Birth in the graveyard
Story circle Karak
highway
Birth in the graveyard
Indonesia
There was once a beautiful lady who was married to a guy who works as a
sailor.The lady lived with her husband and the husband's mother in a small
wooden hut at the edge of a village in a small island.The mother hated
the woman, deep in her heart she would want to kill the wife but the husband
was always there.The time is always there to kill her , she always reminded
herself.One day the husband had an offer to go sailing to a far away land.This
will take him 300 days and 300 nights.The wife waived her husband goodbye
at the dock and tears flowed down her cheek.
The day the husband left, the day the mother act terrible towards the lady.The
woman was forced to worked hard labour, fetched the water from the well,
do the cookings all day long.She worked and worked until she forgot to
pray.Her beauty was changed to ugliness as she has no time for herself.Her
mother in law was more evil than ever causing the woman to work as much
as she can.But in the woman's body was a baby about to be born.
One day while the woman was peeling onion, she accidentally cutted her
hand but blood didn't gushed out.She knew her death will come soon so she
stopped working and began to pray.The mother in law noticed that the woman
was abandonig her works began to torture the lady beating her up with bamboo
sticks.Blood didn't poured out but the pain was unimaginable.the lady sreamed
but no one could help her because of the house location.The lady fainted.The
mother in law panicked and she tought that her son's wife was already dead
and she killed her.She made the woman as though she fell and accidentally
broke her neck before she told everyone in the village.The villagers believed
her as she was quite a well known and they gave the fainted lady a buriel.The
lady and the baby in her was buried in the village's graveyard.The lady
awanked on the next night but no one was around to answer her screams.She
survived in her coffin for a few days by eating roots and the white cloth
she was wearing but unfortunately the baby was already nine months in her
and it's time.The woman gave herself help in giving birth to the baby but
she she died soon afterwards.The baby warped itself in the white cloth.Anyone
who passed by the village's graveyard could hear baby screams and laughters
but they dared not to find out.The mother who died in the coffin turned
into a ghost and everynight during the wee hours she would fly around the
village to search for bananas and left over porridges to feed her baby
who is still alived in the coffin.The mother did this everynight to feed
her baby.
The husband came back a few months after the tragedy.When he reached home
he asked where his wife was she said that his wife left him for another
man.The husband felt sad and he stayed up all night that night because
he was too sad to sleep.That night while he was thinking in his room when
he heard a whisper outside his window calling his name.Whispering slowly.First
the husband thought that it was just only the wind but it wasn't a very
windy night and the rainy season was far away.The husband quietly opened
the window.The window creaked like a sreeching harpy.Outside there was
nothing, only shady banana trees clingging together as though they have
seen a ghost.Suddenly he saw someone half hidden behind one of the banana
tree.It looked like a woman dreesed in white.The husband shouted and thought
that it is rather strange to find a woman at this time of the hour.The
woman did't looked back but went away into the darkness.The husband jumped
out of his window followed the lady.he felt something about the lady that
made him felt before about his wife.
The woman glided soo fast that the husband was having a hard time keeping
up with.He never fear in his heart but curiosity. When the woman reached
the graveyard it dissapeared.The husband was left alone in the middle of
the graveyard bare footed at the middle of the night.Then he heard a loud
cry of a baby.The cry came from a tombstone at the edge of the graveyard.The
husband felt scared but he collected all his courage to seek for the tombstone.When
he reached the site the crying stopped and he foune a baby on it.He was
surprised and as he bend down he found out that the tombstone belong to
his wife.The husband went back and ftold his mother about his findings
and showed the baby.The mother told him the truth and everything she had
done.The husband left the house with the baby and the mother and the son
never see each other again.
This story began in a small neighbourhood in Peninsular Malaysia where
everyone in the town knew each other and the bond betwee them are very
close.They greet each other well and the days seem so happy.But when a
couple moved in the house at the end of the street, the mood began to change.The
people where suspicious of the couples act for a living.They doesn't look
like they go to work or do anything but seem to be staying at home all
the time.The people in that neigbourhood only see them at night night seeking
in the shadows of darkness under the blanket of the moon.The couple were
never seen at night and thoughts began to appea in the peoples minds that
the couple were crimanals that had escaped from jail or that the couple
was is the black market business but no one in the street dared to ask
the couple for the true answer.
One evening, a few boys were playing football on the street and accidentally
one of the boys kicked the ball very hard and it flew high in the air over
the gate and landed in the couple's house.The boys knew about the storie
sthat had been circulating about the couple's behavior an dthe boys were
in doubt of entering the house but the ball didn't belong to them but to
an older boy from the other street so two of them climbed the metal gate
and slowly land on the cement pavement with deep fear sin their hearts.The
ball landed near the front door and it rested on the plastic shoe rack.The
boys slowly made their way carefully and silently not to make any noise.When
they reached the front porch the boys smelt a fragrance from the unknown.They
also hear chanting noise from inside the house through the slightly open
window.The boys slowly peek inside and what they saw with their eyes was
out of their rational mind.They saw the living room being covered fully
with blood and the couple both standing straight and facing the wall.The
floor was drenched in blood and the couple was on the floor half naked.
They noticed that the boys were spying on them and gave the evil eye. Red
burning eyes stared at the boys fille dwith irony and evil. The boys ran
for their life home and told the adults in the street. The couple was forced
out of their homes after police came and they were not seen since then.
They were practising Black Magic they learned from the ancient islands
of Indonesia and they came to Malaysia to search for money and an easy
life. The boys that spied on the couples died soon afterwards caused by
unexplained events such as vicious stomachache and death during the night
when no one is around.
The
Karak highway is famous for its dense forested highway and its midnight
spooky road lane and there is no surprise the highway's name would appear
in ghost story telling gatherings in Malaysia. One Karak legend happened
before the Hari Raya holidays, just a few days before. The story was said
to happeend at about 1 am and the characters was a newly-wed couple going
to the husband's kampung (countryside) to celebrate the coming celebration.
After a few hours of good driving the car started to show sign of weakening
and problems. The couple stopped the car on the side of the road
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