Trembling With Fear 06/10/2018

The Tram

That dreaded midnight hour on February 26, 2018 was almost upon him.

For the first time in his three-year career as a Hong Kong Tramways driver, it was Andy Chan’s first night shift on route #108 Happy Valley Eastbound on this day. Right across the Happy Valley racecourse was the Hong Kong Cemetery on the west side of Wong Nai Chung Road, where many taxi drivers had experienced the occasional customers paying with seemingly legitimate currency, which later turned out to be hell money. Well, at least tram drivers do not directly handle cash or any form of payment. He would rather not encounter any ghosts, thank you very much.

 

Stopping in a busy intersection in Wan Chai, Andy hung a tin bucket filled with water at the front of the tram.  Some people looked puzzled by his action, but the older locals knew. One street vendor even wished him good luck. He pressed a button to indicate Not In Service on the LED route display board instead of #108 Eastbound. As he started his route, the tram crawled slowly south on Wong Nai Chung Road in a speed just barely faster than jogging.

You have to slow for them if you see them coming, Sam Wong, a colleague, had advised him before he started tonight’s shift. But for Buddha’s sake never ever stop or get off the tram!

The tram just passed Queen’s Road East. Andy’s heart began to race. He glanced at the time on his watch, which was now midnight. He was starting to get gooseflesh, hard like the stubs on his five- year-old son’s Lego bricks. He closed his eyes momentarily after passing Dorsett hotel. The cemetery would come up on his right any second now.

(Why did I become a tram driver?)

An image of his father’s angry face suddenly surfaced in his memory. Angry he could take; but there was so much disappointment in his father’s eyes that Andy had to quit working for his old man. It wasn’t the charred barbecue duck. You’re just not reliable! His old man had said.

(Nobody’s perfect!)

 

He was still young–thirty-one when he first started driving trams–though initially he was only going to do it for a year. The pay was decent and the pension was not bad, though his father would rather have Andy take over the restaurant some day. Ironically, Andy was the one who gained a paunch after sitting in the driver’s seat all day (or night), while his father remained skinny, despite working with food fourteen hours a day, seven days a week.

(At least I still make more money than those college kids with degrees who are mopping floors at McDonald’s!)

When Andy opened his eyes again, he saw nothing; in fact, not a soul on either side of the road at this hour. A wave of relief washed over him. He even laughed aloud, albeit a little nervously. He never saw any ghosts in his life, and this yearly tradition was probably just like any other custom of a very superstitious society, nothing more. Not every driver even bothered to run this route on an empty tram anyway. He nearly resented listening to Sam Wong and the fearmongers at the hub, letting them scare him like this.

He turned on the radio. A monotonous male voice came on and reported the day’s news in Cantonese:

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the catastrophic fire that claimed close to 600 lives at the Happy Valley Racecourse. It all started when a roof collapsed, knocking over portable gas stoves food vendors were using. The fire spread fast and caused a stampede–people trampled over each other trying to escape. Charred remains of more than 590 bodies were eventually recovered, though more were believed to have perished. Buddhist monks were called in to perform a ritual after the dead were reportedly seen around the area after the fire, apparently begging for water…

Andy switched off the radio hastily, nearly knocking it off the panel close to his steering wheel. Why was the tram so slow all of a sudden? He stepped on the gas, but it was still crawling. He kicked the pedal in a moment of frustration–something he regretted instantly–for the tram suddenly stopped dead between the entrance to the racecourse on one side and the cemetery on the other.

The cold night air suddenly turned very hot and smelled like smoke. Andy looked to his left at the racecourse but there was nothing there. No one would be burning incense at this hour at the cemetery (it was closed), and just for confirmation, he looked at the sprawling cemetery but there was no smoke anywhere. In a place like Hong Kong, one would rarely have this opportunity to be completely alone, yet Andy felt like he was the only living soul in the area. He tried to find a logical explanation. Was the smell coming from the engine? If so, what an unfortunate time for it to happen, of all times, of all places!

But for Buddha’s sake don’t ever stop or get off the tram! Sam Wong’s words came to Andy’s mind for the second time tonight.

(What should I do now?)

 

Andy took out his cell phone, but despite the 5G broadband (among the first in the world, no less), he had no signal. The air brought in by the heat exchange smelled like that day he left five barbecue ducks in the oven half an hour too long in his father’s restaurant, an infamy in his family’s history. Then he heard footfalls–lots and lots of them. Every hair on his arms stood on its end, even though he was wearing a down jacket. He was a sitting duck (he thought of the charred barbecue duck again) and not even a single car had passed by. He could hear moaning, wailing, whimpering and screaming all around him, and yet, he still did not see anything. He pushed the button to make sure all the windows were shut and the doors were locked, just in case. In case they…

And then they came.

A teeming crowd–charred and melting–suddenly appeared out of nowhere and swarmed his tram. They flailed their burning arms and bemoaned the heat. They came for the bucket of water. He heard the bucket hit the tram and watched as the water spilled all over. The horde kept coming–some were banging on the glass of his front windows begging for more water. He feared the impact would eventually break the glass, so he did another thing he would regret in a few seconds–he honked the horn to scare them off.

The sound of the horn pierced the ruckus. But instead of inciting fear, it spurred the horde even more. He was completely surrounded and trapped inside the tram. The tram was shaking from side to side like the seats in a 3D ride at amusement parks. Andy had to hold onto his steering wheel to steady himself. He frantically looked at his phone again, but still, no signal. While he prided himself on being a manly man who had never shed a tear, a few drops had started to pool at the corner of his eyes, threatening to trigger a flood. He thought of his wife, his son, and even the angry face of his father, and feared he would not see them again.

(Please go away I gave you water already what more do you want please just leave me alone)

In a moment of panic, he hit the gas pedal again. To his immense relief, the tram jolted and started moving. The charred faces in front of him screamed, some fell as the tram ran them over. Andy shrieked–he would remember the sensation of his tram going over bodies for the rest of his life, and with each thump his tears fell a bit more freely. There was a lot of caterwauling from the dead, as the tram made its trip around the racecourse, passing Wong Nai Chung Road Crescent Garden and going north.

Once he passed the Happy Valley Recreation Ground, he could no longer see the racecourse. The air no longer smelled adust. He looked back in the side and rear-view mirrors and did not see the dead anymore. He wiped his tears and snot off his face with the sleeve of his jacket, erasing any evidence that he wasn’t such a manly man after all.

 

At the end of his route, Andy parked his tram at the hub and left the key for the next driver without a word. It was the last time he clocked out at Hong Kong Tramways.

 

 

 

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