Spirits Abroad (ebook)

  "But not Bullet. Everybody else, seniors and juniors also — if they haven't talked to him, they've heard of him. And to us it's like he didn't exist until you got the necklace. What happened to that, by the way?"

  "I threw it in the Cam," said Belinda.

  "Thought you were going to give to Oxfam?"

  "I did," said Belinda. "It came back."

  "Did throwing it in the river work?"

  Belinda got up and opened the door to her sink. For reasons that were unclear to them, her sink was nestled inside a closet in her room.

  At the bottom of the sink lay the necklace, coiled around the drain like an evil, sparkling worm.

  "I threw it in the Cam on Thursday evening. Friday morning open the door to brush my teeth and here it is," said Belinda. "I haven't touch it since then."

  "Good move. It's probably all gross from the Cam," said Sham. "Who knows what goes in there. Drunk people puke and whatnot."

  Belinda shut the door on the sink. "What was the secret you were talking about?"

  "When I heard Alwyn Goh was at the same college as this mysterious Bullet, I thought why not give him a visit," said Sham. "Alwyn is a bit weird, you know? He hangs his matriculation photo over his bed."

  "How you know?"

  "Facebook, duh," said Sham. "May Ling is a serial self-photographer and she often uses Alwyn's room as a backdrop. Me and Alwyn had a very nice chat. He's a gentleman. Pretended he wasn't weirded out by my visit."

  "Yah, have you even talked to him since first year?" said Belinda.

  "I asked to pinjam his notes on Professor Delmann's supervision. That was my excuse for the visit," said Sham. "But I'm obviously smarter than him, so it's not like it was a very good excuse."

  "What did you find out?"

  "From his notes? Nothing," said Sham. "That guy's heading for a 2:2 if he doesn't buck up. But it was still useful to see them. You know I like to keep an eye on the competition."

  Belinda huffed; the word 'kiasu' hung in the air. Sham ignored it.

  "Plus I found out Bullet Sri Kaya wasn't in their college's matriculation photo," she said.

  "What does that mean?" said Belinda.

  "Doesn't mean anything," said Sham. "He could have been sick, or late, or forgot. But it makes you wonder, right? So I went to their college's admin office and asked about Bullet Sri Kaya. He's not registered as a student there."

  "Maybe you got the name wrong?" said Belinda. "How can he not be a student? Alwyn and May Ling know him."

  "I'm not sure anybody knows him," said Sham.

  Belinda sighed. "My mother always says, one day I'll be old and I'll miss having all these boys chase after me."

  "It's OK to be angry," said Sham. "You didn't ask for this also."

  Belinda was blinking rapidly.

  "I'm not angry, though," she said. "I'm scared."

  "That's OK also," said Sham. "I got enough anger to cover two people. I can borrow you some."

  Belinda smiled in a crinkly fragile way, a crêpe paper smile. She shook herself like a dog after a bath and got up.

  "One more try and then I'll make dinner," she said. "You don't mind waiting?"

  "What are you looking for anyway?"

  "Malaysia Night T-shirt," said Belinda. "You know I'm helping backstage, and Jin wants the crew to wear the official T-shirt."

  To forestall Sham saying something pointed about Jin's ego, Belinda hurried on: "The T-shirt design is really nice actually. It's off-white with hearts on the top here, near the shoulder. Quite stylo. But I don't know where it went. Are you very hungry?"

  "I can wait," said Sham graciously.

  The next time Sham saw Belinda she knew something had happened. Would it never stop? Did Bullet Sri Kaya not have anything to do besides stalk girls? Did he not have supervisions to keep up with and lectures to nap through, like everybody else?

  "What's the matter?"

  "You're wrong about Bullet," said Belinda. "He's definitely a student. Maybe May Ling got it wrong. Must be Bullet's at a different college from Alwyn."

  "Why?"

  "He emailed me and he's got a Cambridge address," said Belinda. "You know that T-shirt I lost? He said I forgot to take it when the Malaysia Night committee was handing them out. So he took it. But he no chance to pass to me, so he put it in my pigeonhole."

  Sham took the T-shirt from her.

  "I didn't forget," said Belinda with quiet certainty. "I took it from Chia Wen and came home and put it in the drawer. I remember I put it just on top of my Hello Kitty T-shirt — what, what?"

  "Ugh!" Sham dropped the T-shirt. "It's—"

  The T-shirt unfolded to show a great stain across the front.

  "Oh," said Belinda, sounding like she was going to cry. But Sham snatched the T-shirt up and rubbed her finger on the stain.

  "No, it's OK! Don't stress! It's oil only. Look." She sniffed her finger. "Smells familiar — oh, it's palm oil. That's all it is."

  "OK," said Belinda. She sat down shakily. "OK."

  "All it needs is some detergent," said Sham. "We should get our minds out of the gutter."

  Belinda tried to smile. "Is he still posting pictures on Facebook?"

  Sham nodded. She was tracking the impossible pictures Bullet put up of Belinda, and taking screenshots so they had a record.

  "What do you want to do, Belinda?"

  Belinda held up her hands and shrugged, a little despairing movement of the shoulders. "What's there to do?" her shoulders said.

  "If he's really a student, we can report him to the uni," said Sham.

  "Do you think that'll work?" Belinda was trying to sound normal, but her breath was coming in funny hitching gasps, and her nose was turning red. "Will that make him stop?"

  Sham was not by rule a toucher, but she put her arm around Belinda. Belinda's thin shoulders jerked under her arm.

  "I should —" said Belinda. "I should have —"

  "Should have what?" said Sham. "Calm down."

  "I should have said yes to somebody," gulped Belinda. "One of the eleven boys. I should have said I'd go out with one of them. B-but I didn't like them that way. I d-d-didn't ask them to like me also."

  "Who said you did?"

  "Feels like I'm being punished," sobbed Belinda. "Because I didn't say yes to any of them. Bullet was sent to punish me."

  "This is what comes of being religious," Sham told her. "You all think everything that happens is because God wants to teach you something or other. Sometimes things just happen lah."

  "Who is Bullet, then?" said Belinda. "How come he can do all this thing — the necklace and the photos? What is he? You don't know!"

  "You think I don't know?" snapped Sham.

  She didn't, she hadn't a clue. But if Belinda was scared, then somebody had to be angry for her. If Belinda didn't understand what was happening, Sham would pretend she did.

  "He's an asshole, that's what he is," said Sham, and as she was saying it her eyes fell on the T-shirt. The grease stain on it made her mind suddenly light up.

  Sham was desperate. She would never have believed what she was thinking at any other time. The fact that she turned out to be right she could only ascribe, later, to Divine Providence: Belinda's God stepping in and helping out for once.

  "And he's something else also," said Sham.

  The next day she persuaded Alwyn to let her into his college's computer room. She checked all the computers and found nothing.

  She refused to feel foolish. She had to try everything.

  "You all only have one computer room?" she said.

  "Yah," said Alwyn. "Eh, no — actually there's another one at T staircase. Nobody really uses it. Why?"

  "The printer here is not working," lied Sham. "We better go to the other one."

  The second computer room was in the basement. Small and windowless, it might as well have been a converted dungeon for all its cheeriness and warmth. The computer she was looking for was in an especially dark corner of the room.

/>   Of course this was where he'd have done it. The perfect den for the perfect stalker.

  "Shamini," said Alwyn, as Sham bent over the keyboard. He looked awkward. "Look, I know this is going to sound kind of perasan. But I really like May Ling. I mean, we're pretty serious. And I think you're a nice girl, but —"

  "But you always thought I was a lesbian," Sham finished. She stood up. "Don't worry, Alwyn. I'm not trying to court you or what. Just trying to find out something."

  Alwyn's mouth was open. "Are you?"

  "Yah. I might make it my fallback if the scientist thing doesn't work out," said Sham. "Become PI instead."

  "No, I mean, are you really, um, a lesbian?" said Alwyn.

  "Oh, that," said Sham. "Yah, but didn't you know already?"

  "Everybody says, but —" Alwyn clamped his mouth shut. Even his pimples looked embarrassed.

  Sham took pity on him.

  "Thanks, Alwyn," she said. "You've been very helpful. I won't waste any more of your time."

  Sham's chance landed in her lap.

  "Rohan and Wei Na want me to come for dinner on Friday," said Belinda.

  They were meant to be going to a play on Friday. Belinda's New Year resolution had been to make an effort to keep up with the local drama scene. ("What if the next John Cleese is here, right now, and we miss him?" said Belinda. "We missed the last John Cleese and we're doing OK," said Sham.)

  But Sham didn't mind tagging along. Belinda went in for Beckett and Brecht; Sham preferred musicals.

  "Tell them we're going for the Narnia musical," said Sham.

  "I did, but they insisted. I told them if we came we'll be late, and they said never mind, they'll wait for us to eat." Belinda paused. "I'm scared Bullet's going to be there."

  "Did they say he's coming?"

  "No-o. But Rohan said, 'If you don't come, the cook will be very disappointed.' It was just the way he look at me. He and Bullet suppose to be super close, right, you said?" Belinda flushed. "I'm becoming really paranoid."

  "It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you," said Sham absently. "Belinda. If Bullet's gonna be there, you have to go."

  "Why?"

  "Because you have to tell him no to his face," said Sham. "I tell you, that's the only way to get rid of this kind of guy."

  Belinda's mouth twisted. "What if it doesn't work?"

  "You try first. If it doesn't work, I'll get rid of him some other way," said Sham. "Tell them we're coming."

  Dinner did not get off to a promising start. Rohan dropped a pan of vegetables on the floor when he saw Sham.

  "Shit! Where's Belinda?" he said.

  "Your carpet is burning," Sham said to Wei Na, whose room it was.

  "Rohan!" wailed Wei Na.

  "That's gonna cost you," Sham observed, enjoying a pleasant sense of schadenfreude. "My college fine me £50 once just because I leave an electric fan in the room outside term-time. Burnt carpet will probably cost a million."

  "Where's Belinda?" said Rohan. "Shit! You weren't even invited, and now Belinda's not here pulak—"

  "She just went toilet," said Sham. "But sorry, I interrupted. You were saying how you didn't invite me?"

  "Ignore Rohan. He's so stressed about this veg he doesn't know what he's saying," said Wei Na smoothly.

  Rohan grasped at the excuse. "Yah, I burnt the cabbage."

  "Don't worry," said Wei Na. "That's the only thing he made. The other things not he cook one."

  "Oh right?" said Sham. "You cooked the rest, is it?"

  Wei Na had the grace to look uncomfortable.

  "No, no," she said. "We got an actual good cook to make. You'll see in a minute. Er — I'll go get the rice cooker from the kitchen."

  "There's someone else coming for dinner?" said Sham to Rohan. "Thought you all only."

  Rohan's eyes slid over her.

  "Got another friend," he mumbled.

  Sham felt a draft. The door shut behind her. Rohan's face brightened.

  "Belinda! Sit down," he said. "How was the show? Good thing you came, man. I'm starving!"

  "Sorry," said Belinda. "You all didn't have to wait."

  "Have to wait," said a deep voice. Not Wei Na's voice. Not the voice of anyone they knew. "You're the whole reason we're here."

  Sham turned around and saw the creature that called itself Bullet Sri Kaya.

  It was shaped like a man. Not a bad-looking man, with curly hair and skin a few shades lighter than Sham's. He would have looked human if not for two things.

  His whole body was covered with a thin layer of grease. His skin glowed. A buttery film submerged his eyes. Oil shone in the part in his hair. As he walked across the room towards Belinda, the grease marked dark footprints on the carpet.

  The other thing was that he was nude.

  Sham caught his arm before he could get to Belinda where she sat petrified. The flesh was slippery and horribly warm, the texture more like plastic than human skin. Sham was shuddering, but she forced herself to grasp his wrist and pull him down to the floor next to her.

  "Come, sit here," she said brightly. "Tell me about yourself. I've heard so much about you."

  "Can't believe you all haven't met Bullet before," said Wei Na, coming into the room with the rice cooker. "He's everywhere!"

  "Seems like it," said Sham. The muscles in Bullet's arm were moving as if they each had a mind of their own, pushing against her hand. She bared her teeth at the thing.

  "I didn't know UK also got things like you," she said.

  "You know what I am," said Bullet. His blank eyes swiveled around to Belinda. "You also, darling?"

  Belinda looked like she was going to throw up.

  "Orang minyak," said Sham. She was so terrified she could barely hear what she was saying, but she kept talking to distract him. "The saddest ghost. The most loserish hantu. At least give us hantu tetek lah. Even that is more scary."

  Bullet ignored her. His eyes were fixed on Belinda.

  "Don't worry," he said. There was something funny about the timbre of his voice. If you closed your eyes, you couldn't tell where in the room it was coming from. It seemed to well from the walls and seep into the spaces inside your head.

  "You can see me now," said Bullet to Belinda. "But not for long. When I touch your eyes, you will forget. I will look like a human to you. Like they all—they don't see anything funny."

  Rohan and Wei Na were moving around the room with plates of curry and vegetables and rice. They seemed oblivious to the conversation.

  "They have oil in their eyes and ears, but it didn't hurt them," said Bullet. "They're very happy. You don't have to be scared."

  Sham let go of Bullet and got up. He didn't seem to notice.

  "You can be happy too," said Bullet. "We can be together, darling. I came all the way here for you."

  "One thing only I want to know," said Sham. She took a bottle out of her bag and twisted the cap off carefully, to avoid any liquid splashing out. "How did you find Belinda?"

  "Facebook," said Bullet. "She is the sixteenth most beautiful girl I ever saw."

  "All the hantu are online now eh," said Sham.

  "I bought my flight here online also," said Bullet. "AirAsia X sale. Very cheap only."

  "And what happened to the first fifteen most beautiful girls?" said Sham.

  Bullet smiled. Even his teeth were oily. A shining bead of grease rolled out of his mouth and slid down his chin.

  "I found them," he said.

  Sham had to move quickly, but there was something to be done first. She said:

  "I think Belinda has something to say to you."

  Belinda's mouth worked. She shook her head slightly, her eyes fixed on Sham's in mute appeal.

  "I could tell you," said Sham. "But it needs to come from her."

  Belinda cleared her throat.

  "I-I think you're a creep," she said. "And I want you to leave me alone!"

  She gave Sham a delighted, unbelieving look. She had never said anything like
this to any of her suitors before.

  "You won't feel like that after I've touched you," said Bullet. He smiled.

  Sham nodded.

  "Thought you'd say something like that," she said.

  She upended the bottle over his head.

  The smell was awful, the scream Bullet let out even worse. Where the liquid had splashed his hair, it turned into black grease. His face blurred. His head started collapsing, his features folding in on themselves.

  He pushed up off the floor and staggered towards Sham. He reached out, but the flesh on his arms was already melting away, revealing bone, until that too liquefied and dripped on the floor.

  "Bitch," he said out of a misshapen mouth. It was probably a fitting word for him to die on.

  His dissolution left a foul-smelling pool of grease on the carpet.

  Sham was conscious of a sense of relief. She hadn't been sure the dispersant would have any effect on Bullet. It was good that it had worked.

  She stared at the stain until Rohan's voice jolted her out of her daze.

  "Shit!" said Rohan. "What the hell happened?"

  Sham's face felt stiff. She looked down and realized Belinda was holding her hand. When Bullet had started screaming, Belinda had sprung up. Sham had thought she was going to run away, but she'd come closer instead.

  "What's all that shit on the floor?" said Rohan.

  "Somebody else's problem," said Belinda. "Come on, Sham. Let's go back."

  Sham's hands were trembling, but Belinda's hand around hers was still and warm.

  "Next time," Sham said, "you save the day."

  "I know," said Belinda. "Thanks, Sham."

  Read the author's notes

  Return to Table of Contents

  Prudence and the Dragon

  There was a dragon in town.

  Statues all over the city climbed off their pedestals and went walking about. The Winston Churchill from Parliament Square gave an interview to the BBC, still squinting as if the wind were blowing in its eyes. The statue was appropriately witty, but did not seem to remember anything about World War II. It did, however, have a lot to say about pigeons.