The Second Floor of the Seaside Homestay (II)

Continuing from the previous post. On the narrow staircase of the second floor of the homestay, he walked up alone, stepping on something unknown under his feet, and a shadow seemed to be standing at the door ahead.

Moving up another step, a stench rushed straight into his nose, the same kind B smelled at the door, a mix of raw kitchen waste and sewer. He looked around; on the platform at the corner, there was a large pile of leftover food, flies flying everywhere, and the stench came from here. He couldn't figure out how he hadn't noticed it at all just now.

Then he saw something else. On the door frame of the door at the end of the stairs, a board like plywood was nailed, with countless nails, covered with talismans, and thin strings were wound between the nails, wound like a spider web. He said it was the first time he had seen talismans, he couldn't guarantee they were talismans, but they couldn't possibly be a pile of stickers. Anyway, at a glance, the meaning was very clear: something was locked inside here.

Only at this moment did he feel for the first time that he had done something wrong. He turned around to leave.

Just then, a "clatter clatter" sound came from behind. It was from the other side of the door, something was scratching. Then came the sound of breathing, intermittent, one long and one short.

He said that at that moment his heart almost stopped.

He said that his appearance at that time was probably worse than an extra in a movie. Someone said, when encountering such things, don't look back, just walk away. He said this was actually impossible to do: he didn't have the courage to walk forward, nor the courage to look back; the person could only stay in place, eyes darting around, cold sweat soaking his back.

The scratching sound continued without stopping. He tried desperately to move his frozen legs. Suddenly, the sound behind stopped, instantly quiet, so quiet he didn't even have time to blink. Then, a light "pop" sound came from above his head, right inside the ceiling.

Just now it was clearly behind the door. In an instant, it was above his head.

His legs started shaking, there was nothing he could do. He shouted "save me" many times in his heart. Just then, something moved in the corner of his vision. He said that at that time he was afraid of anything moving, hesitated for a long time whether to look, and finally gritted his teeth and turned around; it was A and B. The two were at the bottom of the stairs, shouting something while waving their arms desperately.

"Hey! Come down quickly!" A shouted. B followed up shouting: "Are you okay?"

At that moment, he suddenly felt free, came to his senses, and rushed down without looking back. Later A and B told him that at that time he had his eyes closed, stepped over two steps at a time, rushed down very quickly, ran straight past the two of them, and ran all the way back to the room. He himself had almost no memory of this part, probably because his mind was full of fear.

Back in the room, after a while, A and B also came back.

"Are you okay?" "What happened? Is there something up there?"

He couldn't answer; those sounds in his ears hadn't faded, and thinking about it made him afraid. A's expression was very serious, and he asked:

"What were you eating up there?"

He didn't understand and asked back. What A said was very wrong: "You squatted down as soon as you went up, right? B and I were watching you from below, thinking you were looking at something, but you were desperately stuffing things into your mouth."

B continued: "And, that..."

Both stared at his chest at the same time. He looked down and saw his chest covered with filth, emitting the stench of rotting food. He rushed into the bathroom and vomited everything in his stomach clean.

He didn't understand. He remembered everything after going up, remembered that fear very clearly, he had never squatted down once, let alone put rotten leftover rice into his mouth. But there was indeed leftover rice stuck to his clothes; looking closely, there were also marks on his hands of having grabbed something. He felt like he was going crazy.

A and B were worried about him and came in again. A said: "Tell us what happened upstairs; you're not normal now." He was very afraid, but then thought it was better to say it out than to bear it alone, so he told them everything he experienced at the end of the stairs, one by one. The two listened very seriously, nodding from time to time. What he said and what they saw completely did not match, but they still listened to the end. Just this made him almost cry.

After he calmed down a bit, he noticed his feet were burning with pain. Looking down, there were many small scratches on the soles of his feet and knees. Looking closer, some things like plastic fragments were stuck in the wounds, red ones, and blackened white ones. As he stared at them, B picked up a piece and held it up to the light: "What is this?"

The next second, B sucked in a breath with a "hiss" and threw that piece onto the floor. That movement made A and him tremble as well.

"What is it?" A asked.

"Look carefully."

"Speak clearly! I'm scared!"

"Is this... a fingernail?"

All three froze instantly.

At that moment, he said, he was afraid to the extreme, but strangely, his mind calmed down, and he thought through the sounds just now one by one. The scratching sound behind the door was fingernails scratching. The "pop pop" sound under his feet as he walked up was the things under his feet, which were fingernail clippings scattered all over the ground. Those fingernails were broken off piece by piece by the thing behind the door constantly scratching. He squatted down to eat leftover food, and ran down in a panic, his feet and knees cut by the scattered fingernail clippings. Nothing else mattered anymore. There was only one thing certain: they could not stay here anymore.

He told A and B, I quit. A said me too, and B said he was also quitting. What to say to the landlady? Telling the truth was impossible. "If I tell her we went up to the second floor, I don't even want to see what face she'll make." Finally, they decided: mention nothing, just say they quit, the simplest way.

That night, the three of them packed their luggage. The room was originally a room for three boys, but that night, they put two quilts together and squeezed together to sleep, like a group of drowning people leaning on each other. No one snored, but no one really fell asleep either.

When morning came, no one said much. The phone alarm suddenly rang, the usual time to get up, and B's whole body trembled, very afraid.

B was a very kind person at heart. The night before, he had said to him: "Sorry. What you experienced was much more terrifying than mine, yet I got scared like this, I'm really sorry. I didn't go to save you when you went up, I'm really sorry." Hearing that sentence made his eyes feel hot.

But then he thought it was wrong again: "much more terrifying than mine," what did that mean? The one who truly encountered the thing was him; A and B were just watching from below. Could it be that his appearance rushing down was too scary? He thought about it and felt he was also swallowed by fear, being too sensitive to what others said. At this time, he should go home early and spend the rest of the summer vacation easily with everyone; he only let himself think about this.

But the next day, B was too afraid. He trembled at every little sound in the room and stared fixedly at the wound on his foot, looking obviously wrong. A was a bit afraid and also worried about him, asking: "Are you okay? Didn't sleep well, are you sleepy?" As he spoke, he reached out to touch B's shoulder.

B shouted "Shut up!" and shoved A's hand away.

A was stunned and couldn't speak for a moment. He was also stunned beside them. A and B were the closest among them; A often joked with B, and B never got angry at any joke, playing along with A. B speaking loudly to A like this, none of them had ever seen.

"Still okay?" B glared at A and shouted, "What the hell! I almost died too, you don't know anything, and you're pretending to care about me!"

He wondered, what did B mean by "almost died"? Wasn't he just scared after hearing him talk about it?

#Paranormal #连载 #海边民宿的二楼