Seaside Guesthouse Second Floor (3)

Continuing from the previous post. B shouted that at A, and suddenly no one in the room spoke. He asked B: "What do you mean by almost dying? Weren't you always downstairs?"

"I was. Always watching from downstairs." B kept his head down, silent for a long time, "Still watching now."

He didn't understand: watching what now? His first thought was that B couldn't take it anymore—either gone mad or possessed by something. But B went on, voice trembling, words clear. He didn't want to listen at all, but he remembered the night before, when A and B listened to him recount that experience, from start to finish without a single interruption; he felt he owed B one.

"After you went upstairs, I saw a shadow," B said. "At first I thought it was your shadow. But when you squatted down to eat those things, the shadow kept moving. Your shadow shrank on the ground, mine and A's shadows under our feet were fine, but besides those, there were others—three, no, four—always moving."

Goosebumps broke out all over him. He prayed this was B joking, but there was not a trace of joking on B's face; if he uttered the words "just kidding," B would probably jump on him and beat him up. He said: "Only me was upstairs. That staircase—one person can just barely squeeze through; four or five people couldn't possibly fit."

"It wasn't human," B said. "You should understand that too."

He asked what was going on. B said: "They were all pressed against the wall, by the wall, and above, like spiders, lying there, crawling around." As B spoke, his breathing grew more and more rapid. He told B to take deep breaths, said they were all there. After a while B calmed down and said again: "Not human, but with a human shape; I can't explain it."

He asked: "Human shape, stuck to the wall?" B nodded.

His head buzzed. Shadows don't crawl onto walls and ceilings by themselves; if there were shadows, there must be something there. So while he was swallowing down those leftovers bite by bite upstairs, things had been crawling around him all along? Was that what it meant? The scratching sounds on the wall, that breathing sound—not on the other side of the door, but right beside him? He felt dizzy.

B turned to A, who had been standing the whole time, and said: "Sorry just now, I lost my composure." A quickly said it was nothing, that he was also wrong. After a while A asked: "You said just now, still watching..." Before A could finish, B cut in: "Oh, that—I was just flustered before, I'm fine now, haha, sorry." B's laugh was terribly fake, his eyes looking elsewhere, his eyelids twitching underneath.

He still remembers that twitching flesh to this day. A person forcing a smile while their eyelids tremble underneath—scarier than crying. He and A didn't ask anymore. B had already told them all this; whatever else he was hiding, they dared not hear it—if they listened, his heart would break, he would go mad, for real.

After a while, Misaki called them to breakfast in the hall. They had talked so long that it was fully daylight. He actually didn't want to eat anything, but he couldn't let anyone notice something was wrong, so he forced himself to go. He told the two of them: "The sooner the better. After breakfast, we'll tell the landlady." B said he wasn't eating, and asked A: "You brought your laptop, right? Let me use it for a bit, I have something to check—no time. You two go ahead." A said it was in his bag, feel free to use it, it can connect to the internet. He told B: "Then I'll ask Misaki to make you a rice ball."

Looking back, on the morning they quit, they still sat down to eat breakfast. If anyone else had done that, he would definitely have made fun of them—but the three of them did exactly that. In the hall, the landlady saw them, her gaze fell on his feet, and she smiled until her face was full of wrinkles: "Morning. Did you sleep well?" She hadn't asked that since their first day there. He was so scared he stood there stiff as a board; it was A who answered "Slept well, but we're running late," and gave him a slap on the butt, which finally made his body move. He was very surprised—A was timider than anyone, yet this time it was A who pulled him.

They said B wasn't feeling well and was still sleeping, and asked Misaki to make him a rice ball. Misaki said worriedly: "Then B should rest today." They said nothing—they couldn't very well say "we're leaving anyway today." While eating, the landlady kept smiling at him, chopsticks unmoving, just watching him—look, take a bite. Misaki and the boss also noticed this strange look, and secretly sized him and the landlady up. A was frozen stiff like a board. The three of them ate a few bites, found an excuse to leave, and went back to call B.

When they reached the door, they heard B on the phone inside: "Yes, no matter what, we have to go today... Yes, thank you! We'll definitely be there, please." They didn't want to interrupt, so they went in and sat waiting for him to hang up. B put down the phone, didn't explain, and they didn't ask. The three of them went back to the hall together; Misaki was clearing dishes, and the landlady wasn't there. He suddenly thought: had the landlady gone up there again? The image of her carrying a tray, disappearing at the stairwell leading to the second floor, rushed into his mind. That pile of leftovers he had stepped on yesterday—the daily meals were probably stacked up layer by layer like that, one day, two days, piled into that small mountain. But what was it all for? He was about to think further, then cut it off: he was leaving today, he didn't need to know any of this, he had to forget it.

After a while, the landlady came back, saying she had gone to water the flowers. Seeing the three of them sitting in a row in the hall, doing nothing, she paused: "What's wrong with you?" He took a deep breath and said: "Landlady, we want to quit today. Sorry, we're being too willful." A and B followed, bowing their heads: "Please forgive us." The landlady's face showed no expression at all, her eyebrows didn't move, as if she had known all along. After a long time she finally smiled: "Is that so? I really can't do anything with you." Then she rattled on by herself about the wages, about cleaning the rooms before checking out, telling them to call her when they were ready.

Everything went so smoothly it was shocking; all three sighed with relief, yet deep down they still felt something was off. Do what needs to be done right away. Their luggage had been packed the night before; all that was left was cleaning the rooms. During their days working there, after work they either went to the beach to play or collapsed from exhaustion and slept, so they spent little time in the room; the three boys' room wasn't even dirty, and they cleaned it in an hour.

They went back to the hall to say goodbye. The landlady and the boss were sitting, and Misaki sat beside them, looking sad. The three knelt side by side, bowed, and said: "It's been a short time, thank you for taking care of us. Sorry for leaving on our own." The landlady stood up, walked over, and said: "We should be thanking you. This isn't much." She handed them three kraft paper envelopes and three small cloth bags. The envelopes were unexpectedly heavy; the small cloth bags were light as nothing. Misaki said from behind: "Take care of yourselves." She looked like she was about to cry, and added: "I made portions for everyone too," one rice ball each. He didn't dare look at Misaki's face for long, afraid he would cry. Scared half to death the day before, and now already so reluctant to part—he himself found it funny, but saying goodbye to people who had taken care of him was just like that.

When they came, they took the bus to the station; going back, they called a taxi. The boss offered to drive them to the station, but B waved him off and asked Misaki to help call a car. When the car arrived, the landlady and the others saw them to the curb; to outsiders it was a touching farewell, but in reality the three of them were fleeing for their lives. Before getting in, he looked back once. The door leading to the second floor around the corner seemed to be open a crack; he quickly turned his face away.

The taxi hadn't gone far when B suddenly asked the driver to change destination, handing over a note and saying, "Please go here." The driver looked at it and frowned: "I can, but it's quite far, is that alright?" B said: "It's fine." Then he turned around and said to A, who was staring blankly in the back seat, and to me: "There's a place we have to go, you're coming too." He and A exchanged a glance, thinking the same thing: Where to? We had only seen B's state this morning, and no one dared to ask, afraid he might flare up again.

After driving for a while, the driver spoke up: "Is that vehicle behind you an acquaintance of yours?" He turned back to see a small truck tailgating them, someone inside waving—it was the boss. They thought they had left something behind, so they asked the driver to pull over. The boss followed suit, stopping the truck behind them, and walked up to them, saying: "You can't just go back like this." B said: "Not going back, how else can we get back?" B and the boss's words flowed together as if they had agreed on a signal, leaving him and A completely sidelined. He asked: "What on earth is going on?" The boss stared into his eyes and said: "You, you've been there, haven't you?"

His heart jumped violently. He said that at that time, he wasn't afraid of ghosts, but of a feeling that "I've caused a huge disaster." He could only utter a single "Yes." The boss sighed: "If you go back like this, you'll be taken away. Why did you run up there... Sigh, but to be fair, it was my fault for not making things clear at the start."

#Paranormal #连载 #海边民宿的二楼