The Night of The Rat

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It was getting dark. The time has arrived for it to go out and start looking for whatever scraps of food it could find. Maybe a mate or two. It awoke from its short sleep, its tiny heart beating so fast it was humming. With its tiny clawed 'hands', it wiped its face, a curious gesture that was disturbing human-like.

It raised its head, smelling the dank air between the walls. But within this stagnant space, a plethora of other smells and sensations mingled. The noises coming from out of the walls were exciting, full of promise. The smells were wonderful. It began to feel alive. This was its time.

It scurried along the pipes embedded in the drywall, which served as its streets and alleys. It bumped into its neighbors, acknowledging each other, but it had other, more important business to do. Its stomach was empty, and it really wanted to get something nice to eat tonight. The night has come. It was time to forage. And in this building, the choices were endless.

It climbed down almost vertically down a rusty waterpipe; just below a small hole opened. It had gnawed the hole open weeks ago when it discovered that behind the wall was another kitchen, one of many in the building in which it lived. There were other holes, of course, in other kitchens and other rooms. But this one was its favorite.

It peeked its head out of the hole. It had to be careful. If any humans saw it, they'd usually try to chase it away, or kill it with whatever makeshift weapon they could grab their hands on. They also had traps. It had watched one of its own kind get trapped once; the humans had subsequently set its 'friend' on fire and watched.

But tonight, the coast was clear. It darted out of the hole, its tiny feet moving rapidly, dragging the little furry body and scaly tail behind. It stopped beneath a table, and stood up on its hind legs. It smelled the air. Food. Skillfully, it began to climb the table leg. It wasn't very difficult. Its claws made every grip, every footing secure. Eventually it reached the top of the table. On it were several plates of food. Fried fish. Rice in a bowl. Something that looked like curry. Vegetables. It was all good, all great. It began to help itself, taking bits of everything, stuffing the food into the pouches of its mouth.

It was suddenly startled by a loud slapping noise. It turned its head away towards the kitchen door and saw a human being slumped on the floor. It was a human female, her long hair all messed up. The human female wasn't covered in any clothing (not that it knew what clothing was). It saw that the human female was holding her hand to her face, and she had water coming out of her eyes. It watched. The human female was making strange whimpering noises. Suddenly a human male walked into view. The male, too, was as naked as a.. why, as a rat. The male's hands were bunched into fists.

It decided to climb down the table lest it be spotted and chased out, or worse, killed. But it was a curious animal, and it crawled towards the two human beings outside the kitchen doorway. It hid just near the entrance. It watched the two humans. The female human was still whimpering. Suddenly the human male kicked the female in the stomach. It saw the female spew out chunky brown colored liquid from the mouth. It smelled like food to it.

The human male was making sounds too. But it did not understand, of course. As the human male made the sounds, the female was shaking her head. Again it did not comprehend all these human interaction. It just watched, bunched on its hind legs. The human male walked closer and sat on the females stomach. It saw the human male begin to hit the females face with the hands. The female began to bleed from the mouth and nose. The females mouth bubbled.

Suddenly the human male got up and walked towards the kitchen. Towards it! But the human did not see it and simply passed by. It saw the human male take a shiny object from the kitchen drawer. It knew what the object was. One of its kind had lost a tail to that object. It was sharp.

The human male passed it by again, and it saw that the human female was shaking its head furiously. The female was still lying on the floor. The human male begin to make loud noises again. Once more he sat on the females stomach. The human male slapped the female. Then it saw the human male grab the female by the the hair, and take the shiny object and pierce the females neck with it. The human male then begin to move the shiny object in and out of the females' neck vigorously. Suddenly the female's head was off, and the male held it for a moment in his free hand. There was a lot of thick, viscous red liquid flowing out of the female human.

It heard the male grunt and make noises. The human male then chucked the females' head to the side, where it rolled towards the kitchen doorway, stopping just a few feet away from where it was hiding. It looked the female humans head; it was lifeless now, silent. It saw the human male get up from the headless body and leave the room. It saw the male going into another room and closing the door.

It was silent for a few minutes. When it was sure that there would no more interference and danger, it crawled gingerly out of its hiding spot. It sniffed the human head, then scurried away to the headless body. It nibbled; then went back to the head to nibble as well. Finally it decided that the body tasted better.

It did not know or understand about humans, or human behavior. It did not comprehend what it had just seen, nor did it feel the gravity of the situation. It was indifferent. Even if it did, perhaps it would choose to live as a rat anyway.

It was a simpler life. All it had to do was sleep, eat and mate. And on lucky nights such as this, it was rewarded with fresh meat.



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(not the best, i know. but i needed to write to stay sharp.)

The Haunted House

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I haven't set foot in this house for many, many months.

As I inserted the key and turned the lock, I hesitated. I placed my hand on the knurled stainless steel door-knob and took a deep breath. What would it be like to return to a place so ingrained with memory and sadness? I could almost hear the echo of tears long gone, bouncing off the smooth painted walls.

The house is an apartment, somewhere off Jalan Ampang in Kuala Lumpur. It has never been the grandest or most prestigious place to live in, but it was once a home. Sometime ago it played host to the lives of people, who slept beneath the ceiling and walked on the parquet floor. That was sometime ago. Now it is an empty chamber.

I turned the door-knob and the first thing that struck me was the thick, dusty air. The windows and sliding doors have not been opened for months, and it was amazing how quickly debris accumulated. There was a fine layer of dust on the normally spotless floor. The furniture, untouched, lay covered beneath white sheets that now looked gray from the dust. It looked drab, gloomy... deathly, even.

I closed the door behind me and glanced at the floor. There were no signs of disturbances save for the tell-tale scurry of perhaps a mouse or cockroaches. I shuddered a little. I hated cockroaches.

Pale early morning sunlight filtered through the drawn shades, and as I pulled them open I had to cover my mouth and nose; it puffed up a dry cloud that was slightly choking. But the sunlight now came in strong and bright, and it gave a little bit of a cheer to the place, pushing away the initial gloominess. I paused a moment, and scanned my eyes across.

It looked like the house was ready for a re-painting; all the chairs and sofas and tables were covered with sheets, and there were no pictures on the walls. Those had been taken down months ago, when the inhabitant had unfortunately passed away. They now rested in a box in the defunct bedroom.

I walked around, leaving footprints on the floor. From the living room, I walked to the dining area. Somewhere in my mind I saw a picture of people having meals together there, laughing and talking over, say, a pizza or rice and condiments. I stood at the edge of the covered dining table and from there I saw two bedrooms, a study room and the kitchen.

I breathed shallowly, partly because of the dust, but also because the place was overwhelming me. The power of memory was slowly taking its hold upon my mind. With it came vivid recollections of a past that I, a certain times, long for, but know for certain will never live again. I walked slowly, deliberately, and made my way to the bedroom.

Like the living room, everything was covered in sheets. But I could still make out the outlines of the dresser, and of the pillows on the double bed. Again, my head blooms with images of a face long gone but still alive in my memories. A box, roughly 2 feet square, sat near the edge of the bed. I made my way to it and knelt down. The box was not sealed. I opened it and took out a bunch of framed photographs and a photo album.

I looked at the pictures and thumbed through the album. Curiously, at that moment, I felt that I was no longer alone in that house. I felt as if someone was there with me. It was silent; under different circumstances, perhaps that would have been eery, but strangely enough, the silence was comfortable. I packed the pictures back into the box.

I exited the bedroom and strolled around inside the house. My senses were beginning to overload. It seemed that everywhere I looked, I saw ghosts. And everything I touched pulled me back to the past. The memories were racing at the speed of light in front of my eyes, and it felt like my heart was being crushed inside me. I sighed, and a sudden upwelling of emotion threatened to make me weep. But I kept it in check, and held it in. I promised myself that I would not cry. Because I knew that it would be meaningless. Tears will not bring back the dead.

I will still see the ghosts, and not just in this now empty house. And no; the ghosts are not figures shrouded in white and moaning, nor are they apparitions that walk through walls.

No.

Instead, the ghosts are of a beautiful woman of whom I loved and left, only to realize I needed her. The ghosts are that of a time long gone, a past I had hoped to reconcile with this woman. But God loved her more, and Fate decreed that I would never have the chance to be with her again. And so I was destined to live with the ghosts of my past.

This house is haunted, you see. Not by restless souls. But it is haunted by a love that was unfulfilled. A love that, perhaps, did not have the chance to blossom. To live.

I made my way out of the empty apartment and closed the door; and just for a split-second, I thought I saw a slender, beautiful woman dressed in a white kebaya, with long, straight hair and the brightest eyes ever. And I knew it was only my imagination, but for that split second, I thought I saw her smile at me and say,


"Goodbye Wise--"

... but I closed the door before she could finish.

----------

this is very short and not very rich story-wise. i'm just having fun, and i need to keep writing to stay sharp.
TWAAY readers, hope you liked it. before you cry foul, read the story properly; it's not literally 'ghosts'.

The Death of Helmi The Fat Boy

------

Meet Helmi. Fifteen years old. Fat. Pimply. Whiny voice. Constantly with a snack in hand. But also intelligent and hard working; he regularly scores straight A's in examinations. Also, depending on how one sees it, either a 'good, respectful and helpful boy', or 'brown-nosed teachers pet'. Helmi lives in Kampung Bukit Selama, and goes to school at SMK Kampung Bukit Selama. His parents are obviously proud of him. The village folk and his teachers constantly shower him with praise, although perhaps it would be safe to assume that they also secretly think the boy is in desperate need of a diet. At fifteen years old, he is approximately the size of an oil drum, and probably weighs as much too.

Despite his obesity though, Helmi is curiously popular with the girls at his school. Keep in mind this was a small kampung school however, but still, the girls at his school always took amiably to him. He was, after all, polite, soft-spoken (despite the whiny voice) and was never mean or rude or insulting to them. Plus, he was also very helpful in schoolwork.

And this was why Affandi, Zikri and Rauf hated him so much.

Affandi, Zikri and Rauf were all sixteen years old; a year older than Helmi. They roamed the dusty kampung roads and came to school on hand-me down motorbikes, tuned in such a way that they sounded like ten-foot long mosquitoes whenever the engines were revved. All three of them were excellent at sports; Affandi was the star of their school's football team, whilst Zikri and Rauf were excellent takraw players. They were even handsome in that high-school boy way. Each of them had their fair share of admirers. But whilst Helmi the fat boy was adored by the village folk and the teachers, these three lads were not. For one, despite their athletic abilities, they did not do well in class. They were loud, disruptive and often answered back to their elders.

It could be said then, that Helmi and the three boys were the anti-theses of each other. Ironically Helmi has no idea that the three motorbike-riding boys hated him so. To Helmi, and indeed, to everyone else, he was doing nothing wrong. But to Affandi, Zikri and Rauf, Helmi was an insult to their existence. How could a fat, pimply tub of guts have so many female friends and so many sick adults poring over him?

It was incomprehensible to the three of them. In their minds, they should be the ones people looked up to. They were 'cool' and rebellious. Is that not what all teenage girls look for? 'The bad boy'? Then why does Helmi attract so many friends of the opposite sex?

The three boys almost made it a daily mission to humiliate or cause anguish to Helmi.

Once, Affandi kicked Helmi's feet from under him, causing him to tumble and fall. Affandi had begun laughing even before the fat kid fell down, and Affandi almost imagined that the earth would shake when he did. But then a group of girls came to help the fat kid up and the sight of it disgusted him; worse, one of the girls actually told him off! Affandi had walked away from there feeling angry.

Zikri and Rauf on the other hand once spat into a bowl of mee kari that Helmi was having during recess one time. Unfortunately that had happened in plain view of their grumpy disciplinary teacher and each of them got caned as a result; and when the teacher called their parents, they got caned by their dads as well, and their mothers had cried in shame.

The three of them were almost always trying to find a way to isolate that fat shit and beat him up to within an inch of his life. But no; despite being visible from the moon, Helmi has a knack for avoiding them. Helmi always walks with friends (he too, has friends; most of them girls), and generally avoids walking alone. That fat kid likes to stay close to people. He was smart after all; he knew that although he was bigger than the three boys, they could always gang up on him and make him feel pain. So Helmi made it a point to not give the boys that opportunity.

For Helmi's part, he had never understood why the three boys hate him so much. Was it because he was fat? Because girls liked his company? Because he did well at school? And although those were all true, the irony again is that Helmi never once saw it that way. So rather than dwell on a pointless question, Helmi just made sure he minimized all contact with the three boys who were his opposite in both physique and intelligence.

Unknown to Helmi though, the three of them had found the breakthrough they were looking for. And it would ultimately spell his doom.

-----------------

Helmi, being the good boy that he is, partook in extra-curricular activities at school, which were usually held during evenings after classes. So far as he knew, the three boys who were constantly trying to get him never came to extra-curricular sessions, so this was the only time that Helmi let his guard down a little. So far, nothing unfortunate has happened. He would stay back at school straight-away in the afternoon, and then he would walk back alone, taking his time, knowing with absolute conviction that Fandi, Zikri and Rauf were not going to be there to beat him up or pull down his pants.

The walk from school to home usually took him about 25 minutes; twenty-five minutes of walking the dusty kampung road. Kampung Bukit Selama was situated in a valley, and a small river ran through the middle of it. In certain parts of the kampung, like behind the school, the woods were almost untouched, and the riverbanks were high and sloping. One day a year ago, Helmi discovered a path that ran through the woods behind the school. The path was parallel to the river, and much to Helmi's surprise, it actually led to the kampung on the other side of the woods, effectively shaving ten minutes off his walk. One must understand that Helmi resented walking because he tired easily, and no bicycle could support his frame. So ten minutes was a huge saving to him, even if it meant walking on a path littered with dry leaves and beneath tall trees, with the sound of buzzing insects and the river beside him. Often a snake would cross his path.

And, much to Helmi's delight, the secret path also meant he could avoid encountering the bullies if need be. It was his path. He was never going to show it to anyone. Helmi took that path through the woods everytime he had the opportunity to.

So it was today; it was near 5pm, and he had just finished a meeting with the History Club. As the other students dispersed, Helmi said goodbyes and packed his bag. He looked around to find someone whom he could walk home with, but all the other students were going in the opposite direction than he wanted. Nevermind, he thought, I'll just take my short cut. He gathered his stuff and walked to the back of the school. There was a link-fence; he followed it until he found rusty, opened gate. He passed through the gate and went ahead, finally coming to the woods and his path. As usual he made sure he watched his step when he walked the path; nasty creepy crawlies were abound here. But other than that, the path was pretty much alright. He could already here the river, about 20 meters below him, coursing its way on his left. It was a pleasant sound. Cicadas and crickets buzzed in the air.

Pretty soon, he got lost in his world and thoughts. He did not pay attention the other sounds, like the sound of three pairs of feet not far behind him.

--------------------

Zikri, Fandi and Rauf had been waiting long for this chance. They had stayed back at school, a rare thing for them to do, especially for this moment. While the fat boy had his club meetings, the three of them were waiting in an empty classroom, telling each other sadistic tales of what they were going to do once they got their hands on the fat kid.

One week ago, Rauf had been held at the principal's office for failing to submit his homework for the eleventh time in a row. He got caned on the hands, and a hard scolding from the hateful principal, and was forced to help the school groundskeeper with chores throughout the day. As a result of that, he had to go home late. But, as luck would turn out, being held back late proved to be beneficial. As Rauf had been cleaning the empty school walkways, he saw a familiar figure walk towards the back of the school. Curious, he quietly followed Helmi and saw him go through the rusty gate in the fence and disappear into the woods. Rauf had waited a moment, and after about ten minutes, followed the way Helmi had gone. He had smiled when he discovered the path, and had instantly realized this was his and his friends chance to teach that lard bucket a lesson. Along that path, in the woods, no one could come and help him.

Rauf had left school that day and immediately told Fandi and Zikri. They waited one week to see if the fat boy was going to take that path again. And when they saw that that indeed was the case, they rubbed their hands in glee.

Here comes the pain fat boy, the three of them thought.

-------------------

Helmi felt uneasy. It was the humidity. It was a hot day, and walking in the woods, the air was thick and suffocating. But there was something else. Something was not right. He listened, and as usual, he could hear the river, the insects, the falling leaves... and the snap of twigs being trodden on. He suddenly felt that he was being watched.

Which was exactly what was going on; about fifty meters behind him, Fandi, Zikri and Rauf were stalking him. They tried to keep their footfalls light, but it was impossible to be silent. But they almost did not care; they were closing in on the fat boy. The gap between them was getting narrower and narrower. Fandi was clenching his fists. Rauf too. Zikri felt out of breath. They quickened their pace.

The crunching of dead leaves and dried wood behind him caused Helmi to turn around. He yelled in surprise as he saw the three boys behind him, and they rushed him. Fandi tackled Helmi in the mid-section and Rauf and Zikri pushed down on his shoulders. He crashed to the earth with a dull thud. He looked up and saw three grinning faces above him. Then a fist, he wasn't sure whose, struck him square in the middle of the face. Helmi felt his lips split and warm blood seep into his mouth. He tried to scream but then one of the boys kicked him in his huge stomach, sending the wind out of him. Helmi rolled onto his stomach.

Fandi, Rauf and Zikri were laughing at the sight of the fat boy curled on the earth. They took turns kicking Helmi's thighs and legs and arms. Each time the fat boy tried to get up, they'd kick and punch him back down. They were at a frenzy. Zikri landed a kick that struck Helmi's ribs, and the three of them actually heard the cracking of bones. Helmi's clothes were torn. Fandi took a handful of rough, dry leaves and rubbed it into Helmi's eyes. Rauf pounded on the fat boys body with his fists.

As the boys went crazy on him, Helmi could only try to scream, but he knew nobody would come. His fears took hold of him and he began to weep. But this only seemed to raise the boys' aggression. Helmi felt each blow as it struck him. His ribs were searing in pain; his body felt was in agony. He feebly tried to say stop but to no avail. His mind was dazed not only by fear, but also by incomprehension; how could they do this to him?

The boys' blows slowed down. Helmi thought they were going to stop. But then he heard Fandi say, "Get him up!"

The two other boys grabbed him by his arms and heaved him up to his feet.

"Oof, you're a heavy bastard," said Rauf.

"What are you, an elephant?" said Zikri, and the three of them laughed crazily. Helmi raised his head. His lips were bleeding and almost all is front teeth were missing. He could only see out of one eye; the other was swollen shut.

"Feel good fat boy?" said Affandi in front of him. The other two snickered.

"You got this coming to you," said Affandi and he kneed Helmi's testicles. Helmi's eyes bulged out and he gasped in pain. Rauf and Zikri let go of his arms, laughing. Helmi's hands went to his crotch and he stood uneasily, swaying with fatigue. They were standing near the top of the riverbank, halfway through the pathway in the woods.

"Fuck you," Affandi said. He hawked and spat a large glob of phlegm on Helmi's face, and then he shoved him mightily in the chest. Helmi teetered and tottered, then suddenly lost his balance and fell backwards, rolling hard down the sloping riverbank. The last thing he saw was the three boys laughing and then the world literally rolling by; suddenly he felt one last snap of pain in his head and neck and then there was nothing. Blackness.

-------------------

Fandi, Rauf and Zikri were still laughing as they heard Helmi crash through the undergrowth on the slopes of the riverbank. When they heard the noises stop, they made their way down, following the broken branches and bent foliage that indicated Helmi's descent. They were joking and laughing, and they were planning on dragging the fat boy's sorry ass back up and giving him another beating. But when they found Helmi, their smiles and laughter evaporated into thin air.

There, at the bottom of the slope, just a foot or two shy of the river itself, was Helmi. His body was covered in bloody, torn clothes; but what had wiped the crazy smiles of the faces of the three boys was the fact that Helmi's skull was split open near the top and his neck was bent at an awkward angle. Blood was pooling below his head; his eyes stared emptily back at them, expressionless, devoid of life.

The three boys were silent. And suddenly, it got eerily quiet. Even the insects had stopped buzzing. The only sounds were their breathing and the river. Finally Zikri spoke. He had an ashen look on his face.

"We killed him."

Fandi and Rauf turned to him; their faces were equally shocked and pale. Zikri spoke again.

"We killed him."

"No," Fandi said, shaking his head. He looked at Helmi's body. "No, he's alive." He was in denial.

Zikri pointed at Helmi's head, split like a coconut shell. "Alive? Are you fucking kidding me?"

Fandi shook his head again and took a step backwards. "No."

Rauf, who had began trembling, looked to both of them. "What are we going to do?"

"I don't know," Fandi and Zikri answered in unison.

"We have to tell the cops," Rauf said.

"What? NO!" Fandi shouted and lunged for him. Fandi grabbed Rauf by the collar and shook him. "WE ARE NOT GOING TO THE COPS!"

Rauf nodded, but he looked frightened. All of them looked the same.

The three boys paced in circles; they were on the verge of panicking and were beginning to argue. Finally they decided that each of them would swear to keep this a secret; they were to walk away and never talk about it again. They would forget this ever happened. They would forget that Helmi the fat boy ever existed. The three of them stood a few feet away from Helmi's body and stared at it solemnly. Already flies were beginning to alight on him.

"Should we bury him?" Rauf asked.

"I don't want to," Fandi said. Zikri agreed. "Let's just get the fuck out of here."

They made their way back up the slope, and all three of them kept looking back, as if secretly wishing to see any sign of life or movement from the fat boy. Finally they reached the top and ran along the path till they reached the exit. They found themselves on the edge of their kampung. There were few people around. They looked at each other, silently. They did not say anything, and they made their way back to their own houses.

--------------

All three of them slept badly that night. All three of them had nightmares about Helmi rising from death and killing them. Haunting them. All three of them woke up the next day visibly tired and shaken. At school, they were quiet. So quiet that the teachers were surprised, although they did not mind one bit. When recess time came, they met up at a quiet spot behind the school.

"Got a ciggie?" Zikri asked. Rauf and Fandi shook their heads. They sat in a circle. Their mouths felt dry.

"Do you thin-" Rauf started and Fandi shoved his head.

"DON'T!"

Rauf sulked. For the first time in a long while, none of them had anything interesting to say. The specter of Helmi hung above their heads like a guillotine. Zikri noticed Fandi was staring absently into space; surely he must be feeling the most guilt, as he was the one who had shoved Helmi down that slope, killing him. But all three of them had a part to play in the fat boys death. If anyone ever found out, all three of them would be facing time.

"I want to be alone," Fandi said, finally. He got up and left. Soon Rauf said he wanted to be alone as well. As it turns out, the three of them stayed out of each other’s way the entire day.

----------------------

The next day was a historic day for the three of them. For the first time in a long while, they refused to see each other, even at school. They could barely look at each other’s faces; especially Fandi. Fandi was feeling the most guilt amongst the three of them; he was the one who pushed Helmi down. Zikri and Rauf avoided each other and him, and they were quiet and brooding the entire day. Even when the school bell rang to mark the end of school, they kept to their separate ways, barely acknowledging each other.

Zikri spent the rest of the day cooped up in his room, sleeping until his father scolded him. Then he would sleep again.

Rauf went home and then went back out. He roamed the kampung roads absently, kicking the dust beneath his battered shoes.

Fandi though, did not go home straight away that day. Instead, when school closed for the day, he snuck back to the back and walked up that fateful pathway beneath the woods again. He found the spot where they had beaten Helmi up; there were broken branches, but the ground was already covered with freshly fallen leaves. He made his way down the slope, noting the disturbed foliage. It was hot and humid beneath the trees. When he found Helmi's body, he stopped. He sat himself down in front of it.

Helmi's body was covered with flies, and they buzzed in a thick black cloud above his corpse. Squinting his eyes for a closer look, Fandi could see small white splotches on his skin that were actually clusters of flies eggs. A rat nibbled at his exposed hand, paying no attention to Fandi sitting closeby. Fandi threw a rock and it scurried away. The blood that had pooled out of his split skull had turned an inky black, and it looked thick like molasses. Helmi's eyes, still open, were glazed. A fly crawled on the surface of his left-eye, grotesquely. There was a faint stench in the air.

Fandi stared at the corpse of the fat boy. Helmi's lifeless eyes seemed to be staring at him. Fandi found himself looking back into those empty windows and he broke into tears.

"I'm sorry," he sobbed. "I didn't mean for it to go this far."

He hung his head between his legs and wiped his eyes. He looked at Helmi's corpse again. It seemed to stare accusingly at him.

"Forgive me!" Fandi bawled. "Forgive me..."

Fandi crawled towards the corpse, disturbing the swarm of flies. Up close, he noticed that there were already maggots crawling on Helmi's hand. Fandi brushed them away and grabbed Helmi's cold dead fingers and squeezed as if giving him a handshake.

"Forgive me Helmi," Fandi sobbed.

Fandi spent the next few hours just sitting next to the corpse. The flies began to light on him as well, but he let them. He was still crying, and disturbingly, he began to stroke Helmi's hand.

"Everything will be fine now," Fandi said. "You will not need to be afraid of us anymore..."

-----------------------

Helmi's disappearance was immediately noted. His worried parents reported it to the police, and the authorities began to look for him. Ironically, they started slow, and they had yet begun to question his schoolmates. Nonetheless, a search was carried out, but the police were focusing on Helmi's known haunts and places. Not one member of the kampung nor the police gave a thought to that path behind the school... maybe because nobody knew, or everyone had forgotten it was there.

The following day marked the second day that Zikri, Rauf and Fandi avoided each other. And again they spent the rest of the day doing their own things. They were all trying to cope with what they had done. Zikri shut out his troubles with sleep; Rauf forced his mind to relive the incident, maybe in an effort to desensitize himself to it. And Fandi went back to Helmi's corpse.

Fandi found Helmi in much the same state that he had been, with the exception of a stronger putrid stench and more maggots covering his body. There were maggots already eating away at his ears and nose and lips.

"Hello Helmi," Fandi said and set down his bag. He rummaged through it and took out a small plastic bag of currypuffs. "I brought you currypuffs."

Fandi ate one and 'gave' one to Helmi. At first he placed the currypuff on his rigid lips; for a few minutes he pretended that he was sharing some currypuffs with Helmi. But then he moved closer to the corpse and used his hands to open the mouth, and then he shoved the currypuff down, mashing it against Helmi's teeth which were already feeling loose. The stench was even stronger this close.

"There. Isn't it delicious? I bought them from the makcik down the road from our school," Fandi said. Fandi then spent the next few hours alternating between talking about school and crying. He told the corpse how today he did not see the other two boys, and how he felt that time was passing by so quickly. When it was evening and the light was getting darker, Fandi said goodbye to the corpse and kissed it on the forehead.

Fandi came again the following day, and this time there was a visible change in Helmi. His limbs were bent at an odd angle, and the skin was turning grey in patches. The maggots were now in the hundreds if not thousands, and still there were all manners of bugs swarming the corpse. The stench was off the scale. Fandi vomited this time. In the sweltering heat, perhaps it was too much. But still, he sat himself down next to the corpse and stroked Helmi's bloated fingers. Again, he bought some food and forced it down Helmi's mouth. The currypuff from the previous day was still there, but it was crawling with maggots that had made their way into his oral cavity. And again, Fandi finally left as evening drew near, saying goodbye to the corpse.

The next day Fandi smelled the corpse even when he was on top of the slope. And when he made his way down, he saw that the corpse had turned almost entirely grey and was bloated. Helmi's clothes were torn apart and his tongue stuck out of his open jaw. His eyes had sunken a little into the sockets. Again Fandi vomited, but still he stayed. This time he brought a pack of nasi lemak. He shoved it down Helmi's stuffed mouth, and the tongue suddenly burst with a hiss and a release of gas that smelled rotten and yellow. Fandi vomited again, this time on top of the corpse.

Eventually this became a routine for Fandi. As he grew more and more alienated from Zikri and Rauf, he spent more time with the corpse. Zikri and Rauf were becoming distant and introverted, sticking to themselves. Fandi took no notice of them. He kept visiting the rotting corpse of Helmi the fat boy, bringing food and telling the corpse stories and singing to it and crying to it. He became used to the strong stench, the clouds of flies, the squirming maggots and insects. Helmi's bloated corpse finally burst at the seams, releasing a cloud of foul smelling gas. When Fandi touched his sallow skin, it made an indentation. The flesh was going soft and it smelled sour and rancid.

On the eight day of his 'visits', Fandi did not bring any food. Rather, he came to talk to the corpse.

"Helmi..." he called out to it as he sat himself down, cross-legged. "I just wanted to apologize again to you, for everything that happened..."

The corpse's eyes had by now sunken in, leaving empty sockets seeping a yellowish fluid. The maggots, thousands of them, squirmed and writhed, making the body appear as if it is moving. Fandi stared into the empty eye sockets. He moved towards the corpse and kneeled beside it. He placed a hand on the belly that had once been so big; but it was now almost flat and soft; Fandi was vaguely reminded of a well-used mattress. He stroked the skin and it peeled away, revealing small maggots that had been feasting beneath.

Fandi broke into tears again. He sobbed hoarsely. "I'm sorry!! I'm sorry!!"

He laid his head on Helmi's now exposed ribcage. Flies buzzed around him. "What do you want me to do for you to forgive me?" Fandi asked no one in particular. The corpses face was now barely recognizable; the cheeks were sunken and the jaw hung at an awkward angle. Traces of food fell from the mouth. A fat maggot was crawling on the peeled back lips.

Fandi stared at the face of the boy he had once hated and vowed to 'get' at. Well, he had 'got' the fat boy, but it was barely a victory, so it seemed. Fandi fixated his eyes on the body. He scanned it from head to toe. He pushed the stomach with his hand and the flesh simply gave in; it was already mushy in consistency, no longer firm. Whitish yellow slime seeped from the torn skin. Fandi then grabbed the stomach and the flesh compacted in his fist; it oozed from between his fingers. He tore that lump of rotten meat away from the body and held it to his face. Crying, he looked at the face that had once belonged to a soul named Helmi.

"You will live in me," Fandi said to the corpse. At this point one would probably have guessed that Fandi had gone insane, and one would not be wrong. "You will live in me," Fandi said again.

He ate the piece of flesh. He stuck it in his mouth and chewed; but that was not required. The flesh was gooey and mushy, like the flesh of a very ripe mango or durian. Fandi gagged, but forced himself to swallow it. Then he tore another piece of rotting flesh and ate it. Then another. Then he vomited onto the corpse again, but he was determined not to stop. He began using both hands, tearing at the soft, decomposing meat and forcing it down his throat. Putrid flesh ran down his lips, staining his chin and chest. Fandi no longer cared that there were maggots and all sorts of bugs on the flesh. He went into a sort of frenzy, using his hands to tear away at the flesh of the corpse.

"You will live in me! You will live in me!" he cried as he ate. He lifted Helmi's rotted face and bit into the cheeks, swallowing the meat. Fandi pulled apart the already cracked skull and picked up pieces of rotted brain. All the time he cried "You will live in me!” He scraped away at the ribcage and scooped out the soupy insides with his hands. At one point he shoved his face into the body, licking at the juices that had accumulated at the bottom.

Finally he stopped. Fandi threw his head back and uttered a loud, wailing cry. He was covered in putrid flesh, blood and God knows what else. He stared at the corpse of Helmi, a corpse now torn and mangled. Consumed.

Fandi stood up. He looked at his hands and screamed. Then he passed out.

----------------------

Fandi was reported missing the day after he failed to come back home; the day he ate the corpse of Helmi the fat boy. The kampung folk and police were baffled. First it was Helmi, now this Affandi boy? Was there a connection? They began to investigate, and they found out about Fandi's relationship with Zikri and Rauf.

But four days later, Zikri committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree behind his house. He did it during the night, using a length of rope as a noose. He left no note behind. Rauf ran away from home soon after. He stole RM200 from his mother's purse, and left a note saying he was sorry. Police began to suspect foul play. They began a hunt for Rauf, whom they suspected (rightfully so) held crucial information that connected the disappearances of Helmi and Affandi, and the sudden suicide of Zikri. The kampung was shocked. These cases even made national news.

And then, one week later and about two weeks after the death of Helmi the Fat Boy, a group of curious school kids stumbled upon the path that Helmi had used so often, the path that had ultimately led to his demise and the foul luck of three other boys. The school kids, 5 fourteen-year-old boys, followed the path and noticed a foul smell coming from the bottom of the slopes. Intrigued, they followed the stench and came upon the small river, and there they found two bodies: one was already dried, but the other was that of a thin young man that was bloated and blackened, covered with flies and maggots.

The school kids ran as fast as they could and told their parents. The police were alerted, and soon the case of the disappearance of Helmi and Affandi was solved.

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Detachment

warning: contains graphic scenes

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Kuala Lumpur
0634

I am a man with not much to do. I am not old; in fact I like to think I am in the prime of my life. I am thirty-five years old, handsome and wealthy. I know this for a fact; I dress well and all the pretty young things in Kuala Lumpur look my way whenever I pass them by. When my parents died years ago I inherited my fathers wealth and have been sitting comfortably on it ever since. I've never worked a minute of my life. I don't need to.

Which means that I have a lot of free time on my hands. And I like having lots of free time. Often I go out to play golf with some acquaintances. Other days, I'll hit the nightspots in the city and maybe bring a girl back home; two or three if they were really drunk. I don't care what they are: Chinese, Indian, Malay. I do make a point to be careful though; hence, if you take a look in the drawer beside my nine-thousand-ringgit bed, you'll find boxes of condoms and even contraceptive pills, which I got illegally. Sometimes I slip a pill or two in their food the next day, even when I was sure I put a hood on the previous night.

Sex isn't something I pursue often. Don't get me wrong; I like it, and as I speak, there's a gorgeous, naked Pan-Asian girl lying in my bed (she gave me a good time last night), but it doesn't give me as much pleasure as it should. I don't know. Maybe because I always have it easy. As I said, I'm a very good looking man, and I'm charming to the girls I take home.

I dress well, too. If you look inside the walk-in wardrobe of my penthouse you'll see rows and rows of immaculate suits, designer shirts and jeans and slacks, and a stack of shoes. My apparel must be worth hundreds of thousands. I particularly like putting on a designer sport-coat with a white t-shirt and a faded pair of jeans with polished black loafers. I have found that it works when picking up girls; I guess there must be something attractive about appearing casual but sophisticated.

But I digress; like I said, sex isn't as fun as it should be to me. I need a challenge. I need something that would goad and coax my sedentary mind. After years of doing nothing but leech of a hefty trust fund, I need outlets to satisfy my curiosity and urge to live life. I don't have friends. After my parents died I realized I don't need any. I'll get by fine just by myself. I think that friends are only there when you have something to offer them, or if you seem that you could be of benefit. So I discarded my friends a long time ago. I also don't believe in relationships for the same reasons. After all, with my looks and money, why stick with the same woman for years and years when I could have a fresh new one anytime I want?

People are overrated. I'm fine by myself. Always have been. But like I said, that also means that I'm pretty much bored all the time. I suppose I could go speeding down the highway in my convertible Ferrari. Or maybe I could jet off on my private jet to Langkawi and sail on my yacht. Those are things I do from time to time. But whenever I do it, I feel detached and soulless, like I was meant for something else.

I guess when you have everything in the world, nothing really feels that special anymore. Oh well.

I was watching an episode of CSI last night. The forensics team solved a murder where the victim had been decapitated and dismembered, and the body disposed of in a plastic bag in a dumpster. I watched that episode with fascination. I've always been intrigued by the crime of murder, and with death in general. I guess, ever since my parents died, death has always been a shadow over me. I remember that I didn't cry when I was told my parents were killed in a road accident. Maybe I just didn't care. Like I said, people are overrated.

But the subject of death, as I mentioned, has always been a morbid curiosity of mine. I like to surf the internet, looking for pictures of dead bodies and stuff. Its surprising what you can find. I remember watching the video of the execution of a soldier in the Middle-East; I watched it over and over again, often pausing at particular moments, like when the executioner first pierces the man's neck with the knife, and the moment he oscillates the knife to cut through the bone and siner and muscle of the American; I would rewind the video to listen to the screaming, when it would abruptly end as the knife cut through the windpipe.

The episode of CSI I watched, and my recollections of that execution video convinced me of one thing: we humans are nothing more than bags of meat and blood, just waiting to be torn apart. Either that's by nature or some artificial intervention, well, that's to be seen.

How could another human kill someone? And I don't mean the question in a terrified and shocked way; I mean it as an honest question: how could you kill someone? Murder must be a thrill to pull off; you know, the thrill of hunting a human being, the satisfaction and gratification of success, followed by the fear and worry of getting caught; and if you don't get caught, the sense of achievement. It must be exciting!

It made me think.

Hmmm.

Could I kill someone if I wanted to? What do I need to pull it off?

Hmm. What would be my motive? I have none, I think. Money? I have tons of it. I don't have a steady girlfriend, so I can't be a scorned lover. Besides, if I did have a girlfriend, it was highly unlikely that she would cheat on me, a handsome and wealthy young man. Spite? Hate? No, I don't hate anyone, nor am I spiteful. And one of the benefits of having no friends is that you also have no enemies.

So I guess I don't need a motive.

But who would I kill?

Children are easy. A naive, simple minded child could easily be enticed to accept a treat from me. Then I guess I could kidnap the little squirt and kill him somewhere else. But the downside with kids is that, when one of them goes missing, they tend to generate too much attention. And logically, the more attention, the likelier it is that I get caught. I wouldn't like that. What about old people then? They're almost dead anyway. I could be doing them a favor by speeding their journey to the afterlife. But then again old people would be boring to kill; they wouldn't put up a fight. That wouldn't be fun. And I'd also cross-out young men, as they're likely to fight back and overpower me. So that leaves young women then; in fact, I think young women would be the easiest people for me to kill. After all, what lass would resist my obvious attractions?

That's settled then.

But how would I go around doing it?

I'm good at picking up girls; in fact, that's probably the only skill I possess. It's not that hard anyway. All I need to do is show up at, you know, maybe Zouk or wherever in my Ferrari. And then I'd start buying drinks and chat them up. Promise them a good time. Give me one hour. I think by the end of the night, I could have a pretty young thing home with me. Obviously I'd need to sex her up first to make her feel easy. That's what drinks and sex are for then.

Okay, I got that figured out. When should I kill her? I don't want to run the risk of her screaming or making a bolt for the door or something... so the most convenient option would be to kill her when she's asleep. Yes! That is the best way to do this. What should I use? Well, I don't have a gun, so shooting is out of the question. Guns are also loud, which I don't like. I have a set of golf clubs; I could bludgeon her skull while she was sleeping. Then again, I don't want to risk damaging my set which is worth thousands. I also have an expensive knife-set, hanging on a magnetic rack, in the kitchen. But wouldn't that taint my knives? What if I don't clean them properly and then I use it on my food and the food gets contaminated?

I have these thoughts as I stand at my penthouse window in the early morning, looking at Kuala Lumpur come to life. In my bed lies the Pan-Asian girl. I forgot her name; it was Marissa or Maria or something. I walk back to my bedroom and watch her smooth naked body. Her breasts slowly rises and falls as she breathes. I am a bit aroused. I sit on the bed beside her and caress her neck. Her skin is very smooth, and she looks very comfortable as she sleeps on my nine-thousand-dollar bed. Well, she should. The bed was hand-made by expert craftsmen. The wooden frame is rich and precisely cut.

Craftsmen. Bed. Wooden. Craftsmen... Bed... Wooden....

An idea is brought to life inside my head. Eureka!

I leave the bedroom and rummage through a storage room. I am looking for a few things.. there they are! Like I said before, I have plenty of spare time, and I think a year ago I suddenly wanted to take carpenting as a hobby and bought a cordless nail gun and a small cordless chainsaw as well as a cordless drill. But before the hobby took off, my interest waned (I found it boring even before I started) so the tools were left to collect dust in their boxes in my storage room. I open the boxes and check the charges. The batteries on the power tools were fine. I carry all three of them to the bedroom. They are quite heavy. I place them gently on the floor beside the bed and sit myself.

Marissa-or-Maria is beautiful, I have to give her that. I caress her neck again and her body. She smiles in her sleep. I smile myself. I almost want to apologize, but what for? People are overrated. I turn my attention back to my tools... and pick up the drill. There is already a tip on it.

I place the tip gently on her forehead; she must have felt the pressure of the small point. She opens her eyes, and thats when I press the switch. The drills whirrs to life and I press down with not much pressure. The tip buries itself into Marissa-or-Maria's forehead; flecks of skin and bone spatter me in the face. Her eyes bulge open but she does not scream; instead her jaws lock up and I see her hands grip the sheets. Her body writhes. I take my finger off the switch and place the drill on the floor.

The girl wasn't moving at all; but I don't know if she is dead or not. Blood squirts out in a small, high pressure jet from the hole between her eyes.

I look at her, feeling an odd sense of detachment.

Was that it? I killed her? That was murder?

Hmh.

Doesn't seem like much. So I pick up the nail gun, open her mouth and shoot, oh I don't know, maybe a dozen nails into the back of her throat. Her head jolts with every nail I fire, but I guess she must be dead as there's no other reaction from her at all.

I frown. This isn't as exciting as I thought it would be. In fact, for me, this is just like sex.

Sigh. Well, I might as well go all the way then. I turn on the small cordless chainsaw and swipe it across her throat; the blade cut through her neck so easily, it was almost comical. Her head rolls down the side and drops to the floor with a dull thud. Blood splatters my feet and is gushing out from her stump of a neck.

I sigh inwardly as I just realized that this will make a huge mess in my RM2 million penthouse.

Oh well. Let's get on with this.

Using the chainsaw, I cut off her limbs at every joint. Skin and muscle offer very little resistance the powered tool. The bedsheet is now pooling with blood, soaking red. Lazily, I push the blade of the chainsaw through her stomach, causing her guts to splatter all around me.

Dammit this is a mess. I did not think about this aspect.

Now Marissa-or-Maria is lying in, oh, maybe about sixteen or twenty pieces on my bed. I switch off the chainsaw and throw it aside. I stand beside the bed, looking at the mess I made. What now? What should I do with the bits and pieces? Burn them? Throw them away?

Sigh. That seems like so much work! And the killing wasn't even as fun or exlihirating as I thought it was going to be!

I guess that means life has nothing to offer me anymore, not if taking it away from someone else is this boring.

I am covered in blood. I almost slip in a puddle of the stuff as I walk out the bedroom. I make myself a cup of coffee and sit down on the sofa, and I grumble to myself as I realize I just left a bloody trail of footprints on the floor.. and now my sofa is stained as well. Furthermore, I'd have to dispose of the body!

Murder isn't worth all this work, I think. I began feeling a bit annoyed with myself. I hate doing chores. And killing the girl just left me with a bunch of chores to do: clean the bed, floor, sofa, not to mention think of a way to dispose of her remains.

This is irritating me. I pick up the phone and call the police. A woman answers and I tell her I want to report a murder. At first she almost doesn't believe me. But then I tell her again that someone has been killed and I give my address (shouldn't she already know this? Don't the cops have a system or something?).

The lady on the phone tells me to stay where I was and that some policemen would be coming over. I say okay and hang up. I go up to unlock the door, drink my coffee and wait for the cops. About fifteen minutes later there is knock on my door. I tell them to come in. I don't want to get up.

There were 3 police officers and also the security guard to my condominium complex. They were about to say something when they saw me sitting on the sofa, drinking coffee and covered in blood. I see one of the police officers look at the trail of bloody footprints I left. The policemen suddenly raise their pistols and point it at me.

I raise my cup of coffee to them and motion towards the bedroom.

"She's in there," I say to the frankly bewildered men in uniform standing in the doorway. "It's a bit of mess though, so watch where you step."

"DON'T MOVE!", shouts one of the policemen; he had a thick moustache and small, bright eyes. But he looks scared.

I take another sip of coffee.

"Move?" I say. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm too tired. I'm telling you boys, murder isn't as thrilling as the TV shows crack it up to be. It's messy and a waste of energy. Worst of all? It's boring."







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All That Alcohol Will Kill You

------

Tony was a drunk. Actually, he is a drunk. Every night without fail his face will show up at this nondescript bar in Klang. Every night. Good for him then that he does not drive or ride a bike. He just lives a few blocks away at a cheap flat, which he shared with two other, almost-as- low him housemates.

Together they somehow managed to pay the bills and rent every month, but not always on time. Tony worked at a factory near Port Klang, doing manual labor for not much cash. He did not smoke or sleep around with hookers. His vice is drink. Lots of it.

Actually Tony is not even his real name, though the bartender and fellow bar patrons know him by it. His real name is Roslan Chua Abdullah. He was the product of a mixed marriage, his father Chinese. So he had inherited the looks, and used it to his advantage to buy alcohol.

Tony started drinking at age 15, under the influence of his not-so-bright seniors in school. At first it was just shandy; but that led to his curiosity for beer, then spirits… and the rest, in Tony’s case, is a woozy history of late night outs and vomit on the stairs. His parents never knew that he drank; and when they had perished in a road accident years ago, Tony just used that as an excuse to drink some more.

“My parents died, I'm drowning out my sorrow”, he would say to anyone who seemed to have a look of concern the moment he has a sixth beer in a row.

It did not take long for him to be friends with the bottle; and soon enough he fell in love with hard liquor, in various flavors and forms.

“Lucky you know you don’t drive car aaa, if not you become like last time that TV commercial, “Jeff, Jeff, I killed my brader, hahaha”, his bar stool buddies would jest. Tony would smirk and just keep on downing the elixir of liver damage.

With all that drinking he also made frequent trips to the restroom. When he was conscious enough he would amuse himself while peeing, reading bathroom graffiti or having a laugh at crudely drawn pictures of cocks and naked ladies. Then he would just go back to drinking.

On any given night Tony probably drinks 4 beers, maybe a whisky, and then a few shots of vodka. But he did not have money to afford the more expensive drinks, and often settled for cheap knock-off liquors that were probably 70% alcohol.

Perhaps the best thing one could say about his drinking habit is that he was not the kind of drunk who’d go off talking to himself or harass people. He was a quiet drunk, a rare breed, who would just walk out of the bar in a clumsy and staggered walk when his money ran out. But often he’d ask for a small bottle of whatever liquor he could afford, for ‘good luck’.

That was Tony.

He supposed he would die of liver damage, and that was a thought that depressed him, along with the fact that he was 40 years old, had a crap job and had never known the pleasures of a woman. To drown his sorrows, he drank some more. It defeats the purpose, but to Tony, he thinks that since you’re already there, why not go all the way.

He was a simple man, really. Eat, Work, Sleep, Drink, and Drink some more. He does not bother or trouble anybody with his drinks anyway. When he sits at the bar, he sits alone. The bartender seems to ignore him most of the time, except when he’s asking for a drink. It’s always been that way. For the record, Tony does not like talking to people much anyway.

So it was annoying one night when as he sat at the bar, nursing his third bottle of beer, a man came and sat beside him, so close their shoulders touched. Tony turned his head with an expression that said ‘do you mind’ on his face. He found the man staring straight back at him.

“What do you want?” Tony said. He could smell the alcohol on his own breath. The man stared at him. What’s wrong with his eyes? Tony thought. They look like they’re wonky. I’ve only had three beers. Indeed the stranger’s eyes were unusual. The colors are all wrong, Tony thought. His whites are black and his blacks are… red? Must be the light in this place. Tony looked back at the stranger, who was dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans. He wore spectacles and had long, messy hair that fell on his face. Tony noticed the letters ‘EVI’ on the stalks of his spectacles, but could not make out the rest of the word as the man’s long hair obscured him.

“I said what do you want? Quit staring unless you wanna buy me a drink”, Tony said and went back to his beer.

“Oh but I am buying you a drink” the man said; his voice was husky and rasping. Tony turned to him. “Because you look like a man who can take a drink. And I am a generous man with too much money in my pocket tonight. And I don’t like this place; it’s too dodgy. So I wanna spend this cash before someone mugs me”

The stranger suddenly produced a stack of RM100 bills in each hand. As drunk as he was, Tony still had some awareness in him. Maybe everyone would be wary when a stranger with handfuls of money suddenly wanted to buy you drinks. Tony raised an eyebrow at the guy.

“I'm not a faggot if that’s what you’re looking for”, Tony said. He was well aware of rich gays who prowled bars looking for someone drunk or greedy enough.

The stranger laughed, a high, snarling laugh. And was that smoke coming out of his mouth? Maybe he had a cigarette. Except he didn’t.

“Of course you’re not”, he said. “I just want you to drink: here, have this money”

The man shoved the notes in Tony’s hand. Tony glanced at them and did a rough calculation. There had to, what, RM2000? RM3000? What in the world is with this guy? Tony stared at the man, who now stood a bit further from him. The man had a strange posture, his shoulders slumped and hunched forward, but he was tall. And Tony cannot help but notice his eyes. His red eyes.

“Who are you? What’s all this?” Tony said, a bit bewildered. Then suddenly he belched, and the stranger tilted his head sideways and laughed again. In a swift step, the stranger was next to him again and put an arm around his shoulders.

“I am just someone who knows what you want; now drink, be merry; and know this, from now on, you’ll never run out of money again”, the man said, whispering. Tony noticed the man radiated a heat; in fact he could feel his arm around his shoulder was sort of giving of a heat, like he had a high fever. Just as Tony wanted to push the arm away, the stranger pulled it back.

“Just drink. A word of warning though; too much alcohol will kill you”, the man said. Tony stared at him, then scoffs. Well, rezeki jangan di tolak, right? He raises his hand and calls for the bartender. The bartender comes to his seat and asks if he wants another cold one.

“Yeah. Actually pour me a shot of Jack Daniels, this guy here is buying apparently”

The bartender began pours Tony a drink. “What guy?”

“That guy… here…” but then Tony notices the man had gone. But he still had that load of money in his hands. Baffled, he turns back to the bartender and hands him the money for the drink. “Never mind”.

He ended up spending about RM1000 in drinks that night; the most he’s ever spent on. He was so drunk he passed out on the street outside the bar and did not make it home. He woke up a few hours later when he upchucked about a bucket of vomit on the sidewalk. But a magical thing happened when he finally got home: he had money. Lots of it. He simply opened his closet and money came tumbling out. Tony was overjoyed. What in the world happened last night? He thought. But screw it, I'm rich!

Now, maybe a normal person would have turned the money to the police because of it’s unexplained origin, or if he was greedy enough he would splurge on himself, and maybe get another lifestyle, one with fast cars and luxury condos. But Tony was not that kind of man. He had long ago forsaken the thought of luxury. So he decided to spend that money the Tony way: with drinks.

From that day forward, Tony spent almost all the time at the bar. Even the bartender was starting to feel odd, but because Tony was paying with real money, he kept quiet. Tony drank all manners of wonderful intoxicating drinks. He would drink until he vomited, then he would get sleep, and get over the hangovers and head back to the bar. He did not show up to work for a week, and when he did show up, he stank of alcohol and was drunk. Unsurprisingly he was fired.
Tony did not care though. Every morning he would wake up to see that his money was still there by the thousands. Holy shit that weirdo at the bar must have sent me all this cash, he thought. But he never thought where that money came from, and he somehow managed to keep it secret from his housemates.

Tony went on a month long drinking binge. When he was sober he thought to himself that he was on a suicide run, and that one day someone will find his bloated body in a street or at home and a post-mortem would determine his cause of death alcohol poisoning. But he did not care. He stopped caring a long time ago. All he wanted to do was drink, and drink he did. He drank like there was no tomorrow.

One night he was so drunk he vomited on the bar, much to the disgust and anger of the bartender and manager. They threw him out, and for the first time Tony made his voice heard. He shouted curses at the bar and bar patrons, and walked drunkenly along the street, his feet unsteady, his body swaying. He vomited again. He checked his pockets and found another RM200 in there.

“I'm getting a drink”, he said out loud, to no one in particular. He found a 24-hour convenience store and bought 5 bottles of cold vodka and a six-pack of beer. The cashier looked frightened of him. The bill came to RM80, but Tony just dumped all RM200 at the cashier and told him to ‘keep the change’. He collected his drinks and began walking down the street again, drinking his bounty one by one.

He turned into an alley, which he often used as a shortcut to get back to his flat. The alley was a narrow one-way street that ran through the middle of the shop lots. He began to sing loudly in the darkness, his words slurred and coarse. Suddenly he vomited again, spraying a stream of light, amber colored liquid through his mouth and nose. It stank of alcohol, sickly sweet. Tony wiped his mouth and nose with his shirt, but then he vomited again.

Argh, all those drinks wasted, he thought. He leaned on a wall, feeling queasy. Suddenly he felt liquid seeping out of his nose, and then his ears. And then all at once, the liquid began to leak from his eyes and ass and penis. He vomited again, spewing out more amber liquid. This time the vomit was accompanied by a huge pain in his stomach, and the vomit burned his throat coming out, a mixture of alcohol and stomach acid and bile.

What’s going on? What’s this? Tony thought as he crashed to the tarmac. His eyes stung and his nose was runny, and he felt like he had the worst case of diarrhea. Fluid flowed in a steady stream from his penis, and he felt it run out of his asshole and other body orifices.

“Gelp”, he said, but the liquid that poured out of his mouth choked his voice. He crawled on the street. “Glrrulp”, he said.

His clothes were now drenched with whatever liquid it was that was literally pouring out of his body. He felt panicked all of a sudden. He crashed his body to the ground, writhing because the fluid not just poured out, but it burned his insides. He tried to scream for help and attention but could not; he was choking on the burning liquid, which, to his horror, he now realized tasted and smelled exactly like very strong vodka. Every time he tried to speak his words were garbled and his mouth would bubble. Suddenly he saw a pair of feet, clad in white shoes, walking towards him.

Finally, help!

The feet stopped near his head, and Tony looked up to see the face of the man he had met at the bar sometime ago. He was still dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans, and his eyes were still strangely colored: blacks instead of whites, and the irises a deep red that seemed to glow. This time Tony felt a bolt of fear going through his spine.

The stranger smiled as he looked down upon Tony, revealing pointed teeth. He squatted down to get closer.

“How’s your drink?” he said and threw his head back in laughter. Tony had stopped writhing; he was fatigued, yet still the liquid – no, vodka – poured out of every orifice on his body. He was soaked, and laid in a puddle of the stuff. The stranger stopped laughing. Tony saw that his body was again giving off that heat, and this time he could actually see smoke!

Oh God save me, Tony thought.

“Oh now you want salvation from God? Too late. Heheh. Heheh”.

Tony’s eyes widened in fear. Had the man read his thoughts? Who was this person?

“I am Eddtheone”, the man said, answering the frightened Tony. “I told you all that alcohol would kill you. Heheh. Heheh. But you know the best thing about alcohol Tony?”

The man, if he was one, lifted a hand, and to Tony’s horror the hand produced a red fire. The man played with his fingers, and the flames danced and flickered. Tony tried to scream.

“Graalllgggg!!” was all that Tony could produce. The vodka was still seeping and pouring out of his body. The strange man, that ‘Eddtheone’, laughed again.

“The best thing about alcohol is that it burns" he said and touched his flaming hand to Tony’s body. Tony screamed, finally producing a voice as the alcohol around, on and inside him caught fire. He rolled and writhed in agony as the flames scorched his skin; he could feel the fire inside him, burning up all the alcohol. He still managed to see the strange man, that Eddtheone standing over him, but then the stranger seemed to melt into the tarmac, as if he was sinking into quicksand. Tony’s wide, frightened eyes saw him one last moment just before his head disappeared into the ground, the red eyes glowing with fire and a cruel malignant smile carved on his lips. As it turns out, that was the last thing Tony ever saw.

The next morning, a shopkeeper taking out the trash found Tony’s charred body, which was missing a hand. When the police and crime scene investigators came, they found the hand about 50 meters from the spot Tony died; it too was charred black. Someone had used it as a macabre charcoal pencil to write the words ‘everything burns’ on the wall.

---

It's Just The Matter Of Making The Right Choice

*disclaimer: containts graphic scenes. reader discretion is advised.

---

Kasandra hated office buildings after hours.

For some reason the dull and tedium of an office turns dreadful and malignant the moment the last person leaves the premises and switches off the light. She hated the way everyday mundane objects like desk lamps and stationery holders cast shadows that looked like they had jaws and talons, and how said shadows seemed to follow her around every time the angle of light changes from outside. Kasandra hated that the air vents seem to amplify the sounds of rats and cockroaches or whatever pests reside in the walls of the building.

But more than that, she hated that she had been asked to come here tonight. Okay, maybe not asked, but forced to come here. It was not even where she worked at: she was a freelance writer, selling dodgy romances and pulp horrors to whatever scandalous magazine or publication that needs to fill its pages with heaving breasts and buckets of blood. Instead her husband had asked (forced) her to come by his office, at 11 o'clock in the night.

"Be here at eleven pee-em", he had said when he called her earlier in the evening. "I will be waiting. Do not disappoint me"

How's that for a husband? Kasandra thought, irritated. But she could not deny she was afraid, mostly because she had an idea what this whole cloak and dagger thing was all about. You see, Kasandra married her husband a few years ago. He was 17 years older than she was, and a wealthy entrepreneur with good connections to local politicians and the rich bastards club. But she was younger back then, full of delusions and aspirations to be a trophy wife, and married the fucker mostly for his money.

At the beginning it was exactly what she wanted it to be. She drove expensive cars, wore the latest couture, mingled with the prettiest celebrities. All she had to do in return was pleasure the man about once a week, or follow him to functions. For the most part, he did not really seem to care about her anyway.

But that soon got boring for her young soul. Plus, she had to admit sleeping with a balding man with a hairy back and even hairier ass was less appealing than being able to spend his money.

Her husband, Zakaria, forbade her from working. So she began writing those bits of stories and sold them off to the pulp magazines, making some side income from the macabre fascinations Malaysians seem to have with tales of people rising from the grave and stories of teenagers releasing their inhibitions in the name of love.

But that too, became boring. So she started hanging out outside the house more and more, and that was how she had met Imran. Now Imran then, that was a keeper. Fit as a thoroughbred horse, lean and with the libido of an Arabian prince. Kasandra had taken to him straight away. She supposed that would make her Imran's sugar mommy, but she did not deny she had tender feelings for the young man. In fact she loved him because he was everything her husband was not. They met about twice a week in secret, sometimes four times if she was especially randy, at an apartment bought under Imran's name but with Kasandra's husbands' money.

Maybe that was a mistake, now she thought. Maybe Zakaria had found out about her infidelity through, of all places, the account books and property deals. In fact, she was sure of it.

As much as Kasandra loathed her husband and loved his money, she was also slightly afraid of him. He was after all, a powerful man, with good connections. And annoyingly he was also nice to her family. Part of the reason she had married Zakaria was because her father was his friend and occasional business colleague. At the time Zakaria was a widower, and it was Kasandra's father that had offered her hand in marriage to him.

She supposed she was a bit naive back then, and could have declined. But the lure of a wealthy and easy life was too much for her. But if indeed Zakaria has found out her secret, she was in for a lot of trouble. She was more concerned about her family now: what would they say?

Kasandra walked into the office building where her husband ran his business. It was a 4-story lot in a busy commerce area, which Zakaria had aptly named 'Wisma Zakaria'. The four floors of the building each were dedicated to the branches of his company: engineering, shipping, maintenance supplies and printing. The building was dark; of course it was, it was bloody near 11pm. Who would be here anyway? But as she had approached the building in her car she saw an office at the top floor had lights on. Zakaria's office, of course. His eagle's nest, his pedestal upon where he watched his business grow.

Kasandra climbed the stairs up. She was dressed in a t-shirt and track bottoms, with a denim jacket on top. She was fit for a 36-year-old woman. When she reached the top office she pressed the buzzer to let Zakaria know she had arrived. A voice on the intercom said, "Come in and come straight to the meeting room". The door opened. Kasandra scanned the office, feeling more than a little nervous now. She was sure Zakaria had found out about her shenanigans with Imran. She saw only two lights were on in the office: one emanated from Zakaria's private room, whilst the other was from the meeting room. She made her way there, and knocked on the door before twisting the doorknob. The door made a cringe-inducing creak as it opened, the sound akin to a drowning cat.

The meeting room has a long oval table, with 16 seats around it. The table was a high quality mahogany item, and looked and felt expensive, which it was. But right now there was nobody seated at the table except her husband, who sat at the far end. There were two items in front of him but she could not make out what they were. The fluorescent lights felt harshly bright, stinging her eyes. Kasandra stood in front of the door as it closed, unsure of what to do.

"Lock the door behind you" said Zakaria, in an ominous, deadly tone. "Now take a seat". He motioned to the seat directly in front of him. Kasandra made her way there, and felt a chill run up her spine when she saw that one of the items in front of Zakaria was a black revolver that seemed to scream Death. The other item was a cell phone. Her palms were sweaty and clammy as she sat herself down, her legs slightly trembling. Though it was already too late, she thought then she should not have had an affair with Imran, even if he was lean and great in bed. Zakaria fished out a pack of Marlboro's from his shirt pocket and lit a fag. He offered one to her, but she declined. A smoke was not the most pressing matter on her mind right now.

Zakaria took a long drag on his ciggie, and blew the smoke out in a long thin stream, his eyes staring into space. "Do you know why I called you here?"

"No", she said. Zakaria laughed.

"Oh come on", he said. "Don't insult my intelligence. Of course you know. You're here because of something you did. Now tell me what it is"

Kasandra sighed. "You know about the apartment I bought"

"Yes! Bravo! More precisely, I know about what's going on at the apartment you bought. How do I know? Well, let's just say I'm well connected, with eyes and ears all over the place. After all, I did not make my fortune of which you so lovingly spend by being a tool. Now tell me, what's his name?"

Zakaria stood up, still smoking the cigarette. He put his hands behind his back, like he was a university lecturer asking a rhetorical question.

"Imran", Kasandra said. Her eyes kept looking at the gun on the table. The muzzle seemed to be pointing straight at her. It lay there, cold steel and death.

"Imran", Zakaria said and stroked his chin. "Is he a good fucker?"

"What?"

WHUPP! Zakaria's open palm hit the side of her face. The pain was loud, and Kasandra immediately put a hand to the spot. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes.

"Is he a good fucker? Does he hit the spot, so to speak?” Zakaria said this softly, which was somehow worse. "Answer me or I'll hit you again"

Kasandra stared at him. She forced herself to answer. "Yes"

"Yes what?"

"Yes he is"

"Is what?"

"......"

The next hit was not a slap, but a fist to her eye. For a moment her world went spinning, and when she regained herself she felt her right eye begin to swell. It was excruciating. She begins to cry, out of pain if not fear or guilt. "Yes, he is a good... fucker", she said. Zakaria smiled, a toothy grin that made him look like an angry monkey. He motioned for her to stand up. She complied, out of her desire to avoid getting hit.

"Now", Zakaria said as he walked to stand beside her. Suddenly he grabbed her from behind, and squeezed her breasts so hard she cried out it pain. Zakaria sniffed at her neck like a dog, and he rammed one hand down Kasandra's pants and molested her. His rough fingers felt like scaly snakes grating their way inside her. She moaned, but not out of pleasure. This was somehow worse that getting punched.

"I suppose Imran is gentler than this, is he? Is he?"

Kasandra could only nod; she was trying to stand the pain. She felt like her breast could burst from the pressure the man was inflicting on her.

"I also guess that he's got a bigger dick than me?” Zakaria asked again and this time bit down on her neck, hard and drew blood. Again Kasandra could not say anything.

"Do you want to scream my sweet? Go ahead. No one will hear you. It's a meeting room, pretty much insulated"

Finally Zakaria let her go and shoved her from behind. She crashed onto the meeting table, feeling a small reprieve from the pain. But she knew he was not done. Zakaria grabbed her shoulders and turned her around. He kissed her mouth savagely and bit on her lip, drawing blood. Kasandra tried to struggle but the man overpowered her. He slapped her twice, left to right, splitting her lips and widening the cut made by his teeth. Kasandra felt powerless... in a way she also felt she deserved this. Zakaria pulled off the track bottoms she wore.

"Bitch", he said, his voice devoid of emotion. Just a flat "Bitch". He punched her in the stomach, and Kasandra felt her breath taken away from her. She sat up and vomited to the side.

"Now you've made a mess, dirty bitch. I'll show you who's a good fucker"

He slapped her face again, hard. The sound it made seemed to echo in the room. Kasandra could taste the warm coppery blood, her blood, in her mouth. She spat, but this angered Zakaria and he punched her in the stomach again. Then she heard a zipper being undone and knew he had taken off his trousers. As she felt Zakaria pulling down her panties and forcing himself on her, Kasandra just stared at the ceiling, half stunned by the physical abuse. She felt him move, but there was no sensation. She just felt numb and used. Zakaria gave it to her rough, chafing her bare buttocks on the wooden surface. After a few minutes he was done. You're the epitome of quickie aren't you, she thought, and that made her smile a little, as ridiculous as that sounds. But Zakaria did not see the smile, maybe because her mouth was bloody and bruised, the lips already swollen. Had he seen the slight upturn of her lips, he'd probably hit her some more.

Kasandra lay still on the table. Her tears fell from the sides of her eyes, but she was not sobbing. She felt humiliated and violated, guilty and angry at the same time. At that moment all she could think of was white noise and static, like a TV that had gone bust. And then more pain as Zakaria pulled her up and slapped her face hard several times. One of her eyes was swollen as she saw nothing but stars in that one; but the other eye still saw clearly, and what she saw in Zakaria's face was nothing. The man seemed stone cold.

"Now put your pants back on. And do it fast", Zakaria ordered her, tossing her pants. She stood up and glanced at her lower body. There were bruises, and she thought she was bleeding from her vagina. But she put on her pants like she was told.

"Sit down", Zakaria said. "You're lucky you know. In the old days they would have stoned you, in public. Everyone would know what a filthy slut you are. A whore. A whore who takes his man's money and funnels it into a little boy toy"

Kasandra sat down, wincing as the pain shot through her body, sending her nerves into overload. Zakaria tossed her a handkerchief and motioned for her to clean herself up a little. She did. At the moment she felt it was no use to fight back and garner more abuse. Zakaria went back to his seat in front of her. He lit another cigarette. With a flick of his chin, he motioned to the gun and the phone on the table.

"See that. Do you?"

Kasandra nodded. Zakaria bent down by his chair and brought up a small notebook computer. He turned it on as he spoke to Kasandra.

"I've decided I'm going to give you a choice. But first let me show you something. I suppose I could have shown you this earlier, but I think if I had, you would have put up too much of a struggle and cause a ruckus. But anyway, look"

He turned the computer to face Kasandra. On the screen was a picture of an office; his office, Kasandra recognized. Then she saw a body lying on the floor... there was a pool of blood around the head. Kasandra squinted hard, then felt her heart jump to her mouth as she recognized the dead body.

"You killed Imran" she said, and now the tears she shed were tears of sadness. She looked at Zakaria, who only shrugged.

"Maybe. But first you have to hear me out. You see, life is about making choices. You weigh the pros and cons of these choices, then you make it. In the end, it's just the matter of making the right choice. I made the choice to eliminate Mr Gooddick here. Which brings me to my proposition"

He slammed the lid of the computer down and set it aside. Using both hands, he pushed the gun and phone towards Kasandra.

"In my right hand is the gun that killed your loverboy. There's five bullets left. The poor bastard came here on the pretense that I would pay him off. Foolish kid. In my right is a cell phone that's never been used"

Kasandra stared at him. She was mourning the loss of Imran; he did not deserve to be dead for her sins. At the same time she began to feel bits of anger, which both comforted her and gave her some strength. Zakaria went on talking.

"I'm going to give you these two items and you will go to my office. The choice you have to make is this: either you shoot yourself in the head with the gun, or you use the phone to call your parent's and confess to them what a naughty little girl you've been. Either way is fine by me. Think of it: either way, your parent's will suffer the fact they have a slutchild, dead or alive. And what would your father think? He's such a good friend of mine. And don't you worry about police either. I have my contacts in PDRM. All I have to say was that I was alerted to a break in at my office, and caught little loverboy there assaulting you, and he shot at you, and I fought with him and shot at him back. Self-defense. Sounds a bit 'meh' but I assure you my friends at PDRM will stand by my story.

So; what shall it be then? Would you choose death before dishonor, or will you rather let your beloved family spend their lives knowing they fostered a slut, a whore as a child. It's your choice. Just the matter of which one is right."

Kasandra stared at him; now she was feeling angry. He was blackmailing her into making a decision that has no good consequence. Her body ached with the bruises and cuts Zakaria inflicted, but the anger was starting to dull it away.

"Now get up"

She complied. He opened the door for her and walked behind her to his own office. All the time he had a gun pointed at her back to make sure she did not do anything funny. When they reached his office she saw Imran's body limp on the floor, a gaping bullet wound at the side of his head. Poor Imran, she thought. Then suddenly Zakaria hit her from behind, and she dropped to her knees. Zakaria tossed the gun and the phone on the desk.

"Now I trust you will make the right choice. But make it quick. I have my own mistress I need to get back to", he said and slammed the door shut. Kasandra slowly stood up. She glanced at the weapon and phone on the table, and at the body of her lover on the floor. Finally she let loose the floodgates and cried her heart out.

----------------

Zakaria shut the door and sat on his secretary's desk. He was banging the secretary as a matter of fact. A tight Chinese girl, fresh from college, so eager to make a mark in the business world. Zakaria leaned on the desk and lit another cigarette. He had never felt so good. In fact, banging up his wife in the meeting room just now had turned him on greatly. Maybe I should try it with Jessica later, he mused. He heard the whimpering sobs of his wife in the office. Now she cries, stupid bitch, he thought. Then after a few minutes the cries faded. There was a long silence. Zakaria glanced at his watch. Was she calling her family? Surely the bitch did not want to put a slug in her head. Or maybe she would after all.

The silence perhaps lasted for ten or fifteen minutes. Zakaria was getting impatient. But just as soon as he was going to check his watch, a loud bang was heard from his office, and then the sound of something heavy dropping to the floor. Whump.

Oh, that solves it then, Zakaria thought. He finished his third cigarette in a row and walked casually to his office. He'd thought he'd gloat first, and maybe have a quick wank to celebrate. He was smiling as he opened the door. But he noticed then that the loverboy's body had been displaced, and there was another bullet wound in the stomach.

Odd, I thought I just shot him in the head? And where's the bitch?

As an answer came two gunshots; one bullet smashed his left kneecap as it entered from behind, causing him to tumble as his leg lost support, while the other bullet pierced his stomach and exited in a spray of blood, tearing a hole in his expensive Ralph Lauren polo shirt. Zakaria stumbled forwards, clutching the wound at his stomach, which immediately began bleeding profusely. The pain was massive, debilitating; his shattered knee felt like there were a thousand rusty nails grinding into his flesh. He twisted his body around, his face a mask of agony. He saw Kasandra standing over him, her face streaked with blood and tears.

"I have two bullets left", she said. She was pointing the gun at him. "And you're right, it's all about making the right choice"

She walked over to him and plucked out the pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. "I think I'll have that smoke after all", she said and lit one cigarette. She closed the door behind her and leaned on it. Zakaria lay on the floor, his body weak from the blood loss. He looked at Kasandra take one long drag after the other.

"You see, you old piece of shit", she said. "You're too narrow minded. Often in life there are more than just two choices. Sometimes there's thousands. But in this case, all I needed was a third. And I figured it out as I was crying just now, looking at Imran's beautiful face, though half of it is missing. The third choice was simply to turn the tables on you. Why should I listen to you? You're an egotistical fuck, so I figured you'd like to see my dead body if I took the bullet. And hey, guess what, a dead body isn't so heavy after all. See what I did? All I did was lift Imran's tight butt off the floor, shot him in the belly and let him drop. And lo and behold! In comes fucking Zakaria with his pencil dick and love handles to see his spoils of war."

She took another drag on the cigarette. "You're probably thinking I can't get away with this. And you'd be right. I accounted for that in my little ad hoc plan here. I figured I had nothing more to live for anyway. So might as well I take it all the way. Funny how sometimes spontaneity works out right?"

Zakaria stared at her, his vision growing blurry. Then he saw Kasandra walking towards him. Her clothes were bloodstained and she walked with an odd gait, perhaps because her crotch hurt. Then she stood over him, still pointing the gun.

"What are you gonna do?” he asked, though he knew the answer to that question well enough. Suddenly Kasandra stamped her foot hard on his wounded knee, and the pain was so intense his back arched and he bit off half of his tongue; the piece of flesh fell with a soft wet thud on the carpeted floor. She kicked him in the stomach, and stream of blood shot out of the bullet wound. Then Kasandra kneeled by his side and stubbed out the burning cigarette in his left eye. Zakaria tried to scream but couldn't. His jaws were locked up. Kasandra shoved his body, turning him over onto his stomach. He felt his pants being pulled off, and then Zakaria felt the cold steel of the gun's barrel being rammed up his asshole in one violent thrust.

"How's this for getting fucked?” Kasandra said and pulled the trigger. There was a muffled sound and Zakaria felt something run up his body, triggering every pain receptor he had. He gasped, but was clearly still alive. He felt the gun slide out of his anus and felt warm liquid seep out, maybe a mixture of blood and shit. Kasandra turned him over again, and even with his dying eyes Zakaria saw she had a disgusted look on her face.

"Ew", she said as she looked at the barrel of the gun, which was covered with reddish brown muck. Then she kneeled down and stuffed the barrel of the gun inside Zakaria's mouth. He could taste the muck mixed with the cold steel of the gun on his tongue. The barrel was pointing upward, towards his brain.

"For the record, you have a tiny penis and you suck at sex. But where you're going, I guess it doesn't really matter anymore. Thanks for the money by the way. I don't know what's going to happen to me after this. I don't really care. See you in Hell, more likely", Kasandra said. For a brief moment Zakaria's eyes widened, so much so his eyeballs seemed to be popping out of his skull. Kasandra pulled the trigger. Zakaria's body spasmed for a few seconds, then went limp.

Kasandra crashed her butt onto the floor and tossed the gun aside. She glanced at the two dead bodies beside her. Curiously, now she felt indifferent. She lit another cigarette, and reached for the cell phone. She took long, satisfying drags on the ciggie, and finally crushed it on Zakaria's dead body. She pressed the keys on the cellphone, dialing the emergency number. But she hesitated before pressing the green 'send' button. Her mind wandered off for a moment. Suddenly she felt very tired and sleepy. Kasandra yawned and put the phone back on the desk.

That can wait, she thought. What a night. She let her body slide onto the carpeted floor, ignored the corpses, and laid a bruised arm across her forehead. Within a few minutes her eyes grew heavy and she fell into slumber. She was in no hurry. She guessed that after tonight, she'd have all the time in the world. And the world can wait.

--------

The Dogs

---

Mutiara Damai near the outskirts of Shah Alam is a relatively new residential area, having been developed and brought up about 3 years ago. The first families started moving in about last year, no doubt lured by the relatively affordable prices and the promise of a quiet and pretty neighbourhood. Even a primary and secondary school were built along with the houses; and with that, a communal hall, shophouses and a mosque. It was a complete package.

The developers certainly put in quite an effort to present a tranquil image of the area. The hilly landscape, which in reality was red soil and clay, was quickly 'painted' over with sheets of grass and small, shady trees. Footpaths were built, as well as a fully equipped playground for the kids. The footpaths were adequately lit at night, and in the early days of the area it was not uncommon to see couples (married and unmarried) walk hand in hand during the quiet evenings.

Slowly but surely, like a rash you keep scratching, people began to fill in the houses, and pretty soon a neighborhood was established. The main demographic of the little neighborhood consisted of upper-middle class families of Malay and Chinese descent; there were even a few expatriates who had taken residence. The folks got along very well, and the neighborhood was a friendly and open one.

During late afternoons children of all ages would come out of their houses, energy fueled by the dwindling heat of mid-day, to play all sorts of sports and games. The older children, those old enough to consider themselves young adults, would often take this time of day to go on bashful walks with their first girlfriends and boyfriends. Old folk would stroll the footpaths and take seats on the many benches scattered around Mutiara Damai. Husbands and wives getting home from work often took some time to unwind themselves, playing with their kids or indulging in a spot of badminton or so.

All in all, life seemed much nicer in Mutiara Damai. It seemed like a place where one could settle in with their families, and perhaps stay until the end of time. Peace, tranquility and serenity. It seemed like a cocoon in the ever expanding and suffocated Klang Valley. A place of retreat. A place where parents did not worry about their kids playing in the playground or walking alone to school. A place where everyone was a friend.

Until the dogs came.

At first it was a lone mongrel, with a few yellowing teeth. Then came another. And another. Pretty soon it was an entire pack of strays. The residences ignored them initially, mainly because they thought that the pack of dogs were just passing by and would leave the area, and also because the dogs were, at first, ignorant of them as well, opting instead to stick to the outer streets of Mutiara Damai, rummaging through garbage and hunting whatever small animals they could hunt: rats, lizards, the occasional wak-wak bird and monitor lizard.

So at first there was some sort of truce, albeit an uneasy one, between the people and the dogs. Sometimes the kids, mostly the boys, would throw stones or sticks to harass the pack of mongrels, and often the strays would cower and flee, or just ignore the humans.

Then the residents began to notice the number of strays growing. The pack was flourishing, it seemed. People walking the footpaths began to walk uneasily. The pack then grew bolder, and began to enter houses to rummage through the trash, or steal unattended food.

Soon the pack became hostile, barking at people; especially ones who were walking their own domesticated housedogs. And one day a wandering house-cat by the name of Tango was found dead beside a drain with huge bite marks, mauled to death no doubt by the pack of strays. There was about 12 of them now, a whole family of mongrels.

The resident's association grew concerned for the safety of the people, the children, most of all. They began posting letters and calling the local authorities to report a stray dog problem; these calls were often ignored as unimportant, and when the MBSA did drop by, they found no dogs. Their quarry had sensed the threat, it seemed, and went underground.

Unsatisfied, The Mutiara Damai Residents Association called a meeting, where all the street representatives were to be present to discuss how to handle the stray dog problem. But three days before the meeting, in a cruel twist of irony, 6-year-old Mohamad Iman, whose family owned a comfortable and spacious corner lot house in Mutiara Damai, was attacked by the pack.

The attack was witnessed by the boys' caretaker, an Indonesian maid who later told the police and family that the dogs 'came out of nowhere, and suddenly jumped on the boy'. She estimated that at least five dogs attacked little Mohamad Iman. Further damage was prevented when the maid's calls for help were answered by a group of neighbors who took immediate action. The dogs were driven away by a combined effort of shouting and throwing stones and sticks, and the boy was sent to the hospital.

Mohamad Iman received a broken arm, 248 stitches to his body and he was blinded in one eye as a result of the unprovoked mauling.

"We have to ask MBSA to shoot these monsters!” shouted Mr. Jaafar at the meeting three days later, where the atmosphere was filled with the tragedy of the attack.

"What I fail to understand is why action was not taken sooner? I mean, why did we wait for a tragedy to occur?” voiced Mrs. Allison Chwee, who had her 8-year-old daughter with her. "It could have been one of us that was attacked"

"The boy could have died!” said Mrs. Lizawati. "Now, because our association and the MBSA did not take due action when the problem presented itself, we have a boy who is probably scarred for life, and not just physically"

"This is a huge case; it made the papers!” yelled Mr.Balasubramaniam. "Mutiara Damai once prided itself in its peaceful and tranquil atmosphere. We don't need this sort of publicity!"

More and more voices began shouting and yelling. What was supposed to be an educated discussion was turning into a free-for-all. They were energized by fear and worry. The dogs were turning into monsters that were haunting their dreams. The streets of Mutiara Damai were no longer safe havens where kids frolicked and played. Right now, to the paranoid residents, the streets were about as safe as slitting your wrists with a rusty blade.

"Calm down, calm down people", one voiced said, floating above the others with the aid of a microphone. Slowly the rampant chatter died away and people looked to the voice behind the mic.

"Calm down", a man said. He was Mr. Alyas Hatta, president of the MDRA. "It is very unfortunate that the tragedy had to happen; my deepest sympathies go to the family of young Mohamad Iman"

"Sympathy would not have stopped that from happening!” shouted a voice from the floor.

"Yes, I am clear of that", Mr., Alyas said. "That is why tonight we will, by hook or by crook, decide what course of action will be taken regarding the problem"

That only threw the audience into another heated discussion. Shouts of 'KILL ALL DOGS!' were heard, and some suggested a sort of 'vigilante' justice...Some opposed to the idea of calling MBSA again, calling them corrupt and useless, whilst others said the MBSA was their best chance of eradicating the pests. As the people argued and talked, a wiry middle-aged man suddenly walked up to the microphone; a piercing sound emanated from the speakers as he blew into it, generating white noise.

The floor went quiet, all eyes on the man at the mic.

"Hello folks", the man said. He wore a security guard uniform, and was scruffy, with wrinkly, tanned skin, the result of many years in the sun. It was not far off to describe him looking like a piece of leather. But his eyes were a light brown; so light they looked like two silver shillings, shining beneath moonlight. Mr. Alyas noticed this more than anyone else because he was standing closer.

"Most o'you seen me probably... My name is Manaf... I'm one of the guards, you seein' me in that lil' pondok at the entrance"

Heads nodded; the people had, indeed, seen him. He was often seen at the entrance of Mutiara Damai, sitting in his plastic chair, looking at cars past him by. At the entrance was a small hut, and one of those 'kongsi' type housings, which looked like a trailer made out of corrugated steel. Most residences assumed it was the security 'office', and paid little attention to it.

"Yeah, tha's me", Manaf said when he saw the people slowly nodding in recognition. He had a gruff voice, which sounded like a toad. "I was uh, lissenin'to all you folk screamin' and shoutin' and almost cryin' bout some dawgs and a lil kid who got bit”

Mr. Alyas was about to stop him from talking but Manaf held a hand, indicating he won't be long.

"I's gonna make you folk an offer, and is gonna be free o'charge, as free like you was sleepin' on you own bedsies"

He eyed the crowd, glancing slowly, deliberately from left to right, right to left. "I's gonna take care of you dawg problems. My only payment issdat you no ask me how I'm do it, and what I's do it... Just minds you owns businesses if you agrees... If you agrees... Well, you know where I is most times"

With that he handed the microphone to Mr. Alyas, and left the meeting. He walked with a curious gait, as if one of his legs was shorter than the other. As soon as he left all eyes turned to Mr. Alyas, as if expecting him to make the decision. Mr. Alyas, feeling the pressure pile on his shoulders, shrugged his shoulders.

A few days later as Manaf sat in his plastic chair in front of the kongsi hut, Mr. Alyas and Mr. Balasubramaniam approached him. Manaf smiled, a toothless grin when he saw them coming. They shook hands.

"Do it", Mr. Alyas said. "Do it and we'll just mind our own business. But I expect results Mr. Manaf". Manaf suddenly broke into laughter, a hissy fit which made him sound like... why, like a dog. Mr. Alyas and Mr. Bala left immediately, feeling somewhat disturbed.

Days passed. The pack of dogs still roamed the streets. But as the days went by, their numbers began to dwindle. At first it was barely noticeable. But the pack of twelve or so began to shrink; one day it was twelve... a few days later there were only eight that the people could see.

The days turned into a week, and soon into weeks. One by one, bit by bit, the pack of mongrels disappeared. The last sighting was of three dogs running down the street, their tongues hanging out.

"Mr. Manaf must be doing a great job", whispered the neighborhood. They were beginning to feel safer again. The specters of canine monsters were dying in their fears. The children were allowed to roam and play with lesser supervision now. Mohamad Iman, the boy whose tragedy unfortunately was the catalyst to the MDRA taking affirmative action, even came back from the hospital and started to engage in outside play again, as if the horrifying attack never happened.

The residents did not see much of Manaf in those days. They did not know what happened to the dogs either. Perhaps the old leathery security guard poisoned the critters. Or maybe he shot them at night? Maybe he had located the den and crushed the dogs' heads with rocks? The residents did not know. The truth was, they did not really bother. It was a free service after all, and is that not the paramount rule of all things that come free? That you don't complain? So they kept quiet, just happy that the dogs were disappearing at a pleasing rate.

Then one day, the dogs vanished completely. They were gone, without a single trace. The residents waited, as if to be sure, but yes, the mongrels were gone. No sign of them at all: no pile of dogshit, no upturned garbage bins, nothing. Another meeting, but just between the council members, was held. It was decided that they reward Manaf, as he clearly had done something to rid Mutiara Damai of the dogs. The reward was a gesture of good-will and gratitude. The residents association wrote a cheque of RM1000, and Mr. Alyas, as head of the association, was to go with his Vice-President, Mr. Raymond Lee and resident representatives Mrs. Allison Chwee and Mrs. Lizawati to present the cheque to Manaf.

They waited for Manaf to show up at his usual spot; but after a few days since the last dogs disappeared, Manaf, too, seemed to have vanished. They called the company that employed him: the company said Manaf had quit a week earlier, and was nowhere to be heard. At first they let this be. "Maybe he really did mean it as a free service”, one of them had said.

But a few days later word reached out that the kongsi hut near Manaf's old post started to stink; kids and joggers and cyclists who passed it by described the smell as putrid and rotten. They claimed it was as if something had died there, maybe an animal. Curious and concerned about a possible health hazard, Mr. Alyas and two other lesser council members went to check it out. They brought with them some tools to pry open the hut if need be.

Mr. Alyas wasted no time and took them to the kongsi hut. The hut was not big, perhaps 15 feet long and 7 feet high. It had shutter windows, which were closed, and the wooden door was locked. As Mr. Alyas they approached it, the first thing that struck them was the smell: it was horrible, nauseating. Coupled with the heat and the closed apertures to the hut, Mr. Alyas could only imagine what was rotting inside there.

Mr.Alyas was confident there was nobody in the hut: not with the smell anyway. But he knocked on the door for reassurance. Three times. When nobody answered, one of the council men, a young fellow with a strong build, pried open the door lock, loosening it, and he kicked it in with force. The door banged open; the light was very dim inside, and immediately the smell wafted out; Mr.Alyas covered his mouth and nose with a hankie, but even that was not enough. The other two men put their hands to their mouths as well; they were trying hard not to inhale too much of the stench.

They never saw it coming.

Inside the kongsi hut, flies buzzed like a cloud of black smoke. Maggots squirmed on the floor; cockroaches scattered at the sudden intrusion of light and humans. There even a few rats, which hastily scrambled out of the hut through their own holes and doorways. But that was not what shocked them.

Dogs. Rotting putrefied and yellowing carcasses of dogs; the floor of the hut was littered with drying and rotting dog flesh and buckets of blood, congealed and crawling with maggots and flies. At the end of the hut was a desk; on the desk were the carcasses of two (or three, they couldn’t tell) dogs that had been butchered. Nine dog heads had been nailed to the wall at the end; some of them had been skinned, whilst others were reduced to yellowing teeth and had the flesh falling off. Some of the heads still had eyes, but they had sunk into the sockets. To Mr. Alyas they seemed to be staring at him. One carcass had been nailed to the left wall; a few dog hindquarters and limbs were dumped on the floor. A DIY color box stood beside the desk; in it were dog penises, limbs, and what looked like intestines. None of the dogs had clean cuts; they looked as if they had been torn apart by brute force.

One of the councilmen vomited through his hands, sour puke spilling from the sides. Mr. Alyas was pale; he was controlling his nausea. He forced himself to look into the hut, feeling horrified and disgusted. My God, he said in his heart. My God. His companions were quiet. They did not say anything. No words were needed, it seemed.

Then they noticed something squirming and wriggling beneath the desk. It looked like a large pile of meat. Mr. Alyas fished out a flashlight and shone it on the pile of meat. It was covered in filth and blood and God knows what.

"What is that”, one of them said to Mr. Alyas, who only shook his head slowly. Truthfully he did not want to know. But he slowly traced the beam of light on the lump, when it suddenly shuddered. Mr. Alyas gasped in surprise. He stumbled backward, almost crashing into his colleague when suddenly the lump split, ripping a hole in the middle. Yellowish fluid spilled out, with what looked like coagulated chunks of blood. The rip had sounded like a giant zipper. Mr. Alyas and his two colleagues were even more surprised when, from the torn hole, a human hand slipped out, and moved, the fingers flexing. Then a head popped out, the eyes blinking, and a leg. Soon an entire human being crawled out of the sack of meat (cocoon?), stark naked and covered in gore.

Mr. Alyas still shone his flashlight on the... man that had emerged from the unholy matrix. He was completely naked, yellow slime and congealed blood dripping off his body. He was hairless, completely hairless, and his ears were pointed. His skin was smooth and his build was muscular, fit and sculpted. His fingers were tipped with claws. The man opened his jaws, working the mandible, revealing impossibly large fangs. Mr. Alyas and his two men shuddered, awed and frozen in fear. Suddenly the naked man snapped his head sideways and turned to them.

"I told you to mind your own business", he (it?) said. The voice was rich but choking, like someone speaking through water.

One of Mr. Alyas colleagues fainted; the other shat in his pants and sprinted, ran away without looking back. The creature advanced toward Mr. Alyas with its monstrous teeth bared; he could hear the thing breathing, which sounded like a hungry dog, slobbering and hungry.

"I told you to mind your own business", the thing said again.

Mr. Alyas felt warm liquid flowing down his legs, wetting his pants. He paid no attention to it. His hands were shaking but he kept on pointing the flashlight at the naked humanoid creature as it moved towards him. He shone the beam into its eyes, and the thing raised a hand to shiled itself from the beam; and yet it stepped forward, moving towards him. But Mr. Alyas did not doubt what he saw: a pair of eyes, light brown in color, the lightest brown he had ever seen, so light they looked like they were shining, like two silver shillings in the moonlight.

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