My House of Horrors

The woman’s face kept expanding within Xiao Gu’s eyes. He had never seen such a twisted face before, and his mind was blank from fear.

“Get off the bus!” At the crucial moment, Chen Ge’s voice in the phone reminded Xiao Gu. The brain regained control of the body. With the reaction power trained at the Haunted House, Xiao Gu successfully evaded the middle-aged woman’s hand. He missed the dead child, his fingertips just barely had time to grab his own jacket.

“Just run as fast as you can!” Holding the jacket, Xiao Gu pulled it out. When he turned back to look, the woman called Huang Ling was still seated where she was. The phone in the woman’s palm kept eliciting her husband’s scream, but the woman herself seemed to be stunned. She did not even shout or make a noise.

“That should be a living human as well.” The bus shook. Inside the crowded bus, some area started to leak. The three monsters with their heads lowered stood up from their seats. Their mouths regurgitated more hair, and their eyes rolled backward. Their arms shook like they were in some sort of spasm as they tried to grab at Xiao Gu.

It was too late to rush to the backdoor. Xiao Gu decided to make a bet and change his escape route. He jumped to the front door, and when he passed Huang Ling, he grabbed the woman’s wrist without hesitation. “Come with me!”

The doors started to close, and the terror-filled driver had his eyes glued to the road. His feet stepped on the gas pedal. He seemed to see something horrifying, and his body reacted on instinct. The bus swayed even harder. At the last minute before the door closer, Xiao Gu dragged Huang Ling out from the front door of bus on Route 104.

The two collapsed in a pile of mud, and the heavy rain instantly drenched both of their bodies. Beside them, the bus whose doors were now completely closed suddenly sped up.

On this stretch of road, only one street light was still on, so it was hard to see the road in the darkness. The bus sped forward and soon disappeared into the night. “It did not turn, but I remember there’s a river not that far ahead.”

Xiao Gu did not have the time to help Huang Ling next to him before Chen Ge’s voice came through the phone. “Xiao Gu, are you alright‽”

Hearing that, Xiao Gu’s heart was filled with warmth, “I injured myself a little bit, but I got off the bus.”

After saying that, Xiao Gu was about to stand up when he felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck. He turned back to look and saw the rain was trailing down the head of black hair before it fell on the back of his neck. Slowly raising his head, Xiao Gu looked at the woman in the red raincoat standing behind him, and the edge of his eyes twitched. “Boss, what should I do now?”

“Have you seen my child?” A pair of woman hands gripped Xiao Gu’s shoulders. The large Xiao Gu was thus picked up from the ground by the pair of thin hands. The hair fell, and the woman’s eyes that were filled with blood looked at Xiao Gu through the gap in the curtain of hair. She seemed to have started losing her rationality since she sensed her child’s presence on Xiao Gu.

“Have you seen my child?

“You must have seen my child!”

Her lips fell open, and the curtain of hair parted. It was then that Xiao Gu saw that the woman’s lips were sealed together by threads! As she screamed, her lips cracked, and the threads snapped one by one!

Pain came from his shoulders. Xiao Gu was scared dumb. The scene before him was way beyond the threshold for a normal person. If he had not received the special training from Chen Ge, he would have already fainted.

The woman’s body kept changing. The sound of joints cracking issued from underneath the raincoat as her body kept growing. The color of the raincoat deepened like it was slowly being dyed by blood.

“Xiao Gu? Gu Feiyu! Hang in there! Try to communicate with her! She is looking for her child! Haven’t you seen her child on the bus? Tell her that! Tell her all that!” Chen Ge screamed.

Hearing the voice on the phone, Xiao Gu’s wandering gaze started to focus. With quivering lips, he uttered, “I… I saw your child. He was on that bus. He was being held by a middle-aged woman…”

“Stick to the main point!” Chen Ge was being nervous for the man. “You have to let her know that you tried your best to help her! Stress the fact that you did try to save her child, and you almost lost your life because of it!”

Xiao Gu nodded quickly, but he did not dare look at the woman before him. His eyes kept moving away, and he uttered through chattering teeth, “I did try to save your child… I was so close.”

The pain on his shoulders grew. Xiao Gu felt like his shoulders were about to be shattered. He groaned in pain and his arms fell away weakly. The jacket that he had once lent to the child slipped from his fingers.

Just as the jacket was about to fall into the mud, the woman suddenly released her hand to reach for Xiao Gu’s jacket. Without the grip from the woman, Xiao Gu collapsed to the ground. With his life intact, Xiao Gu staggered backward, trying to get as far away from the woman as he could.

This impossible! The method taught by the boss really did work!

With shivering body, Xiao Gu only stopped when he was next to Huang Ling.

The woman in the red raincoat held Xiao Gu’s jacket like she was holding her precious child. Seeing this, the hair on Xiao Gu’s body all froze and stood up.

“Xiao Gu? Are you still alive?”

“Boss, she seems to have forgiven me!” Xiao Gu climbed up from the mud. His legs were shaking. “Should I just run home now?”

“Do you want to be haunted by her forever?” Just a sentence from Chen Ge turned Xiao Gu’s face green.

“Then what shall I do now, boss? I’m really afraid.” Xiao Gu saw the woman in red raincoat caress the jacket he had worn softly and lovingly, and his heart was chilled.

“Don’t be afraid, remain calm.” Chen Ge seemed to be thinking. After a while, he told Xiao Gu, “Let’s see… give her your phone and let me talk to her.”

“Give her my phone?” Xiao Gu was surprised.

“Just follow my instructions.”

Under the curious gaze of both Huang Ling and the raincoat woman, Xiao Gu removed the earbuds with shivering hands and walked to the raincoat woman with the phone and raised his hand. “My boss has something to tell you.”

His eyes twitching, Xiao Gu’s arm that held the phone was shaking violently. The woman stopped her movement and titled her head to look at Xiao Gu. Her cracked lips had not recovered, the threads mixed together with her hair.

“My boss… boss said he wants to talk to you.”

The woman in the raincoat held the jacket and stood where she was. Xiao Gu took a deep breath and another step forward. He gathered his courage and placed the phone next to the woman’s ears. “Boss, I’ve turned on the speaker phone. You can speak now.”

There was a child’s crying coming from the phone, but it soon returned to normal, and finally, Chen Ge’s voice came through.

“I’m the leader of the ghost stories society, Chen Ge. I can help you find your missing child! If I fail to do that within one week, you can come to claim my life any time you want. In return, I only have one request—please let my employee go.”