My House of Horrors

“Can you stand up?” Li Jiu took a long time before he helped Ma Wei up. Ma Wei stomped his feet on the ground, but he did not feel any better. He felt like the parts below his calves were slowly losing their senses.

“The thing in the bucket is probably poisonous. It must’ve reacted with the other chemicals in the water.” Ma Wei had dropped out after high school, so he was not familiar with these things. He only knew that he needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible. “Li Jiu, your hands touched those things as well, right? Are they getting better?”

Li Jiu raised his palms. The red dots were spreading to form a rash, and it looked scary. “Some splashed on me, and it’s becoming like this. Your whole shoes were soaked, so it must be worse for you. We need to leave this place fast.”

Abandoning the two buckets, Li Jiu carried Ma Wei as they headed out from the pool. Before they could do so, the hole behind them gurgled like something was crawling out from it. At the same time, the tools closet placed in the corner of the room started to shake like there was someone coming out from inside.

“What’s going on?” Li Jiu was panicking. He jumped out of the pool and grabbed Ma Wei’s shoulders. “Quick! Those monsters are coming!”

He grabbed Ma Wei by both hands and yanked him out of the pool. The weird noises in the room grew, and the monster inside the hole started to crawl faster. The closet door burst open, and the rusted hooks fell to the ground.

After Ma Wei got out from the pool, the only thought they had was to run. The two stumbled to the door. The flashlight flickered, making the underground morgue scarier. The two were focused on escaping. When they reached the door, a man’s face suddenly turned from the corner!

“What the f*ck!” Li Jiu was walking ahead, but he was not that brave. Under the light from the flashlight, the man’s face looked paler than it was. The pair of eyes focused on them, and it felt like their bodies had frozen under his gaze. The face had appeared so suddenly that Li Jiu’s heart almost jumped out from his chest. He staggered back several steps to knock into Ma Wei, who was behind him. His legs having lost all feeling, Ma Wei had trouble even walking. The sudden collision with Li Jiu made him lose his footing. The two rolled and collapsed to the ground, their voices echoing in the underground morgue.

“I saw it!

“There was a face at the door!

“The thing’s outside!”

Their whole focus was on the hole in the cadaver pool and the closet at the corner, so they did not expect the real danger to come from the door. The only exit was blocked, and Li Jiu cried for help. Crawling on the ground, he clambered back into the room.

Ma Wei still had no idea what was happening. He was just scared by how Li Jiu was reacting. Not raising his head, he followed behind Li Jiu and crawled after the man. The room was only so big, and there was no place to hide. The two leaned against the innermost wall and saw despair in each other’s eyes.

“There were no footsteps. It was just a face that showed up at the door!” Li Jiu waved his hands. He did not even know how to describe it anymore. Ma Yin had followed behind Li Jiu, so he did not see the face, but based on his partner’s description, he was already feeling scared.

His legs were turning into jelly. If they ran into danger, he would not even be able to run. However, compared to Li Jiu, Ma Wei was calmer. He lifted the flashlight and slowly moved the light to the door.

A man with a backpack was standing on the corridor. He was of average build and had a smile on his face. He looked kind, but when Ma Wei’s eyes moved to the man’s left hand, his heart skipped a beat. The man was holding a hammer that was at least half a meter long. The hammerhead was covered with sticky blood stains, and the handle looked like it was made from human bones. It looked so scary!

A smiling face and wicked murder weapon, the first thing that came into Ma Wei’s mind was the movies about crazed murderers. According to the movies, the killers would look like this when they were about to kill, and they saw torture as a hobby, an enjoyable activity. His body curled backwards. Ma Wei squeezed together with Li Jiu, and the two workers could not stop shaking.

“I was still discovered.” Chen Ge also did not expect that the duo would suddenly run outside. He wanted to hide, but he realized that the next corner was about six meters away. He walked into the room with the hammer. Chen Ge did not think it was such a big issue being discovered by these two. From their reaction, they did not have that much courage.

The hammer dragged along the ground, and the white cat followed behind it. Weirdly enough, when Chen Ge entered the room, the sound from the hole and the closet became silent. Li Jiu and Ma Wei saw Chen Ge walk closer, and their foreheads were sweating. In the end, it was Ma Wei who gathered the courage and demanded in an officious tone, “Who are you? What are you doing in the underground morgue so late at night?”

“Who am I?” Chen Ge toyed with the hammer in his hand. Stopping before Li Jiu and Ma Yin, he smiled. “I still haven’t come up with the answer yet. How about you help me think up an identity?”

“What?” Ma Wei was shocked. He certainly had not been expecting that. He looked at Chen Ge and the hammer that reeked of stale blood. He forced a smile and said, “You must be one of the security guards.”

“Western Jiujiang Medical University’s guards have a uniform, so obviously I’m not one of them.”

Ma Wei did not know what to say. He had a feeling that the man was about to kill them. With someone holding his arm, Li Jiu beside Ma Wei opened his lips. “I believe you’re one of the university staff. I know you have something to do here. Neither of us saw your face, so we will not disturb you from working.”

With the help of the wall, Li Jiu slowly stood up. He held Ma Wei’s shoulders, and they tried to move away from Chen Ge.

“Not a bad guess.” Chen Ge looked at the two. “Then why are you two here? Don’t try to lie to me. Tell me everything that has happened here.”

“We’re employees at Jiujiang’s Song Lin Crematorium, and we’re here to help the school deal with the cadavers.” Li Jiu told Chen Ge in general what had happened. When he mentioned the monster in the hole and shaking closet, Chen Ge’s interest was piqued.

Chen Ge walked to the closet first. He opened the closet and knocked on the back wall. “It’s hollow behind this closet; I suspect there is a pathway behind this.”