It was about 45 minutes past midnight.
Dollah scanned his eyes across the group of people, counting heads. Beside him, his best friend and fellow kedai kopi patron, Shuib, nudged his shoulder.
"How many are there?", Shuib asked. His forehead was covered in cold perspiration.
"There are 13 of us here", Dollah answered.
"Do you want to go to Tok Jais' house first?"
Dollah nodded. Again he counted the number of people in the crowd, and then motioned for them to follow him to Tok Jais' house a few minutes away. The people were carrying torchlights and weapons of various kinds: parangs, sickles, and Dollah could have sworn he saw an old World War Two rifle being shouldered by someone. He wondered if it would matter.
When the blood-curdling scream was heard about half-an-hour ago, Dollah had immediately roused Shuib and gathered this group of people. They had had enough of living in fear when night fell upon their kampung, remotely situated in Northern Perak, just south of Temenggor Lake. Here, miles from modernity, the people still lived sedate and tranquil lives, tending fruits orchards and vegetable patches. They were content.
Until the arrival of a beautiful widow 6 months ago, that is. Dollah had thought the old legends of mysterious witches were just that: legends. But when this widow, known only as Dayang, had strangely decided to settle in the kampung, things began to happen.
She's cursed us, Dollah thought as he and the crowd marched towards Tok Jais' house.
The widow had taken up residence in a house on the outskirts of the kampung, bordering the rainforest that surrounded the small residence. For the most part, her coming was only initially seen as strange; the women of the kampung feared at most that she would seduce their men. The men, on the other hand, had thought of her as simply eye candy, even if she was strange.
Nothing was known of her past. Attempts by village folk to get to know her were politely treated, but they never got anywhere. Soon the kampung folk simply accepted her presence. But she was rarely seen outside her house. Nobody knew how she got her income, if she had any.
But then strange things began to happen. Chickens were reported missing from their sheds. The fruits in the orchards began turning rotten before their time. The village youths who make daily trips to the nearest pekan of Gerik reported strange lights and shapes floating around the trees at night. And lately when the moon was full, the haunting wails of an unknown creature pierced the night air.
At first people had shrugged them off. Maybe a lost wild dog, said one. Maybe its just bad weather, said another. Only Tok Jais, who listened quietly to these uneasy rumors, held a quiet suspicion.
Three months ago a woman named Kamilah died during childbirth. The death came as no big surprise however, as she had been in poor health prior to the delivery. The rural doctor who had visited her just a few days earlier had somehow failed to see any causes of her illness. He had just told the womans' family that she was ill. When she died, nobody noticed anything out of the ordinary because she had been sick. But when the baby died as well a few days later, people began feeling uneasy.
Soon, most of the women in the village began falling ill with an unknown disease. They lost color in their faces, and they became gaunt and almost waif-like. Again the doctor visited, and seeing the women of the village become ill, he became worried that a disease was spreading. But he had no explanation as to why it affected only women. And from what he knew, the disease coincided with every of the victims' menstruation. The doctor told the village headman, Pak Ali, that he would get federal help, but that would take time.
In the meantime, the uneasiness of the kampung folk increased. More and more women fell ill to the mysterious illness. They became weaker and weaker. Soon, one of them died. A few weeks later, two more women died.
"Something is going on..", Tok Jais had told the kedai kopi patrons one day. Dollah had been one of them.
"What do you mean Tok?", he had asked.
"I cannot say for certain. But our kampung is filled with...", Tok Jais answered but trailed off.
"With what, Tok?"
"Something", Tok Jais had finished and walked away. The patrons of the small kampung kedai kopi had went back to their drinks uneasily.
Meanwhile, the widow by the name of Dayang was seen less and less around the kampung. Suspicious fingers pointed out that she was a witch who kept a 'pet', and that she was feeding the women of the kampung to her 'pet'. Pak Ali the headman had attempted to squash these rumors, but he himself had an uneasy feeling about the woman.
"Let us not jump to conclusions", he had told a group of people one day.
For a while then things were quiet again. Until this night, when suddenly a scream was heard. Dollah and Shuib, who had been first roused by the scream, had rushed to the source, a house owned by a man named Sazali, who lived there with his wife and two daughters. When they had reached there, they found Sazali in hysterics, almost catatonic. His wife, whom Dollah found shivering in a corner of the kitchen, said that "she took our girls". When asked who took her girls, she shivered violently and said "Da.. Dayang.."
That was the final straw. Dollah and Shuib gathered a group of people who were brave enough to face whatever it was they had to face, and went to see Tok Jais. They were planning on asking Pak Ali to come along as well.
When they reached Tok Jais' house, they saw he was already dressed in front of his door. He had put on a white jubah and a ketayap, and in his hands he held a tasbih. He stepped down from his house and motioned for the crowd to pick up Pak Ali.
"So she has finally decided to not let it be secret", Tok Jais said when Dollah told him about what they had found out at Sazali's house.
"What do you think she is doing Tok?", Shuib asked. They were walking now towards Pak Ali's house.
"I do not know. Let us pray to Allah the little girls are safe. But I suspected that this woman was playing with evil when she first arrived"
"How so?"
"I just.. felt something was wrong. But we may have time yet to drive this woman and whatever evil she has brought to our kampung out".
They reached Pak Ali's house and unsurprisingly, he too, was already prepared. He slung a hunting rifle on one shoulder, and carried a torchlight in one hand. Soon the group began their march towards the widows house on the outskirts of the kampung.
In the time it took them to reach there, a small part of Dollah's mind was thinking: are we crazy? Are we actually marching in the middle of the night? What are we going to do? His mind was filled with the images of an unspeakable evil. But another part of him was hoping that the widow would just turn out to be a crazy kidnapper. At least that would make her human.
As the crowd neared the widows house, all of them began to feel terrified. The exception was Tok Jais, who looked oddly calm. The house stood ominously in front of them now, the windows like eyes. There was only a dim light emanating from the open front door. Another scream, unmistakeably from a little girl, pierced the night air. Dollah could feel the hairs on his neck stand up.
The crowd quickened their pace, fueled by both fear and a desire to rid the kampung of whatever it was the widow had brought. They reached the house and a few of them men, including Pak Ali and Tok Jais and Dollah, crashed down the front door. Pak Ali immediately cocked his rifle, pointing into the room.
But the entrance way was empty except for a small lamp on the floor. In fact, the entire house was empty. Wary, Tok Jais began citing some holy ayat for protection.
"Ya Allah protect me from Evil..", Dollah whispered. There was a discernible chill inside the house. The walls were bare, unpainted and unadorned. They saw bloodstains on the floor. As an act of caution, Pak Ali told the rest of the crowd to guard the perimeter of the house.
Cautiously, Dollah, Pak Ali and Tok Jais began to follow the bloodstains, which led from the entrance way into a room on the east wing of the empty house.
Who would live here, in this emptiness? Dollah thought. The house truly was empty. It seemed as if nobody, not even one person, had lived there at all. And yet they knew the widow had been here for months now.
They approached the room where the bloodstains led to. They could hear whimpering from inside, and an odd chanting. The widow, no doubt, Dollah thought. He was gripped with fear. Before they stormed in, Tok Jais recited some prayers and gently blew over their faces.
"Ready?" Tok Jais said, and the rest of them nodded. He insisted on going in first. Pak Ali steadied his rifle in his hands. Tok Jais then swung the door open whilst saying in a loud voice:
"Allahuakbar!"
In a flash, Dollah saw the two little girls, Sazali's daughters, huddled in a corner of the room. They were covered in blood. In the center was a small bronze bowl filled with incense, and the smell wafted throughout the room. But where was the widow? he thought. Dismissing this, he immediately went to comfort the girls, who wrapped their arms around him. Tok Jais scanned the room. On the floor were strange markings.
As he comforted the children, Dollah asked "Where is the bitch?".
Just as he answered the woman appeared out of nowhere in the doorway. In her hands she held a small keris; her face was covered in blood. In reaction, Pak Ali lifted his rifle and shot the woman in the chest. The blast was deafening and the woman fell backwards.
"Astaghfirullahul'azim", Tok Jais said as he slowly uncovered his ears. For a few minutes they stared at the woman, who lay motionless with a large wound in her chest. Then Pak Ali and Tok Jais turned to Dollah and the two girls.
"Are they alright?", Tok Jais asked. Dollah had managed to ask the girls if they were hurt. One of them was too shocked and terrified to say anything but the other one could speak a little. She said the widow had hurt them 'down there'. Dollah had not asked further.
"Let's get out of here. We can deal with the widow's body in the morning when it's safer", Pak Ali said. Then a groan sounded from the doorway. To their horror, they saw the widow crawling towards them. Blood was pouring from her mouth. Pak Ali immediately raised his gun again, but he did not pull the trigger.
The woman's body suddenly jerked. She gave an ear-splitting scream, and she threw her head back. Her tongue came slithering out of her mouth, almost a foot long.
"Ya Allah!", said Pak Ali and Tok Jais in unison; Pak Ali was frozen in fear, the rifle temporarily forgotten. Dollah wrapped his arms around the girls, shielding them from seeing this, but his own eyes were glued to the horror unfolding in front of him.
The woman raised herself off the floor, almost floating. Her eyes were black as midnight itself, her jaws wide, the tongue hanging out. Suddenly an audible crack was heard, and Dollah saw a huge gash appear at the woman's neck. Then another gash appeared, as if an invisible knife was cutting her head off. With a final scream, the woman's head separated, and the body fell to the floor with a dull thud. The disembodied head floated, and Dollah saw that below the stump of the neck, the head was dragging a heart and a stomach, as impossible as that may sound. Blood dripped from the hanging organs.
The head screamed. A blood-curdling, animal sound.
Finally seeing too much, Dollah squeezed his eyes shut. In his head, he recalled the old lore of the Penanggal, a blood sucking fiend who appeared as a disemboweled head dragging a stomach. He squeezed his eyes shut and wrapped his arms tightly around the frightened girls, and as he heard Pak Ali and Tok Jais' fighting with the creature, Dollah prayed that this was all just a nightmare, and that he would wake up in a world where no such evil stalked the night.
----
"How many are there?", Shuib asked. His forehead was covered in cold perspiration.
"There are 13 of us here", Dollah answered.
"Do you want to go to Tok Jais' house first?"
Dollah nodded. Again he counted the number of people in the crowd, and then motioned for them to follow him to Tok Jais' house a few minutes away. The people were carrying torchlights and weapons of various kinds: parangs, sickles, and Dollah could have sworn he saw an old World War Two rifle being shouldered by someone. He wondered if it would matter.
When the blood-curdling scream was heard about half-an-hour ago, Dollah had immediately roused Shuib and gathered this group of people. They had had enough of living in fear when night fell upon their kampung, remotely situated in Northern Perak, just south of Temenggor Lake. Here, miles from modernity, the people still lived sedate and tranquil lives, tending fruits orchards and vegetable patches. They were content.
Until the arrival of a beautiful widow 6 months ago, that is. Dollah had thought the old legends of mysterious witches were just that: legends. But when this widow, known only as Dayang, had strangely decided to settle in the kampung, things began to happen.
She's cursed us, Dollah thought as he and the crowd marched towards Tok Jais' house.
The widow had taken up residence in a house on the outskirts of the kampung, bordering the rainforest that surrounded the small residence. For the most part, her coming was only initially seen as strange; the women of the kampung feared at most that she would seduce their men. The men, on the other hand, had thought of her as simply eye candy, even if she was strange.
Nothing was known of her past. Attempts by village folk to get to know her were politely treated, but they never got anywhere. Soon the kampung folk simply accepted her presence. But she was rarely seen outside her house. Nobody knew how she got her income, if she had any.
But then strange things began to happen. Chickens were reported missing from their sheds. The fruits in the orchards began turning rotten before their time. The village youths who make daily trips to the nearest pekan of Gerik reported strange lights and shapes floating around the trees at night. And lately when the moon was full, the haunting wails of an unknown creature pierced the night air.
At first people had shrugged them off. Maybe a lost wild dog, said one. Maybe its just bad weather, said another. Only Tok Jais, who listened quietly to these uneasy rumors, held a quiet suspicion.
Three months ago a woman named Kamilah died during childbirth. The death came as no big surprise however, as she had been in poor health prior to the delivery. The rural doctor who had visited her just a few days earlier had somehow failed to see any causes of her illness. He had just told the womans' family that she was ill. When she died, nobody noticed anything out of the ordinary because she had been sick. But when the baby died as well a few days later, people began feeling uneasy.
Soon, most of the women in the village began falling ill with an unknown disease. They lost color in their faces, and they became gaunt and almost waif-like. Again the doctor visited, and seeing the women of the village become ill, he became worried that a disease was spreading. But he had no explanation as to why it affected only women. And from what he knew, the disease coincided with every of the victims' menstruation. The doctor told the village headman, Pak Ali, that he would get federal help, but that would take time.
In the meantime, the uneasiness of the kampung folk increased. More and more women fell ill to the mysterious illness. They became weaker and weaker. Soon, one of them died. A few weeks later, two more women died.
"Something is going on..", Tok Jais had told the kedai kopi patrons one day. Dollah had been one of them.
"What do you mean Tok?", he had asked.
"I cannot say for certain. But our kampung is filled with...", Tok Jais answered but trailed off.
"With what, Tok?"
"Something", Tok Jais had finished and walked away. The patrons of the small kampung kedai kopi had went back to their drinks uneasily.
Meanwhile, the widow by the name of Dayang was seen less and less around the kampung. Suspicious fingers pointed out that she was a witch who kept a 'pet', and that she was feeding the women of the kampung to her 'pet'. Pak Ali the headman had attempted to squash these rumors, but he himself had an uneasy feeling about the woman.
"Let us not jump to conclusions", he had told a group of people one day.
For a while then things were quiet again. Until this night, when suddenly a scream was heard. Dollah and Shuib, who had been first roused by the scream, had rushed to the source, a house owned by a man named Sazali, who lived there with his wife and two daughters. When they had reached there, they found Sazali in hysterics, almost catatonic. His wife, whom Dollah found shivering in a corner of the kitchen, said that "she took our girls". When asked who took her girls, she shivered violently and said "Da.. Dayang.."
That was the final straw. Dollah and Shuib gathered a group of people who were brave enough to face whatever it was they had to face, and went to see Tok Jais. They were planning on asking Pak Ali to come along as well.
When they reached Tok Jais' house, they saw he was already dressed in front of his door. He had put on a white jubah and a ketayap, and in his hands he held a tasbih. He stepped down from his house and motioned for the crowd to pick up Pak Ali.
"So she has finally decided to not let it be secret", Tok Jais said when Dollah told him about what they had found out at Sazali's house.
"What do you think she is doing Tok?", Shuib asked. They were walking now towards Pak Ali's house.
"I do not know. Let us pray to Allah the little girls are safe. But I suspected that this woman was playing with evil when she first arrived"
"How so?"
"I just.. felt something was wrong. But we may have time yet to drive this woman and whatever evil she has brought to our kampung out".
They reached Pak Ali's house and unsurprisingly, he too, was already prepared. He slung a hunting rifle on one shoulder, and carried a torchlight in one hand. Soon the group began their march towards the widows house on the outskirts of the kampung.
In the time it took them to reach there, a small part of Dollah's mind was thinking: are we crazy? Are we actually marching in the middle of the night? What are we going to do? His mind was filled with the images of an unspeakable evil. But another part of him was hoping that the widow would just turn out to be a crazy kidnapper. At least that would make her human.
As the crowd neared the widows house, all of them began to feel terrified. The exception was Tok Jais, who looked oddly calm. The house stood ominously in front of them now, the windows like eyes. There was only a dim light emanating from the open front door. Another scream, unmistakeably from a little girl, pierced the night air. Dollah could feel the hairs on his neck stand up.
The crowd quickened their pace, fueled by both fear and a desire to rid the kampung of whatever it was the widow had brought. They reached the house and a few of them men, including Pak Ali and Tok Jais and Dollah, crashed down the front door. Pak Ali immediately cocked his rifle, pointing into the room.
But the entrance way was empty except for a small lamp on the floor. In fact, the entire house was empty. Wary, Tok Jais began citing some holy ayat for protection.
"Ya Allah protect me from Evil..", Dollah whispered. There was a discernible chill inside the house. The walls were bare, unpainted and unadorned. They saw bloodstains on the floor. As an act of caution, Pak Ali told the rest of the crowd to guard the perimeter of the house.
Cautiously, Dollah, Pak Ali and Tok Jais began to follow the bloodstains, which led from the entrance way into a room on the east wing of the empty house.
Who would live here, in this emptiness? Dollah thought. The house truly was empty. It seemed as if nobody, not even one person, had lived there at all. And yet they knew the widow had been here for months now.
They approached the room where the bloodstains led to. They could hear whimpering from inside, and an odd chanting. The widow, no doubt, Dollah thought. He was gripped with fear. Before they stormed in, Tok Jais recited some prayers and gently blew over their faces.
"Ready?" Tok Jais said, and the rest of them nodded. He insisted on going in first. Pak Ali steadied his rifle in his hands. Tok Jais then swung the door open whilst saying in a loud voice:
"Allahuakbar!"
In a flash, Dollah saw the two little girls, Sazali's daughters, huddled in a corner of the room. They were covered in blood. In the center was a small bronze bowl filled with incense, and the smell wafted throughout the room. But where was the widow? he thought. Dismissing this, he immediately went to comfort the girls, who wrapped their arms around him. Tok Jais scanned the room. On the floor were strange markings.
As he comforted the children, Dollah asked "Where is the bitch?".
Just as he answered the woman appeared out of nowhere in the doorway. In her hands she held a small keris; her face was covered in blood. In reaction, Pak Ali lifted his rifle and shot the woman in the chest. The blast was deafening and the woman fell backwards.
"Astaghfirullahul'azim", Tok Jais said as he slowly uncovered his ears. For a few minutes they stared at the woman, who lay motionless with a large wound in her chest. Then Pak Ali and Tok Jais turned to Dollah and the two girls.
"Are they alright?", Tok Jais asked. Dollah had managed to ask the girls if they were hurt. One of them was too shocked and terrified to say anything but the other one could speak a little. She said the widow had hurt them 'down there'. Dollah had not asked further.
"Let's get out of here. We can deal with the widow's body in the morning when it's safer", Pak Ali said. Then a groan sounded from the doorway. To their horror, they saw the widow crawling towards them. Blood was pouring from her mouth. Pak Ali immediately raised his gun again, but he did not pull the trigger.
The woman's body suddenly jerked. She gave an ear-splitting scream, and she threw her head back. Her tongue came slithering out of her mouth, almost a foot long.
"Ya Allah!", said Pak Ali and Tok Jais in unison; Pak Ali was frozen in fear, the rifle temporarily forgotten. Dollah wrapped his arms around the girls, shielding them from seeing this, but his own eyes were glued to the horror unfolding in front of him.
The woman raised herself off the floor, almost floating. Her eyes were black as midnight itself, her jaws wide, the tongue hanging out. Suddenly an audible crack was heard, and Dollah saw a huge gash appear at the woman's neck. Then another gash appeared, as if an invisible knife was cutting her head off. With a final scream, the woman's head separated, and the body fell to the floor with a dull thud. The disembodied head floated, and Dollah saw that below the stump of the neck, the head was dragging a heart and a stomach, as impossible as that may sound. Blood dripped from the hanging organs.
The head screamed. A blood-curdling, animal sound.
Finally seeing too much, Dollah squeezed his eyes shut. In his head, he recalled the old lore of the Penanggal, a blood sucking fiend who appeared as a disemboweled head dragging a stomach. He squeezed his eyes shut and wrapped his arms tightly around the frightened girls, and as he heard Pak Ali and Tok Jais' fighting with the creature, Dollah prayed that this was all just a nightmare, and that he would wake up in a world where no such evil stalked the night.
----
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