Trembling With Fear 03/25/2018

Phi Tai Hong Tong Klom

There was a box on Chai Son’s doorstep when he got home from work. It had been taped up tight, bearing no labels or shipping information—just a lone strip with his name on it.

He lugged it inside along with the rest of his things, taking it into the kitchen. He set the box on his island counter, got himself a drink, and then turned his attention to the mysterious item. He wondered if this was another “surprise gift” from Isra, maybe some more of her panties that she so loved to give him now and again. But the box felt too heavy for that. Maybe it had been Kalaya who left it, gifting him one of the books she prattled on about. He hoped not; he hadn’t hooked up with her for her reading recommendations.

Deciding to end what little suspense he’d felt, he grabbed a knife and cut through the layers of tape. He opened the flaps—and went still.

There was a picture inside, nestled in a gaudy golden frame. The picture was of him and a pretty young woman, her arms draped about his neck as she smiled, big and happy, and as he grinned obligingly. It had been taken on a sunny day last April, a day he only barely remembered. The woman, though, was fresh in his mind.

Anchali.

He pulled the frame out and set it aside, noticing two bits of paper underneath it.

The first was a newspaper clipping from two weeks ago. “Tragic Death of Pregnant Woman in Downtown Phitsanulok” served as its headline. He read the piece over, learning with only a faint hint of pity that Anchali Amudee—aged 25 and eight months pregnant at the time of the incident—had been run over by a truck. Her mother had witnessed it and refused to comment about the matter. Anchali was pronounced dead at the scene; the child she’d carried did not survive, either.

Chai Son glanced at the other slip of paper from the box and its sharply hand-written message:

She called your name as she died.

Damn you. Damn you to hell.

Chai Son set the papers down and leaned against the counter, taking a sip of his water. The words—from Anchali’s mother, no doubt—had been meant to hurt him, to drive a knife of guilt into his heart.

But its tip wouldn’t reach far enough to even knick him.

He had made his intentions clear when he and Anchali were together. He had made no commitments, had not even alluded to any. Hell, they were only together for four months. What they had was fun and just that, and that should’ve been fine. But Anchali wanted more, and when she told him she was pregnant, she probably thought she would get it. What she got was a cold bed-side; Chai Son had not signed up for fatherhood, and he was gone that night. A month and a new job offer later, he’d moved away from Phitsanulok, leaving it to Anchali.

He wasn’t glad that she and her kid had died, not by any means, but it didn’t trouble him too much, either. They’d had no place in his life—and that surely wouldn’t change now.

Once he downed his drink, Chai Son put his glass away. After that, he threw the note, the newspaper clipping, and the frame back into their box. Then he tossed it all into the trash.

He went on with his day.

***

At around midnight, Chai Son started hearing a sound coming from somewhere in his house. At least he thought it was, as it was rather indiscernible—a low, mumbling something. Reminiscent of a voice, but not quite that distinct.

He eventually got out of bed, trekking through the dark of his home to the living room, wondering if he’d somehow left the television on. But when he looked in there, it was off. Still, he could hear that sound.

He wandered around a bit after that, trying to find the source of the vague disturbance. It seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere, the noise keeping a steady pitch in whatever room he found himself in. His feet led him to the moonlit kitchen, where he stopped and stared about, confused.

That’s when he saw it. It was on the island counter, illuminated by a swath of blue-white light creeping in through the windows, centered and neatly placed.

It was Anchali’s picture frame. She smiled up at him from a dead past, the image of her ghostly in that ray of moonlight.

Chai Son inched up to the counter, eyes fixed on the picture and his mind reeling at how it had gotten out of the trash—of who could have gotten it out of the trash.

The thought hit him like a wallop to the gut: someone was in his house.

Then, the muffled sound started up again, but much louder this time—and from behind Chai Son.

He turned and caught his breath at the sight of the silhouetted figure coming towards him from down the hall.

It stumbled and lurched along, dragging a leg along as the other carried it forward. Its arms hung uselessly at its sides, one dangling limply and the other jutting out strangely, looking almost snapped at the forearm. A low wheeze escaped a face he could not yet see, a halo of dark, frizzy hair about it.

As the figure came closer that muffled noise kept growing louder.

Light finally fell upon the figure’s face and it was revealed in full, much to Chai Son’s terror. It was Anchali, bearing the marks of her brutal end: bloodied, sheet-white, and come back to haunt him. And, worst of all, her stomach was bulbous.

Looking at her gut, Chai Son realized what that strange sound was.

It was crying. Wailing. The sorrowful calls of his unborn child, trapped in this specter of its would-be mother.

And he knew it was calling out for him.

Anchali was coming straight after him now, arms rising to wrap around his neck; to choke him and love him again in their afterlife.

That is precisely what she did; and Chai Son screamed all the while.