Ghosts of the Night

By Yusrizal KW

I hate nights. When night falls, a great fear overwhelms me. Night is an open door ushering in all catastrophes and evils. Grandma used to tell me when I was a child that ghosts were born, lived and went on the prowl during the night. Just like evil, ghosts fear light. To them, shining light is a stabbing truth threatening them.

"Witches or ghosts like nights very much. They like dark nights," grandma told me.

My imagination was stirred: the long howl of a dog, silence, darkness and hair standing on end. Once in a while, a dark night with a downpour.

My childhood moved like ripples and then became incarnate when I frequently turned deathly pale after returning home from reciting Koranic verses at a local mosque at night. In an inexplicable situation, my friends and I -- yes we all -- would dash past the house which we believed, thanks to the tales of our elders, was rife with ghosts.

I could not imagine what the face of a ghost was like. Yet, when we told ghost stories to other anxious friends, or discussed them among us after passing the haunted house, we could conjure up different ghost images. Although none of us had seen a ghost, we believed they generally had frightening, haggardly visages.

"A ghost dresses in white. It has a spooky face, bloody fangs and long nails," I said.

"There is also a black ghost. It walks without touching the ground and it is as tall as a banyan tree. It is very fond of eating children, especially those who are out on Thursday night," a friend of mine intoned.

"Some are like ninjas, you know. Only the eyes can be seen moving," another friend chimed in.

Fear strikes me whenever someone commits suicide or hangs himself. He or she was destined to become a ghost to roam the world because of dying too early and God was not ready to receive the soul. I always believed this about ghosts. Days after, I often indulged my imagination about ghosts. It crossed my mind the image of a night with rain, lightning, a dog's howl and a blackout.

Then, a ghost, in the most awesome and spooky shape I could imagine, slipped into the house and became part of a family. I imagined the ghost to be in my bedroom. It would reveal its frightening face and I would hug my grandma (in my childhood I liked to sleep with my grandma) and whisper something to her.

"How do you drive away a ghost, grandma?"

"Call out the name of God, regularly do your ritual prayers five times a day as required by your religion and read the holy verses," grandma would always tell me.

So I regularly recited and memorized the Koranic verses. If I was suddenly seized by fear or had to pass a house rumored to be haunted, I would always remember what grandma had told me.

Remembering all this, I always felt how nights had made me behave more carefully toward evil people and ghosts. In the history of man, night is often the scenario for horror stories, crime and disasters.

Fire. In fact, daylight can be more powerful than that. However, the bright light from the shining sun is enough to give you courage and security. At least, during the day, you can be among many people and maintain a high level of awareness. I seldom read in horror stories that ghosts roamed during the day.

As for the night, to me it was the kind of beauty which solely depended on the moon and the twinkling stars. Many poets have even said that night is beauty shrouded in mystery. They maintain that night bestows the greatest romanticism to young people and lovers.

Let it be, I thought. Beauty and romanticism had suddenly gone from my life. Recently, I hated them passionately because they recently left me with some spooky tales for the next morning and robbed our conjugal relationship of orgasm.

A brown butterfly perched on a picture of a flower hanging on the wall in the house. I was passionately hugging my wife, Rosana.

Daybreak. I devoured the nape of her neck, her neck proper, her lips and her most sensitive area. The butterfly was still perched on the picture of a flower. Outside, I heard a patrol car passing. A moment later my wife huddled her body into mine, whispering: "Perhaps there will be real horror tomorrow morning..."

I left this unfinished lovemaking. I moved slowly to the sitting room and parted slightly the curtain behind the jealous window. The light was out instantaneously. I hurried to the room, stepping carefully, to look for a candle.

"Ghosts may be roaming now," I whispered, feeling the firm grip of my wife's hands. Fear had become part of our heartbeat. This was the frightening night, terrorizing our emotions with the color of the putrid odor of fish. This was the night with the shadows of mysterious ghosts.

Instantly, I recollected several frequent happenings in the previous several days. Someone had become a corpse. His body was full of stab wounds. His eyes had been gouged out. His head was almost separated from the body. People flocked, one after another, until the family of the dead arrived with bursts of sobbing along the way. Then voices were heard.

"Horrible!"

"Slaughtered!"

"Commies!"

"Ghosts!"

"Witches!"

"A black masked gang!"

"Which police, then?"

"Politics, perhaps!"

"Some took to the street for a demonstration!"

"Who is the mastermind?"

"The black ghost, perhaps!"

"Groups plotting to disrupt our unity!"

"Let's go home!"

"Will you take the night watch round tonight?"

"Enforce the system of neighborhood security!"

"Make sure that the kiai's house is guarded, OK?"

I shivered with fear. My fear got the better of me when I read the newspapers, magazines, tabloids. Each day was full of blood. Meanwhile, in the area where I lived, known for its devoutly religious people, dozens had been slaughtered.

It all happened at night.

Nobody had any inkling who was behind the killing spree. Some said ninjas. But who would bother to send ninjas from Japan, I thought, rather foolishly. Ghosts? Perhaps. Why? Because there was always the bluish-black print of a palm on the body of the dead victims. It was difficult to catch the killers.

My childhood imagination returned and grew wild. I indulged myself in my own imagination. At night, unexpected by any, the all-black ghosts -- only their eyes were visible -- were roaming freely. They killed people with their nails or fangs and left an impression that would rob us of our peace of mind.

Several candles had been lit. I gazed at the picture of a flower. The butterfly had gone. Whither?

However, my wife found the butterfly - lying dead on the floor close to the bedroom door. Ants were all over its wings. We looked at each other. Momentarily. Then my wife and I were startled by the sound heavy steps outside. Then a dog let out its howl. I inched my way to the curtain and peeped outside. I saw black shadows. The silhouette of six figures with only their eyes being visible moving fast. Soon they disappeared, swallowed by darkness.

"What's up?" my wife asked.

"The moving silhouette of black shadows, like ghosts. Perhaps ghosts! Or humans transformed into ghosts."

Early in the morning, there were a lot of people in front of my house. That must have been the work of the night, I mumbled in my mind. With a trembling body, I observed the dead body in my front yard. It was mutilated exactly like the corpses previously found. Full of stab wounds. Eyes gouged out and head almost decapitated. Hundreds now had been slaughtered to death.

When the family arrived, the crowd, that had by now got used to this sight of a grisly dead body, simply let them cry and take the dead body home, sobbing pitifully all the way.

That night, I prayed. My wife did likewise. "Oh, God, please listen to my request. Please abolish nights in a human life!" My request sounded absurd, ridiculous or even foolish. But, that was me. I hated nights full of disasters. I hated these horrifying nights. I had also made my wife harbor hatred for nights.

Then, all of a sudden, black ghosts came to my imagination. Coincidentally, it began to rain, accompanied by strokes of lightning and, then, a blackout.

I took my wife to our bedroom. We went to our bed and embraced each other closely. I whispered in her ear: Close your eyes. We are waiting for ghosts!

In the pitch dark, ghosts seemed to be coming out of my head and that of my wife.

From perfect darkness in a full night, I saw light like the color of a crumbling twilight. I was stupefied and smelled the putrid odor of fish, strange perfumes and laughter.

A big black shadow -- the face was unrecognizable because this time I saw a formless face with only the look of a pair of eyes arousing a deep feeling of horror -- took me by force. I was dragged to an alien place with what looked like hills, large trees and rivers. Also strange noises. All was seen and felt like unreal black lumps.

I did not know how long I was there. What I did know was that when I could not understand anything else, including myself, I was shocked by some sort of sense of falling from the sky. Nervously dizzy. A thud. I fell down. I felt some pain. So, I thought, I had come to my weird self. I saw the flame of a torch. Before me I saw horrible dead bodies. Hundreds of them. There was a bluish-black mark on the breast of each. Their eyes were gone. The necks were almost separated.

Then I heard a voice. From the top of my head.

"This was the land of ghosts!"

Suddenly, my groin was moist. I had wet myself from fright. I trembled. Overpowered by fear.

The corpses before me moved slowly toward me. Blood oozed freely from their stab wounds.

The sound of laughter boomed in the sky. I had no way of knowing whose it was.

"They were a dish for the big family of ghosts. And you, who are still intact, will be a witness how ghosts here still need thousands of lives. And then there will be a new state, one that we will name the Republic of Ghosts. Before you are community figureheads, clerics, devout teachers of religions. You will be the witness. Tell other humans in the real world that ghosts had well-trained troops. Remember this ..." the voice, big and echoing, said. The horrible corpses before me were groping in the air with their hands. Blood continued to spout from their bodies.

I was so frightened. I tried to move my legs, but they felt too heavy. Then I screamed, " Heeeeelp....!" There was no reply, but it suddenly turned dark around me. It was dark all over. My anxious eyes could see nothing nor nobody.

Indistinctly, I heard the sound of heavy steps. Then there was light again. Brighter than usual. I saw a troop of black figures seemingly clad in black cloth or with feathers all over. Only the eyes could be seen. They were moving, showing that they soul- hungry and bloodthirsty -- human souls and blood.

Then they rudely kicked me. They stamped on me. Finally, I lost consciousness. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself before my wife. She was no less worried.

"Terrible!" I pinched my cheek, feeling relieved that it was a nightmare.

"What was bad?" my wife asked.

"My imagination about ghosts."

Nights came and went, slowly. I had a chronic fear of the night. Especially when I heard people running outside, shouting "Catch" and "Kill".

I tried to peep. It was shortly before dawn. The light from flashlights and torches joined forces to seize dewdrops and then lit forms of fear. Extraordinary. There were quite a lot of people. Some carried machetes, spears, wooden sticks and any weapons they could lay their hands on.

I shivered with fear.

The next moment, I saw people dancing merrily and hysterically. They screamed joyously and hysterically. Then a moment later, there was a line of people. In front of them was someone with a strong, sturdy, robust body. He was holding up a human head, which had been ferociously ripped from the body. Oozing blood was vaguely visible in the light from the torches.

The next day when I opened the door I found many people crowding the roads. I joined them. I wanted to see what they were going to see. At that time I found a panorama of black hell.

Dead bodies were sprawled on the roads. They were mutilated, torn by slashes and gashes. As always, there were empty hollows where their eyes had once been. None of their families had come to take them away.

Depressed, I returned home. I found my wife trembling.

"There was a phone call"

"Who from?"

"A ghost, it said!"

"A ghost?"

My wife nodded.

"What did it say?"

"Your turn will come ..."

"Crazy! Let's get out of here!"

Seconds later, I saw a host of black butterflies in our sitting room. They died one by one, spreading on the floor. Abad omen. I decided to leave the house and move to another place.

We were ready to leave, with a large suitcase containing our needs. I took the telephone off the hook.

"Where are we going?" my wife asked.

"To Indonesia?" I said, curtly.

"Aren't we in Indonesia now?

"Come on. Fool! Don't talk too much. Night will come and we'll be too late. I have had enough of the nights here."

"You fool!" my wife retorted. She complaisantly followed me. We left the house and the place where every night there was cruelty and where the next morning we were greeted with a horrible thing.

When I opened the door, I found on our terrace a pair of horrifying dead bodies. The bodies had a lot of wounds and the eyes, as always, were removed. Both lay face down.

"Whose bodies are these?" I hissed with a shiver. With my hands I tried to make them lie face up. I recognized the two very well and intimately. I was utterly shocked. They were my wife's body and mine.

Since then, many madmen have been arrested by the police. I did not know where to go. Everything will always be a source of suspicion. Even madmen!

Padang, November 1998.

Glossary:

Kiai: title or reference for a venerated Islamic scholar or teacher.

Translated by Lie Hun