Unfortunately, I am one of the few people, and this incident has a great impact on my life, not only affecting my recognition of the original world order, but also changing my original rigid thinking. The only thing that makes me dissatisfied is that I often dream about the old man, the weird old man who walks backwards.
1.
There's an old man in the community who behaves strangely. The reason why he behaves strangely is because I always see him walking backwards downstairs when I go to work every morning, and every time I come home from work, I see him walking backwards, and he is always expressionless. I have seen many old people walking backwards to exercise, but he gave me the feeling that he was not exercising, but was dragged by something.
The elevators in residential buildings are always broken, and residents here are climbing stairs most of the time. Once the elevator broke down, I got up to climb the stairs, and happened to meet that strange old man who was also going upstairs. He walked ahead, still maintaining the usual posture I used to have, and walked backwards. His legs and feet are not flexible, and he walks with a limp. The whole corridor is filled with footsteps that are light and heavy. His eyes are always staring at me, but every time he turns a corner, he can always turn around and start accurately, as if there are a pair of eyes to know the way on the back of his head covered with gray hair.
I live on the third floor. The third floor is a good location, unlike the first and second floors, where the lighting rate is low, it is easy to be blocked by the buildings in front, and it is not as high as the fourth floor, where you have to climb breathlessly for a long time every time the elevator stops.
There are two families who live with me on the third floor. The owner of Room 33 across the hall has not seen anyone all the year round, and Room 32 next to me is Mr. Luo's family. I once saw that strange old man walk into 32. It must be Mr. Luo who picked up his old father, or some relatives who stayed at his house temporarily.
Although this matter has nothing to do with me, every time I think of this old man walking backwards, I feel an indescribable fear, which often makes me sleepless. Every time in the middle of the night, I always feel that he will walk backwards into my room, then backwards to my bed, and then backwards into my dreams. Since I saw him, I often woke up in the middle of the night, as if he had been standing at the head of the bed with his back to me, isolating the faint light outside the window from a dark silhouette.
I haven't had a good sleep for a long time.
It's obviously impossible to continue like this. I think it's necessary to ask the neighbors clearly. Although I have been a neighbor for several years, I only know his surname Luo, and I have no communication on weekdays. At most, I bumped into him coming home from work in the middle of the night. But think about it carefully, it seems that I haven't seen him for a long time. Even though I stare at his door from the cat's eye every night after work, I want to wait for him to appear and ask clearly, but I have never seen him come out of 32 or go back from the outside.
I got up late one day and happened to meet a woman carrying a garbage bag after I went out. I know her. She is the wife of Mr. Luo. As for her name, I'm not sure.
"take out the garbage?" I asked her with a smile. There is a strange smell on a woman's body, like a lot of perfumes mixed together. If you smell it carefully, there is a disgusting smell like rotten meat burnt.
"yes." She glanced at me. She should know that I live next door.
"Hey, where's your husband?" I asked her tentatively.
She gave me a wary look and rolled her eyes at the elevator monitor. The elevator will stay for a long time at every floor. It seems that there are people taking the elevator at every floor, and now the elevator is stuck on the ninth floor.
"He is very busy at work every day, and he gets home late every day."
she is lying.
Through the green transparent garbage bag, I can see the box containing jelly and chocolate. At the bottom of the box are a few vegetable roots and rotten leaves, and there are two or three small square express boxes. There is a small plastic bag with knots next to the express box, which can be seen as containing leftover noodles.
Mr. Luo's wife is a slim woman, and her face is painted with delicate makeup, which shows that she attaches great importance to appearance, so jelly and chocolate should be eaten by her children. I know the law of taking out the garbage in her house very well, because every three days, a bag of garbage will appear at her door, so it will be taken every three days. Seeing that there is so little garbage left in the garbage bag for cooking, it can be seen that cooking is rarely done at home, and only two meals have been cooked at most in these three days. Noodles in a small plastic bag are mixed with noodles, which shows that these two meals are all pasta. According to the proportion of meals, there are no more than two adults in each meal, so no meal is finished, which shows that both of them have a small appetite, and it is inferred that Mr. Luo's wife cooked it for herself and her children. The seal of the express box was cut open with a knife. When I saw Mr. Luo before, the large and small express boxes were directly torn apart. It can be seen that it has always been Mr. Luo's job to disassemble the express box, but the openings of these express boxes are so neat that it should be Mr. Luo's wife. I didn't see the takeaway box in the garbage bag, so no one in her family should stay at home all the time, which means that Mr. Luo is not at home at all these days.
2.
Why did she lie? Are you afraid that I am a bad person? And the old man who often goes in and out of 32, why have never seen them together?
I'm suddenly not sure if I should ask. I even suspect that I remember wrong. The old man went to 33 instead of 32 next door. But after so many days of observation, I have no reason to remember wrong.
The unknown is often frightening. I think we can't and shouldn't ask more questions about it.
since I can't ask myself, I have to try to find the answer online. At first, I found some folk rumors, saying that walking backwards is a ghost and so on, but I clearly saw him walking in broad daylight, how can I say that this old man is a ghost? After some tossing, I finally found the answer in an old post bar. It turns out that there is a custom in some remote villages, that is to say, some old people are afraid of death, and ghosts walk backwards, so these people walk backwards in their later years, hoping to deceive the impermanence of black and white and not be robbed of their souls.
The post also pointed out that this folk custom is quite common in some areas of Guangdong, and it is most popular in a village called "Santanyi", where old people walk backwards in their twilight years, thus causing many accidents. I remember that Mr. Luo spoke with a strong Cantonese accent, which is probably where the old man came from.
I thought I found the answer too.
I saw Mr. Luo's wife again three days later. She was carrying a bag of garbage and taking her eleven-year-old son out. Behind her son, I saw the old man who often walked backwards, and this time he was walking for the first time.
"Hey, I'm going out!" I said hello.
"yes ... yes." Mr. Luo's daughter-in-law looks very pale. If she hadn't painted blush, she would have looked like a newly painted white wall. She still has that strange smell, looks a little flustered, and looks very alert to me.
I smiled to myself. If I were really a bad person, I would have done it all these years ago. Why wait until now?
"Oh, I don't think uncle walked backwards today. I'll just ask."
"uncle?" Mr. Luo's wife gave me a puzzled look, then turned to look around, took her son and left.
when I saw that she didn't want to talk to me, I didn't bother to talk any more.
We took the elevator downstairs together. When we first got into the elevator, the child suddenly gave a strange cry and even shouted "Headache". I looked up and saw that the old man's hand clung tightly to the child's head like an eagle's claw, and the veins stood out suddenly and violently on his old and dry fingers, as if to crush the child's skull alive.
"Good boy, we'll go to the hospital at once." Mr. Luo's wife touched the child's face.
can't she see that this old man is pinching the child's head?
I wonder whether to say it or not. What if the child has a headache and the old man is massaging? But it doesn't look like a massage.
I still didn't hold my breath.
"hmm ... is uncle too strong?"
"what uncle? What strength? " Mr. Luo's wife stared at me doubtfully again.
"Isn't uncle holding the child's head?"
"where did you get the uncle?" She turned and looked around. I saw that she clearly saw the old man, but her eyes seemed to go straight through his body.
what's the matter? She really can't see it? I felt a whisper in my heart. She didn't mean to scare me, did she?
"It's so high ..." I gestured in front of me. "He looks like he's in his eighties with a moustache ..."
"Crazy." Before I could finish, the woman rolled her eyes and walked out of the elevator.
I watched her pull the child forward quickly. The old man was still close behind, and his hand was firmly locked on the child's head. I suddenly feel that this morning has become extremely cold, and my back is cold.
3.
I saw the figure of the old man from a distance. He stood at the bottom of the building, facing me, and looked like a ghost in the dark moonlight.
my heart twitched like a spasm, and the whole person shook into a ball. I suddenly feel that the temperature is as cold as the morning.
it seems that the old man saw me, too. The reason why I am so uncertain is that his high eyebrow arch blocks the light and makes his eye socket sink deeply, just like a blank room without doors and windows in the moonlight, which is dark and makes people feel inexplicable fear.
I'm hesitant to go there.
The old man suddenly took a step. Instead of starting like a normal person, he moved like a second hand on a clockwork pendulum. He began to move forward, his joints seemed to be rusted, and every step was very difficult. He walked very fast in the morning, and now ...
Is he waiting for me?
I was shocked by this inexplicable idea, but just when I was dreaming, I found myself at the stairs. I am like a puppet being manipulated, being dragged forward. There was no light in the corridor. I couldn't see the old man, only heard the light and heavy footsteps and my heavy breathing. I feel like walking in the old man's dark eyes, stepping on his cheekbones every step of the way.
my breathing is getting heavier.
as the darkness faded, I saw the lights in the corridor come on and shine brightly on a house number. It's 32 The door of room 32 was ajar, and there was no light in the room. Looking through the crack of the door, it was darker than the corridor just now. This is the first time I have seen his house unlocked.
that strange old man has disappeared, as if he just wanted to lead me here. Why did he lead me here? Did he want to hurt me? I don't think so. If he wanted to hurt me, I would be a corpse by now.
I looked at both sides, but I couldn't see the house number of 33 or my own house number. It seems that there is only one door and one family in this building.
it's a blessing, not a curse, but a curse. I reached into the door and groped for the switch position of the light at the side. I don't know if there was a power failure or there was no light bulb installed in the house. I pressed the switch several times but it didn't work.
There is a strange smell floating from the crack of the door in the house, which is a mixture of odor and fragrance, just like a person who doesn't take a shower all the year round wearing perfume. I have also smelled this smell from Mr. Luo's wife.
I can't see anyone in the room by the dim light in the corridor. There is a shoe rack by the door. Through the porch, the backrest of a chair is exposed on the left, and there is nothing on the right. Further inside, it is dark and I can't see anything clearly.
My mobile phone is relatively old, and it has no flashlight function, so I can only turn the screen to the brightest, and walk in with the faint light of the screen. The deeper you go, the stronger the strange smell and the more pungent the smell, which is the pungent smell of a chemical. The room was silent, and even if I tiptoed inside, my footsteps were extremely harsh.
There is a living room on the left, and there is no one on the chair. On the right is an open kitchen, with a table design, which shows that this family knows how to enjoy life. Go on, right in front of the door is a wet and dry bathroom with two bedrooms on the left and right.
I tried to twist the handle and the door was locked.
who locks the bedroom door? Isn't this very inconvenient? Of course, everyone has everyone's living habits, and if this family has any special hobbies, it is impossible to say.
there is nothing unusual about seeing the room, and my hanging heart also falls. Just as I was about to turn around and go out, I heard the sound of the lock cylinder turning, and then the door opened with a creak.
IV.
At the moment when the door was pushed open, a tidal wave of foul smell came to me, making me unable to open my eyes. I quickly lowered my head and rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand. Under the weak mobile phone screen, through my fingers, I saw many bottles and cans scattered in the room. Those are some air fresheners and various perfumes, and the bottle caps have been lifted. It seems that they have been used.
If all I smell is the smell of these things, it should always be fragrant, but I also smell a more irritating smell. It smells of sulfuric acid and rotten meat.
Those bottles were littered around the door, on the floor, on the bed, in the cupboard … and so on, on the bed … there was someone on the bed!
it should be a man, wearing black pants and naked. He opened the door for me? Then why don't you talk?
the light on the mobile phone screen is too dim to shine too far, but I still feel something is wrong. His body proportion is strange, and the upper part is too long, which makes his legs look short, as if they had been amputated.
I leaned forward with my mobile phone, and the pungent smell became stronger and stronger. I vaguely smelled the smell of death in this strange smell. It's the smell of corpse. Although I've never smelled the smell of corpse before, the word popped up in my mind at that moment, and I can't react at all.
I'd rather be sent to the police station as a thief than hit a dead body.
just when I put the screen of my mobile phone to the bed, the creepy scene on the bed scared me to fly my mobile phone instantly. I saw a head, and the skull of the head was knocked in many places, and it looked pitted. His face was covered with bruises, blue and purple. The most frightening thing was that his mouth split from the corners of his mouth to both sides, and his mouth was stuffed with glistening things. Both the mandible and the occlusal muscles were cut off and cracked to the earlobe, just like a clown without makeup. And the jagged wound on his mouth made his face show a strange smile, which made me stunned for just a moment.
that's Mr. Luo. Although he has changed beyond recognition, his baldness can't be wrong.
I sat slumped in the doorway, trying hard to escape from here, but my heels went limp, and I couldn't stand up at all. I had to brace myself with my arms and grab the corner to climb out. I suddenly realized that those air fresheners and perfumes were used to mask the smell of the body, and I smelled Mr. Luo's wife before.