My House of Horrors

“Are two Red Specters that scary?” Chen Ge continued eating without raising his head.

Hearing that, Doctor Chen was speechless. He had heard some rumors about Chen Ge before, and he shook his head with a bitter smile. “That is very scary for me already.”

“Doctor Chen, I still have other things to do, but I’ll come back later to ask you some questions. Hopefully, you’ll answer them honestly since I’ve saved your life.” Chen Ge put down the boxed lunch and took a sip of the water. His action and expression was different from what he was going to say next. “Down at the underground morgue, you once told me, your surname is not really Chen Ge. You only go by that name because someone asked you to use it to do something for him in Western Jiujiang.”

“I told you that?” Doctor Chen hesitated but did not deny it. “That’s right.”

“Who is that person? Why the surname Chen? What is the favor that he asked of you to do in Western Jiujiang?” Chen Ge asked three questions at the same time.

Doctor Chen thought about it, and he gave Chen Ge the reply. “I knew the old director from the Third Sick Hall and once worked under him. When the door there first appeared, the old director approached me. I personally went to look around the door and even went behind it.”

Doctor Chen lowered his head in thought. “I should be the first person to have entered the world behind the door other than Men Nan. I’ve seen many things there; it was like a nightmare. I’ve only told this secret to two other people—the old director and my best friend, Doctor Gao.

“The three of us decided to seal up the door with cement, but the effect was not so good. The door would still appear, and the blood would seep through the adjacent walls at midnight.

“Perhaps because I’ve been to the world behind the door, I felt like it was being possessed by something. Whenever midnight arrived, I could hear the scratching of nails underneath my bed. There was no one in the toilet from the half-open door, I could see a black shadow in the mirror. It was facing my bed like it was trying to crawl out from the mirror.

“I was a psychology student, so when these things first appeared, the first thing I did was diagnose myself to ensure that these were not part of a hallucination. There have been cases of psychologists ending up in the psychiatric ward before, so I thought something had happened to me. However, a series of things that happened later changed my mind.

“On the third night after coming out from the blood door, I saw a man standing outside the window, his head facing my bed. My house was on the third floor, and there was no security net on the second floor—that was not where the air-conditioning machine was placed. After taking away all the possibilities, the only conclusion was that the man was at least three meters tall. The man looked at me for a long time before crawling into a family’s apartment on the second floor.

“I immediately called the police, but they couldn’t find that suspicious man on the second floor. With the complaints from the downstairs neighbor, the police brought me away to be interrogated instead. The next morning, when I was at the station, I heard the news of my downstairs neighbor committing suicide. The victim’s death was very strange. His shoulders were sunken, and his expression was filled with terror.

“I suspected that the man’s death had something to do with that man I saw. I told the police everything, but the police officer suggested I go for a psychiatric consultation. I remember showing him my ID.

“The police still refused to believe me. Instead, a brother at the station who looked friendly got interested in my story. Initially, I thought he was also an officer, but after a long conversation, I realized the man was just released from lockup due to impersonating law enforcement, speeding, and so on.”

Doctor Chen sighed. “I didn’t dare go home and tried my best to figure out a way to stay at the station. It was not until rumors about my mental state started to do the rounds at my workplace that I had to leave the police station.

“After I went home, the man’s shadow kept appearing at the window. I was afraid that I would be the next victim, so I directly moved to the most crowded and populated hotel in the city.

“That continued for a month. The man stopped appearing, and my life returned to normal.

“However, it was not a solution to stay at the hotel forever, so I planned to sell my old home and buy a new one in the city. Actually, I had planned that for a long time already. After paying the down payment, I contacted a moving company in Eastern Jiujiang and planned to move some important stuff during the day.

“The new place was fifteen floors tall, and I purposely chose the top floor. After all the furniture had been moved, it was already late afternoon. I treated the moving workers to dinner and had a few drinks myself. I was ready to move into a new place to start a new life.”

Here, Doctor Chen paused. “Returning to the new home, I lay in the familiar bed and soon fell asleep. At around midnight, I woke up from the chill. I curled up in the mattress, and when I turned my head to the side, I suddenly realized that there was a man in the room. I was awakened by the shock instantly. Upon closer inspection, the man in the room was the monster I’d seen before!

“He was more than three meters tall. His upper body was straight, and his lower body was still crawling out from underneath the bed. There was a strange smile on his face, and his lips said, ‘You’ve finally returned.’

“I did not expect that the monster would be hiding under my bed, and I ran out like crazy. I did not stop to put on my shoes as I charged out the door. I did not dare turn back to look. I ran down the corridor and cried for help, but there was no response.

“My shoulders became heavier like the monster was standing on my shoulders. A laughter came from above me, and my sight turned blurrier. The corridor seemed to have twisted, and I knew that I was about to fall.

“Resisting the nausea, I reached the mouth of the stairs. When I felt like my five senses were about to be taken over, I heard the sound of a lighter.

“A dancing flame appeared in my sight, and I soon saw a man leaning against the wall of the stairs, lighting the cigarette on his lips. This man was familiar. It was the man whom I saw at the station, the one that had been brought in due to his many criminal activities.

“His cigarette burned slowly, and as the ash fell, I heard begging noises coming from above my shoulders. The cigarette burned to its end, and the monster on my shoulders completely disappeared.

“It was he who saved me. I had a long chat with him that night. He told me about the hidden world and taught me how to close the door in the Third Sick Hall. He was the one who asked me to use his surname to do something for him in Western Jiujiang.”

Doctor Chen stopped to take a sip of the water. He looked at Chen Ge and said, “The man looked very similar to you, and the request he asked of me is related to you.”