His fever wouldn’t subside, I thought, struggling as a surge of panic welled in my chest. Matthew had always been a sickly child, but this was different. I cradled his head, feeling the unusual stiffness in his neck, his eyes looked as though they had seen too much for his five years of age.

It was the living room; it was the damned house. I fished my phone from my pocket, careful not to disturb Matthew. 11.45pm. My husband should have been home by now. A part of me resented him for making us go through this ordeal. I quelled that thought, this wasn’t the time nor place for conflict. He was on call after all, I would call him if he hadn’t arrived by 12.30am.

My husband, a government doctor, was given an assignment to a rural town in the heartland of Perak, Malaysia. His assignment was only for a month, and all lodging and expanses had been taken care of by the government. We had arrived a week prior to an old but respectable colonial bungalow, built in the 1800s. A nurses’ quarters sat directly opposite of the bungalow. On the day of arrival, I remarked with amusement to my husband that Matthew and I would lodge with the nurses if he hadn’t come home for the night, because the house would have been too big for just Matthew and I, and not to mention that the house was a little creepy, especially at night. There were long corridors right beside the living room, corridors that would melt into the darkness when night came, not to mention the antiquated rocking cha…

BANG! A lightning pierced my reminiscence and brought me back to the present. I heard a dreadful but familiar click as the lights shut off. I would have cried if I could. I would have run out of the house with Matthew if I could.

I willed myself to remain calm. After all, wasn’t I the rational one in the family? Matthew was in no shape to move, doing so would only worsen his condition. My husband would return, and we could talk about moving to a different lodging.

After all, it was just darkness, and no darkness was as bad as bad peo…

Wait a minute, did I see the rocking chair by the window move in my peripheral? It couldn’t be. I directed my gaze to the chair, willing my eyes to adjust to the darkness, and silently praying for the chair to remain still. I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw that it was indeed still. I pinched myself, snap out of it, your paranoia was not doing Matthew and myself any good.

Matthew moaned and I began rocking my body back and forth, hoping that the lull would put him into restful sleep. Almost immediately, the hairs on my hand began to stand, and I began feeling an overwhelming sensation of dread. I instinctively shut my eyes, unwilling to come to terms with what may be lingering in the room. Supernatural or not, I did not want to know.

And then I heard Matthew crying, although his cries seemed to be coming from the floor above. His sobs were agonizing, almost exaggerated, and it was unlike any I had ever heard. They sounded as if he was tormented. Worse, he sounded unhuman, as if an entity was making a mockery of what a human child would sound like.

Without thinking, I scooped Matthew and dashed for the door, running frantically towards the nurses’ quarters. I banged on the reception door like my life depended on it. Almost immediately, a matron opened the door and ushered me into the quarters. Without asking for an explanation, she prepared a room and asked us to rest for the night. I was too tired to protest as I embraced Matthew and fell into deep slumber.

I woke in the early morning to Matthew’s snores. Gingerly, I placed a hand on his forehead, and was relief that his fever had broken. It wasn’t long before I heard my husband asking for us in the corridor outside. In my head, I was ready to convince him that I was not going back to that house, and I was ready for the ridicule – it was what we would do to each other after all.

I was surprised that he agreed to us staying in a hotel for the duration of his placement in Perak. He told me that the matron had filled him in on the need-to-knows, and he would give me a run down after we had checked into the hotel. As we left the quarters, the matron gave me a sympathetic look, gently squeezed my arm, and without so much as a word, returned to her duties.

According to the matron, the house had been haunted by a Pontianak. Pontianaks were women who had died during childbirth - their spirits would linger in this world, vengeful and spiteful, seeking to be given another chance at motherhood.

Unfortunately, there was no way that the nurses could report the hauntings to the government. After all, governance had to rely on facts in making decisions, not superstitions.

On that night, at approximately 12am, the matron saw a beautiful woman sitting by the window of the old house, in the rocking chair, brushing her hair. To her horror, the woman removed her head, placed her head on her lap, and sneered at the matron, as if she was aware that the matron had spotted her. I did not blame the matron for not coming to my rescue, after all, the matron had not known that I was in the house with Matthew, because the lights were off.

Oh, and the Matron mentioned to my husband, almost as an afterthought. A telltale sign that a Pontianak was at a distance was the loud and nearby wailing of a child. If you’d hear a child crying at a distance, say upstairs...

It meant that she was right beside you.