Chapter 67: Chapter 1 X
On the east side of [Massa Port], a place that is already far away from the real port. The cruise ships in the distance docked quietly, and the busy scene during the day was silent in the night. Even the lights of the port also become dim when they reach here.
Approaching midnight, the warm breeze of spring will become bitterly cold after being eroded by the dark ocean. The crashing waves hit the concrete shore, but the sound they caused was blocked and filtered by the warehouses on the shore, and no longer be heard the slightest in the neon-filled [Becky Street]. Under the light of the slightly imperfect full moon in the sky, only by looking carefully can you find that a pale palm was supporting the edge of the embankment and swimming slowly along the gray concrete wall.
The rolling wave splashes constantly rushed into the mouth of the man next to the embankment, his swollen face was as pale as a white paper, without a trace of blood. He was like a corpse that had been soaked in the sea for several months. The skin on his neck, cheeks, and palms exposed to the sea was full of wrinkles, and the muscles that had been torn and turned were pale and lifeless.
He coughed and spat out the seawater poured into his mouth, and his white breath was buried by the wave splashes. Brown hair clung to his head, as dark as the sea after being soaked in water. Not all the hair was on the mottled scalp, but strands of hair were attached to his forehead and back of his head.
But, strangely, the swell of the skin gradually faded and became tighter. The torn muscles seemed to be slowly closed and healed by some force, and new hair was slowly growing on top of the mottled scalp.
When he finally swam to a slightly lower place, he was no different from a normal person, oh no, a normal port worker who fell into the sea. His work jacket was soaked with seawater, and it was covered with remains of marine life that could not be distinguished. Although his face was pale, his complexion already took on color. He was breathing heavily, and the white mist coming out from his mouth like he was removing the cold from his body.
The man raised his arm, placed the elbow on the embankment, and forced to lift his body out of the seawater. His movements were sluggish, and after struggling to move for a long time on the slightly sloping embankment, his back, waist, and legs finally got onto the shore. But his left hand was still in the sea as if pulling something.
The man lay on the flat ground and panted, lifting his left hand with force, a black plastic bag emerged from white wave splashes, his lips trembling from the cold opened and closed slightly, “One, two, three!”
The black bag was pulled out of the sea with the sound of plastic rubbing against the ground, the plashing patter of seawater hit the cold ground, and the man’s breath of relief.
The man threw aside a black bag the size of a person, and slowly stood up, his whole body trembling from the cold. He moved his limbs tentatively, with a little difficulty and a little numb. He moved his fingers, and a smile began to appear on his trembling cheeks. He covered his face with his wet palms, breathed into his palms, exhaling the warm breath on the cold palms.
The man’s eyes glowed, he involuntarily bent his knees, raised his still pale face, raised his hands unconsciously in front of him, and his trembling lips could not conceal his excitement: “Thank you! “Thank you! !” The arduous and weak sound gradually became clearer, “I’m back! I am back! thank you! Papa Midnight!”
The excited man’s expression suddenly froze, his excited expression turned into pain, and his hands groped wildly around his chest. The port worker’s work jacket was pulled apart by him, and on the pale left chest skin, a circle of red X-shaped marks showed through his skin, slowly forming.
The man’s face changed from pain to panic again. He knew that he needed to ‘work’. The man began to look around. As a ‘former’ port worker, he was no stranger to this area. This is a place outside the port and is a gathering place for the warehouses around the port. Because it is not close to the center of the port, there is no traffic here except for the occasional night patrol staff. Good. That’s convenient for him.
The man endured the biting cold night wind, dragged the black bag away from the embankment, first found a hidden place, and then in the warehouses’ management office, while others were not looking, he stole other people’s clothes and warehouses’ keys and changed them.
The man who came back from his death walked through the warehouses, having a strange feeling in his heart. He used to hate these things, goods, cold machinery, cranes… Now? He loves these!
9,10,11,12. The man hid in the dark and looked at Warehouse No. 13 in front. There were three men, holding various tools in their hands, pushing open the warehouse door. They threw their tools back into the trunk of an old-fashioned car and stood by the car chatting. After a while, they boarded the car and drove away.
The man waited patiently, and when he confirmed that no one would pass by, he returned to the place where the black bag was stored. After recovering the strength, the man did not spend much time carrying the bag to Warehouse No. 13.
The stench of decay and scorch smell permeated the entire warehouse. The man immediately judged that it was a semi-abandoned waste storage warehouse. This is better, he didn’t have to worry about being disturbed.
In a corner of the warehouse, there were obvious signs of fresh painting on the cold wall. The man put down the bag on his back and started a little by little to restore the scene that was handled by the three hunters…
It has been half a month since the last full moon, and the marks on Benjamin’s skin have completely faded. The werewolf no longer needed to wrap himself up while moving around, and as the temperature started to warm up, Benjamin had changed into a short-sleeve shirt.
The consequence of that was that Alice helplessly took the bowl from Lola. Five minutes had already past, but the egg white and egg yolk still had not been mixed together.
“Benjamin, you don’t need to help.” Alice churned the eggs and said.
“It’s okay, I have nothing else to do.” Without knowing the hidden meaning in banshee’s words, Benjamin replied while continuing to knead the dough on the counter. Under the force, his upper arm muscles tightened the white cuffs.
Now, we know why Lola was absent-minded.
Zach opened the door of the kitchen. Naturally, he was unwilling to be absent from the collective activities at Grande Funeral Home.
“What can I do?” Zach smiled.
“Mhm.” Alice looked at the kitchen, “Stir the mashed potatoes.”
Zach nodded and was assigned the same job as Louise.
Today was not a holiday and the food that Alice was preparing was not for the Grande family, but for Lola’s volunteer work.
For various reasons, Lola withdrew from the cheerleader squad that she had no chance to perform and spent all the afternoon hours in class on social practice. In other words, Lola found part-time volunteer work. Teaching the first and second-grade children drawing in the [Parker Primary School] in [Passing District].
This kind of atonement and compensatory action was supported by Mrs. Barton, and of course, was also supported by Alice.
The environment of [Parker Primary School] is not good. Its facilities and teachers are at the bottom of Barton’s list, long supported by a group of volunteers and compassionate teachers.
Today was originally not a special day, but the husband of a teacher in [Parker Primary School] named Trisha Joyn, survived an accident. It was a pleasant surprise for Trisha, who had to leave her job because of economic oppression. For the entire primary school, it was also something to celebrate. So a group of teachers and children, who were seeking pleasure in hardship, decided that they should throw Mrs. Trisha a celebration party.
Then Lola took over the food preparation task. Between the Barton family’s flashy meal and the simple but delicious food from Alice, and the chubby chef in the Barton family and Benjamin’s… Hmmm, Lola wanted to use the word ‘sexy’, but considering her age, I decided to leave it out.
In short, Lola came to the Grande Funeral Home with such an excuse and even asked Old Hank to carve fruits, but she herself was intoxicated by the ‘scenery’.
“Vampire! The phone is ringing! Can’t you hear it? The phone is ringing!” Great Dane Jim’s ears pointed up, raised its eyelids, and found that Ryan was harassing Zach, then it continued to lie on the ground in boredom.
Now Jim has learned that whenever Lola comes to visit, Alice will make delicious food. So as soon as it found out that Barton’s car was parked outside today, Jim ran back to the kitchen and waited patiently.
Ryan kept yelling behind Zach, “Phone, phone!” The nonhumans of the Grande family all pretended that they could not hear it. Apart from harassing others, this earthbound spirit hasn’t shown any usefulness until now, for example, now.
Benjamin frowned, seemingly to be annoyed by Ryan’s noise, “Zach, the phone seems to be ringing.”
The vampire turned his head in surprise. Recently, the werewolf has ignored him and rarely spoken. Apart from failing to deliver his clothes, the werewolf must still be angry about other things.
“Is that so? I’ll take a look.” Zach smiled at Benjamin, and went straight through Ryan’s transparent body in a happy mood, leaving the kitchen and heading to the office.
Zach originally did not want to answer the phone. The Grande Funeral Home suddenly received a lot of attention more than half a month ago. After the initial accident passed, the current vampire only found that it was very annoying. We know that the vampire is not really the boss of a funeral business, but now, he seems to be getting better at this job.
“Grande Funeral Home…” Zach picked up the receiver.
“It’s me! Rance!”
Zach raised his eyebrows. After Connor Hermann’s funeral, the vampire didn’t give James a hard time, and the endless punishment might have an adverse effect. So he called back Jim, who had been staying in Mrs. Coulson’s kitchen every day, and gave back his identity.
Since then, James once again had to worry about changing his image, coupled with the fact that he needed time to digest his complex emotions, so he has not contacted Grande for a while.
“Long time no see.” Zach put a smile on his face, “Is there anything I can help? Detective Rance.”
“Don’t you read the newspaper! Strange things are happening in Barton!” The voice over the receiver was obviously a little agitated. Forgive James, he has not yet walked out of the psychological trauma given to him by the vampire. Right and wrong were now blurred in the mind of this rigidly educated son of a general.
“Calm down, James.” Zach pouted his lips: “This is a city, strange things happen every day.”
“No! Not normal strange, but strange strange! !”
James was completely broken by the vampire.
“Are you trying to say that it has something to do with us ‘monsters’?” Zach chuckled and deliberately used words to provoke James. This seemed to have become a habit of the vampire.
There was a deep breathing sound from the receiver, and James calmed down his tone: “You know what I mean.”
Zach tilted his head, “I know.” Zach stopped teasing James, “You must be talking about the ‘suicide incident’, right? I don’t think this is anything worth noting.”
Of course, Zach read the newspaper, and he also knew the suicide incident that has suddenly aroused discussion recently, but to Zach, this was just normal social news.
“No, Zach! In the report, some things were omitted!” James on the receiver seemed to become agitated again: “I saw the autopsy report. Every corpse is engraved with an ‘X’-shaped mark on the heart!”
Zach frowned, “What kind of X?”
“It’s X! A tilted cross, are you illiterate!”
After all, James still could not calmly face the vampire, even on the phone.
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