Before Wang Ying could reply, Cao Xianming's real voice had already come through the radio.
"A group of Eerie just passed by."
"We turned off the lights, closed our eyes, and kept quiet. We let them pass."
So that was it.
Only after hearing this perfectly normal exchange did the people around them finally dare to crack their eyelids open.
As far as they could see, there really was nothing left.
Those footsteps, those brushing sensations, those eerie whispers-all of them had vanished completely, like a collective hallucination.
Nerves stretched to their limits suddenly relaxed.
Quite a few people slumped straight into their seats, gasping for breath.
They were soaked all over, as if they had been hauled out of water.
Their relief at surviving lasted less than three seconds before everyone's eyes turned, as one, toward the place where the scream had come from.
The bed of the Demoness Pickup Truck.
Eight living people had originally been curled up there.
Now, only seven remained.
The spot belonging to the missing person was not empty.
All that remained there was a sticky mass, like a lump of unshaped dough.
Or the remains of some creature that had been half digested, then vomited back up.
The thing gave off a powerful stench, sour and rotten with a sickly sweetness.
It smelled like a hundred dead rats left baking under the blazing sun for three days, all concentrated together.
"Urgh..."
Someone started dry heaving on the spot.
The others reacted swiftly. The strips of cloth they had used as blindfolds just now came in handy again, all transferred to their noses and stuffed tightly in place.
The situation in the cars behind them was exactly the same.
Everyone who had made a sound had vanished into thin air.
In their place were