Chapter 40: Teeth (5)

Everly sat alone outside the operating room, her hands clenched into fists, her head bowed low.

After the tooth extraction, blood was still seeping from the socket, but not much—it wasn’t a serious problem. The wound on the back of her hand had been treated in time as well. It looked frightening, but in reality it wasn’t very deep.

Between her and Old John, the one more seriously injured was actually him. She hadn’t held back with that stab—she had driven the blade straight through his arm. And yet, in order to help Everly, he had continued exerting force even after being wounded, causing the injury to tear open a second time and bleed heavily.

That kind of wound wasn’t something Old John could handle on his own. After giving it a quick rinse and bandage, he drove her straight to the hospital in downtown Micano.

Just moments ago, the ER doctor had examined her grandfather. The results showed that Everly’s knife had happened to pass through the gap between two bones, without damaging the bones themselves—but it had torn the interosseous membrane, requiring surgical debridement and suturing.

Everly’s heart was filled with guilt and anger.

It shouldn’t have been like this… She had foreseen the danger. But she was too weak—too weak physically, and too weak in willpower. That was why the nurse had forced her into that chair, forced her eyes open with a speculum to watch that video. She had even been brainwashed into forgetting the dangerous memory, unknowingly carrying the contamination home with her… If she hadn’t been lucky enough to get Rebecca’s dried toad, if her grandfather hadn’t been there to protect her, she might have already harmed herself to death.

The more guilty she felt, the angrier she became.

Everly couldn’t understand it. She had only gone to the clinic for an ordinary dental appointment. Neither she nor Old John had provoked anyone. So why had all of this happened to her?

And yet she also understood that some malice arrives without reason. It may simply be a matter of appearing at the wrong place at the wrong time—being seen, being chosen—and from that moment on, stepping one unlucky foot into the abyss.

With the groundwork laid by the previous incidents, Everly tried to analyze what had happened using horror-movie logic. But because the information she had was too limited, she couldn’t determine whether this really was a horror scenario—and if it was, what kind of narrative pattern it followed.

She needed more intelligence. However, between her and Old John, the one with connections and access to information was him. And he was still recovering from surgery. For now, Everly didn’t want to burden him with trivial matters.

Then she would wait… Once Old John regained some strength, she would discuss their next move with her grandfather.

After the strange tooth had been pulled, Everly’s mind became clear again. That abnormal, deranged mental state did not return, and no new teeth grew from the socket. Clearly, the root of the mutation had been removed. She had originally planned to wait a while—until Old John recovered a bit more—before dealing with the aftermath involving the dental clinic. What she hadn’t expected was that she was far from the only victim.

It was the second day after Old John was injured. Since his arm was still in recovery and shouldn’t be overused, he booked a room at a hotel in Micano and planned to stay in the city with Everly for the time being.

There were more people in the city, and news spread faster than in the countryside. While eating breakfast at the hotel’s buffet restaurant, Everly happened to overhear a young couple at the next table chatting. They were talking about a family massacre on Triangle Street. The male head of the household had suddenly gone mad for unknown reasons and brutally killed his wife and son before finally taking his own life.

“Another family massacre? There’ve been quite a few of those lately…”

“And not just that—look at this. It says the perpetrator pulled out their teeth before killing them.”

“Another tooth-pulling murder case? Why? Is it a copycat crime?”

The couple huddled together, whispering for quite a while. Eventually, they stood up, left behind the newspaper they had been flipping through, and left the buffet looking satisfied.

The keyword “tooth-pulling” caught Everly’s attention. Before the staff could come to clear the table, she walked over to the neighboring table and picked up the discarded newspaper.

This was a local newspaper published in Micano. Most of its contents were mundane—domestic squabbles, bits of gossip, rental ads. Only on the very front page, taking up a huge portion of the layout, was a horrifying report of a family massacre. Beneath the bold headline was a photograph of the suspect. Though it was in black and white and clearly taken years ago, Everly recognized him at a glance.

It was Robert—the man who had spoken to her and Old John at the clinic.

She read on.

Yesterday afternoon, after hearing nonstop screams and wails coming from next door, a resident of Triangle Street called the police. When officers arrived, they found the neighboring house tightly shut and eerily silent. After knocking for a long time with no response—and catching the strong smell of blood—they forced their way inside. What they saw was a family of three lying in pools of blood, all deceased.

Based on their preliminary investigation, the police concluded that the violence had been committed by the male head of the household. He had first struck his wife on the back of the head with a blunt object from behind, knocking her briefly unconscious. Then he used pliers to pull out her teeth one by one.

During the process, the wife had awakened from the pain and struggled, but their son—the second victim—had helped his father restrain his mother.

Robert Smith cruelly tore out all of his wife’s teeth while she was still alive. He then used a knife to carve countless wounds into her body, ultimately causing her to bleed to death.

After his wife, the blade turned toward his son. Just the same—his teeth were forcibly pulled out, and he too was stabbed again and again. Not long after, the boy died, following his mother.

Having killed his two family members in such an exceptionally brutal manner, perhaps out of remorse, perhaps out of fear of punishment, or perhaps because he had completely lost his mind, Robert took his own life. He tore out nearly all of his own teeth and threw them into the trash. Then he sat on the floor and used the tip of the knife to carve numerous holes into himself—like a honeycomb—until he died, surrounded by blood and shredded flesh.

The report described in painstaking detail the horrific state of the three bodies. It said the holes covering them were deep and densely packed. After the blood had dried, it had taken on a slick, black sheen—so much so that it reminded people of clusters of insect eggs, provoking intense physical revulsion. Several officers at the scene had reportedly vomited due to trypophobia.

As for Robert’s motive, the police were still investigating and had reached no conclusions for the time being.

At the end of the article, the writer reviewed three other recent tooth-pulling murder cases and, in an almost sensational tone, offered a variety of bizarre speculations about the killers’ motives…

After finishing the newspaper, Everly let out a long breath.

So she wasn’t the only victim entangled with “teeth.”

That meant she couldn’t follow her original plan anymore.

Everly spread the newspaper out in front of Old John. At the same time, she recounted everything that had happened during this period in as calm a tone as possible: being forced to watch a strange videotape, having a segment of her memory inexplicably erased, her unhealthy obsession with the new canine tooth, and the series of hallucinations she saw before she lost control and hurt someone.

Old John’s brow never relaxed the entire time.

When she finished, he gently patted his granddaughter’s head with his uninjured hand, then took out his phone and called an acquaintance named David at the Dwight State Police.

The Megan Clinic was located in Micano City, and in terms of jurisdiction, related cases should have been handled by the Micano City Police. However, in this version of America, all kinds of unimaginable and brutal major crimes occurred frequently, forcing police departments in different areas to cooperate and share information. Through David’s connections, Old John quickly got in touch with a detective from the Micano Police Department.

From that detective, Old John learned that Micano police had already taken notice of the Megan Clinic.

“The families targeted in the tooth extraction m*ssacre all had dental appointments at Megan Clinic within the past month. Because of that, we sent officers there to investigate the day before yesterday. But the place was already completely deserted. Whoever was there had cleared out, and they didn’t leave behind a single useful clue.”

“What about the staff?” Old John asked.

“From the dentists and nurses to the clinic’s general manager, every piece of registration information turned out to be fake. We also tried contacting the Megan Medical Group. They stated clearly that they have never established a dental clinic in Micano City, and said they’ve already received reports about the situation and will be pursuing legal action to protect their rights…”

In short, the culprits had all fled—and there wasn’t even anyone left to take the blame.

“…We’ve found that anyone who received treatment at that clinic has a high probability of suddenly going berserk and harming themselves or others. But on one hand, we don’t have the patient list, so we can’t track down everyone who was treated there. On the other hand, we have no way to stop these outbursts. Their mental states have deteriorated severely—they display extreme agitation and self-harming tendencies. Several of them have already been admitted to psychiatric hospitals, strapped to restraint beds, and given regular sedative injections…”

The detective’s voice was thick with exhaustion; it was clear the string of cases had pushed him to the brink.

When it came to locating the patient list, Everly couldn’t help. But as for how to stop the patients from going mad, she did have some insight.

She exchanged a glance with Old John. The old man gave a small nod and, on her behalf, told the detective the answer:

“Tooth extraction.”

“Make sure to restrain the patient first—secure them so they can’t move. Then remove the tooth that was treated at the clinic. That tooth is what’s affecting their mind and driving them to commit violence against others. If conditions allow, after the extraction, it would be best to have someone perform a cleansing ritual on the patient as well, to prevent any lingering malignant influence from remaining in the body.”

“An exorcism… I see. So these cases really are connected to that sort of existence?” The detective paused for a moment, then accepted Old John’s suggestion with surprising ease.

It seemed that the Micano police weren’t as rigid as she had imagined, nor were they completely ignorant of supernatural forces. The reason they had ignored the pleas from the residents of Lemot Town before was probably because “cockroaches growing huge and starting to eat people” was simply too much of a stretch for anyone’s imagination…

Since everyone at the Megan Clinic had fled, Everly’s plans for revenge naturally could no longer be carried out.

The good news was that, thanks to her and Old John’s intervention, all the remaining patients the police were able to locate received a somewhat rough but undeniably effective “tooth extraction plus exorcism” package service—and regained their sanity.

After Robert, no new tooth-pulling murder cases occurred in Micano City. Before long, the people living there were drawn to an endless stream of new events and new crimes, and this string of cases was gradually forgotten.

Only Everly, who had suffered the most from it, couldn’t let it go.

After Old John had fully recovered, and accompanied by her grandfather, Everly stood at the gates of Micano’s notoriously subpar university—Texas Management University.