okju was even more desperate for a bath. She tried to thrust her key into the lock, but her trembling hands kept missing and she felt a stab of irritation. When her husband was alive, she had suggested time and again they switch to a keypad lock but he clung stubbornly to his keys because “passcodes were hard to remember.” That was the sort of man he was. A chronic bellyacher about anything unfamiliar, comfortable with being a still puddle of a man. And that was how he went in the end.

When Okju finally managed to push in the key and turn it, the lock disengaged with its usual metallic grating. The sound seemed to ring louder than necessary in the neighborhood’s silence. Okju found her eyes darting sideways in spite of herself. Through clumps of hair pickled in sweat and muck, It seemed to be frantically shoving something into its mouth. On closer look, it was raw meat, blue with heavy rot. Bone-thin as though long famished, It went on chewing between glances at Okju over its shoulder. This humanoid creature had such a matter-of-fact presence that Okju could not help but wonder—had a new human species emerged without her knowing, to roam wild like feral dogs or beasts? Had something malevolent from the funeral hall latched on to her and followed her home? Or had she gone mad because her husband had narrowly predeceased her? Preoccupied with such thoughts, Okju slipped through the door. It was only when she shut it behind her and locked it that her pounding heart began to calm.

Okju’s house was a mixed-use property built well over forty years earlier. At the far end of the first-floor hall, which had housed the restaurant and butcher shop, was a small side room where Okju spent most of her time, and the adjacent former kitchen connected to a steep staircase of sloppily slathered concrete. The staircase ran from the basement to the second floor, the former used for storage and the latter once used as her husband’s sickroom, and before that as their bedroom. Okju hardly ever went upstairs. The steep steps hurt her knees, but in truth, there was a bigger reason.

Okju still hadn’t removed the blankets her husband lay in up to his final moments. He had been confined to that rectangle, locked in an invisible prison, the memory of which was stifling—like rice cake shoved down her throat—then painful. It wasn’t that she was simply trying to accept her husband’s death; it was that she could picture herself lying there in the same wretched state. If there was one difference, he’d had her by his side to nurse him and pay for him and feed him and wash him. But she would have no one. So she would go, alone. It was only recently that she realized this terrible fact. She’d known that the cancerous lump that took her husband could grow in her own body any day, but to know and to be sentenced were two different things.

In the tiny bathroom squeezed between the side room and the kitchen, Okju filled the basin with water and washed herself. At last, the numerous odors that had seeped into her skin seemed to dissipate slightly. By habit, Okju brought her fingertips to her nostrils. The earthy whiff of tap water was refreshing after the cloying smell of pork. She closed her eyes and thought for a long time in the lukewarm water. About her future. About her chances of dying neither abject nor lonely. Her husband, ten years her senior, had died of cancer. Their only son had moved to the Philippines a decade earlier to start a business, and she didn’t even know if he was alive or dead. If anyone asked her if she had an old friend she met regularly at least, or even a religion, she’d have none to speak of. Well, a dilapidated building in the suburban outskirts she could call home still offered some solace, if you could call it that. Okju scooped water from the basin and slowly splashed it on her face, shoulders, and chest. She rubbed the area around her colon, where a tumor was supposed to be growing. The doctor had recommended a biopsy to confirm whether the suspicious tumor was malignant or benign, or how far it had spread. At her age, the doctor had added, quickly tracking the tumor’s progression was imperative. Okju nodded in acknowledgment, left the doctor’s office, and went straight home without booking her next appointment. Whatever cancer she had in her belly, the fact she would die someday did not change. Nor the fact that she was already all alone. As those two fundamental facts wouldn’t change, she wondered dully if she had to concern herself with this triviality. It was overwhelming, having to think about her future even past the ripe old age of sixty. Was that why? She must be low on energy if she was seeing things. Okju recalled the strange eyes she had looked into before she came in. She thought of eyes red as pomegranate, and a hunger raw enough to scavenge in garbage.

One of her coworkers at the funeral hall also saw things. The coworker would warn others not to head home right after work but to stop by crowded places first, like a grocery store or the market, or to sprinkle salt in front of the house before entering. Superstitions of that sort tended to thrive at a funeral hall. Only the other day, Okju heard that the night before the mother-in-law of Mrs. Yoo from Next Town Over died, she had cried like a baby that “a black thing came to get me last night.” Because the old lady had been in her nineties and showed hints of dementia, Okju hadn’t given the story a second thought. She wasn’t sure why she was remembering it now.

When she finished her bath, Okju took coarse salt from her kitchenette cabinet and scooped a spoonful into a sauce cup. She then pushed through the side room door, crossed the hall where she once chopped meat, and stopped at the front door. She looked through a scratched-up glass pane toward the dumpster It had been rummaging. Torn-open garbage bags littered the ground—she hadn’t been hallucinating, then. But where had It gone? Okju cracked open the door just wide enough to stick out a foot and peered outside. It was near midnight. The secluded, Old Town alleyway was silent and deserted. Recalling her coworker’s advice, Okju took a pinch of salt from the sauce cup and flung it out the door. Grains of salt crisply hit the ground. Swoosh, splash, she was reminded of ocean waves. Deciding to scatter salt all around the house for good measure, she stepped out. Then she was facing It again. The creature was huddled beside the dumpster, hugging its knees and nodding off.

The thing was too vivid to be a hallucination, yet too eerie to be human. She sprinkled some salt around It hopefully, but It went on dozing, its filthy head leaning against the dumpster. Okju placed the sauce cup on the ground and cautiously squatted before It. She looked into the face hidden between greasy clumps of hair, at the cuts covering skin so white it could be pale blue. Those occasionally fluttering eyelids, she knew, concealed scarlet pupils. She belatedly noticed the rotten meat in its hands—bony hands that were knotty at every joint—and the rags that It had worn for goodness knows how long. Okju found herself reaching out. Her fingertips touched the curves of its shoulder bone and rough skin. It did not fade or vanish but stayed exactly put, as if to confirm for her that It did indeed exist there. Looking like a child who still had years left to grow.

What to do? It would not freeze to death on such an oppressively tropical night, but she couldn’t leave It alone, not when she had verified that the shape before her was neither ghost nor hallucination. Should she call the police? If she did, the police would arrive and take It away, detain It at the station for a night or so, and hand It over to some kind of facility. Surely, that was the easier solution. Such thoughts were racing through her head when—

Grrrrk, Grrrrk . . .

It was grinding its teeth, with what almost seemed like a seething bitterness. Her son, who could be dead now for all she knew, used to grind his teeth like that as a boy. Instead of pulling back, Okju tightened her grip on its shoulder. Its brow twitched. Okju held on to its shoulder and gently shook it. A spasm fluttered across its pale eyelids, and the pupils appeared. Had she mistaken their color? The pupils were not pomegranate-red, but an ordinary black. With its eyes open, it looked younger, and in a frame of mind she herself could not explain, Okju opened her mouth to speak.

“Won’t do for you to stay out here, let’s get you inside.”

Its eyes blinked. For a split-second, Okju caught a clear flash of red before the pupils blackened.   

The first thing Okju did inside was to wash It, which stank to high heaven from living on the streets and picking through garbage. She filled the basin with water once more, sprayed water on It with the shower head, and rubbed away the sticky grime with her own hands. It floundered about, distrustful of Okju, but seemed to find the touch of warm water on its skin pleasant, and soon became docile. When she shampooed its hair, It even played with the bubbles drifting on the water. The long nails growing from its dry fingertips caught Okju’s eyes. If she didn’t trim them, It would hurt itself. Where had she put her nail clippers, again? She felt like she had brought home a stray kitten that had lost its mother.

“Hey, what’s your name?”

“ . . .”

It simply blinked. What was this creature? Was it even human? Why was it chewing on rotten raw meat? Could it speak? . . . Questions swirled in her head but Okju decided to keep them to herself. As she went on washing, It mewled like a cub all the while.

Once out of the bathroom, Okju realized she had no clothes for It to wear. Its old rags were out of the question because they were just too worn and soiled. So she left It in a corner of the side room and went upstairs. She hadn’t gone up there since her husband died. His daywear that she hadn’t managed to dispose of would be in the upstairs drawer. She opened the door for the first time in ages. Moisture and the fusty odor of mold, mingled with the lingering smell of her husband, had seeped into every nook of the room. That was to say, the smell of her dying husband.

Okju fought to ignore the blankets—from beneath which she imagined wizened hands reaching out any minute—as she quickly grabbed a polo shirt and a pair of shorts. She hurried out of the room and was halfway down the steep stairs when she heard a crash and a thud from the side room, followed by retching noises. A horrible sound, like someone was puking out their guts. Okju rushed back to the side room. Though It had been perfectly fine moments ago, It was now vomiting everywhere on the floor, clasping its throat. Yellowy-brown chunks of flesh dribbled out of its mouth, the rotten meat from the dumpster that seemed to have caused the upset. Okju ran over and wiped its chin, patting its back. It was twisting in agony, as if to spit up its entire stomach. Okju rubbed its back with one hand while with the other she fumbled through a drawer for first-aid medication. Where had she put her antacids? Hang on, were antacids even the answer? Just then, It stopped vomiting, perhaps having heaved out everything It had consumed, and gathered its breath. Okju asked anxiously, “Are you all right? If it still hurts, we should get you to the hospital . . .”

She finally located the antacids and turned. Bright red eyes bore into hers. Its face contorted with pain, then It lunged.

Her arm shot out reflexively to protect the nape of her neck. Erupting with ferocity, It stretched open its jaws. Its stomach gave a loud rumble. Okju shut her eyes tight. Pain seared through her forearm as a chunk of flesh was ripped off. Okju’s free hand groped around the top of the drawer and caught hold of a vase. She swung it with all her might toward the creature’s head. Thwack. She felt the force of impact as shards of the vase showered devastatingly down and the teeth sinking into her arm loosened their hold. Blood splattered crimson across the floor.

Catching her breath, Okju took in the unconscious, splayed creature. The chunk torn off her forearm was stuck between its teeth. Even as she reeled, she tore a length of gauze taken from her first-aid kit and wrapped it around her wound. The burning pain washed her vision white. Then she drew closer to It, and with a trembling hand, lifted an eyelid. The fluorescent light shone down not on a red pupil, but a black one. She breathed a sigh of relief.

What had she been thinking, taking in this freakish creature? Nobody would blame her for throwing the monster out right this second. That was what any normal person would do. But instead of banishing It, Okju picked off the flesh smeared around its mouth. The flesh had already been torn away. You couldn’t force back ties already severed. Carefully, she pushed the lump of flesh into its open mouth. Even while unconscious, It chewed with vigor and swallowed.

Okju looked at the scrawny monster before her, then back at her wound. If she kicked It out, turned It over to the police or anyone else, what would happen to the poor thing? It would not survive the streets for long. She was sure its eyes would redden again as It tried to chew on more flesh. It would likely be sent to a research facility or be shot dead like a wild animal that strayed into the city. The word euthanasia flickered through her mind. That’s what I wish on myself, Okju muttered as she hoisted herself up. It was long past midnight. Her wound was deep and no emergency rooms were within walking distance.

She picked up her cell phone and called 119. She told them she had tried to feed a feral dog and got her hand bitten. Once she hung up, Okju looked down at the wreckage of her room. The piece of rotten meat It had spat was giving off a putrid odor. And just like when she first brought It to her house, It was fast asleep, grinding its teeth. Looking extremely peaceful despite the blow to its head.

What was she to do with It?

Rather than tie up the monster, Okju chose to avoid making a choice. From the kitchenette refrigerator, Okju took out meat minced for stew and doled it onto a plate. The meat would thaw by morning. She wrapped a blanket around It and got ready to go to the hospital. She would not lock the house: leaving or staying was up to It.

Okju came out of the house and waited for the ambulance. The front yard very much looked like a feral dog had been there, thanks to It ransacking the garbage bags. The ambulance arrived promptly, and people in orange uniforms ushered her in. Okju thought on her way to the ER that even if she received immediate treatment, working at the funeral hall would be difficult with her arm in this state. How much had she saved up, again? Probably not much, but enough to live on for now. But would she be able to find work once her arm healed? She would inevitably run out of money at some point . . . and then what? Once again, the stifling sensation of standing underwater engulfed her. Funnily enough, she didn’t think to blame It even though It had hurt her. Okju knew that this suffocation, this sense of unending, had nothing to do with It. Her wounded arm was as natural an outcome as a rat being eaten by a famished dog.

The ambulance reached the hospital before long. Okju got out, giving a word of thanks. Behind her she overheard the paramedics’ conversation:

“Lots of recent reports of wild animal bites, huh. Maybe because it’s summertime?”

“No reports of any escapes, though.”

“They found that body up the mountain . . .”

The ER was packed with patients even in the middle of the night in a small city. One person seemed to be sick from alcohol poisoning, another was bleeding badly from perhaps a car accident, while another showed no visible symptoms but was quietly awaiting death. This last sort, Okju could spot right away. It was an instinct developed from years of nursing her husband. So many people in the world were sick, and so varied was the moment of death. It was the same with funerals, Okju knew. At some funerals, mourners overcrowded the hall on all four days, while at others, even the chief mourner was barely seen. It was also not uncommon to see unclaimed bodies get cremated without a proper funeral. As Okju received her treatment, she thought about her own end. Nobody would see her off. She would go quietly, unnoticed.

The injustice of it stung. Although life was not calculable, she hadn’t counted on it being this bad of a bargain. Nor had she expected to feel the tumult of emotion so late in life. What she felt wasn’t exactly loneliness. Well, it was loneliness, yes, but more . . . how to put it . . . a matter of finale. No one would want the finale that was written for her. She did not wish to be the worst of what someone could imagine. She had tried her best at life, so why? Why should she deserve less than her husband, who had been cared for till his end? Luck is what it was. Luck didn’t pick and choose whom to favor. Oh, the world was unfair, all right. But if it ran on whatever whim took its fancy, if that was the law and luck of the universe, it had no reason to be especially cruel toward her, did it.

Her treatment finished swiftly. With strict instructions to avoid getting water on her wound, the doctor prescribed her painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs. In a tired voice, the doctor added she was lucky the dog that bit her didn’t have rabies. It was then that Okju learned that a person with rabies suffered from thirst until they died.

On her way home, Okju stopped by the market. Even with an injured hand, she still had to eat, and she couldn’t wait around for someone to spoon-feed her. She bought banchan she would normally have made herself, dropped by the butcher shop to buy some pork, and was walking out of the market when she noticed a fruit store. Displayed in a corner were pomegranates, even though they were not in season. She flashed back to the pupils from the night before; she asked the price and purchased two pomegranates. Why she bought such a tart fruit, she didn’t know. When was the last time she’d had pomegranate? She couldn’t even remember. Both her husband and son had disliked sour fruit, so she’d had no occasion to eat pomegranate. But her child-self had delighted in the red fruit. She hadn’t so much enjoyed the taste as she had liked to contemplate the gemlike seeds, to push each into her mouth and pop, bite into it.

Okju stood before her front door. She made to take out her keys when she remembered she had left the door unlocked. Had It, the red-eyed child, left the house? She turned the knob and opened the door. She could see the side room door beyond the dusty hall. And perched on the threshold was the child. It looked up. Its pupils bore no hostility. An empty plate, on which she had set out raw meat, lay discarded on the floor. The corners of its mouth were stained with blood.

Okju approached It. The scene struck her as familiar, even nostalgic. There’d been a time like that in this house. A time when someone was always here to welcome her, when music played on the radio, when this was a home full of life. How surprisingly unafraid she was to come home and meet the eyes of a stranger. How her heart beat, to no longer look into dying eyes but into living ones. Even if she wasn’t sure that they belonged to a human. Okju lay her black plastic bag on the floor and settled next to It. The gash beneath her bandages smarted despite the painkillers. Yet she was not scared, oddly enough. In fact, she got the feeling that she hadn’t found It, but It had found her.

There might’ve been something to that feeling.

In a silence deep enough to hear the whirring wings of insects, Okju rummaged inside the bag and took out the pomegranates. She picked up the paring knife in front of her, made a cut in the red skin, and, applying force with her hands, split the fruit in half. Even in that brief moment, her wound stung. Okju held out half of the pomegranate. She knew that It took the form of a human yet ate raw meat—though she wasn’t sure if It had thrown up the pork yesterday because the meat had gone bad or because It couldn’t eat pork. Since its eyes had turned red right before It bit into flesh, maybe It was like those zombies on late-night movies that had to eat human meat to survive. What about fruit? Could It eat that? Holding the pomegranate she had offered, It looked inquiringly at her. Okju plucked a seed from what resembled a cluster of fish roe and brought it pointedly to her mouth. When her molars bit down on the flesh, a refreshing sourness spread in her mouth. She chose not to spit out the tiny seed inside the flesh and swallowed. She asked out loud, “You wanna try?”

As if It had understood her, It plucked a seed and put it into its mouth. Crunch. Its brow wrinkled into three furrows like someone tasting sourness for the first time. Okju reached out and delicately smoothed its brow. It blinked. And soon, apparently pleased by the sourness, It buried its face in the pomegranate and chomped away. The juice quickly stained the skin around its mouth. Okju gripped its wrist and took hold of the pomegranate. Its face crumpled, and just as its pupils flashed ferociously, Okju plucked a seed herself and pushed it into its mouth. Crunch, and the tinge of red faded from its eyes. She fed It seed by seed like a bird feeding her chick. Every time her fingertips touched its parched, blue lips, or her nails knocked against incisors and canines that were a little too sharp to be a human’s, she imagined the teeth snapping off her extremities. First her hands, then her arms, the nape of her neck, her chest and legs, she imagined the child devouring clean everything but her head. A chill ran down her spine, but it was not such a bad fantasy. It ate what Okju gave, like a gaping baby bird.

***

A week had gone by since Okju took time off from work. It had also been a week since she began living with It. She had taken to calling It “Pomegranate.” Then It—or rather, they—would scurry over to her like a cat recognizing their name. Okju bathed Pomegranate, clipped their grubby fingernails, and fed them raw minced meat. The two of them usually spent time in the side room together. Pomegranate wore her husband’s old clothes, which hung too loose on them, so it also became Okju’s job to cinch in the clothes with safety pins. She no longer minded going upstairs. On the rare occasions when any civil servants or townspeople turned up unannounced, she hid Pomegranate in the upstairs room. The second floor no longer smelled of death. Neither did her husband’s garments.

Pomegranate mostly did as Okju asked. “Mostly” meant there were times when Pomegrante did not. The child grew violent when they felt threatened or couldn’t restrain their hunger. They wouldn’t respond to their name then, however many times Okju called them, or even remember who Okju was. Pomegranate subsisted on pork byproducts, raw beef liver, chitterling scraps, and the like that Okju scrounged from the local butcher shop. Raw, recently butchered meat kept Pomegranate’s episodes at bay, but didn’t seem to fully satiate their hunger. Even after consuming meat, Pomegranate constantly wanted something in their mouth, gnawing on blankets or walls, grinding their teeth in their sleep. On some nights, Okju would be woken by an oppressive weight to find Pomegranate staring down at her, eyes gleaming red, teeth bared and drooling. Okju understood that she could be eaten anytime. She was not raising an unruly grandchild or a stray cat.

But no matter. So what if Pomegranate ate her? She hadn’t cared from the first moment they met. Ironically, the fact that Pomegranate could harm her at any given moment put to rest her fears of a desolate death. If she kept Pomegranate, she would not rot away alone under a blanket. When she died and there was no one to feed them meat, a red-eyed Pomegranate would feast on the nutritious meal before them that would be her. She hoped the child would pick her bones clean, leaving no flesh to rot. That they would eat her chunk by frugal chunk, delaying hunger for as long as possible. But all that would come later, perhaps. For that future to arrive, Pomegranate had to stay alive by her side.

Okju knew instinctively that Pomegranate was not getting the nutrition they needed. Meat seemed to be just a snack for them, not an essential nutrient. Their eyes reddened and their episodes returned at faster intervals. Though already thin, Pomegranate grew even skinnier in spite of their continuous meat-only diet. They grew so weak that even when they had an episode in the middle of the night, Okju’s elderly arms could easily restrain them. It was no surprise given that Pomegranate hadn’t eaten any proper meals. Okju began to feel as if she was starving the poor creature.

That morning, she got up and was rinsing and cooking rice as usual. Her bandaged wound still ached often, and her aged flesh did not heal as fast. But her arm had recovered enough for daily use. On a small table, she set a plate of tripe and blood curd she’d received from the butcher shop the previous day, and went about preparing her own breakfast. Noticing how often she was buying meat of late, the butcher had joked if she was raising a gumiho at home. She wondered if she should switch to a new shop. The morning news was playing on the television. It was a free-to-air channel that also broadcasted local programming. A grim-faced anchor was delivering a news item backdropped against a photograph of a familiar place:

“A body has been found near Buyoung Reservoir in an unexplained death. The victim was identified as an elderly citizen in their seventies who went missing two months ago, and was reported to have been suffering from advanced dementia. Considering the state of the body, it is speculated that the victim was stranded near the reservoir and attacked by a wild animal.”

Okju watched the brief report with rapt attention. The camera panned over the dreary reservoir and crime scene investigators but the screen soon cut to the next news item. The elderly citizen found dead had been in a nearby geriatric hospital, but, with their guardian failing to pay the medical bills for some time, was being moved to another facility when they went missing, the report had said. Could this person have imagined that they would posthumously end up on TV? After years of holding on in a ward no one visited? Okju gazed at Pomegranate, who was still asleep under their blanket. Lately, they’d been sleeping longer and longer. Though they guzzled so much meat that the grocery bills were getting worrisome, Pomegranate’s wrists grew thinner and their face paler. Okju shook them awake, murmuring, “Pomegranate dear, you’ve got to live longer than me.”

Slowly, Pomegranate lifted their eyelids. The pupils flickered red, but turned black the moment they found Okju’s face. Pushing back their tousled hair, Pomegranate sat up and took their seat at the table. The pair of them ate in silence. The plates were nearly empty when Pomegranate dropped their fork, clasping their throat. Their shoulders shook, then everything they had eaten came pouring out. Okju hurriedly fed them water, then she hugged them, running a soothing hand down their back. She felt their teeth against the nape of her neck. Okju closed her eyes. She waited for Pomegranate to bite her. But they did not, and pulled themself away and shrank into a corner, trembling violently. It was a long while before Pomegranate finally looked up, rasping. No reddish glow in their pupils. They crawled back to the table as if possessed by hunger and downed the remaining blood curd. As she watched, Okju came to a decision. “That’s it, you’re getting a proper meal today.”

“ . . .”

Blinking, Pomegranate picked up another gelatinous lump of blood curd.

After the meal, Okju made a phone call to a grave relocation and labor hire service. When she said she needed to exhume her husband right away, the director asked if she planned to move the body. She’d had a terribly unlucky dream, she answered, and had to check if the coffin hadn’t flooded. The director assured her that a worker would be promptly sent her way. Once she got a quote, Okju hung up. Pomegranate blinked again with that wan, sickly face of theirs. Okju told them, “Pomegranate dear, let’s get ready to go out.”

She still couldn’t tell if Pomegranate understood her.

The worker arrived around lunchtime, shovel and various equipment in hand. Pomegranate was dressed in a black t-shirt and floral lounge pants that Okju had picked up at the market, with a bow clip in their hair, a mask, and sun visor completing their disguise. In contrast, Okju was in a simple outfit and a straw hat as she climbed onto the man’s van. Her husband’s grave was on a hill not far away. Ever a stickler for familiar ways, he had insisted on a traditional hillside burial instead of cremation; little had she expected that what was extra trouble for her at the time would pay off like this. She had heard that it took a very long time for a body in a coffin to completely skeletonize. His would still be decomposing. It wouldn’t be fresh but . . . She couldn’t serve a living person as food, could she? It was just as well. If she’d cremated her husband and had only his ashes left, what would she feed Pomegranate? She didn’t want to dig up a total stranger’s grave. Everyone got cremated these days, so it wouldn’t be easy to find new graves. 

On the way to the grave, Okju felt half troubled, half oddly expectant. Pomegranate seemed nervous in unfamiliar company and did not let go of her hand. The child’s skin, always cold, touched hers, and she felt her spirits lift. As they sat side by side in the backseat of the van, holding hands, the worker asked casually, “This must be your granddaughter? An exhumation won’t be the best thing to show a child, I expect.”

“No, sir. I’ve brought her along because there’s no one home to take care of her.”

“Sure, can’t be helped. Well, I’m glad we’ve got good weather at least.”

The worker gave her a good-natured smile. Soon they arrived at the hill. The land her husband had inherited from his great-grandfather was situated some distance away from the road, so they had to climb over the guardrail and up a flight of makeshift dirt steps. Okju took the lead with Pomegranate, and the worker followed carrying a large bag on his head. About ten minutes into the hike, the weeds came up to waist-level. Another five-minute walk later, they were at her husband’s grave. There were three graves in all. One was her husband’s, the others belonged to her parents-in-law. Okju stood before the grave that was newly crowned with grass and said, “This is the only one that needs to be dug up for now. If there’s anything I can help with, do let me know.”

The worker nodded and went straight to work. The day was hot as expected; Okju spread a picnic mat and took out ice water and fruits she had packed into a cooler. Pomegranate watched the process with eyes full of curiosity. They seemed faintly excited. Each time the worker thrust his shovel into the dirt, a cloud of dust rose into the air. Pomegranate, sprawled on the picnic mat munching pomegranate quarters Okju split for them, soon got bored of the wait and began running around, weaving through the weeds. It was such grandchild-ish behavior that Okju laughed for the first time in ages. The soil was soft, allowing the worker to finish more quickly than expected. The sun was just beginning to set when the coffin lid came into view. Wiping his sweat, the worker said, “The exterior’s dry, so I don’t reckon it’s been flooded . . . would you like me to cover it up now?”

Okju shook her head and said, “Since we’ve already dug up a perfectly fine grave, I ought to open the lid and see for myself. I wish to say a prayer with my granddaughter, would you go wait in the car? I’ll call you once we’re ready to fill it back up.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The worker scratched his head at her rather firm request, but gathered up his shovel and equipment and laid them to the side. The moment he disappeared down the hill, Okju opened the coffin lid that he had unscrewed. Inside lay her husband. She cringed at the upsetting sight, but there wasn’t much time left. She called Pomegranate. The child stopped rolling in the weeds and sauntered over in soil-smudged pants.

“Pomegranate dear, look.”

Following Okju’s pointing finger to the pit of the grave, Pomegranate’s eyes glinted red, and their stomach—reminded of its prolonged hunger—growled. Yes, she’d made the right guess. Pomegranate looked at Okju as if asking for permission. She got out a remaining pomegranate and placed it on her husband’s ribcage. Pointedly, she held up another half for them to see and pretended to eat it in one bite. You eat, in one bite, like this. You can eat that. Pomegranate sniffed around and clambered into the grave as Okju climbed out, and soon she heard the smacking of lips. Then the loud masticating noises she heard the first time she met Pomegranate tickled her ears.

Okju squatted down with her back to the pit, helping herself to the remaining fruit as she gazed down the path the worker had taken. The sky had gradated to orange and now to indigo. The noise of rotten flesh being torn behind her was neither particularly unpleasant nor frightening. Since she’d asked the worker for just thirty minutes, he was probably off smoking a cigarette. Should she also smoke? Her husband couldn’t quit his damn smoking till he died. If she, too, puffed on a cigarette now while Pomegranate had their meal, she mused, it would make for a pretty impressive picture.

The sun sank slowly. Pomegranate finished eating as the surrounding weeds and silver grass took on ethereal colors. Okju felt a pang of pity as Pomegranate pleaded with outstretched arms to be pulled out of the pit. With the wet wipe she had made sure to pack, Okju cleaned Pomegranate’s mouth and put their mask back on. Now that they’d had a real meal, their skin shone as if coated in oil, and the child looked positively chipper. They smiled ruefully up at her, in a way that even struck her as sweetly innocent. Okju sat them on the picnic mat, then lowered herself down into the open coffin with the cooler. Picking through the parts that still had flesh on them, she collected those that were most intact—the arms and the legs—and placed them in the cooler. How long would Pomegranate survive on this much meat? Okju heard the worker calling her, evidently tired of waiting. She crawled out of the grave, closed the coffin lid, and brought her hands together in pretend-prayer as she muttered, “Your soul should be somewhere else by now. I’m sure you won’t miss your rotting body, I’ll put it to good use. After all, whatever Pomegranate is, they’re alive—and the living need to eat.”

Then she took up the shovel and threw soil on the coffin as quickly as she could. Pomegranate noticed and copied her just for the fun of it, pushing in soil with their bare hands. When the worker climbed impatiently back up the hill and saw the pair of them at it, he sighed I knew it and snatched back the shovel. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, ma’am, you had a perfectly able man just waiting down the hill. You could’ve called me over to help.”

The pit filled much faster now. The sun had set completely, so the way back was pitch dark. While Okju and the worker stumbled along, relying on the glow of a single flashlight, the re-energized Pomegranate practically flew down the steep path. The worker remarked conversationally that the kiddo seemed to look healthier somehow. Okju didn’t answer and instead gazed at Pomegranate, who, from far down the path, was waving at her with both arms. It felt like she’d returned to an oblivious past, and a curious fullness brimmed in her stomach.

They came back home in the worker’s van and Okju paid him the balance in the front yard. He agreed to finish cleaning up the gravesite the next morning and left. Okju was drenched in sweat from the daylong outing. But Pomegranate’s hand was cold, as if fresh out of the fridge. They never sweated. Okju rather liked that chill.

Okju had just inserted her key into her front door and turned it when she heard a car door open. She was approached by two strange men, who must have waited in the car from an alley across the street for who knows how long. “Ma’am, we’re with the police department. You’re Choi Okju, correct? We’re here to ask you a few quick questions.”

One of the men took out his wallet and showed her his ID card. Okju instinctively hid Pomegranate behind her back. Pomegranate stayed quiet, but their cold hand suddenly turned lukewarm and their eyes glinted red. Right now Pomegranate was stronger than usual, and her cooler contained her husband’s arms and legs. She had to send away these strangers, fast. She nodded with as much indifference as she could muster.

“We’ve been informed that you were taken away in an ambulance due to a feral dog bite. You know about that reservoir case, yes? We’re here to investigate that . . . Could you clarify what bit you at the time—was it really a feral dog?”

“What’s there to clarify about a dog?”

“Well, I mean. With all due respect, it was nighttime and considering your age, we wondered if you were sure that was what you saw.”

“What is it that you want to ask?”

The man looked uncomfortable and hesitated for a long moment before he said, “Did it by any chance seem . . . human?”

The word clamped tightly around her heart. Okju licked her parched lips and snapped back more irritably than was necessary, “Why the devil would a human bite me? And old as my eyes may be, they can still tell an animal from a human, thank you very much.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you for answering. And is this your . . . grandchild, behind you?”   

Okju nodded.

“The paramedics didn’t mention a guardian with you at the time.”

“Not at the time. My son has gone on holiday for the summer and asked me to babysit.”

“I see. Well, if you happen to see anyone suspicious or any strange vagrants in the area, please inform me right away. All right?”

The man handed her a business card and left. Okju went inside, gripping the card, and immediately tore it to pieces and chucked it in the trash. Pomegranate’s smooth, plumped-up face looked up at her, puzzled. How maddening those guileless eyes were. Maddening yet endearing, and so they broke her heart. She hadn’t wanted anyone else to take care of. She’d thought she was done with the feeding and washing and grooming—and yet.

Okju wrapped her arms tightly around Pomegranate. Why was her heart pounding? Those men definitely seemed to be looking for Pomegranate. What were they up to? How or who Pomegranate killed on the streets was none of her business. She could not lose Pomegranate. They had to be by her side when she died. When she sensed her death, she would place a pomegranate on her ribs. Then they would eat her. Maybe not right away, but when hunger eventually conquered their brain, a starved Pomegranate would feed on her with scarlet eyes. They must. Although she would become their nourishment and suffer what would remain a mysterious death, she would not die lonely. That was her final goal, the strength that sustained her present. That was why she needed Pomegranate. Hugging them closer, she whispered, “You mustn’t leave me. Eat only what I give you, dear. I’m the one who took you in, after all.”

She didn’t know if Pomegranate registered what she said. Yet in that instant, the child lifted an arm and slowly stroked her back, as if they understood everything. A clumsy, clumsy touch by which she felt saved. A siren wailed as an ambulance rushed past. Had someone been bitten by a feral dog? Okju let go of Pomegranate, who just stood there staring up at her. The siren glow illuminated their face, bright and red.

I’ll take good care of this monster, Okju told herself over and over as she opened the palm-tree-printed cooler. Inside, the limbs that had once formed her husband were rotting slowly away. With gloved hands, she thoroughly covered each piece in plastic wrap. Then she descended the steep steps to the basement and stopped in front of the freezer. Switching it on, she waited for the cold air to circulate. Pomegranate took their place beside her and squatted down. The freezer hummed to life.

Okju placed the wrapped limbs in the freezer and padlocked the handles. She would give them to Pomegranate in tiny chunks. She would wait until Pomegranate got sick of hunger and was ready to run out the house. Only then would she offer them a morsel, as though training an animal. But how much time would that buy? She thought about what would happen to Pomegranate after she was gone. About Pomegranate wandering the streets again, or remaining all alone in the house. It suddenly occurred to her that she should get that biopsy.

Okju finished organizing the freezer, then held out a hand to Pomegranate. “Let’s go upstairs. What do you say to some fruit?”