Plague Doctor

The sound of gunfire reverberated at the end of the narrow cavern. A pool of dirty blood gathered on the ground. Both of the zombie’s legs were injured, and it was incapacitated. Other than a tattered cloth that covered its lower body modestly, the rest of its skin on its back and limbs were exposed. The dead spots on its body were crimson red from the splashed blood.

“You b*stards…” The zombie groaned in pain. His growls were filled with venomous hatred.

If not for the information it could provide, Gu Jun would not have minded giving it a shot to the head. He said, “Slowly turn around, or there’ll be more punishment coming your way.”

Since they approached it, the zombie had kept its face away from them. Even after it was shot, it still kept his front turned away. That was highly suspicious. This suspicious activity caused the team to be nervous. What if the zombie was hiding something dangerous in its chest…

The zombie slowly turned its body around to reveal its face. It was an old and ugly face. It had the shape of a human face, but it also contained hyena-like facial features. The protruding jaw was giving off the smell of putrefaction, and the eyes were muddy with tumult from long exposure to the abyss. Despite its appearance, the team could tell that this thing was once a human being. With that observation in mind, Gu Jun’s heart sank because he realized that the zombie before them was strangely familiar, like he had seen it somewhere before…

“Huh?” Xue Ba shared that feeling. His thick brows creased together as he looked as his team members inquisitively. Gu Jun peeled off the night vision goggles and was instantly thrown into darkness. Then, he aimed the flashlight affixed to his gun at the ugly creature. In the circle of light, Gu Jun could see clearly a rather conspicuous birth mark that was situated at the top-right of the zombie’s forehead. It jogged his memory… Birthmark, birthmark… An old portrait emerged from his memory. It slowly overlapped with the sickened appearance of the monster before him.

“You are…” Gu Jun couldn’t stop the chill in his voice. “Chen Fade, ‘Grandfather’ from Nan Tang Village.”

‘Grandfather?’ When they heard that keyword, the recognition also dawned on Xue Ba, Uncle Dan, and Lou Xiaoning. When they were investigating the grave robberies at Nan Tang Village, they had seen the portrait of that old man. It was on the tombstone of the most lavish grave, and it was also situated on the top shelf inside the Chen clan’s ancestral hall. One of the victims of the grave robberies was the respected elder of Chen clan, Grandfather, Chen Fade.

Based on what Chen Shu had said, it was Chen Fade who allowed the foreigners, Ol’ Uncle Dog’s family, to stay. When there were internal altercations, it was also Chen Defa who stepped forward to ease the tension. When Chen Shu reported to Grandfather about the strange ritual he had chanced upon at Ol’ Uncle Dog’s family yard, and it was this Grandfather who had assured Chen Shu that it was nothing more than a dream.

Back then, the group had already had their suspicions about Grandfather, but with a bigger suspect like Ol’ Uncle Dog, the investigation did not focus that much on him. But now, this zombie before them appeared to be Chen Defa, who was supposed to have died seventy-two years ago, who had the biggest funeral Nan Tang Village had ever seen when he died at the old age of 82.

Gu Jun was reminded of another detail in Chen Shu’s stories. It was Grandfather who assigned the job of hauling unknown floating corpses down the river to Ol’ Uncle Dog’s family. People thought that was Grandfather’s way of helping Ol’ Uncle Dog’s family assimilate into the village, but there appeared to be an ulterior motive behind it. Gu Jun had also heard from Chen Shu that once Ol’ Uncle Dog’s family took over the job, most of the floating corpses disappeared before the villagers had the chance to even see them in the water. The strange smell from Ol’ Uncle Dog’s house, the strange noise, and the dark shadow being summoned…

This Chen Defa and the three other villagers whose tombs were disturbed, they probably had… joined Ol’ Uncle Dog’s cult back when they were still alive.

“Chen Defa.” Wu Siyu had caught up on the files over the past two days. Other than the content of the nightmare itself, she knew everything. “What’s wrong about being human?”

“How long… can you live as a human?” Chen Defa’s face moved into ghastly visage as he answered. “Can human beings rise above the threat of the nightmare?”

Chen Defa’s slightly sarcastic tone appeared to be signifying that he was talking about something superfluous, but the madness within his eyes appeared to be taunting them. If not for Xue Ba, Lou Xiaoning would have peppered the zombie into a beehive by now. “So, you admit it was you people who are behind the nightmare Illness?”

“Ignorant fools, you have no idea what you are talking about,” Chen Defa croaked. The derision was thick in his reply. “Your puny Phecda has been in existence for less than sixty years. Of course you don’t know about some orders that have been in activity for thousands of years already. What you see with your eyes open might not be real; what you see with your eyes closed might not be false…”

‘Order?’ Gu Jun frowned. ‘Is it the order that mom is a part of? No, based on what happened earlier… the zombies like Chen Defa do not appear to worship that stone statue…’

“You mean like your Order of R’yleh?” Gu Jun purposely asked.

“Ignorant fools.” The hatred was clear in Chen Defa’s eyes.

It appeared that the two cults were in opposition to one another, but in any case, there still remained many questions to be answered.

‘Is Nightmare Illness the work of the R’yleh Cult or the zombie cult? Has Ol’ Uncle Dog been exiled to that barren island in the nightmare, or was he there willingly? R’yleh… did sound somewhat similar to Lai Sheng Company, so was there a relationship between the two?’

A chill ran up his spine.

‘The Great Old Ones’ ‘rule the world’. If the Son of Misfortune worshipped the Master of R’yleh, who was this true God that was mentioned by the Afterlife Cult when they said ‘the promise that had been given to us by the true God’?

‘If Afterlife cult was in the R’yleh Cult in the foreign world, then the Shaman and mom could be a part of the R’yleh Cult on Earth.’

Gu Jun then remembered that there were homonyms in the foreign language. For example, he had already confirmed that Afterlife Cult was equivalent to Lai Sheng Company. Then this could explain the split in the cult. The ‘Afterlife Cult’ from the foreign world was made of the apostates while the ‘Afterlife Cult’ on Earth still worshipped R’yleh, believing its master would bring them ascendency and rebirth.

‘The first tragedy is over. The second tragedy will soon arrive. The Malformed Banyan Disease, Nightmare Illness…’

Gu Jun’s mind was surfeited with confusing thoughts. They pulled him into a sinkhole of chaos, confusion, pain, and distortion. The presence of Lai Sheng Company was featured once more in his mind. He thought he’d be done with them after their encounter at the shrine, but Gu Jun had a feeling that was not the case. Gu Jun thought he was close to finding out about his background, but now it appeared like he was deeper in a thicker fog.

This squeezed his heart, and a sense of nausea overwhelmed him. At the same time, Chen Defa slowly stood up. Blood ran freely from the bullet wounds on his two legs due to his movement.

“Do not move!” Xue Ba ordered sternly. Even though the monster had been severely injured, it could still pose a great threat. Chen Defa was staring down the barrels of five firearms, but there was no fear on his ugly face. If anything, there was only madness and audacity. “You call us zombies, creatures of the dead, but only we can access the place that you living fools cannot even imagine…”

Suddenly, he pounced at them with his jaws open. The sharp teeth were gleaming in the dark. The smell of decay hit the team. It moved surprisingly fast, and it only gave the team a moment to react. Their professional instinct kicked in and they pulled on the trigger.

Gunfire lit up the small cavern and the bullets hit the zombie’s body. He was knocked back before landing to the ground. The zombie’s face started to convulse from madness, the lips were singing some kind of incoherent song as the madness in his eyes slowly evaporated into nothingness.