Monday 22 October 2012

The Anklets

It was two o'clock in the morning. Dr. Hamid was still at his desk in the office, struggling to begin a report he had to make. in the adjoining mortuary lay the dismembered body of an Indian woman, killed the day before by her husband. Dr. Hamid had spent four hours doing the autopsy. And now, he sat with his fingers drumming the desk, eyebrows knitted and the typewriter sitting silently in front of him. The body was brought in at about ten last night, with both feet severed clean at the ankle. The story, as far as the police could gather up to now, was that the woman had been in the habit of leaving home every morning, as soon as her husband had gone to tap rubber trees, to while away the hours with a pal and a neighbour, totally neglecting her household responsibilities. Yesterday, the long suffering husband finally decided he could not take it any more. He killed her, and chopped off her feet for good measure. They were recovered at the scene, and came to the mortuary still wearing the woman's brass bell anklets. Dr. Hamid removed the anklets when he completed his examination, and left them on the table not far from him, as he sat staring at the typewriter.

In the meantime, police kept up the hunt for her killer who had long made his escape by the time the murder was discovered. Neighbours believed he had gone into hiding in the jungle. Dr. Hamid had still not begun his report when the clock in his office chimed three. He nodded away sleepily and finally dozed off. He had no idea how long he had been asleep, but the first thing he heard when he awoke was the faint tinkling of little bells. Instantly, he remembered the anklets he had removed from the severed feet of the dead Indian woman still lying in the adjoining room. He wondered if someone was taking them away, as his eyes went over to the spot where he had left them. To his shock, the anklets were gone! He jumped up and made a check, but they were certainly not on the table. The bells tinkled again, and this time the sound clearly came from the floor. Next thing he knew, a pair of feet like those severed from the dead Indian woman's body, jumped out from under the desk. They wore a pair of anklets just like hers, just like the ones now missing from the table. And they were alive! They sped to the open front door, sprang out, and disappeared into the darkness.

The sight of a pair of feet bounding away on their own was simply shocking to Dr. Hamid. He could feel a chill running through his body. Hoping it was just his imagination, he rushed into the mortuary, only to see what he had feared he would see. The pair of severed feet that belonged to the dead Indian woman had disappeared. Confused, he ran out and started screaming for Musa, his attendant, who came rushing in, torchlight in hand. 'What's wrong? What happened, Doctor?' 'The Indian woman's feet have escaped,' Dr. Hamid replied quickly, without much thought as to what he was saying to the puzzled young man. He snatched the torchlight from Musa's hand, leaving the young attendant completely in the dark. He ran right out of the building in search of the fugitive feet. At the edge of the front lawn, the light from his torchlight fell on them, springing furiously away. Dr. Hamid froze in his tracks as he stood watching the feet charging towards the forest at the fringe of the hospital grounds. Within moments, they disappeared from view and the tinkling of little bells faded away into the distance.

Confounded and upset, Dr. Hamid returned to his room and took his seat. He was shivering all over and drenched by perspiration. It now looked like he was going to have an even harder time preparing his report. Who is to believe that a pair of severed feet, from a dead woman's body had escaped from the mortuary, bell anklets and all? Dr. Hamid shook his head. Musa came in. 'I feel feverish, Doctor. I'm not sure I can go on working tonight. May I go home?' Dr. Hamid had hardly opened his mouth to reply when Musa made his exit. Within moments, his motorcycle was heard leaving the hospital. He seemed in such a hurry to leave that Dr. Hamid wondered if the young man had been spooked too. Now all alone in his room, Dr. Hamid could not help feeling quite uneasy. He did not believe in the supernatural, but that did not make what he had just seen any less real and frightening. He thought about the anklets again. He left his seat and started looking for them, just in case he had misplaced them somewhere or other in the room. He made a thorough search but to no avail. he even went into the mortuary, but still there was no sign of them.

The anklets were gone, no doubt about it. Tired and frustrated, Dr. Hamid left the mortuary, locked the place and went back to his office. Then he stood by the window to seek comfort in the cool morning air, and tried to recollect his thoughts. The clock chimed four as rain started to fall, lightly at first, but gradually growing into a downpour. Dr. Hamid returned to his seat. he still had not made any progress with his autopsy report. He leaned back wearily, blinked his eyes, and stared at the ceiling. His typewriter stayed silent. His thoughts were wondering when he suddenly heard a strange noise outside the room. He strained his ears to listen and, with the downpour in the background, caught the sound of something crawling on the floor. Moments later, there were a scratching sound at the door. Then the door swung open. Now entering the room was the Indian woman's body, the one that was suppose to be lying, feetless and dead, on the table in the locked mortuary. It crawled slowly towards the desk, on its face was an expression of extreme agony. Dr. Hamid could not move a finger. His whole body had turned limp. Terrified, he felt like screaming, but found no voice.

The creature, for despite its appearance was certainly not human. It had now reached the center of the room, just yards away from his desk. Its eyes were fixed on him. On its mouth was a grin that revealed a set of white teeth. It stretched out its left hand, as though offering him something it had been holding. They were the missing bell anklets. All the time, it kept crawling towards him. Soon it was under the desk, temporarily out of Dr. Hamid's view. And yet Dr. Hamid still could not find the strength to move. His whole body froze as if under a spell. Then one of the creature's hands reappeared from under the desk, and reached out to grab its side. The other hand then followed suit. And the creature heaved itself up and out from under the desk. Now standing up, it slowly reached out for Dr. Hamid's face with the hand holding the anklets. Closer and closer the hand came. Suddenly, there was a terrific blast, like a bolt of lightning had struck shaking the room. Dr. Hamid was flung onto the floor. Just before he lost consciousness, he saw the horrible creature vanishing.

when he came to, a tinge of red was on the eastern horizon, heralding the rising of the sun. The telephone on his desk was ringing impatiently. Dr. Hamid got up and grabbed the handset. 'Yes?' 'This is Corporal 1435 speaking. Is this Dr. Hamid? My men are sending another dead body to the mortuary for your examination. It's the husband of the murdered Indian woman we sent you yesterday,' a voice at the other end said. 'What? He's dead too? How did it happen? ... Well, alright.' Dr. Hamid was trembling all over, still shaken by the frightening occurrences he had just gone through. he caught a glint at the edge of the table from where the pair of anklets had been missing. He reached out to see what it was. There was no mistake about it. The anklets were back, exactly where he had left them, as if they had never been missing from the table. Dr. Hamid went into the mortuary. It did not take him long to see the Indian woman's back exactly where he had last seen it, in exactly the same position as if it too had never left the place. The pair of severed feet were by its side. but there was a difference. taking a closer look, he found their soles caked with clay and fresh blood. Dr. Hamid dashed out of the room and locked the door.

Half an hour later, the body of the woman's husband arrived, covered in a sheet of white cloth. Dr. Hamid lifted the sheet to inspect, and was overcome by revulsion and shock. From head to toe, the body was a mass of mangled flesh, as if it had been pulverized by a pair of monster feet.

Knocks On The Wall

Everyone used to wonder why Adnan had not gotten married. Forty years old, and he still had shown no desire for someone to share his life. He was a good man. Always reliable and upright. He had a good job and he was well-regarded by the folks of the village where he lived. His civil, courteous manners never failed to win hearts, and it was no wonder he become a sort of yardstick of good conduct there. Mothers, for one, were fond of citing his example to their misbehaving kids, saying things like, 'Why can't you be like Adnan? Look at him. What a nice, good man he is.' They never stop praising him. It was no wonder too that Adnan had more than a few admirers among the women and even young girls in the village. To the more mature ladies, he was Mr. Right, the perfect dream husband. To the young girls, he was simply wonderful, 'never mind his age!'

One particular young lady who was crazy about him was Kak Jah, his own maid servant. Kak Jah had been working for Adnan for five years, long before he moved into the village, and long enough for her to get completely besotted with the man. Rumors had it that she had tried all sorts of ways to win him, with no results, at least not as far as she could read in his eyes. Not that Kak Jah was wanting in any way. She was only twenty eight, still young and quite attractive to start with. And she knew how to enhance her good looks by always being well groomed and well dressed. As his maid servant, she had been taking good care of his household. Always at the door by eight in the morning, she would prepare his breakfast, cook his lunch, clean and dust the place and prepare his dinner before leaving for home at five. In the five years she had been serving him, she was beyond reproach. Adnan himself was a newcomer to the village. He moved in only recently, when he bought that ancient house up the hill. It was a medium sized, concrete building, the only one of the type in a neighborhood of traditional wooden Malay houses. It sat on a fairly large piece of land, boasting of a lovely garden with a winding driveway hedged on each side by a row of hibiscus. It was in rather bad shape when Adnan bought it but, with some repairs and a new coat of paint, it was  now as good as new.

A clerk in a legal firm in Malacca Street, Singapore, Adnan was a hard worker. He was ever ready to bring home unfinished work, to toil over them till lat at night in order to get them ready by next morning. That was how he first heard those strange knocks on the wall. It happened one evening about two months after he moved in. He was then working, as usual, on his files in the study which previous owner used to treat as a storeroom. They were just gentle knocks at first, so he simply ignored them and carried on working. But when they kept getting louder and louder, he began to take notice. He put down his pen and listened intently to determine where they were coming from. The source seemed to him be within the room itself, but what could making such a noise? As far as he knew, there was no one else around. As he kept listening, they seemed to shift to the main door. He got up and went out to open the door. But no one was there either. There was only the humming of the wind through the casuarinas in the courtyard.  

He closed the door and went back to his room to finish his work. Moments later, the knocks came back again, softly. It could be the branches of the trees rapping against the windows, he told himself. The knocking went on. Or perhaps it's those village urchins trying to scare me. Stealthily, he got up and tiptoed to the main door. He swung it open in a flash, but no one was there. He closed the door and returned to the study, perturbed, grumbling to himself. Who could be knocking in the dead of night like this? As he stood in the middle of the room, Adnan listened again. When he not hear the knocking anymore, he sat down. But the moment he picked up the pen and began to write, it started again. They seemed to echo softly, as if coming out of the bottom of a canyon.

He rose and this time listened really hard. And at last it became clear. The knocks were not at the front door but inside the concrete wall separating the study and the kitchen! But how could that be, unless there was a ghost, and Adnan did not believe in such things. He told himself, if there wasn't anyone at the front door, and there certainly wasn't anyone in the house, surely there cannot be anyone inside the wall! Not alive! Then they stopped. Adnan could not hear them anymore, even when he pressed his ears against the wall for a few seconds. Everything was silent. All he heard was the pounding in his chest and the rising and falling of his breath. He returned to his desk, collected his papers, switched off the light, and hastened to another room or continue his work.

In the stillness of the night, as Adnan continued working, the only sound in the air was the muted gliding of his pen. Then, abruptly, he stopped writing. He threw the pen in his hand, as if suddenly it was something repulsive to him. He stared goggle-eyed at the piece of paper he had been working on. He could not believe what he had just written there. Everything was in order until the phrase, '... it is evident therefore that the accused did commit...' And then, inexplicably, appeared words that left him completely flummoxed. He had written them with his own hand.. he must have, who else could have done it? But they simply had nothing to do with the rest of what he was writing! He read them out, '... please remove a brick from the wall that I may be free. I am Mariam binti Mohamad, wife of Mohamad bin Jaafar. I swear that on 17th May 1933, my husband gave me a poisoned cup of coffee, and then...' Adnan lept  up in shock, sending the chair crashing on the floor behind him. What had he written? What on earth could have made him write something like that out of the blue? Aghast, he dashed out for the comfort of his bedroom, his nerves frayed. He could not find sleep that night.


next morning, as she prepared breakfast, Kak Jah found Adnan not quite himself. Something seemed to be troubling him. She said nothing, but all sorts of ideas began crossing her mind. she wondered if he was began to feel uncomfortable being alone with her. Could it mean he was beginning to like her, fall for her? Goodness! she thought. At last...! But Adnan simply left some cash for themarketing as usual, and went to work. He hardly said anything. Alone at home attending to her chores, Kak Jah could not help wondering about her employer and his strange mood that morning. She kept telling herself he must be falling for her. She told herself she must now groom herself up, try to look even more attractive, and take even better care of him, so that she would remain in his heart. And when, on his return from work that afternoon, the man came straight to the kitchen to look for her, Kak Jah really thought the moment she had been dreaming of had finally come.


'Cik Jah, would you join me in the living room, please? There's something I'd like to tell you,' he told her. Her heart in her mouth, Kak Jah stopped all work and followed Adnan to the living room. Her face was flushed with embarrassment and the excitement building up inside her made her feel like she was going to explode. Could this be it? Is he going to pour out his feelings towards me? What am I going to say? 'Please have a seat, Cik Jah. t's not nice to let you stand, especially since I'm going to take some time saying what I have to say,' Said Adnan, gesturing her to the seat. 'I'm not sure what you think of me, I bet by the time I finish this story, you;ll think I'm crazy.' 'Oh, why would I think of you that way?' replied Kak Jah. Adnan began relating the spooky experience he had last night. And as the story unfolded, the coy smile on Kak Jah's face gradually gave way to a look of disappointment. Her eyes fixed blankly on the floor below. Adnan's voice grew indistinct to her as her mind wandered. She sighed silently, for it was clear now that her expectations were way off the mark. 'So, what do you think I should do, Cik Jah?' asked Adnan when he finished the story. I'm not sure I can help you there, Encik Adnan. You were probably just hearing things. maybe you'd been working too hard and the pressure is beginning to affect your health. Perhaps you need a rest. Take a day or two off. That might do the trick.' Adnan fell silent for a moment before replying. 'Thank you, Cik Jah.'


That evening, Kak Jah went home feeling blue. All the dreams she had just had that morning were now shattered. She felt like never going to work again. She felt she could never face that man again. But then, as she thought over it, she realized she had no one to blame but herself. She let her fantasies take over her. She let herself dream about the man when he simply had no feelings for her. Back in the house that evening, Adnan did not feel like doing his work as usual. After dinner, he changed and went out, taking a bus to Geylang Serai where he hailed a trishaw to Queen's theater. By the time he arrived there, however, he was no longer sure he wanted to sit through a movie and instead, ended up in the popular coffee shop next door where he ordered a cup of tea and sat down to watch people go by.


His thoughts were still filled with the extraordinary events of the previous night, when he suddenly felt someone tapping his shoulder and heard a familiar voice greeting him. 'Adnan, how are you? What are you doing here all by yourself?' Adnan turned around to find Ahmad standing behind him. A good friend, Ahmad also happened to be the man who arranged his purchase of the house. 'Oh, it's you, Mat. Have a seat. Haven't seen you for quite a while. How are you? Care for some tea?' Adnan responded as he extended his hand. Adnan ordered a cup of tea for his guest, and the two friends had a good chat about old times. inevitably, the topic drifted to the house he had bought with Ahmad's help. 'How's your new place?' asked Ahmad. 'Oh, great,' was Adnan's brief reply. 'That's good to hear. You know, various people have lived there before you, and all of them had complained of strange noises. I don't know. Maybe there is something about the place. But you don't seem to have any problems there, do you? Anyway, what did they expect, huh? It's an old house. Of course it creaks in all sort of places.'


'Right,' replied Adnan. Unwilling to say more. 'You know the previous owner? He's now living in Penang. When he was here, he didn't care about the house. He moved out and simply left it vacant for a whole year. He thought his wife might like to live there again. But she didn't. Finally, he let the place out, and tenants came and went. None of them stayed there long. 'That's why I'm glad to hear you're comfortable there. If there's anything not to your satisfaction, please call me. I'd be happy to help,' said Ahmad. When Ahmad left him later, Adnan felt there were even more clouds in his mind than before. He did not reach home till it was almost midnight that night. He went straight to his study to get some stationery and proceeded to write a letter to his brother to tell him about the happenings in the house and to seek his advice. He wrote at length, beginning from the purchase of the house and until he heard those knocking the previous night.


Two in the morning, and Adnan was still writing. Suddenly, in the midst of a sentence, he found himself staring at his own hand as it wrote '... and then he carried me and dumped me into a hole in the wall of the storeroom, which he then cemented up. That is where I've been buried. I have suspected all along that he had another woman. And I was right. But I never imagined he would do this to me. Now, I can't get out of this hole. Please free me. I must find him, wherever he might be.' Once again, Adnan's instinctive response was to fling the pen onto the desk. 'My God! What is this! Why am I writing these words?' he screamed. His thoughts were a tangled mess. His body shivered with terror. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. He tore up everything he had written and rushed to the bedroom to lie down. He was really, really scared this time. But even as he lay in bed, he continued to hear persistent knocking in the wall. He even thought he heard a raspy female voice pleading with him to remove a brick from the wall so that she could be free. They kept him awake all through the night.


Next morning, Kak Jah was shocked to find Adnan looking haggard as though he had been sick for years. He did not say much and Kak Jah did not feel like asking too many questions either. After breakfast, he told her he was going out but not to the office and that he would be home early that day. Adnan went to see Ahmad. he had finally made up his mind to tell his friend about his frightening experiences. he had to find out if he knew anything about what might have happened there. Perhaps Ahmad could help him. For several long minutes after he heard Adnan's story, Ahmad sat back silently in his chair. Then he got up, went to his room, and returned with a file in his hands. 'You might like to read these. You know, you could have told me about it last night when I asked you if there was anything wrong. There's no point keeping this thing from me.' Adnan opened the file and read a newspaper cutting clipped inside. Singapore, 31 May, Local police said they still could not shed any light on the whereabouts of Madam Mariam binti Mohamad, reported missing two weeks ago. The wife of timber mechant, Mr. Mohamad bin Jaafar, she was reportedly last seen by a train passenger at the Singapore railway station, although this could not be confirmed. In fact, railway personnel interviewed said they believed it was a case of mistaken identity. The real Madam Mariam remains untraced to date. Anyone with any information that might assist police in their investigations is requested to see...'


Adnan stared at Ahmad. 'Is this Mohamad the former owner of the house? The one you told me about last night? Now living in Penang?' 'Right. His wife disappeared under inexplicable circumstances and has never been found since. He was supposedly reunited with her about a year later, but it wasn't her. Just someone who closely resembled her.' Adnan left Ahmad later and he was still confused. He reached home to find lunch already on the table. But he did not feel like eating. Instead, he sat in the study pondering what Ahmad had told him, until Kak Jah popped in to remind him the food was getting cold. 'Are you still troubled by those noises? Like I said, it's probably just your imagination. But, can I suggest something? Perhaps it would help if someone else beside you could hear these noises too. If you don't mind, I'd like to stay around a little longer today.' The suggestion took Adnan by surprise. He could not believe that this attractive maid servant of his would spend the night alone with him just to restore his peace of mind. But before he could reply, Kak Jah continued. 'Don't worry. I don't mean to spend the night here. I just wanted to stay around a little longer than usual. In any case, my nephew Omar will be here to keep us company. I'm expecting him at six.' 


That evening after dinner, Adnan, Kak Jah and her nephew Omar, adjourned to the study to see if they could hear the knocking. They did not have to wait long. 'Cik Jah, Omar, do you hear that?' asked Adnan, drawing their attention when the knocking began. This time, they sounded gentle and unhurried. Kak Jah and Omar nodded their heads to confirm that they too heard the knocking. They stared at the wall where the sounds appeared to be coming from. It was clear to everyone now. Adnan had not been imagining things. 'Get some tools,' Kak Jah suggested all of a sudden. 'What? Whatever for? asked Adnan. 'Lets break down this wall and see what's behind it. That's the only way we'll ever get to the bottom of this,' she said confidently. Soon, the three were busy hammering away at that part of the wall they heard the knocking. No sooner they begun when they noticed the knocking had stopped. Finally, with a lot of effort, they managed to removed a brick and instantly, a blast of cold air rushed out, briefly surrounding them. It took everyone by surprise.


'You're welcome,' Adnan said, out of the blue. 'beg your pordon?' asked Kak Jah, staring uncomprehendingly at him. 'I said you're welcome.' 'Did I say something?' The quizzical look was still on her face. 'You said thank you, right?' asked Adnan, his face now mirroring Kak Jah's look. 'No. Did I?' 'But I thought I heard you... I thought I heard someone, a woman saying...' 'What did she say?' asked Kak Jah. 'She said thank you!' The three of them spent a few moments staring at each other. Resuming work, they pounded around the hole they had just made. Brick by brick, they broke down the wall until it revealed its long held secret, a human skeleton, long hair still on its head,a full set of teeth still in its grinning jaws, and a woman's clothes still covering it. Adnan immediately instructed Omar to call the police while he and Kak Jah stood guard over their macabre find. He was quite shaken, but Kak Jah looked surprisingly cool and collected. There was no sign of fear in her voice when she remarked with a coy smile, 'Well, I'm sure you can have your peace of mind now, now that this thing is over. No more noises to trouble you in the middle of the night. But that's the thing, you see. You've been working too hard. You must take good care of yourself. This time, we happened to be around to help you. But who'll look after you if you fall ill the next time?'


Adnan listened to her with gaping mouth. He felt butterflies fluttering in his stomach and blood rushing to his feet. Kak Jah had never spoken to him like that before. The tone, the sentiments they revealed, were like a bombshell to him. And they knocked enough senses into him to make him take notice for the first time. A month after the incident, a swarm of guests descended upon Adnan's house to help him celebrate the end of his bachelor days. the bride was, of course, his maid servants of five years. It was three days after the wedding. the happy newly weds were in the kitchen. Kak Jah preparing breakfast, Adnan browsing through the morning papers. Listen to this, Jah. 'Penang, today. The local police are investigating the grisly murder last night of a well known local timber merchant, Mohamad bin Jaafar, who was found strangled at home. Police are still hunting for the killer, believed to be a woman with long fingernails.' 'What a weird story,' Adnan continued, as he folded the paper up. 'Well, all kinds of weird stories make this world, dear. Remember that woman...?' said Kak Jah, smiling. 'Right. Poor woman. My goodness! Ten long years imprisoned within that wall.'


Same here, thought Kak Jah. Five long years in the cold, knocking at the door to your heart, getting no response. You didn't notice a thing, did you? Work was all you thought about. Thank God you heard at last. And thus it seemed, when Adnan demolished that wall in his study that fatefull night, he set free not one, but two long suffering souls. 

Monday 15 October 2012

The Legend

'There is something mysterious about the shack at the beach. Some people say that if a young virgin goes swimming on a full moon night in the sea, her soul will be captured by a monster that dwells in the sea. The drowned corpse of the victim is always found naked in the shack.' The narrator paused for dramatic effect. Giggles followed, growing into an outburst of laughter. 'Nonsense! What is so scary about that? it's probably just some pervert work, raping the girls, then leaving their bodies in the shack,' a bright eyed girl with an olive countenance cut it. Born of British Malay parentage, she had the exotic Eurasian look that was very fashionable in those days. Although she was a few months short of fifteen, there was no doubt that her features would blossom into stunning beauty in the near future.

'Ah ha, that's where you are wrong, Lina. The forensic scientists claimed that the victims were still virgins, with no sign of sexual violation. Moreover, their causes of deaths were confirmed as drowning. Perverts don't drown their victims. Instead, they raped and murder them either by strangulation or some other violent method, not necessarily in that order, but seldom drowning. And the clinching argument for my closure is that these deaths take place usually only once in a year, at most twice. S far as records show, more than 20 cases have been documented. So tell me, my dear Lina, what pervert would be so patient as to strike only once a year?' 'Cut out the dramatics, Bernie. What's your point?' 'Always forthright to the point. That's what I like about you. My point is that we should do the public a service, our gang will solve the mystery of the drownings!'


There was an uproar, as the other four girls in the room all protested loudly at the same time. 'You must be crazy!' 'Why should we want to do that!?' 'You've got to have an earthshaking argument to convince me to take part in this one!' 'Oh no! No way am I going to mess around with a murderous pervert!' Bernie waited patiently for the noise to die down before continuing, 'Come on, girls. We're the cool gals, right? Nothing ever guts us down. We solve this and we will become famous in Singapore. We may even get offers to go on TV or radio! Do you want to spend the golden years of your lives slogging over your textbooks, only to graduate to go on to boring nine to five jobs? Where's your zest? Where's your fire? Even if nothing comes out of this, at the very least, we'll have had a good time!'


'Where do you get all this stuff from?' The question was from a plump, pimply girl who would have been rather sweet, if not for the outbreaks on her face. 'My sis, ('Which one?'), Betty, the one who is majoring in History at NUS, has took this book on interesting things in Singapore. The other time when I was on medical leave for two weeks because I had chickenpox, I was so bored I browsed through it. Came across this strange incident at Sembawang Beach, and I was pretty fascinated by the story. I find it rather bizarre, how only one person and always a young girl at that would be drowned a year. Mind you, it does not happen every year. There is no pattern to the years of each drowning. But I believe that that could be because in certain years, no one went swimming on that particular full moon night. It has to be on one full moon night, you see.'


'And which moonlit night would that be?' This was from the athletic one, Sandy, who had her hair cut to a short crop, so that it wouldn't interfere with her movements. 'I've yet to work that out.' 'Don't be ridiculous, Bernie. We've only got a legend. So without a single clue, you expect us to solve what the police, with all their resources, have not been able to accomplish?' 'Let's not be too nasty, Lina. Why don't we listen to what Bernie has to say before passing our judgments?' The fourth girl, Lingli, was studious looking with a pair of dark-rimmed spectacles framing her pale, oval face. 'Do you have any plan in mind, Bernie?' 'You've known me the longest and that's why you know me best. Well, I wouldn't call it a plan exactly, but I think that there are a couple of things that we could start with which may lead us to other things.' 'Such as?' Josie, the sweet one, asked. 'Such as finding out which are the rest of the full moon nights this year and staking out the beach on these nights.' 


Lina delivered her opinion of the idea with a snort of derision. 'Anything else?' 'Yup. As we all know, the current calendar that we follow is the Gregorion calendar. That's why the dates of the drownings are all different, because the Gregorion calendar is not based on the moon. So we also have to check up the lunar based calendars to see if those dates might mean something in some other calendars.' Lingli nodded her head in agreement. 'And?' 'What do you mean 'And'?' 'Anything else?' 'I said 'a couple', right? So those are the 'couple'!' 'Well,' Lingli said slowly, mulling over Bernie's suggestions as she spoke, 'I don't think your ideas are too bad. In fact, they may be workable. Staking out the beach won't be as dangerous as it seems, as long as we don't go too near the water, we should be fine. Remember? The victims all drowned. The only thing I fear is what if there is no rational explanation to all these?'


'You mean like there is no human cause or something like that?' asked Bernie. 'Exactly.' 'I've thought about that too. Well, you all know that I'm rather open minded about such things. I don't disbelieve in the supernatural but until there is conclusive evidence, I'm rather not a believer either. In this case, if the culprit is not from the natural world, I'll have proven something to myself. Isn't it better this way than to remain in doubt for the rest of our lives?' The rest of the girls fell silent. Bernie's argument sounded logical, but they were also sane enough to know that something that sounds so rational and reasonable in the safety of the familiar would take on a more sinister guise if any of them were unlucky enough to be given the task of haunting a dilapidated shack in the dark of the night, moonlit or otherwise.


'It's getting late. I promised my mum that I'd be back in time for dinner. Why don't we all sleep on it tonight and discuss about it tomorrow?' Lina said, looking at her watch. 'Ya, I also need to go. We'll talk about it again tomorrow,' Josie rose, checked her pinafore to make sure that the blue pleats are still in place. 'OK, so same place tomorrow in school?' Seeing that the others also getting up to retrieve their bags and backpacks, Bernie could sense that there was nothing to be gained by pushing the others that afternoon. 'Yeah, see you.' 'Bye.'


All five of them met together after school the next day. They had chosen to meet at the little school chapel for the simple reason that it was rarely frequented and there was little chance of them being eavesdropped upon there. Outside, they could hear the occasional shouts from the Athletics Club Members, who were practicing for the upcoming National Championship. Sandy was looking rather guilty because she should be out there too, pounding away on the rubber track with the rest of her teammates. 'This is crazy and I'm crazier to allow myself to be persuaded by you,' Lina was saying. 'It's my natural charisma,' beamed Bernie. 'OK, I've been thinking about it. The night after tomorrow is a full moon night. So we'll start sleuthing then. We'll divide ourselves into two teams. First team will be Lingli and Lina. Second team will comprise of the rest of us. Lingli, I've put you into the smaller team because you know Korean Kungfu ('It's tae-kwan-do,' Lingli corrected her but it did not make the least difference to Bernie) and all that, I'm sure you'll be able to handle any pervert who should turn up. In the meantime, I'll go to the archives and the National Library to see if there's any information that we've left out. Lingli, would you like to come with me?'


Lingli shook her head. 'Sorry, but if I'm to be on the night shift the night after tomorrow, I'd want to clear up as much work as I can today and tomorrow.' 'Lingli!' The girls protested in unison before looking around in guilt, wondering if they had caught the attention of any nearby teacher with the noise. Lingli shrugged her shoulders and continued packing her notes into her bag. She could be rather obstinate and nothing moved her to greater mulishness then her rights to attack her schoolwork. 'It's alright. I could accompany you if you want me to, Bernie,' The U.N. aspirant, Joise volunteered. Bernie nodded. Before leaving, she told the first team, 'And remember, whatever you do, do not go into the water. And if anything turns up, call me using your hand phone.'


The moon was a round disc, casting its silvery rays on the ground. 'I don't know why I'm here and I'm doing,' muttered Lina as she slapped away the mosquitoes that were whinning around her. 'You know what Bernie is like. Once she gets hold of an idea, she refuses to let go of it, like a dog biting a bone.' 'I don't know why I keep letting her talk me into these stupid circumstances, like the time I dressed as a boy and slipped into Hxx Cxxxxx Junior College for a day, or...' 'Or the time you stole the ugly hair beads from the shop. Well, Bernie can be very persuasive and you've yo admit that crazy as her ideas are, they are good fun too.' 'Yeah, yeah, and that's why I'm here, in the middle of the night, feeding the mosquitoes. The next time she has a good idea ...' 'Shh!' 'What? Are you trying to scare me? Don't be an idiot!' 


Then Lina heard it too. The rustling of tall grass sounded like someone was wading through the man sized weeds, heading towards them. They were hiding behind the shack, facing away from the sea. It was not exactly what Bernie had told them to do but the sea breeze could be rather chilly. Right behind them was a big field that had been untended for years. The wild plants growing there had grown taller than a man, tall enough to hide any creature except for Godzilla. The girls huddled together in fear, wondering if they should make a run for it and worrying that their legs would not carry them far and fast enough. visions of themselves naked and dead, in the shack, photographed by the paparazzi kept flashing before them.


As the sound grew nearer, they found themselves holding their breath. 'Ah!' 'Ahhhhhhh!!!' The girls screamed in rejoinder. 'What are you girls doing here? You gave me a fright!' The six foot monster rapist murderer of their imagination turned out to be a frail and unkempt Malay man who could easily fall within the age range of forty and sixty. Lingli was not in the least concerned that this skinny human could pose a threat to both of them. A tae-kwon-do black belt holder, she was confident of overpowering any earthly assailant. It was unearthly ones who worried her. 'What are you doing her, in the middle of the night?' she asked. 'Nothing lah.' Noting the suspicious looks the girls were giving him, he added, 'I'm just checking my lines.' 'Lines?' For a while, the girls were confused. 'Yeah, fishing lines! The night in the best time to fish. Some of the biggest, fattest fish only come out in the night, you know.'


'Oh.' 'Eh, how about you girls? What are you doing here so late? Do your parents know you are here?' 'Of course. We're doing a project, on the nocturnal fauna found in this area,' Lina lied. Seeing the confused look on the man's face, she explained, 'Both of us are doing a Science project on the living habits of nocturnal animals that is, animals that are active in the night.' 'Like my fish, eh? Aiyah, then you should find me. I'm the expert here, you know. everything, in the water, on the land, I know best. I've been fishing here for years!' The girl threw each other an amused glance. The man seemed to have recovered from his earlier shock. Indeed, as he was recommending his abilities to the girls, he puffed himself up like a proud cockerel.


'Thank you very much, but we wouldn't like to trouble you,' Lingli demurred, 'We've to...' '...Naaa... Naaa... Naaa...' A low wailing cry emitted from the sea and seemed to reverberate in the ears of the girls, as if it was bouncing back from all directions from the land. 'What's that?' The girls clutched each other's hands. 'What? Oh, that is the cry of Sulaiman,' the fisherman indicated towards the sea. 'Sulaiman?' The girls chorused in unison. 'You've never heard of the story before?' Seeing the girls shake their heads and the eager looks on their faces, the man said, 'Why don't we sit somewhere we can get the sea breeze?' So they moved out from behind the shack to sit below some trees, within sight of the man's fishing lines. After they had made themselves comfortable, the man began, 'It's a very, very old story, passed down by the older folks who live around here. They say that many, many years ago, way before the white man came, even before that, before the bumiputras living here saw the light of the true God, there was a brother and sister pair living here. They were orphans. Their father, a fisherman, was drowned in the sea and their mother fell sick from grief. Not long after that, she also died, leaving the two children alone.


The children, poor things lah, they had to fend for themselves from a very young age. The villagers took pity on them and tried to help them, but how much could they do? Life was difficult and everyone was poor. The elder brother, Sulaiman, taught himself to fish and both of them depended on his meager earnings from the market for a living. Minah, the sister, stayed at home, did the housework and in her spare time, she did some craft works  which Sulaiman would take to the market to sell too. Having no other living relative but each other, brother and sister grew very close to each other. Sulaiman was very protective of his sister. He would not let her go outside the hut by herself. He was also very particular about the visitors from the village who came to their kampong hut when he was out fishing. He did not like it. Many people felt that he was too protective. And that it was God's judgement when Minah fell sick a few months before her fifteenth birthday. God was wrathful because he was angry with Sulaiman. For Minah had grown into a beautiful young girl who had many suitors but Sulaiman rejected all of them because he taught they weren't good enough for his little sister.


So God grew angry about Sulaiman's unhealthy pride and affection for his sister and decided to punish him by taking Minah away from him. Nobody knew what sickness it was that poor Minah contracted. But she could not breathe easily. The slightest exertion would set her panting and wheezing. And her skin once the subject of much ranting and raving amongst the young men, a light brown that seemed to illuminate with a light of its own became dull and darkened. She became so weak that she could only lie in bed. Her flesh melted away, leaving her eyes like alien orbs in a face that had once stirred the blood of many a man in the village. Sulaiman almost went berserk with worry. He traveled to other villages, to get their bomohs to come and treat his sister. But each bomoh said the same thing after examining his sister. They did not know what was wrong with Minah and they could not save her.


Then one night, when each belabored breath that Minah drew was an agony, and her pains grew so much that she wished for released, she knew that she could not make it to the next dawn. Calling her brother, she told him in whispers, for she had not the strength to speak louder, to bury her in the plot next to their mother. Then she turned her face aside and waited for death. Mad and desperate with grief, Sulaiman decided to take the final step to save his sister, whatever the cost. One of the earlier bomoh whom he had consulted had offered him an unorthodox solution. One that he hadn't the courage to try, until now.


The bomoh had told him that he could fool the Dark One, the keeper of souls and guardian of Hell, if one life was given in exchange for the intended victim. A life for a life, as simple as that. Now that Minah lay so close to the portals of death, he felt that he had to do something, even if it required the ultimate sacrifice. Following the bomoh's instructions, he took a flower bath, so that the floral scent would mask his masculine smell. Then he wrapped one of Minah's sarongs around himself.Kneeling before Minah's bed, he said, 'Na, I'll be going to a very faraway place. There, there is a cure for you. Don't despair. You'll well again. I don't know when I'll be back. But please do something for me when you're well. Come to the sea and sing to me every year, on this day. No matter where I am, I'll be able to hear you.'


Then he left the hut and was never seen again. Later, it was rumored that somebody saw him walking into the sea. But a miracle did take place. Minah, whom many bomohs had examined and pronounced beyond help, did recover. Perhaps she was too sick at that time and did not hear her brother. Or maybe the passage of time had dimmed her memories. A few years after she recovered, she married a warrior from another village and moved away. She did not fulfill her brother's last wish. And she moved away, every year, on the night of her recovery and the night her brother went missing, the villagers would hear the cries from the sea, the cries of a forlorn brother calling for his sister.' 'Naa... Naa...' The cries were still going on.


Excited, thinking that they might stumbled upon something promising, Lingli asked with the predatory instinct of a bloodhound, 'How did you know this story?' The man shrugged. 'I told you, I've been coming here for many, many years. I know many of the old people who have been living here all their lives, and their ancestors before them. They told me the story.' 'Does this story have anything to do with the drownings?' 'You know about that too?' The man's eyes narrowed as a new thought occurred him. 'Why are you really here?' 'We told you already,' Lingli protested. 'We're here to do some schoolwork, right, Lina?' Lina nodded her head vigorously, as if the truth was correlated to the strength with which she pumped her skull. 'Really? Then how come you know about the drownings?' 'It's something that we come across when we were reading op on the area to do our research,' Lina explained, 'and when you told us the story just now, the two just linked and made a connection.'


Satisfied, the old man nodded, 'You girls are quite bright. The people living here, they also think that the drownings have something to do with the story of Sulaiman. Actually, the drownings have gone on for years ever since Sulaiman's disappearance.' 'You mean to say that there are far more drownings than have been recorded?' 'Yes. The older people tell me that the legend of Sulaiman does not end with the cries they hear every year. They also believe that ever since then, if any young girl went into the sea on the anniversary of the night that he disappeared, Sulaiman would claim her because he is still waiting for his sister, Minah, to return.' 'But if that's the case, why do the victims always turn up naked? Don't you think that points to the work of a pervert?' 


'You all cina girls, what do you know about the customs of the bumis here? Don't you know that years and years ago, the men living here, if they were angry with their womenfolk, they would turn them out of the house naked to shame them!' 'So what are you saying is that Sulaiman is angry with Minah?' 'Aiyah. I don't know if he is angry with his sister or with the girls who tricked him into believing that they are Minah lah. Oi yoh, my lines are biting.' He quickly got up and jogged towards the spot where he had cast his lines. Lina and Lingli looked at each other excitedly. 'I'll call Bernie,; Lingli said. She took out her hand phone. 'Sxxx!' 'What's the matter?' 'My battery is flat. I think I'll go and use a public phone. You want to come?' 'No. I'm feeling  a little lazy. I think I'll stay here and enjoy the sea breeze. Come back quickly.' 'Are you sure? You think it's safe?'


Sighing, Lina nodded, 'Don't be a nag. Anyway, you'll be back real quick right? And the cries have stopped. If there is any basis to the story, Sulaiman must have gone back to his watery grave and will bother no one anymore until next year!' Lingli looked out to the sea. Lina was right. The cries had stopped. Maybe the time of danger was past. Besides, she would only be away for 10 - 15 minutes. Lina would be fine. Lina looked at her retreating figure. The she looked back to the sea. She did not know why. But she enjoyed being at the seaside. Coming to the seaside always filled her with a sense of peace and bittersweet emotion that she could not identify, although sometimes she thought that was rather like nostalgia. Suddenly, from the corner of her eye, she caught sight of something sticking out of the sand in front of the entrance of the shack. She thought that it was strange that all three of them did not notice it earlier.

Out of curiosity, she walked towards it. It was a piece of wood. Some urge from her subconscious pushed her to retrieve it. Without questioning herself, she swept away the sand from its side and dug it out. It was a very old piece of wood carving. So old that its surface had been worn to a smooth varnish and parts of it had disintegrated with age but it was still recognizable as a human carving. Turning it over, her face stared back at her. The impetus of the shock burnt away the years of partition between her conscious and subconscious minds, so that they merged into one. She was Lina, But at the same time she was Minah. Her brother, Sulaiman, was calling for her from the sea. 'Naa... Naa...' Yes, she remembered the promise that she had broken. It was time to fulfill the promise.

'Hello?' Bernie? This is Lingli.' 'What happened to you? I've been trying to get hold of you all night!' 'Sorry, my hand phone battery was flat and I didn't realize it. Listen...' 'No, you listen! I was in the National Library earlier and in a book on early artifacts found in Singapore, I found a wood carving that looked a lot like Lina. It was recovered from some early kampong settlement near the sea. Then later, during World War II, it disappeared again. Whatever its significance may be, I think it's important that you don't let Lina go near the sea. We'll discuss it further when you guys come back, Is she beside you?' Lina was never seen again. And the interesting thing was that after her disappearance, Sulaiman's cries were never head again either, full moon night or otherwise.

Wednesday 3 October 2012

The Neighbours

1995. Singapore was caught up in a mood of euphoria. The economy was booming, companies were reporting records profits and unemployment levels were low. Properties were appreciating across the whole country and as most Singaporeans are property owners, there was a general feel good factor throughout the land. Wendy Lim and Lee Han Chung were newly weds. They had known each other for three years before they walked down the aisle, not exactly what one would call a whirlwind romance. Both were professionals; she was an accountant in a multi-national company and he was a banker with an American bank. Both earned good salaries and with the rapidly inflating property prices, they agreed that they should get a private property straightaway. 

They lost count of the number of properties that they saw. Their ideal apartment size was 1,500 - 1,800 square feet, to plan for the children they wanted to have in the near future. Unfortunately, with space being a major constraint in Singapore, the canny developers had already caught on to the idea that if they built smaller units, they could sell more units with the allowable plot ratio. Virtually all the new developments came with floor area of 1,100 - 1,300 square feet. Eventually, after a lot of viewings and even more frustration, Wendy and Han Chung decided to go for a resale apartment.

Wendy was initially rather resistant over the idea of buying an old apartment, the idea of living in a space that had been inhabited by others was rather repulsive to her. It was a little like putting on someone else's underwear. However, after viewing a few resale apartments, she began to appreciate the charms of older places. They were far more spacious than most of the newer developments. They were also more likely to be located in quiet and green neighbourhoods.

Gradually, she became more attuned to the ambiance of places. She grew to believe that the character of any property had a little to do with its previous occupants. Like the three room apartment in one of the developments along Holland Road. The first time she entered it, she had felt an uplifting of the spirit, a gladness that made her feel like breaking out into song. Later, she found out that the previous owners had been a closely knitted family who had lived in the same apartment for almost twenty years. They were only selling so that the parents could move to a newer development in Jurong West, because that was where the oldest son had settled down with his family. It was a pity that the apartment was so far from her parents place in the East Cost. Otherwise, they would have bought it. As a result of her newly found sensitivity, Wendy found that she was unable to accept just any old apartment. The feeling had to be right. When Han Chung tried to press her for a more concrete explanation each time she rejected a property, she would only shrug. She knew that she would sound like a deranged woman if she vocalized her thoughts. She was also worried that Han Chung would not be able to accept them. At the same time, she wondered if this had come about because she had inherited certain powers from her grandmother.

Not that she used to believe in those powers. Her grandmother was a medium who would invite spirits, be they spirits of deities or the dead into her own body to answer believers or surviving relatives questions. Despite the many stories that she had heard about her grandmother's supernatural ability, she had always thought that her grandmother became a medium out of economic necessity more than religious fervor. For her grandfather had died early, leaving her grandmother, a young widow, to bring up their six children alone. Her mother had been the youngest of these six children and was also the only daughter. Her grandmother had depended on this trade to feed her brood and send them to school. Han Chung was catholic who took his faith seriously. She was not sure how he would react should he know that his fiancee had acquired such a gift.

They were going to view another apartment in the afternoon. Wendy knew that Han Chung's patience was running him. They had already seen numerous apartments and Han Chung had felt that several of them were suitable. But Wendy had vetoed them on very flimsy grounds. Both were quiet as they trave'led down the ECP, each immersed in his own thoughts. it was yet another three room apartment, this one on the fourteenth floor. It was being force sold by a bank. Their agent, a mild mannered middle aged Mr. Ee, met them at the lift lobby of the block that the apartment was situated at.

Wendy felt very apologetic when she saw him. he had reminded her of her own father, gentle and kind. He had been most patient with them, bringing them to apartment after apartment, never betraying the least time that they must have been his most picky and troublesome clients. The apartment was bright and airy, with full length windows fronting the balcony in the living room, framing a beautiful view of the sparkling sea. the previous owners had obviously taken good care of the place for it did not betray its age. There was no sign of any wear and tear. Han Chung loved it. Wendy hate it.

It was one of those sublime things again. The moment she entered the apartment, she felt this negative energy welling up inside her. She had an almost uncontrollable urge to walk out of the apartment. AS she opened her mouth to speak against the apartment, she saw the impatient look that Han Chung shot her. She shut it again. After they had finished the tour of the house, the agent quoted a price that made Wendy blink her eyes. Although it was a forced sale, she did not expect the bank to price the apartment 20% below market rate. Her heart sank as she saw the burning enthusiasm on Han Chung's face.

Later, as Han Chung was driving her home, she tried to talk him out of the idea of buying that apartment. 'In fact, why don't we buy a new development instead?' 'You already know why. Because they are too small and too expensive. It's not value for money!' 'But I thought...' 'I thought that this was what we agreed on after we saw the new development along Farrer Road. Why are you changing your mind now?' Wendy fell silent. She looked an Han Chung and realized from the set look of his face that he had fallen in love with the apartment. The day after, she received a call from a jubilant Han Chung. 'Wend?' 'Yeah?' 'Great news. I've spoken to the agent. The bank is willing to let go of the property at 10% below the asking price.' 'I don't...' Wendy tried to object. 'Please don't start again, Wend, do you know that you have been very disagreeable about almost all the apartments that we've seen. I really like this one and the price is just fantastic. Plus it's got a great sea view. Another thing, it's just fifteen minutes away from a golf club by car. And you know I've been wanting to pick up golf. So please don't say 'no'.'

Much as she was against the idea of buying that apartment, she knew that she was unable to deny Han Chung anything for long. He rarely asked her for anything, so she did not have the heart to say no when he did. Before long, she found herself signing on the dotted line, reluctant as she was. That night, she dreamt of her grandmother. Well, it had to be a dream even though there was a very life like quality to it. Although she might be more inclined to believe in powers inexplicable by science these days, she was still a long way from believing in apparitions. She was still troubled by the purchase; she kept contemplating if she had made a horrible mistake. Turning and tossing in bed, she suddenly shivered and realized that the temperature of the room had dropped considerably. Wondering if her air-con was malfunctioning, she was about to reach over for her air-con remote control when she heard a familiar voice that made her heart miss a skip.

'Ah Wend...' She shivered again, this time not from the cold but from fear. The voice belonged to her grandmother who died four years ago. 'Ah Wend...' She used to hate the way her grandmother addressed her, always dragging the last consonant slightly, giving her western name a cheena complex. But now, it added an eerie note to her already wildly spooked feelings. 'A... Ah ma, i... is that you?' 'Ya... I came to tell you: don't move into that East Coast place!' 'But why?' The news from her grandmother evaporated her fears. She knew that something was wrong with the apartment and she was right. Now, just knowing that she was right no longer satisfied her. She had to know what was wrong. But her grandmother just kept repeating the last phrase like she was a clockwork toy, only able to respond to the prior commands that were built into her and unable to react to any new stimuli in the environment.

'... don't move into that East Coast place don't move into that East Coast place don't move into that East Coast place...' Wendy was about to protest when a knock sounded on her bedroom place. The very much material sound dispersed the wraith like specter of her grandmother. She blinked her eyes, her grandmother was gone and the air-con was back to its usual temperature. She thought that she must have been dreaming. 'Come in!' it was her mother. 'Did I wake you up?' 'Yeah, but it doesn't matter, I was having a nightmare anyway. You want to see me about something?' 'Yes,' her mother paused for a short while, like she was searching for the right words. 'You went to sign the sale & Purchase agreement for the East Coast apartment today, didn't you?' 'yeah, is there anything wrong?' There was a puzzled note in Wendy's voice as she wondered where this was leading. It had been a while since her mother fussed over her.

'No, it's just that you seemed pretty down these few days, so your dad and I were wondering if there was any problem, like money problems or anything that you may need help with.' 'No, everything's fine. But thanks for asking, mum.' 'You are sure?' Wendy nodded. 'Well, if that's the case, I'll leave and let you get some sleep. You still have to go to work tomorrow. Goodnight.' On impulse, Wendy asked just before her mother left the room., 'Mum, did you ever believe that Ah Ma had the ability to communicate with spirits?' her mother's back stiffened. She turned around and walked slowly back to the side of Wendy's bed. Then she answered slowly, like she was choosing her words with the utmost care, 'Wendy, I've told you before, Ah Ma had no choice. She was uneducated, she had no money. In those days, life was not easy. Not like now, the poor can get relief from the government or other charities. Last time, everybody was poor. Who could help us? That's why your Ah Ma had no choice but to become a medium. You ask whether her abilities were genuine,' at this point, Wendy's mother shrugged her shoulders, 'who cares? It did not really matter because her clients believed her.'

From her mother's tone, Wendy knew that the topic was closed. So she just nodded and lay back down in bed. Her mother's occupation and her otherworldly qualities had always been a sensitive topic with Mrs. Lim. Wendy personally thought that it was because she was secretly ashamed of her mother's occupation. Maybe that was why Mrs. Lim turned out to be such a dedicated atheist. Anyway, her grandmother's abilities were genuine and some of it had been passed down to her, then it should have surfaced in her uncles or even her mother. But she had never heard the slightest hint of anything that was unusual about her mother's siblings. The most unusual thing that she could think was the time when her youngest uncle claimed to be able to make the camel on his cigarrete pack move using a glass of water. That had seemed like such a magical thing then, to the young five year old that she was. However, later, she went to school, she learnt about light and reflection and refraction and her uncle's act was demystified as a trick of optics. As for her mother, she was one of the most sensible and level headed people that Wendy had ever come across, even more so than Han Chung. So much so that there was not even a whiff of the supernatural around her.


So maybe she was just suffering from an overwrought imagination, what with the stress at work and having to cope with the preparations for her wedding at the same time. Maybe she should just take things slowly...


After the renovations, Wendy invited her parents to the apartment to take a look. Han Chung was already waiting for them in the apartment. He had just returned from golf practices. His golf clubs were resting in a corner of the living room. Somehow, the sight of the clubs made Wendy very uneasy. He had been spending an increasing amount of time playing golf these days, to the extent that she felt she had become a golf widow even before she's married. She had never seen him to be so obsessed with anything, other than the apartment. 'Very nice,' Mr. Lim nodded his head approvingly as he took in the marble floor, whitewashed walls and dark wood furniture. 'How much did you say you spent again?' 'About seventy five thou, pa, and ... mum, are you alright?'


Suddenly, Wendy noticed that her mother had turned as pale as a sheet, the blood draining out of her face. 'I'm alright. It's nothing, don't worry, I'm OK. Could be something that I had for lunch.' 'But the rest of us ate the same stuff and we're fine. Are you sure? Do you want to go to the toilet?' 'No! I mean, it's alright. I just want to go home and rest. Don't worry about me.' Before Mrs. Lim left, Wendy saw her mother throwing her a  worried  glance. 'I think I'll go home with my parents, Han, just to make sure that my mum is OK. Call me later tonight.' 'OK.' Surprisingly, once Wendy and her parents got into the car, Wendy noticed that her mother seemed to have recovered. Her colour had returned and she looked as well as she ever did.


On the way back to Marine Parade, Wendy puzzled over the look her mother gave her before leaving the apartment. Was her mother worried? What was she worried about? Was her mother suffering from any ailments and keeping it a secret from her? 'Wendy,' Mrs. Lim's voice roused her from her musings. 'Yes.' 'Are you happy with your new flat?' Taken aback, Wendy glanced at her mother. 'Ah... No... I mean yes, I think I am.' Loyalty to Han Chung compelled her to lie to her mother. 'Why do you ask?' 'It's really nothing. I was just wondering. I know it's a bit late, since you have already paid for it and renovated it. Still, I would like you to be perfectly happy after you leave home...' Mrs. Lim's voice trailed off, as if she was a little embarrassed by the emotions that she was displaying.


Wendy felt a little burst of warmth seeping from her chest to her extremities, melting in her eyes. 'I'm OK with the apartment, mom. Anyway, Han's over the moon about it. He really loves that place.' 'That's my worry.' 'Sorry?' 'Never mind. You are sure that you, I'm talking about you, not Han, feel alright about the apartment?' Mrs. Lim looked deep into her daughter's eyes, like she was searching for something. A little pause. 'Yeah.'


After the big day, the new couple moved into the apartment at Fxxxxxxx Txxxx, East Coast. Wendy was not happy there. Whenever she was in the house, she felt distinctly uncomfortable. She would become very fidgety and look for ways to distract herself from the negative energy that was encompassing her. She tried to spend as much time as possible out of her matrimonial home. She looked for new places to pass their weekends, dinner places and movies to spend their weekday nights. But it was not easy to get Han Chung to budge. He was rather homely person. Even in their courting days, they only went out for makan and movies occasionally. Given a choice, both would rather stay at home and curl up in bed or on the sofa with a good book than go clubbing or pubbing. It would take a lot to persuade Han Chung to leave the comforts of their home for the neon lights in town. Moreover, as Wendy was not by nature the partying sort, she too was rather exhausted by the constant entertainments that she had to conjure up to drag Han Chung out of the apartment.


To make matters worse, one of their neighbours seemed to have some serious domestic problems. Their block was a point block. This means that each level only has four apartments and the entrances of all four apartments face one another, rather like a square. The Loo family stayed in the apartment that was to the right of Han Chung's and Wendy's apartment. To the left was the Khoo family. Directly opposite them were the Singhs. It was not the Singhs, that much was clear for the shouting voices had a Chinese accent. Night after night, Wendy and Han Chung would be woken up, disturbed from their sleep, some time after twelve, by the yelling. They would hear the man screaming at his wife, then bangs, crashes and thuds, as things were thrown about, smashed and upset. Then the woman would begin crying, sobbing in pain as she begged for mercy.


In the daytime, when Wendy came across either the Loos and Khoos, she would steal glances at them, trying to observes which inconsiderate couple it was that disturbed the quiet of the nights. But she could never tell. In public, in the daylight, both couples seemed normal. There was also no telltale bruises or injuries on either Mrs. Loo or Mrs. Khoo. More than six months after moving in, Wendy ran into Mrs. Loo one afternoon when she went home to get change of clothes for a function that night. Wendy did not know her neighbours very well since she spent so much of her time outside. Most of the times when she ran into them, she would offer a hesitant smile or nod of acknowledgement and they would do likewise. To her surprise, this time she was accosted. 'Good afternoon, Mrs. Lee.' 'Hello, Mrs. Loo.' 'Mrs. Lee?' 'Yes?' 'Today is the start of lunar seventh month, will you be offering incense?' There was a pause. 'No, no! Don't worry, my husband and I, we are Catholics, so we don't believe in such practices. We won't mess up the place by burning incense.' 


'Aiyah, that's not what I meant. Actually, I was reminding you to burn incense. You know, to appease those things?' 'What do you mean?' There was a touch of ice in Wendy's voice, as she felt that her neighbour was trespassing on private territory. Of course she knew about the lunar seventh month, given her late grandmother's occupation. It is the month in which the gates of Hell are supposed to be open, allowing all the lost souls in Hell to return to Earth for a visit. Or if the dead were already stuck in one place, unable to move on to the next stage in death because of some unresolved matter, then they would gain even more power during the seventh month. It is generally believed among the Taoist Buddhists that during this period, there are more deaths and accidents due to the activities of the supernatural. Such as people who died unnatural deaths always wanting to re-enact the scene of their demise, and in the process, claiming innocent victims. Wendy had always put that belief down as a base superstition.


'Aiyo, Mrs. Lee, you mean you do not know what happened to the previous owners of your apartment?' At a shake of Wendy's head, Mrs. Loo tsk-tsked, 'No wonder. I thought that you and Mr. Lee were so brave, you know. That although something so horrible happened in that place, you didn't mind staying there.' Despite her dislike of the talkative busybody, Wendy was compelled by curiosity to ask, 'What's happened in my apartment?' Gleefully, relishing her role as informant, Mrs. Loo plunged into one of her favorite topics, the scandal of Fxxxxxxx Txxxx. 'The previous owners were also a childless couple like you and your husband. The wife, Mrs. Ng, was a very nice lady. Friendly, polite and very pretty too, she always greeted the neighbours when she ran into them. Sometimes Fate is so strange, makes you wonder how a nice lady like Mrs. Ng married somebody so different. That Mr. Ng is a nasty one. He never bothered to greet the neighbours. If you were to take the same lift with him, he would just stare into the air, pretending not to know you. Or if you passed by him in the street, he would look ahead like he had not seen you. Not even a nod. But what should you expect from such a beast?' At this, she threw Wendy a sly sideways gaze. Wendy had uncomfortable feeling that Mrs. Loo was talking about someone else besides the previous neighbour, Mr. Ng.


'It's not that I'm uncharitable or anything, but that Mr. Ng was really... not quite right up here, you know.' She raised her index finger to her temple and turned it up and down to indicate a loose screw. 'Many times, in the middle of the night, we would hear him shouting and yelling at his wife. Sometimes we would also hear her moaning and crying,' her voice dropped to a hush, 'From the pain of the beatings, you know. The poor woman, I really don't understand why she didn't just walk out on him. After all this is the 90s. Singapore no longer tolerates such behavior, right?' She stopped for breath, and also to wait for Wendy to agree with her. Short of seeming rude, the latter had no choice but to nod. 'At the time, we did not know. Most of us just assumed that they were having domestic problems. Later on, after the whole thing, the police came and investigated, it all came out in the papers. That Mr. Ng had been embezzling money from his company! Young people these days.Ir turned out that with their salaries, they could not afford to buy this place. But property prices just kept rising. And both of them wanted to keep up with their friends who were doing very well, earning big bucks. So they stretched their credit limits really tight and bought this apartment. But they had not bargained for the other expenses like renovation fees that turned out to be higher than those quoted by the designer, maintenance charges which increased annually. So in the end, Mr Ng began to steal money from his company to pay his debts. Up to this day, people do not know if Mrs. Ng was aware of her husband's illegal deeds. But she was bore the brunt of it. He blamed her for what had happened and vented his ill feelings by beating her up. Then one day, when he learnt that the auditors were coming in soon to go through the company's accounts, he just lost it. That night, I heard Mrs. Ng screaming for help, something that had never happened before. I called the police. My husband told me not to be kaypoh, but I had to do something. And that cowardly husband of mine, I told him to knock on the Ng's door, to stop the husband but he kept saying that it was none of his business. If he had more guts and listened to me, thing's wouldn't have turned out the way they did.'

At this point, Mrs. Loo shook her head. 'The police arrived too late. By the time they broke into the house, they found Mrs. Ng blood splattered all over the walls in the living room.' Wendy found out that she was holding her breath. She told herself to breathe, in and out, in and out. Mrs. Loo was still caught in the thralls of her own tale. 'Mr. Ng had bludgeoned her to death with one of his Calloway golf clubs. Some say that he must come to his senses when he saw her sprawled on the carpet. he hung himself with his Pierre Cardin belt from the ceiling fan in the living room. Personally, I don't think so. I think he just realized that he would not not have been able to get away with it this time. This was no longer just a case of domestic violence. It was murder! This is Singapore, you know, you get hanged for such things. So instead of taking responsibility for his own actions, he chose to cheat the authorities of his death, by taking matters into his own hands!And do you know something else? It's a bit of a coincidence, but they died on the first day of the seventh lunar month. That means in the Chinese calendar, it is their death anniversary today!'

Mrs. Loo ended the tale with a dramatic flourish. Before Wendy could recover, she was off, claiming that she was late in picking up her son from school. 'So don't forget to burn those incense, OK? Right or wrong, those two died terribly, and one mustn't let those things become unhappy. It's better to be safe than sorry, you know. Aiyah, I've really got to go. I'll talk to you some other time. Bye-bye!'Having delivered her parting shot, a contented Mrs. Loo walked off, heading for her MPV, parked 15 meters away, under the shade, away from the wilting heat of the afternoon sun, happy that she finally managed to pass on her warning after all these months of holding back.

In the meantime, a stunned Wendy returned to her own apartment. No wonder they had managed to purchase the apartment at such a good price. Cannier buyers then they would have found out the apartment's history and shunned it. As she stepped into the living room, she was repulsed as she gazed at the walls and wondered which of them had been stained by Mrs. Ng's blood. She made up her mind in that instant, that night, she would talk to Han Chung, like it or not, she would move out, by herself, if necessary.She was about to leave when she remembered what she had returned for. Quickly, she went into her room, randomly picked a dress and a pair of shoes, stuffed them into a paper bag and left the apartment.

It was almost two when Wendy returned. The whole apartment was dark and quiet. 'Han must have gone to bed,' she thought to herself as she removed her shoes and held them in her hands to put them back into the box in her wardrobe. As she entered the living room, the silhouette in the armchair almost made her jump. 'Han, you gave me a fright. It's just as well that you have not gone to sleep. I need to talk to you about something.' She settled herself down in the three-seater placed at a right angle to the armchair. 'I was talking to Mrs. Loo this morning and she told me the history of this place. It's very tragic and I just don't feel comfortable staying here anymore. She said that the previous owners a couple died here. the husband killed the wife before committing suicide. So you see, that's why the bank was willing to sell it to us at such a low price, because nobody who knows that story would want to live here.'

Han Chung was still quiet. 'Why don't you say something, Han? You still want to stay, don't you? You're so attached to this apartment it's not normal! well, Lee Han Chung, you can stay on if you like but I'm not staying. I'm moving out, this very night!' Just as she was about to storm out of the seat and rush to her room to pack her things, one of the silhouette's hands sneaked out and grasped her wrist tightly. The touch of the hand was icy cold and burnt her skin. 'So that nosy bitch finally got to you? Well, it's too late!' The voice was low, raspy and rough, like the owner had grown up on a diet of gravel, and a far cry from Han Chung's smooth and well modulated baritone.

'You are not my husband/ Who are you? Where is Han?' Wendy cried frantically, trying to free herself and flee. Turning her head back, she saw Han Chung standing behind her, his face vacant, like he was sleepwalking. In his upswung hands, he held a Calloway golf club. He swung the club down with all his might. Wendy shut her eyes. The club landed on her skull with a sickening crack. There was a burst of sharp pain and beyond that, she knew nothing more.