My House of Horrors

“Are you kidding? I should know whether he’s my husband or not!” Huang Ling thought Chen Ge was joking.

“I looked through his phone earlier, and he called you seven times.” Chen Ge lowered his head and kept his hand in his bag.

“Doesn’t that show that he’s worried about me?” Huang Ling thought that Chen Ge was weird, in more than one respect.

“However, none of the calls were connected. It was a different person who talked to you on the bus.”

“A different person?” Huang Ling turned around to look at Chen Ge from shock. “Impossible!”

“Focus on driving.” Chen Ge pointed at the road and said, “I have no intention of lying to you; I’m just telling you out of kindness. It’s up to you whether to believe me or not.”

After that, Chen Ge went quiet, and the taxi fell silent. Huang Ling’s lips were pressed as she drove. However, her hands that gripped the steering wheel tightened. Several minutes later, Huang Ling stepped on the brake without warning. The taxi stopped in the middle of the rain, and the atmosphere was weird.

Huang Ling looked at the steering wheel for a long time before slowly turning around to look at Chen Ge. “Jia Ming was indeed different from before. Ever since the car accident, he has become a lot quieter, rarely communicates with me, and suffers from insomnia. According to the doctor, he probably suffers from depression.”

“Meaning the change in your husband was instigated by that car accident?” Chen Ge did not look at Huang Ling and kept his head lowered.

“Do you understand what I said? Jia Ming suffers from depression due to that car accident—he fell sick.” Huang Ling held the steering wheel and forced a smile. “Considering how difficult things are for our family, he volunteered to give up the treatment and stopped the medicine after a while. This is because the medicine costs quite a lot, and I am the only one supporting the family. I know that he felt guilty about it, and I can understand these changes happening to him.”

“Think about it closer. Other than feeling down, are there any other weird things that he has done? I mean things that are not related to his illness.” Chen Ge gave a few random examples. “Like you realized he was staring at you in the middle of the night when you woke up, or there was another voice that came out from his lips, or he killed some small animal without you knowing and hid the bodies in the room.”

Huang Ling listened to what Chen Ge said, and she turned to look at Xiao Gu at the back. She was starting to become fearful of Chen Ge. “No, the things that you mentioned did not happen at all.”

“You can look at your own phone records and think about it closely. This thing could be related to your life.” Chen Ge was not that interested in the man at Huang Ling’s home. He was more interested in the person that called Huang Ling on the bus.

“My phone records?” Huang Ling took out her phone to take a look. There were seven calls, but it did not show the call that she had with her husband on the bus.

“You may think that I am lying, but your phone won’t.” Chen Ge looked at rain outside the window. “I ask you to not hide anything from me. The person at your home might already suspect something. The next time you stay in the room with him, he might do something weird.”

Huang Ling held her phone and said after a long time, “After the car accident, Jia Ming became very averse to children and things like toys and dolls.”

“What do you mean?” Chen Ge’s eyes lit up.

“A long time ago, he gave me some stuffed animals. Even though I’m already past the age to enjoy those things, since those were my memory with him, I didn’t throw them away. I put them inside a cupboard and would occasionally take them out to reminisce about old times.

“One day, I realized that one of the dolls had gone missing. Initially, I did not even notice, but a few days later, another doll went missing. I asked Jia Ming, and he said that he did not know anything.

“One month after that, I went home early because I had fever. When I reached home, the door wasn’t locked. I thought that there was a thief, so I shuffled in quietly. I saw that the stove in the kitchen was on, and there was a pot sitting on it like someone was cooking soup.

“A thief wouldn’t have come to someone’s home to cook, so I called Jia Ming’s name several times. No one answered. I went into the kitchen to see what kind of soup he was cooking. However, when I opened the lid, I was shocked.

“There was a tattered doll inside the pot, and the plastic face was bobbing up and down. I quickly turned the fire off, and the door was then pushed open. I saw Jia Ming, who was holding a cleaver, walk in, and he was also holding a large black bag, coming in from outside.

“To this day, I cannot forget that scene. I remember asking why he would he cut up the doll and cook it. He mumbled to me that there was a spirit living inside the door and only that way would chase it away.

“There were many things like this that are related to children and dolls.

“A few months ago, our neighbor had a newborn in the house. It is common for babies to cry in the night, but the child would cry the entire night until morning like there was something scary in the house.

“Whenever the child cried, Jia Ming’s mental state would deteriorate. He kept getting into arguments about it with the neighbor. In the end, it was the neighbor who relented and moved to Western Jiujiang.”

After Huang Ling finished, she put her phone away. “Before this, we did not have a child because we could not afford one, but now, it is because he doesn’t want one.”

“After the accident, your husband became afraid of children and dolls. This doesn’t sound like depression to me.” Chen Ge called Huang Ling to continue trying. “Do you mind telling me what happened on the day of Jia Ming’s accident?”

“Jia Ming’s working place, like mine, is close to where we stayed. Normally, Jia Ming comes to fetch me on his e-bike, but that day, the client kept me at the company until very late. It was raining heavily that night, just like tonight in fact. I waited for a long time, but Jia Ming did not show up. In the end, it was the police who called, telling me that Jia Ming had gotten in an accident.

“According to the video, he ran into the bus on Route 104 when he was crossing the street. From the video, it looked like he could not see the bus at all. He kept his gaze fixed in a certain direction as he kept riding.” Huang Ling shivered, thinking about that video. “I was so scared when I got the call. I rushed to the hospital. Jia Ming’s leg was cracked, and for some reason, he did not wake up until the next day.”

“You said Jia Ming was hit by bus 104?” Chen Ge interrupted Huang Ling. He had found the information he needed. “In other words, the thing that is possessing your husband’s body now probably came from the bus on Route 104.”

Huang Ling and Xiao Gu did not react for a long time, but in the end, they felt chills run up their spines.