A Guest In A Ghost House

The lifeguard was successfully driving the children away, all except for some 14 and 15 year old kids who were in their rebellious teen years. They all turned to the lifeguard with disdain in their eyes. None of them showed any intention of leaving.

At that very moment, a child kicked the water a few times, feeling his foot hit something, he turned to examine the water around his foot. A sharp scream filled the air, causing everyone to look at him questioningly.

I knew exactly why he had screamed, his foot had managed to kick the head of the floating body.

Everyone immediately noticed why the boy had screamed as soon as they saw the body, the lifeguard instinctively swam towards it. He had previously been helping a few children quickly get ash.o.r.e. The children didn"t dare to disobey orders any longer. One by one, they began shouting and swimming towards the sh.o.r.e. For reasons I didn"t understand, it seemed that most of them weren"t swimming for the side of the pool with the ladder. Instead, it felt as if most people were going past the boy and Wu Ting to get out of the water.

The water wasn"t very deep, though there was quite a large distance to the sh.o.r.e for many of the children. A few them were panicking and could not get themselves up over the edge. They all stretched out their hands and wanted to help the boy pull himself away from the body. However, the boy was under the control of Wu Ting and had no response to the calls of the other children. He just stared idly at the other kids by the sh.o.r.e, as if hypnotized.

The boy was not reacting, so the children left to go try and lift their small bodies over to dry land, but most of them found themselves exhausted halfway and would end up falling back into the water.

The lifeguard had finally managed to lift the body out of the water and swam towards the sh.o.r.e.

Wu Ting was definitely causing this. There was no other explanation as to why these people couldn"t go ash.o.r.e. I was so angry, that I shouted at Wu Ting: "What are you trying to do here? These people are innocent!"

Finally reacting, Wu Ting slowly turned her head to look at me. Her pupils, covered with blood stared at me for a long time before s.h.i.+ning a sinister smile in my direction: "There are human beings and ghosts among this crowd. Can you tell which is which? Just try it."

The last words "try it" were full of disdain and mockery. I was so full of rage, I completely forgot about the horror that was Wu Ting. "Why don"t you come over here?" I shouted with a confidence I probably shouldn"t have.

Wu Ting smiled and shook her head: "I promise other people won"t harm you. Since you like to meddle in other"s business, then why don"t you just take care of it? This is just the beginning, Make sure you figure out which is the real ghost. If you end up saving it, you will end up killing all the people."

When Wu Ting finished speaking, she exposed her teeth with a very large smile and instantly vanished as if she had never been standing there. In the place where she previously stood, there were water stains giving off the horrid stench of stale humidity. The gravel under the stains could still be seen.

The boy"s entire body s.h.i.+vered, as if he had suddenly woken up. Hearing the others shouts, he grabbed ahold of the other children"s hands until he made it to sh.o.r.e, still panicking.

The lifeguard had already changed his course and turned to the handrail over by where I was standing, as he swam towards the sh.o.r.e he yelled out, "Please, help!"

I was surprised as I stared back at the lifeguard. I pointed at myself doubtfully with my hand. I thought he had been unable to see me.

"It doesn"t matter who you are, don"t let this child drown." The lifeguard was furious. His actions were quick, and as he was crying out for my help he had swum towards the sh.o.r.e. Unfortunately, the body was so heavy that the lifeguard couldn"t drag it to dry land alone, even after trying several times. He yelled at me again to go and help him.

I was now sure that the lifeguard could see me and rushed forward to help, but the body felt stiff and it felt as if there was no way to pull it up. The boy and a few friends gasped on the sh.o.r.e and came to help.

Several people worked hard to finally lift the lifeless body to the sh.o.r.e. The lifeguard very professionally examines the body from his head covered in inch-long hair, to his wrists as he checked for a pulse. His shoulders slumped, and he gave in to the anxiety building up within him. He could not stop shaking his head.

Seeing that saving the person with the inch-long hair was hopeless, several children were crying, pointing at each other and complaining that they should not have come here to swim or that they shouldn"t stay for so long.

I didn"t say a word. I just quietly looked over the whole situation. Wu Ting"s words were very clear. Among these people there was a ghost. If I could not find out who it was, then it might be impossible to save these people"s lives. Perhaps I could not escape death this time, either. Although Wu Ting said that she promised someone she wouldn"t hurt me, if other ghosts managed to kill me, I"m certain she would be happy to see it.

The children chattered with a mix of cries and complaints for a while, until finally someone realized that a child was missing. They all began looking for the child who had just been on the phone. Although were all calling out loudly, no one dared to go far from the crowd. They were all understandably frightened.

Lifeguard was looking over his mobile phone, it seemed there was a problem with it. The lifeguard violently shook the phone, his face full of anxiety. Once he heard that there was a child missing, his face abruptly turned snow white. At that very moment, a couple of people found two other bodies in the pool.

In the dim light, the floating body in the pool was not clear, but no one, including the lifeguard, dared to go into the pool again. It was almost impossible to see and take care of three people drowning at a time.

"Do any of you have a cell phone? Call the police quickly. My phone has no signal." Said the lifeguard.

Hearing this, the boy turned around and prepared to run to the dressing room. But after taking one look at the dark dressing room in the distance, he stopped without running two steps and turned his head around and said, "I"m afraid. Let"s go together."

The rest nodded their heads and pressed themselves close to each other as they ran towards the locker room. The lifeguard did not move, he covered the face of the unnamed body with a bath towel, and took out a cigarette and began to smoke.

I took a cig from the lifeguard, whose eyes were bloodshot. I didn"t say a word and lit it silently. There were now five people left beside me.

The lifeguard, the boy, another boy with a tattoo on his arm, a skinny boy and a fat white boy. One of these people had to be a ghost. Perhaps more than one of them was a ghost.

But who? As of right now, I still couldn"t tell who it was, so I had to keep my distance from them. Hopefully I could spot some clues from a bystander"s point of view.

The lifeguard smoked, tossing the smoked ash into the swimming pool, and began trying to be chatty with me. "I"ve got the worst luck. I"ve worked here less than a month, and this happens!"

I did not have the heart to answer the lifeguards sad words. I mostly replied with mhm"s, oh"s and ah"s. Even though the lifeguard didn"t feel like a ghost, I was still alert to anything suspicious.

"These kids really are bit too playful. Do they come here often?" I interrupted him to ask as soon as he mentioned something about the children causing trouble.

The lifeguard nodded, his face defeated: "Well, they come here every few days. But nothing"s ever happened before. How could I have such bad luck."?

"Are they the same people every time?"

"Not always. The tattoo guy and the boy are always here, the others come a few times a week. It"s the first time I see that chubby kid though."

I nodded. I had gained new information, but I still couldn"t be sure. Everyone was still suspect.

"We don"t have any signal on our phones." cried a boy as he came out of the locker room, the others following behind him. Almost everyone had a cellphone, yet it looked like none of them were able to use it. The fat boy violently through his mobile phone to the ground.

"Let"s go and get the police first." Said the thin boy. At some point he had put on his gla.s.ses, he was now pressing them up his nose as he made his suggestion. He appeared rather calm and collected.

It was as if everyone had simultaneously realized this was the best thing they could do. They rushed over to the gate, as I followed behind at a quick pace, but also at a distance.

The door was not locked, but it wouldn"t open. Several people worked at it for a long time, but the door would not budge.

The lifeguard gasped, "I"ll go and turn on the lights. You keep trying."

He didn"t wait for a reply, instead just walked off into the darkness of the corridor. At the end of the corridor hung a plastic sign that hanging at an angle: Employees only, do not enter.

The lifeguard left, and some of the children began to struggle with the gate again, they called me over to help. I went over to and looked carefully at the rest of the people as I helped out.

The lights in the swimming pool were all on, it looked as if the whole swimming pool was illuminated by daylight. The two floating bodies in the pool were clearly visible, but they were still a little far away from us and we couldn"t see what they looked like. We could only tell what their s.e.x was and that they weren"t very old.

Even after some time, several of us couldn"t manage to get the door open. In the dark corridor ad tense environment, even if one did not believe in ghosts, they were sure to feel a heaviness in their heart.

After some time, the lifeguard rushed back out of the corridor with a frightened face, behind him there was nothing. The lifeguard stumbled along the corridor, then found a good place to sit in the middle of it and sat down.

One of the boys asked the lifeguard what he had found, but the lifeguard shook his head and didn"t say anything. Perhaps the lifeguard had some issue, the rest of us present began to suspect him greatly. The lifeguard rested for a while, then went to open the door for what seemed like 10 minutes. He then gave up and sat down, exhasperated. As he sat there, he looked over to me being extremely anti-social sitting on one side by myself and he paused for a moment.

Suddenly, he leaned over to the tattooed boy"s ear and whispered something that caused the tattooed boy to s.h.i.+ver. Then he turned and looked into my eyes with horror. When I looked back at him, he quickly turned his face, pretending not to look at me.

Whispers spread among the crowd, but no one told me what was said. Everyone"s eyes that looked at me had changed, I knew that there must be something in the conversation that involved me, and it was possible that it had something to do with the current situation.

Several people pressed against the door. Their effort was valiant, but it seemed the door was not going to open no matter what they did.

I frowned. If the ghost used some sort of method I didn"t know about to isolate me, it would be troublesome. If these people turned into a mob against me, things would get really bad.

It didn"t help that I didn"t know what they"re saying.

I coughed a little and tried to draw their attention so I could begin to talk, but I didn"t realize that my cough had frightened a few people, and they quickly moved away from me by taking a few steps back. This left me speechless for a while. What the heck was going on?