The Haunting Spirit Of Tran Thi Yen And Other True Horror Stories

Part 7- Nightmare Jungle

Life went on slowly in extreme hardship until the day my Father escaped the country in hope of a better life and freedom. My stepmother and my baby brother who was only a few months old was left  behind.  Adversity one after another, our house and land was taken by the government not long after father left. We had no other choice but to go back to my stepmother's hometown. This place was far worse and could not be any poorer. Her house was a three wall made from  bamboo and leaves without a front door and in the middle of the jungle. There was no lights, no roads, just trees and bushes. It would take at least a few kilometres through each rice paddy fields to another neighboring house. It is here in this isolated place that I have countless unforgettable terrifying memories.

We were deep in the jungle where night falls fast. I recall going somewhere once and coming home late. I followed my stepmother through the jungle as the sun goes down. Walking under dense rows of giant tall trees which I do not know what they are called with lots of long black pods like beans hanging off the branches. It was getting dark real fast. We kept walking on the dirt road when I felt a breeze behind my neck. Being small and innocent, I turned my head to look behind me. For some reason it felt as if someone was blowing into the back of my neck, making me shivering with goose bumps all over.

The sounds of the forest began to wake. The hootings of the owls and the sounds of insects echoing throughout the jungle. The jungle was alive. In the midst of the changing jungle, I was certain I heard screams and wicked laughters above the trees in the distance. Briefly before it shift from laughter to howling and tormenting shriekings that can break any man's bravery into pieces. My stepmother was strangely quiet, she kept walking at a steady pace as if she did not see or care about the jungle coming alive in the dark. I started to feel scared, all the hair on my skin stands on ends as the cold breeze kept blowing on to the back my neck. Once again I turned around and for some reason this time I looked up. High above the trees a few meters from where I was standing, the branches shook gently despite the absent of any current of wind.

The hanging pods clashes onto each other with the rustling and creaking of the branches in the jungle mist was beyond nerve wrecking. The pods dropped to the ground one by one. I looked down to the ground then looked up again. Suddenly, a big shadow on top of the tree whooshed down above my head. The hair on my head stood up on ends. I recall reading somewhere, people believe that white shadows are ghosts and dark shadows are demons. A sudden cold breeze pass right through me. I froze. The branches shook more violently with more pods dropping to the ground. Before I could do or say anything, the dark shadow came again. This time it seems as if it was teasing me by blowing into my face. I squinted and blinked my eyes. Immediately I felt an icy hand grabbing my hand. I jumped and looked up when my eyes met with a gleaming pair of cold eyes....but it was only my stepmother.

My stepmother looked at me without blinking and said sternly, "Go now!" She held my hand tightly and pulled me along as she picked up the pace and walked faster. I had a strange feeling that my stepmother was not herself but a different person then. The vague feeling, a little frightened because my stepmother was strange but there was no one else so I  had no choice but stay with her.

There were many times when I would wake up in the middle of the night and I would see my stepmother sitting right beside me. She would just stare at me without blinking. I could never forget those eyes. It was gleaming but full of sorrow, sometimes affectionate and at times unearthly as if she was looking right through me. Many occasions like that and my intuition tells me it was my mother in my stepmother's body. Some nights, stepmother would walk around and around the  house with her arms swinging back and forth, talking, and pointing at nothing. Some night she would even disappear into the jungle all night and would come back at dawn.

During the day, she still functions normally but have absolutely no recollections of when her body  was being possessed by another spirit. She would usually complain of fatigue or fall ill the following day. Once, my stepmother took me back to visit my grandmother. While gathering to catch up and gossiping, all my aunties were shocked in astonishment and disbelief when my stepmother told them about her dreams of the blacksmith woman when we were living at my parents old house. The story was exactly the same as told by my mother when she was alive. The blacksmith woman appeared shouting angrily at my stepmother threatening if she dared to urinate on that spot again she would be punished. 

Now, the story of the blacksmith woman. I have asked around and investigate many locals and relatives near and far.  I was told that a long time ago on the land where my parents lived, there was a woman who worked as a blacksmith. She died long before the war. People did not know whether she was buried properly or was just left there until mother nature absorbed her body into deep layers of earth after many decades. They say that the woman did not or could not reincarnate and since she had been dead and trapped there for so long she had evolve into something more sinister like a demon with power. Yep, so the story goes, believe it or not.

Whatever the story might be, up until till now I felt we were also  fortunate in an unfortunate circumstances when the government confiscated that house. My mother died mysteriously after the same repeated dreams. Who knows if the blacksmith demon story was real or not, and if we had stayed there longer, what could or would have happen to my stepmother? I dare not think further but like all good Asian sayings, 'có tin có lành' ...to believe, is to be safe, and got away from there before anything happens.