My House of Horrors

The wife who had not spoken a word, the middle-aged man, and the drunkard all turned to look in the direction that the boy was pointing. A strange sound came from the end of the corridor. The doorknob for one of the rooms was lightly jostling like there was someone locked behind the door trying to get out.

This strange sound coming from the eerily quiet residential building made all of their hearts squeeze.

“The man who’s leading the way went upstairs, and he said there aren’t any tenants here.” The more the middle-aged man thought about it, the more scared he became. “I’ve been to Li Wan City before, how shall I say this? Sometimes, you’ll come across things that can’t be explained scientifically here.”

“For example?”

“You wouldn’t want to know the examples, trust me. All we can do is avoid them to the best of our ability.”

“What if we can’t avoid them?” The drunkard leaned against the wall, and his eyes narrowed in on the end of the corridor.

“If we can’t avoid them, then we’ll have to pretend not to see them and act as normal as we can. Keep telling yourself it is just a part of your imagination.” The middle-aged man’s face paled like he was reminded of some horrible memory. Cold sweat poured out from his forehead, and he looked like he was about to puke. “The Li Wan City I visited back then was not like this Li Wan City. Back then, there was no red fog; it seems like things have changed since then.”

“Stop trying to scare me. F*ck, how come it feels like someone is blowing into my ear and there’s a woman speaking!” The drunkard turned to look behind him. The ‘murderer’ who called himself Scissors walked past the corridor. With his every step, there echoed two footsteps. His expression was strange. It was supposed to be a man’s face, but once one looked at him longer, one would feel like they were looking at a woman.

The person did not follow them into the corridor but continued to walk ahead.

“Is that a man or a woman?” This strange feeling made the drunkard extremely nervous. He patted the middle-aged man’s shoulder. “Just now, someone walked past.”

“Really?” When the middle-aged man turned back to look, the blood fog had already covered the whole corridor, and he could not see anything. “Ignore him, we have to take care of ourselves first.”

In just the blink of an eye, the doorknob at the end of the corridor stopped moving, and everything became silent again. The fog thickened, and the surroundings turned eerier. Occasionally, there was the sound of wind howling, and that worried the group even more.

“Has the person behind the door given up?” The drunkard grabbed the rails of the staircase. He was standing at the mouth of the corridor, preparing to run should the situation require it.

“Perhaps, or maybe the thing has already escaped from the room.” The middle-aged bent over to retrieve a phone from inside his pocket. The drunkard noticed that the model used by the middle-aged man was from many years ago. He adjusted the brightness of the screen to its highest. He raised it before him, and it appeared like something else had joined them in the corridor. However, they were too far away to see what it was.

“This is strange.” The middle-aged man used his elbow to nudge the drunkard. “I feel like this corridor is different from before. Come and take a look.”

As the wind caressed the tips of his ears, it felt like a madman was whispering to him. The drunkard accepted the man’s phone and looked closer. “It really does seem like there is something that wasn’t there earlier.”

He stepped involuntarily forward with a frown on his face upon surveying the decrepit ceiling, closed doors, and trash that crowded the cramped corridor.

“Hmm?” The drunkard’s attention was suddenly caught by something.

“What did you see?” The middle-aged man rushed over to look at what the drunkard had found. He could not see anything out of place—there was no ghost or dead body.

“I’m not sure, wait a minute.” The drunkard returned the phone and took out his phone to activate the flashlight function. The light refracted in the fog, and that meant that they still could not see things clearly.

“It was this door that made the sound earlier.” The drunkard suppressed his fear as he moved forward, with his neck pulled back, his arm holding the wall. After several steps, he finally saw the additional thing that had not been there earlier. “A mop?”

There was a mop that had been added to the corridor, the kind used in everyday life. He wondered who tossed that there.

“It’s just a mop. Why are you trying to scare me like that?” The middle-aged took a deep breath as he placed the boy on the ground. His arms were getting sore.

The drunkard sighed in relief, and he scratched his head embarrassedly. “I guess I was being too nervous… but was there a mop in this corridor earlier?”

“There probably was. I can’t remember anymore.” The middle-aged man stood with the drunkard, and they looked down the corridor with the lights coming from their phones.

The drunkard, who wanted to move forward, suddenly stopped. He asked the middle-aged man next to him with some uncertainty, “Did the mop move? Wasn’t it back there earlier? I remember it was leaning against the door of the third room from the back. How come it feels like it has moved one door ahead?”

“Really?” The middle-aged man turned to look at the mop.

Under the two’s scrutiny, the mop suddenly moved, and the black trails of cloth started to shake to slowly reveal a human face underneath!

The drunkard and the middle-aged man did not anticipate something like this happening. Their limbs were cold, and before they reacted, the mop started to slither toward them. When it got closer, the people saw clearly that it was not a mop but a person with long hair.

“Run!”

The drunkard held the phone and turned to run away. The middle-aged man abandoned his wife and child and followed the drunkard. The boy was spooked. He started to cry until his mother carried him into her arms.

The sound of running footsteps echoed throughout the building. The drunkard was the first to exit the corridor. He hesitated for a moment, between going up the stairs to find Chen Ge and running out of the building directly. He lifted his head to look up the staircase. A curtain of black hair fell down onto his face, and a pale face was sliding down the rails of the stairwell.

Accompanying a scream, he threw caution into the wind and raced out the building. In the foggy street of the city where reality and nightmares weaved together, every building looked like a man-eating monster.

His heart still pumping, the drunkard did not dare stay any longer. He yelled at the middle-aged man behind him, “Run, this way!”

Then he ran to hide inside a two-story building next door.

The gate of the house was not locked, but the plants in the courtyard were all dried and wilted. The most eye-catching was a large dog house in the deepest corner of the yard.

It was a small construct built from iron poles and moldy wooden boards. Bite marks were left on the many surfaces. Other than inside the building, the only place that could hide a person was the dog house.

Footsteps and a woman’s laughter came from outside, and it muddled the drunkard’s mind. It made him feel like nowhere was safe.

He rushed to the dog house and squatted down behind it. It might be dangerous inside the house. Who knows what kind of thing I might run into in there? It’s better for me to hide here for now.

The drunkard supported himself by holding the wooden boards that formed the dog house’s roof. He considered hiding inside the dog house, but before he poked his head in, a pungent stench assaulted his nose.