Girl Napped

The thud, thud, thud of large heavy feet hitting the ground at a run woke Aisah from her chloroform induced slumber. Try as she might she couldn’t even manage to say, “where am I” or “what happened”, the bitter tasting gag so rudely poked into her mouth prevented any form of speech other than coughing and gurgling sounds.

The thrumbing of running feet continued as Aisah was jiggled up and down under the thick smelly arm of her abductor, who, all to obviously, didn’t use an under arm deodorant and judging from other smells didn’t use any other form of deodorant or soap. The last Aisah remembered was her fright as the surgery door was broken off its hinges by some large man mis-shaped creature and Ali the djinn rushing towards her, then the awful smell of what could have only been chloroform and sleep. Not a sweet natural sleep either but a weary, woozy fuzzy sort of sleep, which still made her feel a little cotton woolish and strange headed.

What Aisah was not to know, until later, was that Ali had arrived at Melvyn’s surgery with two large Hantu Raya which appear to be shape-shifting spirits. Together the three wrecked the surgery the best they could, destroying as much of the lotions and potions Melvyn needed for his bomoh practise as possible and stealing as much djinn tonic they could carry, oh yes and abducting Aisah too.

The very thing about using the Hantu Raya was that people saw what they wanted to see in them, and so were perfect for a kidnapping and getaway. There was something mesmerising about these Hantu and they appeared to shift their shapes, but the reality was they altered the perceptions of those seeing them, so instead of seeing a large man-shaped thing carrying a frightened kidnapped girl people saw what they wanted – a cousin, an aunt, their next door neighbour, instead. Stories were told about men marrying beautiful girls only to discover they had in fact wed to a Hantu Raya, but the main thing to understand about the Hantu Raya was that they had masters. They were not like other Hantu, or ghosts, and did the bidding of their masters, indicating that there was someone or something behind Aisah’s abduction other than just Ali, who in this instance too was but a pawn.

Aisah ached. Maybe it was being held roughly by this thing’s arm, or the length of time she had been carried Aisah had no idea, but she ached from top to toe and it was the ache which prevented the normal fright and shock from taking over her system.

Her eyes now open Aisah could see Ali the djinn in front, and the other creature running beside her creature. It appeared they were running through one of the large oil palm estates, but which one Aisah could only guess. There were dogs about but they didn’t even bother to bark, no doubt mesmerised by the creatures’ appearance. Then Ali gave the sign to stop and his two beings stopped abruptly.

“I see you are awake my dear, and are guarding your thoughts, well done, you learn quickly.” Said a very snaky voiced Ali, practically devoid of the charm he had used when they first met. “Welcome to the world of intrigue” Ali said as he dramatically swept a manicured hand before him, “You will know all in good time, but unlike the villains on the screen I will not fill you in on what is happening now.” Aisah struggled with her gag and tried to say something, but gave up.

“Let me help you with that my dear,” Ali ventured as he intentionally roughly pulled the gag from Aisah’s mouth. She spat. It wasn’t clear if this was a gesture of defiance or simply to clear the spittle from her mouth, but probably meant as both. Aisah could feel the dryness of her mouth and the thickness of her tongue as she tried to say something pithy to Ali but ended up saying “brrr, grrr, smackhingfkyt” and looked acutely embarrassed at her lack of pith and indeed language.

The Hantu raya put Aisah down and gentlemanly Ali offered a 1 litre plastic bottle of water, Aisah went to reach up for it and realised that her hands were tied together, with a hateful look at Ali she lilted her head upwards for him to pour a little water into her mouth, which he did with obvious pleasure. Ali then received the full amount of water plus saliva in his face, and recoiled as is bitten by a large venomous snake. Aisah gave what she could of a smile. Ali’s automatic response would normally have been to smack her and smack her hard, but he was under orders not to harm her any more than could be helped, and so simply backed away, this time.

They had stopped in a large orchard plantation of oil palm trees. The giant trees loomed about them laden with the large clusters of brown oil producing fruit. The plantation was well kept and virtually clear of undergrowth and vines, so the four of them lounged with their backs up against the rough bark of the trees, hidden from all but the most enquiring eyes.

From nowhere it seemed Ali had produced eight packets of nasi lemak, laid them on the ground for the Hantu to take their share and began to eat one himself. Aisah looked on hungrily, but didn’t say a word. Ali finished his food and carefully untied Aisah’s hands after securing her legs with plastic twine, just in case she had any ideas of escape. He proffered a nasi lemak cone to her and she quickly scooped it up and busied herself eating with her fingers.

“Scream if you want. Shout, make a fuss, but I can assure you there is no one within earshot of us, so save yourself the bother Mrs Melvyn the Bomoh.” This Ali said in an almost sneering voice, as if goading Aisah, but why, she had no idea. “Don’t worry my dear, you’ll not be rescued until we want you to be, and by then it will be too late.” Aisah thought, “too late for what”, then she heard a cold laugh in her head, the sort of cold that hits you like an ice cream brain freeze and a laugh that bitterly reminded her that Ali was indeed a djinn.

Aisah must have dozed for she was woken by the Hantu Raya grabbing her again and Ali refastening her wrists. Then she was back under the unwashed armpit and they were running off again. The oil palm plantation seemed endless as tree after tree sped by almost hypnotically, but soon they had reached a small road and stopped. Ali scouted ahead and off they went down a sandy dirt track bordered by bushes of small pitcher plants and then across the tracks made between quite huge mining pools, now mostly used for fish or white duck farms.

They travelled for most of that day, stopping only on the odd occasion, and seemed to keep mostly to the countryside, the under inhabited areas where people tended to keep themselves to themselves, and their business strictly private. As night fell the group of in-humans and the abducted girl approached what appeared to be the remains of an old tin dredge. Ali motioned for the Hantu Raya to stop and he went ahead to investigate. Satisfied they were at the right place Ali beckoned for his companions to enter the old dredge. Inside was dark except for one small light in the distance and obviously in another room. Ali led the way and the two Hantu Raya struggled with their size inside the dredge, brushing up against the walls and nearly knocking Aisah out again on one. “Welcome Ali, welcome all, ah! I see we have another visitor” said a voice out of the darkness. Then some words to Ali that Aisah couldn’t properly hear and the visitors all squeezed into a small room with a candle light at one end. Frustratingly Aisah still hadn’t caught sight of the man, or creature, to whom the voice belonged.

It was not the most pleasant experience for Aisah. The abduction had been bad enough, the smelly armpit worse and the whole concept worse still but this small room and its eerie ambience was positively unnerving. Aisah could hear small rustlings and scratchings about her and dreaded to think what they were.

All of a sudden Aisah could feel something which resembled a tiny rasping hand on her arm, looking down all she could see were two red pinpoints of light. The tiny hand touched her again, pinching her arm. Aisah was terrified. What manner of creature is this, she thought, a rat with a human like hand, she mentally shook to rid herself of the image. One of the Hantu Raya, Hamal, who previously had not spoken to Aisah bent his head and spat out just one word, as if it were phlegm stuck in its throat – Toyol, and then actually spat disgustingly onto the dusty floorboards causing a small explosion of dust and lizard dropping particles into the already stuffy air, of the non-windowed room they were in.