The Tale of the Ghost Eyes Chapter 65 An Old Crow Eating a Corpse

Ku Tou dropped to him. "Chou Dan, what is it? What happened?" His concern turned almost instantly to outrage. "You scared me ya' little shit! Stop it!" He smacked the boy's arm. "Shut up!"

Chou Dan, Bing's real name, continued to sob and managed to leak out in broken words, "Ku Tou, I'm scared!"

Ku Tou's anger melted as quickly as it'd come. He put his hand on the younger boy's shoulder and said, "Don't worry little brother, I'm here."

"We're all here. Don't be scared. There're five of us. What can a baby ghost do?" I said, hoping to sound confident. The voice in my head added, "I wonder why kind it is."

Zhao Jie urged, "It doesn't matter! Don't even talk about it. We should leave, now! That sound is horrible."

I considered the danger and started to nod. The sorrowful wail peaked in a deafening squeal. Chou Dan stopped crying all at once. All eyes were on the woods.

"Come on, let's go." I said, and pushed Shang Haoming back the way we'd come.

We didn't make it ten steps before Ku Tou stopped. "Wait-" He started. He turned around and pointed. Chou Dan was exactly where he'd been, standing now, but still staring into the forest, unmovingly.

"Bing!" Ku Tou called. There was no response. He walked back to the frozen second grader and waved a hand in front of his staring eyes. "Bing?" He said again. Ku Tou looked back to us and called in a strained whisper. "Something's wrong…"

We walked back to him and took turns trying to wake the boy. "He's enchanted or something!" Zhao Jie said. The thought made my throat go dry. I remembered Sun Yueying after our encounter with Xiao Chun's mother.

"This was a mistake!" I thought, panic spreading like wildfire in my mind. "I can't let anything happen to them!"

Ku Tou turned to me with a frown, "You gave me a bad copper. It didn't work! What happened to Chou Dan?"

I considered the Tong Mei in Ku Tou's hand for a moment and a memory sparked through me. "Hit him with it!" I half barked in excitement.

Ku Tou hesitated for a second and then shrugged.

He clapped the copper on Chou Dan's shoulder with a meaty thwack. Bing stumbled for a moment and then shivered like he'd been dunked in ice water.

"Hey!" Chou Dan said in a hurt voice, "Why'd you hit me?"

Ku Tou grinned, looked at the copper in his hand, and then slapped it on the boy again.

Chou Dan raised his arms in defense and stumbled backwards. "Stop it! Stop it! Don't make me tell mom!"

Ku Tou started laughing, "You don't even know kiddo! I'm saving you. You were all wrapped up by that stupid baby ghost."

Chou Dan pondered this, gripping his chin in his hand and using the other to massage his shoulder. Raising a finger like he'd had a bright idea he nodded and said, "I get it! Okay, do it one more time!" He shut his eyes and braced himself for the unorthodox blessing.

I stepped in between the two. "Stop it! Once is enough!" I pointed at the copper, "Don't lose that."

"Guys I think something's moving over there." Zhao Jie shouted. He was pointing down the mountain to the left of the path. Through the trees I saw a reddish shadow flickering in and out of the underbrush.

The red blur was small. It looked tall enough to maybe come to my knees and all at once I knew that it was the spirit we'd heard. The ghost categories flitted through my head and the color red started to pulse in my mind. "Red." I said out loud. "What kind of horrendous thing could have happened to make a baby a red ghost?" I asked the air. The boys looked at me in confusion.

"Is red… bad?" Shang Haoming asked hesitantly.

I swallowed loudly. "Red is bad!" I said, "We have to go right now. Go." I turned to the others, feeling adrenaline pump into my veins. "Maybe it won't chase us! Go!"

Hearing the fear in my voice, Shang Haoming nodded and turned down the road. His long legs pumped and he was moving. Zhao Jie was right behind him. Ku Tou, Chou Dan, and myself followed suit.

We crested the hill and came to a fork in the path. The left trail went down, the right went up. Ahead of us Shang Haoming and Zhao Jie were half running, half sliding down the path.

Ku Tou panted and followed the others. The trail leveled out after a few minutes of unabated sprinting and came to a small clearing in the locust trees. Ku Tou was heaving in breaths, but managed to say, "I don't hear anything, I think it's safe now."

I propped myself on my knees and looked around the mountain worriedly. My eyes floated across the world of green, looking desperately for anything red.

The ghost's wailing cry echoed in my head. I concentrated and made sure it wasn't real.

"Xiao Yong, what is it? You're very pale." Zhao Jie moved next to me, his own face a ruddy white except for two red blotches on his cheeks. He took the compass from Shang Haoming's hand and placed it lightly on my shoulder.

I shook it off. "I'm not enchanted." I told him. "I'm fine. I think something terrible happened to that baby. I think it's very, very mad."

"Who cares? It's only a ghost." Zhao Jie said.

"It was a person once!" I snapped. "Besides if we want to help it, then we need to find out what happened."

"Xiao Yong, are you crazy?" Zhao Jie snapped. "It's a ghost! I think we should call the police. We can't do anything. Shang Haoming, tell him!"

Zhao Jie pushed Shang Haoming towards me, handing him the compass like it was an argumentative baton.

Shang Haoming shrugged a little. "I dunno man. I think we should try to figure it out. If there's a dead baby somewhere, then its parents are probably missing it. We'd be like…heroes or something." He smiled sheepishly.

"Heroes?" Zhao Jie said in disbelief.

Ku Tou and Chou Dan perked up at the word. The group exchanged boyish grins.

"You're all nuts!" Zhao Jie said, grinning himself. "Fine. How do we figure out what happened?"

"Well…the spirit only shows up in the mountains. Maybe he died here? Ku Tou, was there a baby or infant that died in your village?"

Ku Tou shook his head and shrugged. "Not that I know of."

"Were any of the parents acting weird?" I asked.

Ku Tou thought for a moment, chin in hand. "A couple of weeks ago Er Gua's wife was carrying around a big ol' colorful quilt. I guess there could've been baby inside it, but Er Gua and his wife don't have kids."

"What did she do with the quilt?" Shang Haoming asked.

"She burnt it…" Ku Tou said. Looking at us like he was threading an idea. "Something about a prayer to help the kids along the path." His shoulders slumped. "I dunno, that doesn't add up."

"If there was a quilt, maybe there was a baby inside it." I said, grasping at straws. "Maybe someone took it and threw it into the mountains?"

"Do you think somebody sacrificed their baby?" Ku Tou asked in disgust.

A throaty croaking sound rippled from a tree behind us and we all jumped. Several birds took flight and made formation in the sky. They circled the spot where we stood twice and then flew in the direction we'd run from.

Another croak came from the opposite side of our clearing. Again, birds lifted off, circled, and darted towards the ghost's mountain.

"Are they going towards the dead baby?" I thought.

The birds' cries died out as they flew away. Ku Tou watched them leave and said, "That didn't feel like a good sign. Xiao Yong, we should go home. We can come back with more people."

"More adults." Chou Dan added.

I shook my head. "You can leave if you're scared. I need to get to the bottom of this."

"You idiot. Go." The voice in my head said. I ignored it.

I waited for Zhao Jie and Shang Haoming to say what I was thinking and persuade me to leave, but Zhao Jie surprised me. "We'll face the challenge together. Let's go!" He said.

Shang Haoming smiled uncomfortably. "Well I can't let you two beat me. Come on, I'll lead the way." He said

"What…?" Ku Tou said, looking dumbfounded. "Ya'll are stupid."

Shang Haoming was marching back up the hill. Zhao Jie followed him. I was the last to turn and start walking. Ku Tou called from behind me. "I'll stay here and protect Chou Dan. Take this, that way each of you has something!" He tossed the copper coin I'd given him. I caught it in one hand and pocketed the coin to give to Zhao Jie. "Be careful guys!" Ku Tou called.

I rolled my eyes at him and whispered, "Coward."

I jogged a bit and caught up to Shang Haoming and Zhou Jie, handing him the copper as I passed. At the top of the hill the ghostly wails started again. There was a desperate pain in the sound.

A large black bird passed overhead. Shang Haoming pointed to it and said, "Look."

The bird's claws were wrapped around a strip of ragged clothing.

"Are the birds eating the baby? That's disgusting!" Zhao Jie said, turning a bit green.

"Look at its beak." I said, trying not to gag.

The other two strained their eyes, but only shook their heads at it until the bird was out of sight. "What was it?" Zhao Jie asked.

"It was meat, like…real meat." I said. There was a retch working its way up my throat.

"I think it was human meat."

Chapter end