Chapter 45: Strange Things Along the Way
The old house's wooden walls were covered with thick black moss, and the roof and yard were covered with a thick layer of leaves,
beneath which lay rotting debris, emitting a strong musty smell.
The faded black wooden door was secured with a thick chain wrapped around it seven or eight times.
A hole the size of a bowl was broken in the lower left corner of the door, the inside pitch black, like a hungry mouth waiting for visitors!
"This is it!"
Jess excitedly opened the car door and got out.
"That's right, this is the famous local haunted house, the Harrow Place!"
Tyler proudly took out his camera and began photographing Jess.
Jess bent over, her arms supporting her thighs, grinning as she admired the surroundings.
Was she trying to get herself killed by coming to a haunted house? Marcus felt an urge to curse.
"I heard that ghosts sometimes emerge from this house! Hey Jess, say something to the camera and introduce yourself."
Tyler pulled his baseball cap back, held the camera, and focused the lens on the area just below Jess's neck.
"I don't want to! I can't be on camera because I'm not wearing makeup!"
"Come on, what if we actually film something amazing?"
Two idiots!
Marcus was furious. Stupid people like this always drag others down with them.
Although this body had a bad lifestyle, its usual hobbies were drinking and working out. It ended up getting drunk and being brought here by his best friend Tyler.
"Today I've come to the Harrow Place Haunted House. I heard..." Jess, with a playful attitude, began to introduce herself to the camera.
Marcus suddenly felt a sense of being watched from inside the haunted house.
The hole in the corner of the door seemed even darker, as if it were being blocked by something.
He grabbed Tyler by the collar, lifted him up, and pulled the car keys from his pocket.
Then he tossed Tyler to the ground like trash, got back into the car, started the engine, and stepped on the gas.
"What?! Jake, what are you doing?!"
Jess saw Marcus roughly throw Tyler to the ground and was about to drive away, so she rushed into the still-open back door, sat in the back seat, and questioned him.
Marcus ignored her, stepped on the gas, and drove off in the direction they came from.
"Hey, wait for me!"
"Jake, Jess, you bastards, that's my car!"
Tyler saw the two abandon him and chased after them, shouting loudly.
"Tyler isn't in the car yet, Jake, stop the car!"
The back door slammed shut with a bang, propelled by the rushing air.
Jess frantically pounded on the car window.
Marcus ignored her, instead stepping on the gas, and Tyler's voice grew fainter and fainter until it disappeared from sight.
"Jake, how could you do this? Tyler is your best friend. He'll be in danger alone in the woods."
"Why did you do this? If you don't stop, I'll call the cops and say you killed Tyler."
Jess was frantic, but the speeding car prevented her from making any further movements, so she could only keep nagging.
Then, she seemed to remember something, her face showing some worry. She quickly buttoned up the open buttons on her shirt and pulled her collar up.
The car drove for 10 minutes in the direction they had come from.
The last rays of sunlight disappeared, and the road was completely plunged into darkness.
Rows of crooked old trees on both sides cast shadows that shifted and twisted with the distance of the car headlights,
their trunks bare and cracked, their black bark like burnt corpses.
"Are you going to get out and go with him?"
Marcus finally had the mind to reply. This woman was so noisy.
"My head is so itchy. Hey? What's this?"
Jess didn't answer Marcus's question. Instead, she scratched her head and pulled a tuft of dry, black hair from her scalp.
Her hair was dyed auburn and wasn't this long.
Marcus saw Jess's movements in the rearview mirror, and his face darkened. This woman was being watched.
Although he didn't know what was targeting him or whether he could defeat it, he would avoid it if possible. Fighting such strange things was pointless.
Currently, besides blood, he couldn't obtain anything from these spirits.
"Do you want to go find Tyler?" Marcus asked meaningfully.
"Really? You're willing to go back and get Tyler? Okay, okay, Jake, I knew you wouldn't abandon Tyler!"
Jess was overjoyed to hear this. She already had some feelings for the stylish Tyler and was naturally eager to bring him back.
However, Jake seemed like a different person. She even suspected that Jake wanted to compete with Tyler for her, or that he was possessed by something.
Sitting in the car, she was terrified. She couldn't accept either possibility, but it was pitch black outside, and the car was moving fast, so she didn't dare jump out.
Jess was so focused on Tyler that she had even forgotten the long black hair she was holding.
SCREECH--!
A sudden stop, and Jess's forehead slammed against the front seat. She cried out, clutching her head.
Marcus opened the car door and got out, pulling Jess out of the back door and throwing her to the side of the road before quickly closing the door.
He floored the gas pedal and drove back toward the main road. Since that strange thing could catch up, Tyler was probably gone. Since she wanted to see Tyler so badly, let her go see him.
The shrill screams behind him gradually faded into the distance; the woman had finally stopped pretending, revealing her true panic.
Marcus was now filled with cold rage. If that strange thing dared to cause him any more trouble, he'd burn down the entire forest.
Five minutes later, Marcus passed through a gate and entered the northern highway.
There were now cars on the road, a touch of civilization. Marcus followed the GPS toward the motel he remembered.
The haunted house thing hadn't followed.
The car stalled as soon as it entered the county road. Marcus guessed it was because he'd driven so recklessly on the forest road; these cheap sedans were generally unreliable.
Checking the GPS, he saw it was less than a mile away, so he decided to get out and walk toward his destination.
Marcus left the car keys inside, leaving the door open—he'd leave the car for whoever found it! After all, the car had been tainted by the eerie atmosphere of the haunted house; who knew if it would come looking for him again?
Marcus walked along the county road for five minutes, about halfway there.
Two middle-aged office workers in suits appeared ahead.
They were standing there, holding black briefcases, pointing across the street and whispering to each other.
His view in that direction was partially obscured by the bus stop sign, so Marcus couldn't see what was happening.
But his steps slowed, because he heard a sound.
Scritch scritch scritch--!
From the bench across the street, hidden by the road sign, came a sound like something being vigorously scratched with fingernails.
Scritch scritch scritch…!
The sound was rhythmic, dense, and frantic.
Marcus took two steps forward, avoiding the sign that blocked his view. About a hundred feet away, he finally saw what was behind it:
in the roadside waiting area, a strange woman in a white dress, with disheveled black hair, sat on a wooden bench, her back to the road.
Only her white silhouette was visible.
She was scratching her body vigorously with both hands, as if she had thousands of fleas crawling on her, scratching herself raw with unending itching.
The scratching sound was her constantly clawing at herself with her fingernails.
"Hey Morrison, look what's wrong with that woman?"
one of the office workers, wearing glasses, said to the other, a balding man.
"Let's go see, maybe she needs help." The balding office worker squinted and smiled.
"You're right, she looks distressed. Maybe she had a fight with her husband and needs... assistance."
The bespectacled man chuckled lecherously.
The two middle-aged office workers exchanged a glance and walked across the road.
Damn it!
Marcus glanced at them but ignored them, quickening his pace and walking past the two men toward the motel along the county road.
After walking about two hundred yards, he vaguely heard two screams behind him—the screams of men.
Marcus didn't look back.
He'd been to Hell. He'd met Pinhead. He'd killed gods.
But this world—Tomie's world—felt different. More insidious. More infectious.
In Hell, you knew what the rules were. Here, the horror spread like a disease.
And Marcus was determined not to catch it.
(End of Chapter)
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