horror effect

Julian's injured right foot hampered his movement, and the snow was too slippery to use crutches, and he had to call a hotel car, though he knew then that Herbert Wernstein would know.

The attendant on the floor helped him come downstairs, get into the car, and took the crutches with him.The distance from the hotel to the medical center was very short, and the car stopped almost as soon as it started.

But even so, it took Julian III 10 minutes to arrive at the infirmary.

He asked the driver to wait and walked in on crutches.Once inside, Julian knew he was in for the worst.

Dr. Hostatova was standing in the consulting room, not the treatment room.

This means that Collivan's father may be dead, otherwise she should be rescued in the treatment room.What made Julian more sure of that was Mijia's expression. He stood opposite the female doctor, close to the door of the treatment room, covering his face with his hands, his shoulders trembling unceasingly.As for the female doctor, when Julian came in, she gave him a cold look, and then continued to finish the interrupted words to Micah: "...the process was not very long, so he didn't experience too much pain." Papa Collivan was apparently dead.

Behind the weeping Mitya sat the sisters Tofana, whom Julian saw for the first time.

These two sisters, very much alike, were dressed in thick cloth skirts and woolen coats from the last era, their faces were pale, every muscle and every fold in their faces was trembling and twitching, their eyes were wide open, but nothing seemed to be happening. Didn't see it, they were trembling all over as if they were exposed to the ice and snow.

Stephen walked towards Julian, he didn’t speak, just shook his head solemnly.

Julian asked softly, "What is the cause of death?"

"Liver bleeding. He has advanced liver cancer, which could happen at any time. Dr. Hostatova has informed the emergency center in Karlovo, and they will send a helicopter, but it is no longer necessary."

"What was the situation at that time?"

"When Collivan's father fell ill, Mijia first notified the doctor, and then the patient was sent to the ambulance. The mountain road was covered with snow, and it was impossible to pass at night. He called a helicopter and rescued him at the medical center before the helicopter arrived. Then Tofa Sister Na is also here."

"What about you? How do you know?"

"Sister Tofana called me."

Julian quickly glanced at the two sisters sitting, and then whispered to Stephen, "It's so strange, why did they find you, you have nothing to do with this whole incident."

"I don't understand it myself, but I think they'll explain it to us..."

Before Stephen finished speaking, the door of the medical center was suddenly opened, and several people rushed in.

They are the mayor of the town, the police chief, a young policeman, Mr. Lin Nong, the owner of Lin Nong's rented bookstore, and his son Valentine.

"I hear Papa Colleven has been murdered!" exclaimed the Mayor and the Chief of Police almost simultaneously. "What the hell happened here?!"

The female doctor went up immediately.

"There wasn't any murder. If there was, it was cancer that murdered Collivan. He died of illness. Everyone present can attest to that."

"Really?" The mayor was a little puzzled, and Dushkevich, the chief of police, had already begun to show anger on his face.

"Who told you about the murder?" Julian asked.

"Herbert Wernstein! He called us in the middle of the night to say that someone in the infirmary had been murdered, otherwise we wouldn't have come here!"

Julian and Stephen glanced at each other, and they knew each other that Vaughnstein was deliberately making trouble.

"He lied to us!" Dushkevich exclaimed angrily.

"Be quiet, please!" said Dr. Hostatova disapprovingly.She didn't like how many people were crowding the infirmary, and it annoyed her a little that the people who showed up later didn't seem to care about the dead.

"I can guarantee that Papa Collivan died of illness. Please stop arguing. You should think about what to do now."

This remark alerted the mayor, who, realizing the awkwardness of the situation, coughed and said, "Then... er... I'm very sorry..."

He stepped over and grabbed Micah's hand and shook it, "We are all very sad. Your grandfather was a man who could make people happy all the time. Hope he has a good time in heaven. Sorry to bother you," said After finishing, he bowed and exited the medical clinic.

After watching them leave, Mijia followed the female doctor into the treatment room, while the others stayed outside.The newly arrived Mr. Lin Nong and Valentine also sat down on the chairs melancholy after asking about the situation. There was no sound in the room for a while, and everyone felt that the silence was unbearable. The air seemed to be filled with something that made them Difficulty breathing.

After a while, a overlapping voice slowly said a word, "White Lion".

Everyone jumped up as if they had been stabbed by a needle, and they stared at Sister Tofana who said the word, all kinds of thoughts tumbling in their heads.

"Papa Collivan died of illness." Nicholas spoke first.

Sisters Tofana grinned, revealing smooth gums, their toothless mouths grinning into a black bottomless pit.

"You don't believe it?" Stephen asked.

They nodded vigorously together.

"It's just a coincidence," Mr Linnon said.

He put his hands in the waistband of his trousers and said deliberately calmly, "It's Collivan who is out of luck. He has suffered from liver disease for many years, and his jaundice is also very serious."

Sister Tofana showed that eerie smile again.

This time they spoke: "Creating sickness and sudden death is nothing to the white lion, it can do it easily. Have you forgotten Theoros' death? A mysterious accident. Or Mu The death of Radnov and his son? Two ordinary accidents. It seems to be a coincidence, but the white lion is capable of doing it."

"You are sensationalizing people," said Dushkevich, the police chief.

"As you like." They glanced at him disdainfully, "Anyway, Papa Collivan will never be the last."

This sentence surprised Julian, and he felt that Sister Tofana must know something crucial.He walked up to them on crutches and said, "How are you sure?" But Sister Tofana suddenly became silent as if she had become dumb, no matter how much he asked, she refused to say a word.However, the word they just uttered hung over everyone's heart like a thick layer of mist.

On such a cold night, in an adjoining room lay a dead man whose death might be repeated in others.The feeling of fear permeates everywhere, and people are like a group of birds in a cage, struggling constantly, standing up abruptly, walking to another position, and turning around again.

The tension builds to a crescendo as Papa Collivan's body is pushed out.Sister Tofana had the calmest expression. They stared intently at the white veil, with their lips tightly pressed together. If they had teeth, they would surely bleed.

Looking at the corpse, Nicholas couldn't help shivering.This is not all because he pities the dead, but because he is glad that he escaped, because the white lion may choose himself to die.

But it didn't choose me, it chose Colleven, the tavern keeper, and not Nicola Theoros, the male nurse at the infirmary, and I escaped... He felt grateful for the corpse, the man who had replaced him .

Of these, the most excited was Valentine.He can say a lot of great things about life and death in his poems, and so can many other people, but they really don't know anything about life and death, because they are so afraid of death that they dare not face it at all.

Just like now, facing the corpse, he can only look at him with horrified eyes, can only wait with a horrified mood, and rejoice that he is not that pale and stiff dead person, other than that, he can't think of anything, and Can't do it.

Dr. Hostatova, who pushed the corpse out, was extremely calm. She looked at everyone in the room and observed their expressions, but she herself had no feelings for the deceased.Anyway, it was Papa Collivan's misfortune, not hers.

It's him dead, blood coagulated, lying here.

She even looked at others with an amused expression, and tried her best to hide this inappropriate psychology.

There is no place to store the body in the medical center. Father Collivan's body will be sent to the church, where it can be buried after a routine inspection by the police station.

The bodies were loaded into the cars, and the people went home, but the news of the death followed them to every family in the town.

When Dr. Hostatova returned to the clinic, she found that sisters Julian, Stephen and Tofana hadn't left.Facing Julian who came up, she smiled politely.

"You're calm," Julian told her.

"what do you mean?"

"I mean, there's no pain or pity or kindness in your face."

The female doctor smiled again.Said: "As a doctor, I am used to seeing this kind of thing."

"Not only that. You're a female doctor, and..."

"So am I bound to be sentimental and kind? No, you're wrong. I'm a doctor, but I'm not kind, and I don't have to be kind just because I'm a woman. My experience tells me that women, like most men, Facing disaster with no resistance, no protection. I think you know that."

Of course he understood, but he didn't want to admit it.

Julian simply said nothing.He and Stephen actually stayed here to wait for Sister Tofana. They needed to prescribe some medicines for rheumatic pains. Before, it was always Father Collivan who came to prescribe the medicines and bring them to them. Now they had to come by themselves.

After giving the medicine to the two sisters, Hostatova watched them leave the hospital with Julian and Stephen.She finds it very strange, why are these four people connected together?She didn't know that during the time she left, they made an agreement; she didn't even know that this agreement would affect her future.

This was the first time Julian and Stephen entered Sister Tofana's old house. Although they were impressed by the dilapidated buildings along the street, they were still surprised after entering the yard.

Sister Tofana's home seems to have not been repaired for decades, and the style of the past can still be vaguely seen from the architectural layout, but the deserted courtyard makes everything look like it is in danger of mildew and collapse anytime and anywhere.

The snow in the center of the yard has been piled up to the foot of the yard wall, revealing a field of weeds and the yellow stems of small trees. A cobblestone road almost covered in weeds zigzags from the gate to the front of the main house.The walls of the main house were riddled with holes, and the wooden window frames protruded like the jaws of an old man.

The wall facing the street was covered with dead branches of ivy, twisted and tangled like capillaries in a human body, and they fell on the stone in a large mass, and someday these branches would surround the whole house and eat it up.On the other side of the main house, there are two small two-story buildings connected together. They are closely attached to the main house, like a group of frightened livestock in a snowstorm, huddled together.

Sister Tofana opened the door slowly, and Julian and Stephen followed them in.

The inside of the main house was just as dilapidated as the outside, if not worse, with dust and clumps of tattered cobwebs everywhere, and a dog so old that it couldn't even get up to say hello to one side of the house.Stephen guessed that the old dog was not owned by the Tofana sisters, but a wanderer from nowhere, who came to the old house by chance, and the two sisters didn't bother to drive it away.

They continued upstairs, through creaking floors and crumbling stairs, to the hall on the second floor that served as a living room.After letting Julian and Stephen sit on the sofa, they brought a pot of hot tea and sat down at the table where they were accustomed.

"Are you really planning to tell us something when you brought us here?" Julian said first.

"We're going to tell you about Bernus Molatov," said one of the two sisters—the elder sister, or the younger, no one could tell.

Julian and Stephen glanced at each other, and they were both obviously surprised.

"Why tell us?" said Stephen. "Isn't it safer to keep the secret?"

Sister Tofana's chest burst into a short, high-pitched laugh that rose to the ceiling before being bounced violently back to the ground.

"We have to speak up."

"If you don't tell it now, one day, no one will know that secret."

"The Mladenovs are dead."

"Theolos is dead."

"Papa Collivan is dead"—"Who knows if we will be next!" They said in unison.

"What? Those who died were those who knew the secret! What's going on?!"

"Because of Albert G. Everything because of him."