The Devil’s Cage

A cop?!

Everyone was skeptical when Teddy stated his identity, especially the plump guy whose girlfriend was dead; his face was filled with disbelief.

“What proof do you have?” the guy said with a glare.

“I am Teddy, a superior officer. My police number is C:1204666. Make a call and you will get the proof,” Teddy said.

However, he hid the fact that he was temporarily suspended by the force. Telling the truth at such a sensitive moment was irrational and inappropriate. Teddy was fine following rules but he wasn’t a pedantic person, so he did not proceed with the normal procedures.

More accurately, the situation seemed a little too simple.

For an experienced police officer like Teddy, he could tell what was wrong with one glance.

After scanning the surroundings, Teddy looked at the crowd in the drizzle, especially the boyfriend of the dead blonde.

“Why did you kill her?” Teddy asked.

When the question was asked, the scene went silent. Other than the drizzling rain, nothing was heard.

Everyone else stood there blankly, their gazes shifting between Teddy and the plump guy, whose face showed sadness and anger.

They had no idea what happened.

“What are you talking about? Is this a joke?” the guy shouted.

“A joke? Well, let me ask you guys, where were you people before this? What made you guys come out in the rain?” Teddy chuckled and looked at the crowd.

“My family and I, along with the others, were having dinner on the first floor. And then this man here was shouting his girlfriend’s name and running around in panic. I was worried, so I came out to see what happened and the others followed me.”

The husband of the family of three acted as representative and spoke for all of them.

The others nodded in adherence to his claims.

“Did you guys see this girl?” Teddy pointed at the body on the ground.

“No, we didn’t see her. The dining area has a door and it’s rather cold during the rain, so we closed it after we went to have our dinner,” the husband answered.

“Very well.” Teddy nodded and then looked at the plump guy.

“Are you trying to accuse me of killing because of this?!” the guy shouted again.

“No, of course not. Let me ask you, why did you come here first? The whole hotel is divided into two sections; other than the hot springs in the other section, our rooms and the lobby are all located on this side. So, other than the center garden on the left and the entrance, the corridor and the only entrance are further down there. Should someone run out, this someone would go straight, not making a turn into the center garden, unless they knew the body was here beforehand,” Teddy said after shaking his head.

“I saw her coming to the garden, so I followed! How is that a problem?!” the guy shot back.

“Nope, no problem at all, but can you explain why she’s wearing slippers? It has been raining for some time and the ground is muddy, yet she’s wearing slippers while you’re wearing running shoes. If you really saw her, how could you not have been able to catch up to her? And… can you tell me why her slippers are so clean? Did she fly over the dirt?”

Teddy’s voice sounded heavy as he tried to force answers from the guy.

The guy went silent and the crowd subconsciously drew a distance from him.

“The answer is, she couldn’t fly, so she fell down here when she was pushed out from the window on the second floor,” Teddy explained.

The guy sighed and nodded. “You’re right. I strangled her and then threw her out the window. The lady owner was knocking on my door and I was scared that she would find out, so I took some drastic measures… If you were not here, it would have been perfect with a little more follow up…”

The tour guide that led the two couples couldn’t hold back his burning question, “Why did you do it? Weren’t you a couple?”

“Couple? What couple? Us? She only knew how to squeeze money from me! The day my money would have been completely drained by this vampire is the day I would get kicked away! I knew this a long time ago, but I still loved her. I thought I could cure her with my sincerity and love, so I listened to her in everything, tried my best to fulfill her needs. But in the end? I will still be left with nothing! Nothing at all! I don’t want that to happen. I only want her beside me, alive or… dead!” The guy mocked himself with a laugh.

Teddy shook his head.

He had seen this kind of twisted love more than once.

‘I devoted my life to you, so you must love me’, this kind of saying rang more than one time in his mind.

Love is unreasonable.

If showing sincerity could get the same amount of sincerity in return, it wouldn’t be love anymore, but a fairytale.

What is love?

Other than the looks and money, it is the morals behind the person.

A person with morals could give birth to love that people admire.

Without morals, the person would be no different from garbage.

Men would be jerks; women would be sluts.

This guy here shouldn’t be considered as a jerk, because he was much more pitiful than one.

‘Sucking up to people will cause you to lose everything!

‘Unlike me with all the freedom in the world, even though I am still alone.’

Teddy exclaimed in his mind as he walked towards the guy but when he was less than two meters from the guy, the latter regained his senses and pulled out a fruit knife from his pocket.

“Don’t come over! Stay there!” The guy pointed the knife at Teddy.

Teddy frowned and just when he was going to disarm the guy, the guy turned the knife around and placed it over his neck.

“HEY! Calm down! You…”

“I can’t go back like this! I borrowed a lot of money in order to make her my girlfriend, but I don’t have any money to pay back. Now that she’s dead, there’s no meaning left in my life anymore!”

The guy smiled pitifully and thrusted the knife upwards into his jaw.

“Hold…”

Teddy tried to stop the guy, but the knife embedded itself into the guy’s throat. What happened next was something no one expected.

The knife was deep inside the guy’s throat, but not a single drop of blood came out.

Other than that, the guy’s body started to turn transparent.

Everyone else could see the shape of the knife in his clear throat.

The scene struck fear in everyone’s heart; it was even scarier than if blood gushed out!

After all, everyone expected to see blood splashing. They already knew it would be gruesome but the scene that unfolded went beyond their imagination and logic altogether.

As a police officer, even Teddy was horrified, for it was his first time encountering such things, but it was worse for the others.

In fact, the reason why the others did not fall to the ground was because they were frozen on the spot, none of them daring to move.

Teddy’s hands were covered in sweat.

‘An anomaly! The guy is an anomaly!’ Teddy thought.

The suspended chief immediately stopped his forward step and retreated quickly. His hands reached out for the the electric baton and the blowtorch, his eyes glued to the guy.

‘So he was behind all this?’

Bang!

While Teddy had been troubled with doubts, the guy, too, looked down in disbelief. When he saw his translucent body, he fell into a panic and dropped on the ground. He then looked up to Teddy, the only one who could provide a sense of safety because of his identity.

“T-T-This… W-W-What happened!? H-Help!”

The guy screamed in panic and reached out to Teddy, hoping for help.

And as he screamed, his translucent body started to disintegrate with exceptional speed. It wasn’t the usual firefly light; it disintegrated into some smaller particles.

As though his body was burnt to ashes, it piled up on the ground and flickered a few times before disappearing.

The lingering scream also went silent.

Teddy instinctively walked up and tried to grab the guy’s hand but missed.

What he got was some ash on his hand.

The scene fell into silence again.

The drizzle also started to dim down.

Everyone was at a loss for action and words. A minute later, Teddy regained his senses.

More thoughts popped up in his mind, causing him to turn around quickly.

When he saw the blonde still lying on the ground, dead, he couldn’t help but heave a sigh of relief.

Phew!

When the others saw Teddy’s reaction, they too knew what he was thinking, and after seeing that the blonde’s body had not moved, they too heaved sighs of relief.

A single person’s breath was soft and light, but when many people heaved them at the same time, the breathing noise became different.

Although the breaths were still light, it became obvious to the eyes.

Then… their breaths got stuck in their throats because the body of the blonde really moved!

One of her fingers slightly twitched, but they thought they were seeing things.

“I-Is it me or did that finger just twitch? Maybe I am too nervous, I must be seeing things. Right?”

The husband of the family of three said in a light tone, attempting to ease the atmosphere and assure himself.

However, at the very next moment, his son pointed at the dead body and said, “Dad, look, the big sister came back to life!”

When the husband noticed the stiff reaction on his wife’s face, his hardened neck turned around and he saw the dead body slowly stand up wobbly.

“RUN!” Teddy shouted and placed everyone else behind him.

The crowd was stunned at first, but when the husband pulled along his wife and carried his son, running back into the hotel, the others reacted and ran too.

The running steps were messy, someone even fell down.

The mud on the ground became the most fatal obstacle they had to overcome.

In order to buy more time for the others to run, Teddy stood there with clenched teeth, taking deep breaths over and over, and telling himself, “I can do this! I can do this!”

“Electric, fire! I can do this! I can do this!”

Similar to his first gun practise with actual bullets back at the police academy or the first time he chased after a criminal, he did it.

There was no reason for him to fail right now.

“They are civilians, I am a police officer; I should stand up and protect their lives! For the oath I made on the badge and the uniform!” Teddy mumbled to himself repeatedly, as if attempting to hypnotize himself.

The girl’s body stood up on its feet; it was rather blurry and blank. It didn’t know what happened, but the instinct of the dead told it that it was hungry and there was… food in front!

Its mind slightly cleared up and it growled loudly at Teddy.

Roar!

The fierce growl interrupted Teddy’s mumbles.

Teddy’s sweat covered his forehead and face, and drenched his back.

He carefully wiped the sweat off his palm and pointed at the dead girl.

“YOU, BRING IT ON!” He shouted his lungs out.

Roaar!

The dead charged forward like a beast and pushed Teddy to the ground.

Bam!

Upon falling, time stopped.

The dead on Teddy stopped and Teddy did too.

More than 10 seconds later, Teddy moaned painfully and pushed the dead away.

In the head of the dead, there was a black hole, and at the mouth of the blowtorch, the blue flame burned as long as 8 cm.

Huu haa! Huu haa!

Teddy panted heavily and rolled over. He grabbed his blowtorch tightly as he watched the dead body turn transparent and disintegrate.

He won!

Teddy wanted to celebrate his victory with a clenched fist, but the pain from his right hand made him clench his teeth instead.

The victory came at a cost.

He’d used his left hand as a shield, holding off the dead’s charge and seizing the window to point the blowtorch at its forehead.

Why the forehead?

Teddy instinctively chose to go for the weak spot; since the forehead was humans’ weakness, it must also be the weakness of the dead, right?

Messy thoughts rumbled in his mind as Teddy tried his best to stand up.

His adrenaline slowly dropped, making his well-trained body weaker.

He picked up the electric baton and other blowtorch, and wobbled his way into the hotel.

Bang bang!

Teddy knocked on the door with his left hand loudly, not caring about politeness anymore.

“Open the door!” Teddy shouted.

“Yes, it’s Chief Teddy!” Joyful voices came from inside the hotel, but the door didn’t open.

A while later, the husband of the family of three stuck his head over the wall of the garden. He carefully latched on the wall, watched Teddy for quite some time, and then saw the girl’s body crumbling into bits. He then jumped down from the wall, headed to the door, and opened it for Teddy.

“Chief, are you alright?” he asked nervously.

The others were worried as well, and it seemed like everyone had taken Teddy as their ‘spine’ after the freaky scene just now.

“Chief Teddy?” the husband asked in a muffled voice.

“What now?” Teddy also lowered his voice and subtly walked to the corner with the husband.

“Before this, that… said the lady owner knocked on the door?”

The husband couldn’t think of a proper word to describe the plump guy and brushed it aside.

“Yes, so what?” Teddy nodded and then looked at the husband, who’s expression turned ugly.

“About that… the lady owner had left the hotel around evening to go have a look at the blocked road caused by a landslide—my wife, my son, and I saw her off, the two servants of the hotel too.”

The husband sounded like he was going to cry.

It’s not that he wasn’t strong enough, but just that the situation was beyond his comprehension; he didn’t know what to do.

“You didn’t tell the others, right?”

“No! I even told my wife and kid to stay calm, and not to spread it!” The husband shook his head.

“You did well!” Teddy tapped on his shoulder.

“What should we do now?” the husband, calmed by the tap, asked.

“Now? We call in the professionals!”

Teddy then walked away from the corner and headed to the phone in the lobby.

With everyone watching, he picked up the phone and dialed a number.