That Penanggal At The Window

"Balik, balik rumah engkau." 
Zah would often said to the penanggal whenever it looked into her house through the window.


"Tak takut Zah?"
I asked, during one of those many conversations of the unwelcome guest.  

"Taklah, sebab dia mesti balik pada tuan dia dengan usus dia yang panjang berjela." 
I could not believe that could take place in Singapore now.  

Penanggal is said to be a female vampire but with only its upper body.
From chest downwards, it's said that its long intestine is exposed and left dangling.

****** 

"Emak ngantuk tau. 

Tiap-tiap malam kena ikut bapak engkau. 

Dah jadi macam pontianak pulak tiap-tiap hari balik tengah malam." 

Zah scolded her daughter during one of those night as she had to follow her husband to Marsiling MRT station every night, to fetch her home from her second shift work.

It is understood, as Zah needed her sleep.
She had to go to school the next day.

The daughter was quiet through out that home journey to their flat in the northern part of Singapore.

****** 

Zah's policeman son was about to enter Qur'an reading competition.
So he often checked his reading with the Qur'an CD at home.  

"Jangan bukak orang ngaji tulah. Aku tak suka." 
The sister insisted that she dislike hearing Qur'an recitation.

The brother was using his strength to stop his sister's hand from reaching the player. 

"Dah kenapa dengan engaku? 

Kena rasuk hantu ke apa?" 

The brother was surprised with the sudden change in his sister.
Never had he heard that she dislike the Qur'an.  

"Aku dah cantik kan? 

Dah lama aku nak cantik..." 
As the sister was doing model-like act infront of her brother, he then suddenly remember that there was one night when he was talking to his uncle at 1am at the void deck, he saw a female figure who was lingering around them.
Although he found it odd for female to be alone in the wee hour, he did not think much about it.

When his uncle rode away, and he was reaching his second floor home, she was with him in the lift.
She exited the lift before him and was walking ahead of him at the corridor...

The brother held his sister tight, blast the player louder, and recited verses of the Qur'an that he could remember then.
He remembered the penanggal, the unwelcome guest that appeared almost every night at his window.

****** 

It was later found out that the night the mother scolded the daughter, the penanggal was already in her body. As she was unable to perform her daily prayers that week, her body was easily accessed by the evil vampire.

Zah had noted the changes in her daughter few days earlier before that scolding night.
The daughter wasn't herself.
She was more reserved, unlike her bubbly nature.
She cooped up in her room whever she was at home.

After the girl was healed, she asked to be permitted to stay in her grandmother's house.
Her jumbo flat, overlooking higher ground, there was once, an elderly Chinese man, hanged himself at the tree that can be seen from the window.