The Redcap

A Victor Jager Choi Short Story

Mornings had a different scent than the rest of the day; fresh, quiet, peaceful. It was why Vic loved to rise before the sun made its ascent. The sky was a velvety black as he tied up his shoelaces. He went through a few warm-up drills in his driveway, then he took off at a light jog down the street.

Lilacs were in full bloom, along with dandelions, roses, and other flowers he never learned the names of. Their scents not as strong as they were during the middle of the day, when the sun’s heat would draw out their personal aromas, along with the scent of tar patched road cracks, and yesterday’s cut grass; late Spring and early Summer in full effect.

His jogging route took him through a park with tall narrowleaf cottonwoods, and dense blue spruce. The wild grass was trimmed along the path about a foot in, but beyond that it grew tall and free, standing still in the silence, save for the cadence of Vic’s shoes against the cement as he picked up his pace.

He’d left his house at 5:15am, and he planned to make it home by 6:30, wanting to shave off five minutes of his usual time, an hour and twenty minutes—the goal time being an hour and fifteen minutes—for his ten-mile run.

The pathway broke left and led down several steps, leading behind a few cabin style houses, shrouded in various pine trees. After which, the area opened up to a straight half mile pathway.

On one side there was a swampy pond. Reeds lined the dark, stagnant water. On the other side of the path was a strip mall which stretched out before it ended at a cracked blacktop lot. The forest picked up just beyond it, the trail ascending for a good 800 meters before descending to Willow Lake, the halfway point of his run.

Vic liked the straight away. Flat and open. This was where he picked up the pace to save time.

“Herrlich ist das,” he sang a German folk song, “stückchen erde.” The words translated to something along the lines of “This wonderful piece of land.” He continued to sing under his breath the lyrics that he knew, and hummed the ones he couldn’t remember, sometimes replacing the word with a Korean or English word.

He didn't notice it was quieter than usual. No toads croaked and no incessant crickets chirped. They hid under the water and in the grassy reeds. They knew something bad was out there.

He pumped his arms harder, focused on his footfalls, liking how light he felt today. Light, and fast. Maybe he’d shave more than five minutes off his personal record. How would he celebrate the victory, he wondered.

A scream, pitched with terror echoed down the strip mall to him. Goosebumps swept up his arms and back of his neck, halting his steps.

Standing still, he listened. His heart beat in the center of his chest as if to tell him to keep running, flee. Danger. But he remained motionless. The sweat cooled on his skin and the panic started to subside as silence rang in his ears.

A scream of laughter, perhaps? A group of people staying up too late partying? Yes, he told himself, that’s it. People do that all the time.

He cleared his throat, collecting the build-up of gooey saliva and spit it into the ditch between him and the strip mall. With a tentative, half-hearted laugh to resolve his nerves, he restarted his run. A fast, quick pace. His footfalls uneven as he kept glancing to the side, down the dark alleyways of the strip mall, the security lights long since burned out. Leaving long, endless shadows cast from the parking lot lights.

The scream came again. A word carried on the blood curdling note, “Please!”

He saw them then, even as he stumbled over his feet. A hunched over person dragging a flailing person into one of the alleyways from the front parking lot. He stared at them as they disappeared behind a dumpster. The panicked scuffing of shoes against concrete reached his ears.

Vic leapt forward. Down into the ditch and scrambling up the other side. A yell lodged in his throat like a stone as he dashed for the dumpster.

At the entrance of the alleyway, his foot slid out from under him. The ground slick. He fell on his side, and he was greeted with a wide eyed, vacant stare. The whites of the woman’s eyes were vibrant even in the dim of the night. Dark liquid leaked from her temple, following the brow bone, down the bridge of the nose, and into the eye socket.

A sloppy, sucking sound drew his gaze from the dead eyes to a figure huddled over the torso of the body. Gangly arms, with their elbows flared up, led to hands holding an exposed shoulder, where the teeth from a grinning mouth sunk into the woman’s flesh.

“What the hell,” Vic gasped, shoving away from the body. His back smacked into the wall behind him, jarring his nerves, as he tried to process what he was seeing.

The figure halted its eating and raised its face to him. Small, beady eyes of an old man stared down a long, gnarled nose at Vic. Blood drooled from the old man’s mouth, getting caught in the sparse gray beard hair and seeping into the wrinkles of his chin. He blinked once, then rose on stout legs and took off running out of the alley, taking the path toward the lake.  

“Hey!” Vic yelled and jumped to his feet, racing after the old man.

The pursuit led them off the paved path onto a dirt trail that wove around boulders and gnarled shrubs. Thick tree roots jutted out of the ground as inevitable tripping hazards. The old man limped as he ran, glancing over his shoulder at Vic, and it happened. The old man’s foot caught and he went down, crawling on all fours for the cover of a boulder along the side of the path, putting it in-between him and Vic.

Now that Vic had him, he realized he had no idea what to do. He was fourteen years old, what did he think he was going to do? He didn’t have anything to restrain the old man with, and though he’d found the old man drinking the blood of a dead woman, it didn’t give him a right to beat the man up in order to incapacitate him until the police could arrive.

Vic approached the boulder. “You have no where to go,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady, but the words were breathy and high. He could blame it on the fact he just raced after this old man, or he could be honest; he was scared. He didn’t know what he was doing, or why he was doing it.

A scratching sound halted his steps and he listened. He caught movement and raised his gaze to follow the rising torso of the old man as he rose to a stand on top of the boulder. A tower of an old man, his barrel chest blocking the soft light of morning trying to breech the forest.

Vic looked higher, taking in the torn and ragged clothing. Was he a homeless person? His gaze came to rest on the old man’s face, and he drew back as his breath left him, cold with alarm. The old man’s eyes gleamed like a predator who has trapped his prey. He opened his mouth in a grin to reveal long, pointed fangs.

The vampire-like thing hissed as it crouched, then it pounced. Vic stumbled backwards, his foot catching on a jutted root, and he went down. The ground offered him a hard, painful greeting that shot up his tailbone, and his world darkened as the fanged man landed on top of him, blocking out the lightening sky.

Everything he’d learned in self-defense and martial arts classes ceased to be recalled in his mind. The weight on top of him was suffocating and the air turned vile and thick with the scent of decay. He slapped at the hands groping for him, his chest seizing as he started to hyperventilate. The fanged man was strong. Too strong. It had Vic pinned, with the bulk of its weight to keep Vic from bucking it off or reaching his legs up to pry it off.

The fanged man pinched Vic’s arms under bony knees. A short, high scream tore from Vic’s throat with the last of the air in his lungs. He begged and he pleaded to whatever higher power was listening.

The fanged man’s teeth gleamed with saliva as it grinned, and lowered its head to take a bite. Its breath was hot and moist against Vic’s neck. His skin tightened as if trying to pull back from the fangs.

Weight released from his arm, and fight finally kicked in. Vic ripped his arm from under the attacker and swung his elbow hard. Bone connected with bone, and the attacker’s weight lifted a little. Vic shoved at the fanged man, trying to get his legs back underneath himself.

A grimy hand clamped around his wrist and before he could yank his arm away, hot, sharp pain shot through his arm. He sucked in a gasp, his eyes widening. A split second of indecision fought in his mind. Yank his arm away, or hit the fanged man?

He did both. He yanked his arm back and let his other fist fly. His knuckles slammed into a hard cheekbone that sent an explosive ache of pain through his hand. But his arm was free. He was free. He turned to run. The fanged man was too fast, leaping from where it stood, over Vic, and landing in his path.

Again, Vic found himself falling backward. Startled by the inhuman leap of his attacker. The ground was harder than he remembered it being, and gravity seemed to be stronger than usual, pulling him into the dirt and making his limbs slow and heavy.

The fanged man loomed over him, breathing loud, a popping growl sounding in the back of its throat. It wiped Vic’s blood from its mouth, then proceeded to wipe that blood on its head. The dark red smeared across its gray hair. Its lips lifted, white teeth glistening with a snarl, then it squatted down, ready to pounce.

Vic’s flight and fight instincts were overwhelmed with a sense of dread and defeat. How could he be so stupid? Who did he think he was? Just because he was the top of his class in the various martial arts courses he took, it didn’t mean he was capable of stopping a killer.

His chin trembled and he thought, “I’m so sorry, mom.”

It would have been his last thought before he died… but he didn’t die.

The fanged man pounced. Its growl interrupted by a shout. The look of hunger and contempt in the animal-like eyes changed to confusion mid-air as a figure appeared in-between Vic and his attacker. Vic caught the shine of metal slash through the air.

A horrible sound screamed from the fanged man as it fell back from Vic’s rescuer, scrambling awkwardly away, holding its arms to its torso. The rescuer wasted no time. In two quick steps, they advanced on the fanged man, and swung a sword. Vic stared at the blade with its slight curve at the end, not believing his eyes.

A. Freaking. Sword.

A thump followed the swoosh of the blade, and his gaze shot to where the noise had originated.

On the ground, at the feet of the rescuer was the fanged man’s head. Its eyes stuck wide open in shock. A look that flashed back to the memory of the dead woman—a memory that already felt like a lifetime ago, but couldn’t have been more than ten minutes past. He wanted to cry because that could have been him. So easily it could have been him.

The rescuer turned, a slim profile against the sky, which was lightening to a soft gray and promised that daylight would soon be upon them. The rescuer was wearing all black, some type of ski mask pulled over their head. At some point between now and the beheading of the fanged man, they had replaced their sword in a sheath on their back.

“Hey,” the rescuer spoke, the voice smooth and feminine. “Did it bite you?”

He started to open his mouth to speak, but his eyes began to water, so he instead pinched his lips closed and nodded. He blinked hard to fight back the tears.

"What's your name," she asked.

"Vic," he said quietly, "Victor Choi."

The figure crouched next to him, a soft light illuminating from the rescuer’s hand, revealing Vic’s bloody arm to him; two small puncture wounds, the skin torn down his arm where the teeth of the fanged man had ripped through his flesh when he yanked his arm away. The pain came through to his terrified, yet relieved brain, and it pulsed along with his heart beat.

“That thing,” he said, his voice weak and stressed against the growing lump pressing against his vocal cords. “It killed a woman.”

“I know. I’ve alerted the police.” She kept her voice even and calm. “And that thing is called a Redcap.”

“Red… what?”

“Redcap.” She gestured to his bleeding arm. “May I?”

“Huh?” He blinked at her, part confusion, part keeping the tears of relief at bay. “I don’t—Who are you?”

She studied him for a moment before she crouched down to his level. She reached to her mask and pulled it off. A long, dark braid slipped out and rested over her shoulder. He followed the intertwined strands up to her face. He sucked in a gasp, as if he recognized her, but he’d never seen her before. It was that she was young, a little older than him—sixteen, seventeen—but she wasn’t an adult yet.

In the darkness, he could feel the kindness in her gaze, an odd sensation of trust. This masked person unveiled herself to him. She didn’t need to, but here she was. Carefully, she lifted his arm to examine the puncture wounds with one hand. Her other hand dug around in a pouch on her waist.

She cleaned the wound as they sat in silence. A million questions coursed through Vic’s mind. Who was she? What was that fanged man? Why was she dressed like a cat-burglar/ninja? Were there more like her? Was she like the superheroes in comic books? If things like that fanged man—a Redcap—exist, what else was out there like it? Did she have super powers?

He didn’t ask, though, instead he said, “I’ve been training in hapkido since I was five, I took up fencing and Krav Maga last year, but I froze up.” He watched her wrap a bandage around his arm. Her touch quick with skill, her hands steady. “What good is my training if I can’t utilize it?”

She rested her hands on her lap for a moment, looking him in the face. The darkness of night was beginning to break with the first rays of sunlight, turning a lone cloud a bright orange.

“I couldn’t—” His voice broke and he swallowed the lump constricting his words. “She was dead before I got there, but even if she hadn’t been, I don’t know if I’d been able to do anything.” The woman’s dead eyes stared out at him from inside his mind. “Could you train me?”

A low laugh, unamused, the girl started to clean up the wrappers from the bandages and betadine wipes. “Me? No.”

“Oh.” He ducked his head, an argument forming in his mind. He needed to appeal to this girl’s hero ideals. One doesn’t run around in a forest decapitating fanged men for no reason.

“But,” she said.

His heart leapt; his gaze shot to hers. The sun’s ray illuminated the sky a radiant orange and red behind her.

“I’ll talk with my mentors, Victor," she said his name slow, as if testing it out, as she finished tucking the trash away neatly into her pouch. “We can use more good-hearted people who act on instinct.”

He stared up at her as she stood and pulled her mask on.

“In the meantime,” she said, tucking her braid away. “Try not to chase monsters into the forest, yeah?” She took a breath, looking at the decapitated fanged man—Redcap. “Can you find your way out of the forest from here?”

He nodded, dumbstruck. She’d said “we”. She’d said “mentors”. His mind was on overdrive, going over everything she’d said. “We can use more good-hearted people.” Over and over again he replayed her words, even as he took her hand, allowing her to help him to his feet. She coaxed him down the trail a way, before she stepped back, letting him continue on his own.

Before he rounded the bend, he glanced back to see her pull the body of the Redcap into the brush, disappearing into the thick brambles and leaves, then emerged, picked up the head, and retreated with it in the same direction she’d hauled the body. He waited, but she never reemerged.

His arm ached with faint pain. She must’ve added a numbing agent. She, her—He'd forgotten to ask her name. He rubbed the back of his neck with his good hand and contemplated how he was going to explain this to his mom, and his best friend Mika. They’d ask the most questions.

The forest was waking up as he left it, returning to the paved path. The sky was brightening to a blue. The birds were singing, and the bugs were starting to buzz around. A gnat flew into his face and he absently swung his hand to shoo it away.

At the strip mall, the parking lot was illuminated with blue and red flashing lights. A uniformed office cordoned off the alley way with yellow crime scene tape. His heart dropped to his stomach. The woman’s dead eyes stared across at him from his memories. His heart jumped up to his throat, bringing bile with it. He heaved on his hands and knees at the edge of the pond. The reeds rustled as a swamp animal scurried away from him.

In that moment, he vowed he would never be that useless again. If that girl and her mentors wouldn’t train him, he would train himself. He would figure it out. Pushing to his feet, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Resolve adamant in the set of his jaw.

He had a story in place by the time he made it home, walking the whole way: He’d attempted a new parkour trick, resulting in getting his arm caught on a fence. A kind Samaritan saw and helped him bandage his arm.

Of course, Vic’s mother insisted on taking him to the hospital to make sure he didn’t need stitches, and to get his tetanus shot updated. No one questioned his story. He repeated it so many times that he began to think it was the truth, and it wasn’t until the next day when he got up a little later than usual, and his mom was already up, waiting for him.

She sat at the dinner table, sipping a cup of Earl Grey. The scent of black tea and bergamot permeated the air. She pushed a brochure over to him. He stared down at the large, elegant font name of the Okada School of Excellence. His heart pounding as if he’d just tried to beat his personal record for fastest mile.

This is them, he told himself as he silently flipped through the brochure. It had to be them. The girl and her mentors. They were inviting him into their elite school which offered classes in martial arts, promised traveling to other countries, and opportunities to create relationships for future careers.

“Your dad thinks this scholarship would be a wonderful opportunity for you,” Vic’s mom said. “As the semester is ending, it’s an excellent time to consider this new school. They would like an answer by tomorrow morning, though.”

A soft smile tugged at the corner of her lips, then that smile melted away, concern a small crease between her brows as she turned her attention to her tablet. She was likely reading the news, she was adamant about staying up to date on everything happening in the world; everything good, everything bad, and everything in-between.

The woman who was killed by the fanged man—the Redcap—in the strip mall’s alley was likely to be in one of the articles his mom would read. When he was ready, he would read the article. Maybe even clip it as a reminder that he needed to be stronger.

Vic didn’t need to think about joining the school or not. He already had his answer.