At 10:00 PM, I finally got off work and headed home. Passing by a convenience store, I pulled over to grab a quick bite. Just as I stepped out of the store, I looked up. In my previously empty car, a child was sitting. He was pressed against the car window, staring blankly at me. Where his eyes should have been, there were only two black holes. 01 I shuddered in terror. The shopping bag slipped from my grasp, its contents spilling across the pavement. When I looked up again, the child was gone. The car was completely empty. The street was deserted; the only sound was a dog barking in the distance. I suddenly remembered the recent news about small animals being tortured and killed in this area. In a small town like ours, many of the street cameras were broken, making it impossible to catch the culprit. A chill of late autumn air swept over me. I pulled my coat tighter and hurried to my car. I rubbed my tired, aching eyes. I must be exhausted. My mind is playing tricks on me. I remembered a time when I mistook a child on a billboard for a real person, and laughed at myself for a good while. By the time I pulled into my garage, it was almost 11:00 PM. I grabbed the shopping bag from the passenger seat, ready to get out. As I looked down, I noticed something under the passenger seat. I reached out and touched it. It was a small, worn-out blue canvas shoe. The sole was stained with dark red mud. My hand trembled uncontrollably, and I quickly threw the shoe out of the car. The garage was empty; all I could hear was my own rapidly rising and falling heartbeat. I quickly locked the car and hurried inside. My boyfriend, Mark, was still awake. He jumped when he saw me. "Penny, what's wrong? You look awful, like you've seen a ghost." He chuckled, but I was in no mood for jokes. "I think... I really did see a ghost!" Mark's brow furrowed slightly as I recounted what had just happened. "Come on, let's go check out that shoe." With Mark's encouragement, we went back to the garage together. The shoe was still there. I was too scared to touch it, but Mark bravely picked it up. With his back to me, he stared at it for a long time without saying a word. "What did you find? You've been staring at it for so long." I walked over. He was looking down, his lips moving slightly, whispering a few breathy words: "He found me... he really found me..." "What?" I didn't hear clearly and put my hand on his shoulder. He jumped as if electrocuted, let out a startled cry, and threw the shoe away. "N-nothing," his voice was unsteady. "Probably just some kids playing a prank, tossing it in your car. Let's go back inside!" He turned and practically jogged toward the stairwell. I stared at the canvas shoe for a few seconds before turning to catch up with Mark. In the shadows by the corner of the building, the carcass of a black cat lay silently, its belly sliced open, its eyes staring blankly at the sky. 02 Back home, I asked Mark: "What did you... mean by 'he found me'?" His eyes darted around. "Huh? Did I say that? You must have misheard. I said... it was probably a prank." I didn't press the issue. Mark's reaction earlier had been even more intense than mine. He's a medical student. In the three years we've been together, he's always been logical and calm. I rarely saw him like that. We didn't speak again that night. Lying in bed, I closed my eyes, and the face in the car window immediately appeared. Pale, ghastly. And those two deep black holes. As if they could suck away all the light. I don't know how much time passed, but in a hazy state, I felt it getting colder and colder. I instinctively snuggled closer to Mark. But as I reached out, the texture felt wrong. It wasn't Mark's solid, warm body. It was smaller, thinner. By the moonlight, I pulled back the covers. I looked down. The child was lying in my arms, his black eye sockets bubbling with bloody water, his mouth wide open, dragging out a long, blood-red tongue! "Ah!" I screamed and shot up, scrambling backward like a madwoman until my back slammed against the headboard, the pain making me gasp. Mark turned on the light. The blinding brightness instantly banished the darkness. He sat beside me, looking bewildered. "Penny? What's wrong? A nightmare?" Panting heavily, I looked at him in sheer terror, then quickly jerked my head toward the spot beside me. Besides me and him, the bed was empty. "I..." my voice shook violently. "I dreamt... that... child was lying where you are..." Under the light, Mark's face seemed to pale slightly. He hugged me. "It's okay, it's okay, just a dream. You're under too much stress." I clung to him. In the darkness, his silhouette felt like a silent statue. I slept fitfully. Near dawn, Mark, who was leaning against the headboard, made an incredibly slight movement. I watched as he very slowly, carefully slipped out of bed, barefoot, stepping on the floor without making a sound. He grabbed his phone from the nightstand, tiptoed out of the bedroom, and gently pulled the door shut. I immediately opened my eyes, quietly got up, and pressed my ear against the cold door. From outside came a muffled, heavily suppressed voice. It was Mark; his voice sounded incredibly tense. "Dr. Davis... that child... I think he found us... Penny saw him last night..." The person on the other end seemed to reply. "Okay... okay... we'll go there shortly..." The call ended. The living room fell dead silent. Pressed against the door, my hands and feet were freezing. Mark was hiding something from me! 03 Mark didn't come back to bed. I lay there, my mind racing with wild thoughts, finally making it to dawn. He warmed up some milk for me, his expression normal, showing no flaws. "It's the weekend. Are you still working overtime?" he asked, his voice a bit hoarse. "Yeah, I have to go to school to grade exams." I looked down, sipping the milk, avoiding his gaze. "What about you?" "Something came up at the hospital. I have to go out to the suburbs with Dr. Davis later." He spoke quickly, turning to clear the dishes as soon as he finished. "I might be back late." Dr. Davis is an attending surgeon and Mark's supervisor. He was the person on the phone. After Mark left, I stood by the window and watched him buy something at the convenience store downstairs, put it in a black plastic bag, and drive out of the complex. The tension in my chest reached a breaking point. Follow him. Once the thought surfaced, I couldn't suppress it. I didn't dare drive my own car. Instead, I took an Uber and quietly followed him. Keeping a distance of a few cars, my palms were sweating the entire time. The driver even thought I was trying to catch him cheating and offered to help, which left me speechless. Mark's car headed straight out of the city, taking the highway toward the suburban county. The farther we drove, the more desolate it became, with buildings giving way to farmland and weeds. "Miss, looking at this direction, it seems we're heading towards West Hill Cemetery," the driver noted, puzzled. My heart sank a little lower. Finally, the car turned down a narrow road and parked at a public cemetery in the suburbs. I paid and got out, hiding in the parking lot. After getting out, Mark didn't go in immediately. He looked around the intersection, still carrying that black plastic bag. Soon, another car arrived. A man in his fifties got out, stern-faced and wearing glasses. That must be Dr. Davis. They exchanged a few low words, their expressions serious, and walked into the cemetery together. I followed from a distance. The dry grass brushing against my pants made a rustling sound that was unnerving in this quiet place. They stopped in front of a very new headstone. The area in front of the headstone was bare, with few signs of mourning. Mark took out incense, candles, joss paper, and a few paper toy cars from the black bag. He and Dr. Davis crouched down and lit the incense and candles. The firelight flickered in the wind, illuminating two faces heavy with worry. They started burning the joss paper. The yellow sheets curled and blackened in the flames, the ashes caught by the wind and scattered everywhere. Mark kept his head down, muttering something I couldn't hear, his posture unusually reverent. By the firelight, I could clearly see the photo on the headstone. It was a young boy, not even ten years old. 04 I hid behind an old tree, my heart pounding. My mind was a chaotic mess, filled with terrifying theories. Suddenly, my phone vibrated. Startled, I accidentally stepped on a dry twig. Snap! It wasn't loud, but in the silence of the cemetery, it was deafening. The two men burning paper stopped dead, whipping their heads around simultaneously! I turned to run. "Penny?!" Mark's shocked voice rang out from behind me. Quick footsteps followed. Before I could run far, my arm was caught in a vice-like grip by a large hand. It was Dr. Davis. He was strong, his eyes sharp, looking me up and down. "Who are you? Why are you following us?" "Let her go!" Mark rushed over, stepping between me and Dr. Davis, looking upset. "She's my girlfriend." Dr. Davis frowned and let go. "Penny, why are you here?" Hearing him ask that, I exploded, throwing caution to the wind and demanding: "I should be asking you that! Sneaking around behind my back, coming here! Why?" Mark opened his mouth, looked at Dr. Davis, then at the headstone, lowered his head, and sighed. "I'm sorry, Penny. I just didn't want to scare you." "I'm already terrified! You always do this, assuming you know best!" He took my hand and led me to the new headstone. The photo showed a chubby-cheeked boy with a buzz cut. "Penny," Mark's voice was dry, "I'll be honest. A week ago, a child was brought into the ER—this child. He was hit by a car on the highway, severely injured... Dr. Davis and I were on the trauma team." He shook his head. "Unfortunately... we couldn't save him." Dr. Davis added grimly: "He was a left-behind child. His parents work in the south, and his elderly grandparents live in a remote valley. They took their eyes off him, and he wandered onto the highway..." "We did everything we could." Mark looked at me, his eyes slightly red. "The shoe you showed me yesterday was identical to the one he was wearing! It's the standard issue from the rural Hope Elementary Schools." He squeezed my hand. "I told Dr. Davis about it this morning. We talked it over and decided to burn some offerings for the boy. I thought if it really was his spirit, I could handle it myself, and you wouldn't need to know." "Even though we're doctors and believe in science, sometimes, you have to believe in these things," Dr. Davis said solemnly. My tense nerves relaxed a little. "But," I looked at the smiling boy in the photo, remembering that pale, hollow face behind the car window. "Why didn't he go to you? Why did he come to me?" Mark and Dr. Davis exchanged a look. Neither of them spoke; only the wind howling from deep within the cemetery offered a response. It was a question with no answer. 05 I helped them burn the remaining joss paper. I bowed respectfully. Silently, I wished him peace on his journey. Having done that, I felt much more at ease. It should be over now, right? On the drive back, Mark was at the wheel. I suddenly remembered my phone vibrating earlier. It was my best friend, Chloe, calling. I called her back. She answered immediately, yelling frantically: "Penny! Where are you? You didn't return my call for ages! I thought something happened to you! I did a tarot reading for you! It's an omen of terrible disaster!" My best friend is great, but she's a bit quirky and loves dabbling in feng shui, the occult, and tarot. "I'm fine. What are you doing?" "Oh, I just wanted to ask you about the rural teaching program we talked about. Have you thought about it?" "I don't really want to go. I hear those kids are hard to handle since their parents are away." We chatted until I got home. In the end, she said she was worried about me and wanted to come over tomorrow. I couldn't argue with her and said, "Suit yourself." Back home, exhaustion washed over me like a wave. Maybe it was the wind at the cemetery, but I felt a lingering chill. Mark looked exhausted too. After a quick wash, we went to bed early. In the middle of the night, that same coldness swept over my entire body. I snapped my eyes open! Mark was gone. In the darkness, a small, thin silhouette stood silently by my bed. It was the child. This time, he didn't have that terrifying, ghastly face. Long hair covered his eyes. He slowly raised a single finger. And pointed directly at me. I screamed and sat up, gasping for air, cold sweat instantly soaking my pajamas. My heart hammered wildly against my ribs, and my ears rang. "Penny?" Mark, startled awake, fumbled for the light switch. The light was warm, but I was shaking uncontrollably. "He's here!" I clung to Mark, tears streaming down my face. "That child! He came back for me!" After crying for a while, I finally calmed down. "How about tomorrow, we go find a priest to do a ritual for the child," Mark comforted me. "No!" I interrupted him. "The child who came to me... isn't the same child you couldn't save!" "What?" I told Mark that I saw him clearly tonight, and based on his build and appearance, it wasn't the same boy. "Let's go to the police!" Mark said. I nodded. Early the next morning, I felt incredibly dizzy, like I was coming down with a severe illness. Mark went with me. First, we checked the garage for the shoe—it was still there—and then we went to the police station. We didn't say we saw a ghost; the police would never believe that. I asked the officer if any children had gone missing recently. Unfortunately, the answer was no. I handed over the shoe and briefly explained the situation. The officer seemed confused but took the shoe anyway, promising to look into it. When we got home, Chloe was hovering near our door, looking around anxiously. I called out to her. She turned, saw me, and her face went paper-white. She rushed over, grabbed my hands, and cried out: "Penny! You... you're dying!"
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