Some things need to be confirmed again and again, such as killing someone.
I dragged my tired steps back to the suite in the high-rise building. There was still a hazy drizzle outside. When I just entered the door, I unconsciously looked at the wet mud under my trouser legs. It must be the soil from the mass grave on the hillside! Well, it was a place that was rarely visited by people except during the Qingming Festival.
The whole weird thing started five days ago. I should have listened to my mother and not had too many social events during the Ghost Month. As a result, I was driving drunk that night and hit a woman who was returning home at night. The impact of the collision woke me up. I got out of the car and looked at the body still struggling and twitching a few meters ahead. Blood was gushing out from the back of her head. It was not noticeable with the color of the asphalt road, but some white paste was unusually bright.
"I'm dying!" This voice rang in my heart and stopped me from calling for help.
I was drunk and killed. This punishment is enough to make me suffer forever. I looked around. Was it because of the ghost month? There were no other lights on the suburban roads in the middle of the night, except for the lights of my car that kept flashing.
"This is the only way. I can't hesitate any longer." I murmured to myself quietly.
I removed the seat cloth from the back seat and wrapped the woman up, especially twisting her head a few times. I didn't want her blood to get on my car, as that would be troublesome evidence.
God must have forgiven my carelessness! During this process, no one passed by. I looked at the red and white liquid mixed on the ground. Maybe I could use this rich meal to exchange for the cooperation of the wild dog who got up early tomorrow. Everything will be fine, I thought to myself.
I remembered the place where I visited graves a while ago. The mass grave there was indeed the perfect place to destroy the bodies and cover up all traces, especially since the soil there was soft and easy to dig up and harbor a large number of microorganisms.
Then everything went smoothly. I read the society pages carefully for a few days and there was no news about me or the unknown woman.
"A woman who comes home late at night? Usually her social circle isn't normal, so no one will make a fuss if she disappears for a few days!" I should think of a few more reasons to make myself feel at ease.
But yesterday's news finally revealed the story of that woman. Her parents went to the police to ask for help in finding their daughter who had been missing for several days. Then the police unexpectedly discovered samples of suspected human blood and brain matter collected at a car accident scene four days ago. After comparison, they matched those of this woman.
Actually, there is nothing to be afraid of, because there is no evidence pointing to me, but I still had a nightmare. I dreamed that the woman's face was pale, her features were still blurry, but snow-white maggots kept oozing out of her body. She slowly leaned towards me, and I woke up from the darkness in a sweat. Is this a bad omen? Maybe… I should go and confirm that she has not turned into a corpse, or miraculously resurrected and crawled out from the place where I buried her…
I walked to the place where I dug five days ago in a black dress. It had just rained, making the place even more damp and scary. I picked up a hoe and gently pushed away the wet soil on top. I didn't cover it tightly or bury it deep, because this would provide a good growth environment for maggots and accelerate the disappearance of the corpse. The stench of the corpse immediately hit my nose. I saw a mass of black hair and skull. The muscles on her face had been eaten away. Maggots were gnawing at her brain in groups. From time to time, a few of them would overflow from the gap under the skull, then crawl out of the soil and suck the rare and abundant air.
I stood and watched for a few minutes, still stopping and starting. I was satisfied with the scene and it seemed nothing unexpected would happen. Then I pushed the soil back, and white maggots kept moving back and forth in the pile of soil, along with a strong stench and my slight breathing.
It must be during the digging process that the trouser legs got stuck with some wet soil!
At this moment, the doorbell suddenly rang. I looked at the clock and it was almost ten o'clock. For a Taipei office worker who usually has social engagements , dreaming of a dead person saying that he was dying was still abrupt to have an unannounced visitor at this time. I peeked out through the peephole and saw a woman with long hair, a white suit, and a few books tucked under her armpits.
"Book salesman? But at this time…"
At this time, I saw a white strip passing by my shoes. The funny movement seemed to be still clear. Was it a maggot? I suddenly had a bad idea. It turned out that I was in a hurry and didn't notice that a maggot had sneaked in here through the mud.
The maggot squirmed slowly and laboriously. I was stunned for a moment before I thought of stepping on it to death, but at this time it actually crawled under the sofa. The doorbell was still ringing, and a faint odor of maggots seemed to surge into my nose.
"Should I step on this maggot to death first and then open the door, or…" I was so hesitant over such a small matter.
Later I opened the door first. I wanted to send her away directly, but the book saleswoman came in very tactfully. Her youth made her look more beautiful. She was very experienced. She sat on the sofa without my permission and spread the book tucked under her arm on the table.
"Sir, these are very popular scientific magazines nowadays. They are very suitable for the intellectual life of you office workers after get off work. A lot of the content in them is very interesting. There is a promotion going on now. If you buy the whole set at once, you will also receive exquisite gifts." It was a very procedural statement.
The image of the maggot loomed in my mind. I didn’t have the heart to listen to the nonsense of the woman selling books, so I waved my hand to indicate that I was not interested.
"Sir, why don't you take a look at it before making a decision? There are not only texts in it, but also many rich and vivid pictures." She said as she casually turned a page.
Although I didn't want to bother, the almost entirely white picture still attracted my attention. I took a closer look and suddenly felt sick. It was a maggot, a close-up of a fat, white maggot. The lady seemed to see my expression and apologized awkwardly, "I'm so sorry, I didn't know I just flipped to this page."
She then turned another page. In addition to the dense black words like tadpoles, there were still a few photos of maggots, and several larger fonts read: "Science Detective – Maggots".
"Scientific detective? Maggots?" Was there something fishy going on? I actually read out those words, and the lady immediately caught my inadvertent curiosity (not really), and followed up with me and said, "Yes! This is very interesting! Maggots are not only used by forensic personnel to determine the time of death of a corpse, but also to find out whether the place where the corpse was found was the first scene."
I was actually interested in these words, and I suddenly felt uneasy.
"Because the maggots on a corpse are almost the same age, the time of death can be estimated very accurately. Generally speaking, maggots will start to fall from a corpse about two days later. In addition, although maggots look similar, there are actually many types. Some maggots only eat fruit flesh, and some are fond of eating certain animals. For example, cattle flies, ghost flies, green-headed flies, etc. all have their habitual hosts. Even flies of the same type will have slight differences depending on the region, and these differences will also be reflected in the characteristics of their larvae. Therefore, it is possible to determine whether the corpse has been moved a long distance." She spoke eloquently as if she was well prepared.
"Miss, you seem to be very interested in this disgusting thing?" I looked at her face and suddenly felt that she seemed a little paler than other women. "It's okay!" She smiled shyly. Then she said, "For those of us who are salesmen, we always have to know something about what we are selling."
She suddenly pointed to another paragraph and said:
"This is the latest discovery in the scientific community . Dreaming about dead people means that you are dying . Because of the structure of the maggot's body, the food it eats is not completely decomposed, especially the protein. The protein of the host corpse will be preserved in its body for a while. In other words, it is possible to find the DNA of the original corpse in a fly or a maggot that has been separated from the body. How about it? Very interesting!"
My body was like being electrocuted, and it trembled slightly. At this moment, I don't know if the maggot had wings or something, but it actually appeared on the edge of the table and crawled towards the open books? Was it excited by seeing a photo of its own kind?
I immediately wanted to crush it to death with my hand, but I felt disgusted. At this time, the woman also saw the maggot. A look of surprise appeared on her face, and she became even paler.
"This is… I'm so sorry, the broth in my kitchen was not processed and maggots grew in it." I shook my head and explained.
According to what the woman said, the approximate location of the body and the identity of the original body can be found from the maggot. I remembered yesterday's news that the body of the woman I killed has been found. Then… I wanted to explain, but my throat felt dry.
I picked up the glass next to me and tried to crush it, but the woman actually held the glass to stop me, with a strange smile on her face.
"Sir, things don't seem that simple. Normally, maggots will stay on food until they hatch into adults. How could they travel such a long distance from the kitchen to here? Moreover, this maggot doesn't seem to eat broth, but it's a habit…"
Oh my God! She said this while gently placing the maggot on her hand.
"You see, it's used to eating raw meat, raw human flesh. And judging by its age, it should be a second-instar larva. That means under normal conditions, the original body has been dead for about five days. If I take this worm for testing…"
It was eating raw meat… eating raw human flesh. I saw the maggot actually starting to gnaw on the flesh of the woman's palm. Why was this happening?
"But now it's starting to eat my flesh, so the test results may show two different proteins, but it's also possible that there will be only one…"
Only one, what does that mean? The maggots kept eating with relish. I looked at her. My back was wet and beads of sweat oozed from my forehead. I remembered the news last night. The dead woman was also a book salesperson… Her mouth opened wider and wider, as if something was about to vomit out of her esophagus. She began to laugh, lightly, then more and more proudly, louder and louder. I kept the last bit of rationality and quietly picked up the dumbbell from the sofa and smashed it on her head.
The woman groaned and her head fell on the table. Blood flowed from the wound, followed by white brain matter, just like that night. However, within a few seconds, a bunch of maggots oozed out of her body, gnawing and growing frantically. Soon, there was no flesh left on the woman's body. Her face and facial features disappeared, leaving only long black hair and a group of wriggling maggots inside her skull.
I left the sofa in shock, and after a few steps back, my legs weakened and I fell. At this moment, I heard the doorbell ring again. I was trembling all over, but I couldn't stand up. The doorbell rang more and more urgently, followed by the knocks on the door, which were nothing but urgent.
Then the door was kicked open and several policemen rushed in with guns. They were dumbfounded by the stench of maggots and the maggots running around in the room. Then they saw me with weak limbs, pale face, and talking to myself as if I was possessed by evil spirits.
Then everything returned to calm. I sat in the cell, quietly thinking about the causes and consequences of all this. First, on the night of the accident, I looked at the books scattered around the body. They would be troublesome evidence. I collected them and took them home. Then, on the night before the incident was exposed, I had a nightmare and couldn't sleep anymore. I opened the book that the woman I killed had brought with her. I flipped it and turned to the scene in the nightmare just now, white, disgusting maggots. I looked at the content of the book, and my heart became more and more uneasy. Those maggots… Could those maggots be troublesome evidence?
If they were caught and tested after they emerged from their cocoons, and the whereabouts of the original body were discovered, and if someone saw me burying the body that night from a distance… I had a lot of hysterical thoughts, and in the end I even had the crazy idea of killing the maggots, and then I used a canvas bag to put back all the maggots that were left in the bones and head.
Then according to the police, some maggots were found in the building's elevator that night. The neighbors thought it was unusual, so they called the police, who then checked the video tape and came to me.
As for that woman, I still don’t know. Maybe it was just a dream, a dream.
Under the dark cell, I seemed to see the white figure again…