Spin

Jolene was a freshman at Haverford College in 1982 and 1983. She had lived in Woodside Cottage during that time, a nice cosy red bricked, white washed house, which was known to people at the time as the Margaret Guest House. It was an old house on campus, and had already been standing there decades before the college was built. Jolene was on a student internship programme and thus shared the house with an Indian professor of philosophy and his wife. Her room was connected by an adjoining door to the room of another girl who was on the same programme. Her name was Keri, and she was studying the same subject.

It did not take very long for the two to realize that something was amiss with the third floor, which they stayed on. Jolene would hear an unusual amount of noise late at night, and sometimes would even hear voices. What sounded like mice's footsteps would be heard after midnight every night, despite the fact that everyone was sure that the house had no mice. Keri would have nightmares regularly, which she had never had before. After telling the professor about it, he placed a picture of the Indian god, Murugan over her bed, and the nightmares ceased to occur. But a month later she removed the picture. On that very night, Jolene was reading in her bed when she was jolted out of her concentration by a grating noise, which seemed to be coming from overhead. She looked up, wary of the fact that the noise was coming from the roof, but rather from inside her own room. To her shock, she saw the square, ceramic ceiling plate under the ceiling lamp route counter clockwise and as it turned, it made a horrid, screechy noise as it scratched the rusty, metal pipe. She knew that the plate must have weighed at least two pounds.

She stared at it in horror, rooted to her bed, the book still in her hands. unable to move, she screamed out for Keri, who came rushing in to see the exact same sight. The first thing Keri did upon glancing at the rotating square was to look up at the window to see whether a draft was coming in. The very fact that the windows were closed and that the square was so heavy made the sight that they were seeing virtually impossible. The twisting stopped about a minute after Keri walked in. The uncanny incident seriously spooked them. But they stayed on. One day however, Jolene was reading in her room when she heard her roommate who had retired about two hours before at midnight, scream in her room. It sounded as if she was arguing with someone. There was an enormous crash, so loud Jolene even felt its vibrations through her head. She hopped off and knocked on Keri's door. The light was off, the door was locked and no one answered. Jolene kept knocking on the door, but no one answered. There was a graveyard silence.

When confronted, Keri had no idea what Jolene was talking about the next morning. Christmas vacation soon came, and was over on the twenty ninth. Jolene was supposed to come back and stay at the house for two more weeks. Instead of dreading it, she was rather looking forward to it, anticipation instead of anxiety filing her being. She felt light headed and walked up to the door. But just as she put her hand on the doorknob, she felt someone throwing their weight against the door. 'Shit!' She exclaimed, realizing that some of her stuff was still in there. She tried to push the door open with all her might but failed as it was locked as well. She ran down the stairs, yelling for the professor to come up and see what was wrong. He unlocked the door and they both found that everything in the room was perfectly fine. The windows were locked from the inside and nothing was out of place. There was not the slightest trace of forced entry and nothing was missing. Although Jolene leaves the story at this point, the story does not end with her. She still writes to the professor, who corresponds with her on a regular basis. Some Tibetan monks who spent the night there claimed to have been pulled out of their beds at night. a Tibetan professor who also stayed there a few months later said he would wake up to the sensation that someone was sitting on his chest, trying to suffocate him.

The professor, who was aware that something resided in his house, finally decided to take action against it and called in a Buddhist monk who performed some ceremonies on it. Nothing strange has happened in the house since then, although Jolene has stumbled across some valuable information. She had told no one till now. A professor of mathematics had lived in the house in the late 1840s and was caught one day having an affair with one of his male students. Disgraced and remorseful, he hung himself one floor down directly below the lamp fixture which had been spinning.

Whispers

Jessica does not come right out and say that her house in Louisville, KY is haunted. She does say though that over the eight years she has wondered about all the little things that happened every now and then... Like how every time she sits in her basement and watched television, she sees things at the corner of her eyes. Sometimes they dart to and fro, and sometimes they linger there till she turns around, after which they speed off into thin air. Some things stay there whether she looks or not. She used to see a ball of light at the bottom of her stairway. It would circle around and twist by itself and glow like some sort of living and breathing orb. She never used the stairs when she saw it, always waiting until it disappeared.

Once she even spent the whole night in the basement, sleeping on the couch in a very uncomfortable position until around five in the morning, and finally went up the stairs, the orb having disappeared. Another time, she saw something that looked like a black cloud. It was the height of a figure but larger. It moved out from under the light and walked up the stairs right in font of her. She went out and changed the light fixture and it never happened again. She had also seen something, which had moved across the carpet at lighting speed to her left. She thought that maybe it had been some sort of play of light, something to do with her glasses. She also entertained the possibility that it had something to do with the light from the television. However, after certain experiments involving switching off, moving and angling the television, as well as taking her glasses off and putting them back on, she realized that both these options were out of the question.

Once when she was in the living room with a big group of people, she saw it happened again. Because no one else noticed it, she thought that maybe the inevitable had happened and that she had gone crazy. Another thing that happened on a constant basis was the sound of voices, which seemed to come from what seemed like the fan on the first story. One of the scariest moments that had happened to her since she had moved into the house eight years ago happened when her friends had come over to stay for the night. After talking about things you should not be talking about at that time of the night, like poltergeists and things that go bump in the dark, Jessica went upstairs to use the bathroom, leaving her friends downstairs using her computer. It was about four in the morning and while Jessica was washing her hands, her eyes drifted to something, which had crept up beside her. It was an arm. After getting over the initial shock, yet still pretending not to notice, she figured that her friend must have been trying to scare her. She turned around to startle her friend, but only to saw an empty bathroom and the closed bathroom door.

She jerked back to look at the mirror and saw nothing in the reflection, turned back round to look behind her again and found nothing. She ran downstairs, babbling about a beautiful forearm, which looked like it had belonged to a woman that had dove soft, smooth skin, beautifully colored skin. She had not seen any other body part, just a forearm. Many of Jessica's friends have talked about how they can feel a presence in the house the minute they step into it. Most of them feel that something is amiss in the guest room. One of the girls she knew would really unnerved every time she stepped into it, and this was the girl whom Jessica had never told about all that happened. One of her friends, Albert says that he can feel things. And once the two of them had just been sitting in the living room bumming the way people sometimes do, and his eyes had started to water. He told Jessica that he was sad, but that he knew things would eventually be okay. Jessica, of course, had been confused because the statement had come out of nowhere.

'What do you mean?' She had asked him, confused. He did not say anything further, so she asked him again, to which he replied, 'Don't tell anybody I told you this.' 'Don't tell anybody what?' She asked, rather impatiently. He repeated himself, after which, she repeated her own question again. Her hair started to stand after this point. 'I did not say that', he said, as if she was crazy. 'Yes you did,' she replied. 'No I did not', he replied again, saying that he would know if he had said something. 'You said it! You told me not to tell anyone about something!' They simply looked at each other for a while before deciding to let it go. After a while, he piped up again and said that he thought that he might have said it, but had not meant to say it. He said that he had heard his voice, and that he had felt his mouth opening and closing, but that he had no intention of saying anything whatsoever. What were they supposed to do?

School Holiday

It was the last day of school before the summer holidays and Samantha was all ready for it. Hopping out of bed, she never hopped out of bed on a school day, she went straight to the bathroom. 'What am I going to wear today?' Samantha thought, smiling at her image in the mirror. Sticking her toothbrush in her mouth, she wondered what the next three months of freedom would be like. Then her face turned a little sour. 'What kind a assignments are we going to get this holiday?' She looked into the mirror again. 'Nothing is going to spoil the beginning of what will be the best holiday ever.'

She shrugged and put that last distasteful thought out of her mind. Homework could wait till the last day of the summer; it always did. For now, or at least after today, she was simply going to go out with her friends, watch tons of television, and maybe even stay home and do nothing, just because she could. She finished washing her face, cleansed, toned and moisturized, and dried it off on the towel on the rack. She skipped back to her room, thinking again about what she was going to wear. There were few things that pleased fourteen year old girls more than the last day of school. She looked through her wardrobe and picked out the brightest thing she could find, which was incidentally a cyan blue dress with deep yellow sunflowers all over it. She looked at herself, happy that her clothes reflected her mood and walked briskly down for breakfast. She heard the sizzling of bacon on the grille, and inhaled the smell of it deeply into her lungs. She had gotten up early today because she wanted to take her time at breakfast, and wanted to take her time going to school as well. She was surprised at the strong smell that came from the kitchen because her mother, who worked part time as a secretary, was supposed to be on duty that day. Every time her mother was home, her brother and her had luxury of having a home cooked breakfast at the dining table. If she was not, they simply poured themselves some cereal and got on their way.

Today her brother had left early to warm up for his athletics tryout thing, which she was not quite sure of. Not really caring the only thing she knew was that that moment more of the glorious smelling bacon for her. All this passed through her head as she walked down the stairs, whistling a little tune, the hem of her dress rippling as she did. She had expected to find her mother in the kitchen at the table reading the papers like she usually did. 'Mom are you there?' She tilted her head into the kitchen. Mildly disappointed at not finding her mother, though not enough to dampen her spirits, she walked over to the microwave to see what her mother had left her. The smell of freshly cooked breakfast was almost overwhelming and she was sure that there was some morsel of gastronomical delight hidden inside the microwave. She opened it with anticipation, almost salivating from the wondrous smell emanating from it. But found nothing.

She looked all around the kitchen and wondered where the smell was coming from. She knew it was not her neighbor's house because all the doors and windows were closed. Her family did that whenever everyone was out or when the only person in was sleeping. It was a safety precaution. So unless the smell of her mother's cooking had decided to linger in the kitchen for the past hour or so, something very weird was going on. But she just shrugged and reached for the cereal box and a bowl. She heard a tiny buzzing sound come from outside in the garden but ignored it. The sound became louder as she opened the refrigerator to take out the milk. This was when she looked up and wondered what it was. Walking to the window to look outside, she realized that the buzzing noise was actually a group of people talking. She leaned outside her window after opening it and looked outside, trying to see who was talking in the garden. When she leaned back in, she realized something.

The sound had gotten louder after she closed the window again. This meant only one thing: that the voices were coming from inside the house. She stood rooted to the ground, unsure of what to do. She heard the clear deep voice of a man, and several other voices which were not so defined. The man was laughing while the others chatted away. Feeling confused, knowing that intruders did not simply chat to their heart's content, she reached into the utensil drawer all the same. She was still facing the window while she probed the drawer's contents for something she could use. Finding the biggest knife she could, she picked it up and turned around to defend herself. What she saw frightened her. She was so shocked that she dropped the very knife she had taken out to defend herself. She could not believe what she saw in front of her. At the dining table, at her family's dining table, sat an entire family whom she did not know.

They sat there, their breakfast in front of them, talking and laughing. There was a man, a woman and three children there. They were all dressed in clothes from an era she could not identify, but the colors were generally drab and dark browns, and the woman wore a large white hat on her head. They looked like the photograph she had seen in her history books: of a family of American pioneers. She was totally and completely dumbfounded as she observed the whole scene: the family eating off metal plates and drinking from their ceramic mugs. The children, two boys and one girl, who seemed to the be the youngest, thanked their mother as she took their plates away to the sink. This was when Samantha started to panic. Once the lady finished collecting everything, she would have to come into the kitchen area to wash everything up. Common sense told her that. She had the funny feeling that none of them would see her but she did not want any of them to come close to her. She was scared out of her mind and the thought of the woman accidentally brushing up against her frightened her even more, because it would make everything all too real.

She picked up her feet and aimed for the back door. She screamed as she stepped onto the kitchen knife and left little drops of blood on the linoleum floor. Not caring at the moment, she simply lifted the latch and sped out of the place, not looking back. Her face was a deadly sheet of white, and a concerned young lady on the sidewalk actually asked her whether she was alright, if she was sick and needed to be brought to a doctor. Samantha smiled weakly and replied that everything was fine. She limped to the place where she waited for the bus and took off her sandal to look for her bleeding foot. She had not even taken her school bag with her when she ran from the house. She would have to do something about her foot the minute she reached school. She thought about whether she would go to the field and search for her brother when she got to school, to tell him about what had happened. Better not, she thought. Some things were better left unsaid.

Blood Dreams

Nina opened her eyes feeling safe and warm in her bed, the arm which was wrapped around her making her feel secure. She smiled feeling at peace with herself, and too comfortable to wake up. She knew it should have been about two in the morning, and she saw no reason to get up. She wrapped her fingers around her boyfriend's wrist and drifted back off to sleep, the thought of her boyfriend triggering off something alarming at the back of her mind. Not wanting to place it till she got up in the morning, her mind drifted off. But the minute it did, what it was that was bothering her hit her like a ton of bricks.

her boyfriend had come over two nights before and had left that morning. He should now be sleeping comfortably in his own bed at home. 'Oh my God!' She threw the arm off from around her and spun around in her bed. Just as she did, the figure, being much sharper and quicker than she was, grabbed her by the wrists and pinned her down. Too shocked to scream at first, she took his wrists and held them above her, using one hand to hold them down and the other to clasp her mouth. Unable even to breath, she struggled to break free. She could not see who the perpetrator was in the lack of light. All she saw was the dark silhouette of a man whose face she could not see. She could feel his body. He was on top of her and trying to shut her up. She wondered deliriously how he could have gotten in, trying to rationalize it all. The windows were locked from the inside, as had the door.

How she wished she could scream out for her mother to help her. But she could not. The man seemed to be simply looking at her as she struggled, almost watching her as if it was a performance. She wished she could see his face. But he was just a black blurry figure. She could not believe this was happening. Had she been able to breathe properly, she would have been in hysterical tears. But the fact that his weight was on her, coupled with the fact that his hand was on her mouth, prevented her from doing so. She continued to struggle as he took his hand off her mouth. Thinking this was an opportunity she opened her mouth to scream only to be cut off by the sudden cutting off of her air. His right hand was now around her throat, just tight enough so that it hurt like hell and made it difficult to breath, but not so tight that she would be suffocated altogether. She saw the black figure lean down towards her. She shut her eyes and prayed for God to save her. She knew there was nothing else to do now but to get through this and pray.

She felt warm, wet lips touch hers hungrily and she thought to herself that it just had to be a dream; some sort of horrid and vivid nightmare. She woke up. She was in a cold sweat, but she woke up nonetheless and that was all that mattered. Gulping deep lungfuls of sweet air, she stumbled out of bed, gasping. She turned on the lights and looked at the window as well as the door. Everything was locked, just as she had left it went she had gone to sleep. She felt thirsty. Still breathing heavily, she took one last look at the room and opened the door to got to the kitchen to get a drink to quench her parched throat. She thought about the dream and how vivid it had been. She could still taste the foreign lips and grimaced at the moisture on hers. Her neck felt stiff and strained. She took a glass from the kitchen cabinet and switched on the bathroom light to get some water. The glass dropped and broke into a million pieces, all of which reflected the terror in her eyes. There was a huge, red mark on the center front of her neck in the shape of a butterfly. They were bruises, which could have only been made by fingers that had dug into her neck. Her neck was pinkish red in color, as if flushed from excitement. And worse, there were love bites.

Hide & Seek

For a little while, maybe a fortnight after moving into their new house in Bishan, nine year old Alex began to hear voices by the side of his ear. They whispered and laughed and talked about him. They did not seem menacing, just mocking. Either way, they scared him. At first he thought that maybe it was the radio from his sister's room or the television from downstairs. It was only one day when his parents were not at home that he realized that they were not from the world as he knew it. The nightmares began like normal; children do have nightmares after all. But as the weeks went by, they got more graphic and more violent. So like most children, he did what he was best at. He got used to it.

Children have marvelous ability  to incorporate everything into daily life. Not having the notion that monsters were not rel and that not everything is possible, they can take something that would have driven an adult crazy and make sense of it. So this is what Alex did. The nightmares carried on for the nest two years, alternating between periods where they were so intense they would wake him up in the middle of the night, and periods where they did not even come. But they soon evolved into something a lot more serious, and though Alex has suppressed a lot of this now, it still bothers him to think about it. He woke up in the middle of the night one night two years later to the feeling of someone stroking his hair. Getting up with a jerk, he turned around to find the oddest thing at his headboard. It was the shadow of a hand. It glowed with a deep dull, sort of red hue that was bright enough to illuminate itself, but not bright enough to illuminate the area around it. As he looked at it, unable to scream, he saw it inch back into the wall until it faded into the nondescript brown brick. 

For the next two years, Alex began to see strange things; green hands and feet, which would poke their way into his room from the hallway outside. He would never be able to see any other body parts, but every time the sun went down he tried as best as possible not to look at his doorway. But the unseen threat always being scarier than what you can pinpoint, he would open his eyes. And see them. Usually he would be unable to scream but the few times that he was, he wished he had not. His dad would come running upstairs and Alex would explain what had happened; his dad would laugh with that laugh all children know is patronizing and would pretend to search under the bed. 'There are no green men here Alex! I would not let them into the house!' This carried on for the next year or so as he grew older, he eventually saw the luminous green hands and feet less often, until they suddenly died down into nothing or that was what he thought.

It was about a year ago, when Alex had the house all to himself. His parent and sister had gone on a weekend trip. Alex was twelve and had convinced them that he could stay the two days alone without them. He asked if Jerry and Yuen Fatt could come over and stay, and they had readily agreed thinking that there was safety in numbers. The three boys had decided to utilize the great opportunity of a house to themselves to relieve their childhood and play a good old fashioned game of hide and seek. Yuen Fatt was the seeker. He stood against the wall and counted to ten loudly, booming the numbers out as Jerry and Alex scampered away on soundless feet. Turning around, he headed to the kitchen and found Jerry straight away. Now all they had to do was to find Alex. Alex was hiding in the cupboard, with the door completely closed. It worked magnetically, so there was no danger of getting locked in. He had been there for what seemed like ten minutes when suddenly he heard Yuen Fatt yelled triumphantly, 'Come out! We see you!'

feeling confused and cheated at how they could have figured it out, he decided to wait it out a little longer. Half a second later he heard Jerry shout gleefully, 'We see you! If you don't come out, we are going to drag you out!' The voices were relatively close. So Alex popped out of the cupboard and, to his surprise, found the boys just outside his room, but looking to the left at the bathroom. 'You cheaters!' he yelled. The boys, white faced, turned around quickly and then both of them looked back at the bathroom in unison, and then back at him. He could see that they were scared. 'What's wrong?' 'Was not that you in the bathroom?' 'The bathroom?' 'Yes, the bathroom,' replied Jerry anxious and annoyed. 'Was not that you in the green face paint?'

Beast Of The Night

Driving along the Malaysian highway, Maggie Tan was with her husband and her three month old baby as they headed towards Malacca to visit some relatives. They had originally planned to travel there during the day, but something had cropped up and her husband was delayed. By the time they set off, it was already night. On the way, they stopped at Machap, a tiny Malaysian town lying between Singapore and Malaysia. There, they grabbed a quick dinner and were soon on the way again.

'Oh dear, darling, I need to take a leak,' Maggie's husband uttered. 'See, Harry? You should have gone to the bathroom while you were in Machap,' Maggie knew her husband well. 'Try to hold it, will you?' 'What? All the way to Malacca?' 'Yeah, you did not want to to the bathroom earlier.' 'It's another hour to Malacca! I can't hold that long,' Harry replied exasperatedly. The road sign said that a resting area was coming up. There would be toilet facilities at the stop. Without second thought, Harry swerved his car into the slip road. Although it was a rest area for drivers to stop and rest, the place was totally dark. As they entered the area, Maggie saw that there was no cars stopped at that particular rest stop. She began to feel nervous. 'Let's not stop here, Harry. The place is so dark.' 'I can't hold it anymore, Maggie. Don't worry, I'll leave the headlights on, okay?'

Nearing the restrooms, the car stalled and came to an abrupt stop. Hearing the choking sounds coming from his engine, Harry hit the dashboard in frustration. 'Just when I needed it badly,' he spoke in disgust. 'Alright, you wait here. I'll be back in a few minutes. Take care of the baby.' Quickly, he switched off the engine but left the headlights on. Before Maggie could say anymore, he jumped out of the car and sprinted in the direction of the bathroom. Maggie sighed resignedly as she watched him disappear into restroom. Harry was always like that. She looked down at bundle in her arms. Her son was sleeping soundly. She had just weaned him half an hour ago. Gazing affectionately at her son, Maggie wondered whether if he would grow up to be like his father. Three minutes had passed. Maggie looked up from her son, wondering why Harry was taking so long. Her son stirred in her arms. 'Darn Harry,' Maggie thought irritably. 'He shouldn't have eaten those raw cockles. He's probably having diarrhea now.' 

When Harry had not returned five minutes later, Maggie began to worry. Laying her son on the driver's seat, she leaned over ans started to flash the headlights. Getting no response, she began to punch on the honk. There was still no sign of Harry. After a while, she had lost her patience. Carrying her baby gently, Maggie got out of the car and walked towards the restrooms. The air outside the car was surprisingly cool. The restroom was just a small building, made up of two tiny cubicles. Quickly, she checked the cubicles for Harry. There was no one in them. By now, the air had turned quite chilly. Her son, lying in her arms, was moving and making noises. It did not take long for him to wail. Maggie scanned the surroundings for signs of her husband but it was too dark for her to see. Unable to find her husband, Maggie returned to the car. As she headed towards the car, she saw headlights appearing on the road and realized that a tow truck was passing by. Quickly, she ran to the car and flashed her headlights. When the tow truck got nearer enough, she punched on the car honk with all her might.

The tow truck slowed to a crawl, as it drop past them. Maggie waited for it to stop, but it did not. Instead, it continued on its crawl down the road. It only stopped five meters away from her. Exasperated, she rushed after it. However, every time she went near the truck, it moved further away. It was under a street lamp that the truck came to a full stop, a distance away from Maggie. By then, Maggie had begun to pant. As she approached the tow truck, she saw a big man alight. In his hands, he was carrying a wrench and a screwdriver. When she got closer, he raised the wrench. 'Stop where you are,' he shouted. Maggie looked at him stunned. 'No, I need your help. My husband is missing and I need to find him,' she pleaded, taking an involuntary step towards him. 'No, I said 'stop'. If you want me to help you, stop,' he said. Maggie could see that his assistant, a smaller wiry young man had alighted from the truck, carrying a long metal pole in his hands. Fear gripped her heart and she froze.

'Good,' the big man said. 'Now put down the baby and step five meters back.' 'What?' Maggie exploded. 'That's my baby!' 'If you want my help, put your baby down. I'm not going to hurt him.' Maggie looked at the man, unsure as to do. He seemed to be afraid of her. However, she knew she needed his help and placed her baby down gently. After she did, she stood up and took several steps back. As she did, he came nearer to the baby. Seeing that she had stopped, he too stopped. 'Further.' She did as told, taking more steps backwards. When she was some distance back, the big man came closer to the baby and flipped open the cover. 'The baby's real,' he confirmed. 'Now, kneel down and raised your hand over your head.' When she knelt on the floor, she felt hands touching her shoulders. 'Boss, she's real too,' the assistant called out. Hearing that, the big man looked visibly relieved. He picked up the baby gently in his big arms and walked towards her.

'Sorry about that,' he explained. 'It's for our protection.' 'What's happening?' Maggie's eye were wild. 'Don't worry, I'll explain later. Now let's find your husband.' Leaving the baby with the big man, Maggie headed back to the restrooms with the young assistant. Armed with several torches, they approached the cubicles. They scanned their surroundings but found nothing. When they weer almost there, Maggie's nostrils caught a strong scent of jasmine. 'Come, let's go,' the assistant said abruptly. 'Wait! I haven't found my husband yet,' Maggie exclaimed. 'We'll come back and look for him tomorrow,' the assistant replied. 'But now, we have to go.' His firm grip on her arm did not leave Maggie much room to argue. Almost dragging her, he took her back to the truck. When they were there, the assistant conversed with his boss in rapid Malay. At that, the big man turned to Maggie.

'Alright, we will send you to the nearby checkpoint.' 'What about my husband? What about my car?' The big man looked at her for a long while, before replying, 'the night is not good time to ask such questions. Come, I'll explain to you later.' They reached the checkpoint thirty minutes later. The big man drove the tow truck and stopped it just before the checkpoint. After he stopped the truck, he turned to Maggie seated in the back. 'My assistant saw your husband earlier,' he started. 'He saw him? Where?' Maggie did not give him a chance to finish. 'He was some distance away from the cubicles. There was a pontianak with him.' Maggie's face was pale when he finished. At that, she started to cry. The big man and his assistant looked on, not knowing what to do.

The police found Harry's body the next day. Like what the big man said, he was found some distance away from the cubicles. Although the big man and his assistant believed otherwise, the police identified that Harry Tan had been attacked by wild animals and had died from it. Maggie Tan was devastated over the death of her husband. Bringing up a baby single-handed was an uphill task, but with the support of her relatives, she overcome it.

Apparition

Diana was exhausted as she stepped down from the bus, at the bus stop near her service apartment. She had spent the whole day touring San Francisco by bus. An adventurous woman by nature, she decided to bypass tour packages altogether. She glanced along the street she was staying at. Except for her and a few others pedestrians, it was almost deserted. After all, it was almost midnight. She had attended a dinner that evening, hosted by her friends from university days. Most of them were in America pursuing their masters.

Still jet-legged, Diana had asked to be excused. Walking along the quiet streets, she marveled at the beauty of the city. Prior to her trip here, she had done her research about the neighborhood through the net and knew that she would be safe walking through the streets late a night, like things back home. She had rented a service apartment at a reasonable rate in the neighborhood. A spring shower had just passed, and the pavement glistened under the street lamps, giving a magical feel to the place.As she strolled back, Diana looked at the apartment blocks that made up this street when something caught her eyes. There was some movement coming from the top of the building. It appeared to be the same floor she was staying at. Her eyes strained to see what was it. After a while, she realized that to her horror that what she was looking at was a figure. He was climbing out of his window, one of his legs dangling over the windowsill dangerously. 'No...' she said to herself, as she hurried towards the apartment.

As Diana looked on in horror, he got out of his window and sat down by the edge. By then, Diana had reached the building. Before she could call out to him, the figure launched its body over the edge. In slow motion, Diana looked on in horror as he fell to the ground. She screamed when he landed behind a car, out of her sight. Terror shock her, and it took her a great effort to run into the apartment for help. Not seeing where she was headed, she ran straight into the building's security guard. 'Public phone... phone... guy jumped...' She stammered when she saw him. 'Calm down. I can't hear you,' he grabbed her shoulders and tried to soothe her. 'Public phone...' she was too distraught to explain anything. He did not understand anything but the fact that she needed a phone. He directed her towards it. She called the police, and told them what had happened. After hanging up, she was too frightened to go out, but instead sat in the lobby, waiting for the police.

The security guard, seeing her terror, wen to the vending machine and got her a cup of coffee. In spite of the heated lobby, she felt very cold and began to shiver. The police arrived in ten minutes. 'Ma'am, did you call to report a suicide/' She nodded and walked out. Standing at the stop of the steps, she pointed her fingers in the direction of the car. 'There,' she forced the words out. 'I saw him falling off the building and he landed there.' The police officer gave her a strange look and went around to the spot. Their patrol vehicle had the headlights on and was shining directly on the spot where she saw him land. 'There's nothing here,' he called. Diana walked slowly to where he stood, half fearing what she might see. There was no body behind the car. 'No offence ma'am, but what exactly are you trying to do?' The officer looked at her with annoyance. 'I... I... He...'

'Are you sure you saw anything at all?' 'YES!' She nodded her head vigorously. 'Okay, okay. We'll go up and check. You go back to the lobby and we'll see you there in a while.' They returned after fifteen minutes. 'So? What happened?' she said, more in control of herself. 'We went up. You said the sixth floor, second apartment from the right end, right?' 'Yes.' 'The entrance to his apartment is boarded up. There was no way anyone can get in there. We checked with the neighbor. He said that the previous tenant was a guy. One night, he was having a wild party, and was high on drugs when he climbed out of his window. No one has stayed there since.' 'maybe you were seeing things,' his partner added. The officer then turned his back to her coldly and walked off with his partner. She stood in the lobby, watching on as they got into their patrol vehicle and drove off.

Diana was combing her damp hair after a  hot shower. She had ran out of conditioner and her entangled wet hair made it difficult for her to comb. After a while, she stopped and stared at her own reflection. Was she really seeing things? After the police had left, she had remained in the lobby for a while longer. It was half an hour later that she walked slowly back to her apartment. Staring at her reflection, Diana knew that what she saw was real. she knew, deep in her heart, that she was not hallucinating. She wondered why she had not stood her ground and insisted. Perhaps she was just too shocked, perhaps she was intimidated by the police officers, perhaps she knew she could be hallucinating. Just then, she heard a sharp, crisp knock against her door. Diana put down the comb and went to her apartment door. She opened it to see a young man, with sandy hair. 'Why can't you just mind your own business?' He asked with a scowl.

'What?' 'You sent the police up here and disturbed everyone,' he continued his abuse. 'Is it any business of yours?' Diana was stunned by his abusiveness. Her immediate reflex was to apologize for what she had done. She told herself that things were different from home. 'I'm so sorry,' she apologized profusely. 'Yeah, you'd better be,' he continued. 'Next time, just shut up! And get back to your f#@*%! country where you came from.' With that, he stomped off to the right, down the corridor. Diana looked on until he disappeared into his apartment, before she closed the door. In a daze, she climbed into bed. Her mind was still on the abusive visitor. Inwardly, she stewed when she thought about how unfair his statements was. After all, she was just being civic minded when she called the police. It was not up to him to tell her what she can or cannot do. The more she thought about it, the more annoyed she became.

In the end, she felt that she had to let him know exactly what she thought of him. She got out of bed and stomped out of her apartment, in the direction of his. She was not going to be some pushover that he thought he could get away with just because she was a female. She was going to show him. She came to his door, and banged hard on it. After she did, she waited for him to come to the door, ready to unleash her fury on him. As she waited, her eyes looked down the corridor and she realized where she was. She was standing outside the exact same apartment where she saw the man fall off the building earlier. Her blood chilled. She stood there, frozen, not knowing what to do. Her anger had evaporated into nothing, and what took its place was an overwhelming sense of fear. Just then, she heard the same voice calling from within the apartment. 'Hang on, I'm coming in a minute!' Diana bolted straight back to her apartment.