“Traffic is still slowly crawling on the Tuas Link back to Johor-”
Samuel Tang turned the radio off immediately. He did not need any more reminders of the soul-sucking, blood-curdling, hair-rising hell of a traffic congestion on his way back from Singapore. Samuel, a man of short temper, had enough of the nonsense. He cursed everything and everyone as he drove—the road, the sign, the rock on the road, the Ministry of Traffic Congestions (if there was one), the border police, the motorist that gave him the middle finger earlier that night, and the sky, for suddenly pouring rain when tears of the frustrated victims of the horrendous traffic tie-up had already been shed.
See, he was a workaholic in his mid-thirties, and on the one day he finally decided to take the day off to visit his dearest aunt living in Singapore, the heavens thought it’d be a splendid day to bless him with a two hour long traffic congestion. So he was frustrated, and rightfully so. His only consolation was the fact that he at least had a good time with his aunt (even though the food was a little more on the pricier side). According to his calculations, he could have been home in another half an hour at approximately half past nine. However, due to delays—for the lack of a better word—his estimation was given a generous extension of two more hours. To make things worse, his navigation application kept malfunctioning and recalculating routes. The roads, landmarks and sceneries of Kuala Lumpur were by no means anywhere similar to those in Johor—at least the part where he was driving in, which did not seem to host any kind of civilisation. It was peculiar. He swore he drove through towns and past towers in the same state when he was driving towards the Tuas Link earlier that day. So, why were they replaced by endless rows of trees on his way back?
Trees, trees, trees.
Samuel only saw endless rows of trees in the midst of the pouring rain. To make things worse, many of the street lights were not working. Usually, he would scold his supposedly clueless colleagues for being “lost” in their work, but he did not have the dignity to scold himself for being truly lost that night. He must have been driving past plantations… or in plantations. He was not sure. He kept turning left and right, right and left, then right again as he followed the directions displayed on his phone. His anxiety heightened as he saw the arrow on his gas meter point towards the last line before the letter “E”. He frantically searched up the nearest hostel without much thought and keyed it into his GPS. It was getting late anyway, and he needed some help, and some good rest. He sighed as he thought of the letter he’d have to send to his higher ups requesting another day for leave. There goes my dreams of becoming CEO, he thought. There goes my stupid uptight good impression.
As he was overthinking the consequences of his sinful-by-work-standards actions, he suddenly noticed his gas meter blinking in a frenzy, urging him to fill up his damn tank. By the 14th blink (he counted), the rain suddenly stopped. He drove his car slowly to the side and decided to call for help. As he got out of his car to breathe in the fresh night air, he noticed how unusually misty the area was. Maybe it was because of the trees? Nevertheless, he started walking around the area to find an area with good signal so that he could make an emergency call—yet nowhere worked. He was about to give up until his feet knocked on something sturdy and metallic with a loud “thud”. He cursed at the unknown object for hurting his precious feet until he realised something—he was perhaps standing somewhere with something.
A petrol station?
No, a gas pump.
A lone gas pump.
The mist cleared up immediately once he took notice of the gas pump. It was an old gas pump—it had no brand name plastered on it like an attention-seeking gold medal. It had no colour, no design. It was a plain, old vintage gas pump that stood by itself in the middle of a palm tree plantation. Samuel thought it was odd for it to be here, considering there are no other cars on the road than himself. He theorised that maybe, just maybe, this was once a busy road, but was shut off, and he somehow landed himself there while getting lost. Regardless of the reason for its being there, he thought of only one thing—this lone gas pump could be the miracle he needed to get himself out of this horrible nightmare. He picked up the nozzle and walked back towards his car, and hoped that the hose would be long enough—and interestingly, it was. He was a little too tired to think of how it magically expanded, but he did not care—this could be his only solution. He stood there, as if he was frozen by the absurdity of his situation, as he waited for his car to be fueled. After a good four minutes passed by, he decided it was time to place the nozzle back to where it came from. He walked back sluggishly to his car and slammed the door shut, and started his engine. He glanced at the gas meter, and its arrow was pointing at an “F”! It worked, somehow, and he did not pay a single cent.
Perhaps he was a lucky man.
Perhaps it was a technical error that benefitted him.
Perhaps whoever was up there took pity on his fortune and blessed him.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
Despite feeling drained by the events of the day, Samuel decided that he had to trek back on his journey to the nearest possible hostel using his GPS. He drove on, and on. He kept turning left and right, right and left, then right again as he followed the directions displayed on his screen. Where was he even going? Why wouldn’t the trees end? Surely there must have been a place with some sign of civilization nearby. The rain had stopped, but the fog grew thicker. In Samuel’s mind, he thought that his vision probably lost focus and became blurred by his fatigue, which could logically explain why he was seeing thick fog everywhere—fog thicker than usual for Malaysian land. Sure, it was forested with plantation trees, but the fog seemed abnormal… Samuel couldn’t place his finger on it.
After another hour of turning left and right, and right and left, and right again, he noticed that his fuel never seemed to drain at all. On top of that, he was still unable to reach the destination he so longed for at the moment. He glanced to his right and noticed another lone gas pump on the side of the road. Another hour, another gas pump. Another hour, another gas pump. That was when it hit him—he was going around in circles. As he slammed on the brakes to stop next to the lone gas pump, his phone battery died at the same time. It was at that moment he realised what a mess of a situation he was in. It was nearly three in the morning and he still had not gotten any rest. He was tired, alone, and afraid.
His gut feelings however, told him to drive on straight instead of turning like his GPS told him to do so. So he did. He pressed on his pedals once more and drove straight. The road in front of him seemed to create itself, but it probably seemed that way due to the darkness of his surroundings, and how he had to rely on his headlights the entire drive. He kept driving on, and on, and on, and on.
Then finally, he saw some signboards. They were covered in moss and dirt, but he did not care. He finally saw one that broke the chain of dirty, old signboards—one in a big, bold sans-serif font that said, “Population: 1003”. Unlike the other signboards, it looked new and clean. There certainly must have been people nearby! He drove on until he saw rows of billboards scattered about. Some were empty, some had dated graphics of old products on them. Samuel was too tired to care. He just wanted a place where he could get help. He powered through his tiring drive until he reached a town. An old town, to be precise, filled with rows upon rows of vintage shophouses. He decided to pull over a random restaurant which had lights turned on, but he was not able to. He kept steering his wheel left to turn to the side, but his car acted like it had a mind of its own. It kept driving onwards by itself.
Samuel started to panic and finally snapped out of his mental period of daze and sluggish haze. Was his car controlling him this entire time? Where was he?
How did he even end up in that old town again—or rather, ghost town. There were no people there. He only saw glimpses of white smoke floating across the shops, like apparitions gliding through the town. He looked at the time.
It was 3AM sharp.
He felt a chill behind him.
It raised goosebumps on his skin.
He knew something was terribly wrong.
It was the haunting hour.
Just then, he heard his car door slam shut behind him—but it was never open, was it? Then he heard a creak, and a click of a safety belt.
“Don’t look back.”
A deep voice belonging to an old man called out.
“Don’t look back.”
Samuel, thinking he was smart, glanced at his rearview mirror. There was a senile man in his back seat. He had irises as white as his hair, and skin as pale as a heap of ashes. He donned a rather dated button-up shirt with flower prints. It would have been a nice outfit, if it weren’t for the dark stains sprawled throughout the shirt. He looked like he came from a bygone era, stuck in a time capsule. He smelt of rotten bugs, musty bookshelves, and everything unpleasant.
“You saw me!” the pale old man suddenly yelled. Samuel was frozen in his seat.
“You saw me!” the irate old man exclaimed once more, this time with more anger, with more spite.
He yelled the same phrase over and over, and let out a piercing shriek.
His car stopped. The ghosts on the street stopped. They started to take a clearer form – there were people of all ages with various bruises, burns and injuries. They were the souls of those who had a painful death. Their eyes shone yellow as the old man’s shrieks grew more violent. Their heads turned towards Samuel simultaneously, and they all glided towards his car. Samuel tried to get out of his car, but it had locked him in. He tried to break his windows, but they felt too hot for him to punch through. He was trapped.
The old man kept shrieking, and shrieking, calling the ghostly townsfolk to come over quickly. So they did. As he shrieked louder, Samuel felt his car heating up. Just as Samuel started sweating profusely from the scorching heat, the seats at the back caught on fire. The old man became engulfed in flames. He started convulsing and shouting in pain. Samuel was mortified at the sight of the old man’s translucent, ghostly skin flaking off like ashes in the wind. And just like that, the old man disappeared.
Samuel felt his arms burning up. He looked at his own arms and noticed that they were flaking the same way. He writhed in pain as the ghostly flames claimed him whole. The townsfolk gathered around the car and formed a crowd comparable to a colony of ants swarming over a shard of broken candy. Their voices yelled out in pleasure, in greed, in gluttony, as Samuel cried out for help in pain, and in vain. He cried, and cried, and cried, until his voice was eventually drowned out by the tortured souls of the unknown ghost town.
Then, there was silence.
Hours passed, and the sun came up.
The fog cleared, and the town disappeared.
Somewhere, the signboard now displayed, “Population: 1004”.
“We should never have come here, with flesh so soft, and hearts so unwise, but like tigers in tall tall grass, like Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, we sucked in our fear and came here. Now all the atrocities are replayed, like a late late show. We came here but we never should have stayed.” – James O’ Barr (The Crow)
Written By: Julia
