Tales From The Crypt ...

You know the saying, time flies when you're having fun? Well, let me tell you that it's absolutely true! I had a great weekend and before I even realized it, Monday just happened to come by so darn quick. You all know how I hate Mondays right? The only consolation is so far my Monday is moving along pretty well. But then, the day is still young and Monday could just ambush me a little later.

Anyways, let's not talk about Mondays. I'm a little free at the moment and thought I'd write about something I've been wanting to write for quite sometime but never got around to it cos it always slips my mind. But last night, I was watching this new local series (I think) called Front Page. It's about the happenings in a magazine publication house and last nights story was about the supernatural.

I didn't really finish watching the entire episode cos wifey didn't want to watch it as she was freaked out by it and me being the worlds biggest coward wasn't going to watch a show on the supernatural all on my own so I switched the TV off and headed to bed. But it did remind me that I wanted to write about the supernatural quite sometime back but kept forgetting about it.

I don't know if you all still remember a couple of months back, I wrote about my short childhood supernatural experiences when I was living in Port Dickson. Anyway here's a quick recap. I lived in this seaside town for a few years cos my dad was working there at the time. We were assigned government quarters to live in and to get to the quarters, we had to pass four different cemeteries belonging to four different religions. And our quarters was secluded deep inside this quiet area surrounded by a clump of secondary jungle.

Now back then, my family didn't own a car and taking the bus was our only means of transportation. My dad had a motorbike, a nice cool looking Vespa but he was at work most of time and would work at odd hours cos he was a fault finder for the National Electricity Board (now Tenaga Nasional) and if there was a breakdown (which happened quite a bit those days) he would be out for a long time.

So mostly my mom took care of everything around the house. And when we had to do shopping, we would need to walk out a long way pass this narrow road surrounded by a thick canopy of trees and we would have to pass all four cemeteries to get to the main road and wait for a bus. The walk out took us about 15 minutes or so. That was how deep inside the quarters were from the main road.

Now, the place wasn't all that spooky by day. It was nice and quiet and really serene since it was tucked away deep inside and away from the main roads. I even played in the cemeteries with the neighbour kids and wasn't even bothered by it. Back then, my cowardly streak hadn't materialized yet ... LOL!

But come night fall, the place would take a turn for the worse. We had no road lights along this narrow road and the place would take on an aura of spookiness. Just imagine the jungle around us coupled with the fact that we lived right opposite the Chinese cemetery (which was really no big deal) made the place seem like something out of a horror movie. Us kids were always warned about not playing outside later than 6 or 7pm and we were all in the house by 8pm.

In the early days of us staying there, my mom and me would go out shopping, visit my grandmother who was the caretaker of this beach bungalows a couple of miles away and come back way after the sun sets. Back then we'd buy things like meat and as much groceries as we could carry in the bus and the place was so dark that we had to use a torch light to walk along the narrow roads. I remember clinging to my mom in fright as we'd pass the cemeteries one by one. I remember looking straight ahead not daring to look left and right for fear of seeing a ghost or something.

At that time we didn't know certain things about buying meat and coming back late at night and passing a cemetery didn't go well together. As we were passing the Hindu cemetery, there was this very sweet smell which my mom told me to ignore and don't mention anything about it. The air physically chilled by a few degrees and we hurried along home as fast as we could.

Nothing untoward happened but when we reached home and mom was putting the stuff away, she discovered all the meat that she had bought turned black, like as if it had whatever blood in it sucked dry! It looked on the verge of being rotten. My mom was not too happy, she thought the meat seller sold us rotten meat. I know for a fact the meat looked fresh when we first bought it but then I was a little boy, so what do I know. Mom threw the meat away and thought nothing of it.

A week later, we went shopping again and came back a little late and just as we passed the Hindu graves, the same smell of sweetness permeated through the air again and the temperature dropped down a notch or two. Once again, we hurried along and once again mom discovered the meat was rotten and black. This time her curiosity was piqued. Buying rotten meat twice in a row couldn't be a coincidence. So she went over next door and showed the meat to one of our neighbours.

That was when we discovered that under no circumstances were we to buy meat and pass the cemetery at night, especially the Hindu one as there was news about this person who practiced black magic who died under mysterious circumstances and was buried there. And according to folklore, his soul is not at peace and he seeks vengeance for his death or something along those lines.

People have been known to have had bad things happen to them passing that particular cemetery at night like sharp objects being hurled at them, meat turning rotten, people not being able to find their way home even though the road to the quarters was in a straight line. And according to my neighbour almost everyone who had bad experiences there always smelt a sweet smelling scent and the temperature would drop considerably before bad things started to happen.

Our neighbour explained to my mom, that we were lucky nothing worse happened to us. The evil that lurked there was probably satisfied to indulge in the blood from the meat that we bought and didn't really bother us all that much. The neighbour said that if we had to buy meat, make sure we do it in the day time and not anytime after 6pm. But if we had to buy meat at night, make sure we had a sharp silver object like a knife with us cos it would keep the evil at bay.

But I don't think my mom wanted to try that theory out cos from that day onwards, all our shopping were done way before the sun went down. It's better to be safe than sorry. In fact, after that incident I don't recall us ever going out anywhere after 6pm. Besides, these days with low interest cards, shopping online would be a safer bet ... hehehe ... But it really was a spooky experience. I was around 3-4 years old that time and imagine having to walk along a narrow road with no streetlights and with cemeteries just by the road. The place was pitch dark, surrounded by an umbrella of thick leaves and trees, all kinds of sounds from the night in the background and the beam of our torchlight was all that we had to see by.

I was so happy when we left that godforsaken place when I was around 6 years old and moved back to the city. But I do wonder if the place still exists and if those cemeteries are still there and whether the evil and spookiness still exists. Port Dickson has gone through tremendous development changes that I wouldn't be at all surprised if they relocated the cemeteries and built some condominiums in its place. I'll bet the residents there would have some interesting tales to tell :D Maybe I'll visit the place one of these days ...
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