Quiet Is Not Always Good

Story retold by Ms Lee Chooi Peng. Original story from a Chinese radio programme in Malaysia.
Rewritten by Will Ong.

In an old town on the central region of Malaysia, there is a pre-war building which was initially the residence of some rich merchant. However, it was unoccupied for a period of time. Later, the local council took over it and opened it up for the use of the local community, particularly for the students to study.

The building was situated a few kilometres off the middle of the town and was near the countryside. There are no houses nearby and there is only a bike path that leads to the house from the main road. Hence, it is very quiet and quite deserted. Nevertheless, for the local students, it is the perfect place to study -- away from the noises of the town and disturbances of family members.

For many years, Jay, Ken, May and Lynn have been going to that building to study. They like that place very much and never had any bad experience with the place, except for the fact that it is not easily accessible. Hence, they usually go there at night after the library in the town is closed.

One year, as the exam is approaching, they go to that building to study as usual. They got there in their motorcycles after dinner at about 7:30pm. There were quite a number of students studying there by the time they arrived. However, by 11:00pm most have left.

Not long after that, only the four of them were left at that place. Lynn was feeling rather tired by then and so she suggested that they go home. However, the caretaker, whom they know very well, had been away for supper and had not returned. Jay suggested that they should wait for the caretaker to come back before they left. Since they always stay at the building until the closing time at midnight, and it would not be nice to leave the building empty, nobody objected Jay's suggestion.

Suddenly, there was a black-out. They were shocked by the sudden black-out and felt helpless as they don't know if there were any candles in that building. Furthermore, the caretaker wasn't around. They decided to sit still and hope that the caretaker would be back very soon. "It's near midnight anyway," said May. "Pak Mat should be back in no time."

After a while, they started hearing some dogs barking. The barks became wilder and wilder. The four of them started to get scared. Jay suggested that they should go and search for some candles. Lynn and May was not very keen of the idea. They suggested the guys should do it instead while they wait in the room they were at.

"There is no way I am going to wander around this building in the dark," Ken refused. Meanwhile the barking continue outside and soon, the barking became more like crying and howling.

"Somebody suggest something then!" said Jay, petrified.

"I'll search for the candles," said a lady out of no where. All the four of them could not recognise the voice and as far as they know, everybody else had left the building minutes ago. They were getting even more frightened but everyone was speechless then.

"Don't be afraid," said that lady again. Her voice sunk deep into the stillness of the room and it sent a chill down they spine.

Ken decided to grab his friends and dashed out of the building immediately. However to his horror, he got hold of something very cold and thin. It was so cold it could not be a human being. He was so shocked he screamed out loudly, and cried, "Runnnn!!!!!!"

He dashed out of the building as fast as he can while all his friends followed behind. As they were rushing to their motorcycles, they could hear loud laughter and giggles from the inside of the building. They hop onto their motorcycles and without their helmets, which were left inside the building, they rushed back into the town.