No one is allowed to travel on the road after sundown!!

No one is allowed to travel on the road after sundown!!

Growing up, I knew that something was off about my childhood town. For one, there was a list of unwritten, but mutually understood, ‘rules’ that we had to observe. These rules, in all honesty, were pretty much just cultural taboos passed down from the older generation—things like not leaving the rice bucket empty (as it is a sign of being poor) and avoid shaking one’s legs when sitting down (as it symbolises shaking off good fortune), to name a few. Some of the rules were definitely a little on the creepy side though, like never hanging out clothes to dry overnight (because ‘dirty’ stuff may be attracted to them). But there was one particular rule that had always struck me as…odd, I guess.

The rule was simple and straightforward: no one is allowed to travel on the road after sundown. It didn’t specify which road, but everyone generally took it to mean the twisting, narrow two-lane road that led down the hill to the nearest city thirty miles away. It was the only connection between the town and the city, so during the day it would often become congested; the more experienced drivers, my father being one of them, would rush to the city and back in the final hours before sunset when the road was less crowded. But no matter what, once night fell, no one drove on the road—not even my father, who’d rather sleep uncomfortably in his car overnight than to attempt the return trip home.

One time, I asked him about the rule out of curiosity. He remained strangely quiet for a while before saying, “there are no street lights along the entire stretch of road, so it is dangerous to drive at night.”

I could tell from his eyes that he was hiding something else, so I tried pushing the question a little further. “Papa, why don’t you just drive with the headlights on?”

But my father simply shook his head. “It’s too dangerous even with the headlights, Hui. When you become older and learn how to drive, you’ll know why the road is so dangerous.”

I did grow older, but I never bothered learning how to drive, since my older brother already had a driver’s licence and ‘inherited’ our family car. Unlike the rest of us, however, he never really cared about the rules since young—and much less the “stupid driving ban”, as he called it. My father caught him sneaking out of the house to drive late at night on more than one occasion, and it only got worse when he started dating a girl from the city. At some point, he just gave up and told my brother (in the sternest tone I had ever heard from my father) not to call home if he gets into any sort of trouble.

My brother, of course, was over the moon. He loved to brag about how wonderful and freeing it was to speed along an empty road without a care in the world, and even persuaded me to go together with him a few times. I refused each time, though it would be a lie to say that I wasn’t envious of him.

But soon, my father’s warning became a bizarre reality that I’m sure none of us would ever forget.

It all started when my brother told us that he was going to bring his girlfriend over to our house after she had knocked off work at 7 PM. My father didn’t say anything, but my mother uncharacteristically voiced out her concern. “Son, it’s best to let her visit during the day.”

“Don’t worry, Ma, she’ll be staying overnight in my room,” he said with a nonchalant wave of his hand.

“Can is can, but not today…”

“She won’t be free till next weekend, Ma. It’s alright lah.”

It was too obvious what my brother had in mind; I could only admire his tenacity as he hopped into our Toyota and screeched off into the vanishing sunset.

Nothing seemed amiss at first, though my father and mother had a small argument in their bedroom that I couldn’t catch before going to sleep early. Meanwhile, I was lying awake on my bed, secretly waiting for the sound of my brother’s car to return so that I could sneak a glance at his mysterious girlfriend.

“There’s no way someone with his looks can land a pretty girl…” was probably the thought running in my head when my ears caught the unmistakable ring of the telephone. Well, to be exact, my next-door neighbour’s phone was the one ringing—not many people could afford a landline back then, especially outside the major cities. My family hence borrowed my neighbour Ismail’s phone whenever we needed to make or receive calls.

Soon after the shrill rings stopped, Ismail knocked on our door loudly calling for my father. But despite him being a light sleeper, I couldn’t hear the sound of my father getting out of bed to answer the door. I understood then that this was his way of teaching my brother a lesson. Ismail seemingly caught on to it too, because the knocks soon ceased and I heard him walking away from the door.

I hesitated, wondering if it was really okay to leave my brother to his own devices in god knows where, before poking my head out of my bedroom window which faced the road outside. “Abang, was it from Kuan?”

“Oh, you’re awake!” Ismail exclaimed, though there was a grim look in his eyes. “Yes, his car has broken down somewhere below the hill. I’m going down to see if I can help him out, are you coming along?”

I agreed without a second thought and got into the front passenger seat of his silver Kancil. Once we passed the last row of houses, it was as if the entire world had melted away—all I could see out of the windows was a thick, impenetrable fog of inky black. Ismail seemed unfazed, however.

“Abang, you haven’t turned on the headlights!” I said, panicking when I realised he was driving almost blindly at 60 kmj and increasing.

“No good,” he replied calmly in Melayu. “The noise is already disturbing enough, the lights will anger them.”

I didn’t dare to ask who exactly were we angering. We raced down the hill for what felt like an eternity in complete darkness, cornering so sharply at each twist and turn that the tiny hatchback seemed to skid on two wheels. It was only until we spotted two flashing amber lights in the distance that Ismail finally put his foot on the brake.

“That’s our car!” I pointed at the Toyota parked by the roadside with its hazard lights on.

“Yes, I see it,” Ismail muttered. “But I don’t see anyone in the driver’s seat.”

“Huh?” But sure enough, when we neared the stranded Toyota, my brother was nowhere to be found. Instead, a girl sat in the front passenger seat, visibly shaken but otherwise unhurt. She didnʼt seem to react to our presence when Ismail stopped beside the car and rolled down his window.

“You alright?” he shouted. When she didnʼt make a move, he pressed the horn until she finally turned her head towards us. I couldnʼt quite tell her facial expression because of how dark it was, but an inexplicable shudder ran down my spine when I felt her gaze on me.

“Are you here…to help?” she spoke in a bare whisper.

“Where is Kuan?” Ismail asked back, his voice becoming sharper all of a sudden. “Where did he go?”

Her hand slowly gestured towards the pitch-black road ahead of us.

Ismail paused for a moment before turning towards me. “You stay here with the girl. Iʼll go find Kuan on foot myself.”

“W-wait, abang?” By the time I fumbled with my seat belt and finally unbuckled it, he was long gone. The only saving grace was that he had left the key in the ignition, so I had the engine idling noise and the meagre light from the dashboard to accompany me in the dark. Well, there was also the girl, but something about her felt extremely…

“Hui, can you see them? There, behind your car.”

Her whispery voice startled me. I was about to question how in the world did she know my name, but curiosity got the better of me and I turned my head around to glance at the rear window.

At first, I wasnʼt sure what I was supposed to see. But then, the hazard lights from my brotherʼs car flashed—and for a split second, I caught something stretching across the width of the road. What the hell was that…?

The hazard lights flashed again.

And I could now make out the ‘something’ to be shadowy wisps floating in a single row.

My scream froze in my throat as the lights flashed once more, revealing six distinct humanoid figures standing shoulder to shoulder. And with every flash, the figures came closer,

and closer,

their ghostly appearances becoming clearer and more defined—

I was snapped out of my fright by a loud rap on the window. “Hui, hurry up and unlock the car door!”

I blinked, and the figures vanished as though they were never there to begin with. Somehow I managed to find the knob to release the door lock in the dark, and Ismail tossed my brotherʼs limp body into the backseat with a grunt.

I let out a gasp. “I-Is he okay??”

“He’ll live, but they played a pretty bad prank on your brother,” he said, settling into the driverʼs seat and starting the engine. “No choice but to leave your car here, so tell your parents to meet me in the morning. I can drive them down here to get the car back.”

“Okay…” I hesitated before gathering the courage to ask, “who are you talking about, abang?”

“Ah, right, you havenʼt been born yet when it happened,” he said quietly. “Long time ago, this road formed part of a highway that went all the way to the capital. A lot of vehicles from the north used this road to get there, and because of the many sharp turns, it was easy to lose control if you weren’t paying attention. Many accidents happened here as a result.”

“One night, a long-distance bus was travelling on this exact road with seven passengers, all high school students on a holiday trip to the capital. The driver was new to the road, and while overtaking another vehicle, he noticed that there was a bend ahead too late and couldn’t stop the bus in time.” He pointed at the road ahead absent-mindedly. “So he jumped out through the driver’s door, and the bus with the seven passengers crashed right down into a ravine. The ravine was too steep and deep to attempt a rescue, so in the end, everyone on the bus was presumed dead. The bus was never recovered, however, and to this day it’s rumoured that their bodies are still lying somewhere down there, waiting to be found.”

“That’s horrible…” I couldn’t help but shudder. “So just now, those figures must have been…”

“You saw them?” Ismail mumbled. “How many did you see?”

“H-huh, how many?” I said in surprise. “Er…six, I think.” Something clicked in my mind then, and I started. “Wait, one’s missing!”

“No,” he whispered as he stared at the rear view mirror. “The girl…”

I frantically turned to check on my brother in the backseat—but a hand shot out and stopped my head in place.

“Hui, no,” Ismail said in a low voice. “Don’t look.”

That was the first time I’ve ever seen true fear in someone else’s eyes.

Forcing my saliva down my suddenly dry throat, I sunk into my seat and lowered my gaze to the best of my ability. Ismail turned the car around and began the journey back. Yet this time, we were struggling to gain momentum uphill even in first gear. It felt like the car had become several times heavier than on our way down, and I was more than certain my scrawny and underweight brother wasn’t the cause of it.

“Abang, what should we do?” I muttered so softly that I thought he wouldn’t catch what I was saying.

“They won’t hurt us,” he answered, though his voice was strained. Then, he began murmuring something under his breath—some sort of prayer chant, if I were to guess. The car suddenly jerked from side to side at that very moment, as if something heavy was thrashing about in the backseat. It took every fibre in my being not to scream out loud in panic.

I swore I heard laughter from behind before the shaking abruptly stopped. Ismail didn’t waste another moment and slammed the pedal to the metal, sending the Kancil flying up the road at breakneck speed. If not for his driving experience, I wouldn’t doubt for a second that we would have long ended up in a ravine too. It was only when the lights of the town appeared in the distance that we finally slowed down, and when Ismail pulled up next to our house, my father was already waiting by the front door. The two men exchanged a knowing look, and after thanking Ismail for his help, my father effortlessly hoisted my brother out of the car and into our living room.

It wouldn’t be until the next day when my brother finally regained consciousness. Bizarrely, the last thing he remembered was the engine mysteriously dying on the way back home and him exiting the car to open up the hood. He couldn’t recall ever calling Ismail to ask for help—and I soon realised there was no way for him to make a call in the first place, since there were no payphones along the road. As for his girlfriend, apparently she had fallen ill and was forced to stay at home, so he didn’t manage to meet up with her at all that night.

Oddly enough, however, my brother has avoided driving on that particular road since then. It wasn’t until recently, when a new highway to the city that completely bypasses the old road was completed, that he suggested going on a night drive together out of the blue. I was so surprised that I agreed without a second thought; it wasn’t until I sat down in the front passenger seat that I suddenly remembered the incident from many years ago and it occurred to me just how strange my brother’s change of heart was.

“So, what’s up?” I asked him curiously. “What makes you want to drive at night again after so long?”

“Oh, I never stopped wanting to go on night drives,” he said nonchalantly. “It’s just that for the longest time, I keep on having the same nightmare about the old road, and it seriously makes me hate driving on that road to my very core.”

I laughed. “A nightmare?”

“Yeah, it’s honestly super weird,” he muttered. “It’s always the same bus going down the same stretch of road, and I always find myself in the driver’s seat no matter what I do.”

My smile faded.

“After overtaking a car in front, I must jump out to save myself or else I’ll die in a deep ravine. Man, the screams at the end are the worst, I swear. They never fail to wake me up in cold sweat…”