Chapter 13: Dark Night, Phantom
It was nine o’clock at night. I leaned by the staircase on the second floor, arms crossed, a knot of complex emotions in my chest as I remained silent.
My brow furrowed deeply. I worried for my sister, Xinran, who had become a pervert. And there was Keling as well… No matter what, she couldn’t keep doing this. I had to find a way to correct her mindset.
What method should I use… Sigh… I’d think about these things later. For now, I needed to do my homework. It was already past nine-ten, so the reminder call should be coming soon. According to the rotation system for assigning homework, Xue was supposed to tell me the assignment, and then I would relay it to Lianbing.
As expected, after a while, the long-unused landline in our home rang. I had been waiting by the phone and immediately picked up the receiver. “Hello? This is Juncheng An. Is that Xueqing?”
“Mm.”
It was Xueqing’s voice. I could hear the dripping of water. Hadn’t she turned off the faucet properly? “Tell me the assignment. Ah, hold on, I need to find a pen.”
“Okay.”
I held the receiver between my head and shoulder with my pen and notebook in hand. “Okay, you can start now.”
“Mm.”
I listened intently, but after a long wait, no sound came. “Uh, Xueqing?”
“What?”
She was still there. I thought she’d gone to the bathroom. Why wasn’t she speaking? Ah, I remembered. The softer her voice, the longer her explanation. Teacher Xiaozhen must have assigned a lot of homework, and she’d have to speak softly to recite it all. So, she *was* telling me, but I just couldn’t hear it! This was troublesome… Let’s try asking her to speak louder first. “Um, I can’t hear you. Could you speak up a bit?”
“Okay.”
I waited again. This time, I could hear something. “…Fill in the blanks… the 28th… number… three questions… practice…”
“…”
I could only make out a word or two, with no coherence or accuracy whatsoever. What was the difference between this and not hearing her at all! “Um, I still can’t hear clearly. Xueqing, why don’t you just take a picture of the assignment with your phone and send it to me?”
“No… phone.”
“Ah? You don’t have a phone either?”
“Mm.”
“What about a computer? Do you have one?” I asked this more out of desperation, knowing that if she didn’t have a phone, she likely wouldn’t have a computer either. But it was the only idea I had left.
“No.”
The answer was no, as expected. Now I was truly out of options. What should I do? Should I try recording her voice and then amplifying it on a computer? No, that would distort it…
“Come… to my home.”
“What? Go to your house?” Oh, right, that was an option. I could just go to her house and have her tell me in person. But Teacher Xiaozhen’s whole point with the rotation system was to prevent students from going out late at night. Wasn’t me going to Xueqing’s house defeating the purpose? But there was no other way… I remembered that Xueqing used to sit in the very last row, so she never had to relay assignments. Changing seats in the second year of high school had really put me in a bind.
“Address… not long.”
“…Okay, I understand. Just tell me, I’ll come over.” There was no other choice now. I had to go myself. I didn’t want a gap in information here, otherwise, if someone got into trouble while out, I’d be held responsible.
“District Six… Binhai Road.”
Binhai Road… that was pretty close. I often stopped by the vending machine in Beishan Park on Binhai Road for coffee after evening study sessions. Though I hadn’t been there since I was hit on the head by a UFO.
“Black Street… Building 221B.”
“Ah? Black Street? Is there such a street?” I’d lived in this city for so long, I’d never heard of it. And on Binhai Road, I should have known about it.
However, it wasn’t Jiang Xueqing’s voice that answered me. A jarring crashing sound made me pull the receiver away. From the phone came sounds of objects breaking, scraping, and more crashes. Clatter, clang, bang, it was incredibly noisy.
I sensed something was wrong and called out into the receiver several times. “Hello? Xueqing? Hello! Xueqing! Are you there!”
“…”
“Hello! Hello!” Could something have happened to her? All sorts of bad possibilities flashed through my mind, and I urgently shouted again. “Hello! Xueqing! What happened! Hello! Speak!”
“Beep- beep- beep-…”
The call was disconnected.
“…Damn it!”
I slammed down the receiver and ran back to my room, threw on a jacket, and bolted down the stairs. Keling was coming up as I ran out.
“Brother, where are you going?”
“I have to go out urgently!”
“What’s wrong? Dad told us not to go out at night because it’s dangerous!”
“It’s an emergency!”
“Wait, Brother!”
“I have my phone! Call me if I’m not back by midnight!” I didn’t have time to say anything else to Keling. I practically leaped down the stairs, hurriedly put on my shoes, and ran out of the house. Please, please, don’t let anything happen!
…
I ran the length of Binhai Road from end to end but couldn’t find this “Black Street.” I’d been searching for over two hours with no progress. I was right; there was no such thing as “Black Street”! Did I misunderstand? Is there another Binhai Road? But there should only be one Binhai Road in District Six… Where are you, Xueqing…?
“Tsk, I can’t find it anywhere…” This blind search was useless… Should I give up? No, I couldn’t. Xueqing was the first friend I made in high school. Now that something had happened, how could I abandon her! Lianbing? No, Lianbing wasn’t just a friend. She was my girlfriend. We skipped the friend stage entirely… Even though the relationship had its ups and downs, it was still more than just a casual acquaintance. Ugh, I couldn’t even explain how I felt about Lianbing right now… No, what was I thinking? The most important thing now was to find Jiang Xueqing. I hoped nothing had happened!
The midnight bell chimed, signaling that it was no longer an hour for roaming freely outside. The bell came from the small clock tower in the center of Beishan Park. In the past, I’d always buy a can of coffee from the vending machine nearby after class, sit on a bench, drink it, and watch the stars before leisurely walking home. …Hmm, I didn’t know how late I’d be searching. I should buy another coffee.
As I walked into the familiar Beishan Park, heading towards my usual vending machine, I heard a strange sound. It sounded like something hard piercing and tearing something soft. To be more specific, it sounded like the noise a tiger makes when eating at the zoo. I remembered watching a feeding show once; after killing its prey, the tiger would slowly eat, making sounds like “crunch,” “munch,” “snap”—sounds hard to describe. Hearing it again now, it made me feel uneasy. Wait… why would this sound be coming from the park? Could a tiger have escaped from the zoo?
Normally, I would have called the police immediately. But my curiosity won out by a small margin, leading me to this foolish act of going to investigate. Beishan Park was in a more remote part of the city, and the streetlights were turned off by eleven o’clock. In the past, I’d sometimes seen couples taking advantage of the darkness for… intimate encounters, even engaging in over-the-top games like exhibitionism or dogging… But tonight, there was no one around. The park was eerie, the atmosphere unsettling.
After the midnight bell, the surroundings became deathly quiet. I continued forward, and the sound grew louder… The silence only amplified this spine-chilling noise. Walking down the familiar path, the light from the vending machine served as my beacon in the darkness. After walking along the path for a while, I saw the bench and vending machine I usually frequented in the distance. But today, there was something else.
In the dim light of the vending machine, I vaguely saw… a girl sitting on the ground. Her head was bowed, her long hair obscuring her face. She held something in her hands, bringing it to her mouth and swaying her head. She looked about my age, maybe a year or two younger, small and delicate like Keling. Her long, dark hair reached her waist, and as she tilted her head slightly, I could see it draping over her thighs. I initially thought she was wearing a coat, but upon closer inspection, I realized it was a raincoat, several sizes too big, even covering her feet.
Something was on her lap… Was she eating it? No, I used the wrong word… She was “devouring” it. It couldn’t be called a meal; it was like a beast gnawing on its prey, not for pleasure, but purely to fill its belly. While outdoors, she ate as if at a dining table, gulping down her food voraciously. She ate without regard for her appearance, her mouth smeared, gnawing, gnawing, gnawing… not even leaving the bones, putting it all into her mouth, like a beggar who had been starving for a long time finally finding food. The grinding of teeth against bone created a symphony, a crunching sound. It was horrifying to watch!
Putting aside her eating habits, the crucial question was: what was she eating… When I first noticed the girl, I instinctively understood what she was eating. Honestly, I didn’t want to admit it… I wished my guess was wrong… But… but…! I swallowed nervously, feeling as though I could breathe in the scent of blood. I took off my glasses and rubbed my tired eyes, my heart pounding.
After the assault on my ears, came the visual shock. As I approached close enough to see the girl clearly, I saw… the girl, divided by light and shadow. The ends of her black hair were stained blood red, and her mouth was ringed with blood, like a child who hadn’t finished eating. At that moment, I suddenly understood why she was wearing a raincoat. If she hadn’t been wearing it, she probably would have been completely covered in red. In this sea of red, there was a patch of white, like a pure land. A serial killer? If that could still be called human, then what was before me was an alien, a monster!
[Ghoul]
[Kaoru Tsukiyose]
The title wasn’t red, but white. The same pale white as my face. This indicated that for her, this was merely a very, very, very normal act. Nothing special, no need for any special emotions. Just a physiological act to satisfy hunger. Just as we don’t feel sad about what we eat, she showed no emotional fluctuation. But it was precisely this that made it terrifying. Compared to a killer with bloodshot eyes and raging anger, a killer who killed without batting an eye, with a detached expression, was far more chilling. For the same reason, my instinct was to flee from this monster disguised as a girl.
Terrible, this is bad… Very bad! My long-honed sense of danger screamed at me: don’t take another step, leave immediately! Absolutely do not get involved in this! Although there were still twenty or thirty meters between us, the sense of danger only intensified. To escape, I instinctively took a step back. But as fate would have it, something always happens at critical moments. My heel accidentally kicked an empty can. The can hit the stone path with a clatter, and my heart sank with it. The crisp, discordant sound echoed through the space, causing the eating to abruptly stop.
“Oh?”
My heart lurched! She noticed me! The girl set down her “food,” stood up, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, but she only smeared the red across her cheeks.
“Oh my, a visitor~”
It was midnight, April 1st, April Fools’ Day had just ended, and the time when you could freely lie was over. Yet, fate was playing a late April Fools’ joke on me… In the pitch-black night, the red-haired girl’s lips curved into a blood-red smile. God knows I would actually encounter a ‘ghost’!
