The Ghost of Kaixian
A retired hitman confronts his phantoms — imagined and otherwise — in the ruins of a flooded city
Note: This story was previously published in Typehouse Magazine.
The Three Gorges Dam had been Mr. Chen’s neighbor for three years.
Every day, he’d take the half-hour walk from his modest flat in Dabagou to the riverside ballast to admire it. He’d forgotten how long it’d been since the dam had split the Long River, or when exactly the villages and corporate parks downstream had been flooded.
A great controversy, that. Still was. But as Chen often reminded himself, there’s little space for old virtues when new ones beckon. The dam was far too great and important to tolerate the lesser feats of man that presumed to bask alongside it. They could no longer be allowed to exist. They had to be erased, buried. Drowned.
Typically, Chen would stare at the dam for an hour, two in good weather, and then amble back to Dabagou to indulge in his usual breakfast of congee and eggs. He lived a widower’s life, and with no children of his own, he was forced to discipline himself to keep listlessness at bay. The job was once good for that, certainly. But he’d long hung up his hat for routine. There were walks in the morning, then gardening on his small, square balcony at midday, afternoons for exercise and light napping or perhaps cleaning when it was essential, a modest dinner since money was tight, perhaps reading after that, and then early to bed so he had long, leisurely nights to dream the dreams of a more reckless man, who drank and swore and smoked and took what he wanted — from women, from the world, from creation.
He was imagining himself as Old Liu, that mangy dog.
Liu was one of Chen’s former colleagues, the wildest of wild cards there ever was. He retired out of the blue after he’d spent years swearing he’d die on the job. Disappeared as quietly as he worked. Chen liked to imagine Liu now, freed from his habitual violence, off in the great yonder, having all the adventures and affairs he was sure he’d never muster the courage to enjoy himself.
So it went for three years, living quietly and modestly and dreaming wildly, until one day, a stormy-looking kind of day, Mr. Yu arrived. He was dressed the same as when Chen was still in his employ: a three-piece suit perfectly fitted to his scarecrow figure, black like the color of coal, with a white shirt underneath so clean and starched it looked to be carved from pearl.
Mr. Yu smiled at Chen when he opened the door, his thin, scraggly mustache fanning across his lips.
“Hello, Chen,” Yu said. He held up his black, lustrous parasol as a kind of pointed salute.
Chen was silent, as usual, nodding slightly.
“What, you’re not happy to see me?”
“It’s been a while,” Chen said quietly. He added, “I’m retired.”
“Yes, I know.” Yu leaned in and peered into Chen’s apartment. “May I come in?”
He did before Chen had the chance the answer, blowing in through the door. The flat was sparse and small and as white as a hospital. The furniture was just as petite, matching the diminutive size of the potted plants, which barely rose more than two feet from the floor. Several books were stacked on a corner chair. Atop those was a framed photo of Chen’s late wife, soaking up the bright, gray light form the nearby window.
Yu scanned everything, one eyebrow arched. “You didn’t retire at all, friend. This has to be a cover. Where’s the rest of you live?”
“How’s that?” Chen still waited at the doorway.
“I’m saying this, all this, is much too boring.”
“Well, I’m happy with it,” Chen said simply.
Yu set his parasol down against the wall. He kept glancing around and sighing, silently judging the one-room flat as he straightened out his jacket, pulling harshly at the front flaps. Chen watched the veins on the tops of his hands stricken as he did. Looking at the whole of him, he thought Yu resembled some vulgar mix of Charlie Chaplin and Doc Holliday, with a drunk-but-not-so-drunk lean to his gait, and violently exaggerated arm movements that bent like a boxer’s.
Chen watched as his former employer swept at the seat of a nearby chair and then, sitting, beckoned Chen to join him. Chen did, wordlessly.
“I’m here on business,” Yu announced, unbuttoning his jacket by one notch. “You already knew that, though.”
“Yes.”
Yu bore one hard eye at him. “I don’t quite understand the hostility, Mr. Chen.”
“I’m retired,” Chen asserted in his polite manner.
“Right, I realize you’re retired. You’ve made that clear. But I’m looking around right now and, honestly, do you know what I see? Honestly now.”
“What?”
“I see desperation.” He dug his pointer into his knee with each word. “I see a man who wants a chance to be something again, even if it’s in secret. Because what’s better, really, than a secret that doesn’t need to be shared? Confident in its own value. Tell me that, Chen.”
Chen nodded in his polite way, but his eyes couldn’t help but confess. He was unimpressed, tired, and eagerly waiting the chance to say no so that this awkward little reunion could be cut short.
“Listen,” Yu said, sitting forward, his mouth twitching, “I know finances might be a concern. Why not leverage your talents from time to time, live more comfortably? Much more comfortably.”
“I’m retired,” Chen said again.
Yu scoffed in an explosion of breath. He made more conversation, of course, but they were merely parts of a larger filibuster, biding time to see how well they could wear down Chen’s resolve.
Every day for the next two weeks went the same. Yu would visit and plead, and Chen would politely refuse. The skinny little man would be everywhere in Dabagou, waiting on a corner or in a shop, often never saying a word, just begging silently.
On the first day of the third week, however, Yu came round again, but this time Chen gave no answer. Instead he looked at Yu, really looked at him. He knew him well. Knew his persistence and his tenacity. That he would haunt someone like a ghost just to get a favor. That he was deceptively ruthless, malicious even. He’d be at Chen’s door every day, every week, for years and years, for eras untold, needling him until his will broke under the aggravation.
Chen would say no such thing out loud, of course. But truth be told, he could think of no purer hell than constant company. He wanted to be left alone to his walks and his garden and his dam. The master of his own days with all the wide-open possibilities that it promised. Old Liu.
“Excuse me,” Chen said that final time, ever courteous, “but if I agree to this, free of charge, will you leave me alone? That can be the deal.”
“No pay?” Yu asked, surprised.
“That is pay,” Chen declared. He folded his hands together, modest as always but satisfied with himself. “Yes?”
Yu smiled, his eyes suddenly bright. “Yes. Yes, of course. Peace and quiet, for sure. For sure.”
Chen stood up silently and went to his little stove, tucked away in the corner of the flat. It was glazed in bright teal paint. The stove had been Mrs. Chen’s favorite, an odd junkyard relic. Chen thought of the daily affection she had shown it as he pulled a hot kettle from one of its burners and poured some tea. The drink came out golden, writhing with steam. The tiny apartment was filled with the aroma of honey and spice.
“What will I need to know?” Chen asked, handing Yu a cup.
Yu took it gratefully, almost eager. His thin hands folded over it as if he were protecting it. “The town is local,” he said cheerfully. “Kaixian. It’s actually no town at all. That great big dam of yours drowned it.” He laughed. “I’d say you could walk there, but in this case, you’ll have to row.”
“The mark is there?” Chen asked, confused.
“Yes,” Yu said, fanning his eyebrows and sipping his tea for dramatic effect. All his efforts of the past three weeks were paying off, and it showed. He touched his lip as a bit of the gilded liquid dripped out. Even that was slightly celebratory.
“Your target, Mr. Chen,” he said, “is a dead man.”
The tall apartment buildings in Kaixian poked out of the water like a set of gray, crooked teeth, angling up from some hidden depth from which they were anchored. They were all rotted, either dark and peeling or calcified, crumbling away into the black soup. Fossils now. The town had been conquered by the river.
Chen navigated it with a narrow, shabby motorboat Yu had purchased for him. They had held the briefest of conversations before he left the river’s edge.
“I’m not saying for sure it’s a jiangshi,” Yu said as he handed Chen a flotation vest and a push pole. “That would be ridiculous, right?”
“I’ve seen ridiculous,” Chen said.
Yu planted his spit shined loafers on the edge of the boat to steady it as Chen sat down. “If the dead rose from their graves to steal from the bastards who wronged them, I’d be the poorest man on earth. My guess is it’s just a grifter.”
“So why even bother with him?”
“I wouldn’t care,” Yu explained, “except that Kaixian is an important route. The most important one, in fact. You know how hard it is to get that shit, what’s it called — ”
“Acetic anhydride.”
“Right! Thank you, yes. I’m glad you still remember. Anyway, you know how hard it is to move that, with the way it smells.” He barked a laugh out. “Hard as hell, Chen. This is the only place you can do it without attracting a crowd. No one’s watching the flood zone.”
Yu put his hands on his hips like he was about to do a dance. Chen had always thought him a strange little man.
“The smugglers won’t move it if they see a jiangshi hopping around,” Yu said. “They’re superstitious fucks.”
As Chen revved up the sputtering motor, Yu lifted his foot off the boat. It drifted away from the shore.
“Why not just get Old Liu on it?” Chen called, perhaps his last attempt at getting out of the whole thing.
“The old crow man?” Yu laughed. “You know he’s nowhere to be found. You thinking of pulling a disappearing act, Chen? If the jiangshi is still hopping around come tomorrow, I’ll know it was him who talked you into it.” Then he waved him off, half congenial and half dismissive, smiling his salesman’s smile.
Like everything else Chen had owned, the boat was modest but serviceable. Much the same could be said of himself. He was dressed in his usual work wear, the oxford-slacks-oxfords combination, with nothing else on him but what he had carried to every job for three decades, his scuffed Black Star pistol and a medium-sized chef’s knife. The latter was tucked into his belt on the small of his back.
The human hairballs that were Kaixian’s scavengers watched Chen with a kind of guarded curiosity as they dipped their nets into the dark water, skimming for anything of value. He did not belong here.
Chen navigated the jutting towers carefully, shutting off the engine where necessary to use the push pole. The depths coughed up their treasure as he passed. He spied pants and shoes, dog collars, newspapers and books, tangles of appliance cords, buckets, scarves, umbrella fabric and bits of pine, buckleless belts, moldy bedsheets, even nests of hair that must have gathered from all the drainpipes in the village. Each item had been damned or forsaken in its own way, streaked with black silt and made impossibly dense by the amount of water they’d soaked up.
When the sun had set, he could no longer see them, but he still felt their weight on the end of the pole.
After an hour or so of that he was finally able reach a clear span of water further south. The boat puttered up again and through the lazy fog he could see his destination. A pinnacle rock, knotted and gray, signaling to him from further down the river. On the tip of the rock he thought he saw a figure, shadowed against the blue night. There was no light to see it by except the cold glow of the moon but as he closed in on the great wall of stone there were suddenly volleys of orange and red strobing the sky. Flares from the scavengers and fishermen. Shot up to help them spot abandoned treasure floating in the dark.
Their soft light revealed the jiangshi. From where he sat, Chen could clearly see that it was no more a ghost than he. Just a body chained to a rock.
Chen tied to his boat to an exposed stump and then climbed up the tower of stone, using his hands in places where the wet stone defied him. The spidery light of the flares guided his path. At the top was a bare ledge mounted by a higher peak, some girder perhaps, the last one standing on this now-unrecognizable structure. Here is where the body was fastened.
Even before he stood to examine the face, Chen knew who it was. Indeed, Old Liu’s bloated eyes, so sapped of their impudence as to be docile, stared back at him. The light of the flares shooting up went dead in their centers — no reflection, no chance spark. Just ash and void. He had been done a while back, a year as far as Chen could tell. And by the distended fade of the crow-shaped tattoo beneath his left eye, it was clear Liu had been left in the elements to rot and wither the whole while. The tattoo had dried into a purple tear.
“People will know me by my voice,” he used to say to Chen when they saw each other, smiling his black-toothed smile. “Like the crow. I don’t say much, but when I do, it’s death.”
And on that word, death, the body before him began to writhe, an unholy life conjuring up from its rotten flesh, summoned almost. Chen knew it was an illusion just by the way the air shimmered and the light blurred. He must have inhaled something in the sea of junk. Some drowned gas line leaking out over the surface, or maybe fumes coming off a cache of anhydride.
At least, that’s what he told himself.
The dead man’s jaw wriggled and the teeth, worn down to pebbles, chattered out words. Its eyes remained lifeless as it spoke.
“You’d done a foolish thing,” it told Chen.
“I know,” Chen answered simply. “Walked right into a trap. Just like you, from the looks of it.”
“You know they’ll just keep on doing it until one of us smartens up.”
“That’ll be the day.”
“And that’s why it works so well.” The corpse’s peeled mouth looked like it was smiling. “We’re like slaves on a chain, us cleaners. We don’t deserve any better because we never had a will of our own. Just eager fingers on a trigger. That’s the joke — the big joke. All those guys we took out, they never knew it, but we had just as much control as they did. Less even. Less than the mark. That was us.”
Chen nodded, looking up and down at the Crow Man, noting how his flesh was somehow both swollen and withered. The little paradoxes of death.
“Speaking of jokes,” Liu’s corpse said, “there’s one here somewhere about you imagining up a conversation with a fake jiangshi.” A laugh clattered out. “That word. It ain’t so funny now, is it? How different am I now than I was when living? Eh? I’m dangling from a noose, just like the old days. Nothing more than a carcass, either way.”
After that, the body was silent. Chen collected his thoughts and looked out onto the great, flooded expanse of Kaixian, glowing under the red lights and fading to black again. He already knew it was too late. He had lived too many years and looked down the barrel at too many gangsters to pretend otherwise.
There were already two such men behind him, both surefooted. He never turned to face them, nor ever tried. He never made an effort to run.
When the shot rang out it was a like a dull explosion and before he ever felt the pain he smelled the sour burn of the gunpowder and flinched just slightly from the heat of the blow, small enough that in the dark it didn’t happen at all. He knew his death would be a messy one. The bullet entered near the back of his right ear and came straight out the other side of his face, driving hot through any tissue and muscle that dare stood in its way and splitting through the cheek hard enough to send the bone reeling into his eyes.
Truthfully, he felt more annoyed than anything else.The messy ones were needless. The job was both art and science, demanding cleanliness and speed and efficiency. Suffering wouldn’t do, at least not for its own sake. Whoever did it would have to learn. Pity it wouldn’t be Chen who would teach him.
So at last when Chen fell he fell facing the sky, his eyes filled up with blood, his lungs drifting into soft whips of breath. He saw them now, distant as they were. The first man was Yu, of course, silent and watching. His nameless, equally well-dressed associate was nearby. A young man, this one, his long, black hair tied back in a bun. The scavengers were there, as well, though they preferred to keep their distance. There was not much to say as they waited for the steady hand to die, the last of his kind after Old Liu. Just a dying man staring up at the stars that blinked and burned in their archaic rhythm.
Only when Chen’s eyes had petrified did Yu muse out loud, looking out over the water that had drowned Kaixian.
“Three years.” He chuckled lightly, though his voice was heavy with thought. “If they ever talked to each other they’d know what was coming after three years. Shit, maybe they knew anyway.”
The young man was much more practical. His voice sounded put-upon. “I don’t get it. Why not just kill ’em the day they leave?”
Yu scoffed as loud as he could. “You have to let them relax,” he explained. “These are contract killers. There’s an instinct that lets them smell it a mile away. Better to think you’re coming out of desperation, you know, one last do-me-a-favor job.”
“Yeah? Is that what’s waiting for me?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, kid,” Yu snapped. “This kind of thing is reserved for the legends.” He looked down on Chen’s body, into the flooded eyes, to see if there was anything left. There wasn’t. “He took out over a thousand men. You believe that? Almost as much as Old Liu over there. And all he wanted was some peace and quiet.”
“No shit. Well you gave it to ‘im, at least.”
Yu nodded absently. “Funny we need to put them down this way. Treat the old dogs just like the strays.”
“Old dogs know too much,” the young man agreed. “All the warm spots in the house, where the food is stored, where the master sleeps. They lived any longer, they wouldn’t be dogs anymore.”
Yu grunted out his agreement begrudgingly. Together they cut Liu’s body from the rock and then heaved it over, watching as it bubbled down beneath the black water. As for Chen, he had the distinction of being the next man to take up Old Liu’s foul duty. Yu and his young handler wasted no time in putting him on the black, oily throne. The blood still seeped out of his body as they secured the rope. He was tied just the same as all who had come before him, a piece of bait strapped to its hook in wait of the next unfortunate catch.
Chen’s dead eyes looked on. The insides were full with the long, flat shape of the dam and the dread mist rising up from the bottom of its spillway. The gray and cream girders leaking out with water like the baleen of a whale. The river snaking on towards the sea somewhere beyond the blue smog. They all beckoned from their distances, goading him, flaunting their might. There he was to wait, watching it as though he were still living. Watching and waiting until the sun swallowed the earth and the Yangtze no longer distilled the various acts of men.
