Don't be too insightful - Chapter 7
On the morning of June 3, 2000, Angela Nuño called his brother in another city. She listed a list of dried herbs and asked him to buy them for her and send them over.
My brother asked her what to do, she said in a low voice, “I’m afraid there is something bad in my employer’s house, I just want to defend myself”. Her family had always believed in ghosts, and the use of those herbs was passed down from her grandmother’s generation.
Angela works as a long-term babysitter in Squirrel Town, and there’s nowhere in town to buy those things. The employers, Mr. and Mrs. Cates, are always busy, and there are two children, one big and one small, so Angela’s holidays are irregular. When the employer couple is not busy, they will let her take a long vacation.
She doesn’t want to wait for the long vacation, she wants to get the herbal bag that can exorcise evil spirits as soon as possible.
Every day she hears strange voices…some voices that don’t exist, but are close.
Such as the sound of dragging heavy objects, the footsteps of hoofed animals, the scratching of fingernails or small claws, the clapping of something the wind blows, the indistinguishable percussion of near and far, etc…
The time of the sound is not fixed, the type is not fixed, and the location is unpredictable. It seems to be outside the house somewhere far away, and it seems to be in the wall when it is close. Sometimes it seems to be lurking in the wardrobe, and sometimes it seems to be hiding under the bed…
She was pretty sure she wasn’t hallucinating because her employer’s eldest son felt it too.
The boy’s name was Laird, and he was ten years old. Angela was sure that he must have felt something too, but he pretended to ignore these voices and was reluctant to talk about it.
One day not long ago, after nine o’clock in the evening, Angela routinely went to check how little Jerry, who was more than one year old, was sleeping.
Passing by Laird’s room, she noticed light coming through the crack of the door, and a small sobbing sound came from the room.
She gently pushed open the door and found Laird sitting on the rug wrapped in a quilt, holding a large flashlight.
He looked at the wardrobe in front of him for a while, and then at a small empty wall under the window. The light of the flashlight was dangling in the room. Even if Angela walked in, Laird did not intend to stop.
Angela asked what he was doing, and he said nothing, just playing.
He was clearly not playing. His face was pale and his voice trembled. Angela had found him in an inexplicable fear many times, but no matter how much she cared about him or tried to communicate with him, he would never reveal the reason behind his fear.
Angela, who has cared for many children, found this characteristic of Laird very unusual.
Ordinary children will shout that there are monsters in the closet, and there are demons under the bed… Even if a ten-year-old child is past that age, if he is really scared by something, he will take the initiative to seek the protection of adults. Laird is the opposite of the average kid who always says nothing.
Sometimes, even Angela heard a loud sound that flashed by. It appeared fast, disappeared fast, and was so close that it was hard to ignore, but it was also difficult to determine the source of the sound.
After Angela heard it, she looked at Laird, who stood stiffly with wide eyes, too frightened to move… but he wouldn’t say anything. Angela asked him if he heard anything, and he shook his head in silence.
Laird has always been a bit of a weird kid. When Angela first arrived at Cates’ house, Mr. Cates specifically talked to her about Laird’s situation.
Laird is the child of Mr Cates and his late ex-wife. A few years ago, Mr Cates and his ex-wife Zoe broke up peacefully with his ex-wife, Zoe, when 2 years old Laird was raised by him. Laird went missing with Zoe three years later, when little Laird was about five years old for about five days.
Zoe’s mother first discovered that the two of them had lost contact. That day, she went out to participate in community activities, and when she came back, the door was locked, and no one came to open the door for her. Zoe’s phone went unanswered, and the family car was still parked in place.
Out of an ominous premonition, the old man immediately went to report the case. The police broke through the door and found that Zoe and the child were gone.
There were no signs of intrusion or fighting indoors. Neither Zoe nor Laird was wearing a jacket when they disappeared, and both were wearing indoor slippers. Zoe’s bag and pager were left in the house, and there were new text messages on the pager when she was communicating with friends from college, asking if her classmates would be attending next month.
Later that night, police and nearby neighbors began searching for them. Mr. Cates also drove to Zoe’s city to participate in the search.
Five days later, at about four in the morning, Zoe’s mother had just fallen asleep.
These days she has been sleeping through the night, washing her face with tears, but today she fell asleep unknowingly.
She dreamed of the scene when she gave birth to Zoe, and then Zoe grew up quickly and gave birth to Laird… Zoe sat on the bed and asked her to hold the baby, she stretched out her hand. When she was about to touch her grandson, she was awakened by a scream.
The screams were frantic and shrill, and numb. After the voice was weakened, the final sound was a childish whimper.
The old lady got up in cold sweat, sat stiffly in the dark for a while, and recognised that the voice came from her daughter Zoe’s room.
She rushed over, turned on the light, and saw her grandson Laird kneeling on the ground, facing the wall, crying and scratching at the wallpaper with his muddy fingers.
His clothes were torn and dirty, stained with blood, and he had some minor abrasions.
Later, after inspection, some of the blood on Laird’s clothes belonged to Zoe, and some were not blood, but an unknown substance with a color similar to blood.
The police tried to get clues from the child, but found nothing.
Laird wanted to talk very much, and wanted the police to help him find his mother, but unfortunately, what he said did not help the case.
He was only five years old, and he was terrified. He couldn’t remember things, couldn’t distinguish between hallucinations and reality, and everything he talked about was just a child’s nightmare.
About a year later, little Laird was gradually recovering with the help of doctors, but still couldn’t recall the real experience during the disappearance. He was taken away and raised by his father, and his mother Zoe is still missing.
After hearing about these things, Angela Nuno was very distressed by Laird. After being with him for a long time, her distress was gradually replaced by fear.
Originally, the Cates family was a little weird, but luckily it was just weird, and it could be attributed to psychological effects… but it was different with Laird. Laird was always tense, always on the lookout for something.
Once, his nervous eyes floated to and fro, and finally landed on the bookcase behind Angela.
He stared there, motionless.
Angela’s hair on her neck stood up, she turned around slowly, there was nothing wrong with the cabinet…
Just as she relaxed, there was a muffled sound from the wall behind the cabinet, as if something hit the other side of the wall.
When Angela looked at Laird again, Laird had already left the place, curled up in the corner of the room furthest from the bookcase.
This is not an auditory hallucination, one of the small ornaments on the bookcase was knocked over. The bookcase was against the wall, and on the other side of the wall was the bedroom of Mr. Cates and his wife, which was empty.
Angela also understood that Laird could not be blamed for the eccentricity of the Cates family, but Laird always exacerbated her fears.
At noon on June 3, 2000, Angela began to prepare lunch.
She put little one-year-old Jerry in the walker, and not far from her, Laird sat on the living room sofa, reading quietly.
The Cates family has a small poodle named Tangtang. He is in his teens. He is usually very sensible and does not bark. For some unknown reason today, she suddenly jumped up from her nest, ran to the stairs, and barked at the storage room under the stairs.
Angela was not good at dealing with small animals, so she asked Laird to get Tangtang.
Laird walked over and tentatively opened the door of the storage room with a small crack…
Tangtang is petite, and immediately got in. Within seconds, Laird started screaming.
The voice made little Jerry cry. Angela threw down the kitchen utensils, picked up little Jerry, and hurried over to see what happened.
Laird had stopped screaming and fell to the floor next to her. The door of the storage room was half opened, Angela approached cautiously, turned on the light, and took a breath of surprise.
A wooden double-opening arch appeared out of thin air in the storage room. It was very old and shabby. It was abruptly “embedded” on the wall cabinet, as if someone cut a picture out of a newspaper and forcibly pasted it on the screen.
The door was open, and it was very dark inside. Angela stood there and could only see a few steps inside the door.
On the other side of that wall is an ordinary room, not a garden or even a forest, but now, the door has a damp smell with the smell of plants.
The sound of dog Tangtang barking and running is getting farther and farther away. Angela cautiously got closer… Tangtang has gone that far? How big of a space does this have to be?
She looked at the flashlight on the shelf, struggling to see clearly. At this moment, Tangtang whimpered sharply, and the barking stopped.
The puppy started running back. Perhaps it was because the surroundings were too quiet, her paws clapped on the ground, the sound of “chachacha” was very obvious, and the gasping sound was heavier than usual.
Angela gritted her teeth, hugged Jerry with one hand, and picked up the flashlight on the shelf with the other, trying to pull the half-open door panel to open it wider.
Before she could touch the door panel, little Laird suddenly screamed and pounced, hugged her waist tightly, and pulled her back.
At that time, Angela was very confused and panicked, and her feet were unsteady. In the end, Laird rammed into her with all his strength, knocking her into a somersault and falling out of the storage room.
As soon as she fell, little Jerry in her arms was also thrown to the ground. She didn’t have time to think about it, and quickly picked up the little baby to see if he was injured.
When she was distracted, there was a crisp closing sound from the storage room.
It was the strange door that closed first, and when no one touched it, it closed on its own.
Then Laird immediately closed the door of the storage room. After closing, he leaned back against the door, his eyes were slack, his breathing was short, and his face was pale.
One-year-old Jerry was fine, but he was still slightly injured and bruised on his head.
Angela was flustered, thinking about how to explain to her employer, and kept thinking of what she had just seen.
And Tangtang, Tangtang just disappeared? How to explain to the Cates couple? Could it have gone outside somewhere? Would it be useful to post a search for revelation?
From just now, Laird didn’t say a word to her. She approached the storage room again and wanted to open the door and look inside. Laird didn’t stop her.
She opened the door carefully, everything was normal in the storage room, only the flashlight and some small things fell on the floor. There was nothing unusual on the shelves and walls, and the door seemed to be an illusion.
Angela asked Laird to stay at home and took Jerry to the hospital first. When she was out, the Cates came home to find the living room a mess, half-cooked lunch hanging out in the kitchen, Tangtang, the puppy gone, and Laird, distracted and restless, began to say something inexplicable again.
Mr. Cates was very concerned about this. In his view, Laird was the same as when he was five years old, and now his symptoms have returned.
Looking back carefully, this child was not completely healed at the beginning. For the past five years, he had been a little nervous and couldn’t get along with anyone.
By the time Angela came home with Jerry in her arms, she had calmed down and was ready to explain to her employer.
She was pushed to the ground, Jerry was injured, Tangtang suddenly disappeared… It all happened, it was the truth. For “sane” adults, that’s not a lie.
If she said those crazy things, she might get a complaint, the housekeeping company might reconsider her rating, or even fire her outright… Fortunately, the Cates couple trusted her and thanked her for taking Jerry to the hospital in the first place.
Since that day, Angela has served at the Cates home for a little over six months. During those six months, she never saw the strange door again.
Only once did she wake up from a dream, and out of the corner of her eye saw that there seemed to be someone outside the window… She turned her head and looked at the window, everything was normal.
What’s even more strange is that what she saw in a daze didn’t seem to be the window of her own room… The window was bigger and the color of the glass was darker, and the room she lived in had only a ventilation window less than half a square meter.
She didn’t think much about it, as long as she didn’t get close to it, she wouldn’t see more.
Later, she found an opportunity, parted amicably with the Cates family, took a long vacation, and moved to another family to work.
She was leaving, first because she wanted to get out of the house in a decent way, and second because she didn’t want to face Laird.
All the craziness was pushed onto ten-year-old Laird because she wanted to be “sane.”
At first he was just a child with psychological disorders due to trauma, and now he has been diagnosed as a dangerous person with aggressiveness, delusional disorder, and suspected of mutilating small animals…
Laird was quickly sent away, and Angela didn’t have to face him anymore, but the Cates couple would always tell her about that day, and people in the town especially liked to ask her about Laird’s weird stories.
All this made Angela exhausted. She knew that her actions were very hypocritical, but she did not regret lying, so fleeing here was the most comfortable choice for her.
On the afternoon of December 24, 2002, Angela prepared dinner with her daughter Ceci at her home in Biende.
In a little while, her brother’s family will visit and spend Christmas Eve with them.
The younger brother’s family arrived on time, rang the doorbell, and when Angela opened the door, an indescribable strange feeling suddenly filled her heart… She looked over her sister-in-law’s shoulder and saw the door across the corridor.
The door of that house is a pitch-black metallic color, inlaid with intricate patterns of tree and vine, and there were iron rings hanging on the doorknob…
She remembered that the door of the family was still in the color green yesterday.
They even changed the door on Christmas Eve and changed it to such an exaggerated style?
When she noticed, the door opened slowly, and a cold white light leaked from the door, which was almost dazzling in the dimly lit corridor.
At this time, her little nephew stretched out his arms to her, she squatted down and hugged him, and when she raised her head again, she froze in place in surprise – there was no metal door?
And she suddenly realized that the door and the door in the corridor of this apartment are not opposite to one another. She is standing at the door of her own house, and the door next door that she can see is diagonally opposite, not completely opposite.
Angela asked her brother’s family, but they didn’t see any black metal doors. I haven’t seen it since I walked into the corridor until now.
In February 2007, Angela stopped going out to work, not even going out of her room.
On May 24, 2008, Angela’s granddaughter was born.
Angela didn’t go out for a long time, and today she finally gathered up the courage to visit her daughter Ceci and granddaughter in the hospital today.
Before she could find the ward, she was lost in the hospital. She ran all the way, passed through various unrelated departments, and finally ran up to the roof of the hospital, squatting down on the rooftop square and crying non-stop.
According to a witness, Angela walked cautiously, as if she was worried that something might jump out of the corner and hurt her. She stopped at a corner, hesitated for a long time, and finally turned and ran in the wrong direction.
She wouldn’t say why she did it, and couldn’t find the right way on her own.
On December 23, 2009, Angela suffered an accidental fall, leaving her leg disabled and she’s been unable to walk ever since.
On January 15, 2012, Angela was admitted to the Red Oak Sanatorium under the arrangement of her family. While undergoing long-term recuperation, she also received spiritual treatment.
On May 13, 2015, Angela’s daughter, Ceci, was visiting her mother at the Red Oak Nursing Home. On the way, she received a call from Laird Cates.
He explained his identity and said that he also wanted to visit Angela. Ceci had heard her mother mention “Laird,” but didn’t know that the man was still in contact with his mother as an adult.
Angela is always in a trance, but she still remembers Laird. Hearing that he was coming to visit, she showed great anticipation. She repeatedly told Ceci to come quickly, come quickly.
Ceci originally wanted Angela and Laird to talk directly on the phone, but Angela’s hearing deteriorated severely when she got old.
On the afternoon of May 23, 2015, Laird Cates and Levi Karadzer arrived in the area of Lake Gellar. They lost their way for two hours and finally found the Red Oak Sanatorium before their visit time ended.