My House of Horrors

“Ghosts with warmth inside their eyes? Doesn’t that mean that they are still human and not ghost?” Chen Ge had problem wrapping his head around Doctor Sun’s words.

“Doctor Sun! Do you guys have an antibiotics here?” Patient Number 2’s voice travelled out from the emergency room. “We have just bandaged up the patient’s wound and stopped the bleeding but the wound on the front of his chest suddenly worsens and it is now pouring with an exorbitant amount of pus!”

“The wound suddenly worsens?” Chen Ge also ran over, he had a feeling everything would not have been so coincidental. When he entered the room, he saw the bandage and various objects that littered the ground. At that moment, Zhang Jingjiu was still lying unconsciousness on the operation table and his chest had stopped heaving.

“He is still alive but he has lost his consciousness. However, if we allow his wound to continue to spread, then I worry he will not have any chance to survive tonight.” Patient Number 2 gasped greedily for air. His hands were filled with blood and it looked incredibly scary.

“Why would his injury suddenly worsen?”

“I have no idea, probably because the wounds that he suffered went a bit too deep.” Doctor Fang stood next to the operation table wearing his gloves, he looked very professional. “I need distilled water to clean the exterior wounds and Povidone to help with the disinfection. By the way, there are some black threads stuck inside the flesh around his wounds. They are probably the signs of infection of some kind of bacteria. If we have to treat him, we will have to do it at a sterile environment.” Doctor Fang’s head was covered in sweat. “I have not done similar surgery before and we do not even have enough tools here. We still professional surgeons to come do this!” Then he turned to Doctor Sun and Doctor Gao. “We should postpone our treatment for now, it is far more important to rescue this patient’s life!.”

“It is pointless for you to turn to me. Me and Doctor Gao are both psychologists, our knowledge of surgical medicine is even poorer than you. How about this, we will go to the other sick hall now and if we are lucky, we might run into other night doctors.” Doctor Sun suggested casually.

“I suppose that is the only thing we can do. He is not able to move. Number 2 and I will stay here to watch over him, the rest of you should go and look for other night doctor.” Doctor Fang and patient number 2 tried their best to help ease the pain on Zhang Jingjiu but without any professional tools, there was only so much they could do. Without a suitable medical device and surgical environment, they did not dare to apply any cut on Zhang Jingjiu. If it caused the infection to spread, then they would definitely claim Zhang Jingjiu’s life.

“We are going to split up?” Patient Number 5 thought this was not a good idea. “The killer is still inside the hospital, if we split up now, we will get taken down by him one by one.”

“This patient cannot wait anymore. If we carry him with us, it will only slow us down. The best solution is to temporarily place him here, that will also help with his condition.” Doctor Fang considered everything from the perspective of a doctor first. His teacher kept installing in him a theory in life and that was to help anyone that he could. If there was a chance for a rescue, he should do everything within his power to help them, that was in the oath when he took up his occupation as a doctor.

“Number 1, have you seriously considered this?” Patient 5 was not afraid of death, if anything he appeared to be more concerned about Patient number 4’s safety. “You have to understand not only this patient is in a situation of life and death, every single one of us is the target of the killer. To save the life of a person who might not survive, we are going to put the lives of all the survivors on the line, do you think that is worth it?”

“What kind of risk he has put you under? We are only going to temporarily split up, part of us will go look for medicine, doctors and help while the rest will stay here and guard.” Patient Number 2 groused with impatience. “There is probably just one killer and there are seven of us. There is no reason for us to be afraid of him.” Patient number 2 appeared to be used to deal with different kind of horrid and scary criminals in his past so he did not show any trace of fear, if anything he was anticipating to capture the killer.

“Three of us will stay behind while the four of us will go out to look for medicine. Number 1 is the only one with medical knowledge to tell how the patient is doing so he has to stay here. Doctor Sun and Doctor Gao know about the layout of this hospital so one of them will have to join us.” Patient number 2’s mind was sharp and clear, it did not feel like he was a mental patient at all. In just a few minutes, Patient Number 2 had decided the teams. Chen Ge, Doctor Sun and Doctor Gao as well as Patient Number 2 would go out in search of medicine and other night doctors while Doctor Fang, Patient number 5 and 4 would stay back to look over Zhang Jingjiu.

“Please move faster. The wounds are already leaking pus, the speed by which the wounds are worsening is a bit ridiculous.”

“Lock the door, and we will return as soon as we find the other doctor.” Actually in the beginning, Patient Number 2 did not intend for Chen Ge to leave because his leg was encased in plaster. But Doctor Gao and Doctor Sun refused to leave without Chen Ge, in fact they were insistent that they were not to be separated from Chen Ge so Patient Number 2 had no choice but to allow Chen Ge to leave with them . Opening the door of the emergency room, Chen Ge’s mind was instantly occupied by the image of the other Doctor Sun, he knew the person was just hiding in the dark, perhaps right at that moment, he was even watching them.

“The things that Patient Number 2 need is at the fourth floor but I do not suggest we go to the fourth floor. For the sake of security, we better go to the other sick hall to look.” Doctor Sun’s statement was very strange. It sounded like it was purposely phrased that way so that people would ask more questions.

“Why can’t we go to the fourth floor? Are all the doors locked?” Chen Ge decided to take the bait.

“The hospital director’s office used to be at the fourth sick hall on the fourth floor. But after the first hospital director committed suicide, the newly appointed hospital director had moved his office to somewhere else.” Doctor Sun said calmly but his words had provided a lot of information for Chen Ge.

“The first hospital director at this hospital has committed suicide? At this very hospital?” Chen Ge’s interest was piqued even further.

“Yes, this incident is a taboo at this hospital, very little people will bring it up.” Doctor Sun lowered his voice. “This hospital used to be the biggest hospital at Xin Hai and it was built at the newer part of the city. But for some unknown reason, people kept dying inside the hospital. Initially the deaths were mostly limited to people who died from medical incidents, and patients with terminal illness but soon after that, cleaners and general workers started to go missing and lastly it were the nurses and doctors.”

“They were probably murdered then?”

“if they were murdered, then most of the things would not have added up.” Doctor Sun said cryptically. “Each of the victim had a clear reason of death, most of them died from suicide but a very small part of the victims had their bodies gone missing.”

“you make it sound so scary.” Chen Ge felt chills running up his arms. Doctor Gao who was next to him had body temperature which was very low, it felt like he was now a walking dead body.

“The truth is far more scarier than I am describing it.” Doctor Sun walked adjacent to Chen Ge. “I remember the first victim that should not have died was found at the fourth sick hall. Technically speaking, it should be categorized as a medical incident. The patient’s family came to the hospital threatening to sue, the surgeon in charge was so scared that he went hiding inside the morgue. The hospital director came out personally to mediate the situation with the family, in the end, he finally got the family members to leave but when they came to the morgue to find the doctor, they realized he was already dead.”

“The doctor has died? What was the cause of death?”

“The autopsy given the Xin Hai Police Station was suicide. The crime scene also looked like a suicide. The doctor used the cloth that was meant to cover up the dead body to make a noose and hang himself on the beam over the door.”

“Isn’t it a bit too rash to determine the cause of death as suicide based on that little observation?” Chen Ge felt there was a bigger problem behind this. But since the police worked on evidence, everything should be based on facts.

“Actually it was not that surprising that the doctor chose to commit suicide. He was living not that happy of a life. Combine that with such a serious medical incident that he had caused, the man had nothing else to live for. He came from no background, and thus he would most likely lose his job and get ordered to court. With such a great pressure on his shoulder, it was quite easy to imagine why he had chosen the decision he did.” Doctor Sun appeared to be finding excuse for the doctor’s death.

“Anyway, the second victim was a night nurse. The surveillance video showed that she had been lying at the duty room all night, she maintained the same posture throughout the night. When the nurse from the morning shift came to check up on her, they realized her body was already cold.” Doctor Sun was telling these incredibly scary things but his voice and expression did not change at all. It was like he was just telling a normal story. “The double incident with the doctor and the nurse compelled the hospital director to call for an emergency meeting. However, he did not intend to solve this problem from its basic at all, but instead he planned to suppress all these news. The first hospital director had his own reason for doing so, I believe it has to be related to the fact that at the time the government was pouring money into setting up this newer part of Xin Hai. If everything has gone successfully, the new city where Xin Hai Central Hospital was situated would become much more advanced and populated than the old part of the city.

“In reality, we cannot really pin the blame on the first hospital director. They had more than enough reason to believe that the victims have died from suicide. Therefore, when you consider they have made all these decision on the basis that the victims had all committed suicide, the fact that they had come to these decisions were quite normal and reasonable.” Doctor Sun, Chen Ge and Doctor Gao walked side by side down the hospital’s dark corridor. Patient Number 2 followed behind them with his brows creased heavily together.

“The third accident happened to a male hospital worker. He had gone insane when he was patrolling the rooms and he jumped down from the window of the corridor. No one knew what he had seen in the corridor that day. This confused the police as well, just what kind of things he could have seen that might have scared an adult male so much that he decided to jump out the window.

“The atmosphere inside the hospital gradually became stranger. The doctors and nurses who knew the truth were afraid for their lives. Even though the hospital director wanted to keep everything under cover, the strange stories still eventually reached the ears of the patients. Coincidentally enough, the fourth victim was a patient who was living at the hospital.” At this point, Doctor Sun turned to take a look at Chen Ge. “The patient was staying at the third sick hall. He suddenly went insane at midnight, he claimed there was a ghost hiding under his bed and in the middle of the night, he demanded the night doctor to switch room for him. The doctor naturally rejected his request. But he could not allow the patient to cause such a big ruckus in the middle of the night. So after feeding the patient some medicine, the doctor stayed in the room with the patient until he drifted away into sleep. And then the doctor left.

“What the doctor did not anticipate was not long after he left, the patient would crawl up to the rooftop of the building and then jumped down. Now that the patient had died, the hospital wanted to push the blame fully on the doctor but the doctor felt wronged. Because normally the door to the roof would be locked but for some reason, it was left unlocked that night.

“The fifth victim was this hapless doctor. He wanted to investigate who opened the door to the rooftop that night. The hospital only installed the camera at the corner of the corridor. The doctor recorded everyone that had appeared at the corner that led to the rooftop that night. According to rumor, he stayed until very late that night to watch all the tapes. To clear his own name, the doctor was very serious. In the end, he did find something on the surveillance tape. On the night the patient jumped off the roof, there was someone in a red shirt that appeared in the corridor and he was heading up the stairs.

“But do you know what the scariest thing was?

“The doctor could only find the footage of the person in the red shirt going up the stairs but he failed to find any evidence of him returning back from the roof. There was only one way that led to the hospital rooftop and it was through this corner. The doctor was stumped. He looked at the time on the surveillance tape, even until after the patient had jumped off, the person in the red shirt still had not came down the stairs.

“In other words, when the patient jumped off the building, the person in the red shirt was at the rooftop, in fact he was probably standing next to the patient. The doctor finally found the real killer, he had made it his mission to find this person. He sat inside the surveillance room and focused his attention on the footage. He wanted to see when that person would leave the rooftop and where he had went after he left. But the thing that slowly worried the doctor happened. He had looked through all the surveillance footage but the person with the red shirt did not appear to have come up from the roof until now!

“The doctor started to panic. He kept on consoling himself, perhaps he had missed it or perhaps the man had escaped through the blind spot of the camera. Even though that was what he thought, the doctor kept flipping through the surveillance channel. He was freaking out but in the end, he did find the figure in the red shirt on the surveillance monitor. The person was standing behind him. The moment the monitor turned dark, the doctor saw himself and the red shirt behind him. The doctor gone insane. He repeated this discovery to everyone that he encountered but no one was willing to believe him. In the end, he was found dead inside the trash chute at the fourth sick hall.”

Doctor Sun did not appear like he was just telling stories, it was as if he wanted to impart more knowledge onto Chen Ge through these things.

“The sixth victim was the hospital worker who found the doctor’s body. He was a very common person, there was nothing too wrong with him but there was nothing that stand out about him either. The night he found the doctor’s body, he returned to the hospital for some unknown reason and the next day, his own body was found inside the same spot inside the same trash chute. In an extremely short amount of time, there were six consecutive victims. The hospital director could not hide this anymore. He gave the order to seal up the trash chute and the sickroom where the patient stayed. He even welded the door to the rooftop shut. He thought that would solve all the problem but who would have known he would become the seventh victim.

“The death of the hospital director was still a mystery. He returned to his office after dealing with all the admin work like usual but he did not come out from his office after that. The next day, the doctors found the hospital director’s body inside the director’s office. He spent the whole night, writing the character ‘death’ in blood on all the surfaces of the office.

“No one knew why the hospital director would suddenly go insane. Everyone was speculating whether it had to be a curse that had befallen the hospital because that was the only way to explain all the strange phenomena. How else would one explain the occurrence of so many creepy and scary things in such a short period of time.” Chen Ge thought Doctor Sun would end then. He was about to say something when suddenly Doctor Sun looked at him with a piercing gaze, it was as if Doctor Sun was trying to look through him.

“The hospital director was the seventh victim, since then, the number 7 became the unluckiest number at this hospital. Once 7 people entered the hospital at the same time, then all seven of them would be cursed and they would die one after another.”

“Isn’t it a bit late for you to tell me about all these now?” Chen Ge felt the Doctor Sun before him was both familiar and unfamiliar. “Counting the two doctors, there are seven people in total that walked out from the treatment room earlier.”

“Think about the cause of death for the seven victims, it should be immensely helpful to you.” Doctor Sun turned his head around. The wounds on his neck and cheeks were slowly splitting open.