My House of Horrors

“Wait for me!” Ol’ Zhou and Duan Yue, who led the group, charged ahead, and Bai Buhui was close behind. To not get abandoned, everyone started to run.

“Let’s be friends! Why don’t you be my friend!” The sharp male voice had not disappeared, and the student in the strange uniform ran out from the classroom!

“Wait for me!” Liu Guangming was the oldest of the group, and he was carrying the camera. He could not run that fast with such a heavy equipment. Slowly, Liu Guangming was separated from the rest of the group. He was panicking and wished to drop the camera, but considering how much it was worth and how they would demand compensation from him if it was broken, he carried the machine and ran about twenty meters. No one in the team waited for him. They were about to reach a fork. The teammates were about to disappear from his sight, and Liu Guangming finally came to a decision.

“Money is not as important as my life!”

To minimize the degree of damage, he slowed down and bent over to place the camera as gently as he could on the ground. But when he lifted his head again, the student in the strange uniform had almost caught up to him. “Let’s be friends!”

The sharp voice echoed in his mind. Liu Guangming had never been so scared in his life. At that moment, he was like a hapless child, too afraid to even open his eyes. His lips were trembling. He wanted to say something, but once he opened his mouth, the only sound he could hear was the sound of teeth chattering.

“I… I… I’m sorry!” Liu Guangming had no idea why he was apologizing, but he shouted loudly as he rushed into the left corridor on his own. “Please don’t come for me! There are six good friends on the other side; I am the only one here! Please don’t come for me!”

After realizing that the group had split up, the male student paused for a moment at the split before deciding to chase after the bigger group. After the sharp sound slow disappeared, Liu Guangming sighed in relief. “Thankfully, luck is on my side. I can’t stay here anymore; I need to go outside. Brother Gang said that if I can hold on for the full sixty minutes, he will give me a bonus of two thousand. Counting the time, if I find an inconspicuous location to hide, there should be no problem.”

Wiping the cold sweat with his sleeve, Liu Guangming leaned against the wall and prepared to retrace his steps. “It’s too inconvenient to hide with a camera, and what if I ruin Brother Gang’s livestream?”

Therefore, Liu Guangming decided to walk around the camera and left in a jog. He returned to the initial corridor. Both of doors of the strange classroom were open. There were strange sounds coming from inside.

“This is my first time at a Haunted House. Please forgive my mistake. I am a coward, so please don’t come out to scare me anymore. I beg of you!”

He moved his shivering body to the classroom. As he was about to pass by it, the screen in the classroom suddenly lit up. Liu Guangming’s heart skipped a beat, and he raised his hands over his head. “I don’t know anything. I’m just a security guard. This is all Liu Gang’s responsibility. I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

He rambled as he rushed past the classroom. He did not dare stop. Liu Guangming shouted his apologies and ran out from the education block. He gasped for air. Liu Guangming was covered in sweat, but it was unclear whether it was from the running or the fear.

“I need to find a place to hide.” Liu Guangming looked at the surrounding building, and each one was eerier than the last. Every corridor felt haunted. “Where shall I hide? This place is crowded with ghosts.”

He looked around before his eyes landed on the green garden in the middle of the school. Instead of saying it was a garden, it was more like an abandoned patch of land. The shrubbery was uncared for and grew wildly. There were some half-dead trees poking through.

“No one cares even if the trees are dying. This garden appears to be a blind spot!” Liu Guangming’s eyes lit up. He looked around. No one was around, so he hurried into the bush. “Such a perfect hiding place! The actors won’t guess that someone is hiding here.”

Liu Guangming was feeling rather proud of himself. He leaned on the ground and was about to pick some leaves to hide his shining bald head when he found a tree hole in front of him, and there was something sitting inside it.

“What is that?” Liu Guangming crawled toward it. He reached into the hole and took out a wooden box. Lying on the ground, Liu Guangming opened the box. He was shocked to find a bloody oil painting inside!

“Isn’t this what we’ve been looking for? Just how lucky am I‽ I practically stumbled into this!”

Liu Guangming was excited, and he was thinking about how to ask for a bigger bonus from Liu Gang when he smelt a faded scent of blood. A chill came from his bald head like water was dripping on the top of his scalp. He reached out to touch it and saw that his palm was dyed red.

“Blood!”

Pushing his hands against the ground, Liu Guangming bounced up. He turned back to look, and his soul almost left his body. A woman in red was standing behind him, and viscous blood slid down her dress. Liu Guangming wanted to say something, but he found his facial muscles frozen. As a visitor at the Haunted House for the first time, this was indeed too much. The woman did not scare Liu Guangming; she looked at the wooden box that Liu Guangming was holding. Then her pale hands reached into her dress, and she took out a bloody booklet. The slender fingers flipped through the pages, and the woman started to read it seriously.

Liu Guangming was shaking. He had no idea what the woman was up to. He instinctively moved his eyes to follow the words on the paper that the woman was holding. The words were printed in block black letters, and it had many pictures as explanation.

“Plot: In this scenario, you don’t need to act. You only need to play yourself.

“Responsibility: Your mission is to guard the wooden box in the tree hole.

“Suggestion: I’ll give you several methods to scare people, but they are just suggestions.

“First: You can place your head inside the tree hole, and when the visitors lean closer to look, your body will show up behind them. With your feet floating aboveground, you’ll look at them from a forty-five-degree angle. When the visitors find the head in the tree hole, they will turn and be greeted by a headless body.

“Second: Assuming that the visitors are holding a flashlight and see the head in the tree hole from a distance, you need to widen your eyes when the light hits you! This is key; you will use your head to chase after them and use your body to block their escape route!

“Third: If there is a chance encounter between you and the visitors, do not panic. You can drop your head suddenly when the visitors let their guard down!

“Fourth…”

Liu Guangming only saw a few sentences, and he was already covered in cold sweat. What kind of satanic manual was that‽

The woman studied it for a while before she appeared to get it. She put the booklet away and took the wooden box from the frozen Liu Guangming. She walked to the tree hole. With shaking legs, Liu Guangming kept his eyes glued to the woman. He was so scared, but he did not dare move. The woman first placed the wooden box inside the deep part of the tree hole, and then her hands held her chin.

“What is she doing?” This was Liu Guangming’s first visit to the Haunted House. While he was confused, he suddenly saw the woman push hard and then remove her own head!

Liu Guangming saw it all very clearly! The woman was standing just meters away from him, and her head became detached from her neck!

His heart stopped for a second. This image was equivalent of someone using a hammer to whack his head. His pupils started to lose focus, and his face was still twitching when he collapsed to the ground.

Hearing that, the Red Specter who was placing her head into the tree hole turned around. She looked at the unconscious Liu Guangming with a confused frown.

I haven’t started the act yet—how come you’ve fainted already?

Hugging her head, the woman stood dumbly next to Liu Guangming. After some time, she used the tip of her toe to kick at Liu Guangming as if saying, Hey, wake up!