Chapter 78: I'm Not a Murder Magnet, But Death Sure Follows Me Around
The last piece of premium ribeye sizzled on the hibachi grill, its rich aroma filling the private dining room and making mouths water.
Edward speared the perfectly seared, tender beef with his fork, blew on it gently, and offered it to Jennifer's lips.
"Ahh—"
Jennifer obediently parted her red lips, took the beef into her mouth, and closed her eyes in blissful contentment.
The juices burst across her tongue, flooding her taste buds with flavor.
"Master, it's so good," Jennifer's voice carried languid satisfaction.
Edward smiled. "Now that we've eaten, time to head back." He stood and stretched.
Jennifer also rose, naturally looping her arm through his and pressing her body close, her curves molding against Edward's side.
The two pushed open the private dining room door.
The corridor was silent.
The restaurant, which should have been bustling with dinner service, was now completely empty.
Tables and chairs sat neatly arranged. Some plates still had half-eaten food, but there wasn't a single person in sight.
"Huh?" Edward raised an eyebrow.
He and Jennifer had only been dining for about an hour—how could things outside have changed so drastically?
The two walked out of the restaurant and onto the circular corridor of the mall.
The entire massive shopping center was eerily silent.
The escalators beneath their feet continued running soundlessly. Neon lights on billboards still flickered, casting brilliant light and shadow onto the polished floors, reflecting a vast and unsettling emptiness.
No customers. No sales associates. No security guards.
As if everyone had vanished into thin air in an instant.
"Master, something's wrong." Jennifer's voice dropped low. After becoming a succubus, her perception of danger had grown exceptionally acute.
A faint, disturbing aura permeated the air.
Edward said nothing. He took Jennifer's hand and walked to the glass railing on the second floor, looking down into the atrium below.
The ground floor was equally deserted, with only the large decorative fountain in the center casting rippling reflections under the lights.
"What the hell? Did I walk onto the set of Dawn of the Dead?" Edward muttered.
Suddenly!
"HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME!"
A piercing scream tore through the mall's silence, erupting from one end of the building.
Immediately following came chaotic, hurried footsteps growing closer.
Edward looked toward the sound and saw several teenagers scrambling out of a corridor on the first floor, faces twisted with terror, as if demons were chasing them.
Leading the group was a girl in a letterman jacket—she ran fastest, face streaked with tears and fear.
"Seriously?" Edward was momentarily stunned. "I'm not some murder magnet. Why does this shit follow me everywhere?"
He was about to vault over the railing from the second floor to investigate, but Jennifer grabbed his hand.
"Master, wait!"
As she spoke, the figures of the pursuers emerged from around the corner.
Edward's eyes narrowed slightly.
Those weren't people at all!
A massive man, his head covered by a burlap sack with only one eye visible, dragged a heavy fire axe behind him.
The axe blade scraped across the polished marble floor, creating showers of sparks and emitting harsh "SCREEEECH—SCREEEECH—" sounds.
Following him was a woman in a retro nurse's uniform, holding a wicked straight razor, a sinister smile on her face. Every step was elegant yet calculated, exuding bone-chilling menace.
A figure in black wearing a white skull mask moved swift as a ghost.
A small boy, no older than ten, wearing a baseball cap, dragged a bat stained with dark red marks.
Even more bizarrely, the group included a milkman in an old-fashioned uniform and a grim-faced priest clutching a cross.
This disparate group of 'people,' all radiating malevolent auras, formed a death squad.
"Jesus Christ, is this a serial killer convention?" Edward was genuinely shocked. "What did these kids do to piss off an entire roster of slashers?"
Just as the teens were about to be caught, the last boy in line tripped over debris, crying out in pain.
Baghead mercilessly raised his fire axe, aiming to cleave down onto the boy's back!
Edward's eyes flashed, telekinesis ready to activate!
However, just before the axe fell, Baghead's movement abruptly stopped.
He seemed to completely ignore the prey fallen at his feet, turned to look at the girl running ahead, and dragged his axe to pursue her instead.
The other killers did the same. They walked past the fallen boy without even glancing at him, their target clearly the girl.
The fallen boy, still shaking, scrambled to his feet and continued fleeing.
"Master, did you see that?" Jennifer's voice sounded in his ear. "Their target seems to be... only that girl."
Edward lowered his hand, which had been poised to intervene.
Indeed, from start to finish, all the killers' murderous intent was directed solely at that girl.
The others might as well have been invisible.
"Interesting." A faint smirk curved Edward's lips. "Clear target, unified action. This isn't just random violence—it's... rule-based. Controlled by some kind of power or contract."
He was intimately familiar with such phenomena.
Demons, curses, deals... always one of those.
"This just got interesting." Edward's eyes gleamed with hunter's excitement.
He didn't like trouble, but when trouble presented itself this interestingly, he didn't mind flexing a bit.
"Come on, Jennifer. Let's follow and watch the show."
Edward took Jennifer's hand, and like shadows merging into darkness, they silently followed from the second-floor corridor.
Their movements were light and swift. The chase below transformed into theater unfolding before their eyes.
The teens ran in panic to the mall's central atrium, stopping beneath the large decorative fountain.
"Here! This is it! Quick, dig!" The leading girl directed, panting, her voice laced with tears and desperate madness.
Her companions—a nerdy guy with glasses and an athletic girl—immediately pulled folding shovels from their backpacks and began frantically digging into the decorative planter beneath the fountain.
"Dig? Dig what?" Edward and Jennifer stood by the second-floor railing, watching the scene unfold with confusion.
The terrifying killers also stopped their pursuit at this moment.
They didn't immediately attack but fanned out, surrounding the fountain and the teenagers, forming an airtight perimeter.
They just stood there silently, unmoving, like a gallery of lifeless statues.
Baghead's fire axe hung at his side. The Razor Woman's smile was frozen. The skull mask's eye sockets glowed with void-black emptiness.
In the entire mall atrium, only the "shff-shff-shff" of shovels digging into earth and the teenagers' heavy breathing remained.
The atmosphere was suffocatingly tense.
"Dig, dig, dig..." Edward hummed softly with mocking amusement. "In this haunted mall, dig, dig, dig..."
Jennifer rolled her eyes, gently elbowing him to be serious.
Just then, a sharp "CLANG" sounded from below.
"We found it! We FOUND it!" The nerdy guy shouted with desperate relief.
They cleared away soil, revealing human remains—long decayed and blackened, entangled by roots, now exposed to air.
The skeleton wore tattered remnants of what looked like a mall security uniform. A rusted name tag still clung to the ribcage: "J. WALKER - SECURITY."
"That's him," the girl whispered, voice breaking. "That's the watchman. The one who—"
She couldn't finish. Tears streamed down her face.
Edward leaned against the railing, watching with intense interest.
"A buried body. Killers bound by rules. Teenagers who know exactly what they're looking for." He pieced it together aloud. "This isn't random. This is... retribution. Revenge."
Jennifer's eyes widened with realization. "A curse? Someone wronged, buried, forgotten... and now the dead are hunting?"
"Not just hunting," Edward corrected, studying the frozen killers. "Hunting specifically. That girl triggered something. Made a deal, broke a rule, or maybe..." His eyes narrowed. "Maybe she's the one responsible for putting that body there in the first place."
Below, the athletic girl was pulling something from the skeleton's ribcage—a small, tarnished key.
"Got it!" she shouted. "Now what?!"
The leading girl grabbed the key with trembling hands. "We have to—we have to unlock—"
CRACK.
The sound of bone shifting.
All the killers simultaneously turned their heads toward the fountain.
Slowly. Mechanically. In perfect, horrifying synchronization.
Then they began moving forward.
Not running. Walking. With deliberate, inexorable purpose.
"Oh shit oh shit oh SHIT—" The nerdy guy scrambled backward.
"The key!" the girl screamed. "Where's the lock?! WHERE'S THE FUCKING LOCK?!"
Edward straightened, no longer amused.
"Alright," he said quietly. "Show's over. Time to figure out what kind of curse we're dealing with."
He prepared to intervene—
When suddenly, the mall's PA system crackled to life.
Static. Then a voice.
A child's voice.
Singing.
"Ring around the rosie... pocket full of posies... ashes, ashes... we all fall DOWN."
Every light in the mall went out simultaneously.
Plunging everything into absolute darkness.
And in that darkness, Edward heard it—
Dozens of footsteps.
Not from below.
From all around them.
More killers. Many more.
"Master?" Jennifer's voice was tight with tension.
Edward's hand moved to summon Ebony and Ivory.
"Yeah," he said grimly. "I see it now. This isn't a simple curse."
The emergency lights flickered on, bathing everything in blood-red glow.
And Edward finally understood what they were dealing with.
This wasn't just a haunted mall.
This was a trap.
And they'd walked right into it.
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