Pontianak
The taxi driver was angry with them. They had been circling the inner roads of the estate for nearly twenty minutes now. Still, they could not find the house. The grouchy driver grumbled that he was late for a shift change and they, like good Samaritans, alighted from the taxi, not knowing what was lying ahead of them.
After the taxi had left, they orientated themselves to the roads and started to search for the address on foot. Josephine, his date for the evening, was in a controlled rage.
“How could you actually lose the address?” Her voice was steely cold when she was angry.
David glanced at her. She looked radiant in her DKNY gown tonight, the perfect match to his tuxedo suit. They were supposed to attend a friend’s party, but had difficulty finding his place. How David had lost the address was beyond him, and he could only shrug at her.
“Don’t worry. I had been to the place before. I will recognise the house when I see it.” David tried to reassure her, although everything seemed to slip his memory tonight.
“Look, why don’t we go home?” She was pouting slightly.
David knew that he should have listened to her, but then he did not.
“Hey! Don’t you believe me?” David got angry, raising his voice a little.
“I do. It’s just that I’m tired of walking.” Josephine decided to keep quiet.
Despite her calm outward appearance, David could feel that she was nervous about something. He did not know what it was, but she turned pale. They kept on walking along the winding deserted roads that were dimly lit. After a while, David took off his jacket as it had got quite warm.
David thought he heard it first, but then he was not sure. It was a scream, or sort of.
“What was that?” Josephine grabbed his arm, and held on tight. She was even more alarmed than he was.
“It’s probably just the monkeys on the trees.” That seemed to calm her. Her grip on his arm relaxed, but she held on still.
“Anyway, do you know that the British soldiers and officers used to live in this area. After they left, these bungalows were given to high-ranking civil servants.”
“Really?”
“But you know, these big-shots have their own houses. Who needs these old broken down shacks?”
“Yes…” She agreed with him. “No wonder this area is so deserted.”
Another scream ripped through the night. This time, it was not that distant. It was so close that David spun around, thinking that someone had just screamed behind him, a few feet away.
Josephine’s grip on David’s arm grew tighter, so much that it was already quite painful, her fingernails digging into his arm through the thin fabric of his shirt. Although he struggled to remain calm outwardly, he was in his sixes and sevens inside. He made a mental decision to leave there and then.
‘I’ll make it sound like an accident.’ He thought to himself, and could not help but grin at his own cleverness. ‘That way, Josephine could not give me the I-told-you-so-nonsense.’
“This area look familiar. I know where my friend lives now,” he lied, trying to sound confident. Ahead in the distance, cars were speeding past on the main highway. Josephine’s grip on his arm was getting so tight that he had to extricate his arm from her grasp.
'When we reached the main highway, I shall claim that it was destined that we should go home.' David gloated inwardly. They walked for the next ten minutes, fast and furiously. Then, something worse happened. It started to rain. Large pelts of rain came down on us, ruining their eveningwear.
David then made another wrong decision, as he looked around and saw a deserted house.
"There!" He shouted as he ran for the building, pulling Josephine along with him. He ran onto the porch of the house. Quickly, he hopped into the house but Josephine stood there outside in the rain, refusing to enter.
"Come in!" David urged, stretching out his hand for her.
But she refused to move. Instead she just stood there and shook her head.
"Come on! Don't stood in the rain."
She stood there, transfixed on the porch, staring right through him. She was making him frightened. Then she started to smile. She was not looking at him but behind him.
That caught David off his guard totally, for she looked evil. At that moment, razor sharp pain exploded across his back. Something sharp had tore through his shirt and David felt as if five razors were slicing his back to shreds.
David jumped and let out a loud howl of pain. Reaching around to touch his back, his left palm felt something wet and was covered with blood when he looked at it. He was in a state of shock, and his mind was racing as he looked at Josephine. She was standing there transfixed, looking at him with an evil smile.
Two deafening shrieks rang out behind him, nearly bursting his eardrums. On instinct, he lurched forward and started to run but something caught him by his hair. Forcefully, he felt himself yanked backwards, the force of it nearly tearing the hair from his scalp.
Gaining his composure, David turned around to look. As he did, a thunderous slap smashed into his face, and blinding pain exploded across his eyes. His lips were stinging with pain, and they felt wet. David licked his lips. Blood.
David wanted Josephine to help but something in his mind told him otherwise. The next thunderous slap that came flung him onto the porch, out under the pouring rain. The rain came down on him, stinging his wounds but he was too stunned to notice.
As he laid there sprawled on the muddy lawn, he saw Josephine inside the house. There was someone besides her. It was not a person. David brushed away the water on his face to take a better look. It was an horrendous creature. Josephine stood there motionless, eyes wide open and blank, as if in a trance. David did not know what to do, whether to run away, or risk his life rescuing Josephine from that hideous fiend.
While hesitating, David sheltered his eyes from the rain with a muddy hand. It was then that he saw the horrendous creature choking Josephine, who was still smiling, as if she did not know what was going on. The creature looked like a woman. Her long hair reached her ankles and they were silver whitish. The creature was stocky and what shocked me more was the creature was floating six inches above the ground.
David felt fear like never before.
David's body was chilled by fear and when the creature turned to look at him, he wanted to cry. The face was wrinkled and her cheeks were cut open. But it was the eyes. Her eyes were ruby red and they glimmered in the darkness. David did not know how he knew, but from her eyes he realised that after Josephine, it would be his turn to die. His body involuntarily shook with fright.
Then something shocking happened. The creature was flung backwards by an unseen force. As it fell, the long hair that covered its face fell back to reveal a horribly disfigured face. With peeling skin and deep bloody scratches, the face of evil was contorted into an expression of fury that was imprinted in David's mind.
Quick as lightning, the creature got up and tried to take a step towards Josephine, but could not even get near. Josephine, to David's amazement, had glowed green. It took him a while to realise that the green glow around Josephine was shielding her. Then he realised that the glow was emanating wider and wider, and he knew that soon he too would be engulfed by the green glow of bright light.
Howling a cry of frustration, the creature ran past him and disappeared into the pouring rain. At that moment, David saw Josephine crumbling to the ground. Picking himself up from the ground, he ran to her. The rain was stinging the scratches on his back, but he did not care.
He cradled her limp body in his arms, and tried to revive her. Josephine soon became conscious. They hugged each other, being so relieved that they were alive.
Both Josephine and David did not want to talk about what happened as they walked out of the place. They had made a promise to each other never to talk about it to anyone, mainly because they thought no one would believe them. They had come to realise what a pontianak looked like and both wanted to forget it.
Up till now, the only thing they remembered fondly was the jade pendant that Josephine wore. She told David that it was a gift from a Buddhist monk. That save her life and his too.