After reading loads and loads of ghost stories, I've decided to tell you a story which happened to me in 1995, while I was living in Sabah. It was quite an experience to me, as I've never seen anything like it before.

As my dad was a policeman, we got to travel a lot around Sabah. One day, we went to Kota Belud, a small, cowboy-like town in Sabah. We were having a great time as it was indeed a beautiful place. Nevertheless, our wonderful experience there were shattered by an incident that happened to me just before we left Kota Belud.

Before arriving, my dad already warned my brothers and I to recite some verse from the Quran and to say "Bismillah" each time we were about to do anything while we were at Kota Belud. I thought his direction was a bit strange, but we just obeyed anyway. Furthermore we were still young and have been taught well not to question the elders unnecessarily.

On that fateful day, my dad brought us to a restaurant for lunch before we go home. As we sat down, I noticed an old man was staring at us. The strange thing was he looked at us with a straight face and eyes that gave me the creeps. I noticed he didn't even blink his eyes once. After a while, that old man smiled at me, and to my horror, his face slowly changed! Then, there it was, a gory looking thing, with sharp fangs on his mouth and blood all over his face. I was petrified but I was still staring at him. I couldn't move a muscle and I just sat there numbed. The old man then slowly stood up and walked towards me. However, he disappeared into thin air after a few steps.

I gathered back my senses and turned around. I started crying uncontrollably and told my father what I had just witnessed. My dad, appearing calm, immediately ordered us to get into the car, and took off. He drove so fast I was afraid we might skidded off the road. However, I was still in a state of shock and would rather prefer to reach home sooner.

Once we got home, my dad asked my brothers to go to their bedrooms, while he took me out to see an old lady friend of his. She was supposed to be pawang, a traditional witchcraft doctor. She told us that the 'thing' was sent as a warning to my dad, telling him to leave his position and to go back to Peninsular Malaysia. Apparently, there was a man who wanted his job for a long time and was so frustrated when my dad got the job on a transfer from Peninsular Malaysia. I wasn't even supposed to see the 'thing', but strangely, I did. My dad then told us why he was speeding all the home home earlier. He said, through his rear view mirror, he saw a headless man chasing after us trying to jump onto the car. He thought the best way to lose it was to drive as fast as he could! The pawang said the 'thing' wanted to follow us home, in order to get to me, who saw it at the restaurant earlier that day.

I was scared to my wits, I didn't make it to school the next day. When I told my friends about it, they said that Kota Belud was indeed famous for being the 'darkest' area in the whole of Sabah. They said that they should have warned me before going. Now, I would appreciate it if someone could verify this.

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Owl's Ghost Stories © 2000 by Will Ong Email: penangowl@geocities.com