Kampung Keledek was a small village along the railway line between Kuala Lumpur and Tanjung Malim. It had just about ten houses and no more that fifty inhabitants, men, women and children. There was a railway station, an old, decrepit wooden structure. Kampung Keledek was too small for mails, so only the ordinary or local trains called at the station, beside the goods trains that halted to load rubber from the large plantation surrounding the village, itself encircled by the jungle. Most of the villagers were rubber tappers or gatherers who worked the jungle. Aside from the railway, their only other lifeline to civilization was a small track that cut through the rubber plantation to the main road. The events took place when a tiger started terrorizing the district. The whole area was plunged into a state of constant fear, keeping many of the folks to their homes and off their livelihood in the plantation and the forest, unless they had guns with them. Livestock had not been spared. People, both rubber tappers and gatherers, had not been spared either. Many had fallen victim to 'satan'. That was what they called the man eater for it was a diabolical killer, bold, swift, merciless and very effective.
The latest attack was just days earlier in Kampung Manggis. Satan killed a woman collecting wood in the jungle, with her small child in tow. It was not discovered until the following day, when the child's body was found in the scrub at the edge of the forest. Not far away were Satan's tracks. The mother was nowhere in sight. The incidents had attracted the attention of a young Forest Ranger from Kuala Lumpur. Dollah had a passion for game hunting. The idea of stalking a man eating tiger excited him and, since no one had managed to kill Satan, he thought he would give it a go. It was evening when Dollah arrived by train at Kampung Keledek to launch the hunt. As usual, the station was deserted. A single lap lit its platform. Dollah hastened for the Rest House about five hundred yards away. He knew the place, having spent nights there several hunting trips ago. He had even made friends with the caretaker, Pak Karim. The old man was easily seventy, his hair mustache and beard were white as snow, yet he was still going strong. A fastidious man, he always kept himself and the Rest House clean and neat.
A party of assistant was to join Dollah later that night. They must have left Kuala Lumpur by now with all the equipment and supplies they would need to spend a week in the jungle. The Rest House clock showed eight when Dollah arrived. That was a late hour by the norms of Kampung Keledek, for it was the way of the folks to rise and retire with the sun. The house was dark and no one seemed to be around. Dollah had to call out several times before the front door opened and the old caretaker appeared. He carried a lamp in his hand. Little change ever takes place in out of the way places like this. And as far as Dollah could tell, hardly anything had changed in the Rest House. The table and chairs in the verandah, the pictures adorning the walls, indeed, everything was practically as it was when he last spent the night there a year ago.
As in Dollah's previous arrivals, Pak karim was soon busy helping him unpack and preparing his bath, before going to bed himself. It was some time before Dollah's party arrived and, not wanting to trouble the old man anymore, Dollah decided they should all go to bed right away. Dollah and his party rose early next morning and set off on their jungle adventure. Before they left, Pak karim produced the house register, a very old and worn out book with torn pages, and asked them to enter their names and other particulars. When they had done so, Dollah handed a dollar bill to the old man as a token of appreciation. Pak Karim accepted it with profuse thanks. After trekking for several hours along the jungle trail from Kampung Keledek, Dollah and his men arrived at Kampung Manggis in the afternoon. And for the next several days, they went from village to village through the jungle trying to track Satan, without much success. Indeed, they rarely heard anymore reports about it. After six fruitless days, Dollah gave up. He decided to abandon the quest, and to head back towards Kampung Keledek before returning to Kuala Lumpur. The tiger must be elsewhere, some place far away, he told himself.
It was to have been the final night of his venture. Dollah had difficulty sleeping. He was restless for some inexplicable reason. Perhaps it was the frustration of failure, or perhaps it was something else. Anyway, he fell asleep only after much effort. And then he had a strange dream. He saw Satan being pursued by about twenty men and women armed with sticks, guns, hoes, machetes and all sorts of weapons. And among them was Pak Karim, carrying a long, hefty stuff. Satan ran past Dollah, and it was obviosly limping. But Dollah, gun in hand, failed to take advantage of his position. He simply could not lift his weapon to take aim and shoot. Soon, Pak Karim reached him. The old man told him who the men and women pursuing Satan were. They were the man eater's own victims. he also told Dollah he must lay a trap along Sungai Bernam, a river near a village called Kampung Nangak, to end the beast's reign of terror. When Dollah awoke the morning after, he could not help thinking about the dream.A dream is a dream and, usually, he would not have given it much thought. But thins time, something in his guts told him he ought to give the hunt for Satan a last try. He changed his mind about returning to Kampung Keledek, instead, proceeded to Kampung Nangka. On reaching Kampung Nangka, Dollah hastened for the river he heard about in his dream. He found it, Sungai Bernam. And there, along its banks, close to a swamp and the jungle, were tiger tracks. Later that day, Dollah took a goat to the swamp's edge and tethered it to a tree. But it apparently failed to attract the tiger's attention that night. Dollah found his bait the next morning unharmed and no new tracks along or near the river.
Dollah was resting in his tent that afternoon, waiting for nightfall to make another attempt to draw the tiger out, when along came a party from Kampung Nangka led by the chief with the news that Satan had struck again. It was another rubber tapper, attacked the night before. Dollah took his gun, gathered his men and asked the village folks to join him in search of the victim's body. They did not have to look far. A short distance into the jungle were tiger tracks. There was blood on the ground and marks indicating that the unfortunate victim had been dragged along. The tiger appeared to have paused several times along the way. The they found the body, or rather the remains of it, hidden in some undergrowth.
Knowing the beast would not return to finish its dinner during the day, Dollah obtained the chief's permission to leave the body where it was and to use it as bait. Next, he told his men to build hides up in the trees near the corpse, for they were going to spend the night lying in wait for Satan. Dollah was ready in his hide well before nightfall. It was not so frightening or troubling at first, as the captivating calls of a variety of birds returning to their nests kept him occupied. But when the sun set and everything around him turned dark, trepidation set in and all sorts of ideas and terrifying thoughts started playing in his mind. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and a queasy feeling went up his spine, as if something was running its hairy arms up and down his back. The rising moon sent a minimum of light through the canopy. At first, he could see nothing at all, but once his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he could make out the vague outlines of the trees, vines and scrub around and below. Alone in the middle of the jungle on an unearthly night like this, one never knows what one could suddenly see. What with that half devoured corpse down below, just yards away, Dollah was never so scared in his life. He shivered all over, and it was not out of cold, for he was also sweating profusely.
He had been waiting a long time, and nothing was happening. He brought out his thermos flask, poured some coffee, and took a sip. weary, he leaned against the tree trunk, and dozed off. He could not tell how long he had been asleep, but the next thing he knew, there was a tugging at his arm. When he opened his eyes, he could feel someone or something seated beside him and staring at the body below. And yet, as hard as he tried, he could see nothing. He dared not move. Only his eyes scanned the surroundings. Had it been daytime, he would have fled and not looked back. Then suddenly he heard something moving through the scrub. Somehow, that made him forget all his fears instantly. Quickly, silently, he loaded his gun as his eyes searched the spot from where the sound came. under what little moonlight that reached the ground he soon saw a tiger peering from behind a tree. It moved, but not towards the body. Instead, it circled the area, eyes searching about, nose sniffing the as if seeking something. Dollah gripped the gun, raised it and took aim. All he needed now was the right moment to pull the trigger. The tiger, having circled the place, retreated slowly before lying on the ground, eyes fixed at the corpse.
Then an unusual thing happened. The corpse began to stir, got up, and walked away! Satan roared and lunged at it. Dollah pulled the trigger. The sound of gunfire was accompanied almost simultaneously by another roar from Satan. It fell with a bullet in its head. Dollah sent another shot, and then everything went silent. Then out of the corpse, a hazy figure in white rose and floated to the dead tiger. It hovered above for a moment before turning to look at Dollah. Before he knew it, Dollah was screaming with shock. The face that he saw, under the dim light of the moon, was none other than Pak Karim, the caretaker from Kampung Keledek, hair and beard as white as snow! The silent figure wafted away and disappeared into the jungle. Dollah sat petrified. His whole body turned limp. He became confused, unsure whether what he had just seen was real. Soon, vaguelt at first but louder and louder, came a cacophony of shouts and excited banter. It was the village folks, turning out in full force with torches in hand. They must have heard the gunshots and somehow knew their nemesis was now dead.
The next day, his mission completed, Dollah left Kampung Nangka for Kampung Keledek. The first thing he did on arrival there was to visit the Rest House. It was nightfall when he reached it. He called out Pak Karim's name well before he came up to the front door. When no one responded, Dollah opened the unlocked door and went in. To his utter horror, he found the place totally different from the way he saw it just a week ago. There was no one in Pak Karim's bedroom and, indeed, the whole place was deserted. Worst, it was in a terrible state of disrepair, its wooden walls were mouldy and covered with cobwebs, certain parts were termite infested, elsewhere the walls were even broken. It was as if no one had lived there for a long time. Dollah stood stunned in the middle of the hall. Incredulous, his eyes ran from one point to another all around him, until they fell on the register. The old register he and his party had signed lay on a table. He went up to it and opened the pages in search of its last entries. There they were, clearly written, the names and particulars of every member of his hunting team, registered before they sat off for the jungle a week ago. He also found a dollar bill, the tip he gave Pak Karim.
Reeling with shock and confounded by the turn of events, Dollah left the place and headed for the headman's house to seek an explanation. There he found it. The headman told him that the Rest House had been left vacant for many months. Those who had dared go there said the place was haunted. 'Old Pak Karim went missing about six months ago. We had no idea where he was until his body was found one morning in the jungle. It was Satan, no doubt about it. We buried the remains in the Rest House grounds.'
The latest attack was just days earlier in Kampung Manggis. Satan killed a woman collecting wood in the jungle, with her small child in tow. It was not discovered until the following day, when the child's body was found in the scrub at the edge of the forest. Not far away were Satan's tracks. The mother was nowhere in sight. The incidents had attracted the attention of a young Forest Ranger from Kuala Lumpur. Dollah had a passion for game hunting. The idea of stalking a man eating tiger excited him and, since no one had managed to kill Satan, he thought he would give it a go. It was evening when Dollah arrived by train at Kampung Keledek to launch the hunt. As usual, the station was deserted. A single lap lit its platform. Dollah hastened for the Rest House about five hundred yards away. He knew the place, having spent nights there several hunting trips ago. He had even made friends with the caretaker, Pak Karim. The old man was easily seventy, his hair mustache and beard were white as snow, yet he was still going strong. A fastidious man, he always kept himself and the Rest House clean and neat.
A party of assistant was to join Dollah later that night. They must have left Kuala Lumpur by now with all the equipment and supplies they would need to spend a week in the jungle. The Rest House clock showed eight when Dollah arrived. That was a late hour by the norms of Kampung Keledek, for it was the way of the folks to rise and retire with the sun. The house was dark and no one seemed to be around. Dollah had to call out several times before the front door opened and the old caretaker appeared. He carried a lamp in his hand. Little change ever takes place in out of the way places like this. And as far as Dollah could tell, hardly anything had changed in the Rest House. The table and chairs in the verandah, the pictures adorning the walls, indeed, everything was practically as it was when he last spent the night there a year ago.
As in Dollah's previous arrivals, Pak karim was soon busy helping him unpack and preparing his bath, before going to bed himself. It was some time before Dollah's party arrived and, not wanting to trouble the old man anymore, Dollah decided they should all go to bed right away. Dollah and his party rose early next morning and set off on their jungle adventure. Before they left, Pak karim produced the house register, a very old and worn out book with torn pages, and asked them to enter their names and other particulars. When they had done so, Dollah handed a dollar bill to the old man as a token of appreciation. Pak Karim accepted it with profuse thanks. After trekking for several hours along the jungle trail from Kampung Keledek, Dollah and his men arrived at Kampung Manggis in the afternoon. And for the next several days, they went from village to village through the jungle trying to track Satan, without much success. Indeed, they rarely heard anymore reports about it. After six fruitless days, Dollah gave up. He decided to abandon the quest, and to head back towards Kampung Keledek before returning to Kuala Lumpur. The tiger must be elsewhere, some place far away, he told himself.
It was to have been the final night of his venture. Dollah had difficulty sleeping. He was restless for some inexplicable reason. Perhaps it was the frustration of failure, or perhaps it was something else. Anyway, he fell asleep only after much effort. And then he had a strange dream. He saw Satan being pursued by about twenty men and women armed with sticks, guns, hoes, machetes and all sorts of weapons. And among them was Pak Karim, carrying a long, hefty stuff. Satan ran past Dollah, and it was obviosly limping. But Dollah, gun in hand, failed to take advantage of his position. He simply could not lift his weapon to take aim and shoot. Soon, Pak Karim reached him. The old man told him who the men and women pursuing Satan were. They were the man eater's own victims. he also told Dollah he must lay a trap along Sungai Bernam, a river near a village called Kampung Nangak, to end the beast's reign of terror. When Dollah awoke the morning after, he could not help thinking about the dream.A dream is a dream and, usually, he would not have given it much thought. But thins time, something in his guts told him he ought to give the hunt for Satan a last try. He changed his mind about returning to Kampung Keledek, instead, proceeded to Kampung Nangka. On reaching Kampung Nangka, Dollah hastened for the river he heard about in his dream. He found it, Sungai Bernam. And there, along its banks, close to a swamp and the jungle, were tiger tracks. Later that day, Dollah took a goat to the swamp's edge and tethered it to a tree. But it apparently failed to attract the tiger's attention that night. Dollah found his bait the next morning unharmed and no new tracks along or near the river.
Dollah was resting in his tent that afternoon, waiting for nightfall to make another attempt to draw the tiger out, when along came a party from Kampung Nangka led by the chief with the news that Satan had struck again. It was another rubber tapper, attacked the night before. Dollah took his gun, gathered his men and asked the village folks to join him in search of the victim's body. They did not have to look far. A short distance into the jungle were tiger tracks. There was blood on the ground and marks indicating that the unfortunate victim had been dragged along. The tiger appeared to have paused several times along the way. The they found the body, or rather the remains of it, hidden in some undergrowth.
Knowing the beast would not return to finish its dinner during the day, Dollah obtained the chief's permission to leave the body where it was and to use it as bait. Next, he told his men to build hides up in the trees near the corpse, for they were going to spend the night lying in wait for Satan. Dollah was ready in his hide well before nightfall. It was not so frightening or troubling at first, as the captivating calls of a variety of birds returning to their nests kept him occupied. But when the sun set and everything around him turned dark, trepidation set in and all sorts of ideas and terrifying thoughts started playing in his mind. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and a queasy feeling went up his spine, as if something was running its hairy arms up and down his back. The rising moon sent a minimum of light through the canopy. At first, he could see nothing at all, but once his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he could make out the vague outlines of the trees, vines and scrub around and below. Alone in the middle of the jungle on an unearthly night like this, one never knows what one could suddenly see. What with that half devoured corpse down below, just yards away, Dollah was never so scared in his life. He shivered all over, and it was not out of cold, for he was also sweating profusely.
He had been waiting a long time, and nothing was happening. He brought out his thermos flask, poured some coffee, and took a sip. weary, he leaned against the tree trunk, and dozed off. He could not tell how long he had been asleep, but the next thing he knew, there was a tugging at his arm. When he opened his eyes, he could feel someone or something seated beside him and staring at the body below. And yet, as hard as he tried, he could see nothing. He dared not move. Only his eyes scanned the surroundings. Had it been daytime, he would have fled and not looked back. Then suddenly he heard something moving through the scrub. Somehow, that made him forget all his fears instantly. Quickly, silently, he loaded his gun as his eyes searched the spot from where the sound came. under what little moonlight that reached the ground he soon saw a tiger peering from behind a tree. It moved, but not towards the body. Instead, it circled the area, eyes searching about, nose sniffing the as if seeking something. Dollah gripped the gun, raised it and took aim. All he needed now was the right moment to pull the trigger. The tiger, having circled the place, retreated slowly before lying on the ground, eyes fixed at the corpse.
Then an unusual thing happened. The corpse began to stir, got up, and walked away! Satan roared and lunged at it. Dollah pulled the trigger. The sound of gunfire was accompanied almost simultaneously by another roar from Satan. It fell with a bullet in its head. Dollah sent another shot, and then everything went silent. Then out of the corpse, a hazy figure in white rose and floated to the dead tiger. It hovered above for a moment before turning to look at Dollah. Before he knew it, Dollah was screaming with shock. The face that he saw, under the dim light of the moon, was none other than Pak Karim, the caretaker from Kampung Keledek, hair and beard as white as snow! The silent figure wafted away and disappeared into the jungle. Dollah sat petrified. His whole body turned limp. He became confused, unsure whether what he had just seen was real. Soon, vaguelt at first but louder and louder, came a cacophony of shouts and excited banter. It was the village folks, turning out in full force with torches in hand. They must have heard the gunshots and somehow knew their nemesis was now dead.
The next day, his mission completed, Dollah left Kampung Nangka for Kampung Keledek. The first thing he did on arrival there was to visit the Rest House. It was nightfall when he reached it. He called out Pak Karim's name well before he came up to the front door. When no one responded, Dollah opened the unlocked door and went in. To his utter horror, he found the place totally different from the way he saw it just a week ago. There was no one in Pak Karim's bedroom and, indeed, the whole place was deserted. Worst, it was in a terrible state of disrepair, its wooden walls were mouldy and covered with cobwebs, certain parts were termite infested, elsewhere the walls were even broken. It was as if no one had lived there for a long time. Dollah stood stunned in the middle of the hall. Incredulous, his eyes ran from one point to another all around him, until they fell on the register. The old register he and his party had signed lay on a table. He went up to it and opened the pages in search of its last entries. There they were, clearly written, the names and particulars of every member of his hunting team, registered before they sat off for the jungle a week ago. He also found a dollar bill, the tip he gave Pak Karim.
Reeling with shock and confounded by the turn of events, Dollah left the place and headed for the headman's house to seek an explanation. There he found it. The headman told him that the Rest House had been left vacant for many months. Those who had dared go there said the place was haunted. 'Old Pak Karim went missing about six months ago. We had no idea where he was until his body was found one morning in the jungle. It was Satan, no doubt about it. We buried the remains in the Rest House grounds.'
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