From the /c/nosleep community on Chambers

My wife, Lucy, affectionately calls me the luckiest man in the world. The reason she says that is whenever I go out for coffee, there’s always cream on the counter. Whenever I go to Wendy’s, there’s always ketchup packets sitting there. And whenever I go to Subway, there’s always brown sauce left over. I love brown sauce. Despite our buyout in 2017, Lucy and I still live in a small house on the street we grew up in. Everybody here knows us, and when our shop was bought out, they all showed up on the first day of the buyout with a smile on their face. They were all neighbors who were friends, who were friends who were neighbors. We all bought our things in shop, went to the park for picnics, and waved at the neighbors. Everybody in our community, in fact, our whole neighborhood, is built on familiarity. We know all the faces around here, all the cars, and all the houses. We know everything. But in 2018, something changed. The house across the street from us, which used to be an empty house that nobody liked visiting, had a new occupant. He was a Chinese man with a short, scruffy beard and a smile that was almost as wide as our whole buyout was in 2017. His name was Mr. Xiao, and he was the most polite man I’d ever met. The first thing he said when I met him was, “I’m terribly sorry, my English is not very good.” It was. I met him buy accident when I went to check his mailbox. Usually, everybody who moves in comes right over and introduces themselves. There’s some wine involved, and then we become fast friends. But Mr. Xiao didn’t do that. When he moved in, he simply smiled, waved, said, “I’m terribly sorry, my English is not very good,” and went inside his house. So on the third day after he moved in, I went over and introduced myself. I opened the mailbox attached to his door and pulled out a letter, which appeared to be his house deed. I knocked on the door and Mr. Xiao answered, looking almost distraught that I’d disturbed him. “Oh, terribly sorry, terribly sorry,” he said. But I smiled and said, “It’s no problem at all, I’m just here to introduce myself. I’m Jamie Smith. I live in the house across the street.” It was then that Mr. Xiao’s face lit up in a smile that seemed to rival the size of his house. “Jamie, Jamie, nice to meet you!” Then he opened the door all the way and said, “Please come in, I have made some tea.” I didn’t want to be rude, so I went in. When I was inside, I noticed that there was something terribly wrong with Mr. Xiao’s house. You see, there was nothing inside it. Except tea. I saw teacups, tea bags, and tea jugs stacked around the room. I heard tea whistling from the kitchen. “Tea good?” Mr. Xiao asked. “Yes, tea is good,” I replied. It was then that Mr. Xiao’s smile widened even further and he said, “Good good, tea good, Jamie good!” He was weird, but I liked him. And then I heard a noise. Like, something was scratching against my leg, but I couldn’t see anything. I said, “What the fuck?” but Mr. Xiao didn’t reply. Instead, he handed me a steaming cup of tea and said, “Terribly sorry, terribly sorry,” And things only got weirder from there. You see, Mr. Xiao used to throw tea parties. Every morning, he’d go from house to house, inviting people inside his house for tea. They’d go inside, and they’d never come back out. I didn’t know that, though. I just thought they were being rude. Why would I suspect otherwise? And every morning, I’d find teacups on the street with tea in them, next to a note that said, “Terribly sorry, terribly sorry.” I’d always pick them up and throw them away. And then it started getting even weirder. Whenever I’d vacuum my carpet, I’d find tea bags in it. Whenever I went for coffee, they’d give me tea. Whenever I went for a walk, I’d find tea bags on the street. I even found tea in my car once. Whenever I was interested in a new hobby, Mr. Xiao would pop up and say, “Tea good, Jamie?” I loved tea, but I didn’t love it that much. But whenever I was alone in my house, I’d always hear the sound of things scratching against my leg. It was weird, but it never really bothered me. One day, I decided I’d had enough. I was sick of Mr. Xiao and his tea bags. I was sick of the scratching, sick of the tea parties, sick of the neighbors who went in his house and never came out. So I decided something had to be done. The next morning, when Mr. Xiao came to my door, I answered it. “Terribly sorry, terribly sorry, I’ve made tea,” he said. And I said, “Terribly sorry, terribly sorry, but I’m not drinking any tea.” Mr. Xiao didn’t smile back this time. Instead, his face just went flat, like he was staring at a wall. He said, “Terribly sorry” again, but this time, there was venom in it. Mr. Xiao turned around and walked back to his house. But then, something I’d never seen before happened. The windows of his house…changed. They used to be clear, but now they were like mud. And all the tea cups stacked up in them started smashing. And I could swear, I could swear, I heard the neighbors screaming inside his house. But I was paralyzed. I couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, couldn’t do anything. It was then that I felt the scratching again, but this time, it felt sharp, like needles. I looked down, and my legs were covered in slashes. And then, something came out of them. It was like a teabag, but it was moving, and it was alive. And then, Mr. Xiao came back to my door. This time, his smile was wider than ever. And I felt the scratching everywhere, all over my body. I’m posting this from the hospital, because I managed to get out of the house and flag down a car. Terribly sorry, I know this isn’t a typical horror story. But I don’t care. I just want you to know that I’m terribly sorry. And I’m terribly sorry that I’m going to be drinking tea for the rest of my life.

Mr. Xiao

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