Chapter 4 Who is he

A few months ago, when I was in the hospital for a heart attack, I experienced a very strange and terrifying incident, which still puzzles me. I want to hurry up while I still have a little memory. It's recorded. I was admitted to this hospital with a heart attack, and after a few weeks, my condition improved so much that I was transferred from the intensive care unit to a regular single room. The ward where I lived was a long, narrow room with very dim lighting.On both sides of my ward, there are more than ten single wards, all of which are full of patients. When I first stayed in this ward, I was very uncomfortable. The sound of radio and TV came from other rooms from time to time, so I had to close the door all day, because I like to read quietly.

One day, I was reading in my room, and the door opened slightly. Although I didn't hear the sound of opening the door, and I didn't look up, I concluded by intuition that there was a person standing at the door and watching me. I thought this man was visiting me, but when I looked up, I was very disappointed.It turned out to be the barber of the hospital. He was wearing a thin, tattered alpaca jacket and was carrying a dirty black bag in his hand.Although I didn't know him well, his first impression on me was terrible. He didn't speak, just raised his bushy eyebrows, meaning to ask if I needed a haircut.

I shook my head in disgust, and said to him: "Ignore it now, let's talk about it in a few days." Suddenly, a look of disappointment appeared on his face.He hesitated at the door for a moment, finally closed the door quietly, turned and left. I continued to read, but for some reason, I couldn't concentrate on the book anymore, and I was taken aback by the sudden visit of the guy just now.The more I thought about it, the angrier I became. How could the hospital allow such a reckless guy to break into the ward casually?Besides, I'm still a heart patient.I plan to complain to the hospital about this when I am discharged.

I wanted to rest for a while, so I took a sedative, but I didn't fall asleep.I did sleep soundly that night though, and of course I took a double dose of sleeping pills.The next morning, after taking a shower, changing the sheets, and taking my temperature, I sat on the bed and continued to read. At this time, I found that facing the book that once attracted me very much, I could no longer read it quietly.I couldn't help but look around, but there was nothing around.My heart was in a mess, and I finally understood what it was like to be troubled. After yesterday's incident, I asked the nurse to help me lock the door from the outside so that no one would disturb me.But I don't know why, but now I have a strong desire to leave the door wide open, otherwise I will feel very depressed.So, I rang the bell again to call the nurse over.

After a while, a Swedish female nurse with fair hair came in, she was a lively girl.She jokingly said to me, "What? Are you tired of being a hermit? I knew you wouldn't last long!" I smiled and nodded at her.She opened the door for me and left. I continued to lie on the bed and read. However, at this time, although my eyes stayed on the pages of the book, I kept rummaging about the door in my mind, "What made me so uneasy?" Finally I understood, the hairdresser I saw yesterday It's the source of my inner tension!It was because of his sudden appearance that I was frightened, and I hope I will never see him again.

It was noon in a blink of an eye, and I was a little sleepy, so I threw the book aside and took a nap against the quilt.Just when I was drowsy and about to fall asleep, suddenly, there was a terrifying scream from the ward next to me, and I sat up in fright. I was still in shock, as if I could hear the beating sound of my heart "pounding".I listened for a while, but nothing happened.So I comforted myself in my heart: don't be nervous, maybe some patient was careless and accidentally turned on the TV to the maximum volume.Just when I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, there was another commotion in the corridor of the ward, with shouts and footsteps, and the medical staff rushed towards the ward where the noise came from.

After a while, the noisy voice gradually quieted down, and the doctors and nurses also returned to their respective posts.A few minutes later, I saw several staff members pushing a car past my door, on which lay a person covered from head to toe with a white cloth, apparently a dead body. I rang the bell to call the nurse, and almost as soon as the bell stopped, the nurse with fair hair came in. I didn't expect her to respond so quickly.I saw that her face was a little pale. "What happened just now?" "Yes, it's Mr. Ike from the nearby ward..." She hesitated.

"A heart attack?" I asked nervously. "Yes. But there was no sign beforehand." She nodded and said. I observed her face carefully, and asked tentatively: "People who have a heart attack usually suffer from such pain that they can't speak, but isn't it a little abnormal for Mr. Ike to yell like that?" She was silent, and after a while, she said cautiously: "For ordinary patients, they should not yell like this, but fall down weakly. But it is not certain, maybe Mr. Ike's condition worsened at that time, and he was in pain. Unbearable, he screamed with the last of his strength... This phenomenon is indeed a bit...abnormal."

She also seemed to find it difficult to justify herself, so she smiled apologetically at me and said, "Don't be suspicious, your health has improved a lot, and you will be discharged from the hospital in a short time." The more she comforted me like this, the more worried I became, not only thinking about it during the day, but even thinking about it at night. I was worried that I would have a heart attack and die soon and painfully.Afterwards, the doctor gave me a special pill, and I regained my composure. For the next two days, nothing happened. This afternoon, I sat on the bed and read as usual.At this moment, the door opened suddenly, and I felt my scalp go numb, and I felt a pair of eyes staring at me at the door again.

I braved up and looked up to the door, and sure enough it was him again!The barber in the alpaca jacket with the black dirty pocket.He was standing by the door just like last time, raising his eyebrows at me, as if asking me if I wanted a haircut. A surge of anger suddenly rose in my heart, this damned guy has come to scare me again!Although I didn't close the door, I should knock twice first, right?There is simply no education at all! "Get out! I don't get a haircut." I said angrily to him, "If I need a haircut, I will ask the nurse to let you know!" He didn't move, and still stood by the door expressionlessly, as if he was wearing a human skin mask, only a pair of eyes kept turning, showing great disappointment in his eyes.It seemed to me that there was not only disappointment in his eyes, but also hatred.No!It's not just as simple as hatred, it's full of resentment!His resentful eyes seemed to tear my body apart.I suddenly felt a burst of blood rushing upwards, and my whole heart seemed to hang up.

I pretended to be calm and said to him in a relatively gentle tone: "Can you please leave? I am a heart patient and I need to rest." I don't know if I was hallucinating at that time, because I seemed to see him bow to me, then turn and leave. In the evening, I was waiting in the ward for the nurse to deliver dinner. Suddenly, there was another amazing cry from a nearby room, but this time it was different from the last time. It was not a loud scream, but a deep wail, as if It's like being strangled by someone's throat. I was stunned, and my heart seemed to pop out of my throat.Then, there was another burst of loud shouts and footsteps, among which there seemed to be the sound of running away and chasing.The sound gradually moved towards the fire escape of the hospital, farther and farther away, and finally nothing could be heard. Because the light in the corridor of the hospital is not very good, I can't see what happened outside. I can only judge from the distance of the sound. The ward where the accident seems to be closer to my ward.After a while, I saw the staff pushing a dead body past my door. It seemed that another patient had left me. Trying to figure out what the hell was going on lately, I rang for the nurse, but this time it wasn't the old one who came in, but a new, petite nurse with red hair.It turned out that the previous Swedish nurse was on vacation, and this new nurse took care of me today.I paid attention to her expression, and it was obvious that the smile on her face was forced. "Who was the one who died just now?" I asked. She hesitated for a moment, and finally said, "It's Mr. Mel, who lives in Ward 375." My heart tightened: "Room 375? My ward is 377. I didn't expect us to be so close!" I also want to know more from the new nurse, but she shook her head and told me that she didn't know too much, because she was not there when Mr. Mel's accident happened, and she only knew about Mr. Mel's misfortune a few minutes ago. . The next day, I tried to get some useful information from several other nurses, but I couldn't get any.I guess, the hospital must have given them a gag order, because they almost all said that Mr. Mel died peacefully, and they all denied that Mr. Mel had groaned or wailed before his death.They also said Mr Meyer had rang the bell to call a nurse before he passed out and that if he wailed, it was an "involuntary" cry from unconsciousness. I asked them again: "What's the matter with the sound of running away and chasing in the corridor?" They all said they didn't know, and one of the nurses even said that it was an auditory hallucination caused by my lack of sleep, and it never happened. something like that. In fact, I don't want to let myself get into these unpleasant things, but I can't forget the knot in my heart every day I don't understand it. This afternoon, I was reading a letter from a friend in my room. At this time, there was a light knock on the door. I followed the sound and saw a young man standing at the door. He had shiny hair and a mustache. , wearing a white jacket on his upper body, and carrying a small brown suitcase in his hand. "Sir, I am the barber of the hospital. Excuse me, do you want a haircut?" He asked politely. I hesitated for a moment and said, "I'm a bit busy now, so how about it, I'll contact you again in a day or two." "Well, sir, I'll be back in a day or two." He nodded kindly. As soon as he left, I kind of regretted it and thought he should stay.The first is that my hair is really long and I should get a haircut; the second is that I can ask about another barber from him, the guy who scared me twice, of course, I hope he never does it again Appear. In the following days, my condition recovered quickly and I was able to get out of bed and move around.One afternoon, I took a wheelchair to the yard to bask in the sun. Just as I was sitting in a daze under the warm sunshine, a hospital security guard walked up to me, and I called him over to chat with me. I have had many jobs in my life.When I was young, I also worked as a security guard in a company. Therefore, the security guard in the hospital and I had a common language, so we sat in the sun and chatted happily. Gradually, the topic of our chat turned to the two heart patients who died not long ago.I quickly noticed that my new security friend seemed to be talking about him, and seemed very disturbed, looking around to see if anyone was listening to our conversation. Under my repeated questioning, he finally approached me, lowered his voice and said, "I can tell you the truth, but you must keep your mouth shut!" "Don't worry, I can guarantee with my personality that I will never confide a word to others!" I swore to him. He nodded and thought for a long time, as if he was considering how to start. "Just tell me how they died." I reminded him. "Okay. The death conditions of the two patients were very strange," he recalled. "When they died, their faces were full of fear, their eyes were wide open, and their muscles were twisted, as if they had seen an extremely terrifying scene before they died." "So, what's the matter with the footsteps in the corridor?" I asked curiously. "This is another unbelievable thing," he said. "When the medical staff rushed to hear the sound, they all saw a short guy with a black bag in his hand and quickly fled the scene. The second time, I also witnessed it with my own eyes, and even chased it for a while.” Hearing this, I felt my heart beating faster and faster, and I said in a trembling voice: "Have you ever seen his face clearly?" "Unfortunately, I only saw his profile," said the security guard. "The man was thin and small, wearing a thin alpaca jacket and carrying a worn black bag in his hand. I never From the side of his face, there is no expression. Oh, yes, his eyebrows are thick and black!" "It really is him!" I exclaimed, "I know who he is, he is the barber in your hospital!" "Barber?" The security guard's expression suddenly became confused, "Impossible, the barber in the hospital is a young man with a mustache and a white coat. He is the only barber in this hospital. There is no second." Now it was my turn to be confused.I blinked my eyes and asked again, "Where did you see that person and escaped?" The security guard held his chin and said: "Oh, I didn't see him when he appeared for the first time, but when he appeared for the second time, I happened to be patrolling on the first floor, and I saw this kid escape from Mr. Mel's room. I chased after him, but he ran down the fire escape." "You didn't catch up with him?" "No," the security guard shook his head. "This guy is so agile, like a rabbit. When I chased him to the parking lot, he climbed over the fence of the parking lot in two or three steps, but I spent a lot of money on it." It took two or three minutes to turn over, and when I looked for him again, he had long since disappeared.” I was dumbfounded. Seeing my expression, the security guard smiled wryly and said, "You know, there are even more unbelievable things to come!" "What's the matter? Tell me quickly!" I asked. "You remember the black bag he was carrying?" "Remember." I nodded quickly. "When he climbed over the fence, the pocket was scratched by the fence and the contents were scattered all over the place," he said. "Afterwards, I walked over and took a look. Guess what was in it?" "Don't whet my appetite, just say it!" "That bag was filled with dirt, the normal kind," he said. "What's so strange about the dirt?" I was a little disappointed. "You would never have imagined that we also found the same soil on the beds of the two deceased!" "Huh?" I opened my eyes wide in surprise. "Maybe I shouldn't tell you this, but now that I've said it, let me tell you everything I know." The security guard looked around vigilantly, "Later, I handed over the soil in that bag as physical evidence to you." I gave it to the police. However, before that, I secretly kept some and gave it to a good friend who works in the laboratory, asking him to help test the composition of the soil. Guess what he found?" "What did you find?" I asked nervously. He leaned into my ear and whispered, "That dirt is from the grave!" "Ah!" I exclaimed in surprise, "how does your friend know that the soil came from the grave?" "My friend observed the composition of the soil with a microscope and found that it was mixed with fine fragments of marble and granite, as well as fragments of artificial flowers and wreaths. The friend also said that he found two fragments of bone in the soil sample. After identification, Those are human bones! Besides, the dirt is mixed with moss, as if someone dug them out of a damp, dark grave!" The story of the security guard ends here. Since then, the little guy has never been seen again, no one knows where he came from, and no one knows where he went. Later, when I told this story to my friends, a self-confessed smart friend speculated that the little guy was actually a psychopath who sneaked into the hospital to scare the patients.Wearing a mask, he sneaks into the patient's room, then suddenly removes the mask, scaring Mr. Ike and Mr. Mel to death.As to why he left dirt on the patient's bed, that's not known. My friend's explanation made sense, but I couldn't accept it. I think: that little guy, maybe not human, but some kind of "thing".That "thing" is, for some obscure supernatural reason, incapable of entering a patient's room unless the occupant of the room allows it.I believe that Mr. Ike and Mr. Mell were the ones who died of fright when they allowed that "thing" into the room.And I escaped death by refusing its request for a haircut. Of course, the above point of view can only be buried in my heart. One thing I'm sure of, though, is that if I had allowed that "thing" to come into my room, you probably wouldn't have read this mysterious story—I would have ended up just like Mr. Ike and Mr. Mel! Who is it?Perhaps, I will never find the answer.