Plague Doctor

The transmission tower stood right there, less than 10 metres away, the wind even carried the smell of the dry grass that grew around it.

“I’ll head over there to take a closer look, the rest of you should follow me in the cars,” Gu Jun decided. The decision earned some grumbling from people like Kathlyn but eventually they got back inside the car and followed closely behind the nightmare man. Gu Jun treaded for a while on the barren sand and felt like he was walking on clouds. ‘Is this another false impression, feels like the cars are floating off the ground as well…’ He headed straight for the transmission tower. He walked around it once and found nothing. He did not reach out to touch the tower, it did not seem like a wise choice at the moment. When he lifted his head to look up at the tower, he saw that the tower reached deep into the sky, as if linking the sky and earth together… He was reminded of something and asked, “Peacock, you mentioned the power within the third chapter of the Seven Cryptical Book of Hsan is a kind of ‘power that can connect heaven and earth’, do you mind giving me a clearer explanation?”

“Heaven Earth as One, the Unification of All Creation.” Peacock frowned, “It’s like… you can physically sense the presence of nothingness.”

“Sir, you suspect this situation might be related to the tome’s power?” Malachite asked, “But I do not sense the presence of its power.” The rest of the land’s travellers shook their heads as well. Gu Jun responded with silence. He thought to himself, ‘the land’s travellers ultimately do not come into contact with that power at the end of the third chapter due to the intervention of the Ancient Seal, so their feeling is not entirely reliable.’ In any case, what Gu Jun had was just an anxious hunch, there was no proof. With the lack of new discovery, Gu Jun grabbed a throw pillow and dropped it on the ground to use as a marker. He crawled back into the driver’s seat of the Chevrolet, “Okay, we’ll try driving backwards.”

The two cars made a u-turn and drove around. The midday sun was relentless, the whole desert appeared to be roasting. Thinking back, Gu Jun realized the key turning point was probably that stretch of road where the desert road turned into tarred street. Not long after that their GPS navigation failed and they lost their phone signal. It was probably then they entered this abnormal space, the transmission tower was probably an anchor within this space. Since this was a straight road, the two cars drove side by side. Soon Kathlyn’s nervous and confused voice rang out, “Oh no…”

Even though he had expected this, Gu Jun’s heart was frozen. That transmission tower had appeared in their sight again. It rose before them even though technically it should have been behind them.

“How can this be?” Cers Wang stammered, “It’s probably a different tower, right?”

“Guys, look…” Annie He breathed with a blanched face. “It’s brown… that is the same throw pillow.” For these normal citizens whose last memory was that of leaving their home, this was as eerie as it could get. But even for the land’s travellers, they were chilled by this situation as well. The two vehicles drove slowly towards it. They expected to see the same throw pillow lying at the same spot as before but curiously enough the pillow had become worn like it had been exposed to the elements for an extended period of time. It was dirtied by mud and the stitching frayed…

“I don’t get it.” Tom mumbled, “How long have we been trapped here?”

“Look!” Kathlyn gasped. A cavalcade of vehicles dominated the street down the horizon. They were abandoned there in a haphazard cluster. The group was sure the vehicles were not there before. Gu Jun noticed that the vehicles were all small compact cars. Some were of obsolete models and looked like they had been parked there for a long time already while others looked completely brand new. They stopped a few meters away from the heap of cars. There were 16 cars in total, some of the car doors were left open, others were closed but all of them were abandoned, there was no trace of humanity. The group descended from their cars again. Gu Jun was worried about them so he personally went to investigate the cars. He did not touch them or get into any of the cars, he merely studied them from outside but he managed to conclude that the owners had left their vehicles in a hurry.

“Oh my god…” Kathlyn’s eyes were glued inside a white, common looking car. There was a picture frame on the dashboard which had a family portrait. Even through the sand, one could see blurrily the happy smiles of a Caucasian family, 1 couple and 2 kids. Gu Jun asked her what was wrong, she stuttered, “I think I’ve seen them before, when I was still living at Warburton at the time. I think I was about 10. One day the whole town was filled with missing person posters, it was this family that went missing, they were last seen driving around this area. Considering how small Warburton was, the disappearance was quite a big news.” The longer she looked at the picture, the shakier her voice got. “There were all sorts of rumors as to what happened to them, serial killers, demons… children like us were spooked so I remember it very clearly.”

“Kate, what you’re saying is that…” Tom was stunned, “They were actually trapped in here? What did the police say?”

“There was no follow up, you idiot, they were never found.” Kathlyn scolded her boyfriend helplessly. Gu Jun narrowed his eyes as he scanned the vehicles around him, trying to assess what this all meant. ‘These are all the cars that have been trapped here? But some have been here for decades while others just got here? That’s why there are both new and old cars… but if that is the case, what happened to the passengers inside the new cars?’ The same question troubled the rest of the group. Their eyes wandered about, the sides of the street extended into bleak and treacherous sandy desert, sparse with bushes and small trees. Perhaps the passengers had wandered off the beaten path?

“Come, let’s head on down this way.” Gu Jun walked towards the southern-west side, which was where Warburton was supposedly situated. Peacock and the rest carried the old rock with them. They trekked through the blazing desert for several hundred metres when they saw something appear before them. It caused Kathlyn and the rest to turn pale. Annie He covered her mouth, if not for Aquamarine’s support, she would have vomited already.

“Ah… God damn it…”

“This is… My god…”

There were some carcasses kneeling on the ground, there were adults and children but all of their heads had been cut off. The headless bodies were not left haphazardly, instead they were placed carefully several metres from each other and they knelt towards the same direction, facing the transmission tower. They seemed to form a circle around the transmission tower as the central point. But to make such a large circle, one needed more than a handful of dead bodies…

As they walked closer, they noticed some of the lined carcasses had already shrunk into desiccated corpses. Their tattered clothes revealed parched skin that stuck to the bones. Strangely enough none of the bodies showed any sign of putrefaction but they gave off a horrible stench.

The other bodies were relatively fresh, and putrefaction had not set in. This meant that the time of death for each body was different. Gu Jun’s headache was returning and the shadow in his heart was reacting, the visions of death that he saw between the two worlds returned.

‘Where have the heads of these bodies gone?’

“This is probably some kind of ritual.” Peacock said chillingly. “I do not recognize it but this suggests to me some kind of sacrificial ritual.” Malachite and the rest nodded solemnly in agreement.

‘If this is a sacrificial ritual,’ Gu Jun looked around, ‘then these people who accidentally entered this abnormal space are probably taken up as the sacrifice, in that case, wouldn’t that include us as well?’