My House of Horrors

The sound of mud flopping on the ground approached. Chen Ge leaned against the wall next to the door and raised the hammer in his hands. There was a flash of light in the dark, and then a white shadow walked out from the corridor painted white. The man was wearing a white coat and a thick mask. There was a flashlight squeezed under his armpit, and both of his arms were carrying two large red-colored buckets.

He moved very fast, and the content of the buckets, which looked sticky, kept getting splashed out from the bucket. As he walked near, the pungent smell hit Chen Ge. It was more than pure formalin; there was a worse stench mixed within. That… looks like a living human.

Chen Ge did not put down the hammer and kept his eyes trained on the man.

University staff? But why would he come down to the underground morgue at 10 pm?

The man’s coat was too small for his muscular frame. He was clearly powerful—even though he was carrying two large buckets, he was moving quite fast.

What is the man doing? Why is he going deeper into the underground morgue?

The man was suspicious. He looked like a member of staff, but the thing that he was doing and his time of appearance confused Chen Ge. Chen Ge thought about it and gave up on speculating. He knew too little and decided to approach this in the most direct way. If he enters this room, I’ll have a talk with him, but if he doesn’t, I’ll trail behind him and temporarily not spook him.

Perhaps due to his personality, Chen Ge rarely forced others—he gave the man a choice so that way, even if he accidentally injured the man, he would feel better. Gripping the hammer, Chen Ge held his breath. The footsteps neared, and the content of the buckets kept splashing out. The man frowned like he was not in a good mood. He continued walking ahead. When he walked past the medium-sized morgue that Chen Ge was in, he looked toward it and realized that the door had been pushed open.

“Didn’t I close this door earlier? Who opened this? Is Li Jiu also in here?” The deep male voice drifted out from behind the mask. He stopped to look around and cursed. The man was in a bad mood. He put down the buckets, and the hands that were covered by plastic gloves headed for the doorknob. Just as his fingers were about to grab the doorknob, another man’s voice came from the other end of the corridor.

“Brother Wei! Are you done yet? Why are you taking so long today?” A man who was thin and short, with tanned skin ran out holding a flashlight.

“There was a bit too much that needed cleaning today.” The man who was called Brother Wei did not enter the room. He pulled his hands back and turned to look at the skinny man with a frown. “Why are you here? Didn’t I tell you to go distract the guards? If they walk in here and see us, this will be so hard to explain.”

“Don’t you worry about that. Those guards are as cowardly as mice; they will never come in here.” Li Jiu looked into the medium-sized morgue. When he noticed that nothing was out of place, he turned his head back. He lowered his voice and moved to Brother Wei. “In any case, we’d better not finish this as fast as we can. When the guards were chatting, I overheard some things.”

“What did they say?”

“This morgue is haunted,” Li Jiu said in a creepy voice.

“Haunted? You believe in something like that?” Brother Wei placed the red bucket before Li Jiu. “Stop wasting time. Since you’re here, help me with these things. They look so disgusting.”

When Li Jiu saw Brother Wei did not believe him, he added, “Not only the security, even the students who are seniors at this school know that this place is haunted. Brother Wei, think about it, when we are normally tasked with dealing with the cadavers at a medical school, they prepare everything beforehand, and we only needed to transport them into the cars, but this school would rather pay us double the price but refuse to come in here to deal with things themselves. This is definitely suspicious!”

“As long as we’re getting paid, everything is fine. What is scarier than poverty?” Brother Wei grabbed the red bucket and walked deeper into the corridor. The bucket was practically overflowing, so once he moved slightly faster, the content would splash out.

“But I’m not wearing any gloves!” Li Jiu cried. Brother Wei ignored him, so without any other option, he picked up the bucket that was left for him with both hands and chased after Brother Wei.

After the two walked away, Chen Ge came out from the room. He looked at the sticky liquid on the ground, but he too could not identify it. “This is perfect. They’ll help me scout ahead. If there’s danger, I’ll go and help them.”

Chen Ge was about to leave the room when the white cat on his backpack cried. Chen Ge turned to look and saw that the human model had turned its head. It had originally been looking at the rotten apple, but it was now looking right at Chen Ge.

The apple should represent life, and since the model was looking at the apple, it should desire life. Now that the thing is looking at me, does it mean that it’s planning to take over my body?

If not for the warning from the white cat, Chen Ge would not have noticed this.

Being stared by a model from the back, that is quite scary.

Without hesitation, Chen Ge walked to the model and had a staring contest with it. After a while, he gripped the model’s head with both hands and twisted it off.

“Since you like to look at me so much then, I’ll grant you the pleasure of watching me clear this mission.”

Chen Ge placed the head inside his backpack, putting it next to the comic and recorder.

The footsteps in the corridor faded away. Afraid that he might lose them, Chen Ge hurried to catch up. The white corridors looked rather scary. Chen Ge walked past a few more morgues, and the deeper he ventured into the morgue, the more confused he became. “Zhang Li said that there were seven morgues at the outer perimeter, and if we move any further, we would reach the middle section of the morgue, but that zone is supposed to be banned from any entry.”

The temperature was so low that it felt like all the freezers had been swung open, and the chill seeped out from the walls and floor tiles. The two that walked ahead also felt that something was wrong. They slowed down, and Chen Ge made use of this opportunity to catch up to them. There were only several meters between them. Chen Ge hid in the corner and focused on them using his Yin Yang Vision.

“Brother Wei, can’t you help carry this? The thing in the bucket just hit my hands.” Li Jiu put the bucket down and flashed the light on his hands. There were red spots surfacing on his palm that looked like insect bites. “They don’t feel like anything, but they do look scary.”

“You sure know how to create problems. Those are chemical baths. You’ll be fine after washing it away.” Brother Wei handed his flashlight to Li Jiu to have him shine the way, and he picked up the two large buckets.