Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. So I thought I’d share a spooky story I heard as a child growing up in Malaysia. Horror stories are not my forte but here goes.
Listen carefully. What I am about to tell you really happened to my aunt’s neighbor.
My aunt lives in a rural part of an area in the island of Penang. It’s a picturesque little village beside the sea laden with coconut trees lining the pristine white beaches.
The wooden houses with its own picket fences and huge vegetable patches in the backyard. The gardens overgrown with lush banana trees, mango trees and sugar canes; a gift from the high humidity only a paradise can offer.
My aunt’s neighbor was a middle-aged man with a wife and three teenage sons. David took pride in his sons. The youngest Mike was a feisty, little fellow.
Mike, as with all young teenage boys his age was a wanderer and an explorer. He spent much of his time in the vegetable garden behind his house climbing the trees and collecting insects. If he were not on land he would be either swimming in the ocean, collecting seashells or teasing the wakes.
One faithful day, Mike decided to test a new Swiss Army knife he has gotten for his 11th birthday. His victim, a matured banana tree with a flower spike at the end of its’ huge banana stem.
With his Swiss knife, Mike started to slash the banana tree’s trunk. Pretty soon the banana tree was reduced to a mere pulp.
That evening Mike washed up, had his dinner, took his bath and went to bed.
What happened that night would scar him for the rest of his life and change his family, forever.
At the stroke of midnight, Mike’s dad awoke to his son’s demonic screams.
“Get off me, get off me. Let me go. Let me go. I didn’t know.” Screamed Mike.
His body turned from side to side.
David could not wake Mike up at all.
The ordeal went on until the wee hours of the morning.
The night tremors continued.
Each night, like watching a rerun of a horror movie David watched helplessly as his son screamed and yelled as though he was pushing someone or something off his body.
After seven days Mike told his dad a chilling story. “In my dreams I see a woman with a baby in her stomach. She has long black hair. She says I destroyed her home and her baby. She says she lived in our backyard. She says I killed her and her baby. She is covered in blood. She is angry with me. She says she will kill me as I killed her baby. She says she will shred me to pieces.”
“Will you show me where she lived?” said David.
Mike took his dad’s hand into the garden and pointed to the now mangled banana tree stump.
David’s sigh was so hard that the other boys in the house heard him.
“Go back into the house.” said David to Mike. Mike watched quietly from inside his house as his dad knelt down before the banana tree. He sat there for a very long time.
Just before sundown David entered the house. He showered and had a fine dinner with his family. He told Mike to eat up because he was going to need his energy for school the next day.
“You will sleep well tonight my son”, said David.
That night Mike the eleven year old slept like a baby.
In the next room Mike’s two brothers watched in horror as their father yelled and screamed. In the faint shadow of the kerosene lamp they could have sworn they saw a bloody long black haired entity cradling something … hugging their father.
As the sun rose the next morning David stopped screaming for the very last time. His promise to the banana tree entity fulfilled.
A life repaid with a life…
The moral of the story is, kids don’t go destroying trees in your neighborhood. You don’t know who might be living in there.
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