Read an extract from The Midnight Shift by Cheon Seon-Ran

As Su-Yeon begins her investigation alone, she runs into a mysterious woman named Violette at the crime scene. Violette claims to be a vampire hunter, searching for her ex-lover, Lily, and is insistent that a vampire is behind the mysterious deaths. Su-Yeon is skeptical at first, but when a fifth victim jumps from the window, her investigation reveals the body was completely drained of blood.

Desperate to discover the cause of the deaths, Su-Yeon considers Violette’s explanation—that something supernatural is involved.

READ AN EXTRACT FROM THE MIDNIGHT SHIFT

Suyeon

‘A vampire did it.’

The only way to make sense of this woman’s bullshit was to go back in time.

*

Suyeon pulled over at the curb. She got out of the car, leaving behind Chantae, who was rummaging through the glove box for a plastic bag. A police officer greeted her from afar. She cut through the small crowd and made her way up to the corpse lying underneath a white sheet. Nearby, a lone apricot tree flaunted its late pink blooms, oblivious to circumstance.

‘The victim was seventy-four. First discovered by a nurse on her way to work this morning.’

‘A jumper?’

‘Yes, from the sixth floor. He was a patient at the hospital.’

‘Was there a note?’

‘Yes. One was found on this occasion, too, Detective.’

The officer handed over the suicide note. The victim had bid his final farewell to his family in a few sparse lines.

‘Seems like everyone’s dying to see this “hill of flowers”,’ muttered Suyeon.

Her eyes latched onto the words: hill of flowers. The same phrase had been written in the last suicide note they’d found, and it was at the same hospital, too – Cheolma Rehabilitation Hospital.

Suyeon took a photo of the note with her phone before handing it back to the officer. She knelt down, put on her glasses and lifted the sheet. A face mangled against the tarmac. The stick-thin corpse was blanched of all colour and its hair follicles jutted upward. Rigor mortis had set in already, it seemed. As Suyeon gave the body a final once-over, she noticed that one hand was tightly balled into a fist. With a handkerchief covering her fingers, she pried open the man’s stiff hand. Inside was a crumpled ball of orange paper that Suyeon assumed had once been carefully folded into some type of flower.

‘Has that camera been fixed yet?’ Suyeon pointed to the security camera attached to the telephone pole.

The officer shook her head. Most of the CCTV cameras in the vicinity either weren’t working or were just dummies. And although there was one installed on each floor of the hospital, they all faced the lifts and emergency stairs, so there was no way of knowing what was happening in the foyer. Suyeon looked up at the sixth floor. There was a silhouette in the window, but as soon as she noticed it, the figure turned back around and vanished.

Chantae crossed the police line with the handles of a plastic bag hooked onto his ears.

‘Nothing more to see here,’ announced Suyeon, waving her superior away. They’d seen all of this before in the previous three cases outside the hospital. And besides, her squeamish colleague had never managed more than one proper look at a dead body.

‘Another one?’ asked Chantae.

‘Yes. Another one.’

Chantae scowled at the sun and removed the make-shift mask from his ears before walking away from the scene. But Suyeon’s feet wouldn’t budge. Even though it was just ‘another one.’ Even when, as she said, there was nothing more to see. This made four.

The scene had piqued the interest of a few patients who were out on their morning strolls. A familiar voice interrupted their hushed chatter. Suyeon turned towards the nasal shout and saw two police officers holding back a stout elderly woman scrambling to break past the police line. It was Granny Eunshim. Like the other patients, she was dressed in her hospital gown. She wore a floral vest over it. The towel Suyeon had bought her was draped around her neck. The old lady thrust a finger at Suyeon, gripping a small yoghurt drink and a white straw in her other hand.

‘I’m her grandmother!’ she yelled. Suyeon approached her with a smile. The police officers released the old woman and with a firm yet gentle hand, Suyeon led her away from the crowd and towards the hospital entrance.

Suyeon hadn’t expected to see Granny Eunshim this early in the morning. She always forgot what early risers these old folk were. Suyeon bent over slightly to meet the old woman’s eyes. Granny Eunshim stroked Suyeon’s face with her small hands. The straw and the yoghurt lid scraped Suyeon’s face, but she didn’t mind it at all.

‘My, your cheeks look hollow. Why didn’t you call before coming?’

Granny Eunshim’s memory was lapsing and she often forgot about previous incidents. At times she would also confuse Suyeon for her doctor or, every so often, the postal worker.

‘I’m not here to visit today, halmoni.’

‘What brings you here then? Did something happen?’

‘Nothing you have to worry about. Why are you up so early?’

‘Uh… Eungyeong unni… She appeared in my dream. I wondered why, but then realised it’s her birthday today. I’m on my way to the market so I can make her some seaweed soup later.’

Granny Eunshim really did think that Suyeon’s colleague Eungyeong sunbae was older than she herself was, and that was why she called her ‘unni’. She thought Eungyeong was a girl from her neighbourhood who had looked after her like a sister when she was young. The halmoni used to say how much Eungyeong resembled the girl, until she eventually started to believe they were the same person. Suyeon had tried to correct her, but Eungyeong stopped her. In fact, Eungyeong would chime in and point out how they did have similar names, just like sisters.

‘You really should make time to come to dinner! Eungyeong unni always looks out for you, yet you barely show your face these days,’ Granny Eunshim scolded.

Suyeon nodded repeatedly, Yes, yes. Only then did Granny Eunshim put the yoghurt drink in Suyeon’s hands. ‘And stop putting your face through so much! Or you’ll be left on the shelf!’

Suyeon would have liked to reply that marriage was the last thing on her mind, but that would only mean angering Granny Eunshim and getting an earful. And so instead she smiled and put the drink into her pocket without a word. Straightening up, Suyeon announced it was time to leave, and told Granny Eunshim to hurry back inside, but the old woman only muttered a feeble ‘OK’ before rooting herself to the entrance. Seeing that Granny Eunshim was going to wait until she was completely out of sight, Suyeon hurried off. As she turned back and waved her inside, Granny Eunshim hollered even louder, ‘Look in front of you when you’re going somewhere! You’ll trip!’

***

Chantae believed that the reason Suyeon couldn’t let the Cheolma suicides rest was Granny Eunshim. Was it really because the hospital – where Suyeon paid a visit every week without fail – was where Granny Eunshim was put up? Would she have extended the same consideration to the victims and their families if she didn’t know anyone in the place they’d died? If the place hadn’t held any memories for her? She had mulled over this, but couldn’t find an answer. All she could do was accept the fact that something was eating her up.

Chantae, however, saw things differently. To him, the suicide notes spoke for themselves. They wanted to join the flowers of heaven, end this suffering, etc.

She shook her head again to clear it. Perhaps, like he said, suicide was simply catching on like a trend in this sad place. Cheolma Rehabilitation Hospital was a long-term care facility located in an old part of Incheon that had been designated for redevelopment. Since the redevelopment project was announced a year ago, all the businesses and facilities had either shut down or been relocated, leaving the hospital’s surroundings deserted. Of course, there had been plans to move the hospital as well. It had been set to be relocated to a nearby district, but the plans were cancelled on the pretext that it wasn’t ideal for patients to be moved to an unfamiliar place, especially since most of Cheolma’s patients suffered from dementia. But the biggest obstacle had been the difficulty of obtaining permission from family members who had gone off the radar.

Whatever the reason, the hospital remained right where it was. By next year, the remaining shops would all be gone. Suyeon recalled what Chantae had said after they had just returned from inspecting the hospital’s third suicide: In a place like this, it’s only a matter of time before people start killing themselves. And you know why they do? Because that’s their only way out. Look, kid. Unless someone comes to get them out of here, they’re all going to rot in this hospital.

Suyeon didn’t disagree, but there was something odd about the case that she couldn’t wrap her head around. If the deaths were all part of a pattern, no matter how depressing, she wanted to know what it meant.

Suyeon took out the yoghurt drink and pierced the lid with the straw. Chantae frowned in disapproval as he plopped a pickled radish onto his plate.

‘You’re drinking that? What are you? A baby?’

Suyeon looked around. They had stopped by the old restaurant near the station for lunch. Save for two groups of balding ajeossis and the familiar restaurant server, the place was empty. On the wall beside them was a faded menu listing old-fashioned dishes – blood sausage soup, hangover soup, ugeoji soup and steamed pork. Suyeon took a big sip out of her tiny bottle, drawing a chuckle of defeat from Chantae.

‘Don’t look at me like I’m the weird one,’ said Suyeon, setting down her drink. ‘For someone who can’t even look at a corpse, you seem to crave meat every time we’re done at a crime scene.’

‘Gotta refuel after a long day of using my brain, you know?’

What brain? Suyeon almost said, but swallowed the words along with another sip of yoghurt. The server rolled the cart to their table and placed a bowl of sundae soup in front of Chantae who stirred in a big dollop of yangnyeom sauce.

She sighed. ‘You really don’t think it’s strange that this “coincidence” has happened four times in a month?’

Chantae stared at Suyeon, his mouth stuffed with food. Taking her chance, Suyeon continued: ‘I don’t doubt that they were influenced by previous suicides, but to this extent? Think, sunbae. All four victims left behind suicide notes. Doesn’t something about that feel staged?’

‘No, it feels like they were influenced,’ Chantae said as he stirred his soup. From his listless tone, Suyeon knew that what he meant was, Why are you making things difficult?

‘Staged?’ Chantae continued. ‘They’re stuck in a hospital, their minds failing, in a dying neighbourhood and people around them are killing themselves. Seems pretty clear-cut to me. Tell me, what was written in those notes? “I’m escaping this godforsaken place” or something, right? You have pictures on your phone, don’t you? Pull them up, let’s have a look.’

She didn’t have to. She knew the notes almost by heart and he was right. Chantae told Suyeon to save her energy for the paperwork instead, and she gave an impassive nod. As she reached for a piece of radish, she decided, All right, no more overthinking.

But the resolution lasted barely a day. As she was writing up the report back at the office, Suyeon went back and looked at the photographs from the previous case. The third suicide had happened a week ago. The victim was a 68-year-old male and, just like today’s case, he had jumped from the sixth floor of the building. He had also suffered from dementia and left a suicide note. Suyeon placed both the third and fourth victim’s photographs side by side and looked at them for a long while before pulling up a new picture. A bar fight in Bucheon had broken out last month, in which someone had smashed a plate on a man’s head. The victim had died after losing a significant amount of blood. Suyeon’s eyes slid from one photo to the next. She’d puzzled over why the two hospital deaths had looked strange, but she saw it now:

There’s hardly any blood.

The Midnight Shift is published by Bloomsbury on 14 August 2025