Friday The 13th
It was late Friday night. I was sitting on the steps of the cinema with my colleague, Hamzal. We were the night watchmen of the place, waiting for the last group of movie watchers to leave before closing up the place.
“Hey! What’s the matter?” I nudged Hamzal. He looked a little out-of-sorts tonight.
“Huh? Oh, nothing.”
“Something bothering you?” I noticed his eyes were a little wild.
“No, nothing. I’m fine. Just leave me alone.” He said curtly. I looked at him surprised. This was not the usually jovial Hamzal I know. Still, I respected his request and went for my rounds, leaving him sitting alone there.
The cinema had seen better days. An old broken down place, the management had decided to close it down at the end of the month when competition from the modern cineplexes forced it into the red. Anyway, hardly any people patronised it nowadays and the cinema made money by screening R(A) movies to the general public, the old, and sometimes the young.
Although I was just employed for a month, I had to go too. But while I was still watchman here, I was determined to do my job properly.
There was someone in the ladies room. through the ajar door, I saw a male figure.
‘What’s a male figure doing in there?’ I thought to myself, when I caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror. It was Hamzal.
When I went in, Hamzal was nowhere in sight. He was probably in one of the cubicles on the far end of the toilet. I entered anyway, knowing that the movie was still running and not many ladies would be using the toilet at the time.
“Hamzal?” I called. No one responded.
I walked towards the cubicles. All of them were closed. Slowly, I walked past each of them, watching the ground below for a shadow. I found him in the cubicle tucked away in the far end of the toilet. Opening the door, I saw Hamzal’s back facing me as he was engrossed in something.
Unlike most modern toilets with sitting cistern, the old cinema still had the old-fashioned kinds that were sunk into the ground. As I looked in between his legs, I could make out a bloody form of a foetus floating in the bloody water. It seemed to be moving.
“Hamzal?” I called again, alarmed.
Slowly, he turned around.
I was stunned. One side of Hamzal’s face was bloody. What shocked me was not his disfigured face. There was a bloody hole in his chest. His eyes were glazed as he reached a bloody hand to grab me.
I was horrified and gave off a loud scream. Instinctively, I stepped back, and turned to run. I ran with all my might, but never seemed to be able to reach the other end. To my horror, the row of cubicles seemed to stretch forever. I ran past one after another but never got to the other end of the toilet.
I glanced behind me, and caught a glimpse of Hamzal, running after me. In the dead silence of the toilet, I could hear his rugged breathing. I was terrified, and prayed to Allah for his protection, asking him to save me.
It seemed that my prayers were answered when suddenly, the door at the other end slammed open. Hamzal entered and starred at me. Not quite believing my eyes, I spun around, and saw Hamzal again, charging at me. I screamed in terror, as this was too much for me, and the world around me went dark.
When I came to, Hamzal was looking at me. The previous events came back to me and I gave a yelp, getting away from him as far as possible. I looked around me, we were out of the ladies room.
“So I see you have met my twin brother?” Hamzal said sadly.
“That was your twin brother?” I looked at Hamzal incredulous.
“How did you get me out of the toilet?” I looked at Hamzal. Despite my doubts, I found myself wanting to believe him.
“I was wearing an amulet.” He showed me a small metal cylinder that was hanging around his neck. “My mother had obtained this from a bomoh shortly after my brother was killed. She made me wear this at all times while working here.”
Hamzal told me that his brother was killed in the ladies mysteriously a few years ago. They were working together as night watchmen then.
On a Friday the thirteenth, a lady had given birth to a deformed foetus after she had slipped in the toilet. Although the mother survived, the foetus died soon after leaving her mother.
Since then, baby cries could be heard from the toilet every Friday the thirthteenth. Hamzal and his brother Hamid would go into the toilet to check. They found nothing.
On one Friday the thirteenth, Hamzal was sick and he stayed home. Hamid had to work alone that night. Something happened to him then. Some people mentioned about hearing screams from the toilet.
The next day, Hamid was found dead in the toilet. He was lying facedown in a pool of blood. Hamzal knew his brother had died horribly, but the cinema management had requested for the details to be left out of the news report. They had also refused to tell him the details. Hamzal never knew what actually happened to his brother. From then onwards, the management had closed the ladies room on every Friday the thirteenth.
I looked at Hamzal in shock, as the realisation that I had almost joined his brother and the deformed foetus dawned on me. The next day, I tendered my resignation to the hotel management, and had been working in a fast food restaurant ever since.